From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 1 10:01:57 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2016 10:01:57 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., GA., FLA., ALA., KAN. Message-ID: Feb. 1 NORTH CAROLINA: Mendez scheduled for death penalty hearing A Rule 24 hearing is scheduled today for Sebastian Mendez, 25, of Onslow County. A Rule 24 hearing is held in 1st degree murder cases. The purpose is to decide whether the state will be seeking the death penalty in the case. Mendez is accused of murdering his girlfriend, Shaung Liu, and 5-month-old son, Archer Liu back in July in the Hunter's Creek area of Jacksonville. Shaung was found dead in her car 3 blocks from her home, while Archer was found dead in a suitcase in the attic. Last month, Mendez was charged with trying to pay an Onslow County inmate to kill a witness in the case. He was charged in the incident and moved to Central Prison due to safety concerns. The Rule 24 hearing was originally scheduled for last Thursday, but was delayed and rescheduled for today. (source: WNCT news) ************** Defendant in triple murder case has history of courtroom disruptions When potential jurors arrive at the Cumberland County Courthouse today for the triple murder trial of Shawn Lee Legrand, they may encounter a spectacle in the courtroom. Legrand, who has tried to fire his lawyers, gotten in trouble for throwing his bodily wastes at jailers, and been labeled suicidal by a psychiatrist, told the judge that he will disrupt the trial if he doesn't get his way. "Thank your punk (expletive) for getting this done," Legrand said in an Aug. 26 letter to Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons. "If not I will half the time not show up for trial & when I do disrupt your (expletive) courtroom." He signed it: "Sincerely Shawn LeGrand." Prosecutors will attempt to seek the death penalty in a trial projected to last up to 3 months. Indictments say Legrand, 49, killed 3 people and tried to kill 2 others in a triplex home on Ingram Street on Nov. 26, 2011. He was arrested following a car chase and shoot-out with police officers who were responding to reports of a stabbing. Legrand was injured in the shooting. At the residence on Ingram Street, Krystle Price Papile and Gregory Steven Fitzgerald were fatally stabbed. Ardell Paige Jr. was killed by a gunshot to his head. Surviving victims Bennie Darwin King and Stephanie Lashaun Croom were shot in their faces. Years behind bars Prior to the homicides, Legrand had spent most of his life behind bars for assault, robbery and burglary charges. He was released in July 2011 when he was 44 years old. His time in custody since his arrest on murder charges in November 2011 has been troubled, court papers say. At least 6 times, judges have signed orders that sent Legrand to the state prison system while awaiting trial instead of letting him stay at the Cumberland County Detention Center. Ammons wrote that Legrand has thrown feces at officers and spit on one. Superior Court Judge Claire Hill said Legrand endangers the other inmates and the jail staff at the county detention center. In a letter to Ammons dated Dec. 13, Legrand asked to be moved back to the county jail because he wanted to consult with a woman and a man in Cumberland County. It's not clear in Legrand's letter what these people do - they may be medical professionals as he says the woman "offered me to stay at the hospital for a week or 2 and I would like to do that." Legrand said the letter is not a ploy to stop or delay his trial - he said he is upset it was postponed to today from a previous date. "I give you my word I will not assault any staff at the jail," Legrand wrote. He also said he hoped "to see the one friend I have" if he were allowed to stay at the jail. Legrand said he was not talking to either of his lawyers. "My attorney's (sic) really don't give a damn about my well being," he wrote. A judge on Jan. 7 signed an order to keep Legrand in the prison system. A forensic psychiatrist wrote in September that Legrand wants to fire his lawyers and represent himself because he wants to be sentenced to death. Legrand's request to represent himself has been denied, one of his lawyers said. A 1st-degree murder conviction carries 2 possible punishments: death or life in prison with no chance for parole. The mother of victim Krystle Price Papile said she wants Legrand to get the life sentence. "I am a very Christian woman," said Denise Oteri of Weymouth, Massachusetts. For the past 4 years she said she has "hated him, wanted to kill him myself with my own bare hands for what he did to my baby, my youngest daughter." Oteri said that hate has allowed Legrand to make her a victim. "I'm not going to have that anymore. I'm not going to let him decide how my emotions, or my life is run. So I have decided that I'm going to forgive him," Oteri said. "And that forgiveness is for my own healing, and part of my grieving process." (source: Fayetteville Observer) GEORGIA----impending execution Panel to Hear Clemency Request From Georgia Death Row Inmate The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles plans to consider a clemency request from the state's oldest death row inmate. The board plans to hold a hearing on the request from Brandon Astor Jones on Monday. The 72-year-old is scheduled for execution at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the state prison in Jackson. The parole board is the only entity in Georgia with the authority to commute a death sentence. Jones was convicted in the 1979 killing of Cobb County convenience store manager Roger Tackett. A federal judge granted Jones a new sentencing hearing because jurors had improperly been allowed to bring a Bible into the deliberation room. He was resentenced to death in 1997. Another man convicted in the killing, Van Roosevelt Solomon, was executed in 1985. (source: Associated Press) ******************* A Life on Death Row----Facing Execution at 72, Georgia's Oldest Death Row Inmate Exposes Death Penalty's Racist Roots The 1st time Michael Marcum saw the byline "Brandon Astor Jones," he was working as a jail commander in San Francisco. It was 1993; Marcum can't recall what the article was about. But he remembers it made an impression - and when he saw the author's bio, he was taken aback. Jones was a man on Georgia's death row. Jones sent his articles everywhere, from newspapers in Atlanta to Australian political journals. His musings on politics and prison life found a particularly receptive audience abroad, where he had a number of devoted pen pals. Marcum wrote to Jones at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison, asking permission to reprint the piece in his jail newsletter. It was an unusual publication, produced by prisoners and staff alike. But then County Jail #7 was an unusual jail. In the era of "3 strikes" and the 1994 crime bill, it was an experiment in corrections, where prisoners raised plants in a greenhouse and tended to buffalo. Marcum had helped design it, firm in his belief that if the state of California was going to build new jails, they should be places for education and vocational training. Instead, Marcum saw the country going in the other direction. Jones wrote back to Marcum, granting his permission to reprint the article. The 2 soon began exchanging letters. "We wrote a lot about our childhoods," Marcum recalled. They found unexpected overlaps in their lives: Jones had grown up on the South Side of Chicago, where his favorite pizza joint belonged to Marcum's father-in-law. Marcum continued to publish Jones' writing in the newsletter; he saw it have a positive influence on inmates and staff alike. "Some of the prisoners saw Brandon as a role model," he said. But what really connected Marcum and Jones was the search for redemption. In 1966, when Marcum was 19 years old, he had shot and killed his own father with a hunting rifle - the violent culmination of years of domestic abuse against Marcum and his mother. It was Marcum who called the police; later he pleaded guilty and got a sentence of 5 years to life. When he was released in 1972, he said, "I felt I had to prove my value as a human being." He was lucky. His parole officer helped him get into college and Marcum began an unlikely career in law enforcement, determined to use his experiences in prison to reform the system from within. Now a retired assistant sheriff, Marcum acknowledges his journey is unique. But "this was California, not Georgia," he said. "And I wasn't black." Indeed, for his friend and pen pal across the country, the future held a very different fate. In 1979, Jones and an accomplice, Van Roosevelt Solomon, had killed a white man named Roger Tackett, the manager of a convenience store in Cobb County, Georgia. Jones and Solomon, who was also black, robbed the store, then shot Tackett to death, only to be apprehended immediately by a cop on patrol. The forensic evidence showed that both men had recently fired a gun - both denied shooting the fatal bullet. Both were convicted and sentenced to die. Jones remained on death row - today he is 72. He no longer publishes articles, and some years back, Marcum stopped receiving letters from him. Then, earlier this month, Marcum came home to a message I left on his landline. Georgia had set an execution date for Jones - the state planned to kill him on February 2. Marcum was shaken. "I had no idea," he wrote in an email, agreeing to an interview. He then wrote 2 letters - 1 to his old friend, and 1 to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole in Atlanta, asking it to stop the execution. If Jones dies by lethal injection on Tuesday, less than two weeks from his 73rd birthday, he will be the oldest prisoner ever executed by the state of Georgia. After more than 35 years facing execution, he embodies what Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer last year called the "unconscionably long" time prisoners spend on death row, many of them elderly and infirm. But Jones is also a relic of an earlier era of the death penalty in Georgia, the roots of which remain impossible to ignore. To date, the oldest prisoner executed in Georgia was Andrew Brannan, a 66-year-old Vietnam veteran with PTSD, who was killed last January. His was the 1st of 5 people executed by the state in 2015 - among them, an intellectually disabled man, a man with claims of innocence, and a woman sent to die for a murder her boyfriend carried out and who had became a poster child for rehabilitation. If 2015 reaffirmed Georgia???s reputation for controversial executions, it also quietly revealed an opposite trend. "Despite the relative flurry of executions," a Georgia legal website, the Daily Report, noted last December, "the other end of the death penalty process has slowed significantly." Georgia did not send a single person to death row in 2015 - a development the Report called the "newsmaker of the year." The turn away from capital punishment is part of a larger nationwide trend, even across the most active death penalty states. "The same thing that is happening in Georgia is also happening in Texas and Virginia," Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told the Report. Bridging the disconnect between the "new Georgia," as Dunham put it, and the state's recent spate of troubling executions are people like Jones. "We have this very strange situation now in which these people sentenced to death a long time ago - and who managed to get through all the stages of review - are now being executed," said Stephen Bright, president of the 40-year-old Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta. "They almost certainly would not be sentenced to death today." (In court filings, lawyers for Jones point out that death sentences for killings carried out in the course of a robbery have "fallen into complete extinction.") Bright describes them as "zombie cases" - convictions that "remind us of just how unfair" the system used to be. Indeed, it was not until 2005 that the state opened the office of the Georgia Capital Defender, seeking to remedy a decades-old problem: defendants on trial for their lives with grossly inadequate representation. "At the time of Jones' case and so many others," Bright said, "any lawyer who was a member of the Georgia bar could be appointed to represent someone in a death penalty case." With no meaningful funding for indigent defense - and a sloppy, ad hoc network of public defender offices throughout the state - death sentences were often handed out "not for the worst crime, but for the worst lawyer," as Bright wrote in a 1994 article for the Yale Law Journal. The problem was especially pronounced when it came to race. In 1974, 5 years before Jones landed on death row, a Georgia man named Wilburn Wiley Dobbs was sent to die for a murder carried out during a robbery. His court-appointed lawyer made no effort to save his life - in fact, he referred to his black client as "boy" during trial, later admitting that, as the grandson of a slaveholder, he believed African-Americans to be "inferior to whites morally and intellectually." Dobbs' death sentence was overturned in 1997, yet he has never had a resentencing hearing. At 66 and sick with prostate cancer, he will almost certainly die behind bars. In a different 1974 case, a Georgia man named John Young was ineptly represented by an attorney who not only was later disbarred, but encountered his former client on the prison yard at the county jail, where the lawyer had been sent on drug charges. "Being born black in America was against me," Young said before dying in the electric chair in 1985. "Y'all cry out that America was built on Christianity. I say it was built on slavery." Evidence that the state's death penalty was racially biased was a major contributing factor that led to Furman v. Georgia, the landmark Supreme Court case that in 1972 suspended the death penalty across the country. (The plaintiff, William Henry Furman, was a black man deemed "mentally impaired" by a state psychiatrist, who had been convicted in a 1-day trial in Savannah.) Furman forced states to amend their death penalty statutes to avoid the "arbitrary and discriminatory" imposition of capital punishment. Just 4 years later, the Supreme Court upheld Georgia's new death penalty law in Gregg v. Georgia. Yet the law showed clear continuity with decades past: Of the 1st dozen people to die in the electric chair following Gregg, 9 were black. Bright still bristles at the "arrogance of that; to think that all of the problems identified in Furman - the racism, the consequences of poverty - to think that you could have that fixed in 4 years was just so incredibly preposterous." Jones was sent to Georgia's death row 3 years after Gregg. Among the people there when he arrived was another black man named Warren McCleskey, who had been convicted of murdering a police officer in the course of an attempted robbery in Atlanta the year before. McCleskey went on to appeal his conviction all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, on the basis that Georgia's death penalty system was racially biased. His evidence was a now-famous 1983 empirical survey of Georgia murder cases during the 1970s, which found that black defendants convicted of killing white victims were far more likely to be sentenced to death. But in its 1987 ruling in McCleskey - one of its most derided and consequential in death penalty law - the Supreme Court concluded that racial bias in the application of the death penalty was not unconstitutional unless it could be proven to be intentional. The effect was far reaching; in the New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander writes that the ruling "immunized the criminal justice system from judicial scrutiny for racial bias." After 5 years facing execution, Jones got a lucky break. A federal court overturned his death sentence, finding that jurors had consulted a Bible during their deliberations. (His codefendant, Solomon, was less fortunate: He died in the electric chair in 1985.) As he awaited a resentencing hearing, Jones began a life on death row. He read voraciously and soon began writing. His essays were both autobiographical and sharply political, and he wrote a lot about race, inspired in large part by his own upbringing. Jones was born in Indiana and spent his childhood in Chicago, where his family life was unhappy and abusive, according to the findings of a defense investigator. Jones described "extremely violent beatings" by his uncle, as well as sexual abuse at the hands of a cousin when he was 5 years old. One friend and neighbor recalled that his "arms and face were always covered in bruises." When Jones was 13, he robbed a milkman and was sent to a reformatory outside the city that sat on some 900 acres of farmland, where boys underwent military and religious training. Then at 15, he was sent to Sheridan, a state reformatory where he said he was beaten, which became embroiled in scandal soon after his release. In 1961, the superintendent and 6 staffers were fired following reports that boys at Sheridan were "beaten, confined naked in unlighted cells, and put on bread and milk rations," as described by 1 Illinois historian. An investigation also found that the younger boys -15 years and under - were preyed upon sexually by the older ones, including men in their 20s. Later, according to court documents, a clinical psychologist would determine that Jones had a "lifelong pattern of behavior consistent with childhood-onset bipolar disorder," and signs of PTSD rooted in "physical, sexual, and emotional trauma." After an unsuccessful stint in the military at 19, Jones spent his early adulthood in and out of jail. He admitted to investigators that he "sometimes would get charged with something, make bond, change his name, and never show up again." He married twice; his wives described him as "unstable" and physically abusive, including to his children. In his letters to people like Marcum, Jones would occasionally express regret at his fractured relationships with family, saying he understood why they did not keep in touch. In his published essays, which he often began with a passage or quote from a newspaper article, he sometimes shared his memories of relatives as part of a broader critique of society. In 1 piece, a local report on the detrimental effect of carrying heavy backpacks reminded Jones of a time he went to pick cotton with relatives in the Mississippi Delta. His aunt suffered crippling back pain, he wrote. "My question is, when will a doctor in America show concern for those countless Black backs still bent with the pain and weight of American slavery past and present?" In another essay, Jones discussed a boating program geared toward African-American kids from Philadelphia. As a lover of boats, he was a devoted subscriber to WoodenBoat ("I read every issue cover to cover"). He wondered why the magazine had not run an item about the Philadelphia program, which he considered very important. In 1996, the Canadian New Internationalist published an essay by Jones that would prove particularly moving to people. It described the small ways he sought to ward off the intense sensory deprivation of death row: collecting scraps of wood to be able to feel their natural texture, picking a bay leaf out of 1 of his meals and taking it back to his cell, where "I washed it off," he wrote, and carefully stored it for months. One reader, Sue Bond, remembers the essay vividly - it was one of the first by Jones she ever read. More than 20 years later, she has struggled to solicit support for him over Facebook. She still has all his letters, she told me over email. "I can't bear to open that box right now. It is too painful, knowing that he may be executed very soon." The same essay prompted an artist in the U.K. "to send him one of my detailed textured landscapes and lead him on a 'walk' through it, encountering the sounds and textures along the way," as she wrote in an email. She too forged a friendship with Jones, as did her son, John. (This month, John set up a website to solicit clemency letters for the Board of Pardons and Parole.) As his 1997 resentencing trial approached, Jones??? readers galvanized to try to save his life. Readers from the U.K. and Australia volunteered to testify via video on his behalf. In a letter to the Georgia Indigent Defense Council, Michael Marcum described the "value in Brandon's life and in his writing," how it conveyed to "young offenders who are still at risk of committing violence upon release from our jails into our community ... that they can retake control of their lives before they further harm others and themselves, and they can make a lawful place in our society." But in his closing statement on the day of the resentencing hearing, the prosecutor said that for all of his writings, Jones had shown no remorse for his crime. "He's got all kinds of pen pals who apparently would do anything for him," he said, and yet none of them had sought out the victim's family to seek their forgiveness on his behalf. "So where is the remorse? Is not that the kind of conduct that deserves the death penalty?" Defense attorneys asked for a mistrial, saying the statement violated Jones' Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. But they were denied. After reaching an "impasse" due to the misgivings of a single juror, the judge ordered the jury to continue deliberating. A few hours later, Jones was once again sentenced to death. or years, Jones relied more on his relationships with readers than he did on his family. He seldom received visits. Nor did he have many friends in prison - at least according to one prison guard who got to know him on death row. Bobby Allen was 20 when he went to work at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in the 1980s. He remembers Jones as well-behaved. "I never had a moment's problem with him," he told me. Yet Jones wasn't particularly well-liked among the guards or counselors, Allen says, or by his fellow prisoners for that matter. Spending most of his time writing in his cell, his attitude seemed to be that "he had a superior intellect over everybody." Part of what Allen found vexing was that Jones "didn't see himself as an inmate. He didn't see himself as a lawbreaker." Allen was at the prison on the day the state executed Jones' codefendant, Van Solomon - 1 of 10 people killed by the state of Georgia during his years working on death row. Allen???s duties included escorting the condemned prisoner from his cell - 1st to the medical unit "for a full physical," and then down "the last mile," to the holding cell where the prisoner awaited execution. One of the worst parts, he remembers, was passing the electric chair, which prison officials covered in a white sheet. "I have nightmares about it even today," he said. He often struggled to reconcile the men he knew on death row with the crimes they had committed. "I believe that I saw some of these men change," he said. Allen can't speak for Jones, he says. "I don't know the man he is now." But, he said, "I can say that the people that we did execute might not have been the same person he was when he committed the crime." As he aged in prison, Jones lost some of his longtime supporters. In 2001 he cut ties with the Australian editor of a radical leftist magazine after it refused to publish a column following the 9/11 attacks. In it, Jones expressed sorrow and patriotism while condemning any retaliatory violence against Muslims in their homes or mosques. The essay included a drawing of an American flag he had hung in his cell "at symbolic half mast, midway between the floor and ceiling." In response, the editor, who was white, accused him of "wrap[ping] himself in the flag under which the white ruling elite in North America enslaved black people." Jones was deeply offended. Jones' most recent writings reveal a man in decline. In a 2013 column addressed to the Georgia prison commissioner, he describes being told he must remain shackled while eating and being denied a free hand to clean himself after using the bathroom, policies that "rob medical prisoners of our human dignity." Other posts are less lucid - bitter missives about prison policies, or defective purchases at the prison commissary. But last month, Jones received a visit that he never expected. His 4 children came to see him in prison. Now in their 50s, they barely knew him growing up. "It was the 1st time that all 4 of us had seen him together," his son David told me over the phone from Texas on Friday. The trip to Georgia included a contact visit - "the 1st time I ever touched his body." For decades, David refused to visit his father. "I felt he was dead," he said. Jones himself seemed to have given up on life. Until his children visited, David said, Jones planned to reject the clemency process. He did not want to give the state of Georgia the satisfaction of hearing him plead for his life. But in the visiting room that day, David thinks his father realized "he has a reason to live for his own family. He stood up and walked to the end of the visiting area with each of his children, 1 by 1. I could see them crying and holding each other." In recent weeks, "My children have been talking to him for the 1st time in their lives," David said. If the state of Georgia kills Jones on Tuesday, they will lose the grandfather they have only just met. On Saturday, David went back to Georgia to see his father again. On Tuesday, he will represent his family, asking once more for the state to spare his life. "I'm not oblivious to the pain that's been created by his crime," he says. "But many lives got lost in 1979, not just 1. Today, he has a lot of people who love him." (source: The Intercept) FLORIDA: House Panel To Take Up Death Penalty Proposal A House panel is slated to take up a death-penalty proposal Tuesday, 3 weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Florida's death-penalty system giving judges --- not juries --- the power to impose death sentences is unconstitutional. The 8-1 ruling in the Hurst v. Florida case was centered on what are known as "aggravating" circumstances that must be found before defendants can be sentenced to death. A 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, in a case known as Ring v. Arizona, requires that determination of such aggravating circumstances be made by juries, not judges. Under Florida law, juries make recommendations regarding the death penalty, based on a review of aggravating and mitigating circumstances, but judges ultimately decide whether defendants should be put to death or sentenced to life in prison. Under the House proposal (PCB CRJS 16-07), death sentences could only be imposed if juries --- after weighing aggravating and mitigating factors --- unanimously decide that at least 1 aggravating factor exists. The proposal would also require at least 9 jurors to vote for the death penalty. Florida is 1 of only 3 states that do not require unanimous jury decisions about imposing death sentences. Florida law only requires a simple majority of the jury to recommend death, but requires unanimous jury verdicts in other cases. The only other 2 states that do not require unanimous decisions --- Alabama and Delaware --- require at least 9 jurors to vote in favor of capital punishment. The measure --- offered by the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee, chaired by Miami Republican Carlos Trujillo --- mirrors recommendations offered Wednesday by 5th Judicial Circuit State Attorney Brad King at a Senate Criminal Justice Committee workshop on the death penalty. All of the other experts on a panel at the workshop --- including judges, death penalty experts and lawyers representing death row inmates ---suggested that requiring unanimous jury verdicts in death penalties would be the best way to fix the sentencing system, because of other cases pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. The House Criminal Justice meeting is scheduled on the same day the Florida Supreme Court will hear oral arguments addressing the Hurst decision in the cases of Cary Michael Lambrix, who is scheduled to be executed on Feb. 11, and 2 other death row inmates. (source: WUSF news) ALABAMA: Supreme Court ruling could affect 2 local cases It's been nearly 17 years since Danny Sledge was brutally stabbed to death and robbed at his Shoal Creek restaurant. "Instead of trying to remember the good times and the good things about Danny, because of the court system we are constantly reminded how he died," said his sister, Mary Ann Rippey. Last week's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that all teenagers convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole should be re-sentenced, triggered those painful memories for Rippey and her family, she said. Nathan Boyd was 17 when he and his brother, Eric, were arrested and charged with Sledge's death. A year later, in October 2000, Nathan Boyd was found guilty of capital murder. With the death penalty ruled unconstitutional for teens, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Eric Boyd was found guilty of felony murder, and also was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Nathan Boyd, now 34, would be eligible for new sentencing under the recent ruling because he was a teen when he was convicted and sentenced. There is another local case that could fall under the Supreme Court ruling. Matthew Williams, of Muscle Shoals, was 20 when he was shot in his truck while driving on Woodward Avenue on March 17, 1997. Charles Eugene Black, who was 17 at the time, was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Jamie Mackey, 19 at the time, was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. He remains in Limestone Correctional Facility in Capshaw. Ben Burt, the man Williams said ordered the killing, is serving a 20-year prison sentence. Colbert County Assistant District Attorney Kyle Brown said he already has contacted the Williams family about the ruling. "We wanted them to know what this is about and what could happen," Brown said. "Most likely, the case could be re-sentenced." Brown said the high court's ruling points out the court must have a choice when sentencing teens convicted of capital murder. "With the death penalty for a juvenile deemed unconstitutional, the court had only 1 option, which was life without," Brown said. "The ruling, basically, is saying the person convicted must have a new sentencing hearing to reconsider the sentence for a lesser sentence, or even probation," Franklin County District Attorney Joey Rushing said. Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange said there are at least 70 convicted murderers serving life without parole sentences who could be granted the chance for new sentences. Lauderdale County District Attorney Chris Connolly said the ruling brings up several issues. "In Alabama, there is no option (when it comes to sentencing a juvenile convicted of capital murder)," he said. "Also, if we are going to re-sentence them, who will make the sentencing recommendation? In a capital murder case, the jury makes that recommendation. So, will we have to impanel a jury to have these re-sentencing hearings, or can the judge do it?" Connolly said because there is no alternate sentencing in place, the Alabama Legislature will have to address the issue. Randy Hillman, executive director of the Alabama Office of Prosecution Services, said he expects to see the Legislature address the issue in the upcoming session, and come up with another option. The session convenes Tuesday. "If not, these inmates will have to be brought back in and either re-sentenced, or make them eligible for parole down the road," Hillman said. He said the inmates, if re-sentenced, still could be sentenced to life in prison without parole. Strange said the ruling will have a "devastating effect" on the families of murder victims who thought they received closure in cases going back decades. "Murder victims' families may be put through the ordeal of seeing the person responsible for the death of their loved one years ago being allowed to receive a new sentence," he said. Rippey said it would bring old wounds. "It's something that we don't want to go through again," Rippey said. "It's like we are not allowed to move on." Nathan Boyd was up for parole last year, and it was denied. He's not eligible for another parole hearing until 2019. "We are convinced as far as the Boyd case, he will never get out (of prison), even if he has to be re-sentenced," Connolly said. (source: Tines Daily) KANSAS: Bipartisan House bill seeks to repeal Kansas death penalty A Kansas man who spent 15 years behind bars for a killing his brother eventually admitted to committing says his case is a good example of why the state should repeal its death penalty. Floyd Bledsoe, who was released from prison in December, was sentenced to life in prison for the 1999 slaying of Camille Arfmann in Oskaloosa. His freedom came after new DNA evidence was found and his brother, Tom Bledsoe, wrote notes in which he admitted killing Arfmann before he committed suicide. On Thursday, Floyd Bledsoe urged Kansas lawmakers to repeal the death penalty. He said although he wasn't sentenced to death, his experience proves the state's laws and court system are imperfect, the Topeka Capital-Journal (http://bit.ly/1PWWqxi) reported. "The death penalty is unjust. Please stop it," he said during an anti-death penalty rally in the Statehouse rotunda. A bipartisan bill to repeal the death penalty was introduced in the House earlier this month by Rep. Steven Becker, a Buhler Republican who is a retired judge. 16 other representatives - 10 Republicans and 6 Democrats - co-sponsored the measure. Becker said his experience in the criminal justice system solidified his opposition to the death penalty, arguing that the "reasonable doubt" standard for proof in criminal cases is paradoxical to the death penalty. "How can we impose the absolute certainty of death when we don't require the absolute certainty of guilt?" Becker asked. Under his bill, death sentences would be barred for anyone committing a crime on or after July 1. Defendants sentenced for a crime before that could still be executed, though Kansas hasn't executed anyone in more than a half-century. Death sentences would be replaced by sentences of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The bill also would create a "death penalty abolition fund" under the control of the Kansas Department of Corrections. The bill would require the state budget director to place any cost savings stemming from abolition of the death penalty into the fund for use by the corrections department. Rep. Bill Sutton, a co-sponsor, noted the high fiscal costs of the state's death row and said he came to the Legislature to shrink the size of government. "It doesn't make any sense. You get exactly nothing for your tax dollars," Sutton, a Republican from Gardner, said. (source: Associated Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 1 10:02:46 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2016 10:02:46 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 1 QATAR: Qatar court vacates guilty verdict for Patterson murder; retrial planned Qatar's highest court has thrown out a guilty verdict and death penalty sentence for a local man convicted of killing a British teacher in 2013. This morning, the Court of Cassation accepted an appeal filed by Badr Hashim Khamis Abdallah Al-Jabar, who was convicted of stabbing and killing Lauren Patterson, and burning her remains in the desert 2 1/2 years ago. Al-Jaber will remain in custody, but be given a new trial at the Court of Appeal. Also today, the Court of Cassation denied an appeal request from Mohamed Abdallah Hassan Abdul Aziz, who was found guilty of helping Al-Jabar dispose of Patterson's body, as well as damaging and erasing evidence. That means he has exhausted all chances to appeal his 3-year prison term. Reacting to the development, Patterson's mother Alison told Doha News that she was "disgusted and devastated" by the court's decision: "I am totally dumbfounded how anyone could think that someone who acted so callously deserves another chance and is given a retrial. The only ones who suffer because of this are the innocent ones. Lauren who did nothing wrong but was brutally murdered for trusting someone and myself and family and friends, we are the ones being sentenced. We have to live with what they did to Lauren everyday and now we have to suffer further." What's next Both Al-Jaber and Abdul Aziz were convicted by a lower criminal court in March 2014 on charges related to Patterson's death. A year later, the Court of Appeal upheld those court sentences. At the time, a judge said that there was consensus for the verdict to remain. However, now a new panel of judges will hear the case against Al-Jabar, whose lawyer argued that the Court of Appeals' decision was "erroneous and not based on a sound legal foundation." This doesn't mean new evidence will necessarily be introduced, but the panel will evaluate what was previously entered into the record to see if any errors were made, legal sources told Doha News. The case The 2 Qatari men had been the last to see Patterson alive after she had briefly gone missing in October 2014. According to the prosecutor, the 24-year-old was taken to a home that Al-Jaber used for sexual trysts with women. He then "conquered her body" and killed her by stabbing her twice. The defense had maintained that Patterson's death had been an accident, and said confessions obtained from the 2 men on trial were coerced. Al-Jaber faced the death penalty either hanging or shooting. However, while the death penalty is still being handed out in courts, this sentence has not been carried out in Qatar for over a decade. According to court clerks, the paperwork for the new case will be filed within the next few weeks. A new court date has yet to be set. (source: Doha News) TAIWAN/INDONESIA: Taiwan respects Indonesia's death sentences for 3 Taiwanese The Ministry of Justice said Monday that it respects the Indonesian judiciary's death sentences on 3 Taiwanese drug traffickers, but will see if there are any steps that can be taken to ensure that their rights and interests are protected. Vice Justice Minister Chen Ming-tang made the remarks after the Supreme Court of Indonesia last week sentenced Luo Chih-chen, Chen Jia-wei and Wang An-kang to death for attempting to bring in more than 2 kilograms of amphetamine through Jakarta International Airport in 2014, the 1st overseas capital sentences for Taiwanese in recent years. The court's spokesman, Suhadi, told CNA that the sentences are a legal issue that is not related in any way to bilateral relations. In November 2015, the Attorney General Office of Indonesia demanded the death penalty for 50 drug traffickers, including the three Taiwanese, a request that was granted by the local court but commuted to life imprisonment by the high court. Chang Liang-jen, Taiwan's top representative in Indonesia, said his staff had informed the family members of the fate of the three convicts, promising to render any assistance to them. Indonesia has stepped up its crackdown on criminal rings involved in drug trafficking and cross-border telecom fraud, Chang said, advising Taiwanese nationals not to try their luck when attempting to break Indonesian law. Currently, more than 30 Taiwanese involved in drug trafficking are incarcerated in Indonesia. The longest-serving three were given life sentences in 2013. (source: focustaiwan.tw) ********************* Australian student arrested for the murder of her study partner after she dropped dead from drinking iced coffee laced with CYANIDE 'arrived at the cafe an hour before her friends and ordered 3 drinks' ----Wayan Mirna Salihin died after drinking cyanide-spiked coffee in Jakarta A former Australian university student who is accused of lacing a friend's iced coffee with the deadly substance cyanide has been charged with premeditated murder and could face the death penalty. Indonesian police arrested Jessica Kumala Wongso on Saturday over the murder of her friend Wayan Mirna Salihin, who died in Olivier restaurant in Central Jakarta on January 6. Police said the 27-year-old arrived at the cafe around an hour before her 2 friends and ordered 3 drinks, including the Vietnamese iced coffee that is believed to have killed Ms Salihin. Jakarta Commissioner Edi Hasibuan said the accused was seen on CCTV footage sliding the drink towards the young newlywed before she fell to the ground, started foaming at the mouth and convulsing. He alleges that security footage captured her looking back and forth to see if anyone was around while she handled the coffee before the encounter, Indonesian media reported. Mr Hasibuan said the camera's vision was obstructed when Ms Wongso placed a paper bag on the table. Yudi Wibowo, Ms Wongso's lawyer and uncle, challenged police to released the footage to the public as he believes it will clear his niece's name but authorities declined as it is evidence in an ongoing investigation. He also denied that cyanide was involved in the murder and questioned an autopsy that allegedly confirmed that Ms Sahlihin had the poison in her system. Head of the Jakarta Police forensic laboratory Brigadier General Alex Mandalika said results indicated that more than a deadly dose of cyanide was found in her stomach. 'Based on our investigation results, the concentration reached 15 grams per litre. Just imagine, 90 milligrams alone is already lethal,' he told the Jakarta Globe. Ms Wongso has maintained her innocence since her former study partner's death, telling reporters that she 'does not know where the cyanide came from'. 'I just want to help police and Mirna's family reveal who was behind all of this,' she told the Jakarta Globe. The 27-year-old has been charged under Article 340 of the Criminal Code on premeditated murder, which carries a jail sentence of 20 years to life or death by firing squad. POLICE TIMELINE The 3 young women agreed to meet at a coffee shop in the city on January 6. Jessica was the 1st to arrive and ordered a cocktail for herself and a cold Vietnamese coffee. Minutes later, Mirna and Hani arrived and Mirna proceeded to drink the coffee. 'It's awful - it's bad,' Mirna cried. Shortly afterwards she collapsed with convulsions and began to foam at the mouth. She died as she was being rushed to hospital. Indonesian authorities have searched Ms Kumala's home for the pants she was wearing that day to to test them for trace evidence but according to local media outlets she said her maid had discarded them. She said she ripped the pants as she attempted to help carry Ms Sahlihin after she had fallen to the ground. Chief Detective Krishna Murti said officers have collected about 20 witness statements, spoken to six experts and have conducted a re-enactment of the events. He said Ms Wongso's recollection of events is 'highly inconsistent' with the information they have received. Ms Kumala was named a suspect on Friday and arrested at a hotel at around 7am on Saturday. Local authorities made inquires with the Australian Federal Police about the relationship between the 2 friends, who had studied together in Sydney and Melbourne before moving to Indonesia. 'We have contacted the Australian Federal Police because we need some information,' the head of Jakarta Police general crime division, Senior Commander Khrisna Murti, told the Jakarta Post. According to the Jakarta Post, the pair had studied together at the Billy Blue College of Design in Sydney before moving on to the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. The paper said that Ms Wongso continued to work in Australia following her graduation in 2008 before finding a job in Indonesia last month. (source: Daily Mail) KENYA: Death row inmates criticize new policy guidelines that recommend hanging Prisoners on death row across the country have criticized Chief Justice Willy Mutunga over the new policy guidelines that recommend among other things hanging prisoners on death row. Inmates at the Naivasha Prison noted that the move was ill informed saying that it would affect the ongoing reforms in all penal institutions and interrupt ordinary life in prisons across the country. Jackson Wafula, an inmate on death row, told Citizen Digital that Naivasha Prison officials had given inmates serving long sentences a chance to reform by engaging them in activities that develop their skills in various areas. "Some of us are in school while others are in the workshop learning carpentry and other related courses," he said. The 50-year-old inmate who was convicted in 2009 says he has since learnt the skill of artistry and has been drawing images of popular figures in the country. Wafula opined that if fellow inmates on death row were to face the hangman's noose, most of them would not see the need to reform. "We have made numerous strides under the reforms that are currently being implemented and we do not know who advised these new measures," he added. Peter Mwangi, a prisoner serving a life sentence at the institution, said he has learned skills that could help him if he is pardoned, adding that the implementation of the directive by the CJ would affect prisoners psychologically. Mwangi was sentenced to death in 1991 but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by President Mwai Kibaki. "Some of these prisoners never committed the crimes they have been jailed for and others have their appeals pending in court," Mwangi said. "You can imagine working with a prisoner who is waiting to be hanged, it demoralises others and this could take back the gains made in reforming prisons," he opined. Another inmate, Samuel Kagiri, urged CJ Mutunga to allow prisoners to continue with normal programmes regardless of their sentences. He noted that more than 1,000 inmates at Naivasha Prison have been convicted to hang but they have since mingled with others and are working together. "We were given an opportunity to go to school and learn several courses that have impacted positively in our lives while our families are also given a chance to visit us," he said. On Monday last week, Mutunga launched the new policy guidelines that recommends among other things hanging inmates sentenced to death. The policy was prepared by a team of Judges at the Judicial Training Institute led by Justice Msagha Mbogholi. "Since the death penalty has not been abolished, judges must impose the death sentence with respect to capital offences. To curb their stay in prison, the court should recommend to the president to have a fixed time for a review of the cases, after which they should face death," say the guidelines. The new policy further makes it possible for a convict to be sentenced to death in more than 1 case, although the individual will be hanged as per the 1st sentence, with the others being held in abeyance. (source: citizentv.co.ke) ********************** Death penalty a barbaric sentence Inmates at the Naivasha Prison have criticised a proposal by the judiciary that death row prisoners should be hanged. In July 2010, the Court of Appeal found the mandatory death sentence to be unconstitutional and Kenyan judges have been imposing custodial sentences for death penalty offences. In 2013, the Court of Appeal held that the courts have no discretion in respect to offences that attract a mandatory death sentence. These conflicting signals on matters of life and death are cruel and inhuman. The dangers of fatal miscarriages of justice are real and totally unacceptable. In the countries where the death penalty is still law, the state kills human beings with premeditation and elaborate ritual - but not in Kenya. In this country, the death penalty is still in the books but it has not been implemented for 26 years now. Kenya's last hangman, Kamiti Maximum Security Prison's Michael Wanjuki, was succeeded by an electric chair that has never been used. And therefore to a brutal and barbaric law is added the bizarre prospect of condemned prisoners rotting on Death Row in large numbers for life. It is high time the death penalty law was reformed. (source: Editorial, The Star) CHINA: Chinese man jailed for 23 years freed after verdict overturned A Chinese man walked free on Monday having spent the last 23 years in jail after a court overturned a murder and arson conviction, state media said, the latest wrongful verdict to be overturned in the country. Chen Man was arrested in 1992, accused of burning down a house in which a man died. He was later given a suspended death penalty. But after numerous appeals, a court found there was insufficient evidence to sustain the verdict and ordered him freed, the official China Daily reported on its website. The government has tried to improve the way courts handle cases of miscarriages of justice under efforts by President Xi Jinping to bolster the rule of law and increase public confidence in the legal system. Wrongful executions have stirred particular outrage, though the death penalty itself remains widely popular. In 2014, a court posthumously acquitted an ethnic Mongol called Huugjilt who had been executed for raping and killing a woman in a public restroom. Another man was later sentenced to death for the crime. State news agency Xinhua said late on Sunday that 27 people had been penalised over Huugjilt's wrongful conviction, mostly being given administrative punishments. But one of them, a former deputy police chief, may face criminal charges, it said. (source: Khaleej Times) ******************* China to execute pair for stabbing British monk to death, state media says China has sentenced 2 men to death for killing a British monk, who founded Europe's 1st Tibetan monastery, over a financial dispute, state media said. Akong Tulku Rinpoche, co-founder of Scotland's Samye Ling monastery, was found dead with multiple stab wounds at his home in the southwestern city of Chengdu in 2013. A court in the city sentenced 2 men, named in Chinese as Tudeng Gusang and Tsering Banjue, to death for the murders of Mr Akong and 2 other men, while an accomplice was sentenced to 3 years in jail, the state-run China News Service reported Sunday. It cited authorities as saying that Mr Gusang, who had worked at the Scottish monastery, and Mr Banjue had stabbed Mr Akong, his nephew and a driver to death in a dispute over a 2.7 million yuan (Dh1.5 million) payment. The verdict, posted by the court on social media, said the murders were "brutal" and that the suspects would be "treated severely in accordance with the law". Britain said in a statement that it communicated its opposition to the death penalty to Beijing. Mr Akong, who was in his early 70s, took British citizenship after fleeing Tibet in 1959, and founded the facility in Scotland in 1967. He had the title of Rinpoche, an honorific given to the most respected teachers in Tibetan Buddhism, and his monastery said at the time of his killing that he had been "assassinated". The institution was a pilgrimage site for artists and musicians, including Canadian singer Leonard Cohen, as well as senior Tibetan monks, including the Dalai Lama. Despite fleeing China, Mr Akong had maintained a relationship with authorities in Beijing, regularly returning to Tibetan regions. Many Tibetans say China represses their religious freedom and culture. Beijing says it has brought massive investment to the relatively undeveloped region. Rights groups say China executes more people than the rest of the world combined, though the annual number has declined significantly over the past decade. Beijing regards the figure as a state secret and does not release it. The British embassy in Beijing said it was aware of the trial, adding: "The British government maintains its long-standing opposition to the death penalty, and has formally communicated this to the Chinese government." (source: Agence France-Presse) SYRIA: ISIS executed 2,114 civilians in 19 months, human rights group says ISIS has executed 3,895 people, more than half of them civilians, since announcing the establishment of a "caliphate state" in June 2014, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday. Of the 2,114 civilians killed, 78 were children and 116 were women, the SORH said in a press release. Civilians were killed by firing squad, beheaded, stoned, thrown off high buildings or burned, SOHR said. The other people executed included fighters for the Syrian regime, militiamen loyal to the regime and rebel groups like al-Qaeda in Levant, SOHR said. CNN could not independently verify the information from SOHR. Its website says SOHR is a nonprofit group not connected to any political body or nation. ISIS even executed 422 of its own members for offenses such as trying to defect, spying for foreign counties and acts of "extremism" against Islam, such as ascribing divine characteristics to Islamic figures or another person, SOHR said. SOHR said people were killed for apostasy, cursing Allah, adultery, espionage, being a member of the national defense, contacting the Al-Nusra Front and homosexuality. A woman was killed for escaping from her husband. Civilians were massacred in several places: 939 Arab Sunni civilians were killed in the eastern countryside of Deir Ezzor; 223 Kurdish civilians were killed in Kobani and the nearby village of Barkh Botan; and 46 were killed in the village of Al-Mab'oujeh. During the period of December 29 to January 29, ISIS killed 188 people, including 113 civilians, the release said. 64 were Syrian regime forces or militiamen loyal to the regime, the release said. The extremist group announced the establishment of a "caliphate," an Islamic state stretching across the western and northern Iraq, in June 2014. The leader of the caliphate is Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al Samarrai, more commonly known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. (source: CNN) GLOBAL: No one should be executed for drug offenses----Even as some countries liberalize their drug laws, others like Indonesia are brutally cracking down The use of society's ultimate sanction, the death penalty, has been declining around the world for decades. In 1977, only 16 countries had abolished the death penalty; by 2015, 140 had either abolished it or for all practical purposes abandoned it. 19 American states and the District of Columbia have no death penalty, and in 2014, executions were carried out in only 7 states. However, over the same period, the number of countries applying the death penalty for drugs offenses has increased. In 1979 there were 10 countries that executed drug offenders. By 1985, that number had increased to 22; by 2000, to 36 (although it declined to 33 in 2012). Some years have seen as many as 1,000 drug-related executions, many of them in Iran, Singapore and China, where precise figures are unavailable. Thousands of individuals are on death row in Asia, the Middle East and parts of Africa for drug offenses. Indonesia offers a particularly gruesome example. In 2015, 14 prisoners there, mostly foreign nationals, were killed by firing squad. Indonesian President Joko Widodo took office in October 2014. He immediately declared that the country was facing a "drug emergency situation," thus justifying the decision to carry out the executions in the face of concerted international pressure - notably from Australia, 2 of whose citizens were executed last year. He zealously pursued the death sentences, saying he would reject any appeal for clemency. According to Amnesty International, Indonesia held at least 121 people on death row in 2015, 54 of them for drug offenses. As part of its intensified war on drugs, Indonesia has targeted drug users. The National Narcotics Agency recently revived compulsory treatment, pledging to place 100,000 drug users in treatment or rehabilitation centers last year. This month the new narcotics board chief, Budi Waseso, created an international furor by calling for a prison island for drug smugglers, surrounded by crocodiles and piranhas. He also called for the reinstatement of the late Indonesian dictator Suharto's infamous program in which elite military personnel were authorized to conduct extrajudicial public killings of anyone the regime considered criminal. A week ago, police raids on drug-use hotspots in Jakarta and Medan left at least 4 people dead - 2 of them police officers. One person executed in Indonesia last year was Brazilian citizen Rodrigo Gularte, who was caught with 2 friends trying to take cocaine hidden in surfboards into the country in 2004. He took responsibility for the seized drugs, allowing his companions to be released. He accepted a state-appointed lawyer and never received competent legal representation at trial. His first lawyer acknowledged that he used drugs. Today that might be accepted as a mitigating factor, but at the time, it merely helped the prosecution make its case and secure the death sentence. "In Malaysia in 2010, the majority of those sentenced to death for drug-related crimes were convicted of marijuana or hashish offenses." The mitigating factor that should have protected him from the firing squad is that he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder as a teenager. He was often impulsive, which likely explains how he came to be smuggling drugs. In prison, his condition worsened, and he attempted suicide. Eventually he was further diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia accompanied by delusions and hallucinations. It was widely reported that he understood he was going to be killed only as he was being led to the site of the execution. After Indonesia denied requests for Gularte to be transferred to a mental health facility in 2014, his cousin Angelita Muxfedlt went to Jakarta and appointed my office as his legal representative, together with other prominent legal and human rights groups. He was convicted despite the suspicious release of his co-defendants, despite his incompetent counsel and despite international outrage, especially from Brazil, where the last state execution took place in 1876. Even the diagnosis of his severe mental illness was not enough to earn him a reprieve. Indonesia clearly violated international law by executing a prisoner with mental health issues. He should have received treatment for his multiple illnesses. Instead, in a stunning act of retribution, the state put him to death. He can be considered a victim of the global war on drugs. But the punitive drug control regime that was built on international agreements like the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is coming under increasing pressure. In 2014, for example, the International Narcotics Control Board urged governments to abolish the death penalty. There is growing recognition that sentencing someone to death for a drug offense is a violation of basic human rights. Around the world, the vast majority of death row prisoners are poor and often poorly educated or incapable of comprehending what they were getting involved in, like Gularte. They are often badly advised, living or dying on the whim of a capricious legal system. As some countries relax their regulations against the recreational use of drugs like marijuana, the inconsistency across international jurisdictions is thrown into sharp focus. In at least 12 countries, some offenses related to marijuana and hashish are punishable by death. In Malaysia in 2010, the majority of those sentenced to death for drug-related crimes were convicted of marijuana or hashish offenses. While some countries look to alternative methods of managing drugs, including decriminalization, others continue to punish similar activities by execution. There is no evidence that the death penalty works as a deterrent, which is the reason most often cited for its continued use. People are still taking drugs into Indonesia, and heroin seizures have not stopped in Iran. This year's United Nations special session on drugs should include discussion of the death penalty. The world must consign the death penalty to history, where it belongs. (source: Ricky Gunawan is a human rights lawyer in Indonesia. He is the director of LBH Masyarakat (Community Legal Aid Institute), which is based in Jakarta and provides free legal services for poor people, marginalized groups and victims of human rights abuses, including people who use drugs and people facing the death penalty; Claudia Stoicescu is a doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford's department of social policy and intervention----Aljazeera) BANGLADESH: 2 to die for killing schoolgirl after rape A tribunal here yesterday sentenced 2 youths to death for killing a schoolgirl after rape in Mathbaria upazila of the district in 2014. The death penalty awardees are Mehedi Hasan Swapan, 23, and Sumon Jamadder, 19, of Bandhabpara-Bukhaitala village in the upazila. Judge Md Golam Kibria of Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribual-1 delivered the verdict around 12.30pm. The court also fined the duo Tk 1 lakh each. The money will be given to the victim's family, court sources said. According to the prosecution, Fatima Akhter, 9, a Class III student at Hatem Ali Government Primary School, and daughter of Ful Miah Hawlader of Jhatibunia village in the upazila, used to live at her maternal grandfather's house at Bandhabpara-Bukhaitala village. When the girl went to nearby school field to bring a cow back home on October 5, 2014, Swapan and Sumon forcibly took her to an orchard and raped her. As she cried for help, the rapists strangled her. Relatives found Fatima's body from the orchard the following day. Following a case filed by Fatima's father with Mathbaria Police Station, police arrested Swapan, a cousin of Fatima, and Sumon, After interrogation, they confessed to killing Fatima after rape. After examining the witnesses and case record, the judge handed down the verdict. (sorue: The Daily Star) **************** Mir Quasem appeal hearing in SC cause list Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir Quasem Ali's appeal hearing has been enlisted in Tuesday's cause list of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court. A 4-member bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha of the Appellate Division is set to begin the hearing of death row Jamaat-e-Islami's key financier Mir Quasem Ali for committing crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War, according to the SC website. On the 3rd November of 2014, a commander of para militia force al-Badr during the war, Mir Quasem was awarded capital punishment by the International Crimes Tribunal 2. The tribunal handed down death penalty in 2 charges for killing 7 people, including one Jasim Uddin, after abduction. He was awarded a total of 72-year imprisonment on other charges of abduction, conspiracy and planning. 4 charges were not proved. On November 30, 2014, Quasem Ali appealed to the Supreme Court against the death sentence. Mir Quasem joined Islami Chhatra Sangha, then student wing of Jamaat, in 1967 while studying at Chittagong Collegiate School. He later became its Chittagong City unit general secretary. He played an important role in forming al-Badr Bahini that orchestrated systematic killing of freedom fighters and intellectuals. (source: Dhaka Tribune) PHILIPPINES: Zapanta's parents: 'Where's the P23-M blood money' The parents of Joselito Zapanta, the overseas Filipino worker (OFW) who was executed in Saudi Arabia in December, are looking for the P23-million bloody money the government raised to save him from death penalty. "Where did the blood money go? If they (the government) really collected the money for my son, I hope they could give that to me so we could start all over again," Ramona Zapanta, mother of the OFW, said in an interview with Senate reporters on Monday. Zapanta, 35, was executed in Saudi Arabia on December 29, 2015 for the murder of his Sudanese landlord over a rental dispute after to the P23-million blood money was rejected by the Sudanese widow. The victim's family was asking P43 million blood money to save Zapanta from the death row. Jesus Zapanta, the OFW's father, said the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has yet to update them about the status of the bloody money. He added that they have yet to receive any assistance from the DFA. The government earlier said that the money was kept in a bank account being managed by the Philippine embassy in Saudi Arabia. Senator Cynthia Villar, who granted some livelihood assistance to Zapanta's kin, said that many OFWs experience misfortune abroad. "It is a sad reality that many of our OFWs experience misfortune abroad. When subjected to abuse, there are those who chose to suffer in silence. Some OFWs chose to fight back and ended up in jail," Villar said. "We hope this livelihood assistance will go a long way in helping the family cope with the loss of their breadwinner," she added. The senator said she hoped that Zapanta's execution would serve as reminder to Filipino migrant workers that foreign lands have harsher penalties for crimes and to always follow the laws of their host countries. Several groups earlier appealed to the government to donate a portion of the P23 million to Zapanta's grieving family and to help other OFWs on the death row. (source: Sun Star) IRAQ: Iraqi president signs execution orders for convicted terrorists Iraqi President Fouad Massoum on Sunday execution orders for offenders convicted of terrorist offenses, his spokesman announced. Khalid Shwani, the official spokesman of Iraqi president, explained that this was the 3rd batch of executions that Massoum had signed for terrorist offenses, but did not disclose how many were endorsed. "Fouad Massoum, President of Iraq, signed the 3rd waves of capital punishment," Shwani said. He added that the orders are for "all offenders who have been convicted of terror-related offenses." Shwani said that signing the orders mean that the death sentences imposed on the offenders now moves into the implementation stage. He assured the Iraqi nation that the decisions came after a special committee had investigated the cases. Last year, Shwani told Rudaw that from 2006 to 2015, Iraqi courts issued execution orders for 667 individuals, of whom 170 were convicted of terror-related offenses. (source: Rudaw.net) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 1 16:27:08 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2016 16:27:08 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----DEL., N.C., GA., OHIO, NEB., CALIF., USA Message-ID: Feb. 1 DELAWARE: Delaware capital murder trials and hearings halted while state justices mull death penalty law A Superior Court judge has halted all trials and penalty hearings in capital murder cases while Delaware's Supreme Court mulls the constitutionality of the state's death penalty law. The order was issued Monday President Judge Jan Jurden, head of the Superior Court system. Last week, the Supreme Court accepted several questions submitted by a Superior Court judge regarding the roles of judges and juries in Delaware death penalty cases. Those questions were prompted by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court said Florida's death sentencing scheme was unconstitutional because a jury, not a judge, must find each fact necessary to impose a death sentence. Delaware's sentencing scheme is similar to Florida's. Meanwhile, a bill to abolish Delaware's death penalty was defeated in the state House last week. (source: Associated Press) ************ First State freezes all death penalty cases Superior Court President Judge Jan Jurden is halting all 39 of Delaware's pending death penalty cases as the state's highest court weighs the system's constitutionality. The official stay from Jurden comes just days after another Superior Court judge asked the Delaware Supreme Court to rule on the legality of the state's capital punishment program. Part of the First State's system resembles Florida's, which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional last month. In Delaware, juries have to unanimously find at least 1 aggravating factor to recommend a death sentence. Then, a judge weighs all relevant information that came out at trial before either sentencing that person to die or giving them life in prison. All but 1 Supreme Court justice found putting more power in the hands of judges unconstitutional in their recent ruling. State lawmakers in the House rejected a bill that would overturn capital punishment in Delaware altogether last week. The Public Defender's Office and the state will file arguments to the Delaware Supreme Court in the coming weeks, with a ruling expected before the summer. (source: Delaware Public Media) NORTH CAROLINA: Shawn Legrand pleading guilty to 3 murders Shawn Lee Legrand halted his death penalty trial today by pleading guilty to the November 2011 murders of Krystle Price Papile, Gregory Steven Fitzgerald and victim Ardell Paige Jr. Jury selection in Cumberland County Superior Court had been scheduled to start today, but the 49-year-old Legrand this afternoon decided to plead guilty. By doing so, Legrand avoids the death sentence. Instead, he is to get 3 sentences of life in prison without parole, District Attorney Billy West said. West said Legrand's offer to plead guilty came as a surprise to prosecutors. Legrand stabbed to death Papile and Fitzgerald, and shot to death Paige. He also shot Bennie Darwin King and Stephanie Lashaun Croom, but they survived. The violence was in a residence on Ingram Street in Fayetteville on Nov. 26, 2011. He was arrested following a car chase and shoot-out with two Fayetteville police officers. The officers severely injured Legrand. In court today, he appeared in a wheelchair. (source: Fayetteville Observer) GEORGIA----impending execution Lawyers: Death row inmate sentence excessive in murder case Lawyers for a Georgia death row inmate set to die this week asked the state's highest court on Monday to throw out his sentence, arguing that it's disproportionate to his crime. Brandon Astor Jones was convicted in the 1979 killing of a convenience store manager and is scheduled to be put to death Tuesday. At the time of his conviction, a death sentence for a murder committed during a robbery at a business was rare, and it has become even more unusual recently, with none imposed in any such case in Georgia in the past 20 years, Jones' lawyers argue in their filing with the state's Supreme Court. The state and federal constitutions "prohibit a criminal sentence that is excessive, or that is arbitrarily or rarely imposed," the lawyers wrote. Jones' lawyers say they reviewed other cases of murders committed during armed robberies in Georgia, including some that were more brutal or involved more victims. Dozens of those defendants served their sentences and have been released on parole, the lawyers wrote. The "community conscience is now, and has been for at least twenty years, that a spontaneous murder committed while carrying out the armed robbery of a retail establishment - while extremely serious and deserving of serious punishment - is not among the 'worst of the worst' offenses for which the death penalty is constitutionally reserved," the lawyers wrote. Additionally, the state's evidence doesn't prove that Jones shot store manager Roger Tackett, and Jones has consistently denied firing at him, the lawyers wrote. They argue that the other man convicted in the killing, Van Roosevelt Solomon, fired all of the shots that hit Tackett. Solomon also was convicted and was executed in Georgia's electric chair in 1985. A lower court judge last week denied Jones' request to have his execution halted and his death sentence tossed out. The judge ruled that Jones has made many of the arguments previously and that they are, therefore, procedurally barred. There has been no change in the facts or law and Jones has failed to establish a miscarriage of justice, Towaliga Circuit Chief Judge Thomas Wilson wrote. Jones has another appeal challenging the constitutionality of the state's execution secrecy law pending before 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The law classifies as a confidential state secret the identity of any person or entity involved in an execution, including the drug producer. Jones was convicted in October 1979. A federal judge in February 1989 ordered a new sentencing hearing because jurors had improperly been allowed to bring a Bible into the deliberation room. Jones was resentenced to death in 1997. The 11th Circuit last week rejected another appeal that challenged the effectiveness of Jones' attorneys during the 2nd sentencing trial. The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles - the only entity in Georgia authorized to commute a death sentence - held a clemency hearing for Jones on Monday but did not immediately release its decision. At age 72, Jones is the state's oldest death row inmate. (source: Associated Press) OHIO: Ohio man faces death penalty for slaying of police officer An Ohio man accused of shooting and killing a police officer could face the death penalty after a grand jury on Monday returned aggravated murder charges against him, county prosecutors said. A Knox County grand jury handed up a 10-count indictment that included aggravated murder, grand theft auto and tampering with evidence against Herschel R. Jones III for the murder of Danville Police Officer Thomas Cottrell in January. Knox County Prosecutor Mitch McConville said his office plans to seek the death penalty for the Jan. 17 shooting. Cottrell was found shot dead behind a municipal building in the central Ohio village of Danville, about 60 miles northeast of Columbus, less than 30 minutes after police received a call from a woman warning her ex-boyfriend, "had left with weapons and was looking to kill an officer." Cottrell was found shot in the head, and his gun and police cruiser were missing. 2 hours later, officers spotted Jones, 32, running from a home, officials said. After a short foot chase, he was captured. Jones, who has been held in police custody on a parole violation, attempted to burn Cottrell???s clothing and dispose of his gun and police cruiser after the shooting, prosecutors charged. Jones was also charged with aggravated burglary, kidnapping and assault stemming from a separate incident in November. A judge has not yet been assigned to try the case. (source: Reuters) NEBRASKA: Judge dismisses suit challenging death-penalty question going to voters A Lancaster County judge has rejected a lawsuit challenging the death-penalty question going to Nebraska voters in November, but refused to allow a pro-death-penalty group to be part of a 2nd suit challenging the ballot wording. Lancaster County District Judge Lori Maret issued orders late Friday afternoon dismissing the case brought by death penalty opponents Christy and Richard Hargesheimer and dismissing a motion by the Nebraskans for the Death Penalty to intervene in another suit filed by Lyle Koenig. The Hargesheimers had contended that the petition process should be deemed invalid because it failed to disclose Gov. Pete Ricketts as a sponsor. Their suit sought an injunction to keep Secretary of State John Gale from placing the question on the ballot Nov. 8. Koenig's issue with the language, drafted by Attorney General Doug Peterson, is the title and explanatory statement Gale chose to appear on the ballot. At a hearing in November, the argument in the Hargesheimers' case came down, largely, to who qualifies as a "sponsor" of a petition, which is not defined in statutes. No one disputed that Ricketts and his father contributed 1/3 of the $913,000 raised by Nebraskans for the Death Penalty. Ricketts raised money for the campaign, and his close allies took roles to promote it. Attorney Alan Peterson, who represents the Hargesheimers, argued that Ricketts should be included because Nebraska law requires a sworn list of every person sponsoring a referendum. He stopped short of suggesting a definition of "sponsor" but suggested that the governor was "in actuality the primary initiating force" behind the referendum, which was a good start toward a reasonable definition. On the other side, Omaha attorney Steven Grasz, who represents Nebraskans for the Death Penalty and Judy Glasburner, Aimee Melton and Bob Evnen, who are listed as petition sponsors, argued that to construe the statute to encompass all supporters, contributors and political leaders would put petition drives in a state of perpetual uncertainty. "Sponsor," he said, refers to those who assume statutory responsibility for the referendum once the petition begins. In an 11-page order, Maret said she was persuaded by the argument that because Glasburner, Melton and Evnen identified themselves as willing to assume the statutory responsibilities once the petition process commenced that Ricketts was not required to be listed as a sponsor. "The court agrees," she wrote, citing then-Chief Justice John Hendry's reasoning in a concurring opinion in a similar case before the Nebraska Supreme Court in 2003. Maret said the Legislature long ago removed the financial contribution reporting requirement to the process and now requires that ballot committees disclose financial contributors, like Ricketts, in a report to the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission. She said a strict reading of "every person ... sponsoring the petition," as it says in the statute, could have a potentially chilling effect on people lending support of a referendum effort and "would hinder, rather than facilitate, the people's referendum rights." Maret called it a fatal defect in the complaint and dismissed it. "We do expect to file an appeal," Alan Peterson said Monday. The attorney who represents the Hargesheimers said the primary authority Maret relied on in her opinion was a single judge's opinion, "which is inconsistent, we think, with the majority opinion." He said he hopes the appeal is expedited. "If we're going to win this case we're running out of time," Peterson said. Maret also dismissed a request by the Nebraskans for the Death Penalty to be allowed to intervene in the Koenig case, which seeks to change a single word to the title when it goes before voters. It challenges the Attorney General's proposed ballot language, which describes life in prison as the "maximum" sentence, when in fact it is the only sentence. Maret found that the pro-death penalty group didn't file within the time allowed to challenge the decision on the wording or provide an alternative. In fact, the group admitted it wasn???t dissatisfied with the proposed title. The group's "desire to assert its opinion on this issue is not a sufficient direct and legal interest that would require intervention??? under the statute, she wrote. (source: Lincoln Journal Star) ****************** Judge dismisses lawsuit claiming death penalty voter petition drive is invalid A ballot referendum to restore Nebraska's death penalty has survived a legal challenge brought by foes of capital punishment. Lancaster County District Judge Lori Maret dismissed the lawsuit filed last fall by death penalty opponents who argued the voter petition drive was invalid because it failed to list Gov. Pete Ricketts as a sponsor. In her ruling, the judge said the lawsuit was "predicated on an erroneous interpretation" of the law regarding voter petition drives and "is defective as a matter of law." Lawyers for death penalty opponents argued that citizens should know the full extent of the governor's involvement in an initiative petition he helped fund. They also argued the law requires the listing of all sponsors so voters can be fully informed before deciding whether to sign. Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, the group that gathered the signatures to put the question on the November general election ballot, argued they properly listed 3 sponsors when submitting official paperwork for the petition. Ricketts' political and financial support of the petition drive did not constitute sponsorship, they said. Death penalty supporters collected about 143,000 valid signatures to put the question on the ballot. The number also was enough to put the repeal on hold until the vote. Last May, state senators abolished capital punishment over the governor's veto. In the months that followed, Ricketts solicited contributions for the referendum drive and gave $200,000 toward the $1.36 million effort. His father, Joe Ricketts, contributed an additional $100,000. (source: Omaha World-Herald) CALIFORNIA: The Case Against The Death Penalty 5 judges have already said he's innocent, but 57-year-old Kevin Cooper is nevertheless scheduled to be the next prisoner executed in the state of California. Cooper received a death sentence in 1985 for allegedly slaying a family of three and another child in a suburb of Los Angeles, the Daily Mail reports. Neither the one survivor of the attack, an 8-year-old boy, nor 2 witnesses who said they saw three men driving away from the house in a station wagon after the murder, implicated Cooper in the attack. But local law enforcement became fixated on Cooper because he had recently escaped from prison and was staying in a nearby house, Daily Mail reports. In 2004, the Ninth District Court ruled much of the evidence used to prosecute Cooper was illegal a few hours after then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger refused Cooper's request for clemency. The case is just one of many which shows that overzealous prosecutors have often been inept in their investigations, which has resulted in massive wastes of taxpayer money in addition to the loss of innocent human lives. 156 people have been exonerated from death row since 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Some of them often within hours of execution, or in some cases, after the execution has already taken place. In one case, a Texas man was executed for allegedly setting his house on fire and killing his children, but multiple investigations later showed the fire was most likely caused by faulty wiring, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reports. The prosecutor in that case was later found guilty of misconduct for withholding evidence from the accused man's attorneys. Additionally, it is often argued that the death penalty is cheaper to administer than life in prison without parole. This is false; housing costs for death row inmates are over $3 million higher per inmate. 44 executions in Florida between 1976 and 2000 cost an average of $24 million per execution, the News-Journal reports. Finally, as the Journal points out, the death penalty is incredibly inefficient at actually doing what it is meant to do; execute prisoners on death row. In Florida alone, 92 inmates have been executed since 1972, but there are currently 389 inmates currently on death row. Ultimately, saying the death penalty should be reserved for only "the worst cases" is problematic, because prosecutors have not exactly shown themselves to be impartial arbiters of justice in the time capital punishment has been in place; they are people, and like all people, they make mistakes. Unfortunately, when those mistakes cost both innocent human lives and millions of wasted taxpayer dollars, it means we need to seriously reconsider the death penalty as a viable punishment for serious offenders. (source: opposingviews.com) USA: Death penalty: A uniquely unjust form of justice Capital punishment is still with us as a stain upon mankind passed down from the dark pages of history. It is an unjust and loveless measure left over from a more barbaric past. Over the centuries, the peoples of the world have witnessed killings at the hands of states, princes, kings, pharaohs and the priests of the Inquisition. In the 21st century, however, the time has now come for modern legal institutions to abandon this irreversible sanction. Today, death penalty has been abolished by 102 U.N. member countries. Seven countries still apply death penalty only for crimes committed in wartime, while another 50 have abandoned it in practice for at least 10 years. 37 countries still use it both in law and practice. Of these 37, only the U.S., Japan, Taiwan and Singapore are industrialized countries. Apart from Belarus, no European country applies death penalty. In 2014, there were 1,652 executions across the world, more than 1,000 of which were committed by communist China. 500 prisoners were executed in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen or North Korea. One significant country with no proper place in this sinister picture is the U.S. 31 American states still carry out death penalty, principally Texas, Oklahoma and Georgia. Over the last 40 years, 1,422 people have been put to death in the U.S. as a whole while another 3,000 are still waiting on death row. The U.S., the leader of the modern Western world in so many areas, must treat its people with greater affection. American history is full of shameful episodes on this subject. Twenty thousand people have been executed since the country was founded. The new states that came into being following the expansion of the U.S. towards the west in particular applied capital punishment on a wide scale. Due to a period of lawlessness in the Wild West, death penalty was enforced for many crimes, such as robbery, rape, murder and plunder. As the lawlessness increased, judges became ever more ruthless. Death penalty became used, not to provide justice, but simply to ensure order in those towns. At the same time, lynchings were a part of daily life in southern states as well. Between 1882 and 1920, 4,742 people were hanged or lynched without trial. Of these, 3,345 were African Americans hanged, burned or beaten to death in appalling acts of violence after the Civil War. By now, the 21st century, this lynch-mob mentality should long since have come to an end. Punishment should no longer be a vehicle for revenge to bring people to heel, but should be aimed at ensuring justice and rehabilitating criminals, rather than killing them. In addition, capital punishment has varied depending on the time, the communities and cultures involved, and socioeconomic status. Many crimes that used to be punished by death have long since disappeared in modern society. It is therefore improper to claim that any crime deserves to be punished by death. The courts of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages condemned tens of thousands of people to be burned to death on the basis of false confessions extracted through torture. Even in more recent times, just 300 years ago, 24 people were condemned to death for witchcraft in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. Yet such crimes are no longer covered by the penal law at all. Court proceedings are also generally complex and intended to reach a given conclusion. Many convictions are based on debatable and equivocal evidence and techniques of judicial review change over time. The FBI has determined that the results of its own inquiries were false in 90% of 3,000 cases dating back before 2000 that it re-investigated. The jury system is another aspect that is quite liable to error. Death sentences awarded may be relative and vary depending on the personal prejudices of the members of the jury, the way they are brought up, ethnic identities, gender and age. Death sentences are also becoming increasingly racist in the U.S. Although African Americans make up only 12% of the population, they represent 41% of those on death row. Statistics show that death penalty is more easily enforced if the condemned person is black. Death penalty is also enforced in an unjust manner against the poor, minorities and members of ethnic and religious communities. This unjust punishment, that allows no scope for "repentance" or "self-education," is not something for which amends can be made by saying, "We have made a terrible mistake." 156 condemned to death have subsequently been found to be innocent and released since 1973. The majority of these people spent decades in prison for no reason. It is barbaric for the state to murder an innocent man. It puts the state on a moral par with murderers. The idea that capital punishment lowers crime rates is also completely false. There has been no rise in the homicide rate in states in which death penalty has been abolished. In a poll of criminologists in 2009, 88% of respondents said that they did not think that death penalty actually prevented killings. It is believed that about 5% of convicts in the U.S. are entirely innocent. This means that 10,000 people are wrongly convicted every year. Another piece of research shows that 4.1% of people condemned to death are innocent. That same research shows that 340 innocent people have been put to death since 1973. The "Innocence Project" instituted in 1992 has to date secured the release of 329 wrongly convicted people. 18 of those were on death row. 28 of those released had pleaded guilty in order to avoid a harsher sentence. Putting people on death row due to judicial or technical errors clearly results in irreversible errors and injustice. Obviously, death penalty cannot be rectified at a later date when the person concerned is deceased. The decrease in the enforcement of the death penalty in the U.S. has made some segments of society uneasy. While 98 people were put to death in the U.S. in 1999, that figure fell to only 19 in 2014. Nonetheless, governors who do not put death sentences on their agenda are often harshly criticized for being "soft on crime," and officials responsible for the death chambers complain about the way they are increasingly being used less. 70 % of the public still approves of capital punishment. Yet the U.S. should be a role model to the world in terms of efforts to abolish capital punishment. Politicians and judicial institutions must act responsibly, and capital punishment must cease to be an institutionally recognized measure. The death penalty is no way to seek retribution. Since people are prone to make mistakes it is inherently impossible to completely eliminate the possibility of innocent people being put to death. The execution of a single innocent person is nothing less than state-sanctioned homicide. (source: Harun Yahya; pravdareport.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 1 16:28:34 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2016 16:28:34 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 1 TURKEY: Crime boss says death penalty should be revived for jailed journalist Dundar Sedat Peker, a notorious figure convicted on charges of organized crime, threatened jailed journalist Can Dundar with reviving the death penalty on Monday after Dundar referred to him in one of his columns. The Cumhuriyet daily's Dundar was arrested on Nov. 26, 2015, on charges of espionage and revealing confidential documents after publishing a report with photos of weapons it said were being transferred to Syria in trucks operated by the National Intelligence Organization (MIT). Dundar recently referred to Peker in 1 of his columns and wrote: "I wish we were murderers. We are arrested just because we took a pen in our hands and wrote, because we wrote news reports and they demand 2 lifetimes in jail (plus 30 years) for us. I was wondering [the kind of] people who are released pending trial." Releasing a statement on his website, Peker responded to Dundar by saying he should be grateful to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "If one of the millions who think the way I do became the president, their 1st job would be to revive the death penalty and the 2nd would be to hang you [everyone who had anything to do with the MIT trucks]." Peker also said that he can abide having his name linked with someone who is involved in a criminal activity, but he cannot stand for it to be compared with "traitors" like Dundar. Accusing Dundar of betraying national values, Peker also accused media outlets of being unfair to him and said he would establish a media group if he has to. Peker drew strong criticism after threatening academics who signed a statement calling for an end to the ongoing clashes in southeastern Turkey to "spill their blood" and "bathe in it." Also in an anti-terrorism rally he organized on Oct. 9 last year, he threatened those who criticized Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government by saying they will pay the price for their critical stance. Dundar wrote in his column that even after making those threats Peker was released pending trial and argued that he himself is in jail just for doing his job. (source: todayszaman.com) SAUDI ARABIA----execution Saudi Arabia sentences man to death Saudi authorities executed a Saudi national on Monday for the murder of a compatriot, bringing the number of executions by capital punishment to 56 in the kingdom this year. Ahmed al-Harbi was found guilty of stabbing and shooting Fahed al-Balawi during a quarrel, according to a statement by the interior ministry published by state news agency SPA. Harbi was executed in the northern city of Tabuk. Most executions in Saudi Arabia are beheadings carried out by sword. In 2015, Saudi Arabia ordered the execution of 153 people, the majority of which were death penalty sentences given for drug trafficking or murder, according to an AFP tally. On a single day last month it put 47 people to death for "terrorism", including influential Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr. Amnesty International reports that the total number of executions in the kingdom in 2015 was the highest for 2 decades. Saudia Arabia enforces a strict Islamic legal code under which murder, drug trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy are all punishable by death. (source: albawaba.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 1 17:06:07 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2016 17:06:07 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GEORGIA Message-ID: Feb. 1 GEORGIA----impending execution Parole Board weighing arguments for and against Jones? execution The 5 members of the State Board of Pardons and Paroles are now weighing the arguments from family and advocates for condemned killer Brandon Astor Jones against the statements from prosecutors and the victim?s family in deciding if the 72-year-old man should live or die tomorrow night. Jones? attorneys spent three hours and 15 minutes with the board this morning. Cobb County District Attorney Vic Reynolds, former District Attorney Tom Charron, who prosecuted Jones and his co-defendant in 1979, and murder victim Roger Tackett?s family met with the board for an hour in the afternoo. The members do not discuss with each other the case when deciding whether to commute before they take a vote. It takes three votes to either sustain the death sentence or to commute it to life without parole. A decision could come today. Parole Board weighing arguments for and against Jones? execution photo Brandon Astor Jones ?The death penalty is just punishment (in this case),? Reynolds said after the meeting. Reynolds disagreed with Jones? lawyers claims that Jones should be spared because of his age ? Jones? 73rd birthday is Valentine?s Day ? and his increasing dementia. Reynolds said he had read Jones? writings, many posted on the internet, and found nothing to suggest he was failing mentally. Jones and Van Roosevelt Solomon were both convicted of murder and sentenced to die in separate trials just months after the Father?s Day murder almost 37 years ago. If Jones is executed as scheduled ? 7 p.m. Tuesday ? he will be the oldest man Georgia has ever executed. Tackett, a former teacher, had locked up the store that he managed at midnight. But he stayed to complete paperwork so he could be free to attend Mass with his 7-year-old daughter and his wife. Jones and Solomon were attempting to burglarize the store when they shot Tackett, 35. But a Cobb County police officer was dropping off a stranded motorist so she could use the Tenneco pay phone when he heard the shots. Within moments, officer Roy Kendall had the two in custody, and then he found Tackett on the storeroom floor, dead in a pool of his own blood. Solomon was electrocuted for Tackett?s murder on Feb. 2, 1985, but four years after that a federal judge ordered Jones? a new trial because the jurors who had condemned him had, had a Bible in the room during deliberations. In 1997, another Cobb County jury again sentenced Jones to die. Jones lawyers and supporters declined to speak to reporters after the hearing as did Katie Tackett King, Tackett?s daughter, and Christine, Bixon, Tackett?s widow who married again several years after the murder. But Charron and Reynolds took questions. They said the only thing the board asked was which shot killed Tackett and how long did he linger after suffering the first of five wounds. Charron said Tackett was alive for some time because he aspirated blood. Charron also insisted that Tackett?s thumb was shot off almost tw0 hours before he died, a claim Jones? lawyers have challenged in their filings. Jones lawyers say Tackett?s thumb was not shot off but was struck by a bullet that also struck him in the head. It was never determined who fired the fatal shot to the back of his head. Jones and Solomon both had gunpowder residue on their hands and they blamed each other. If Jones is executed, Charron said, ?it will bring closure to this family and to me and to the justice system in Cobb County.? While the Parole Board was hearing the Jones? case, the 11th U.S. Circuit was still considering Jones? challenge to the state?s secrecy law that protects the identity of the pharmacist who will make the pentobarbital that will be used to put him to death. The appellate court ruled last week that Jones could not revisit his claims that he had bad legal representation but they said they would comment in a later opinion on the issue around the state?s secrecy law. (source: Atlanta Jounral-Constitution) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 1 21:51:50 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2016 21:51:50 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GEORGIA Message-ID: Feb. 1 GEORGIA----impending execution Parole Board Denies Clemency for Georgia Inmate The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied a clemency request from the state's oldest death row inmate. The board announced its decision Monday after holding a hearing on the request from Brandon Astor Jones. The 72-year-old is scheduled for execution at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the state prison in Jackson. The parole board is the only entity in Georgia with the authority to commute a death sentence. Jones was convicted in the 1979 killing of Cobb County convenience store manager Roger Tackett. A federal judge granted Jones a new sentencing hearing because jurors had improperly been allowed to bring a Bible into the deliberation room. He was resentenced to death in 1997. Another man convicted in the killing, Van Roosevelt Solomon, was executed in 1985. (source: Associated Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Feb 2 09:33:13 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2016 09:33:13 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., DEL., N.C., GA., FLA. Message-ID: Feb. 2 PENNSYLVANIA: Black History & case of unequal justice in Delco----Author and educator Sam Lemon has spent decades investigating the circumstances surrounding the trial and execution of a 16-year-old black youth for the murder of a Glen Mills matron back in 1930. At 7:03 a.m. on June 8, 1931, Alexander McClay Williams was put to death in the electric chair at Rockview Prison in Centre County. He was 16 years old. Williams had been convicted in the stabbing murder of a matron at the Glen Mills Schools, where he had been a resident since the age of 12, when he was charged with setting a barn on fire. More than 8 decades later, questions remain about the case and whether Williams was wrongly convicted of a crime he did not commit. The case has haunted local educator and author Sam Lemon, who has spent years examining the case and raised serious questions about Williams' guilt and a system of law that could so easily dispatch a young African-American youth to death. Lemon believes strongly that the Williams case was a miscarriage of justice. In the process, his work offers a chilling look at how race received distinctly different forms of justice in 1931. Some would argue, given the events across the nation the past couple of years, that things have not changed all that much in 8 decades of the struggle for civil rights and equal treatment under the law. Lemon's makes a strong case that the execution of Williams, believed to be the youngest person executed by the state of Pennsylvania, was anything but just. Williams was convicted by an all-white jury of the murder of Glen Mills matron Vida Robare. She had been brutally stabbed 47 times with an ice pick. Lemon has spent 30 years researching the case. He first heard of it from his grandmother, whose father, Lemon's great-grandfather, had the task of representing Williams in court. William H. Ridley was the 1st African-American admitted to the Delaware County Bar Association. In October 1930, he was the only African-American attorney in Delaware County, and found himself by the court to represent the young Williams. He would soon encounter several problems. Lemon believes 3 of the youth's constitutional rights were violated: his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself; his Sixth Amendment right to confront any witnesses; and his 14th Amendment right to due process and equal justice under the law. Lemon, who points out there was no physical evidence linking Williams to the murder, as well as no fingerprints or witnesses, believes the teen's confession was coerced. He's not the only one. Robert Keller, a former Delaware County prosecutor who is now a criminal defense attorney, reviewed Lemon's findings. Keller agrees that Williams was questioned continually without counsel. "It is clearly an important case for all to hear about," Keller said. "The justice system of the '30s clearly failed this young African-American." Keller is working with Lemon to push for a pardon for Williams. Back in 2005, the United State Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty for anyone under the age of 18. That came about 3/4 of a century too late for Williams. And it might not have kept him from a date with death anyhow. Adding insult to injury, Williams' death certificate appears to have been altered. It correctly notes his date of birth as July 23, 1914, but his age was clearly altered by someone who converted the 6 into an 8, making it appear as if Williams was 18. Williams' case was certainly not the 1st time in American history where race cast a shadow over the justice system. 8 decades after he was walked to the death chamber, Lemon points to the Trayvon Martin case, unrest in several U.S. cities, including Ferguson, Mo., after the shooting of black youths by police, as evidence that while we've made great strides, the pursuit of justice for all Americans continues. This week we mark the beginning of Black History Month. Every year February is set aside to note the accomplishments of African-Americans, and the continuing pursuit of the Rev. Martin Luther King's elusive "dream." Alexander McClay Williams did not have much in the way of dreams. In his scant 16 years, he had a troubled life - and an even more troubling death. This coming Sunday, Lemon will present his findings and preview his book at Media Fellowship House in Media. If you're looking for a fitting way to take note of Black History Month, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better example. We congratulate Lemon and others for their work in uncovering and seeking to redress the wrongs inflicted on Williams. Maybe part of the dream is realizing the nightmare too many suffered along the way. And working to ensure they never occur again. (source: Editorial, delcotimes.com) DELAWARE: Delaware halts all death penalty cases as Supreme Courts weighs legality Delaware has put all of its nearly 40 pending death penalties on hold as the state's Supreme Court weighs the constitutionality of its capital punishment system. The move comes on the heels of a Florida case, during which the death penalty was ruled unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has until April 14 to review and answer 5 questions from Superior Court judge regarding the roles of judges and juries in Delaware death penalty cases. On Monday, Judge Jan Jurden ruled a temporary stay of the pending trials, penalty hearings, and applications related to the capital 1st-degree murder cases. The decision stems from Rauf v. State of Delaware, but applies for the all of the state's 39 pending cases. Benjamin Rauf has been indicted on charges that include Murder in the 1st Degree (Intentional Murder) and Murder in the 1st Degree (Felony Murder) and is currently awaiting trial. "In light of the Hurst decision, this Court certified [on January 28] 5 questions of law to the Supreme Court of the State of Delaware in a pending capital murder case," Judge Jurden wrote. "Specifically, the determination will control the procedure to be applied in all such cases." The move overall, is based on the Hurst v. Florida case, in which the state's Supreme Court ruled in favor of convicted murder, whose defense claimed that death penalty sentence was violating the Sixth Amendment. At the heart of the matter was the sole power of state judges, not juries, to make decisions to deal out capital punishment. The Sixth Amendment grants defendants the right to have their verdict decided by a jury if the death penalty is involved, the highest federal court ruled. However, in Florida's death sentencing system the judge could only consider the jury's recommendation, without being bound by it, thus, this diminished the jury's role to "advisory only." The practice is also known as "judicial override". This is the case with Delaware's death sentencing law, too. There the jury can also be allowed to recommend a death sentence non-unanimously. "If they don't know whether they have a constitutional statute, they won't want to try the case just to discover they have to redo it," Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said, according to the Huffington Post. Last Thursday, in a 23-16 vote Delaware lawmakers rejected a bill to abolish the death penalty in the state. (source: rt.com) NORTH CAROLINA: CUAB exhibit takes students to death row UNC students are going to prison.The Carolina Union Activities Board is bringing "Windows on Death Row: Art from Inside and Outside the Prison Walls" to the halls of the Student Union. The free exhibit will feature a keynote speech Tuesday by creator Anne-Frederique Widmann and former death row inmate Ndume Olatushani. Widmann will be speaking at the event from the point of view of someone on the outside of the system who has gone inside to gain deep insight into the everyday lives of death row inmates. She said she hopes to reveal to the world their humanity and suffering. But Olatushani is speaking from a perspective he can relate to - the prisoner. He spent 28 years on death row, convicted of a crime he said did not commit. He was freed after new evidence came to light, and he accepted a plea deal that allowed him to be freed without formally exonerating him. Widmann said she hopes the exhibit opens peoples' eyes to the raw humanism of death row. "Its not about crime," creator and organizer Widmann said. "This project - it's really about what comes after. It's about justice; it's about our collective response to crime. It's about the sentence and the way it's delivered." The 2nd aspect of this work is the political cartoon collection. Although vastly different, it blends smoothly with the inmate work to display a gallery of harsh ironies, truths and the raw experiences associated with the American justice system and the death penalty. Widmann said they will also be calling current inmate Kenneth Reams of Varner Unit high-security prison. Reams has been on death row since age 18 and has found art as an outlet in his solitary confinement. "What he's saying, I think it really interesting. He said 'OK, I have no power to open the door of my cell, but I can try to do something positive with my life while I'm inside," Widmann said. Boateng Kubi, a junior and CUAB's vice president of outreach and public relations, said he hopes the event will spark conversation among students. "I think that it's going to foster really inclusive dialogue on the death penalty, and after tomorrow, we expect campus to be buzzing with noise about the art gallery," he said. Already the exhibit seems to have caught the attention of students passing through the Union. Many stop, take a look at one piece of art and soon are moving down the entire gallery, inspecting each piece. Senior Meghana Shamsunder found herself in this situation walking through the gallery of the Union. "I literally was walking, turned to a picture and stopped and was like, 'That is actually very true,'" she said. "It hurts your heart to see some of these pictures turn out to be true in real life." (source: dailytarheel.com) ***************************** Accused ISIS plotter in North Carolina charged with earlier murder A North Carolina man was indicted on Monday in the murder of a 74-year-old neighbor police said he killed months before federal authorities arrested him on allegations that he planned mass shootings to support Islamic State militants. Justin Nojan Sullivan, 19, of Morganton, North Carolina, is charged with murder in the December 2014 slaying of John Bailey Clark, said Burke County District Attorney David Learner. Sullivan also faces 7 federal charges related to supporting Islamic State and plotting murders, according to an 11-page federal indictment unsealed Monday. He faces trial on those charges later this month. Islamic State is a militant group that controls parts of Syria and Iraq and has vowed attacks on the West. "Justin Sullivan had elaborate plans to kill hundreds of innocent people to show his support for the terrorist organization, ISIL," said FBI Special Agent in Charge John A. Strong. The 1st-degree state murder charge is punishable by life in prison without parole or the death penalty. The federal charges range in punishment from 20 years in prison for attempting help Islamic State to 8 years for lying to a federal agency. Attorneys for Sullivan could not be reached Wednesday. The FBI began tracking Sullivan in September 2014 after his parents, with whom he was living, told police he supported Islamic State and was destroying Buddhist objects at home. In December, 2014, Clark was killed with the .22-caliber rifle later identified as one that Sullivan stole from his father and hid under their house, according to the indictment. Beginning on June 6, 2015, Sullivan began talking about his Islamic State loyalties with an undercover federal agent Sullivan took for a fellow supporter. "I liked IS from the beginning then I started thinking about death and stuff so I became Muslim," Sullivan told the agent, according to the indictment. Over the next 2 weeks, Sullivan told the agent that he wanted to kill hundreds or thousands with an assault rifle and silencer, and planned to practice killing with minor assassinations, the indictment said. He instructed the agent to obtain weapons, had the agent make and mail him a silencer to use, planned to buy an AR-15 at a gun show and tried to buy hollow-point bullets. When his parents questioned him about the silencer, he tried to hire the agent to kill them, the indictment said. He was arrested in late June 2015 and remains in federal custody, authorities said. (source: Reuters) *************** DA goes after death penalty in murders of mother & baby The district attorney for Onslow County announced he will seek the death penalty in the case of a man accused of murdering his girlfriend and their baby. Sebastian Mendez appeared in Onslow County Superior Court Monday morning. That is when District Attorney Ernie Lee announced this is now a capital murder case and he will seek the death penalty against Mendez. Mendez, 26, is accused of strangling his girlfriend, Shuang Liu, and their 5-month-old son, Archer Liu, in July of 2015. Investigators said Mendez was found outside Liu's home the night of the murders with a knife sticking out of his back. They said Mendez stated it was Liu who had stabbed him. After an investigation, deputies arrested Mendez for the murders. Investigators said they found the bodies of the mother and the child stuffed inside suitcases. Mendez is also charged with trying to pay someone to kill a witness in the case. According to arrest warrants, Mendez offered to pay a fellow inmate $9,000 to kill the witness. The inmate alerted authorities to Mendez's plan. Mendez is charged with solicitation to commit murder for that. Mendez will return to court June 27. (source: WCTI news) GEORGIA----new execution date Georgia set execution of former sailor for Feb. 17 As Georgia prepares to execute a 72-year-old man on Tuesday night, the state has also scheduled the lethal injection for another death row inmate for later this month. On Monday, a Houston County judge signed the execution warrant for former sailor Travis Hitton for murdering and dismembering a fellow shipmate from the USS Forrestal, an aircraft carrier based in Pensacola, Fla. The warrant says he should be executed between noon on Feb. 17 and noon on Feb. 24. The Department of Corrections sets the specific time and usually the agency chooses 7 p.m. on the first day of the window, which would be Feb. 17. On Tuesday at 7 p.m. Georgia is scheduled to execute Brandon Astor Jones for the 1979 murder of the manager of a Cobb County Tenneco convenience station and gas station. Hittson was 21 years old in 1992 when he and another sailor visiting Houston County killed Petty Officer Edward Vollmer. Vollmer had invited Hittson and Conway Utterbeck to go with him to his parents' home in Warner Robins for the 1st weekend in April in 1992. They spent most of that Saturday hanging out in the house - Vollmer's parents were out of town - until Hittson and Vollmer decided that evening to hit the bars. As the 2 were headed back to the Vollmer house, Vollmer told Hittson that Utterbeck had a hit list with their names on it and he was "going to get us." Vollmer said they needed to kill Utterbeck before he could kill them. When they pulled into the driveway. Vollmer put on a bulletproof vest and then a long trench coat. Vollmer took out of the car a sawed-off shotgun and a .22-caliber hand gun for himself and gave Hittson an aluminum bat. Utterbeck was asleep in a lounge chair when Hittson hit him in the head. As Utterbeck begged for his life, Hittson and Vollmer shot him. They cut up his body, burying some parts in Houston County and taking others with them back to Pensacola. A logger found Utterbeck's torso buried in Houston County. Almost 2 months after his death, Navy investigators linked Hittson and Vollmer to Utterbeck's disappearance and his murder. Hittson eventually told detectives he and Vollmer murdered and dismembered Utterbeck. His recorded confession was played for the jury during the punishment phase of his trial. Vollmer reached a deal with prosecutors and was sentenced to life in prison. (source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution) ******************** Parole Board Denies Clemency for Georgia Inmate The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied a clemency request from the state's oldest death row inmate. The board announced its decision Monday after holding a hearing on the request from Brandon Astor Jones. The 72-year-old is scheduled for execution at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the state prison in Jackson. The parole board is the only entity in Georgia with the authority to commute a death sentence. Jones was convicted in the 1979 killing of Cobb County convenience store manager Roger Tackett. A federal judge granted Jones a new sentencing hearing because jurors had improperly been allowed to bring a Bible into the deliberation room. He was resentenced to death in 1997. Another man convicted in the killing, Van Roosevelt Solomon, was executed in 1985. (source: Associated Press) FLORIDA----impending execution Execution Delay Sought In Jacksonville Double-Murder Case Attorneys for a man convicted of 2 Jacksonville murders, who's scheduled to be put to death on St. Patrick's Day, are asking the Florida Supreme Court for a stay in his execution. They're arguing that case records - including some stored in an insect-infested shed - were destroyed. Death row inmate Mark James Asay hasn't had a lawyer to represent him in state court for nearly a decade and had no legal representation when Gov. Rick Scott signed the warrant ordering his execution, Asay's new attorney wrote in a motion filed 2 weeks ago. A Jacksonville judge appointed Marty McClain to represent Asay, 5 days after Scott signed the warrant scheduling Asay's execution for March 17. McClain argued a 27-page filing that proceeding with the case "would be a violation of due process, equal protection and fundamental fairness." He added, "Providing an attorney without the client's files and records is the equivalent of providing no counsel at all." Scott may not have been aware that Asay did not have a lawyer, as required by state law for inmates on death row, when the governor signed the death warrant. "Given that the statute requires that collateral counsel be in place at all times, I would think it would be wise for the governor's office to make sure that the statute has been complied with before a warrant is signed," McClain said in a telephone interview. In the court filing, McClain wrote that Scott's staff contacted the state agency that represents death row inmates after the warrant was signed on Jan. 8. Capital Collateral Counsel for the Northern Region Robert Friedman told the governor's representative that his agency did not represent Asay. Scott's staff then contacted Thomas Fallis, a private attorney who had represented Asay in federal court. Fallis told the governor's aide that he no longer represented Asay. "What additional steps the governor's office took to notify Mr. Asay's state court counsel of the death warrant is unclear," McClain wrote. "What is clear, however, is that despite being given information that at a minimum, Mr. Asay's representation was unknown, Governor Scott did not pause or delay the execution date in order to ensure that Mr. Asay was or would be represented by competent post-conviction counsel." Asay was convicted in 1988 of the murders of Robert Lee Booker and Robert McDowell in downtown Jacksonville. Asay allegedly shot Booker, who was black, after calling him a racial epithet. He then killed McDowell, who was dressed as a woman, after agreeing to pay him for oral sex. According to court documents, Asay later told a friend that McDowell had previously cheated him out of money in a drug deal. McClain said he and his partner, Linda McDermott, started trying to locate Asay's files after they were assigned to the case. "What was learned was quite disconcerting. Numerous boxes, probably a majority, of Mr. Asay's files and records had been destroyed, while those records that theoretically still exist, have yet to be located," McClain wrote, adding that 33 boxes of records pertaining to Asay's file are missing or were destroyed. Asay was once represented by the predecessor of the Capital Collateral Counsel for the Northern Region, but the Legislature shut down the agency in 2004. At least some of Asay's records were transferred to Mary Katherine Bonner, a lawyer who once worked on his case, according to McClain's brief filed Tuesday. Fallis, who represented Asay in federal court from 2010 through 2014, obtained about 10 boxes of documents from a shed that was "infested with snakes, rats and insects" where Bonner stored them, McClain wrote. Fallis decided the files were "worthless due to the condition in which they were stored" and ultimately destroyed them, McClain wrote. McClain, who has worked on death penalty cases for nearly three decades and represented more than 250 clients, and his partner "have never found themselves in such dire and disturbing circumstances when representing a capital post-conviction defendant with an active death warrant," the lawyers wrote. During a case-management hearing, lawyers with Attorney General Pam Bondi's office and the state attorney who prosecuted Asay told McClain they would provide copies of their records regarding Asay's case. Bondi's office was unaware that Asay had gone so long without a lawyer, McClain wrote. McClain is also trying to get copies of other case files from the Department of State's archives, but he is unsure when the documents will be provided, he wrote. "Historically, this (Supreme) Court has been especially vigilant to the need for procedural fairness in capital proceedings, and has accordingly not hesitated to enter stays of execution in order to ensure that capital petitioners are treated fairly in the litigation of claims for relief during the pendency of a death warrant," McClain wrote. The Florida Supreme Court has granted stays in at least 2 other cases when new lawyers for inmates scheduled for execution needed more time. In 1990, the court delayed the execution of Paul Christopher Hildwin to give his lawyers extra time to review his files. In 2014, the court threw out Hildwin's death sentence based on new DNA evidence. (source: WJCT news) ****************** Florida Supreme Court considers stay for death row inmate Cary Michael Lambrix A Florida prison inmate who has spent more than 1/2 his life on death row will ask the Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday to block his execution, scheduled for next week. Michael Lambrix, 55, was sentenced to die in 1984 after he was convicted of killing a man and a woman who had visited him at his trailer in Glades County. He has been on death row for more than 31 years. Gov. Rick Scott signed Lambrix's death warrant in November. He's scheduled to die by lethal injection at Florida State Prison in Starke on Feb. 11. The state's high court last month denied Lambrix's motion for a stay of execution. But justices agreed to hear oral arguments after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Jan. 12 that Florida's death penalty sentencing system is unconstitutional because it limits the jury's role, a violation of the Sixth Amendment. Lambrix has denied committing the 2 1st-degree murders. He said he killed Clarence Moore in self-defense after Moore assaulted the other victim, Aleisha Bryant. In court documents, Lambrix's lawyers raise a series of arguments that his rights were violated, including not being able to conduct DNA tests on the victims' clothing and on a tire iron that the state says was the murder weapon. Attorney General Pam Bondi argues that Lambrix has repeatedly used "dilatory" tactics to delay his execution and that he should die as scheduled. (source: Tampa Bay Times) ********************** Attorneys for Florida inmate argue for execution delay Attorneys for a condemned inmate in Florida are scheduled to argue that his execution should be delayed after the U.S. Supreme Court found the state's death penalty system to be unconstitutional. Tuesday's arguments are scheduled before the Florida Supreme Court, and Michael Lambrix is scheduled to die by lethal injection Feb. 11. Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi's office argues that Lambrix should be executed as scheduled. Lambrix was sentenced to death for the 1983 slayings of two people he met at a bar. Prosecutors said he killed them after inviting them home for a spaghetti dinner. The U.S. Supreme Court found Florida's death penalty system flawed because it allows judges, not juries, to decide death sentences. Lambrix's attorneys want the state to give their client a new sentencing hearing. (source: Associated Press) ************************************* Multiple Jacksonville death-penalty cases returning to court this week The confusing and uncertain status of the death penalty in Florida will be the focus of multiple hearings and oral arguments this week in Jacksonville and Tallahassee. Days after Gov. Rick Scott signed the death warrant of Florida white supremacist Mark Asay, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the state's death-penalty procedures are unconstitutional. But as of right now, Asay is still scheduled to be executed on St. Patrick's Day. Defense attorneys for Asay are saying he cannot be executed because of the Supreme Court ruling, and that issue was the focus of a hearing Monday morning in Jacksonville. Prosecutors say the ruling doesn't preclude Asay's execution because the crime, conviction and appeals occurred well before any Supreme Court ruling occurred. A similar argument could occur Tuesday for Donald James Smith, who is charged with the rape and murder of 8-year-old Cherish Perrywinkle. Smith has not been convicted of the crime and his attorneys will argue that he cannot face a possible death sentence since the state no longer has constitutional death-penalty procedures. It's unclear if Smith's argument will occur Tuesday or if Senior Circuit Judge Mallory Cooper will set another date. The Supreme Court ruling found that Florida's death-penalty procedures violated the U.S. Constitution because the final decision on whether someone gets sentenced to death rests with the judge. Justices said that decision must be made by a jury. Meanwhile, the Florida Supreme Court will consider the convictions and sentences of Jacksonville death row inmates Raymond Curtis Bright and Jacob Dougan this week. Bright's oral argument is Tuesday while Dougan's will be Wednesday. Bright's death-penalty sentence was thrown out, but his conviction was upheld after the trial judge found that his lawyers did an incompetent job defending him during the penalty phase of his trial. Dougan, who has been on death row for over 40 years, had his conviction and death sentence thrown out over allegations that his trial lawyer was sleeping with Dougan's sister and that prosecutors did not reveal the full nature of agreements they made with a co-defendant who testified against Dougan. The U.S. Supreme Court will factor into the cases of Bright and Dougan, with lawyers for both likely to argue that the ruling precludes the state from executing them. The planned Feb. 11 execution of Glades County resident Cary Lambrix also is being discussed before the Florida Supreme Court Tuesday, and whatever the justices decide with Lambrix could have an impact on Asay, Bright and Dougan. Lambrix, 55, has been on death row for 31 years following his conviction in the killings of a man and a woman in Glades County in 1983. During Monday's hearing Asay's lawyer Martin McClain argued that no death-penalty execution could go forward because the state has no death-penalty procedure. But prosecutors disagreed and said the U.S. Supreme Court ruling was not retroactive, meaning that people already sentenced to death can be executed. McClain also argued that he needs more time to come up with a proper defense for Asay because he was only appointed to the case last month. Monday he argued that he needed more time to look into claims that Asay may not have been the shooter, as well as examine Asay's mental health. Assistant Attorney General Charmaine Millsaps argued that Asay has had decades of appeals, and all arguments against his execution have been examined and found to be lacking. McClain also represents Lambrix and plans to be in Tallahassee for his appeal Tuesday morning. He will argue that Lambrix also cannot be executed because of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The Florida Supreme Court has instructed Jacksonville Circuit Judge Tatiana Salvador to issue a ruling on whether Asay gets a stay of execution by the end of the day Wednesday. That puts Salvador in a difficult situation because she doesn't know how the Supreme Court will rule in Lambrix's case. If her ruling conflicts with what the Supreme Court rules for Lambrix, Salvador's ruling will likely be overturned. After Salvador rules, her decision will go to Florida Supreme Court for review the 1st week of March. If Salvador and the Florida Supreme Court reject Asay's appeal, he is scheduled to be executed on March 17. Asay, 51, was convicted and sentenced to death for the murders of Robert Lee Booker and Robert McDowell in 1987. Both victims were black and McDowell was a cross-dressing prostitute. Dougan, 68, was convicted of killing 18-year-old Stephen Orlando in 1974. Prosecutors said Dougan, who is black, killed the white Orlando as part of a plot to start a race war. Circuit Judge Jean Johnson threw out Dougan's conviction and death sentence in 2013 after finding that his original trial attorney, Ernest Jackson, had a conflict of interest because he was having an affair with Dougan's sister, Thelma Turner, during the trial. Jackson later left his wife and married Turner. The judge also found that prosecutors hid evidence of a deal they had with another defendant in the case, William Lee Hearn, who testified against Dougan. Bright, 62, was convicted of bludgeoning Randall Brown, 16, and Derrick King III, 20, with a hammer in 2008. But Senior Circuit Judge Charles Arnold threw out the death sentence last year, citing concerns about the performance of trial attorneys Richard Kuritz and James Nolan, particularly about not looking into Bright's history of mental health and substance abuse. (source: jacksonville.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Feb 2 09:33:52 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2016 09:33:52 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, MO., KAN., S. DAK. Message-ID: Feb. 2 OHIO: Death penalty sought in officer's slaying A man accused of killing a Danville police officer and Newark native in January could potentially be put to death for his alleged crimes. Herschel R. Jones III, 32, was charged Monday in Knox County Common Pleas Court with aggravated murder with a death penalty specification. Knox County Prosecutor Chip McConville announced the charges Monday afternoon after a meeting with the grand jury earlier that day. Jones is accused of shooting Danville Officer Thomas Cottrell Jr. on Jan. 17 behind the Danville Municipal Building. Jones was located several hours later and arrested by police for a violation of his parole. Under Ohio law, killing a police officer is 1 of the aggravating factors for a potential death sentence. Jones also was indicted on charges of tampering with evidence; 3 counts of grand theft of a firearm; 1 count of grand theft of a motor vehicle; and charges of assault, kidnapping and aggravated burglary. Some of the charges date back to November 2015, when Jones is suspected of robbing a person at gunpoint in a home in the Mount Vernon area. McConville said a man woke up to find someone, wearing camouflage and a mask, inside the home. The victim was reportedly duct-taped and 2 firearms, a .380-caliber pistol and a .22-caliber revolver, were reported stolen. Jones was not able to be identified as the suspect in that robbery at the time. The victim identified a Jennings .380-caliber pistol recovered from Jones at the time of his arrest - following Cottrell's death - as being his, McConville said. Detectives said the .380-caliber weapon matched 2 shell casings recovered at the crime scene at the Danville Municipal Building. The weapon also matched 2 bullets, officials said: 1 recovered in Cottrell's cruiser and a 2nd recovered on Cottrell. Jones is suspected of stealing Cottrell's Ford Crown Victoria police cruiser and his firearm before fleeing the Municipal Building scene. Cottrell's 9 mm service weapon was recovered near Jones at the time of his arrest, officials said. Jones had reportedly tried to burn several items, including pieces of Cottrell's uniform, McConville said. The tampering with evidence charge is tied to that alleged action. According to reports, Jones' relatives had called his parole officer a week before Cottrell's death about allegations of drug use and domestic violence. In October, Jones' girlfriend had accused Jones of assaulting her and threatening to shoot a police officer and steal his uniform. Charges against Jones in that case were dismissed a short time later because the woman later recanted her story. The indictment filed Monday does include a charge of assault related to the victim in that case. The parole officer responsible for Jones' supervision has been placed on administrative leave, according to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Jones has a lengthy criminal history, including convictions for illegal assembly and receiving stolen property in 2012, receiving stolen property and burglary in 2009, breaking and entering and carrying a concealed weapon in 2008, breaking and entering and receiving stolen property in 2005, and intimidation and receiving stolen property in 2002. Knox County has not indicted a capital case since 2011, when Matthew J. Hoffman was charged with the deaths of three people and hiding their remains in a hollow tree. McConville said capital cases are lengthy, and he expects more than 100 motions to be filed in Jones' case, including motions for competency evaluations. Since Cottrell's death, Knox County law enforcement officers have been on edge. Danville Police Chief Daniel Weckesser said Monday a threat was posted on social media over the weekend that was directed at law enforcement personnel. Weckesser said the threat will be investigated, but it is not clear what agency will lead that investigation. Weckesser said the Danville Police Department has been overwhelmed with support in the days and weeks following Cottrell's death. He said the department had planned to make Cottrell a full-time officer in the "near future" and had hoped to make him a school resource officer once the resources were available. Jones is being held in the Morrow County Jail. He is expected to appear in Knox County for an arraignment at a later date. (source: Newark Advocate) MISSOURI: Missouri Corrections Head Defends Cash Payments Before State Legislature----Director George Lombardi was questioned about $250,000 in cash payments to executioners - all without disclosures to the Internal Revenue Service. The practice was revealed by BuzzFeed News last week. Days after BuzzFeed News revealed that the state of Missouri has paid $250,000 in cash payments to those who help the state carry out the death penalty, the head of the department of corrections defended the practice before a state budget committee. A high-ranking corrections official hands out envelopes filled with thousands of dollars in cash before each execution. The state does not disclose the payments to the Internal Revenue Service, as is required by federal tax law. Without filing a form called a 1099 with the IRS, the agency has no way of ensuring the recipients are paying taxes on the payments. Experts BuzzFeed News spoke with said the practice possibly violates the law, and that the state could be contributing to considerable tax evasion. Director George Lombardi could not point to an exemption that allowed the department to not issue 1099s, but said the policy was essential. "Is it your understanding that there is some sort of exemption for the department of corrections to skirt that federal requirement?" Rep. Jeremy LaFaver asked. "It is my understanding that giving 1099s to these individuals would reveal who they were, and would mean the end of the death penalty, because these individuals wouldn't do it," Lombardi said. "What we do is counsel those folks that they need to report that [to the IRS]," Lombardi said. "Is there a document that proves that?" the lawmaker continued. "No." "Is it in a written policy?" "No, it's just something we do." Lombardi seemed agitated that he was being questioned about the cash payments. At the beginning of the inquiry about it, Lombardi said "I don't intend to answer that question as it's under litigation." He also would not answer who is delivering the envelopes of cash, although BuzzFeed News has reported that it is David Dormire, the director of Adult Institutions. Lombardi also was questioned about a 2015 audit that criticized the department for not following its procedures on the cash payments. "The auditor was correct in calling us on that, and we changed it immediately," Lombardi said, adding that witnesses are now documenting the exchange. However, "confidential execution team member receipts" from well after the audit show discrepancies. Some are lacking a witness signature, others are entirely blank, and many of the witnesses signed the receipts on different days than Dormire. The department of corrections would not provide any explanation of the discrepancies. (source: BuzzFeedNews) KANSAS: Jury selection begins in quadruple murder in Kansas----Court administrator said at least 600 jury summons were sent Jury selection began Monday in the trial of a man accused in the 2013 killings of 4 people at a Kansas farm, including an 18-month-old girl. 2 weeks have been set aside to pick a jury for Kyle Trevor Flack's trial. He is charged with capital murder in Franklin County in the shooting deaths of Kaylie Smith Bailey, 21, and her young daughter, Lana-Leigh Bailey. He's also charged with 1st-degree murder in the deaths of Bailey's boyfriend, Andrew A. Stout, 30, and his roommate, Steven White, 31. Prosecutors have announced plans to seek the death penalty. District court administrator John Steelman said in an email that 600 jury summons were initially sent out. After examining questionnaires, 137 potential jurors were summoned to appear in groups of 6. The 4 victims were killed over several days in April and May of 2013. The bodies of the 3 adults were already decomposing when concerned friends and relatives summoned police to Stout's farm in Ottawa, about 50 miles southwest of Kansas City. A crime lab worker testified at Flack's preliminary hearing that Kaylie Bailey's wrists were tied behind her back with black zip ties, and she was naked from the waist down. Bailey's daughter's body was found a few days later in a suitcase in an Osage County creek. Authorities say Flack, who has been in custody since shortly after the bodies were discovered, was friends with Stout. At Flack's preliminary hearing, Franklin County Sheriff's Detective Jeremi Thompson testified that Flack told investigators before he was formally charged that Stout argued with White over rent and followed him to the garage carrying a shotgun. Flack told authorities that Stout fired on White, hitting him in the chest, and then handed the gun to Flack. "I shot him, he dies," the investigator said Flack told him. Thompson said Flack then said he and Stout put a tarp over White's body and placed cinder blocks on the tarp before they went back in the house to smoke marijuana. Flack previously served prison time for shooting a former employer in 2005 after being fired, according to court records. (source: Capital Journal Online) SOUTH DAKOTA: SD Death Penalty Repeal Up For Debate A retired circuit judge who presided over a death penalty case has found 2 dozen fellow South Dakota legislators joining his effort so far to end executions in the state. District 17 Sen. Art Rusch (R-Vermillion) has filed Senate Bill 94 as its prime sponsor. Rusch presided over the retrial of Donald Moeller in the 1990 rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl. Moeller was found guilty and sentenced to death in the 1997 retrial. He was executed in 2012 by lethal injection. Rusch's current legislation would go further than past efforts to repeal the death penalty. His bill would commute current death sentences to a life sentence without the possibility of parole. "I am the 1st legislator in the history of the state of South Dakota who has personally tried a death penalty case and sentenced a man to die," he told the Press & Dakotan in a previous interview. "Doing that (experience) changes how one looks at the death penalty. It's too hard on the people who have to participate in it - it's too expensive - and it doesn't work." Rusch also questioned the deterrent effect and fair use of capital punishment. "The only people who have been executed in South Dakota are the murderers who use it to commit suicide," he said at the time. "The others, who don't want to be executed, aren't being executed." District 30 Rep. Timothy Johns (R-Lead), also a former circuit judge, is the bill's prime sponsor on the House side. Johns brings a great deal of credibility in seeking to overturn the death penalty, Rusch told the Press & Dakotan this weekend. "Although he never personally tried a death penalty case, (Johnson) certainly saw the experience in Lawrence County where they had such expense for their 3 cases," Rusch said. "And (he) is generally familiar with the criminal justice system and would know how ineffective the death penalty is as far as deterring future conduct." Rusch said his effort has already drawn the backing of nearly 1/4 of the Legislature. The repeal legislation has been sponsored or co-sponsored by nine Senate and 15 House members, representing 24 of 105 lawmakers in the 2 chambers. "We were able to get 22 additional sponsors to sign on, for a total of 24. The bill is set for hearing on February 10 before the Senate State Affairs committee," Rusch said. "I suspect we have an uphill battle on this (effort). Hopefully, people who are opposed to the death penalty will contact their legislators and let them know what their feelings are." The Rusch and Johns bills have received bipartisan support, the retired Vermillion judge noted. Besides Rusch, the southeast South Dakota legislators co-sponsoring the bill include District 17 Rep. Ray Ring (D-Vermillion), District 18 Sen. Bernie Hunhoff (D-Yankton), District 19 Rep. Kyle Schoenfish (R-Scotland), District 21 Sen. Billie Sutton (D-Burke) and District 21 Rep. Julie Bartling (D-Gregory). Even if the death penalty repeal passes the Republican-dominated Legislature, the measure seems headed for a veto by Republican Gov. Dennis Daugaard. "I don't support repeal (of the death penalty)," Daugaard said during a Press & Dakotan interview. The governor said he found some crimes so depraved and heinous that they deserve capital punishment. South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley couldn't be reached for comment Monday. However, he has previously told the Press & Dakotan he supports keeping capital punishment, which was reinstated in South Dakota in1979. He argues the death penalty is needed for vile crimes. "South Dakota has imposed capital punishment on only the most dangerous defendants," he said at the time. "These are individuals who not only visited unspeakable suffering to their victims but who also pose a serious risk of future harm to South Dakota citizens." Hunhoff, who has led past efforts to ban the death penalty, said the current effort will hopefully gain new momentum. "A lot of people have taken notice that judges like Senator Rusch as well as 2 of South Dakota's previous attorneys general are now strongly opposed to the death penalty," he said. "It doesn't fit South Dakota's values of respecting life. The thought that we can kill our way to a better society is misguided." The only justification for the death penalty would be that it might be a deterrent, Hunhoff said. "But any reasonable review of the statistics shows the opposite is probably true. It coarsens the values of a society," the Yankton lawmaker said. "States without the death penalty are generally less violent. And worldwide, countries that still impose the death penalty are some of the cruelest places to live - (places) like China, North Korea, Iran and Iraq." Hunhoff argued it's impossible to impose the death penalty in a fair manner. He added that some death row inmates were wrongly executed and later exonerated. "Race has been a factor in South Dakota. And long ago, we even hanged an innocent man," he said. "Government makes mistakes even in the best circumstances." Hunhoff noted both Rusch and Johns are highly respected retired judges who have taken leadership on the death penalty issue. This year's legislation has also gained bipartisan co-sponsors, he added. "So I'm hopeful we can have a good discussion in the 2016 Legislature," Hunhoff added. On the Republican side, Schoenfish has signed as co-sponsor of the death penalty repeal on financial and political grounds. "The death penalty requires a tremendous use of taxpayer dollars and a great deal of power entrusted to the government to carry it out," he said. "The death penalty is arbitrary and may not be one of the most efficient aspects of government, as the number of people executed every year is very small compared to the number of people actually on death row. While it is an emotionally charged issue, an evidence-based, cost-benefit debate on it is appropriate." The Press & Dakotan also sought comment from Ring, Sutton and Bartling but had not received responses by the deadline for this story. The death penalty issue cuts across the political and religious spectrum of the Legislature. As one example, District 18 Rep. Mike Stevens (R-Yankton) has dealt with the death penalty in the courtroom as well as in the Legislature. The Yankton attorney has represented an individual charged with 1st-degree murder and facing the death penalty. Ultimately, the case resulted in a plea bargain. Stevens previously told the Press & Dakotan he supports the South Dakota death penalty as it is currently implemented. He doesn't see the South Dakota Legislature moving to repeal capital punishment. Hunhoff credits Denny Davis, a Catholic deacon from the Vermillion area, with spearheading the repeal effort through his work with the group, South Dakotans For An Alternative to the Death Penalty. Davis, in turn, credits Rusch for stepping forward and sponsoring SB 94. "I think Art Rusch is a big plus this year because he is a credible witness to the psychological damage death cases do to all those involved," Davis said. "Judges, juries, defense and prosecuting attorneys - deciding who lives or dies is not something anyone wants to decide. Judge Rusch presided over a death case in South Dakota, so he has first-hand experience." Johns, as a retired West River judge, also brings credibility to the House bill, Davis said. Davis isn't sure about the impact of an election year on legislators' votes. He does expect an uphill battle in repealing the death penalty. "Will it be easier this year? I don't know," he said. "Obviously, the governor's support on this issue would mean a lot, (because) it would take a majority to override a veto. If we could get it to that level, I'm not sure this Legislature would challenge him." Davis challenged legislators to overturn the death penalty in South Dakota. "Death cases are more expensive than life in prison," he said. "If this Legislature says it is pro-life, then that means all of life, not just the unborn." The time may be right for change, Davis said. "I think we have a chance this year to end the barbaric practice. I pray it will happen," he said. Rusch referred to the Catholic Church's leader as an inspiration for abolishing capital punishment. "Pope Francis has designated 2016 as the Year of Mercy," Rusch said. "I can't think of a better thing to do this year than repeal the death penalty." (source: Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Feb 2 09:34:36 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2016 09:34:36 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 2 IRAN: http://www.iranhrdc.org/english/publications/human-rights-data/chart-of-executions/1000000620-ihrdc-chart-of-executions-by-the-islamic-republic-of-iran-2016.html ******************* The Execution Of 12 Prisoners In Rajai Shahr Prison Postponed For The 2nd Time For the 2nd time in 2 weeks, the execution of 12 prisoners of Rajai Shahr Prison was halted, and the prisoners were sent from solitary confinement back to the ward. According to the report of Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRANA), these prisoners, who have been charged with murder and sentenced to death (retaliation in kind), were transferred to solitary confinement for the implementation of the sentences. This group of 12 prisoners had been transferred to solitary confinement previously on the 13th of January, but were taken back as the executions were postponed. Hossein Moini, Naser Karim-Nejhad, Mehdi Kahe, Reza Teymouri, Javad Sadeghi, Ebad Mohammadi, Mostafa Ejlali, Sajjad Nemati, Javad Mozafari, Mohammadreza Abbasi and an inmate with the 1st name Anoush, are among the announced prisoners who were sent to solitary confinements. The authorities and judiciary organs have not announced anything about the dossiers and the reason for the repeated dispatch of these prisoners to the solitary confinements. (source: Human Rights Activists News Agency) JAPAN----film Criterion Tackles the Death Penalty with Nagisa Oshima's DEATH BY HANGING The Criterion Collection has been good to Japanese provocateur Nagisa Oshima. His celebrated, explicit-sex shocker In The Realm of the Senses (along with its sorta-sequel, Empire of Passion) have seen disc from the company, and Criterion has also released a shotgun blast of his 1960s films via their lower-fi Eclipse series. Now Oshima's 1968 film, Death By Hanging, joins the collection as spine #798. It's not a title I was familiar with prior to now, but I had a great time familiarizing myself with it in this format, and am surprised there isn't more conversation about this film and its seemingly inexhaustible formal daring. (As the liner notes themselves point out: with Death By Hanging alongside 2001, If..., Once Upon a Time in the West and Rosemary's Baby among others, 1968 was one hell of a year for filmmaking, wasn't it?) Shot in high-contrast black and white almost entirely in a single, deceptively elaborate set, Death By Hanging pops off the screen on Criterion's blu-ray, as Oshima charts a strange, spiral-shaped course through his story. The setup is nicely high concept. Tasked with executing a convicted criminal named R, a group of prison officials go about their grisly business right up until the moment when R sort of, uh, fails to die. "R'S BODY REFUSES TO BE EXECUTED," the first of a series of cheekily metaphysical intertitles asserts. This kicks off an all-points legal quandary, as the prison officials, lawyers, magistrates and witnesses attempt to determine the precise logistics around re-executing someone who has, technically, already been executed. The scenario opens up an odd theological point as well, as the Catholic chaplain asserts that having already received last rites, R's soul has been forgiven and is on its way to heaven - and that from a certain point of view, therefore, R's body is exempt responsibility for the crimes for which R was being put to death in the first place. As a point of satire, this would be more than enough to make a meal of, but Oshima has barely gotten started. The prison officials begin attempting to revive R's memory of the crimes he has committed (he has post-strangulation amnesia) through increasingly elaborate - and, by necessity, appalling - pantomime and role-play. We learn that R raped and murdered two women; and then watch in gruesome fascination as the other men (lead by an unhinged Education Chief) reenact the details of both rapes, first with reluctance, and then with greater and greater diabolical gusto. As all this unfolds, we delve into a further layer: R is of Korean descent, a minority culture in Japan. The conversation becomes racially charged and inherently bigoted (instructed to "act more Korean," one of the players immediately mimes whipping out his penis and urinating all over the rest of the group). As the common consensus among the men begins to fracture, we watch this ad-hoc society strenuously attempt to maintain the institutional othering that people like R have had to face in Japanese society. Poverty and crime are linked, as are R's displacement from "proper" society" and his dissociative fantasies of achieving something like a normal life. It's an uncommonly rich broth of ideas. By the third act, furthermore, the rules of what you or I would call "reality" have been firmly... well, if not thrown out altogether, at least thoroughly questioned. The film clips along as questions of class, race, gender and citizenship double back on themselves over and over again. State-sanctioned murder - capital punishment and war - are consciously linked, monetized, and gendered. It's an eerily relatable piece of filmmaking in 2016, revolving as it does around how wealth disparity and criminalization work together to enforce social rules, all set against a painfully contemporary question of immigration and assimilation whose argument has, sadly, only strengthened with time. While Criterion's audio-visual presentation of Death By Hanging is excellent, I have to point out that the supplemental content is surprisingly thin this time around. The most interesting extra on the disc is a 25-minute documentary film by Oshima called Diary of Yunbogi, which also deals with the Korean immigration question, through 1st-person narration and a series of still photographs taken by the director himself. There's also a half-hour interview with Asian cinema critic Tony Rayns, who does a good job of positioning Death By Hanging amidst the haphazard independent entries in the director's 1960s output. You'll be digging out your Eclipse box set of Oshima's Outlaw Sixties as soon as you put Death By Hanging on the shelf, to follow his inquiry into anti-Korean racism into Three Resurrected Drunkards and Sing a Song of Sex. Additionally, at this point I think it's time to say farewell to the Criterion Collection's printed insert booklet. They seem to have moved permanently to single-page fold-outs, which still puts them ahead of every other DVD racket in the market, who have abandoned liner notes altogether; but still feels a bit cheap and awkward, even if you're only likely to read the essays once. Nonetheless, Howard Hampton's piece here - along with Oshima's own director's statement from 1968 - is well worth a look. (source: twitchfilm.com) BANGLADESH: Bangladesh hands death penalty to 2 war criminals A special tribunal court in Dhaka has sentenced two war crimes convicts to death over crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971. 4 out of 6 charges pressed against Obaidul Haque Taher and Ataur Rahman Nani razakars of Netrakona, The Daily Star reported. According to the 2 charges that earned Taher, 66, and Nani, 62, death penalty, they were accompanied by other razakars and the Pakistan army attacked Laufa village under Barhatta Police Station on October 19, 1971, and detained 10 people. 7 of the detainees were later shot dead while one survived with bullet injuries and 2 were freed. The razakars also raped women there. Between November 15 and 16, the duo along with other razakars detained 7 people. (source: Free Press Journal) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Feb 2 13:13:05 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2016 13:13:05 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, GA., FLA., MO., NEB. Message-ID: Feb. 2 TEXAS: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Execution Stays Granted Doubled Last Year Texas' highest criminal court halted more executions in 2015 than in any of the last 9 years, which some legal experts say is a sign of a legal shift in the nation's most active death penalty state. The state has garnered a reputation for having a record number of executions to occur year after year throughout history. Even with the noticeable decline in executions, the number that occurred in 2015 was still higher than in any other state nationwide. Of the 28 executions that took place in 2015 across the United States, 13 occurred in Texas. "There are many legal and cultural explanations for why Texas executes far more people than any other state and is doing so at a pace that has no parallel in the modern era of the death penalty in the U.S ... Texas has become ground zero for capital punishment. Between 1976 (when the Supreme Court lifted its prohibition on the death penalty) and 1998 Texas executed 167 people. Next in rank was Virginia which executed 60 during the same period." Reports also say that in 2015, the state's high court granted stays to 8 inmates who had been sentenced to be executed, which is the highest number reported since 2007. According to Texas criminal appeals lawyer Mick Mickelsen, execution stays are critical for inmates who may be entitled to a different outcome than warranted by an initial trial. Says the Dallas based criminal defense lawyer, "statistics show that Texas has been a national leader in the number of exonerations of defendants who were wrongfully convicted. There is no turning back once someone has been executed, therefore it is important that defendants are given every reasonable chance to have a proper and thorough review of their case during appeal." A Changing Landscape for Texas Criminal Appeals? The recent reports have led some to now question whether changing attitudes on a national scale will influence changes in the Texas legal system in the years to come. Some experts suggest the dramatic increase in Texas execution stays may be in part due to new members being appointed to the state's Court of Criminal Appeals. Others say a national shift in attitudes may also be having an impact. Lee Kovarsky, a University of Maryland law professor, is quoted by the AP as stating of the issue "I strongly suspect that the (Court of Criminal Appeals) would still rank very close to the pole representing the least hospitable areas, although the spectrum itself may have shifted a little ... I think the drift of the court is certainly toward a little bit more caution in allowing executions to go forward." (source: digitaljournal.com) GEORGIA----new execution date Georgia Set to Execute Former Navy Sailor Later This Month A former Navy crewman convicted of killing a fellow sailor in central Georgia is scheduled to be executed later this month, state corrections officials said Tuesday. Travis Hittson, 45, will be put to death by injection of pentobarbital at 7 p.m. Feb. 17, Department of Corrections Commissioner Homer Bryson said in a news release. On Monday, Houston Judicial Circuit Chief Judge George F. Nunn Jr. had set an execution window beginning at noon Feb. 17 and ending at noon Feb. 24. Hittson was convicted in February 1993 of malice murder in the death of Conway Utterbeck. Hittson was a 21-year-old Navy crewman stationed in Pensacola, Florida, in April 1992 when he and Utterbeck went with a third sailor, Edward Vollmer, to Vollmer's parents' home in Warner Robins for a weekend, according to court filings. Prosecutors have said Hittson told investigators that the second night they were there, he and Vollmer went to several bars while Utterbeck remained at the house. As they drove back to the house, Vollmer said Utterbeck planned to kill them and they should "get" him first, prosecutors have said. Vollmer gave Hittson an aluminum baseball bat and entered the home, where Utterbeck was sleeping, prosecutors said. On Vollmer's instructions, Hittson hit Utterbeck several times in the head with the bat and then dragged him into the kitchen where Vollmer was waiting, according to prosecutors. Hittson told investigators that Utterbeck screamed, "Travis, whatever have I did to you?" according to court filings. Vollmer stepped on Utterbeck's hand and Hittson shot him in the head, prosecutors have said. About 2 hours later, Vollmer said they needed to cut up Utterbeck's body to get rid of the evidence, prosecutors said. Hittson told investigators they used a hacksaw to cut off Utterbeck's hands, head and feet but that he became sick after removing a hand and Vollmer finished dismembering the body, according to prosecutors. The 2 then packed Utterbeck's remains in garbage bags and buried his torso in Houston county, prosecutors said. They then cleaned up Vollmer's parents' home, hid the baseball bat in the shed and drove back to Pensacola, where they buried the rest of Utterbeck's remains, prosecutors said. A woman saw a black Ford Thunderbird with Florida license plates leaving a little-used dirt road in Houston County and noted the tag number because it seemed suspicious to her. When loggers found Utterbeck's torso in June 1992, police determined the car the woman had seen belonged to Vollmer. Investigators questioned a number of Utterbeck's fellow sailors. When Hittson was questioned, he gave a statement that implicated him and Vollmer and then told investigators where Utterbeck's body parts were buried. He and Vollmer were arrested. Hittson was convicted of malice murder, aggravated assault, possession of firearm during the commission of a crime and theft by taking. He was sentenced to death for the malice murder conviction. Vollmer reached a plea deal and is serving a life sentence. He was denied parole in 1999 and again last year. Reconsideration of his case is set for 2020, parole board spokesman Steve Hayes said in an email. (source: Associated Press) *************** Georgia Supreme Court denies stay of Brandon Astor Jones execution In a 5-to-2 decision, the Supreme Court of Georgia has denied a stay of execution for convicted murderer Brandon Astor Jones. Jones is scheduled to be put to death at 7 p.m. today by lethal injection at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. Jones, 72, was sentenced to death in Cobb County for the 1979 murder of Roger Tackett, who was the manager of a Tenneco gas station and convenience store that Jones and his co-defendant, Van Roosevelt Solomon, broke into after hours while Tackett was doing paperwork. Solomon was executed in 1985, the court statement said. In addition to denying Jones' motion for a stay of execution, the high court has also denied his request to appeal a ruling Friday by the Butts County Superior Court. The Superior Court both denied his motion for a stay and dismissed his claim that the execution would be unconstitutionally "cruel and unusual" and "an arbitrary and disproportionately severe sentence." Justices Robert Benham and Carol Hunstein dissented with today's ruling. (source: Albany Herald) FLORIDA: Lawyer for Callaway mom accused of murdering her son claim death penalty is unconstitutional A Callaway mom accused of murdering her toddler late last year makes another appearance in court where her attorney claims in a court filing the death penalty is now unconstitutional in Florida. 27-year-old Egypt Robinson is charged with 1st degree murder and aggravated child abuse in the death of her 3-year-old son Aries Juan Acevedo. Acevedo's body was found by Bay County Sheriff's Office investigators wrapped in a sheet stuffed in a suitcase behind a Callaway home in late December. Investigators say Robinson confessed to her roommate that she killed her son. Prosecutors have announced their intention to seek the death penalty for Robinson, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Robinson's attorney, Kimberly Jewell, has asked the court to strike the state's notice of intent to seek the death penalty. Jewell says a recent United States Supreme Court ruling makes the death penalty unconstitutional in Florida. In its recent ruling, he Supreme Court said the way Florida sentences offenders to death is unconstitutional because it gives to much power to judges and not enough consideration to a jury's wishes. The ruling didn't strike down the death penalty, just the way its imposed. Circuit Judge Michael Overstreet did not issue an immediate ruling to Jewell's motion. Robinson's next court date is set for March 7th. (source: WJHG news) ************* Supreme Court Ruling Has Florida Scrambling to Fix Death Penalty Law In the wake of a United States Supreme Court decision that struck down part of Florida's capital punishment law, the State Legislature and courts are grappling with proposals that could significantly change how criminals are sentenced to death in a state with 1 of the nation's most crowded death rows. For now, the ruling has closed the state's pathway to death row: Death penalty prosecutions are stalled, and state lawmakers are hustling to write and pass a new death penalty law before their session ends in 6 weeks. Also in question is whether the 390 inmates awaiting execution in Florida will remain on death row or be resentenced to life in prison. As of last week, more than 40 inmates had appeals pending. The Florida Supreme Court has set a hearing on Tuesday to consider whether the Supreme Court's Jan. 12 decision striking down part of the state's death penalty law is retroactive. At the same time, Florida's highest court approved the Feb. 11 execution of Cary Michael Lambrix, whose appeals had run out before the Supreme Court decision. Another inmate's execution is slated for March. Already, 1 Pinellas County judge has told prosecutors they cannot pursue capital punishment in a coming 1st-degree murder trial because Florida currently has no death penalty. In the State Capitol, the Republican-controlled Legislature is debating how best to change Florida's unorthodox law, with some pushing for a thorough overhaul to blunt future legal challenges and others vying for an easy fix that would simply address the court's narrow ruling. The Legislature has refused for years to address the law's numerous constitutional frailties - namely that it requires only a simple majority of a 12-person jury to recommend a death sentence to a judge - despite the urging of the Florida Supreme Court to do so a decade ago, said Raoul G. Cantero, a former state justice who has called for change. Florida, a state that enthusiastically embraces the death penalty, is second only to California in the number of death row inmates, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The Florida governor, Rick Scott, issues death warrants routinely. But the state also leads the country in death row exonerations, with 26, something that critics of Florida's law said could be traced to the death penalty statute. In its ruling, the Supreme Court found that Florida's death penalty system gave too much power to judges and not enough to juries, a violation of the Sixth Amendment. The decision rested on one point of the Florida law: To recommend a death sentence, a jury must agree on at least one aggravating factor, a circumstance that makes the murder so horrific that it merits putting the killer to death rather than imposing a prison sentence. The aggravating factor could be that the crime was especially heinous or that it was committed after substantial premeditation. But Florida is the only state in the country that does not require a jury to unanimously agree on aggravating factors. Jurors here also do not tell the judge which factors they chose. So after a jury makes its recommendation, the judge can hand down a death sentence based on different aggravating factors altogether, an anomaly that the Supreme Court ruled was unconstitutional. In the court's majority opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that "the Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death." She added that allowing judges to find aggravating factors "independent of a jury's fact-finding" made the system in Florida unconstitutional. It is one provision the Legislature must fix if it is to reinstitute the death penalty here. "This is the issue most observers of the capital system saw as unconstitutional for a number of years," said Scott E. Sundby, a University of Miami law professor who is an authority on capital punishment. Even with that fix, Florida would still provide the easiest procedural path to a death sentence, Mr. Sundby said. Under Florida's system, the jury provides only a recommendation to the judge and a recommendation of death does not have to be unanimous. Alabama and Delaware are the only other states that do not require a unanimous jury verdict in death penalty sentences. Delaware and Florida require a simple majority; Alabama requires a supermajority, a vote of at least 10 to 2. The 3 states are also the only ones that allow judges to override recommendations for life in prison and impose the death penalty. The Supreme Court opinion for Florida did not weigh in on the issue of unanimous or advisory juries. But legal experts said those issues make the law vulnerable to constitutional challenge. "This is your opportunity," said O. H. Eaton Jr., a retired Florida judge and death penalty expert. "If you fix those problems, then you will have as good a death penalty law as any in the country." If not, Mr. Eaton warned, "a different problem but the same song comes up again and we would end up clearing out death row." A recent investigation by The Villages Daily Sun newspaper found that Florida juries failed to agree unanimously on death sentences in 75 % of the state's 390 death row cases. It also found that only 43 % of the prisoners would have been sentenced to death under a 10-to-2 supermajority jury vote. One important unanswered question is whether the Supreme Court's ruling will affect the inmates on death row here. It is possible that dozens of those whose appeals are still pending could see their death sentences reduced to life in prison, legal experts say. For now, the state's death row numbers will not grow. Capital cases that are in the pipeline are being delayed until the law is sorted out, possibly by March, when the legislative session ends, lawyers said. State lawmakers are arguing passionately about how far to go in rewriting the law, with the Senate leaning toward requiring unanimous death verdicts by juries and the more conservative House tilting toward requiring a supermajority jury vote of at least 9 to 3 for a death sentence recommendation. The Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association favors requiring a supermajority of jurors, not a simple majority, to agree on death verdicts. Aggravating factors, though, would need to be decided unanimously, said Glenn Hess, the president of the association. Some, though, said that political motives were preventing a more thorough overhaul that would require unanimous jury verdicts for death sentences. State Senator Thad Altman, a Republican who has tried for years to change the law, said unanimity required greater deliberation by jurors, which was only fitting for a death sentence. If convicting criminals in Florida required a unanimous jury, condemning them to death should be no different, he said. "The Legislature here is very pro-death penalty," Mr. Altman said. "They don't want to be perceived as being soft on crime in any way and make it more difficult to sentence someone to death." (source: New York Times) ***************** SCOTUS Decision Leaves Florida Death Row Inmates in Limbo A recent SCOTUS decision leaves Florida death row inmates in limbo and the state without a death penalty law. On Tuesday, the Florida Supreme Court held a hearing to see whether the decision would apply to pending executions, as well. The recent Supreme Court ruling could change the way Florida sends inmates to the death row for good. Florida, which has the 2nd-most crowded death row in the nation, after California, sentences inmates to death by a judge's decision, not by an unanimous jury decision as in other states. This is why, U.S. justices concluded that Florida's death penalty legislation is at odds with the Sixth Amendment. As a result, the Sunshine State's lawmakers will be struggling to come up with a new method to sentence convicts to death in the next 6 weeks, before their session expires. In the meantime, lawmakers and courts need to decide whether the 390 people on the death row would continue to stay there or have their sentences commuted to life in prison. About 40 inmates have an ongoing appeal. But for 2 inmates the situation is critical. Cary Michael Lambrix, 55, who has spent 31 years on the death row, is slated to be executed Feb. 11. Plus, he can no longer appeal because all his appeals ran out before the SCOTUS ruling. Another inmate waits to be executed in March under the old death penalty law. In Pinellas County, a court ruled that death penalty cannot be applied to an incoming murder case because the state currently lacks a death penalty law. Lambrix asked the state's top court to block his execution on Tuesday. The 55-year-old Florida man landed on the death row after being sentenced for a double murder he committed in 1984. According to court papers, he killed a couple during a visit at his trailer. The Governor issued his death warrant last fall, and he is expected to die by lethal shot next Thursday. In January, the state's top court refused to block his execution, but allowed him oral arguments after the Supreme Court ruling on Jan. 12, 2016. The inmate admitted that he killed the man visiting his trailer but only in self-defense. Reportedly, the victim assaulted the woman and Lambrix tried to protect her. His attorneys also said that he might be innocent since prosecution didn't include DNA tests on samples from the victims' clothing and the murder weapon. (source: councilchronicle.com) ******************* Attorneys for Donald Smith ask death penalty sentence to be off table Attorneys are asking that the death penalty sentence be taken off the table for accused killer Donald Smith. Smith appeared in court Tuesday morning. He is accused of kidnapping, raping and killing 8-year-old Cherish Perrywinkle more than 2 years ago. Lawmakers in Tallahassee Tuesday began the discussion on how to move forward with the death penalty system in Florida. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the current system unconstitutional because it gives the judge a final say on the death penalty instead of the jury. Bills introduced by State Sen. Thad Altman and Rep. Jose Javer Rodriguez would require a unanimous vote from jurors. If those bills pass and Smith is found guilty of his crimes, a jury could decide to put him to death. There are about 390 inmates in Florida on death row. (source: actionnewsjax.com) MISSOURI: Obeying Tax Law "Would Mean the End of the Death Penalty," Missouri Official Testifies A secretive circle of drug suppliers, doctors and nurses could be subverting U.S. tax law while carrying out state executions, but that's no problem as far as Missouri Department of Corrections director George Lombardi is concerned. In fact, during a tense budget hearing yesterday in Jefferson City, Lombardi admitted that his executioners wouldn't do their jobs if it meant getting a 1099 form accessible to the IRS. And that would be a bad thing, presumably, because Missouri can't kill people without relying on anonymous executioners who get paid with cash-stuffed envelopes. "It is my understanding that giving 1099s to these individuals would reveal who they were, and would mean the end of the death penalty, because these individuals wouldn't do it," Lombardi said, responding to questions from State Representative Rep. Jeremy LaFaver (D-Kansas City). LaFaver's questions were triggered by a Buzzfeed News investigation from former St. Louis Public Radio reporter Chris McDaniel. McDaniel reported that the state corrections department had handed out more than $250,000 in cash to executioners since November 2013, all of it seemingly in violation of federal tax law. Without vendors being issued 1099 forms, the IRS has no way of tracking recipients who'd be required to pay taxes on their payments - one reason just about every single business in America a) refuses to pay its contractors cash, and b) gives them a 1099. Not the Missouri DOC. Apparently, the people participating in executions insist on being paid under the table to avoid generating the type of public records that would make them identifiable to the public - and the state goes right along with it. During the hearing, Lombardi explained that executioners are considered private contractors and paid in cash, but he could not identify a policy that allowed the department to ignore the 1099s. Lombardi added that his staff counsels executioners to report their cash payments to the IRS, but clarified that the practice is not reflected in any policy. "It's just something we do," Lombardi said. Granted, quibbling over tax law can often seem petty and pedantic. But at the same time, Monday's hearing showcased the kind of legal and moral contortions that keep Missouri's capital punishment machine chugging along. Many observers, including some Missouri Republicans, don't like what they see. Toward the end of the hearing, LaFaver questioned Dave Dormire, the prison official whose name appears on confidential memorandums requesting cash payments for executioners. LaFaver asked why the payments aren't reflected in the department's budget. "We don't include a whole lot of things that are expenses; we try to hit the highlights of the major items," Dormire said. Questioned further, Dormire couldn't identify another example of an expense not included in the budget. "I respectfully submit and request that executing somebody, it's a big deal," LaFaver shot back. "If we're going to spend money to do that, I think it should be included in the description, that this is the area of the budget where money goes in envelopes in cash to kill people. Maybe worded differently, I understand you probably would. I probably wouldn't." (source: River Front Times) NEBRASKA: Judge rejects legal action in Nebraska death-penalty vote A Lancaster County judge has rejected a lawsuit challenging the death-penalty question going to Nebraska voters in November, but has also prevented a pro-death penalty group from being part of another suit challenging ballot wording. The Lincoln Journal-Star reports (http://bit.ly/1nKtQZL ) that judge Lori Maret issued orders Friday dismissing the case brought by death penalty opponents Christy and Richard Hargesheimer. She also dismissed a motion by Nebraskans for the Death Penalty to intervene in another suit filed by attorney Lyle Koenig of Beatrice. The Hargesheimers' suit sought to keep Secretary of State John Gale from placing the question on the ballot. They said the process shouldn't be valid because it failed to disclose Gov. Pete Ricketts as a sponsor. The argument in their case largely came down to who qualifies as a sponsor of a petition, which isn't defined in statutes. The Hargesheimers' attorney, Alan Peterson, argued that Ricketts should be included in the language because Nebraska law requires a sworn list of every person sponsoring a referendum. Omaha attorney Steven Grasz, who represents Nebraskans for the Death Penalty in addition to Judy Glasburner, Aimee Melton and Bob Evnen, who are listed as petition sponsors, argued that sponsor refers to those who assume statutory responsibility for the referendum once the petition begins. Maret said she was persuaded by the argument that Ricketts wasn't required to be listed as a sponsor because Grasz's clients said they were willing to assume the statutory responsibilities once the petition process commenced. Koenig's issue with the question had to do with the title and explanatory statement Gale chose to appear on the ballot. Maret found that the group didn't file the motion within the time allowed to challenge the decision on wording or provide an alternative. (source: Associated Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Feb 2 13:14:16 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2016 13:14:16 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 2 BAHAMAS: Attorney General: Removing Privy Council A Major Task ATTORNEY General Allyson Maynard-Gibson yesterday said while The Bahamas is "obliged" to enforce the death penalty in accordance to law, the removal of the London-based Privy Council would require "serious consideration" and "extensive consultation" with the Bahamian people. Mrs Maynard-Gibson, speaking with students at the Eugene Dupuch Law School, suggested that while the country has an unfettered obligation to execute capital punishment as per the laws "on the books", the abandonment of the Privy Council - whose views have made it harder for hangings to be carried out in this country, is a decision that "no politician, no member of parliament should take on their own". She also said it is "challenging" to define "the worst of the worst" as related to criminal matters, citing the Privy Council's previous stance on whether convicted persons should receive the death penalty. The enforcement of capital punishment and the abandonment of the Privy Council as this country's highest court would seemingly go hand in hand, as it is the Privy Council that has served as an obstacle to The Bahamas carrying out the death penalty after declaring in 2006 that the country's mandatory death penalty upon a murder conviction was unconstitutional. In June 2011, the high court overturned Maxo Tido's death sentence in connection with the killing of 16-year-old Donnell Connover, whose body was found off Cowpen Road, battered and bruised and her skull crushed. There was additional evidence that parts of her body were burned after her death. But the Privy Council concluded that the murder was not an example of the "worst of the worst". Last week, retired Justice Neville Smith, QC called for the country to abandon the London-based Privy Council and establish its own final court of appeal. Justice Smith said the country should not allow itself to become a "hostage" to the Privy Council, arguing that the country would be much better served utilising a 2-tiered court system minus the Privy Council, with the Court of Appeal serving in its place. Justice Smith suggested that a 5-judge panel could be utilised for "more complex appeals". "I think that is something that cannot be done lightly; it's something that requires serious consideration and most importantly extensive consultation with the Bahamian people," Mrs Maynard-Gibson said yesterday. "The system of justice is here to serve our people, and that's a decision that no politician, no member of parliament, should take on their own." "Regarding capital punishment, Chief Justice Sir Hartman Longley said last month it would take a massacre similar to the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris for the death penalty to be imposed in The Bahamas. The attacks Sir Hartman referred to, which took place a year ago, resulted in the death of 12 people at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo when gunmen burst in and opened fire with Kalashnikov assault rifles. That prompted some, like Tall Pines MP Leslie Miller, to label Sir Hartman's line of thinking as "utterly ridiculous and stupid"; the firebrand MP also questioned "what world" Sir Hartman lives in. Democratic National Alliance leader Branville McCartney also asked "how many more must die" through violence before lawmakers do what is necessary to protect the public and carry out capital punishment. "Undoubtedly this is a real challenge," Mrs Maynard-Gibson said. "What I want to say is capital punishment is on the books of our country; it is a law of the land. When I had to go and defend our human rights record in Geneva in 2012, and I was under severe attack for us still having capital punishment on our books, I pointed out to those countries that were attacking the Bahamas, that every single one of those countries, bar none, has capital punishment on their books. "Think about the United States of America. Acts of terrorism, what's the punishment? Do I need to go on? It's on our books. Now it is challenging to define the worst of the worst. What we have to do, in my view, is keep pushing, keep pushing. Because it's easy for things to collapse when after a conviction or an appeal has been filed, it gets thrown back some place." She added: "We define law by making sure it gets before the courts and we give the courts an opportunity to make decisions and we respond to those decisions." In November 2011, parliament passed legislation to define the types of murder constituting the "worst of the worst" guidelines set out by the High Court. Despite this, Sean McWeeney, QC, chairman of the Constitutional Reform Commission, doubted whether the changes will matter to the Privy Council. Speaking on the matter in April 2013 in response to a question raised at the commission's 1st town hall meeting, Mr McWeeney said that "as long as the Privy Council remains your final court of appeal, it is extremely doubtful that you will ever be able to hang anyone". The last person executed in The Bahamas was David Mitchell in January 2000. (source: tribune242.com) ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwe top prosecutor charged with obstruction of justice in Mugabe bomb plot +++++++++++ Zimbabwe's Prosecutor General was on Tuesday charged with abuse of office and obstructing justice after he dropped a case against two men accused of plotting to bomb President Robert Mugabe's dairy farm, only for the 2 to turn state witness. Johannes Tomana, an avowed supporter of Mugabe and his ruling ZANU-PF party, is unpopular with the opposition for his zealous prosecution of anti-Mugabe activists when he was Attorney General from 2008 to 2013. Tomana, who was not asked to plead, faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. He was freed on $1,000 bail and ordered to surrender his passport. State prosecutor Timothy Makoni told a magistrates court that 1 army corporals, a retired soldier and a 4th man were arrested on Jan. 22 outside Mugabe's dairy farm north of the capital Harare and were found carrying ammonia and petrol bombs. The men were initially charged with possession of weaponry for sabotage and with money laundering for terrorism purposes. But Tomana freed 2 of them, who then turned state witnesses, in a decision the state said amounted to criminal abuse of office. On Tuesday, new treason charges were levelled against the 4. Makoni said the accused, who face the death penalty or life in prison, hatched a plan to set up a militia base to the west of Harare from where they planned to unseat Mugabe's government. Lawyer Thabani Mpofu said the new constitution passed in 2013, which created the post of prosecutor general, gave Tomana power over whom to prosecute. He said the court had no authority to try Tomana. Several political activists, including the main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, have in the past been tried for terrorism and treason but have been acquitted. (source: The Star) SAUDI ARABIA: Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh's death sentence quashed by Saudi court----Panel of judges downgrades punishment for apostasy conviction to 8 years in prison and 800 lashes A Saudi court has overturned the death sentence of a Palestinian poet accused of renouncing Islam, imposing an 8-year prison term and 800 lashes instead. He must also repent through an announcement in official media. The decision by a panel of judges came after Ashraf Fayadh's lawyer argued his conviction was seriously flawed because he was denied a fair trial. In a briefing on the verdict, Abdulrahman al-Lahem said the judgment revoked the death sentence but upheld that the poet was guilty of apostasy. In a memo posted on Twitter, Lahem details Fayadh's new punishment. He is sentenced to 8 years in prison and 800 lashes, to be carried out on 16 occasions, and must renounce his poetry on Saudi state media. Lahem welcomed the overturning of the death sentence but reaffirmed Fayadh's innocence and announced they would launch an appeal and ask for bail. Adam Coogle, a Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch, said: "Instead of beheading Ashraf Fayadh, a Saudi court has ordered a lengthy imprisonment and flogging. No one should face arrest for peacefully expressing opinions, much less corporal punishment and prison. Saudi justice officials must urgently intervene to vacate this unjust sentence." The author Irvine Welsh said: "When this twisted barbarism is thought of as a compromise, it's way past time western governments stopped dealing with this pervert regime." The death sentence imposed in November provoked a worldwide outcry. Hundreds of leading authors, artists and actors, including the director of Tate Modern, Chris Dercon, the British poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, and actor Helen Mirren, have appealed for his release. More than 60 international arts and human rights groups, including Amnesty International and the writers' association PEN International, have launched a campaign calling on the Saudi authorities and western governments to save him. Readings of his poetry in support of his case took place in 44 countries last week. Jo Glanville, the director of English PEN, which appealed for Fayadh's release, said: "It is a relief that Ashraf Fayadh no longer faces execution, but this is a wholly disproportionate and shocking sentence. It will cause dismay around the world for all Ashraf's many supporters. The charges against him should have been dropped and he should be a free man today. We will continue to campaign for his release." Fayadh, who has mental health problems, has spent almost 2 years in prison in Abha, a city in the south-west of the ultra-conservative kingdom. The 35-year-old Palestinian refugee rose to prominence as an artist and curator for the British-Saudi art group Edge of Arabia. He went on to curate shows in Jeddah and at the 2013 Venice Biennale, which showcased an emerging generation of Saudi artists. But in August 2013, he was detained by the mutaween (religious police) following a complaint that he was cursing against Allah and the prophet Muhammad, insulting Saudi Arabia and distributing a book of his poems that promoted atheism. Fayadh said the complaint arose from a personal dispute during a discussion in a cafe in Abha. Although he was released after one day he was arrested again on 1 January 2014 and detained at a police station before being transferred to the local prison 27 days later. At his trial in May 2014, he was sentenced to 4 years in prison and 800 lashes by the general court in Abha. He was also found guilty of storing images of women on his phone, which friends and colleagues said were artists appearing in his show at the Jeddah art fair. After his appeal was dismissed Fayadh was retried on 17 November 2015 and sentenced to death by a new panel of judges, who ruled that his repentance did not prevent his execution. But appeal documents submitted by his lawyer last month argued that Fayadh's conviction was based on uncorroborated allegations and ignored evidence that he had a mental illness. Fayadh's father had a stroke after hearing his son was to be beheaded. Fayadh was unable to visit him before he died last month, nor was he allowed to attend his funeral. In documents considered by the panel of judges on Tuesday, Lahem argued that Fayadh's initial arrest in 2013 was unlawful as it was not ordered by the state prosecution service. The allegation of apostasy made by Shaheen bin Ali Abu Mismar, who is alleged to have had a personal dispute with the poet, was not corroborated by other evidence, which goes against the principles of sharia law, he argued. The appeal document also stated that the November ruling ignored testimony by defence witnesses in Fayadh's 2014 trial who said Abu Mismar was lying, and from the accuser's uncle, who indicated he was not truthful. It contended that the "judiciary cannot rely on [his evidence] due to the possibility that it is malicious". (source: The Guardian) ******************* Saudi overturns Palestinian poet's death sentence Saudi Arabia overturned the death sentence of Palestinian poet Ashraf Fayadh on Tuesday, although he will still face 8 years in jail and 800 lashes. A panel of judges came to the decision after Fayadh's lawyer argued that his client had been denied a fair trial. Fayadh's lawyer posted a document on Twitter on Tuesday showing the new sentence reached by the judges: Though campaigners welcomed the decision, many protested the still harsh punishment, despite the fact that Fayadh's lawyer maintains his client's innocence. "No one should face arrest for peacefully expressing opinions, much less corporal punishment and prison. Saudi justice officials must urgently intervene to vacate this unjust sentence." Fayadh had been sentenced to be executed on the charge of apostasy and "spreading atheism" in 2014 by Saudi Arabia's General Court after the court of appeal overturned an initial dismissal of the case. He was also charged with violating the country's Anti-Cyber Crime Law for allegedly taking and storing photos of women on his phone. However, some of his supporters have argued that he was punished for posting a video online showing police in the south-western city of Abha lashing a man in public. Campaigners had long protested that Fayadh had not received a fair hearing under the Saudi justice system. "For 1 1/2 years, they promised him an appeal and kept intimidating him that there's new evidence," said Mona Kareem, a migrant rights activist from Kuwait. "He was unable to assign a lawyer because his ID was confiscated when he was arrested. Then they said you must have a retrial and we'll change the prosecutor and the judges. The new judge didn't even talk to him, he just made the verdict." As a poet and artist, Fayadh - who was born in Saudi Arabia - has played a major role in bringing Saudi art to a wider audience, including as part of the Saudi-British collaborative project Edge of Arabia. (source: middleeasteye.net) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Feb 2 15:55:50 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2016 15:55:50 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLORIDA Message-ID: Feb. 2 FLORIDA----stay of impending execution Florida Court Halts Feb. 11 Execution Of Cary Lambrix The Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday issued an indefinite stay of execution for Cary Michael Lambrix, who had been scheduled to die Feb. 11. The order came hours after the court heard oral arguments that focused on the impact of a U.S. Supreme Court decision earlier this month that struck down the state's death-penalty sentencing system. Original report: Oral arguments began Tuesday morning for Florida's 1st death penalty case since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Florida's death penalty system unconstitutional in mid-January. Florida's Supreme Court justices heard arguments for whether they should grant Cary Lambrix, a man scheduled to die Feb. 11, a stay of execution until it can be determined how to apply the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The judge's decision is expected to arrive at any time before Feb. 11. Lambrix's defense team, including attorney Martin J. McClain, quickly addressed the issue of retroactivity, which is when a law or court decision affects already existing rights. In this case, it would determine whether the state would issue him a stay of execution or life in prison in lieu of the death penalty on the basis on Florida's unconstitutional death penalty system. The U.S. Supreme Court found Florida's law flawed because it allows judges to decide on death sentences and override a jury's recommendation. Lambrix murdered 2 people - Clarence Moore and Aleisha Bryant - in 1983 near LaBelle in Southwest Florida and was convicted on 2 counts of 1st-degree murder. The jury recommended the death sentence by votes of 10-2, for Moore, and 8-4, for Bryant. McClain argued for the court to think of the U.S. Supreme Court case as retroactive. He also argued for the court to delay the execution and grant Lambrix a life imprisonment sentence on the ground of insufficient aggravating circumstances. Florida's "statute is different," McClain said. "Our statute says there has to be sufficient aggravating circumstances. The purposes of aggravating circumstances are too narrow to ensure that it's the worst of the worst." Scott A. Browne, a prosecutor for Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi's office, said the U.S. Supreme Court ruling does not apply retroactively and wants Lambrix executed on Feb. 11. The Supreme Court case "is not retroactive," he said. "It's procedural." Florida Supreme Court Justice R. Fred Lewis questioned the validity of that statement. "But at the same time, there's got to be something to the law that is beyond just technicalities," he said. "A man who is executed today, but one comes up tomorrow that is not, there's really no difference in their cases." "I'm struggling with word games," Lewis added. "I appreciate all those things, I understand the differences, but doesn't there come a point in time where one has to look at this and say, 'What are we doing?"' William Hennis, another attorney for Lambrix, said he hoped the court issued a stay of execution instead of a complete decision. "That will allow us to go to state court, circuit court in Glades County," he said. Hennis said he'll head back to Starke, Florida, to see Lambrix and discuss the case. "Obviously, he'll be interested in hearing how the argument went," he said. "We'll obviously wait for a decision from the Florida Supreme Court as to going to the United States Supreme Court. I'm hoping that a stay will be entered." Bondi hasn't yet issued a statement on the case. (source: WUFT news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 3 09:31:57 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2016 09:31:57 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., GA., FLA., ALA., OHIO Message-ID: Feb. 3 TEXAS----impending execution Texas Inmate Gustavo Garcia Receives Execution Date of February 16, 2016 Gustavo Julian Garcia is scheduled to be executed at 6 pm CST, on Tuesday, February 16, 2016, inside the Walls Unit of the Huntsville State Penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas. 43-year-old Gustavo is convicted of the murder of 43-year-old Craig Turski in Plano, Texas on December 9, 1990. Gustavo has spent the last 24 years on Texas' death row. On December 9, 1990, Gustavo Garcia and Christopher Vargas entered a warehouse in Plano, Texas. Garcia was armed with a sawed-off shotgun and had additional shells in his pockets. Garcia ordered the clerk, Craig Turski, to hand over the money from the cash register, while Vargas took beer and placed it into their waiting vehicle. Garcia then shot Craig in the abdomen at close range. Craig fled from the store. Garcia pursued him while reloading his shotgun. After reloading, Garcia shot Craig in the back of the head. A female customer who had entered the store and promptly left when she saw Garcia forcing Craig to hand over the money, returned to the store with her husband. Upon finding the store deserted, they called the police. Craig was transported to a local hospital, where he eventually died from his gunshot wounds. On January 5, 1991, Garcia and Vargas robbed another gas station. They took the clerk, Gregory Martin into the back room and shot him at point blank range with the same gun that was used to shoot Craig weeks earlier. Gregory died at the scene. Upon seeing Garcia and Vargas enter the store, Gregory told his girlfriend, whom he was talking to on the phone, that he thought he was going to be robbed. She alerted the police, who arrived quickly at the scene. Police found Vargas standing over Gregory's body. Vargas alleged that he had just entered the store and found Gregory lying on the floor. Garcia was found hiding in a freezer area, close to where the shotgun was later discovered. Garcia confessed to both crimes. Gustavo Garcia was sentenced to death, while Christopher Vargas was sentenced to life in prison. On Thanksgiving 1998, while on death row, Gustavo attempted, along with 6 other death row inmates, to escape from prison. Only 1 inmate made it past the prison fences. Gustavo and the others were recaptured. The escaped inmate was the 1st to successfully escape since a Bonnie and Clyde gang member escaped in 1934. The inmate was discovered to have drowned shortly after his escape. The Supreme Court of the United States has refused to review the case of Gustavo. In refusing to review the case, they also rejected a request to stay his execution. Please pray for peace and healing for the family of Craig and Gregory. Please pray for peace for the family of Gustavo. Please pray that if Gustavo is innocent, lacks the competency to be executed, or should not be executed for any other reason, evidence will be presented prior to his execution. Please pray that Gregory will come to find peace through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, if he has not already. (source: theforgivenessfoundation.org) ********** Bryan Man Originally Given Death Penalty Is Resentenced To Life In Prison 28 year old Christian Olsen, who was convicted of the beating death of a neighbor, 68 year old Etta Jean Westbrook, was officially resentenced Tuesday in Brazos County district court. In April 2012, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals threw out the death sentence handed down by a jury in 2009. Initially, the Brazos County district attorney's office sought to reimpose death. But DA Jarvis Parsons cited 2 reasons for changing his mind. One was the suicide of Olsen's girlfriend, who was in prison serving time for soliciting him to murder her mother. Parson says she gave a confession to authorities while in prison. Parsons says they also discovered DNA evidence that would have been used to argue for the death penalty was mishandled and would have been challenged in court. Parsons says at Tuesday's hearing, Olsen agreed to waive all future attempts to be released from prison and oppose anyone else who would attempt to do the same. Parsons says Olsen will not be charged in the death of his girlfriend's mother, Geraldine Lloyd, because of the punishment Olsen received for killing Westbrook. Lloyd was killed in her home several months before Westbrook was murdered. (source: WTAW news) NORTH CAROLINA: State seeking death penalty in double Onslow County homicide A judge has ruled the state can seek the death penalty in the case of a Jacksonville man charged with murder in the deaths of his girlfriend and 5-month-old son. Local media outlets report the judge ruled during a hearing Monday in the case of 26-year-old Sebastian Mendez. Mendez is charged with murder in the slayings of death of his girlfriend, 29-year-old Shaung Liu, and his 5-month-old son, Archer Liu back in July. Authorities say that the woman was found dead in her car 3 blocks from her home in Jacksonville. The infant was found dead in a suitcase in the attic. Authorities say the victims were strangled. During the hearing, Mendez again pleaded not guilty to the charges. (source: WRAL news) ***************** Bar dismisses grievance against lawyer who worked on Racial Justice Act cases An N.C. State Bar disciplinary panel has vacated a five-month-old ruling against Cassandra Stubbs, a lawyer who worked on successful Racial Justice Act cases. The panel issued a new order Monday that dismissed the grievance filed against the Durham defense attorney and entered a judgment in Stubbs' favor. The admonishment she received has been wiped off her record from a disciplinary case that raised many questions in the legal community about why the bar even filed a public complaint. "Cassy Stubbs represents the best of lawyers," Alan Schneider and Bradley Bannon, the Raleigh attorneys who represented her, said in a joint statement Tuesday. "She could have used her talent and law license in any way, but she dedicated her professional life to serving the poorest and most disenfranchised people in our community. Her work in the Racial Justice Act litigation saved four lives and exposed widespread racial bias in the imposition of the death penalty in North Carolina. She should have received a medal for that work, not a Bar grievance. From day one, we have adamantly denied ethical wrongdoing and fought to clear her name, and we thank the disciplinary panel for ultimately doing the right thing." Stubbs, described by her peers as "an absolute beacon of integrity," tearfully fought accusations of professional misconduct levied against her in an anonymous complaint. As a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union Capital Punishment Project, she was among a team of attorneys who used the short-lived Racial Justice Act to convert the sentences of four North Carolina death-row inmates in 2012 to life without possibility for parole. The Racial Justice Act, repealed by state lawmakers in 2013, allowed death row inmates to challenge their sentences by using statistical evidence to show racial bias played a role in their cases. The bar allegations against Stubbs focused on inconsistencies between court records and sworn statements that the defense team introduced from men who had been part of a 1994 jury pool but not selected for the panel in the case of Marcus Reymond Robinson, the 1st death-row inmate to have his sentence converted. The judge who heard the Racial Justice Act cases ruled in 2012 that the inconsistencies were immaterial and unintentional and did not weigh into his rulings. Similar allegations were lodged against Gretchen Engel, director of the Durham-based Center for Death Penalty Litigation. A different disciplinary panel considered Engel's case last year after the initial Stubbs' decision and came to a different conclusion. Engel was cleared of any wrongdoing and her case was dismissed. Since then, the bar reconsidered the Stubbs case and the N.C. Supreme Court vacated the four Racial Justice Act rulings. (source: newsobserver.com) GEORGIA----execution Georgia Executes Its Oldest Death Row Inmate Georgia executed its oldest death row inmate Tuesday, after courts rejected a challenge to a state law that keeps secret the names of providers of lethal injection drugs. Brandon Astor Jones, 72, was convicted in 1979 for the killing of a convenience store clerk during an armed robbery. A judge ordered a new sentencing hearing in 1989 and he was later resentenced to death in 1997. Georgia Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gwendolyn Hogan confirmed that Jones was executed at 12:46 a.m. Wednesday. His execution had been scheduled for 7 p.m. but his lawyers filed filed a last-minute appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court refused to halt the execution in an order made hours after that time had passed. Earlier Tuesday, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals voted 6-5 not to hear before a full court Jones' challenge of the state law that keeps secret the company that manufactures drugs used in lethal injections. The majority cited a decision Monday by a 3-judge panel that denied a motion to stay the execution. It ruled Jones' lawyers were unable to show the challenge was likely to succeed, and noted the drugs from undisclosed sources have been used 7 times "without incident." But 5 judges dissented, and 4 of those said Georgia's law keeping secret the name of the company that compounds pentobarbital. They said the secrecy law could violate Jones' right of access to the courts. "Today Brandon Jones will be executed, possibly in violation of the Constitution. He may also be cruelly and unusually punished in the process," the 4 judges said in their dissent. "But if he is, we won't know until it's too late - if ever." States have been scrambling to find alternatives or alternative sources of the drug after its manufacturers refused to sell it for executions. Georgia along with other states relies on small compounding pharmacies to produce the drugs, and the state instituted a secrecy law in order to keep supply lines open. A court upheld the law in May. The shortage of drugs has forced some states to delay executions. Ohio in October scrapped all executions until 2017 because it has been unable to obtain necessary drugs. Jones was sentenced to death for the 1979 murder of Roger Tackett, a convenience store manager killed during a robbery. A court threw out his 1st conviction in 1989 because jurors had a Bible in the room during deliberations, and he was retried and resentenced to death in 1997, NBC station WALB reported. Another Georgia inmate - Travis Clinton Hittson, sentenced to death for killing a Navy sailor in 1993 - is scheduled to be executed Feb. 17, the state Department of Corrections said. Jones becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death in Georgia this year and the 61st overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983. Only Texas (533), Oklahoma (112), Virginia (111), Florida (92), and Missouri (86) have executed more inmates than Georgia since the US Supreme Court re-legalized the death penalty on July 2, 1976. Jones becomes the 5th condemned inmate to put to death in the USA this year and the 1427th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. (sources: NBC news & Rick Halperin) FLORIDA: Death penalty bill clears House committee A House panel signed off on a bill that would revamp Florida's process for sentencing killers to death, a move prompted by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the state's method is unconstitutional. The House Criminal Justice Subcommittee approved the legislation (CRJS7) after more than an hour of debate earlier today. The bill would require jurors to unanimously find at least 1 aggravating factor - including whether the crime was premeditated or heinous - before recommending a sentence of death in capital cases. But it would not go as far as some death penalty experts have recommended and require unanimity among jurors when they actually make a recommendation of death. Instead, it would increase the number of jurors required to recommend death from a simple majority of 7 out of 12 to a super-majority of 9. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida's sentencing scheme for death penalty trials in a case involving Pensacola killer Timothy Lee Hurst. Justices in an 8-1 ruling found that Florida's process violated Hurst's Sixth Amendment right to trial by an impartial jury because it allowed the judge alone to find the existence of aggravating circumstances. The bill surfaced out the House committee last week in a move designed to bring state statutes in line with the high court ruling. The Senate Committee on Criminal Justice is expected to propose its own bill soon. (source: Tallahassee Democrat) ********** House Panel Approves Death Penalty Fix A House panel on Tuesday approved proposed changes to the state's death-penalty law in an effort to address a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down Florida's capital-sentencing structure as unconstitutional. The House Criminal Justice Subcommittee's 11-2 vote on the measure (PCB CRJS 16-07) came less than 2 hours after the Florida Supreme Court issued an indefinite stay of execution for Cary Michael Lambrix, who had been scheduled to die on Feb. 11. The court heard oral arguments in the case Tuesday morning. Lawmakers in both chambers are hurriedly preparing legislation in response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, issued on the opening day of the 2016 session, in a case known as Hurst v. Florida. The Jan. 12 ruling overturned the state's capital felony sentencing system, which gives judges - and not juries - the power to impose the death penalty. The high court's decision came in the appeal of convicted murderer Timothy Lee Hurst, who was sentenced to death for the 1998 killing of fast-food worker Cynthia Harrison in Pensacola. Harrison, an assistant manager at a Popeye's Fried Chicken restaurant on Nine Mile Road where Hurst worked, was bound, gagged and stabbed more than 60 times. Her body was found in a freezer. The 8-1 decision focused on what are known as "aggravating" circumstances that must be determined before defendants can be sentenced to death. A 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, in a case known as Ring v. Arizona, requires that determination of such aggravating circumstances be made by juries, not judges. Under Florida law, juries make recommendations regarding the death penalty, based on a review of aggravating and mitigating circumstances, but judges ultimately decide whether defendants should be put to death or sentenced to life in prison. The House would allow death sentences to be imposed only if juries - after weighing aggravating and mitigating factors - unanimously decide that at least 1 aggravating factor exists. The proposal would also require at least 9 jurors to vote for the death penalty. The legislation is based on the recommendations of state attorneys. Of the 31 states with the death penalty, Florida is one of only three that do not require unanimous jury decisions about imposing death sentences. Florida law only requires a simple majority of the jury to recommend death. The only other 2 states that do not require unanimous decisions - Alabama and Delaware - require at least 9 jurors to vote in favor of capital punishment. Whether death-penalty jury verdicts should be unanimous has been a major source of debate during discussions about the Hurst ruling, which did not specifically address the issue. Nearly all experts - with the exception of prosecutors - recommend that the state adopt a unanimous jury requirement to avoid the risk that Florida's sentencing system could be struck down again in the future. "The question arises, do you look simply at the narrow issue that Hurst addressed or do you look at the whole body of cases that the United States Supreme Court has talked about?" 10th Judicial Circuit Public Defender Rex Dimmig told the panel Tuesday. But prosecutor Brad King argued that the measure goes "well beyond the dictates" of the Supreme Court's order. And King, the state attorney for the 5th Judicial Circuit, said it is impossible to predict how the court will rule in years to come. "To think we can sit here today and presume to understand what the U.S. Supreme Court can do ... in the future is honestly a pipe dream," he said. Requiring unanimous decisions on death-penalty sentences would allow a single juror "to hold hostage the entire process," King argued, pointing out that some of Florida's most-notorious crimes failed to result in unanimous jury recommendations for the death penalty. But University of Miami Law Professor Scott Sundby, who trains Florida judges in the death penalty, said research shows that 92 % of juries that voted 9-3 in favor of the death penalty returned the same result if required to reach a unanimous decision. "In other words, in 92 % of the cases, when they deliberated to unanimity, they still came out as death," Sundby said. Not requiring a unanimous decision would put Florida in danger of having its law struck down again, he predicted. "I promise you this would invite a lot of constitutional litigation, and the odds of it being reversed by the (U.S.) Supreme Court are quite high," Sundby told the committee. The House panel rejected an attempt by Rep. Randolph Bracy, D-Orlando, to amend the bill to require unanimity on death sentences. "There is great racial and gender and geographical discrimination in how the death penalty is applied," Bracy, who is black, said. For example, "no white person has ever been sentenced to death for killing a black person" in Florida, Bracy said. In contrast, murders involving white women are 6.5 times more likely to result in the death penalty. "1 way to reduce the bias is require unanimous juries," said Bracy, 1 of 2 Democrats on the subcommittee who opposed the bill. But Chairman Carlos Trujillo, a former prosecutor, said Bracy's concerns rested more with the application of the death penalty than with the sentencing phase. And, he said, the proposal is far from a done deal. "By no way, I think, is this a 100 % finished product," Trujillo, R-Miami, said. "I'm sure all of these recommendations will come to play at some point." Senate President Andy Gardiner told reporters Tuesday that "there a lot of members in our chamber that would prefer a unanimous decision." But the Senate may cede to the House's 9-3 position to finalize a bill before the session ends next month. "What's important is that we get an agreement done, and we pass something this session to address what's been brought forward by the U.S. Supreme Court. And I think we're on track to do that," Gardiner, R-Orlando, said. (source: northescambia.com) ALABAMA: Lawyers for man accused in 'ritual' child killing say death penalty unconstitutional Lawyers for a Gadsden man accused of killing his toddler daughter in 2013 with either a sword or knife told a judge today that Alabama's death penalty statute is unconstitutional. Stephon Lindsay, 38, accused of killing his daughter, 20-month-old Maliyah Tashay Lindsay, was in court today before District Judge Billy Ogletree in Gadsden. His lawyers, Morgan Cunningham and Jacob Millican, have filed several motions contesting the death penalty, as well as the judge's prerogative to override the jury's recommendation in the trial's penalty phase. Gadsden police discovered the body of Maliyah Lindsay in a wooded area at the dead end of Plainview Street in Gadsden on March 12, 2013 after Stephon Lindsay was arrested in connection with the child's disappearance. Relatives later said Lindsay may have killed the child as a result of some kind of ritual. An autopsy ruled the child died of blunt force trauma and that a knife or sword was used in her death. Lindsay is set for trial Feb. 22. In a hearing today, Cunningham focused on one argument - that Alabama's death penalty statute is unconstitutional because it closely mirrors Florida's. On Jan. 16, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down part of Florida's death penalty statute because it did not give jurors a large enough role in determining whether defendants should be executed. Etowah County Chief Deputy District Attorney Marcus Reid said the court did not strike down all death penalty statues, but merely Florida's. He also said Alabama's statute had been held up by the court, and that the court had turned away an request for a stay from Alabama inmate Christopher Brooks, who was executed less than a week after the Supreme Court's Florida decision. "It's not as though the Alabama statute is unknown to the United States Supreme Court," Reid said. Ogletree said he would rule later this week on the motion. Ogletree also stated that both Lindsay's defense team and prosecutors are waiting on the results of a 2nd medical exam as to Lindsay's mental state at the time of the crime. (aouexw: al.com) OHIO: Executions in Ohio: Race and gender statistics The panelists in a discussion on the death penalty at the University of Akron Tuesday discussed a new report that found racial, gender and geographic disparities in how Ohio's death penalty is administered. The report, released last week, was done by Frank Baumgartner, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The report looked at executions in Ohio from 1976 to 2014 when 53 people were executed, all men. The findings included: -- 65 % of the executions were for crimes involving white victims, despite the fact that 43 % of homicide victims are white. -- 27 % of homicide victims are women, but 52 % of executions were for homicides involving female victims. -- 4 out of Ohio's 88 counties - Summit, Lucas, Cuyahoga and Hamilton - or just 5 % of the counties, produced more than 1/2 of the state's executions. (These also are among the state's most populous counties.) -- Only 3 counties - Summit, Cuyahoga and Hamilton - have had more than 5 executions each. (Summit had 6 executions during this period.) -- More than 3/4 of Ohio's counties - or 69 - have never had an execution. The report only examined people who were executed, and didn't look into those who are currently on Ohio's death row. (source: ohio.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 3 09:33:34 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2016 09:33:34 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ARK., KAN., COLO., UTAH, CALIF. Message-ID: Feb. 3 ARKANSAS: Additional discovery sought in death-penalty case Defense attorneys are seeking additional discovery in a 2013 capital murder case where prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Howard Dallas Short II, 40, is being charged with capital murder in the death of 64-year-old Michael Wayne Robb, who was found dead in his home at 27 Wilson Road in Greenbrier on Aug. 6, 2013. Short also faces a fleeing charge. Defense attorneys James W. Wyatt and Dale E. Adams filed a motion for additional discovery in Faulkner County Circuit Court requesting prosecutors provide more information that could potentially be used against Short. The motion, filed Jan. 25, stated the defense has received the autopsy report and photographs released from Arkansas State Crime Laboratory experts but also requests reports from all experts involved. The defense asked for any notes, data and summary sheets written by any and all experts involved in its motion. The defense also asked that the state provide employee history binders that include "curriculum vitas, competency tests, logs of both external and internal proficiency tests, training logs, testimony logs, testimony evaluations, cases reviews, complaints, results/findings of any both internal and external audits and corrective action reports" from each expert involved. The last death penalty conviction in Faulkner County was in 1982. Rickey Ray Rector of Conway was sentenced to death following the murders of Arthur Criswell and police officer Robert Martin, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. He was tried separately for the 2 murders and was lethally injected on Jan. 22, 1992. Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Hugh Finkelstein said the state is seeking the death penalty in Short's case because it believes the murder was committed for pecuniary gain and was "someone the defendant knew or reasonably should have known was especially vulnerable to attack because of either a temporary or permanent severe physical or mental disability which would interfere with the victim's ability to flee or defend himself." The murder was also committed in "an especially cruel or depraved manner," he said. Short's jury trial initially was scheduled for Feb. 2-12. Faulkner County Circuit Judge Charles "Ed" Clawson Jr. ruled in favor of the defense's request on Jan. 8 to continue the jury trial to July 12-29, excluding weekends and Mondays. The trial was moved to allow Adams the opportunity to familiarize himself with the case. Adams took over former co-counsel Robert L. Thacker's position in the case after Thacker requested to withdraw. Thacker noted in his Jan. 8 motion to withdraw that defense attorneys had "recently discovered that at least 4 attorneys who are employed in the office of Mr. Thacker and who are subject to his administrative authority and oversight have previously represented a witness who will or may be called by the Plaintiff in the prosecution of the Defendant herein," causing a conflict of interest. (source: Log Cabin Democrat) KANSAS: Becker's anti-death penalty bill appears doomed; measure was sidelined to House Judiciary Committee A disappointed State Rep. Steven Becker is "confident" a bill he sponsored to abolish the death penalty won't get a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee. The Buhler Republican and former judge pushed a death penalty bill last year only to see it sidelined in the Judiciary Committee, with no hearing and no advancement to the House floor for a vote. The strategy this year was to find a wide range of lawmakers to sponsor a bill and to start the legislation through the House Corrections and Juvenile Justice Committee. Introduced Jan. 22 with over 15 diverse sponsors, House Bill 2515 promptly was assigned by Speaker of the House Ray Merrick, R-Stilwell, to the Judiciary Committee. The News was unable to reach Judiciary Chairman John Barker, R-Abilene, but the committee's ranking minority member, Rep. John Carmichael, D-Wichita, echoed Becker's prediction. "I think it's unlikely that Chairman Barker is going to call that up for a hearing," Carmichael said. The Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty pushed back against Merrick's action. On Tuesday, it appealed on Facebook for death penalty foes to contact Merrick's office and "strongly request" he reassign House Bill 2515 "to a committee that will let it be heard." "It is important that important public policy issues like the death penalty are fairly debated and discussed by the legislature," the coalition stated on Facebook. However, this particular death penalty bill contains more than policy, Carmichael said, and that could be a weakness. Each bill is supposed to have a single subject, Carmichael said. House Bill 2515 would abolish the death penalty and take the savings in legal expenses from appeals - "We could be talking, easily, millions of dollars," Carmichael said - and give it to the Department of Corrections. With that provision, Carmichael said, some could argue the bill violates the single subject expectation. He said the Legislature has mixed policy and funding in education and judicial bills, and those bills drew criticism. The state's top attorney, Attorney Gen. Derek Schmidt, addressed Republican lawmakers Tuesday about the death penalty and a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that upheld the Kansas death penalty in the case against the convicted Carr brothers, according to Rep. Jan Pauls, R-Hutchinson. Schmidt, who favors the death penalty, also was scheduled to talk to the House Judiciary Committee today about the same topic, Pauls said. Pauls, who sits on Judiciary, was in the Legislature in 1992 and voted for the death penalty Becker is trying to repeal. She favors retaining a death penalty. "I don't know that there's a lot of push to have it heard," Pauls said of Becker's bill. The Supreme Court ruling that upheld the death penalty "probably reduced the incentive to have the matter discussed further," she said. A moderate Republican with less than 4 years in office, Becker is not taking an active role in the efforts to urge Merrick to reverse course. "I don't think I carry a lot of weight with the Speaker's office," Becker said. (source: The Hutchinson News) ************* Kansas Panel Requests Additional Money For Defense In Death Penalty Cases Court-appointed lawyers in Kansas say they need more money to defend high-profile murder cases, like the Carr brothers from Wichita. The U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld the death penalty sentences handed down in that case and in another Kansas murder case. Because of the ruling, court-appointed attorneys will have to continue working on those cases, and that will take more money. "This is a 1st for Kansas," says Patricia Scalia, with the Kansas Board of Indigent Defense Services. "Staff are not experienced, therefore they do not meet the standards established by the American Bar Association. Outside help is needed. We've got attorneys who have never seen this case before needing to get entirely up to speed on something that has proceeded over the course of 10 and more years." Scalia is requesting more than a half-million dollars in additional support for the current fiscal year. (source: KMUW news) COLORADO: Don't expand Colorado death penalty I just read the Denver Post editorial on the Colorado death penalty. I am shocked that Sen. Lundberg now wants the death penalty imposed if 9 of 12 jurors votes for it. There are many reasons people are reluctant to impose such a drastic penalty, chief among them the fact that many people on death row have been exonerated because of DNA evidence. I just finished reading Bryan Stevenson's "Just Mercy," an excellent book written by the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. He dealt mostly with cases in Alabama, Florida and Georgia. I was thankful Colorado didn't have the kind of "justice" often found in the deep South, and now Sen. Lundberg wants to bring it to Colorado. I lived in Texas for over 30 years, and they were death penalty happy, particularly in Harris County. When we hear of terrible crimes, such as the murder of children or of mass killings the first thing we think is "death penalty." Understandable. But mistakes happen in the justice system. If Sen. Lundberg feels the death sentence isn't imposed enough perhaps it should be eliminated. There is no perfect solution, but it is better to err on the side of caution. Sharon K. Yonkees Longmont (source: Letter to the Editor, Times-Call) UTAH: Human traffickers could face execution under plan Human traffickers could be sentenced to death if victims are killed in commission of the crime under a bill advanced Tuesday by a House committee. "I think we all know how heinous of a crime human trafficking is. We have kids that are being trafficked for sexual purposes, for labor," said Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, the sponsor of HB136. "We just think it's a good move to make this available to the prosecutors to have in their arsenal if they need to go at it." Ray's legislation makes engaging in human trafficking an aggravating factor that makes a homicide eligible for capital punishment. In the past, Ray sponsored legislation making deaths resulting from child abuse eligible for the death penalty and he argued Tuesday that they type of abuse victims of trafficking suffer should warrant the same kind of punishment. "This is the most heinous of crimes," said Bountiful Police Chief Tom Ross, who is president of the Utah Chiefs of Police Association. "This is the death of a child who has been tortured through abuse or sexual assault." The House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee voted 6-3 to move the legislation to the full House for a vote, which could come by the end of the week. Ray had originally envisioned the bill to just apply to child trafficking, but expanded it Tuesday to include adults, as well. It would be up to prosecutors to decide whether to seek capital punishment. Opponents argued the death penalty is arbitrary in its application, costly to the state and that the resources would be better spent helping victims of human traffickers. "Don't consider spending this kind of money on this kind of an action that really only ends up over-criminalizing conduct that is already criminal when you're leaving your victims without support and without resources," said Virginia Ward, who works with victims of trafficking. The Utah chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement to the committee that race, socio-economic background, effectiveness of attorneys and other factors determine whether capital punishment is imposed and Ray's bill "keeps moving Utah in the wrong direction." "We ought to be using this money wisely and the death penalty is not a wise use of resources," said Kent Hart, executive director of the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "It also engages the citizens of this state and this body in killing of its citizens. ... We cannot sanitize it any way." It is estimated that a death-penalty case costs taxpayers about $1.6 million to work through the court system and carry out the execution, an expense paid for by the county seeking the death penalty. Rep. Brad Daw, R-Orem, said it is "absolutely appropriate" that human trafficking be added to the list of crimes in which the death penalty is an option. "If we get right down to the morality of it ... and the reason they're being prosecuted for the death penalty, for me it really does not become a very challenging issue," he said. "The fact is they've done things that are horrific. They're heinous. ... This bill makes perfect sense to me." (source: Salt Lake Tribune) CALIFORNIA: McStay defendant to represent himself again----Chase Merritt faces possible death penalty if convicted of killing Fallbrook family of 4 A judge on Tuesday ruled that the welder accused of killing the McStay family of Fallbrook can act as his own attorney in the potential death penalty case. The decision by San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Michael Smith marks the 2nd time that defendant Charles "Chase" Merritt has been cleared to represent himself in the quadruple-murder case. Merritt, 58, fired his attorneys nearly 2 weeks ago. Merritt is accused of killing his business associate Joseph McStay, 40, as well as McStay's wife, Summer, 43, and the couple's children, Gianni, 4, and Joey Jr., 3. He has pleaded not guilty to 4 counts of murder. McStay ran a company that provided indoor water fountains, and often hired Merritt to craft custom products. The family vanished in February 2010. Their bodies were found in 2 shallow desert graves in San Bernardino County in November 2013. Merritt was arrested a year later. 2 months after his arrest, Merritt fired his attorney. At that time, he told the judge he wanted the case to move along faster, and was subsequently granted permission to represent himself. Merritt reversed course in May and hired a team of attorneys - who he fired nearly 2 weeks ago. However, court records indicate that Merritt may be trying to rehire one of those attorneys. Thus far, the public has only heard the prosecution side of the case. At Merritt's preliminary hearing last June, prosecutors presented evidence that Merritt's DNA was on the steering wheel and gear shift of the family's abandoned car; that suspicious checks were written to him from Joseph McStay's business account shortly before and after the family disappeared; that someone - presumably Merritt - tried to delete that checking account the day after the family vanished; and that Merritt's cellphone was used in the remote area near the gravesites. (source: San Diego Union-Tribune) *************** Defense motions to dismiss death penalty case, recuse DA's Office, set for March Defense attorneys for a Fairfield man accused of the 2013 strangulation death of a young girl agreed Tuesday to delay making arguments to dismiss the case, remove the Solano County District Attorney???s Office from the case, and bar the death penalty from being sought until March. Anthony Lemar Jones, 35, appeared in Solano County Superior Court anticipating a hearing into an allegation that prosecutors withheld information from his defense team that could have helped mitigate a decision to seek the death penalty in his case. Jones is charged with the special circumstances murder of 13-year-old Genelle Conway-Allen, whose naked and lifeless body was found Feb. 1, 2013, in Allan Witt Park. In April 2015, prosecutors announced they would seek the death penalty in the case. In recent weeks, defense attorneys for Jones have filed a handful of motions that center on an alleged meeting between prosecutors and Genelle's family members in which they expressed their desire not to have the death penalty sought in the case. In a motion to dismiss the case due to outrageous government conduct, defense attorneys for Jones state they presented evidence before a committee of prosecutors in March 2015, offering evidence that would mitigate a decision to seek death. Defense attorneys allege that prosecutors knew as early as February 2015 that family members did not wish to have the death penalty sought and did not share that information with the defense team prior to making their presentation. Prosecutors recently responded to the allegation in a handful of court filings that indicate there was never a discussion or meeting with members of Genelle's family in February 2015. In separate motions, defense attorneys also are asking a Solano County Superior Court judge to bar the death penalty in Jones' case and remove the Solano County District Attorney's Office and appoint the state Attorney General to assume the role of prosecutor. Prosecutors, in their response to the defense motions, called them frivolous. A hearing has been set for March 21. According to testimony from a November 2014 probable cause hearing, Jones is alleged to have followed Genelle in his vehicle as she walked home from school on Jan. 31, 2013. A student who was walking home with her that day testified that he saw Genelle get in Jones' car. Genelle, according to testimony, did not return home that day, leading her foster mother to report her missing. She was found dead the following morning. The special circumstance allegations prosecutors have included allege the murder was committed during the commission of a kidnapping, sodomy and lewd or lascivious act. A jury trial is set for Sept. 7. Jones has pleaded not guilty and remains in Solano County Jail custody without bail. (source: The (Vacaville) Reporter) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 3 09:34:23 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2016 09:34:23 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 3 EGYPT: Death sentence for 149 suspected Islamists quashed The death penalty of 149 suspected Islamists accused of killing 13 Policemen in 2013 has been quashed by Egypt's Court of Cassation. Justice officials said the constitutional court ordered that the accused be retried by a court other than that which convicted them a year ago. The 149 were sentenced to death on February 3 2015 in a speedy trial. The United Nations has criticised the hasty and arbitrary trials meted out to suspected supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood including deposed President Mohamed Morsi. Since Mr. Morsi's ouster on July 3 2013, the courts have sentenced hundreds of Islamists to death including the former president. International rights organisations have accused incumbent President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of eliminating dissent and instituting a more repressive regime than former president Hosni Mubarak. (source: africanews.com) BANGLADESH: Mir Quasem's appeal hearing deferred till February 9 The Supreme Court has deferred until February 9 the hearing on an appeal by Jamaat-e-Islami's key financier Mir Quasem Ali, seeking review of his death penalty for war crimes. A 4-member bench of the Appellate Division led by Chief Justice SK Sinha fixed the date yesterday, responding to a time plea filed by the defence lawyers. Earlier, the apex court set February 2 for commencing the appeal hearing. On November 3, 2014, Mir Quasem, a commander of al-Badr during the war, was awarded capital punishment by the International Crimes Tribunal 2. The tribunal handed down death penalty in 2 charges for killing 7 people, including one Jasim Uddin, after abduction. He was awarded a total of 72-year imprisonment on other charges of abduction, conspiracy and planning. 4 charges were not proved. On November 30, 2014, Quasem Ali appealed to the Supreme Court against the death sentence. Mir Quasem joined Islami Chhatra Sangha, then student wing of Jamaat, in 1967 while studying at Chittagong Collegiate School. He later became its Chittagong City unit general secretary. He played an important role in forming al-Badr Bahini that orchestrated systematic killing of freedom fighters and intellectuals. (source: Dhaka Tribune) PAKISTAN: Top court seeks report on death row convicts The top court directed the federal government on Tuesday to submit a report on the status of thousands of death row prisoners languishing in jails for years. A 3-judge bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, took up a petition filed by Barrister Zafarullah, who requested the court to convert the sentences of death row convicts into life imprisonment. The petitioner also asked the SC to decide the fate of the condemned prisoners in view of the terms they have served and the various changes occurred since the Law Reforms Ordinance 1972. Capital punishment is legal in Pakistan. There had been a moratorium on executions since 2008, but it was lifted for terrorism cases as of December 16, 2014, following the massacre of nearly 150 people, mostly pupils, at the Army Public School in Peshawar. It has been reported that there are more than 6,000 death row prisoners in Pakistan - more than anywhere in the world. Pakistan has executed 239 death row convicts since the APS tragedy. The bench directed Deputy Attorney General Sajid Ilyas Bhatti to file a report on the status of death row prisoners within 15 days. Last year the SC - while dismissing a plea of the same petitioner against abolition of the death penalty in Pakistan - had observed that the right to life and liberty is not absolute in nature; such a right is, however, circumscribed and subject to law. Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, while authoring the judgment, observed that the petitioner had referred to Article 9 of the Constitution, which says no person shall be deprived of life or liberty. But the court clarified that the right to life and liberty is not absolute in nature and a person cannot be bereft of his life and liberty except in accordance with the law. Referring to Article 4(2)(a), the court said a person could be deprived of his life and liberty if it is provided and prescribed by any law. The judgment also said the petitioner had failed to show the court that on the basis of 2 constitutional clauses, the top court could direct the abolition of the death penalty in Pakistan and annul any law. Regarding the petitioner's argument that Article 9 was not properly worded, the parliament should make necessary amendment, said the judgment. "As regards the argument that the criminal justice system is unfair, unreasonable and convicts and death punishments lack due process, suffice it to say that this by itself is not a threshold or touchstone for striking down any law, rather if there is deficiency in the relevant law, it is the duty of parliament to provide it or correct the law by amendment." Referring to Article 10-A, the court said that if any person is aggrieved on account of lack of fair trial or due process of law, he has the remedy of approaching the appropriate forum to challenge such a trial and conviction. (source: The Express Tribune) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 3 14:57:13 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2016 14:57:13 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., LA., OHIO, OKLA., UTAH Message-ID: Feb. 3 TEXAS: Faces of Death Row Here is a look at the 252 inmates currently on Texas' death row. Texas, which reinstated the death penalty in 1976, has the most active execution chamber in the nation. On average, these inmates have spent 13 years, 11 months on death row. Though 12 % of the state's residents are black, 42 % of death row inmates are. http://apps.texastribune.org/death-row/ (source: Texas Tribune) FLORIDA: How far should Florida go to reform death penalty? Lawmakers mull changes after SCOTUS decision Florida lawmakers are considering changes in the state's capital sentencing law after the U.S. Supreme Court found one provision to be unconstitutional last month. Legislators are debating how far to go in overhauling the law, the New York Times reports. Florida law requires jurors to make capital-punishment recommendations by a majority vote, without informing the judge of the factual basis for their recommendation. The judge then considers aggravating and mitigating factors, and decides whether a death sentence is warranted. The judge isn't bound by the jury recommendation. The U.S. Supreme Court said that scheme is unconstitutional because the Sixth Amendment requires jurors, rather than judges, to find each fact necessary to impose the death sentence. At the very least, Florida will have to change the law so that judges don't find aggravating factors independent of a jury's fact-finding, the Times says. But lawmakers are also considering other changes. The Senate is "leaning toward" a requirement of unanimous decisions by juries for death sentences, the article says. The House, on the other hand, is considering a bill that would require at least 9 of 12 jurors to agree for a death-sentence recommendation and all jurors to agree on aggravating factors. The Villages Daily Sun investigated jury votes in cases of prisoners currently on death row. Jurors were not unanimous in death-sentence recommendations in 75 % of the cases. (source: ABA Journal) **************** Death penalty ruling may impact Manatee triple murder case There are new developments involving a triple murder case in Manatee County. A recent ruling by the U.S Supreme Court may impact Andres Avalos Junior's case. Avalos is charged with 3 counts of 1st degree murder. He's accused of killing his wife, Amber, Denise Potter and Reverend James "Tripp" Battle, in December of 2014. Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty; however, Avalos' attorneys have filed a motion. The motion states that due to the ruling by the supreme court that Florida's death penalty process is unconstitutional, the state has no right to seek the death penalty against Avalos. A hearing is set for march 22nd. (source: WWSB news) LOUISIANA: Judge to rule if death penalty will be allowed in LSP Trooper murder case KPLC in Lake Charles is reporting that a Calcasieu Parish judge could rule Wednesday on whether the death penalty will be allowed in the trial of Kevin Daigle. Daigle, 54, is charged with the 1st-degree murder of Louisiana State Police Trooper Steven Vincent and the 2nd-degree murder of Daigle's former roommate Blake Brewer. In August, Vincent responded to a pickup truck in a ditch that matched "the description of a previously reported reckless vehicle," the state police said. Daigle armed with a shotgun fired at Vincent, hitting him in the head, police said. During Vincent's 13-year tenure with the state police, he received 13 awards and commendations. He is survived by his wife and 9-year-old son. While being interviewed by State Police, Daigle led investigators to believe an altercation occurred between him and his roommate which led to Brewer???s death. Daigle has previously been booked into the Jeff Davis Parish jail at least 12 times, dating to 1987. His arrest history includes bookings for theft, battery, drugs and DWI. (source: KPLC news) OHIO: Ohio executions disproportionately African-American, especially if the victim is white A Cleveland man hopes to see Ohio's death penalty abolished so that no one else experiences what he went through. Kwame Ajamu was sentenced to death and later exonerated. "I spent 3 years, 7 weeks and 8 hours on death row for a crime that I didn't do," Ajamu told an audience of about 40 Tuesday at a panel discussion on the death penalty in the University of Akron???s Student Union Theater. Ajamu, formerly known as Ronnie Bridgeman, frequently wiped away tears as he recalled his experiences. He, his brother, Wylie Bridgeman, and their best friend, Ricky Jackson, were all exonerated after being sentenced to death for a 1975 murder in Cleveland. Ajamu was released from prison on parole in 2003, while Bridgeman and Jackson both were incarcerated for nearly 40 years. A judge declared them innocent in 2015 and all 3 were compensated by the state. "They came into this neighborhood that is all black and left out of the neighborhood with three of its occupants," said Ajamu, who was 17 when he was arrested. "We wouldn't be back for 40 years. So many moments in life. 17 years in prison. Now, all of the seniors are gone. I'm a senior. My brother is a senior." The panel discussion, called The Death Lottery: How Race Impacts the Death Penalty in Ohio, was part of UA's Rethinking Race forum, going on through Feb. 12. The panelists, each with personal experience dealing with capital punishment cases, provided context for a newly released report that found racial, gender and geographic disparities in Ohio's death penalty process. Convicted murderers executed in Ohio are disproportionately black, and executions also are disproportionate if the victim is white and the murderer is black. "This study shows white lives matter and black lives don't," said the Rev. Jack Sullivan Jr., executive director of Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation, a national organization working to end the death penalty. Sullivan said "until all lives matter," he thinks the death penalty should be abolished in Ohio. His younger sister was murdered in Cleveland in 1997, with the person responsible never caught. Still, his group doesn't think the death penalty is the answer, especially because of racial problems in the justice system. "As hurt as we have been, we don't see any hope for us in the execution of those accused for killing our loved ones," he said. "The death of the convicted person will not bring back our loved ones. Short of getting rid of the death penalty, Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Stephen McIntosh discussed some of the 56 recommendations for improving Ohio's capital punishment process recently made by the Ohio Supreme Court's death penalty task force, which he co-chaired. The recommendations included requiring testing in capital cases to be done at accredited labs, specifying that interrogations of defendants facing the death penalty must be video taped, excluding people with mental illnesses from being executed, and establishing a statewide capital litigation fund to help pay for death-penalty cases in counties that can't afford them. "Sometimes, whether you will be charged with a capital case depends on where you are in Ohio," McIntosh said. Abraham Bonowitz, who heads Ohioans to Stop Executions, urged those who attended the event to consider writing to their state lawmakers and the governor to urge them to adopt the task force???s recommendations. He provided fliers on the recommendations and postcards to send to lawmakers and Gov. John Kasich. After the discussion, Judi Hill, president of the Akron chapter of the NAACP, said she plans to share the information at her organization's next meeting. She thinks the NAACP needs to be doing more on the local, state and national levels to push for changes in the criminal justice system. "Conversation, we can do," she said. "We need to take it a step further." The discussion also made an impression on students who attended. "My eyes were pretty much opened," said Marissa Mariner, 17, a student at Akron's STEM high school who also is taking classes at UA. "I've been a strong believer that there should be a death penalty. Now, I'm questioning my own beliefs." (source: Akron Beacon Journal) OKLAHOMA: Getting executions right is focus for Oklahoma AG's office 5 executions are now pending in Oklahoma, after the state Court of Criminal Appeals agreed last week to hold off on setting execution dates for 2 more death row inmates. The move by the court was proper and not surprising. That's because the next time Oklahoma executes an inmate, everything about the procedure must be beyond reproach. That didn't happen in recent examples, leading Attorney General Scott Pruitt to investigate via a multicounty grand jury. That work is ongoing. Meantime, Pruitt says he would like to see the state Department of Corrections work to obtain a license from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, and for the state to consider establishing a compounding pharmacy. They are ideas that have merit. Because the DOC does not have a license from the DEA, it cannot store execution drugs at the state prison in McAlester. Thus, the drugs used in executions are delivered to the prison on the day those executions are to be carried out. Pruitt's grand jury is looking into how the wrong drug was delivered for the past two executions. 1 of the drugs in the state's 3-drug combination is potassium chloride. Instead, potassium acetate was delivered for Richard Glossip's execution in September. The execution was halted when the mistake was realized. Authorities subsequently learned that potassium acetate had wrongly been used in the January 2015 execution of Charles Warner, a violation of the state's protocol. One question Pruitt has, he told The Oklahoman's editorial board last week, is "How can we do a more effective job?" If a compounding lab isn't a possibility, he said, then some change is needed "that deals with these issues of access, because we can't keep doing what we're doing. It will continue to be a problem." Pruitt said that if a compounding lab were created, it could allow attorneys for death row inmates to have access to execution drugs to ensure their efficacy. The current system, which keeps the drug providers secret and the drugs off-premises, has been a key point raised by litigants. Oklahoma's execution protocol was overhauled in 2014 after a grisly execution in April of that year when Clayton Lockett writhed and groaned on the gurney before being declared dead 43 minutes after the procedure began. An investigation found numerous problems with the state's execution practices. But problems continued even after those practices were revamped. The delayed executions are difficult on the families of the victims who have waited years for a resolution, but they're also difficult on the loved ones of those condemned. And, each misstep made in carrying out an execution adds fodder to the ongoing push to do away with the death penalty in the United States. "Where we are right now as a state, if we don't make the right changes in the long term, it will bring about the ultimate demise of the death penalty," Pruitt said. He added later, "I don't think we're there yet." He's right about that - polling consistently shows the death penalty enjoys solid support in Oklahoma. Yet Pruitt also is correct in saying that how the state responds to its current challenges is vitally important. He believes drug injection is the most humane way to carry out an execution. "So," he said, "our 1st step should be, 'How do we do that in the most effective way?'" It's a question that must be answered correctly. (source: Editorial Board, The Oklahoman) UTAH: Prosecutors withdraw their intent to seek death penalty in St. George killing At the request of the alleged victim's family, the death penalty has been taken off the table for Brandon Perry Smith, who is accused of killing a woman in a St. George apartment in 2010. Prosecutors filed a motion Tuesday withdrawing their intent to prosecute the case as capital murder for the stabbing death of 20-year-old Jerrica Christensen. Smith still faces a charge of 1st-degree felony aggravated murder - which is punishable by a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole - but he no longer can be executed if convicted. "The state is taking this action at the request of the family of the victim in an effort to avoid the delays associated with litigating a capital homicide case," Deputy Washington County Attorney Ryan Shaum wrote in court papers. "And to focus on bringing the case to trial as soon as possible." Several trial dates have been set and delayed in the 6 years since Christensen was murdered, according to court papers. Before this most recent development, Smith's attorneys had been challenging the constitutionality of the death penalty and had sought to depose all of Utah's 29 county attorneys to determine why some seek the death penalty and others don't - though a judge struck down that request, saying if the defendant wanted to take depositions from state prosecutors he "must first show that his prosecution has resulted in a discriminatory effect." Smith, 34, is accused of beating Christensen and cutting her throat with a pocket knife moments after his friend, Paul Clifford Ashton, shot and killed Brandie Sue Dawn Jerden and shot and wounded James Fiske. In court papers, Smith's attorneys have said he killed the woman because he felt threatened by Ashton. Prosecutors have argued that Smith is cold-hearted and relished taking the life of a stranger. They have alleged that several aggravating factors made the killing a death-penalty case: that Christensen was killed during a criminal episode in which two or more people were killed, that the homicide was committed incident to attempted kidnapping, that Christensen was killed to prevent her from testifying and that the homicide occurred in an "especially heinous, atrocious, cruel or exceptionally depraved manner." The defendant is expected in court Wednesday for a review hearing. Ashton, 36, was sentenced in 2013 to life without the possibility of parole for killing Jerden. That same week, he was also sentenced to life plus 10 years after pleading guilty in federal court to kidnapping a homeless man and aiding in his murder in 2010. He is serving both terms in federal prison. (source: Salt Lake Tribune) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 3 14:58:21 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2016 14:58:21 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 3 MYANMAR: Chinese National, Accused of Murder, Allegedly Executed in Mong La Accounts surfaced this week that authorities in Mong La, a special administrative region known as a hub for illicit activity on the Sino-Burmese border, may have executed a Chinese national after he was found guilty of homicide and arson. A statement bearing the official Mong La government stamp, published in the media outlet of an ethnic Kokang rebel group, announced that a 42-year-old man from Hunan Province had "murdered, made arson, bomb attacks and so on," and was to be executed by gunfire on Jan. 30. A "court investigation" found him guilty of illegal arms possession and carrying out an arson attack resulting in the deaths of 7 people and the injury of 4 others, according to the statement, which appeared to have been issued by a regional court. Speaking to The Irrawaddy on condition of anonymity, a Mong La resident said that last week a man was paraded through the town on the back of a truck and brought to the local football stadium, where hundreds of people had gathered. "They did not execute him at the football stadium, they killed him on top of a mountain," said the woman, who attended the public spectacle on the sporting grounds. She said armed guards explained that the condemned man was a criminal and would be shot to death, before they drove him out of view. Photographs of the procession and the packed football field were uploaded on a Facebook community page called "Ethnic Region Military Information," which has more than 27,000 followers. The post was shared almost 1,000 times as of Wednesday morning. The account regularly posts updates about armed ethnic groups, but the identity of its administrators is unknown and its content has not been verified by any official rebel-affiliated sources. When contacted by The Irrawaddy on Tuesday, Mong La Governor Sai Mauk said he was unaware of the incident as he was in Kunming, China, at the time it was said to have occurred. Mong La, also known as Shan State Special Region 4, is controlled by a non-state armed group called the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), and enjoys a high degree of autonomy from the central government. The region, which borders China's Yunan Province, has a reputation as a nexus of illegal activity; Mong La's eponymous main town is home to sprawling casinos and brothels, and is a known destination for wildlife traffickers. Local authorities have estimated that about 800 vehicles enter Mong La from China every day for purposes of sex, gambling and trade. Despite its debauchery, Mong La is also reputed for strict and selective law enforcement, dealing heavy-handed punishments without due process. While district-level courts in autonomous zones are authorized to issue the death penalty, the ruling would be subject to appeal at a national court, according to Sam Zarifi, regional director of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ). "If this is in fact an Autonomous zone district court, there should have been an appeal process," Zarifi told The Irrawaddy via email. "So, if the report is true, it's a major problem for the rule of law in the country." Overextending the zone's judicial authority would be particularly problematic with regard to capital punishment, as Burma is considered a de facto abolitionist state and has not openly carried out an execution in decades. Further complicating matters is that the prisoner was a foreign national, and it is unclear whether he had access to consular support. Zarifi said Burma "should not be even considering bringing back the death penalty in practice now, and especially not for a foreign national, based on an opaque judicial process that faces serious questions about its fairness and credibility and sits essentially outside the national legal system." (source: The Irrawaddy) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Feb 4 11:58:09 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2016 11:58:09 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, VA., N.C., GA., FLA., ALA. Message-ID: Feb. 4 TEXAS: 'I would like to apologise for all of the trouble I've caused': Final words of death row inmates give a unique insight into their state of mind minutes before death...and they're almost always POSITIVE----Psychologists analysed language in 407 statements of men on death row Have you ever imagined what your last words would be as you face death? It's a morbid thought, but one that almost 3,000 people currently on death row in the US may be contemplating. To get an insight into the state of mind of these inmates' final thoughts, psychologists have analysed statements of the condemned in Texas, spoken minutes before they were given the lethal injection. The researchers found that despite their impending death, the words conveyed were extremely positive expressions that reflected the emotional processes of coping with their fate. The study was carried out by psychologists Sarah Hirschmuller and Boris Egloff from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. They analysed emotional language in 407 statements from people facing the death penalty in the state of Texas. The offenders were put to death at the Huntsville Unit, which houses the State of Texas' execution chamber - the most active in the US. Poignant examples include the last statement of Daniel Lopez, who at the age of 27 was put to death on 12 August last year. It reads: 'I would like to thank you. I hope this execution helps my family and also the victim's family. 'This was never meant to be, sure beyond my power. I can only walk the path before me and make the best of it. I am sorry for putting y'all through this. I am sorry, I love you. I am ready. May we all go to Heaven.' ----EXAMPLE EXTRACTS FROM FINAL STATEMENTS OF CONDEMNED OFFENDERS---- The researchers found the prisoner's words conveyed extremely positive expressions that reflected the emotional processes of coping with their impending death. Some examples include: Richard Masterton, 43: 'Sending me to a better place. I am alright with this, you have to live and die by the choices that we make. I have made mine.' (Executed 20 January, 2016) Raphael Holiday, 36: 'I love you, love y'all, always going to be with y'all.' (Executed 18 November, 2015) Juan Garcia, 35: 'To the Solano family, I want to tell them to forgive me. While I am still alive I bring suffer to you all. The harm that I did to your dad and husband, I hope this brings you closure to all of you. I never wanted to hurt any of you all.' (Executed 6 October, 2015) Gregory Russeau, 46: 'I would like to thank my family and friends for what y'all have done for me. Thank you for being here with me that I do not have to transition alone. I have peace. To my daughter, I love you, to my grandbabies, sisters and brothers, I love you. I am ready to go home.' (Executed 18 June, 2015) Lester Bower, 67: 'I am not going to say goodbye, I will simply say until we meet again.' (Executed 3 June, 2015) Kent Sprouse, 42: 'I would like to apologise to the Moreno family and the Steinfeldt family for all of the trouble I have caused them. I would like to apologise to my family for all of the trouble that I have caused them. I would also like to thank my family for all of their support. I guess that's it.' (Executed 9 April, 2015) Robert Ladd, 57: 'Teresa I am really sorry, please don't have hate in your heart. I really feel like this. I hope you can find peace in your heart and happiness. A revenge death won't get you anything.' (Executed 29 January, 2015) Arnold Prieto, 42: 'There are no endings, only beginnings. Love y'all, see you soon.' (Executed 21 January, 2015) Lisa Colemen, 38: 'I just want to tell my family I love them; my son, I love him. The girls on the row, I love them and keep their heads up.' (Executed 17 September, 2014) Ramiro Hernandez-Llanas, 44: 'I look into my family's eyes, and I see sadness. Don't be sad, I'm happy. I am sorry for what I have done. Be mindful that I am happy till the end.' (Executed 9 April, 2014) Jose Villegas, 39: 'I am ok. I have peace in my heart and ready for the next journey. I'm really ok.' (Executed 16 April 2014) Ray Jasper, 33: 'To the Christian hip-hop community, all the positive brothers I've done time with. To all the people that took the time to write a letter. Thank you. To my family, we are one. To my beautiful daughter, the best thing that ever happened to me. I love you endlessly. I am you and you are me forever.' (Executed 19 March, 2014) Jerry Martin, 43: 'I would like to tell the Canfield family I'm sorry; sorry for your loss. I wish I could take it back, but I can't. I hope this gives you closure. I did not murder your loved one, it was an accident. I didn't mean for it to happen. I take full responsibility.' (Executed 3 December, 2013) Kimberly McCarthy, 52 : 'This is not a loss, this is a win. You know where I am going. I am going home to be with Jesus. Keep the faith. I love ya'll. Thank you, Chaplain.' (Executed 26 June, 2013) Beunka Adams, 29: 'First, I want to let my mom know not to cry, there is no reason to cry, everybody dies. Everybody has their time, don't worry about me. I'm strong. To my family: my old man, my kids, daddy is sorry. I love each and every one of you.' (Executed 26 April, 2012) Franklin Alix, 34: 'I got your letter. It touched me and changed me. What happened was I been wanting to apologize to yall for your son. They told me not to do it in court. I wrote him a letter but they told me that they tore it up in court. I am not the monster they made me out to be.' (Executed 30 March 2010) Michael Sigala, 32 : 'I would like to ask forgiveness of the family. I have no reason for why I did it, I don't understand why I did it. I hope that you can live the rest of your lives without hate. I pray the Lord grant me forgiveness.' (Executed 2 March, 2010) Danielle Simpson, 30: 'I want to tell my family I love ya'll...I'm gonna miss ya'll. I'm ready, ready.' (Executed 18 November, 2009) However, there are also examples of statements that are mostly negative, where inmates profess their innocence. Others chose not to leave a statement. Licho Escamilla, 33: 'Pope Francis, God's children has asked the State of Texas to switch my death sentence to life in prison. But the State of Texas has refused to listen to God's children, they will have to take that up with God. Let everyone know it's not over. (Executed 14 October, 2015) Michael Yowell, 43: 'To Gerald: you're a zero.' (Executed 9 October, 2013) Douglas Feldman, 55: 'I hereby declare, Robert Steven Everett and Nicholas Velasquez, guilty of crimes against me, Douglas Alan Feldman. Either by fact or by proxy, I find them both guilty. I hereby sentence both of them to death, which I carried out in August 1998. As of that time, the State of Texas has been holding me illegally in confinement and by force for 15 years. I hereby protest my pending execution and demand immediate relief.' (Executed 31 July, 2013) Milton Mathis, 32: 'The system has failed me. This is a miscarriage of justice. There are people on death row that need help. I asked the Lord to have mercy on me and I hope He has mercy on these people carrying out this mass slaughter.' (Executed 21 June, 2011) Lee Taylor, 32,: 'I am sorry that I killed him, but he would not have been in prison if he was a saint.' (Executed 16 June, 2011) Steven Woods, 31: 'You're not about to witness an execution, you are about to witness a murder. I am strapped down for something Marcus Rhodes did. I never killed anybody, ever. I love you, Mom. I love you, Tali. This is wrong. This whole thing is wrong. I can't believe you are going to let Marcus Rhodes walk around free. Justice has let me down. Somebody completely screwed this up.' (Executed 13 September 2011) Richard Masterton, 43, who died on 20 January, left the positive message: 'I am alright with this, you have to live and die by the choices that we make. I have made mine.' Juan Garcia, 35, who died on 10 June 2015, said in Spanish: 'To the Solano family, I want to tell them to forgive me. 'While I am still alive I bring suffer to you all. The harm that I did to your dad and husband, I hope this brings you closure to all of you. I never wanted to hurt any of you all. Previous studies of condemned inmates have revealed many seek forgiveness and turn to God in their final hours. Other research has suggested people are automatically drawn towards emotionally positive information and use positive emotional words such as 'love' and 'happy' before death, in order to regulate their fear of the unknown. Drs Egloff and Hirschmuller used a database of inmates' last statements available on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's website. The pair used computerised quantitative text analysis to measure emotional language used in the final statements objectively. ----THE DAY OF THE EXECUTION: THE CONDEMNED'S FINAL HOURS---- Condemned people in Texas can have 5 witnesses at their execution, including immediate family, friends and a spiritual adviser, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Since 1996 the immediate family and close friends of a victim have been allowed to watch an execution too. Inmates scheduled for execution are brought from death row to the Walls Unit early in the afternoon of their scheduled execution. Unlike other states, Texas prohibits inmates from special meals because of abuse of the privilege by past prisoners and the rationale that they did not offer a meal to their victims. Inmates can, but are not required to, make a last statement prior to their execution. By law, executions are scheduled to begin after 18:00 Huntsville time. On the afternoon of an execution, victim witnesses and their support people are given an overview of the process and schedule, as well as a list of people that will be present and information about the offender's offence. Victim witnesses and the offender's witnesses wait in separate parts of the Huntsville Unit before the execution and are kept separated throughout. The inmates are housed until that time about 30 feet (9 metres) from the door of the execution chamber. The execution chamber is a 9ft by 12ft (3 metres to 4 metres) room with turquoise walls and a gurney. Executions are carried out by lethal injection, and have been since 1977. 2 adjacent rooms, which view into the execution room through glass windows, house 2 groups. The viewing process takes between 7 and 8 minutes, from entering the viewing room, to watching the procedure and being escorted back to a secure area for a debriefing. For some witnesses, the process is traumatic, while others hold a media briefing. ---- The duo relied on a recent text analysis program called Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). This counted the total number of words, percentage of categorised dictionary words, percentage of positive emotion words, and percentage of negative emotion words in each statement. Examples of 'positive emotion' words are happy and love, while examples of negative emotion words are sad and hate, the paper published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology explained. The experts also analysed personal pronouns and 'social orientation words' in the statements, to explore how death row inmates referred to other people in their statements. These are typically words revolving around family and friends. 'We determined LIWC results for cognitive-processing words (e.g., think, know, or because), indicating the extent to which death row inmates were concerned about intellectually understanding the topics addressed in their final statements,' the researchers explained. They compared their findings to the rates of positive emotion word use in general using a sample of speech and writing from 23,000 individuals. They also looked at words used in the contexts of contemplated death and suicide. The researchers showed that the inmates' final words, spoken minutes before their executions, contained a significantly higher proportion of positive than negative emotion words. 'The final statements of Texas death row inmates conveyed extremely positive expressions that reflected the emotional processes of coping with mortality,' the study said. The experts added that this positivity was significantly higher than positive emotion word use in usual speech and books, as well as among people contemplating suicide. 'Additional analyses showed that emotional positivity in final statements was associated with a greater frequency of language use that was indicative of self-references, social orientation, and present-oriented time focus,' the study said, meaning inmates tended to be philosophical and more socially aware, with some asking forgiveness for their actions. The study continued that the death row inmates' statements contained a total of 42,328 words - an average 104 words per person. 'On the individual level, a positivity index, which was statistically different from zero on average, showed that statements by over 80 % of executed death row inmates contained more positive than negative emotion words,' they said ---- THE WORKINGS OF DEATH ROW Hanging was means of execution in Texas between 1819 and 1923, when it changed to the electric chair. A total of 361 inmates were electrocuted in the state. They include Raymond Hamilton, a member of the 'Bonnie and Clyde' gang who had escaped death row but was recaptured and put to death on 10 May, 1935. Capital punishment was declared 'cruel and unusual punishment' by the US Supreme Court on 29 June, 1972 but in Feburary 1974 executions were resumed. Texas adopted lethal injection as means of execution in 1977 and the 1st man to be killed by this method was Charlie Brooks, for the murder of a Fort Worth mechanic in 1982. Texas leads in the number of executions since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, while California, Florida, and Pennsylvania have the largest death row populations. There are 5 methods of execution in the United States: lethal injection, electrocution, lethal gas, hanging, and firing squad. The average time spent on death row before execution in Texas is 10.87 years. The shortest is 252 days and the longest, 31 years. The average age of executed offenders is 39 and the youngest was Jay Pinkerton, 24, who was executed on May 15, 1986. (source: Daily Mail) VIRGINIA: Va. murder trial may become part of national debate on jail informants When a Virginia man faces a possible death sentence in a murder trial later this year, his fate may rest on the testimony of four jailhouse informants, 2 of whom were initially found mentally incompetent to stand trial in their own cases. The case of Joaquin S. Rams could soon become part of a growing national backlash over the government's use of testimony from "snitches" - inmates who offer information against other inmates in exchange for lighter sentences or other benefits - to obtain convictions, sparked by a significant number of wrongful convictions attributed to false informant testimony. The issue erupted last year in Orange County, Calif., when a capital case against an admitted mass-murderer, and numerous other murder cases, stalled because of the discovery of a "snitch tank": a ring of county jail informants, closely managed by jail deputies, dedicated to testifying against fellow inmates. A judge ordered the county district attorney off the case, and the prosecution of a man accused of killing 8 people in 2011 has been delayed indefinitely. And in Washington last year, a judge ordered a new trial for the man accused of killing federal intern Chandra Levy in 2001 after defense attorneys successfully challenged the history and credibility of a key jailhouse informant in the 2010 trial. The use of informants is not new, nor are the challenges to their credibility. But informants' role in recent wrongful convictions and high-profile cases is causing lawmakers nationwide to look at regulating their use. In Texas, the revelation of false testimony by a snitch against a man who was later executed led to the introduction of legislation to ban informant testimony in death penalty cases. In Illinois, the law requires courts to hold "reliability hearings" before a jailhouse informant can testify. A similar proposed law in North Carolina failed last year. In Washington state, the legislature is considering a bill requiring judges to weigh informants' "incentivized" credibility before trial. And several high-profile murder cases in the Tidewater area of Virginia took drastic turns in recent years when jailhouse snitches were found to be unreliable. In Rams's case, in Prince William County, Va., one of the informants, who pleaded guilty to the murders of three people in Manassas, Va., in 2011, reported frequent hallucinations and said he knew the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. Another was diagnosed as a "malingerer" who was purposely lying to evade trial. In arguing to exclude the informants from the Rams trial, defense attorney Joni C. Robin argued that such testimony was "inherently unreliable, that it involves witnesses who categorically are more willing to lie or perjure themselves than other categories of witnesses." Calls for safeguards The Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University's law school found in 2005 that of the 111 people sentenced to death since the 1970s and later exonerated, "snitch" testimony was involved in 45.9 % of the cases. "That makes snitches the leading cause of wrongful convictions in U.S. capital cases," the report concluded. Defense attorneys and academics have long called on states to initiate safeguards so that jail cell information is either recorded or corroborated, but only Illinois has written anything into law. "There have been multiple snitch scandals in multiple places," said Brandon Garrett, a University of Virginia law professor who studies wrongful convictions. "Since more states are looking at wrongful convictions, it's becoming part of the conversation." Informants present dilemmas to both sides of a criminal case. For prosecutors, they must decide whether to believe that one inmate confessed crucial information to the informant, what the informant's history is, whether to wire the informant for recorded conversation with the target and what they are willing to trade for the information. For the defense, attorneys must try to refute a typically unrecorded conversation, investigate the background of the informant and then convince a jury that sworn testimony is a lie. Officials with 2 national prosecutors' groups said they would tread very carefully with jailhouse informants. David LaBahn, president of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys and a former deputy prosecutor in California, said prosecutors "have to be able to specifically articulate the reason you're using an informant and making a deal." And judges must exercise "court oversight before that testimony is admitted. Can you corroborate it, or did they just pick up the newspaper?" But prosecutors don'tt necessarily favor laws that regulate informant use. Josh Marquis, a county prosecutor in Oregon who is with the National District Attorneys Association, said: "I think jurors are very discerning. We don't believe it's appropriate for Congress or state legislatures to take away from juries what weight to give evidence." Defense attorneys strongly disagree. "Jurors believe jailhouse informants," said Doug Ramseur, a Virginia capital public defender. "They think criminals are not that smart and they sit around and brag about their crimes." Prince William Commonwealth's Attorney Paul B. Ebert, the chief prosecutor in the county for 47 years, said it was "amazing to me that these people [defendants] will talk [to informants], despite their counsel's advice not to. Informants do have very valuable information at times." Asked how his office corroborates an informant's claims, he said, "Many times they will know things that only the defendant would know." Ebert acknowledged having to cut deals with convicts but added, "I've often told juries, 'Sometimes you have to pet a skunk to catch another one.'" Ebert declined to discuss the pending Rams capital case, in which the defendant is accused of drowning his 15-month-old son in his Manassas home in 2012 to collect more than $500,000 in life insurance. Rams's attorneys argued in 1 motion that investigators "sought out and elicited the testimony of at least 2 jailhouse snitches" after Virginia's chief medical examiner reversed the initial autopsy finding of drowning and ruled that the child's cause of death couldn't be determined. Potential witnesses In October, prosecutors disclosed four jail informants who may testify against Rams. The most notable was Jose Reyes Alfaro, who in February 2011 fatally shot three people and nearly killed a fourth during a rampage in Manassas. In 2011 and 2012, a judge found Reyes Alfaro incompetent to stand trial. A psychologist wrote in 2012 that "Reyes Alfaro's reporting of past events, actions and relationships give me pause to question his ability to distinguish memories from fantasy." Reyes Alfaro was later sent to Central State Hospital, administered psychiatric drugs and treatment, and found to be restored to sanity in 2013, although a psychiatrist noted that Reyes Alfaro "described a number of far-fetched ideas about his past" such as being a member of an elite paramilitary force and "claiming to know the existence of Osama bin Laden in Venezuela." Reyes Alfaro also "has previously falsely incriminated other individuals," Robin, the defense attorney, argued in November, "leading to the arrest of those other individuals," who were later released. He pleaded guilty in 2014 to 3 counts of capital murder and received 7 life sentences. In exchange for Reyes Alfaro's testimony, prosecutors said they asked the state Department of Corrections to move him away from Wallens Ridge State Prison, which houses many of the state's most serious offenders. Prosecutors also want to use Jamal A. Thompson, an Oakland, Calif., man arrested on charges of prostituting a 15-year-old runaway girl at a Manassas hotel, against Rams. Thompson also was initially found incompetent to stand trial, but when he was sent to Central State, doctors there found him to be engaged in "volitional malingering .... intentional feigning or exaggeration of psychiatric, cognitive or physical symptoms for secondary gain, such as .... to avoid prosecution." Prince William prosecutors also listed Gavin Simms, who had multiple convictions for theft, as a witness and said he received no considerations for his testimony. But when 1 of Rams's attorneys attended Simms's sentencing several weeks later, court records show, they found that prosecutors had agreed to dismiss 9 felony theft charges and recommend a sentence of 18 months. He faced up to 4 years in prison. The prosecutors also said they may call Aric A. Smith, who pleaded guilty to randomly shooting and killing retired ATF agent Gregory Holley as he walked his dog in Woodbridge, Va., in 2013. Rams's attorneys asked Prince William Circuit Court Judge Craig D. Johnston to hold a "reliability hearing" to determine whether the four informants could testify, similar to a "Daubert" hearing held in civil cases to rule whether scientific evidence is admissible. Johnston declined. "There's no Virginia case that I know of that authorizes such," the judge said. "I understand the defense's frustration. .... But that said, that's the way we do business in criminal cases, rightly or wrongly." Rams's attorneys declined to comment on the case. The trial was scheduled to begin this week but was postponed at the defense's request. Rams, 43, has maintained his innocence in the death of his son, Prince McLeod Rams. 3 other people who were in the house when the boy fell unconscious say that Rams did not kill him. A 'snitch factory' Before another capital murder trial, Ramseur was the attorney for Christopher Artis in a Suffolk, Va., case in 2012. Ramseur listened to jailhouse phone recordings because he had been warned that the Western Tidewater Regional Jail in Suffolk "was a snitch factory." He said he found "there was a network of guys trying to corroborate stories so they could get on a capital case and reduce their own case. I heard a guy call his mother and instruct her on how to look at my client's file." At trial, he said 4 informants were "clearly on tape admitting they were lying to get their sentence reduced." Prosecutors quickly agreed to a mid-trial plea deal for 2nd-degree murder and 10 years for Artis. In Virginia Beach, the 2010 slaying of a Norfolk police officer remains unsolved after prosecutors in 2014 dropped all charges against 2 men because they found jailhouse witnesses had lied. Prosecutors in the District last year acquiesced in the ???high-profile Chandra Levy case, in which Ingmar Guandique was convicted largely on the testimony of jailhouse informant Armando Morales. Morales testified that Guandique confessed the slaying to him. But Morales, a convicted drug dealer and gang member, lied when asked whether he had testified in other cases, and Guandique's attorneys claim the confession testimony was also false. Last May, the U.S. attorney's office dropped its opposition to Guandique's demand for a new trial. Now, "we understand the full scope of just how problematic criminal informants can be," said Alexandra Natapoff, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. "The rules permit precisely this result. Weak discovery rules, unfettered prosecutorial discretion and payments to criminals. What did we think would happen? It's time to ask why the American criminal justice system permits these practices to exist." (source: Washington Post) NORTH CAROLINA: Rev. Joseph B. Ingle lectures on U.S. Death Penalty at Mars Hill University Feb. 15----Chaplain to Death Row Inmates to Present Lecture on the Death Penalty at Mars Hill University Rev. Joseph B. Ingle, a United Church of Christ minister and a leading voice in faith-based opposition to the death penalty, will be presenting a public lecture Monday evening, February 15, at 6pm in Belk Auditorium, Mars Hill University. The lecture will be titled, "Why does the United States execute more of its citizens than any country in the world?" Ingle will also be holding a workshop about the same issue on Monday afternoon, 3- 4:30 pm in Bentley Fellowship Hall. The workshop is entitled: "...and the criminals with him." The workshop will be interactive, examining Jesus of Nazareth and Socrates of Athens, who were both convicted criminals, and what lessons they teach us about criminals today and our relationship to them. In addition to Christians and philosophers of various sorts, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Atheists, Others, and "Nones" are welcome. Ingle, a graduate of Union Theological Seminary, has been the chaplain to dozens of people on death row over the past 40 years across the South. In a January 2015 article in Faith and Leadership, the Duke Divinity School newsletter, Ingle said his interest in counseling inmates on death row began during seminary, from reading the biblical book of Isaiah and Mary's "Magnificat," along with declarations in the Bible about "freeing the captives." He realized that he had never even been inside of a prison. This interest grew, and he decided to dedicate his senior year in seminary to visiting prisons. "What you find out when you visit prisoners is they're doing something for you. The ministry that goes on is not me ministering to the prisoners. It's the other way around, and I think Jesus really knew that and that's why he wanted us to get in the prisons." According to Ingle, the U.S. prison system is a "giant killing and caging machinery," which meets out retributive justice. Ingle says those values are inconsistent with the values of the Christian Gospel, which promotes restorative justice. Ingle is the author of Last Rights: Thirteen Fatal Encounters with the States Justice (1990), The Inferno: A Southern Morality Tale (2011), and, most recently, Slouching Toward Tyranny: Mass Incarcerations, Death Sentences and Racism (2015). The events at Mars Hill University are sponsored and coordinated by the following programs and departments: the Department of Religion, History, and Philosophy, The Visiting Artists and, Lectures Committee, The Office of the Chaplain and the Religious Life Program, The Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, The Ethics-Across the-Curriculum Program, The Department of Criminal Justice, and The Advocates of Justice Club. The public lecture on February 15, 6pm in Belk Auditorium is free to the public. Ingle's workshop on Monday afternoon is also free to the public, but admission is limited and an RSVP is required. If you are interested in this workshop please contact Dr. Katharine Meacham at kmeacham at mhu.edu; 828-689-1119. Ingle will also be speaking at the university's Crossroads worship service on Tuesday, February 16 at 11am in Broyhill Chapel, with a message titled "Homecoming." Mars Hill University is a premier private, liberal arts institution offering over 30 baccalaureate degrees and one graduate degree in elementary education. Founded in 1856 by Baptist families of the region, the campus is located just 20 minutes north of Asheville in the mountains of western North Carolina.www.mhu.edu. (source: mountainx.com) GEORGIA----impending execution Georgia is already preparing for the next lethal injection After carrying out the execution of its oldest death row inmate this week, Georgia is already preparing for the next lethal injection. In 2 weeks, Travis Hittson, 45, is scheduled to die for the April 1992 killing of Conway Utterbeck, who was hit with a metal bat while he was sleeping, shot and dismembered, his remains buried in two places. The 2 were Navy sailors stationed in Pensacola, Fla., at the time of the killing. Another sailor was also convicted in the killing and reached a plea deal for a life sentence. Georgia has at least 3 other death row inmates eligible for execution, meaning all of their standard appeals have been exhausted. On Wednesday, Brandon Astor Jones was pronounced dead at 12:46 a.m. after an injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital. He was convicted in the 1979 shooting death of suburban Atlanta convenience store manager Roger Tackett during a robbery. Last year, the state's plan to carry out executions in rapid succession was temporarily thwarted by a problem with its drug. After executing 2 inmates in January 2015, corrections officials postponed executions scheduled for March after they noticed white chunks floating in a syringe of the normally clear compounded pentobarbital they had planned to use. Officials said they investigated the problem and a judge rejected a related legal challenge. Executions resumed in the fall, bringing the year's total to 5, the most Georgia had carried out in a calendar year since 1987. Jones was the first Georgia inmate executed this year. 4 news reporters, including one from The Associated Press, witnessed his execution but only one was present when Jones was strapped down and the IV lines that would deliver the lethal drug were placed on his body. That reporter said the process took about an hour and 10 minutes, which is longer than usual. A doctor was called in to help the 2-person team place the IV lines, said Department of Corrections spokeswoman Joan Heath. One line was put in Jones' right arm and another in the groin area, which is unusual but follows the state's execution protocol if access through veins in the arm or hand is not possible. Georgia doesn't announce exactly when lethal injections begin, and the injection isn't visible to observers. But the warden left the execution chamber at 12:30 a.m., and records from past executions show the lethal drug generally begins to flow within a minute or 2 of the warden's departure. Jones was convicted in October 1979 and sentenced to death. A federal judge in 1989 ordered a new sentencing hearing because jurors had improperly been allowed to bring a Bible into the deliberation room. He was resentenced to death in 1997. Van Roosevelt Solomon, who was also convicted and sentenced to death for Tackett's killing, was executed by electric chair in February 1985. (source: Associated Press) FLORIDA----impending execution Judge denies request to delay execution of Jacksonville white supremacist A Jacksonville white supremacist will die on St. Patrick's Day unless the Florida Supreme Court stops his execution. Wednesday afternoon Jacksonville Circuit Judge Tatiana Salvador rejected Mark James Asay's request for a stay of execution. Asay's case will now go to the state Supreme Court for a final appeal before he is scheduled to die by lethal injection March 17. But Asay's chances of another reprieve are likely, considering the Florida Supreme Court stayed - or delayed - a Feb. 11 execution of a Glades County man this week after lawyers argued there was too much uncertainty to execute Cary Michael Lambrix. It follows the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling declaring the state's death-penalty sentencing procedures unconstitutional. Salvador said the decision on whether the U.S. Supreme Court case affects Asay was best left to the Florida Supreme Court, and she prefers not to speculate on what the higher court will do. Asay, 51, was sentenced to death for the murders of Robert Lee Booker and Robert McDowell in 1987. Both victims were black and McDowell was a cross-dressing prostitute. Attorney Martin McClain, who represents both Asay and Lambrix, said the arguments for delaying Lambrix's execution apply to Asay as well. "There's just too much uncertainty right now to justify executing someone," McClain said. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Jan. 12 that Florida's death-penalty procedures are unconstitutional because the final decision on whether someone is sentenced to life or death is made by a judge instead of a jury. The ruling did not say how the decision would affect the 390 people now on death row, which means the Florida Supreme Court must figure it out. McClain argued earlier this week that everyone on death row should be resentenced to life in prison. But for now he's mainly arguing that his clients should not be executed until legislative leaders and the court system determine how to deal with the problem. "If Mr. Lambrix is being stayed it only makes sense to stay Mr. Asay," McClain said. "I'm disappointed that the judge didn't follow what the Florida Supreme Court has done." While the Florida Supreme Court had the power to delay an execution, Salvador said she didn't have that ability. "This court is without power or authority to stay defendant's execution set by the governor of this state," Salvador said in her ruling. McClain also said he hasn't had time to prepare a defense for Asay because he only became Asay's lawyer on Jan. 13. He said many of the documents have been lost or destroyed and he was still waiting for materials until the deadline required for him to file motions in the appeal. McClain also argued that new evidence that suggests Booker and McDowell were not killed with the same gun diminishes the reliability of firearms evidence presented during the trial. Salvador rejected all of McClain's arguments. She found that the evidence presented during Asay's trial was enough to convict him and found that the new evidence wasn't enough to cast doubt on the verdict. Salvador also ruled that McClain has had enough time to properly defend Asay. Prosecutors and defense lawyers will file motions this month to the Florida Supreme Court and oral arguments are now scheduled to occur during the 1st week of March, although the court could delay the execution without court filings or hearing oral arguments. (source: jacksonville.com) ************* Justices weigh new trial for Morris in wake of death penalty ruling Relatives and friends of 2 slain Tampa police officers sat in silence Wednesday as the Florida Supreme Court spent an hour debating with a public defender and state prosecutor about whether Dontae Morris deserves a new trial based on a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Morris, convicted of fatally shooting officers David Curtis and Jeffrey Kocab in 2010, was the first death row inmate to have his direct appeal heard by the Florida Supreme Court after the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Jan. 12 ruling that invalidated Florida's death penalty sentencing procedures. The Florida high court is already struggling over how to proceed in light of that ruling, issuing an indefinite stay of execution for Cary Michael Lambrix while it considers arguments made Tuesday. Lambrix was sentenced to die Feb. 11 for the 1983 murder of 2 people in Glades County. The U.S. Supreme Court's opinion has far-reaching implications, including whether Florida should require unanimous jury decisions instead of a simple majority in sentencing someone to death, and whether the high court's ruling should be applied retroactively to the 390 Florida death row inmates. "We are still trying to figure this out," Florida Justice Barbara Pariente said during arguments. The Florida Legislature is also grappling with the issue, with both the Senate and House holding hearings over how best to rewrite statutes to preserve the death penalty against future constitutional challenges. One House measure follows a recommendation by statewide prosecutors to require a 9-3 jury vote to impose the death penalty. And circuit courts throughout the state are putting their death penalty cases on hold until the Supreme Court and Legislature come up with a solution. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Hurst v. Florida that the state's death sentencing statute violated the Sixth Amendment because Florida law gives a judge the right to override a jury's recommendation after reviewing the facts. The U.S. Supreme Court said only a jury can impose a death sentence. "This statute has been declared unconstitutional on its face," Cynthia Dodge, a 10th Circuit public defender from Bartow who represents Morris, said during oral arguments Wednesday. Morris was found guilty by a unanimous jury and sentenced to death in May 2014 for the shooting death of the 2 officers. A unanimous jury also recommended death. Dodge's motion for a new trial was filed over a year ago and had nothing to do with the issues raised by Hurst, but rather rested on whether Morris had received a fair trial. Dodge raised several issues in her motion, including whether Morris' right to an impartial jury was violated because of a change in venue, whether the court should have left out a redacted statement it allowed to be introduced as evidence, and whether the court should have let law enforcement identify the voice and image of the shooter on the police dash cam as that of Morris instead of leaving that for the jury to decide. Dodge had 3 days after the U.S. Supreme Court's Hurst ruling to file a supplemental brief Jan. 15, laying out an argument that Hurst also applies to her client. She said the 12-0 recommendation by the jury didn't matter since "the required findings of fact regarding aggravating circumstances were not made by the jury." In his 21-page order, Circuit Judge William Fuente said he gave great weight to 2 aggravating circumstances - the fact that the officers were killed in the line of duty and Morris' prior conviction for murder. Fuente said the 26 mitigating circumstances didn't outweigh the aggravating circumstances. Pariente asked Dodge why she didn't ask for a new sentencing hearing that complies with Hurst. "Why isn't renewal for a new sentencing phase not an appropriate way to appeal?" Pariente asked. Dodge said the case couldn't go back for resentencing because there is no longer a statute in place. Justice Peggy Quince also asked if there weren't still enough remnants of a statute in place to proceed with a resentencing hearing. "Statutorily you have the judge sentencing, not the jury sentencing," Dodge said. The Legislature would have to step in and write a new statute before any new resentencing trials are ordered, Dodge said. Assistant Attorney General Carol Dittmar said Hurst doesn't apply to this case or other already decided cases because the procedures are still in place to conduct a fair resentencing hearing and it would cause an undue burden on the court system. Florida has the 2nd-highest number of people on death row, after California. Morris is 1 of 43 death row inmates who have filed direct appeals with the state following their sentencing and conviction. A direct appeal is the 1st appellate proceeding after the sentence of death has been imposed by a trial judge, Supreme Court spokesman Craig Waters explained. The Florida high court has several options in the Morris case: uphold the verdict, vacate the sentence, order a new trial or a new sentencing hearing, or commute Morris' death sentence to life. "If they give him a new trial, all this Hurst stuff becomes irrelevant," Dodge said. (source: The Tampa Tribune) ALABAMA: Judge rejects claims Alabama's death penalty system is unconstitutional, John Clayton Owens murder trial starts Monday John Clayton Owens appears to be headed to trial Monday on charges he killed his elderly neighbor. He could face the death penalty if convicted. Owens is charged with killing his 91-year-old next-door neighbor Doris Richardson on Bide-a-wee Drive near Five Points in Huntsville in August 2011. Owens' lawyers were unsuccessful Wednesday in persuading Madison County Circuit Judge Alison Austin that Alabama's death penalty system is unconstitutional. Defense attorneys Brian Clark and Ron Smith argued that Alabama's system is essentially the same as Florida's. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hurst vs. Florida, on January 12, that Florida's death penalty system is unconstitutional because it gives judges the final say in death penalty sentencing, not juries. Smith told the court the same holds true in Alabama. He pointed out that judges are allowed to ignore a jury's recommendation on whether a defendant should get life in prison without parole or the death penalty for a capital murder conviction. Smith also argued the Hurst opinion found fault with the practice of allowing judges to hold an independent fact-finding process before sentencing - just like Alabama, after the jury has weighed in. Madison County Assistant District Attorney Bill Starnes disagreed, telling the court that the U.S. Supreme Court had rejected a request to consider Alabama's death penalty law at the same time as it agreed to take up the Hurst case. Starnes also noted that before the January 21 execution of Christopher Eugene Brooks, the Supreme Court was asked to stay the execution based on the Hurst ruling. A majority of the court rejected that argument. Starnes said that showed the high court found Alabama's death penalty system was constitutional. Judge Austin rejected the defense argument, also pointing out the Supreme Court could have considered the Alabama death penalty system along with Florida's, but it didn't. The judge said the capital murder charge against Owens alleges that he killed Richardson in the commission of a burglary. The judge noted that burglary is among the "aggravators" jurors are to consider - normally during the post-conviction penalty phase - in weighing whether a defendant should be sentenced to death. Austin said that if a jury convicts Owens of capital murder, that means it unanimously agreed that his crime included an aggravator, which would make him death-penalty eligible. Defense attorney Brian Clark said the defense is still considering whether to appeal Austin's ruling to a state appeals court. That would likely delay the trial's start date. Delaware's death penalty system is similar to Alabama and Florida's. Those are the last 3 states where a judge has the a, thority to override a jury's recommendation and issue a life or death sentence in capital murder cases. A Delaware judge this week sent a request to the Delaware Supreme Court asking it to address questions raised by the Hurst decision. Delaware's death penalty cases are currently stayed, pending the state's Supreme Court opinion. Owens' case is set to begin on Monday morning. 60 would-be jurors will be given questionnaires asking a range of questions, including their views on the death penalty. The case is expected to take more than a week to complete. (source: WHNT news) ********* Jury recommends death penalty in case of slain mentally challenged man Dennis Hicks, 57, has been convicted of the death of Joshua Duncan, 23, in 2011. Hicks previously served a 25-year sentence for a 1979 double-homicide in Wayne County, Mississippi. The Mobile County District Attorney's office tweeted Wednesday afternoon that the jury in the trial of Dennis Hicks has recommended the death penalty. Hicks, 57, was convicted last week of the 2011 murder of Joshua Duncan, a mentally challenged man. Duncan had been missing for a month when his remains were found in October 2011 in the former Mobile Police Firing Range on Cody Road. Duncan's body was decapitated and disemboweled. Hicks was previously imprisoned for 25 years for a 1979 double-homicide in Wayne County, Mississippi. Hicks stabbed and shot those two victims. The bodies were later found in his vehicle. While still a suspect in this investigation, he was arrested for theft of property in Spanish Fort, thus violating his parole. While in jail, he was charged with capital murder in the death of Duncan. Lt. Paul Burch of the Mobile Sheriff's Office told AL.com in December 2012 that Hicks befriended Duncan at a church in west Mobile. Although the DA's office has released information about the jury's recommendation, it is currently unknown how long the penalty phase of Hicks' sentencing will continue. (source: al.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Feb 4 11:59:46 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2016 11:59:46 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, MO., KAN., CALIF., WASH. Message-ID: Feb. 4 OHIO: Tragic tales of injustice Professor Marge Koosed of the UA School of Law hosted a panel to discuss race and the death penalty this past Tuesday. The event, titled "The Death Lottery: How Race Impacts the Ohio Death Penalty," featured 4 speakers who have firsthand experience with the issue. A modest crowd attended the noontime discussion, which was held in the Student Union Theater. Koosed opened the event with Ohio capital punishment statistics, including the fact that 57 % of Ohio's death row inmates are minorities - while only 12 % of Ohio's population are minorities. Then she turned the podium over to the afternoon's speakers. The 1st speaker was Judge Stephen McIntosh, a former member of an Ohio task force asked to recommend changes to state death penalty laws - recommendations that included legislation that would prevent seriously mentally ill people from being executed. Other recommended pieces of legislation would require absolute certainty that the defendant committed the crime before he or she could be condemned. McIntosh expressed frustration that people, especially people of color, are sentenced to death with little evidence. "You would be surprised to see how many people are on death row because of a single eyewitness or ... a jailhouse snitch," he said. After that, the podium was passed to Jack Sullivan, Jr., an ordained minister and executive director of Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation. Sullivan discussed the mission of his organization, which is primarily to abolish the death penalty. Sullivan also recounted the tragic story of his younger sister Rebecca, who was murdered in Cleveland at the age of 21. He also spoke of the "Imperial 11," 11 African-American women who were kidnapped and killed in an Imperial Avenue duplex in Cleveland. He expressed disgust with the legal system's response to both crimes, alleging that certain law enforcement personnel lack effort when investigating crimes involving African-Americans. "There's a thread of indifference at best, and a thread of lack of concern at worst," he said. He stressed that he wants to see the killers captured, but not executed. Next, Kwame Ajamu was invited up to the podium. Last year, Ajamu was exonerated for a 1975 murder that he did not commit. The only witness for the case was a 12-year-old boy who recently admitted that law enforcement pressured him to falsely identify the murderers. "Not only did they fabricate the case, but they actually wrote my part into the story weeks later," Ajamu said. For almost 25 minutes he told his tragic story, frequently pausing to dry his eyes with a handkerchief. He was arrested while playing basketball, assigned an apathetic defense attorney, and sentenced to death row. "They came into an all-black neighborhood and left with 3 of its occupants," he said. "We wouldn't be back for 40 years. So many moments in life. 17 years in prison. Now, all of the seniors are gone. I'm a senior. My brother is a senior." In his freedom, he stands as a staunch opponent of capital punishment. "If I could go back, man, I would do it all again," he said. "Just to stand as I do today and represent the eradication of this evil." After Ajamu's emotional presentation, Abraham J. Bonowitz pointed to relevant resources and websites, including www.otse.org. He encouraged the audience to join the fight against wrongful convictions and racial injustice in Ohio. (source: buchtelite.com) MISSOURI: Execution Drug Supplier Won't Say If It Alerted Financial Crimes Unit Missouri paid a family-run pharmacy in Oklahoma more than $30,000 in cash for execution drugs. Federal law requires recipients of large amounts of cash alert a federal financial crimes unit - but the pharmacy isn't saying whether it did. Over the past 2 1/2 years, the state of Missouri has handed out $250,000 in cash to members of an execution team in an effort to keep their identities hidden. Its methods have raised questions about whether the state has followed federal law - but also whether at least 1 of the recipients of the cash payments complied with the law. Most of the execution team payments were in increments of several thousand dollars. But one recipient, a pharmacy in Oklahoma that provided drugs for several executions, received payments of $11,091. As BuzzFeed News revealed last week, the state has not been alerting the Internal Revenue Service to the payments. Experts said the state's methods raise the risk that the recipients could be evading taxes, and is likely in violation of federal tax law. Further investigation of the "confidential execution team member receipts" reveals another potential legal issue. Anytime more than $10,000 in cash changes hands, the recipient is obligated to inform the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which investigates money laundering. The Apothecary Shoppe, the pharmacy that received 2 cash payments of $11,091, apparently would have been subject to the law, an expert who spoke with BuzzFeed News explained, and therefore required to alert the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the payments. "If any one of the payments was more than $10,000, then they should have made the filing with FinCEN," said Bryan Camp, a former IRS employee who is now a law professor at Texas Tech. Attorneys have sometimes balked at the requirement of alerting the financial crimes unit of large cash payments, arguing it violates attorney-client privilege and their code of ethics. But a federal appeals court disagreed in a 1992 case, holding that an attorney had to disclose the information to the unit. The penalties for not alerting the unit would be the same penalties the state could face for not disclosing the payments to the IRS. The penalties are relatively modest, starting at $100. But the penalties can add up, and increases if the violation was intentional. The Apothecary Shoppe is currently under a court-ordered receivership. The receiver did not answer when asked if he would look into whether the pharmacy had alerted the financial crimes unit, or paid taxes on the large amount of cash it received. Since Missouri did not issue 1099s, the IRS would have no way of knowing to check for tax payments on the payments. The pharmacy began supplying for executions in November 2013. In the 1st execution, the pharmacy was first paid $8,000. The state then increased its payments to the pharmacy to $11,091 per execution for another 2 executions. A corrections official testified that the extra cost was to pay for testing of the drug before it would be used. In total, the Apothecary Shoppe received $30,182 for 3 executions. The other members of the state's execution team did not meet that threshold in a single transaction. But other members cumulatively received well over $10,000 in cash. The law requires alerting the financial crimes unit if the payments are more than $10,000 in one "or more related transactions." A tax expert BuzzFeed News spoke with said it's unclear if the payments counted as "related transactions" for separate executions - meaning it's unclear if they would also need to alert the financial crimes unit. In late 2013, St. Louis Public Radio discovered the pharmacy was selling drugs to Missouri despite not being licensed to do so in the state. Shortly thereafter, the pharmacy was sued by a death row inmate facing execution. He claimed the drugs that the Apothecary Shoppe was making would likely put him through severe pain. The case was settled out of court. The terms were confidential, but the pharmacy agreed to not sell drugs for any more executions. The Apothecary Shoppe has refused to discuss its involvement in Missouri's executions, and the state found a new drug supplier. Since then, the Apothecary Shoppe has defaulted on loans from the bank and their board resigned en masse. The bank sued the pharmacy, and put in place David Rhoades, a receiver who specializes in fraud. Rhoades initially declined to comment on if the pharmacy paid taxes on the cash, and if it alerted the financial crimes division, since it took place well before his tenure. But when BuzzFeed News pointed out that the IRS could collect on the taxes, or could penalize the pharmacy if it did not alert the financial crimes division, Rhoades offered a brief statement. "Regardless of what form revenue takes, it would be typical that it is recorded as income and therefore included in the tax preparation," Rhoades said. Although he added, "I do not believe that it is a current issue for the pharmacies," Rhoades would not specifically answer questions as to whether the pharmacy paid taxes on the payments or alerted the financial crimes division. The Department of Corrections did not respond when asked for comment. However, the director of the Department of Corrections, George Lombardi, was asked to explain the cash payments before the state legislature this week. Lombardi could not point to an exemption that allowed the department to not issue 1099s, but defended its practice nonetheless. "Is it your understanding that there is some sort of exemption for the department of corrections to skirt that federal requirement?" Rep. Jeremy LaFaver asked. "It is my understanding that giving 1099s to these individuals would reveal who they were, and would mean the end of the death penalty, because these individuals wouldn't do it," Lombardi said. Gov. Jay Nixon, who oversees the department of corrections, declined to comment. (source: BuzzFeedNews) ********************** Paul Wieland leads unlikely coalition to end death penalty I knew Kent Heitholt, the late sports editor of the Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune, who was beaten to death on Halloween night 2001 in the parking lot of his paper. Kent was a big, tall man, probably close to 300 pounds. He was a nice person, a pro at his job and pretty mild mannered. He was set upon by some punks who beat and strangled him. One of those accused of the killing, Ryan Ferguson, was a 17-year-old high school student. Based on the testimony of a childhood friend, who himself pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder in the case, and the testimony of a janitor, Ferguson was arrested in early 2004 and convicted in 2005. By then a freshman at Mizzou, he was sentenced to 40 years for the killing. In November 2013, Ferguson's conviction was vacated by a Missouri Court of Appeals after the 2 witnesses admitted lying on the stand during Ferguson's trial. Kent lost his life. Ferguson lost nearly a decade of his. Anytime there's news of prisoners wrongly accused or freed, or a discussion about the fairness of the death penalty, I think about Kent and the double tragedy of his case. Last week was one of those times as a Missouri Senate committee took up a bill to formally repeal the death penalty in our state. State Sen. Paul Wieland (R-Imperial) is the main sponsor and spokesman for the bill. Wieland, a devout Catholic, is one of the most ardent and consistent pro-life members of the Legislature. He is out front of a movement that may be pushed forward by an odd alliance of classic pro-lifers and government-can't-do-anything-right believers. In the past, Republicans generally have been pro-death penalty and pro-law and order, which aren't necessarily the same thing, but which have a large overlap. For decades, GOP candidates in campaigns have tried to paint Democrats as being more concerned about the rights of criminals than police officers. So how have the Republicans come to be the party of no-death penalty? Because the party's extreme edge - hard as that may be to identify - has come full circle. That element of the GOP has become so virulently anti-government (even as it presides over it) that it doesn't trust anything the government does, including executing people. That growing attitude, coupled with some high-profile exonerations of people on death row, has joined the always pro-life forces to move this bill forward. There are practical considerations, too, such as the potentially millions of dollars in legal costs it takes to execute a prisoner, dragged out over 2 decades or more. There also is a school of thought that says execution is too easy for them, that suffering in prison for 30 or 40 years is stronger punishment. What I would call the classic pro-life stance has never differentiated which lives it finds sacred. The Catholic Church has been as adamant in its opposition to the death penalty as it has been to abortion or euthanasia. It's a 1-sentence stance - only God can make that decision. To his credit, Wieland has been consistently pro-life. He and his wife, Terri, sued the federal Department of Health and Human Services in 2013 when Obamacare regulations forced them to accept health insurance that included contraception and abortion-inducing drug coverage. At the time, he said he filed the suit on behalf of his 3 daughters and his family's beliefs. A federal judge threw the case out in 2014, ruling that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) superseded state law that allowed an opt-out of such coverage. The Wielands appealed and won that appeal in 2015, allowing the case to go forward. It has not yet been resolved. It's always been a curious thing to watch many conservatives pledge their pro-life credentials on abortion to voters, but at the same time favor the death penalty. For the religiously inclined, the Bible doesn't offer a clear answer. The Old Testament offers contradictory guidance. There are numerous references to "an eye for eye" which seem to endorse retaliation. That sentiment is contradicted in Romans 12:19: "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." In the New Testament, Matthew 5:38 references the original eye-for-an-eye quote and refutes it, urging disciples to turn the other cheek to an enemy. Most of us, fortunately, have never been in the situation of the Heitholt family, or the thousands of other families affected by horrible crimes. It would strain anyone's beliefs to see a criminal smirking for his mug shot if his victim had been one of your loved ones. Wieland and his church take a simple approach - all human life is sacred, period. Senate Bill 816 was voted out of committee with a "do pass" recommendation last week. It may not become law, but you have to hand it to Wieland, who has introduced similar bills in past sessions, for consistently putting his beliefs on the line. (source: Column, Patrick Martin; myleaderpaper.com) KANSAS: Kansas v. Carr: Procedure and the Death Penalty at the Supreme Court The debate over the constitutionality of the death penalty took on a renewed vigor last term in Oklahoma's lethal injection case, Glossip v. Gross, in which Justice Breyer in dissent suggested it "highly likely that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment." While the Court decided 5-4 that Oklahoma's use of the lethal injection drug midazolam - part one of a 3-part drug cocktail meant to numb an individual from the pain caused by the other drugs working to stop the heart - was constitutional, the close vote and impassioned dissent highlighted a growing skepticism of capital punishment in the Court. Flash-forward to this term and the issue was high on the docket with four cases raising procedural questions about the death penalty. 2 have since been decided. First, in Hurst v. Florida the Court deemed unconstitutional a sentencing scheme that charged the judge, and not a jury, with making the ultimate sentencing decision in capital cases. Decided 8-1, Hurst seemed to indicate the direction the Court would take in its three remaining death penalty cases. Then, just over a week later in Kansas v. Carr/Kansas v. Gleason, the Court voted 8-1 against recognizing additional Eighth Amendment procedural protections. What accounts for this difference? And what do these inconsistent results spell out for the remaining two death penalty cases, Foster v. Chatman and Williams v. Pennsylvania? In Carr, the Kansas Supreme Court vacated three death sentences - those of the Carr brothers and of Gleason, a defendant in an unrelated case - because of the lower court's failure to affirmatively instruct the jury that mitigating factors need not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, and in the case of the Carr brothers, not allowing severance at the sentencing phase of trial. Kansas's attorney general challenged this decision, and the Court granted certiorari on the question of whether the Eighth Amendment demands the procedural protections recognized by the Kansas Supreme Court. It became readily apparent that the respondents in Carr were in trouble. Justice Scalia halted oral argument to recount, at length, the grisly details of the Carr brothers' crime spree, known as the Wichita Massacre. It came as no surprise then, when the opinion for the case was handed down, that Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, used over 2 pages of his 18-page opinion to again hash out the horrendous facts. In the remaining pages, the Court found little trouble in dispensing with the respondents' arguments. The Court first dismissed a jurisdictional objection brought by Gleason that the Kansas Supreme Court decision was based on adequate and independent state grounds. Next, the Court ruled that the instruction originally given at sentencing was sufficient and that "no juror would reasonably have speculated that mitigating circumstances must be proved by any particular standard, let alone beyond a reasonable doubt." The Court, legally dissecting the wording of the original instruction to reach its determination of what a reasonable juror would conclude, confusingly followed said determination with a reminder that jurors do not undertake such detailed analysis of jury instructions. The Court likewise refuted respondents' argument that the joint sentencing proceeding for the Carr brothers violated their Eighth Amendment right to an "individualized sentencing determination." Again pointing out the "almost inconceivable cruelty and depravity" of the crimes, the Court concluded the joint sentencing proceeding was not fundamentally unfair in this instance and suggested instead its benefit in promoting reliability and consistency. In the lone dissent, Justice Sotomayor did not challenge the majority's legal conclusions, but instead focused her disagreement on the grant of certiorari. Pointing out the state courts' unique function as "laboratories for experimenting with how best to guarantee defendants a fair trial," she feared the Court's intervention would act to dissuade states from implementing protections above and beyond the constitutionally mandated minimum. Juxtaposing the result in Carr with recent Court decisions on the death penalty reveals a palpable shift. Justice Breyer, who previously called into question the constitutionality of the death penalty writ large, now sides with the majority. And while the issues did not go to the heart of capital punishment's validity, it seems unusual, just one week after guaranteeing increased protections in Hurst, that not one Justice argued that Carr's procedural protections might be constitutionally mandated. It is possible that the shocking facts of Carr, which Justice Alito described as "some of the most horrendous murders that I have seen in my 10 years here," are accountable for this result. Undeniably, the facts played a part, with Justice Scalia sparing no effort in his opinion to remind the reader of their horrendous nature. But perhaps equally to blame is the nature of the procedural constitutional issues being raised. Unlike Glossip, which divided the Court 5-4 with a substantive question on "cruel and unusual punishment," procedural claims tend to be less compelling and pathos-laden than their substantive counterparts. The question of jury instructions and individualized sentencing determinations seem relatively insignificant, especially when presented in a case with such unsympathetic defendants. It is very possible that in Carr, the procedural questions were simply diminished by the overwhelming shadow of the facts. What do these 2 different results in Hurst and Carr mean for the 2 death penalty cases currently pending before the Supreme Court? Both of the yet undecided cases involve questions of procedural protections in capital sentencing. Foster asks whether the Georgia courts erred in failing to recognize racially motivated juror strikes under Batson v. Kentucky. Williams asks whether an appeal judge's potential conflict of interest rose to the level of constitutional violation. On their face, both issues - whether it is racial discrimination or bias in the judiciary - seem more cogent than the ones raised in Carr, and neither case involves crimes rising to the level of the Wichita Massacre. But while the death row inmates in Foster and Williams may still have hope in receiving a favorable decision from the Court, 1 thing is clear: The future of the death penalty at the Supreme Court is anything but certain. (source: acslaw.org) CALIFORNIA: San Jose: DA to seek death penalty in brutal baby killing Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen will seek the death penalty against a man charged with forcing a 16-month-old boy into a sex act so brutal that it tore up his lips and throat before suffocating him, the Mercury News learned Wednesday. Rosen's decision to pursue a capital case against 42-year-old Alejandro Benitez, in an era when opposition to the death penalty continues to rise in California, is the 2nd time he has opted for the ultimate punishment against a defendant since taking office 5 years ago. Rosen is also seeking the death penalty against Antolin Garcia-Torres for the alleged 2012 kidnapping and killing of 15-year-old Sierra LaMar, who disappeared just north of Morgan Hill on her way to her school bus stop. Rosen issued a short statement after prosecutors notified the court of his decision Wednesday afternoon. An autopsy revealed that the boy, Kaden Bernard, had over 40 different injuries -- both old and new, internal and external -- covering his body from head to toe. "This was a nightmarish and extremely violent crime against the most vulnerable of all victims," Rosen said. "It is the worst of the worst." No decision regarding the death penalty has been made in another chilling case in which prosecutors charged a 22-year-old San Jose man last month with raping, beating and suffocating a 2-year-old boy as the child's mother slept in another room. Benitez has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder in the commission of a serious and dangerous felony, which in this case is a lewd act on a child. His court-appointed lawyers, who had presented their case for life without parole to senior prosecutors on Rosen's special death penalty advisory committee, expressed frustration Wednesday. They pointed out that Rosen's decision came on the same day the National Registry of Exonerations reported a record 149 exonerations in 2015, including 5 inmates who had been sentenced to death. None of the 5 were in California. "On the very day a report was issued showing five people sentenced to death were exonerated last year alone, we are extremely disappointed with Mr. Rosen's decision to seek the death penalty," said Brian Matthews, the lead attorney for Benitez. "His decision validates a deeply flawed system and disregards the substantial cost to the public." The toddler's ordeal began the morning of April 11, 2012, when his mother dropped him off at the East San Jose home of baby sitter Juana Ayala. That afternoon, Ayala called police to report that the child had choked while drinking the bottle of milk his mother had left for him. Semen consistent with Benitez' DNA profile was later found on the boy's clothing. Rosen's announcement comes as a recent Field poll found that 47 % of voters favor replacing the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole in California, up from 40 % in 2014. At the same time, the poll shows that 48 % of registered voters would support proposals to accelerate the state's notoriously slow system of resolving death penalty appeals to pick up the pace of executions. However, support for speeding up the process has dropped since from 52 % in 2014. Death penalty opponents are preparing a measure for the November ballot that would abolish California executions, while advocates of capital punishment are proposing a conflicting measure to reform and speed up the death penalty system. If voters were to approve both measures in November, the one with the most votes would settle the death penalty question in California for now. Benitez's trial is unlikely to start before the November election, meaning if the ban passes, the prosecution would be forced to stop seeking the death penalty. California voters rejected the last effort to abolish California's death penalty, in 2012, by a 52 to 48 % margin. However, the ban was approved in seven of the 9 Bay Area counties, except in Solano and Napa. In Santa Clara County, the proposed ban passed with 54.7 % support. The state has executed 13 inmates since 1978, but nearly 750 remain on death row, the largest in the nation. Matt Cherry, executive director of Death Penalty Focus, which is backing the measure to abolish capital punishment, said pursuing the Benitez trial will cost Santa Clara County alone an extra $1 million. Last year, the state Legislative Analyst's Office found that banning the death penalty would reduce state and local costs associated with murder trials, appellate litigation and prisons by about $150 million annually. But Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, praised Rosen's decision. "It's certainly not a waste if it's one of the worst of the worst crimes," Scheidegger said. "That's what a DA should do." (source: Mercury News) WASHINGTON: Push For Vote On Death Penalty Fizzling Out In Washington An effort to abolish the death penalty in Washington state this year seems to be losing steam. This fall, the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys called on lawmakers to put the death penalty up to a statewide vote. But in a preview of the legislative session, leaders from both parties said they are too busy working on education funding. It's disappointing news to King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg. He points out, it has been 41 years since Washington voters weighed in on the topic. Satterberg: "The question about the death penalty is not 'is it some day going to go away,' the questions is how. The Legislature could vote on it, but they've never been able to get a bill out of committee. The Supreme Court could rule on its constitutionality, but that hasn't happened." The other option is a voter referendum campaign, but Satterberg says the prosecutor's group is not in a position to pay for that. Meanwhile, nine inmates currently on Washington's death row are protected by a moratorium on the death penalty by Governor Jay Inslee. (source: KUOW news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Feb 4 12:00:36 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2016 12:00:36 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 4 EGYPT: Why an Egyptian appeals court overturned 149 death sentences ---- The grounds for the appeals court ruling are still unclear, but the new trial will be held in a criminal court. Egypt's Court of Cassation, the country's highest appeals court, on Wednesday ordered a retrial for 149 activists of the banned Muslim Brotherhood sentenced to death. The activists were handed capital sentences for allegedly storming a police station in 2013 and killing 11 policemen and 2 civilians in a mob attack, a judicial source said. The grounds for the appeals court ruling are still unclear, but the new trial will be held in a criminal court, and the defendants will have the right to appeal the verdict at the high court. The initial ruling took place in February 2015, amid a series of death sentences and mass trials that were criticized internationally, as the government cracked down on Muslim Brotherhood activists and supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. Mr. Morsi became Egypt's 1st democratically elected president after the downfall of longtime leader Hosni Mubarak in 2011 but was himself overthrown by the army in 2013 after mass protests against his rule. The overthrow of Morsi ushered in the worst domestic bloodshed in the country's modern history, according to human rights observers. The Egyptian government has long drawn criticism from Western governments and human rights organizations for cracking down on Morsi supporters. Since the Egyptian leader was ousted from power in July 2013, hundreds of Morsi's Islamist supporters have been killed, thousands jailed, and dozens sentenced to death. The United Nations has continually condemned the crackdowns and mass trials that have left thousands of Brotherhood members and supporters jailed, calling them "unprecedented in recent history." Despite the outcry from rights advocates, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi vowed to speed up the legal process to allow for quicker enforcement of death sentences last June after the assassination of Egypt???s public prosecutor, Hisham Barakat. "The hand of justice is shackled by the law. We're not going to wait for this," Mr. Sisi said. "We're going to amend the law to allow us to implement justice as soon as possible." But since then, things have changed with the court overturning several death penalties, a move that has been widely welcome by many rights advocates. Last December, the same court overturned death sentences against Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie and 36 others who were accused of "setting up an '"operations room'" for the Rabaa al-Adawiya sit-in organized by Brotherhood supporters after the military toppled then-President Morsi, according to Al Jazeera. Mr. Badie is, however, facing other trials, and has been sentenced to death in a separate case along with Mr. Morsi for plotting prison breaks and attacks on police during the 2011 uprising. Last month, the Egyptian Justice Minister vowed to make sure that Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood members convicted to death sentence will be executed if the appeal court upholds the sentences, the Middle East Eye reported. Under Egyptian law, death sentences are referred to the mufti, the government's interpreter of Islamic law, who plays an advisory role. If he approves, convictions are still subject to a lengthy appeals process. (source: Christian Science Monitor) NIGERIA: DPC Supports Death Penalty For Corrupt Officials The Democratic People's Congress (DPC) has thrown its weight behind the clamour for death penalty for looters of public treasury. Speaking in Abuja, yesterday, the national chairman of DPC, Rev. Olusegun Peters said any public official who stole from the public should not be allowed to serve only prison time but should face the death penalty. He said this would serve as deterrent to potential looters of public treasury. He urged the National Assembly to see how this measure can be incorporated into the nation's laws. Peters while hailing President Muhammadu Buhari over his campaign and war against corruption, said that all patriotic Nigerians should rally round the president to ensure that the war is not a one man war, but a war supported and encouraged by all Nigerians. He said that in the last 8 months President Buhari had succeeded in repositioning the country for the much needed development . He warned that it is too early to assess the current government given the enormity of the rot inherited from the last administration. He also expressed support for the reforms in the judiciary which he noted was in order to give the needed impetus to the war against corruption. He added that the party supports the president in his lamentation that the judiciary needed to be encouraged more in order to eradicate corruption from the nation's polity. He called on the authorities to resuscitate the giving of grants to political parties which the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led administration stopped, insisting that such grants will ensure a level playing ground at the political field which is presently dominated by well financed parties. (source: lealdership.ng) PAKISTAN: Awaiting The Gallows Pakistan has carried out more than 332 executions since lifting the moratorium in December 2014. Recently, amidst another terror attack on the country, the Supreme Court has asked the federal government to respond to a petition requesting that the appeals of the many thousand prisoners on Pakistan's death row be 'fast tracked'. These proceedings only serve to highlight the chaotic state of Pakistan's criminal justice system, in particular the handling of capital cases - arbitrarily and senselessly. The petition noted that there were '7,124' inmates on Pakistan's death, who were at various stages of the appeal process and requested the early disposal of these appeals. The figure also included 532 mercy petitions before the president, where a number of these have been pending for 19 years while executions in 78 cases have been stayed on his orders. Pakistan has the largest death row population in the world, and yet, there are no credible statistics on the exact number of prisoners sentenced to death in the country. Whilst it was reported here that there were 7,124 inmates on Pakistan's death row, recent figures given in a report to the Senate put the figure at 6,016 - both starkly different from the figure of 8,261 that was provided by the Ministry of Law, Justice and Human rights in December 2014. But simply fast tracking the petition does nothing to answer the question of who we are actually executing, for what reason and who are waiting their turn. In January 2015, the Minister of Interior, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, told the House that 332 convicted 'terrorists' were executed since December 2014. However, less than 1 in 6 of those being executed is connected to terrorism. A further analysis of those executed conducted by the Justice Project Pakistan has found that the vast majority of those being executed are not the hard-bitten terrorists that the government would like us to believe. Rather, the majority are people convicted of ordinary crimes, often in extremely unfair trials, relying on evidence extracted through torture, and some of them convicted as children. As advocated by many activists, the application of the death penalty must be reconsidered unless the judicial system is overhauled to ensure that those awaiting the gallows are indeed guilty of the crimes they are charged with. Fighting the war on terror must not be used as an excuse to forget procedural safeguards and the entire purpose of the justice system, which is to ensure that only those that are actually guilty pay the price. The judicial process desperately needs to be transparent and accountable - in order to correctly use capital punishment to deter crime and terrorism in the country. Until then, the appeals of those on death row must be considered with the utmost care. (source: Editorial, The Nation) INDIA: West Bengal: Death sentence to 11 for killing woman in a 2014 case----Among those who were sentenced to death today is former Krishnaganj Trinamool Congress leader Lankeswar Ghosh, but the ruling party has said that he was not its member. 11 people including a former Trinamool Congress leader were awarded death sentence by Nadia district court in West Bengal on Thursday for killing a woman to grab government land about 14 months ago. Judge Partha Sarathi Mukhopadhyay slapped death penalty on the 11 accused for shooting to death Aparna Bag on November 23, 2014. One accused, Manabesh Biswas is still absconding. The 11 were convicted on Wednesday and the punishment was pronounced by the court on Thursday. They were charged under sections 9B of Explosive, 27/35 of Arms Act, IPC 307 (attempt to murder) and 302 (murder). Among those who were sentenced to death today is former Krishnaganj Trinamool Congress leader Lankeswar Ghosh, but the ruling party has said that he was not its member. The woman was killed when Ghosh along with his gang tried to seize land at Ghungragachhi under Krishnaganj block, which belongs to Refugee and Refugee Rehabilitation Department of West Bengal Government. The land was being tilled by 55 families for long and they claimed to have its possession. Some had even sold portions they claimed were theirs. On November 23, 2014, Ghosh along with his men appeared on the field on a tractor and tried to take over the land by force and was faced with resistance by the tillers. In the clash that ensued there was firing and 3 women received bullet injuries. Aparna Bag was hit on her chest and died. 2 other women - Shyamali Tarafdar was hit on her jaw and Latika Tarafdar on her head. A student Rajiv Mondal too was hit by a bullet on his leg. The 3, however, recovered later. A complaint was lodged with the police by Dipankar Biswas of Ghungragachhi and a case was initiated and 11 out of the 12 accused were arrested and kept in jail. Aparna's 2 daughters Devika and Nilima were the main witnesses. The 11 sentenced to death were Ghosh, Palash Ghosh, Sanat Ghosh, Shyamal Ghosh, Jhantu Ghosh, Goutam Ghosh, Paresh Ghosh, Joydeb Ghosh, Nepal Ghosh, Rajkumar Ghosh and Basu Ghosh. (source: indianexpress.com) **************** Men convicted for raping, killing BPO staffer in Pune seek mercy 2 men who raped and murdered a BPO employee in Pune in 2007 have moved a mercy plea before the Maharashtra Governor. The convicts - cab driver Purushottam Dasharath Borate and his wall-painter friend Pradeep Yashwant Kokade - were sentenced to death by the Supreme Court in May 2015 for raping and killing 22-year-old Jyotikumari Chaudhary. The apex court had said the 2 were a threat to the society and deserved no leniency. Highly placed sources in the home department confirmed that the duo has sought mercy from the Governor. The department, however, has recommended no mercy plea for them. Awarding the punishment, a bench of chief justice H L Dattu and justices S A Bobde and Arun Mishra had said the manner in which an innocent and helpless woman was raped and murdered shocked and repulsed the collective conscience of the community and the court, warranting award of death penalty to deter other potential offenders from committing such crimes. "This court has no hesitation in holding that this case falls within the category of rarest of rare, which merits death penalty and none else. The collective conscience of the community is so shocked by this crime that imposing an alternate sentence, ie a sentence of life imprisonment, on the accused persons would not meet the ends of justice," it had said. Jyotikumari had boarded the regular cab contracted by the company to report for night shift on November 1, 2007. Driver Borate and his friend Kokade changed the route, took her to a remote place and raped her. After sexually assaulting her, the duo strangled her to death and disfigured her face, inflicting injuries with a sharp weapon to hide her identity. The court had expressed concern that such crimes against women were increasing and particularly against those working in night shifts. It had said there were a "shockingly" large number of cases where the sentence of punishment awarded to the accused was not in proportion to the gravity of the offence, thereby encouraging criminals and making justice suffer by weakening the system's credibility. Writing the judgment for the bench, Justice Dattu had said, "Society today has been infected with a lawlessness that has gravely undermined social order. Protection of society and stamping out criminal proclivity must be the object of law, which may be achieved by imposing appropriate sentence." Borate had pleaded for leniency, saying he was the sole breadwinner for his family of a young wife, minor children and old parents. The bench had replied, "With the gruesome act of raping a victim who had reposed her trust in the accused followed by a cold-blooded and brutal murder coupled with the calculated and remorseless conduct of the accused after the commission of the offence, we cannot resist from concluding that depravity of the appellants' offence would attract no lesser sentence than the death penalty." (source: dnaindia.com) *********** 2 youths awarded death sentence for brutally killing child 2 youths were today sentenced to death by a local court for kidnapping and brutally murdering an eight-year-old boy in 2014. Principal District and Sessions Judge Kishore Sonowane awarded the punishment to Rajesh Dhanalal Daware (21) and his friend Arvind Abhilash Singh (25) for killing Yug Chandak. Convicting them under IPC sections 364 (a) (kidnapping for ransom) and 302 (murder), the judge said it was an act of vengeance and stemmed from their dream of minting money. In a packed courtroom where both the convicts and the child's father were present, Judge Sonowane observed that though the accused were young, they deserve no leniency or mercy, and found them guilty of the brutal killing of the Class II student in September 2014. The judge observed that as per High Court and Supreme Court guidelines to deal with kidnapping and killing of children, the court was satisfied with the evidences and motive of both the accused for killing the child. The judge then ordered them to be hanged till death. He also awarded life imprisonment to the 2 youths and imposed a penalty of Rs 10,000 for conspiracy, and also sentenced them to another 7 years' imprisonment along with Rs 5,000 fine for destroying evidences. The judge observed that both the youths had kidnapped Yug as they wanted to become rich by demanding ransom, and in the process killed the innocent child in a brutal manner and hit his face with stones to destroy evidence, and also buried the body. The perpetrators, both B Com students from a college at Kamptee Road, were convicted under sections 302 (murder), 364-A (kidnapping for ransom), 201 (destruction of evidence), and 120-B (criminal conspiracy). Daware's 17-year-old younger brother, who assisted them in the conspiracy, has already been referred to a juvenile remand home. About 26 injuries were found on Yug's body, including those on the neck. None of the 50 witnesses examined by the prosecution turned hostile, as per Additional Public Prosecutor Jyoti Vajani, Chandak family's counsel Rajendra Daga and Investigation Officer (IO) from Lakadganj Police Station, Satyanarayan Jaiswal. According to them, they brought to fore as many as 20 circumstances to prove complicity of the accused in the crime. With a view to take revenge from Dr Mukesh Chandak, who runs a nursing home in eastern part of city, for what Daware claimed as humiliation meted out to him by the doctor and extract ransom, the accused hatched the conspiracy to kidnap and kill Yug. The duo executed their plan and brutally killed the child by strangulating him on September 1, 2014. They later buried the body in sand under pipes near a culvert on the desolate Gumthi-Gumthala Road near Patansawangi village, about 27 kms from Nagpur. The duo had planned their escape after receiving money, but were arrested the next day after Chandak's family raised suspicion on Daware. During interrogation, both the accused confessed to have killed the boy and led the investigators to the spot where they had buried the child's body. The incident rattled Nagpur residents and many of them joined hands to condole Yug's death. Candle marches were taken out in support of the Chandak family and demand was raised for death sentence to the perpetrators of the innocent child's killing. The court relied on a number of factors, apart from strong testimony of 50 witnesses to nail the culprits. It included CCTV footage at a petrol pump where the accused filled up their bike tank after kidnapping the child, last seen theory of many witnesses, recovery of child's clothes from the spot shown by accused and Yug's earring which was traced to Arvind Singh's home. Even the call details records and, more importantly, the testimony of Daware's girlfriend went against them. 2 school students from Patansawangi village, who saw the duo taking Yug on their bikes, were also made witnesses by the prosecution after requesting their parents. According to police, Daware was familiar with the place where the body was buried as often used to take a break at the spot with his girlfriend while returning from a religious place. The prosecution lawyers had earlier cited 3 landmark Supreme Court verdicts to press for death penalty to the accused, while terming the case as "rarest of rare" with no signs of reformation of the 2 accused. (source: Press Trust of India) THAILAND: Murder and Rape Reignites Death Penalty Campaign A horrific murder and rape in southern Thailand has sparked a campaign to prevent death sentences from being overturned for those convicted of deadly sexual assaults. Spearheaded by actress-turned-activist Panadda Wongphudee, its supporters call for an end to the right of convicted murderer-rapists to seek sentence reductions or pardons, which campaigners said allow the perpetrators to leave prison too soon and go on to repeat their crimes. The petition comes in reaction to a group of men accused of holding a young woman in a jungle hut in Phatthalung province for 3 days before sexually assaulting her in front of her boyfriend, who they then killed, and leaving her for dead. Although none of the four suspects arrested Monday is known to have been convicted of such acts or received early release from prison, the horror of the crime has again tapped into a well of anger over violence against women and the perception that the law does not take it seriously. "They confessed and they are minors, so they will certainly get a reduced sentence, but they don't look repentant [on TV] at all," Panadda said. "So what can we do to make sure that they will really change their way?" 2 of the 4 suspects at police news conference on Feb. 2 in Phatthalung province Panadda and her supporters, who are working on obtaining 100,000 signatures in a petition to forward to the military government, would also like to see minors given harsher sentences and remove the right to appeal for pardons in such cases. But some rights activists urge caution, saying that tougher sentences, including executions, would not solve the problem of serious crime. For Jaded Chouwilai, the director of the Women and Men Progressives Foundation, the most important thing is for prisons to reform sex offenders instead of just heaping lengthy jail terms on them as a punishment. "I want society to look at the problem: how to make rapists in prison change themselves, how to make them acknowledge that they did wrong," Jaded said. "If we tell them that they are [inherently] bad people, they will just stay the same in prison. They will stay the same when they are released, because they are already branded as bad people." His view is shared by Chamnan Chanruang, chairman of Amnesty International's chapter in Thailand, which has been campaigning for abolition of the death sentence in the Kingdom for years. "They should focus more on the criminology system and society and see what factors drove people to commit crimes," Chamnan said. According to Chamnan, tougher sentences would only affect poor and marginalized people such as migrant workers. As an example, he cited the disproportionately high rate of incarceration of black Americans in the United States. "Only poor and marginalized people get the blunt-end of tough punishment. All the rich and wealthy people manage to get away," Chamnan said. Voices Against Injustice This is the 2nd time in as many years a horrific crime has ignited such a campaign. In July 2014, in the wake of the rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl on a train in Prachuap Khiri Khan province, Panadda was the most public face of outrage calling for convicted rapists to be eligible for the death penalty without possibility of pardon. Although the death penalty is enshrined under the law for serious offenses - including deadly sexual assault - Thailand has not executed any prisoner since 2009. Those behind the current campaign however are pushing to remove opportunities for convicted offenders to get off the hook and face the full punishment handed down by judges. One practical reason, Pannada said, is that many rape victims live in the same communities as their attackers, and often have to move away if their attackers are released and return. "How much fear do victims have to live with? Why do victims have to move their homes? How long do they have to run? Is it fair for the victims?" she said. She also wants to take away the legal rights of adult convicts in deadly sexual assault cases to seek a Royal Pardon from His Majesty the King. "Rape and murder deserves execution," she said. Misplaced Anger Foundation director Jaded said anger over injustice in cases involving violence against women is understandable. However the present campaign for tougher sentencing is "misplaced," he said, because he's unaware of any cases where someone convicted of sexual assault and murder won an early release and then repeated the crime. Instead, he said, the society should focus on "real injustices," such as rape being classified a personal matter which can be settled out of court under the law, which allows perpetrators to buy their way out of justice, especially when their victims are from poor backgrounds. "I am not accusing police of anything, but it's true that many victims were forced to settle. So many of them. And these cases don't get to the news. The society should pay more attention to this kind of issues." Jaded said, adding, "There are so many real injustices that don't make it to the press." (source: khaosodenglish.com) PHILIPPINES/MALAYSIA: Pinoy facing drug charges in Malaysia offered chance to escape death penalty A Filipino facing possible death sentence in Malaysia for drug trafficking has been offered the lesser charge of drug possession, an online report said Wednesday. If convicted on the lesser charge, Hamid Ali, 34, will likely be sentenced to life imprisonment or not less than 5 years and a minimum of 10 strokes of the cane, according to a report on the Daily Express. Drug trafficking, meanwhile, is punishable by death in Malaysia under Section 39B(1)(a) of its Dangerous Drugs Act, the report said. Ali was charged with drug trafficking on August 14, 2014 after he was found with 63.06 grams of shabu or methamphetamine hydrochloride in front of a budget hotel in Ranau. The report said the prosecution offered the alternative charge on Tuesday when Ali's case was brought for mention before High Court Deputy Registrar Mohd Zairi Zainal Abidin. Abidin has set February 18 for Ali's hearing should the suspect pleads guilty to drug possession. Ali currently serves a 5-year jail term and was ordered caned twice for taking drugs . (source: gmanetwork.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Feb 4 16:01:17 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2016 16:01:17 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., FLA., ARK., USA Message-ID: Feb. 4 GEORGIA: Georgia death row on my mind----I got Brandon Jones off death row 20 years ago. On Tuesday, the state of Georgia ended his life. I knew I wouldn't sleep on Tuesday, when the state of Georgia geared up to execute Brandon Jones. At 72, Jones was the oldest prisoner to ever be killed there, and to me, he was no anonymous condemned prisoner: Jones was an old client of mine. More than 20 years ago, I got him off death row. Then, I moved away from Georgia, and some local lawyers managed to get him back on. His appeals failed; they made plans to end his life. So even though I was in London some 4,261 miles away, on Tuesday, my mind was on the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Center, its euphemistic name for death row. Brandon always insisted that while he had taken part in his alleged crime - a robbery of a convenience store in 1979 - his co-defendant, Van Solomon, was the one who shot Roger Tackett, the unfortunate and entirely innocent attendant. Solomon was electrocuted in 1985, despite the heroic efforts of my good friend, lawyer George Kendall. I was more fortunate: In 1989 I managed to persuade a federal judge to order a new sentencing trial to decide whether Brandon would live or die. It was a curious issue that seemed to save Brandon's life. In talking to the jurors, I learned that they had illegally taken a Bible into their deliberations. They had not turned to Matthew 5:7 and read that "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Rather, they had relied on Exodus 21:24: "You shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. ..." Because of this smuggled guidance, Brandon got a new sentencing trial. By the time Brandon was on trial again, in 1994, I had moved to Louisiana to set up a death penalty charity, and could not commute hundreds of miles to Cobb County, Georgia, for the case. I found him an excellent lawyer, but he and Brandon had a falling out, and Brandon ended up with 2 court-appointed lawyers who had no idea what they were doing. Tom Charron, a bloodthirsty local District Attorney who seems to relish the association of his name with the mythological ferryman Charon on the River Styx, successfully urged the jury to call for a second death sentence. I have participated in the retrials of every other client whose sentence I managed to reverse, and won every time. Brandon was the solitary exception. In that way, I, too, failed him. On the morning of Tuesday, February 1, Brandon's death had been sanctioned by the narrowest of margins. The issue was whether Georgia's new secrecy laws were valid: The state now refuses to allow access to information about the drugs being used in executions after a spate of embarrassing challenges to the execution protocol - some concerning botched executions, some concerning the right of pharmaceutical companies to object to the government using their life-saving drugs to kill people. 5 of the 11 judges on the federal court of appeals voted for a stay. "Today Brandon Jones will be executed, possibly in violation of the Constitution," Judge Robin Rosenbaum predicted. "He may also be cruelly and unusually punished in the process. But if he is, we will not know until it's too late - if ever." Even at the 11th hour, the battle was not over. Sickening as it sounds, I have often received a stay from some judge, anywhere between Atlanta and Washington DC, within an hour of an execution. Here, Brandon's execution was set for midnight GMT, [7 p.m. in Georgia]. His current lawyers filed a flurry of last minute pleadings, and they won Brandon extra time and extra life - albeit perhaps only temporarily. So the clock edged around as Brandon sat in the holding cell, close by the execution chamber. "Brandon, a septuagenarian, had to wait for death alone, with perhaps a guard stopping by his cell door for company." Almost 30 years ago, in 1987, I sat with Edward Johnson, the young man immortalized in the BBC documentary "14 Days in May" as he awaited death in Mississippi's gas chamber. But society has moved on, and we are even less civilized, now. So Brandon, a septuagenarian, had to wait alone, with perhaps a guard stopping by his cell door for company. I have been in those rooms before, watching the clock move at once too fast and too slow towards the dial of the appointed hour. It is excruciating. It was 4 a.m. GMT when Justice Clarence Thomas, at the Supreme Court in Washington, vacated the final stay of execution. Now, after 36 years, this allowed the "Diagnostic Center" to set about killing Brandon. Problem is, despite their appetite for death, they are not very good at it. No doctor may take part - the Hippocratic Oath forbids it - so some inept technician probed and prodded Brandon for an hour, trying to find a vein. In the end, they had to insert the needle in his groin. A journalist who was present from the local paper wrote that Brandon "fought death." I know he would have, but that was another euphemism. What she meant was that they botched it. Georgia uses 1 drug to execute its prisoners - a medicine originally designed for patients with severe epilepsy. Since the medicine is made to save the lives of patients, not end the lives of prisoners, the manufacturer had forbidden its sale to prisons for use in executions. But instead of heeding the manufacturer's wishes, the state turned to a shady compounding pharmacy and paid the pharmacist to mix up unapproved versions of the product so they could go ahead with executions; presumably this was the same pharmacist that had previously mixed up drugs for Kelly Gissendaner's execution, which were found to have "white chunks" in what ought to have been a transparent solution. Secrecy surrounding Georgia's execution protocol means that the public could obtain no assurances regarding the quality of the drugs injected into Brandon's groin in the early hours of this morning. Anecdotal evidence doesn't inspire confidence: While Brandon's eyes closed within a minute of the warden leaving the execution chamber, a full 6 minutes later, his eyes popped back open. According to the witnesses, he looked at a clock on the wall, and then appeared to look at the man who prosecuted him in 1979, Tom Charron, who was sitting on the front row of the witness area. How I hate to think of what was happening then. Charron was sitting in the same chair when they executed Nicky Ingram 20 years ago. I remember the bald patch at the back of Charron's head, and how he could not keep eye contact when I looked at him. I doubt he could hold Brandon's eye either. When I would leave that execution chamber, always in the early hours, I invariably looked up at the stars - the same stars looking down on Brandon as he died were hovering over London last night. And I have always asked myself: Did that ghastly event in there really make it a more civilized world? (source: Clive Stafford Smith is the founder and director of Reprieve----Al Jazeera) FLORIDA: Florida Supreme Court orders new trial for Spaniard on death row The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday overturned the murder conviction of Spaniard Pablo Ibar, who has been imprisoned for almost 22 years, 15 of them on death row. The 4-3 decision means Ibar will get a new trial on charges he took part in the 1994 murders of nightclub owner Casimir "Butch Casey" Sucharski, 48, and models Sharon Anderson and Marie Rogers, both 25. One of the high court's key findings in ordering a new trial was that Ibar's DNA was not found on the t-shirt recovered from the murder scene that the killer used to partially cover his face. Ibar, 45, has always maintained his innocence, and his defense team emphasized in their appeal the lack of reliability in the DNA test, a blurred, grainy and soundless video recorded by security cameras at Sucharski's home and the testimony of a facial recognition expert that they said was unreliable. The black-and-white video shows 2 individuals with their faces covered looking for objects of value in the home. At the end of the tape, 1 of the men uncovers his face and, despite the poor quality of the image, the prosecution said at trial that the person was Ibar. In an April 2014 hearing before the Supreme Court, defense attorney Benjamin Waxman insisted that Ibar had an ineffective defense at his first trial due to the "disastrous" representation he got from public defender Kayo Morgan. "It's a time of great emotion for which we've been waiting a long time. The road is opening for Ibar to finally be able to prove his innocence," Andres Krakenberger, the spokesman for the Association Against the Death Penalty for Pablo Ibar, told EFE. The man convicted in 2000 along with Ibar, Seth Pe???alver, received a new trial in 2012 and was acquitted on all charges. (source: Fox News) ***************** Cop killer Dontae Morris seeks to overturn death sentence The convicted killer of 2 Tampa police officers wants his death sentence reduced to life as a result of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down Florida's death penalty sentencing law. Dontae Morris, 30, is on death row at Florida State Prison in Starke, where he is also serving a life term for a 3rd Tampa murder. He was sentenced to death for killing Tampa police officers David Curtis and Jeffrey Kocab in 2010. He shot both officers in the head at close range as he was being taken into custody during a traffic stop. Morris is among the first of dozens of convicted felons seeking to have their death sentences overturned by the Supreme Court because a judge, and not a Hillsborough County jury, made the critical findings of fact in his case. That system, used for decades, was held to be unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Hurst vs. Florida. "In this case, this death sentence has to be vacated," Morris' attorney, Cynthia Dodge, told the Supreme Court in oral arguments Wednesday. Dodge asked the court to lift Morris' death sentence three days after the Hurst decision. The justices could uphold Morris' death sentence, reduce his sentence to life or order a new trial. Another death row inmate, Michael King of Sarasota, made similar arguments Thursday. King was convicted of the abduction, rape and murder of a North Port mother of 2 children, Denise Lee, in 2009. "Mr. King is entitled to an automatic life sentence," his lawyer argued in papers filed with the court. The state's high court is also keeping a watchful eye on the Legislature. The Hurst case has forced legislators to rewrite state law to require juries to make unanimous all findings of aggravating factors that must exist to justify a death sentence. But Senior Assistant Attorney General Carol Dittmar argued that Morris' appeal should be rejected because the death penalty itself has not been held to be unconstitutional by the Hurst case. "It's very narrow. It's very easy to fix," Dittmar told justices. The fix, she said, is a new special verdict form to be given to juries in capital cases in which they find aggravating factors. But Justice Barbara Pariente appeared openly skeptical of her argument. "We put the jury front and center in the most critical decisions in this criminal justice system," she said. "So to say it's just procedural, I think, flies in the face of what our country has been about." Morris is 1 of the 43 so-called pipeline cases whose direct appeals are coming up for review by the Florida Supreme Court in the immediate aftermath of the Hurst decision. The state court on Tuesday granted an indefinite stay of execution to Michael Lambrix, 55, a convicted double murderer who was scheduled to die Feb. 11. The Supreme Court on Thursday also reversed the death sentence of Pablo Ibar, who was sentenced to death for 3 notorious Broward County murders in what were known as the Casey's Nickelodeon killings, named for a bar by that name owned by one of the victims. Ibar, 43, has maintained his innocence, presenting an alibi defense at trial. His co-defendant, Seth Penalver, was acquitted at his retrial. In a 5-2 decision, justices said Ibar's rights were violated as a result of a poor representation by his defense lawyer, Kayo Morgan, and is entitled to a new trial. (source: Tampa Bay Times) ARKANSAS: Arkansas Lawyer Asks For Mulligan In Death Penalty Conviction Arkansas' high court says a death row inmate isn't entitled to a new sentencing hearing just because his lawyer may have delivered "one of the worst" closing arguments of his career. The Arkansas Supreme Court Thursday reversed a Benton County judge's order for a new hearing and asked the lower court to reconsider the request with a more objective test to determine if Brandon Lacy's lawyer performed adequately. Lacy was sentenced to death after he was found guilty of capital murder and aggravated robbery in the 2007 slaying of Randall Walker. The Supreme Court's order also denied a separate appeal from Lacy. He said his lawyer failed because he did not argue Lacy had a mental defect because of alleged alcohol-fueled blackouts and memory lapses. (source: Associated Press) USA: PBS revisits notorious Leopold and Loeb case in 'The Perfect Crime' It was a time of unease for middle-aged Middle Americans. They were worried about their sons and daughters - the weird music, the scanty clothing - and also about the way the super-rich were getting away with everything. The headlines told of the strange case of teenagers, convicted killers, who got off easy through their lawyer's novel defense that the boys were victims of affluent parents who hadn't taught them right from wrong. Sounds like today, but it was actually 1924, when 2 19-year-olds, both from wealthy Jewish families in Chicago, committed a horrendous crime but cheated the hangman's noose thanks to a novel defense by their famous lawyer. The trial of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, which riveted the nation and the world, will be re-examined Feb. 9 when PBS airs "The Perfect Crime" as part of its "American Experience" series. Both Leopold and Loeb, raised by governesses in the lap of luxury, came to visualize themselves as incarnations of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's Ubermensch - as supermen so brilliant and exceptional as to be bound by neither law nor morality. The 2 became lovers, with the handsome and charismatic Loeb as the dominant partner. They initially tested their theory with petty crimes, but then, at 19, went for the big time. They decided to commit the perfect crime, one they believed would never be traced to them, by picking up Bobby Franks - a 2nd cousin of Loeb - in their car, first killing him with a chisel and pouring acid over his face and body to obscure distinguishing marks, then stuffing the corpse into a culvert. The "perfect," untraceable crime collapsed almost immediately. Franks' body was discovered by a passerby, a pair of nearby glasses was traced to Leopold, and the murderers' alibis quickly fell apart. Both men confessed that they had committed the murder for the thrill of it, while Leopold compared his deed to an entomologist dissecting an insect for further study. At the trial, the 2 defendants, elegantly dressed, were unrepentant, smiling and smirking. A death penalty seemed inevitable. At one point in the process, when the prosecution hinted that the defendants had sexually molested Franks before killing him, the judge, John Caverly, ordered all female reporters to leave the court room so as not to soil their delicate ears - even though the word "moron" or "sex moron" was frequently substituted for "homosexual" at the time. Desperate, the parents of Leopold and Loeb hired Clarence Darrow, the country's top criminal lawyer and an ardent opponent of the death penalty, to defend their sons and, specifically, to spare them from hanging. With world attention focused on the case, Darrow pleaded his clients guilty to avoid a jury trial, thereby leaving the final verdict to the judge. He then proceeded to offer a groundbreaking psychological defense, arguing that his clients were not perpetrators but victims of stunted emotional growth, that Leopold had been sexually abused by his governess, and, for the 1st time, introducing Freudian concepts in an American trial. Darrow called a string of psychiatrists (then called "alienists") to the witness stand and 2,000 Chicagoans lined up hoping to hear Darrow's final 3-day summation. Surprisingly, in an era of rampant anti-Semitism fueled by the KKK and Henry Ford, the defendants' Jewishness, accompanied by their arrogance, was rarely mentioned in reports of the trial. In a phone interview, Cathleen O'Connell, producer and director of the hourlong documentary, said that she and her staff spent much time checking coverage of the trial in the general and Jewish media and found hardly any allusions to the defendants' ethnicity and religion. However, she did come across one article in the Chicago Tribune quoting a Jewish "spokesman" as observing that Loeb and Leopold's crime was due to their neglect of Judaism, O'Connell said. 1 explanation may be that their victim, Franks, was Jewish himself, although his parents had converted to Christian Science. What made O'Connell's research most difficult, she said, was the absence of any newsreel coverage of the trial, and the judge, believing the testimony would be too salacious for the general public, aborted any radio broadcasts of the trial. O'Connell contrasted this lack of firsthand material to the extensive coverage of the "Scopes Monkey Trial" 1 year later, in which Darrow defended a schoolteacher accused of violating Tennessee law by teaching evolution to his students. It was the 1st trial that allowed Americans to follow the proceedings by radio. The documentary fills much of the gap through extensive use of still photos and by actors conveying the voices and personas of the main participants. "The Perfect Crime" premieres at 9 p.m. Feb. 9 on KOCE, the PBS SoCal station. (source: jewishjournal.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Feb 4 16:02:03 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2016 16:02:03 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 4 IRAN----juvenile executions 2 Baluchi Juvenile Offenders Executed in Iran According to close sources, 2 Baluchi prisoners were hanged to death at Yazd Central Prison on drug related charges. The executions were reportedly carried out on Monday February 1. According to the Baloch Activists Campaign, the names of the prisoners are Khaled Kordi and Moslem Abarian. A relative of Khaled Kordi confirms to Iran Human Rights that both prisoners were under the age of 18 at the time of their arrests. Iranian authorities carried out the executions without informing the family members of the prisoners. The 2 prisoners were reportedly riding a bus to work when they were arrested by Iranian authorities for drug offenses. The relative tells IHR that he believes Khaled and Moslem were innocent and the drugs were planted on them by someone else on the bus. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Iran is a signatory of, bans death sentences for offenses committed under the age of 18. (source: Iran Human Rights) ******************** U.N. panel rebukes Iran for allowing sex, execution at 9 years old Iran must reform its laws that allows girls as young as nine to be executed for crimes or forced into sexual relations with older husbands, a United Nations watchdog said on Thursday. Iran continues to execute children and youth who committed a crime while under 18 years of age, in violation of international standards, the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said, after its 18 independent experts reviewed Iran and 13 other countries. "The age of criminal responsibility in Iran is discriminatory, it is lower and lower for girls, that is to say 9 lunar years while for boys it is 15. At 9 a girl can marry, even if the law sets the age at 13," said Hynd Ayoubi Idrissi, a panel member. 9 lunar years in the Iranian calendar is equivalent to 8 years and 9 months, a U.N. spokeswoman said. The age for boys having criminal responsibility is 15, but the age for girls at 9 is "extremely low", Idrissi said. The experts deplored that Iran "allows sexual intercourse with girls as young as 9 lunar years and that other forms of sexual abuse of even young children is not criminalised". They called for the age of sexual consent to be raised to 16. "The Committee is seriously concerned about the reports of increasing numbers of girls at the age of 10 years or younger who are subjected to child and forced marriages to much older men."Girls suffered discrimination in the family, in the criminal justice system, in property rights, and elsewhere, while a legal obligation for girls to be subject to male guard6ianship is "incompatible" Tehran's treaty obligations, the panel said. Iran made "positive progress" last year with a new Criminal Procedure Code that introduced juvenile courts, but nevertheless there were very serious concerns, the panel's chairman Benyam Mezmur told a news briefing. "The age of criminal responsibility is very low and there are instances where the death penalty can apply for persons below the age of 18 or for offences they committed while below the age of 18," Mezmur said. There were no figures for the number of executions of children or juvenile offenders, nor those imprisoned, due to secrecy surrounding the cases, he added. (source: Reuters) BAHRAIN: European Parliament condemns death penalty, torture in Bahrain The European Parliament has condemned the use of torture and the death penalty in Bahrain, demanding the release of a man sentenced to death after allegedly confessing under torture. In a resolution passed on Thursday, the body called on Bahraini ruler Sheikh Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa to pardon 32-year-old airport guard Mohammed Ramadan. Ramadan was arrested on 18 February 2014 - allegedly without a warrant - on suspicion of involvement in a bombing that killed a member of the security forces 4 days earlier. Ramadan and Husain Ali Mossa, who had been arrested previously, reported that they were tortured into confessing to the crime, and later retracted their confessions and complained of having been coerced. Despite this, no investigation was launched and the pair were sentenced to death in December 2014. The case has already been highlighted by five UN human rights experts, who in August 2014 expressed their concerns over the fairness of the trial to the Bahraini government. A resolution was co-authored by Scottish MEP Alyn Smith, who called it "a strong message to our friends in Bahrain that we are confident Bahrain can move in the right direction. "Today, the Parliament firmly condemned the continuing use of torture by the security forces against prisoners and the use of Bahrain's anti-terrorism laws to punish citizens for their political beliefs." The resolution has been welcomed by Bahraini human rights organisations, who warned on Thursday that Ramadan had exhausted all legal avenues of appeal and stands at risk of imminent execution. (source: middleeasteye.net) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Feb 5 10:55:17 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2016 10:55:17 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----VA., GA., FLA., LA., OHIO, UTAH, CALIF., USA Message-ID: Feb. 5 VIRGINIA: Bill proposes use of electric chair if lethal injections unavailable----Pharmaceutical companies refusing to offer execution drugs, Dunham says A panel in the Virginia Legislature endorsed a bill Wednesday proposing to mandate the use of the electric chair as a means of execution in the event that lethal drugs are unavailable. The bill was proposed by House Majority Whip Jackson Miller (R-Manassas). Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said ultimately the American pharmaceutical industry doesn't want its life-saving and preserving medicines used in executions. "The pharmaceutical companies have corporate missions, and their mission is to save lives and not to take lives," Dunham said. "On top of that, pharmaceutical companies think it???s bad business." As a result, some states look to import drugs from abroad, Dunham said. However, Europe categorizes the death penalty as a human rights violation. It is now illegal in the European Union to export medicines to be used in lethal injections to the United States or any other country. "Given these difficulties some states have looked for alternatives ranging from different methods of execution to different types of drugs to abolishing the death penalty altogether," Dunham said. But examining other forms of execution, like Virginia's proposal for the electric chair, can raise further difficulties, Dunham said. "Other difficulties states face when they are choosing whether to abandon lethal injections in favor of other forms is that other forms of execution are unpalatable to the American public," Dunham said. In a poll conducted by YouGov, lethal injection was the only execution method Americans believed was not cruel and unusual - every other option is distasteful to a majority of Americans, Dunham said. Law Prof. Brandon Garrett said none of the legitimate pharmaceutical companies will sell their drugs for use in executions by states. This is due especially to states' lack of clear or public protocols in the use of these drugs. "It is remarkable that the legislature is considering returning to a method that has been just as prone to botched executions, if not more so, than lethal injections," Garrett said. Concerns about the death penalty also center on the risk of executing an innocent person and the cost to the public, Dunham said. Many innocent people get sentenced to death for reasons ranging from prosecutorial and police misconduct to junk science and racial discrimination, Dunham said. "Unless you can address all of those things and address them successfully there will always be the risk that an innocent person will be sent to death row and will be executed," Dunham said. In regard to cost, economic costs are typically borne by taxpayers outside of the county in which the death penalty is being pursued, Dunham said. Further, most death sentences in the United States are a product of outlier counties. Currently, fewer than 2 % of counties account for more than 56 % of all the nation's death sentences, Dunham said. "There have not been death sentences in Virginia for several years now, and the death row has dwindled to seven individuals," Garrett said. "When given the choice, at a fair trial, in Virginia and across the country, more jurors and judges are choosing life sentences over death sentences." Del. Miller could not be reached for comment. (source: The (Univ. Va.) Cavalier Daily) GEORGIA: Georgia's declining death penalty Georgia enters the New Year following the national trend away from the death penalty. That may surprise some given Georgia's spate of executions in 2015, which include a Vietnam veteran with PTSD, a man with intellectual disabilities, and a woman who seemed to embody redemption by expressing remorse and ministering to others while on death row. Each of these executions occurred more than a decade after the person's conviction, and they really aren't much more than a remnant of the state's past affinity for capital punishment. However, if you want a sense of the future of the state's death penalty, then consider how many death sentences that Georgia juries imposed in 2015: zero. This record low shows that, despite last year's executions, capital punishment is losing its hold in Georgia and for good reason. The state's problems with the death penalty are nothing new. Georgia was the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that first declared capital punishment to be unconstitutional and the case that paved the way for its return. After the death penalty was deemed legal again, Georgia resumed executions, but it quickly experienced the drawbacks that are inextricably linked to capital punishment. To date, the Peach State has executed 60 individuals and wrongly sentenced at least 6 people to die, which is a very troubling record. Wrongly convicted death row inmates aren't the only ones who feel capital punishment's negative effects. Our death penalty system is far more expensive than life without parole due to legal requirements mandated by the Supreme Court and state and federal laws, but these safeguards are necessary and have been directly responsible for preventing innocent individual's executions. However, the hurdles guarantee that death cases will be exorbitantly expensive, and they have even accounted for tax increases. In an embarrassing episode in Lincoln County, Georgia, the local commissioners raised taxes multiple times simply to cover the costs of a single death penalty case, and when they declined to fully fund the expensive proceedings, they were tossed in jail. However, these high costs aren't limited just to Georgia counties. Other states have conducted studies and found that the death penalty costs millions of dollars more than life without parole. The public investment in the death penalty becomes even more objectionable when considering that it does nothing to keep the public safer. There's simply no evidence to suggest that capital punishment deters murder. In fact, murder rates often drop after states repeal the death penalty. The harmful impact that the capital punishment can have on murder victims' families is also a cause for concern. The death penalty can inflict additional pain on them due to capital cases' complex and lengthy legal proceedings and relentless media attention. Nationally, death sentences, executions, and public support for the death penalty are near record lows. Taking into account capital punishment's plethora of failures, that's the logical response. With 84 people still on Georgia's death row, but fewer and fewer individuals being sentenced to die, the tide is turning against the Peach State's death penalty. National conservatives, including Colonel Oliver North, Dr. Ron Paul, and Jay Sekulow, are increasingly reassessing the death penalty because it violates our core principles of protecting innocent life, promoting fiscal restraint, and limiting government power. It's time for Georgia to do the same. The underlying question is, if we are wary of government power, then should we really trust our state, which is prone to error and abuse, with the power to execute its citizens? (source: Opinion; Marc Hyden is a National Advocacy Coordinator with Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty and is a resident of Cobb County. He previously was a field representative with the National Rifle Association (NRA). Marc has also served as the Legislative Liaison/Public Affairs Specialist with the Georgia Emergency Management Agency/Homeland Security and as the legislative aide to the Georgia Senate President Pro Tempore---- Savannah Morning News) FLORIDA: Dozens of Florida's death row inmates expected to challenge sentences They live on death row, convicted of some of the worst crimes in Florida. A Miami man stabbed an elderly woman 58 times in her Little Havana apartment. A Broward teenage gang member randomly executed a man walking down the street in a "body count contest." A Pasco County lawn man raped and murdered a woman who was 94 years old. They are among dozens of condemned inmates whose sentences could be reduced to life without parole or who could get new sentencing hearings in the 1st wave of legal challenges to a Florida death penalty sentencing system struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court ruled on Jan. 12 that Florida's system is unconstitutional because it does not require juries to make all findings of fact necessary to impose a death sentence. That means Florida is violating a defendant's right to a trial by jury. The Supreme Court's decision involved Timothy Lee Hurst, who was convicted of killing a co-worker at a Pensacola fast-food restaurant in 1998. Hurst sits in his 6-by-9-foot cell at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, waiting for the Florida Supreme Court to review his case as ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court. He's not alone. Death penalty experts and Attorney General Pam Bondi say that as many as 43 death row inmates could get life sentences without parole or new sentencing hearings. It's partly a matter of timing. Those 43 inmates have filed limited challenges to their death sentences known as direct appeals, which have not yet been acted upon by the Florida Supreme Court. Justices must now apply the Hurst decision to those cases. Victor Guzman was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of 80-year-old Severina Fernandez. "It's sort of a given that these people get the benefit of Hurst," said Martin McClain, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer who represents death row inmates in their appeals. "The question will be whether it leads to a life sentence or a new sentencing." Those 43 cases in the post-Hurst pipeline involve some of Florida's most horrific crimes of the past 2 decades. They include: -- Khadafy Mullens, who pleaded guilty to killing a store owner and a customer during a 2008 robbery of a food mart near St. Petersburg's Tropicana Field, a crime captured on the store's video surveillance camera. -- Victor Guzman, convicted of the murder of an 80-year-old Miami woman who was found with 58 stab wounds. -- John Sexton, a Pasco County yard maintenance man convicted of the 2010 rape and murder of a 94-year-old woman, a crime that the sheriff called pure evil. The victim's daughter said that short of Sexton experiencing the pain that her mother did, "the next best solution is to condemn you to death." -- James Herard, a gang member, was convicted of participating in the 2008 execution of Eric Jean-Pierre, 39, who was gunned down in the 2100 block of Northwest 55th Avenue in Lauderhill on his way home from work. Florida has 389 inmates on death row, 2nd only to California. The state's death penalty is experiencing its greatest turmoil since it was reinstituted 4 decades ago. The Hurst case is expected to unleash a flood of new appeals and is forcing a conservative, pro-death penalty Legislature to hurriedly rewrite the law so that executions can resume. As lawmakers craft a new law, the state's highest court agreed Tuesday to indefinitely postpone the scheduled Feb. 11 execution of Michael Lambrix. He has been on death row since 1984 after being convicted of 2 murders in Glades County. Lambrix's case is much older than most death penalty cases, and a legal question is whether the Hurst decision can be applied retroactively to him. The court's decision to stop his execution is seen as an indication that justices want to analyze the impact of the Hurst decision. In the cases of Lambrix and his other clients, McClain wants the state court to change every death sentence to life without parole, which Bondi opposes. In case after case this week, Bondi's legal experts argued that those original death sentences must be carried out. The marathon legal battles are just beginning as more cases will appear on the court's argument docket in coming months. "Finality sometimes has to trump fairness," Assistant Attorney General Carol Dittmar told the justices Thursday. "The citizens of this state, and certainly the families of these victims, need to have confidence that when a sentence is final, it will only be disturbed if there's a tremendously important reason to do so." Dittmar made that argument in opposing a lifting of the death sentence of Michael King of Sarasota, who was convicted of the abduction, rape and murder of Denise Lee, a mother of 2 children, in North Port in 2008. The court had denied King's direct appeal, but his attorneys want it reviewed in light of the Hurst decision. Asked about the state's repeated reference to victims' families, McClain said in an interview that the Hurst case is about defendants - not victims. "Hurst is about the rights of capital defendants as to their constitutional rights," McClain said. "The impact on the victims is irrelevant." In the case of Lambrix, he said, all the Florida Supreme Court has to do is change his sentence to life imprisonment without parole. McClain will make a similar legal argument when he seeks to block the scheduled March execution of Mark James Asay, who was sentenced to die after being convicted of 2 murders in Jacksonville in 1987. "Certainly, Mr. Asay should be permitted to litigate any claims arising on the basis of Hurst v. Florida, just as Mr. Lambrix has been permitted to do," McClain argued in court papers. And in early March, McClain will tell the Supreme Court why it should also lift the death sentence of Terrance Phillips, 1 of the 43 post-Hurst cases, convicted of ambushing and killing 2 people in their Jacksonville apartment on Christmas Eve 2009. At 24, Phillips is the youngest inmate on Florida's death row. (source: Miami Herald) ******************* Denise Lee Case----Killer's lawyer appeals sentence Michael King, sentenced to death for the 2008 abduction and murder of Denise Amber Lee, should be resentenced to life without parole because of a federal court ruling that invalidated Florida's death-penalty sentencing system, his lawyer told the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday. King's case has joined a number of other appeals from Florida Death Row inmates who are arguing that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last month in Hurst vs. Florida has rendered the death-sentencing law as unconstitutional and they now deserve either life sentences or a new sentencing procedure. The state Supreme Court halted the Feb. 11 execution of Cary Michael Lambrix earlier this week as the justices consider the impact of Hurst on Florida's 389 death row inmates. The Legislature is moving forward with a revised sentencing bill that would require juries to unanimously agree on "aggravating" factors that would make a murderer eligible for the death penalty and require a jury vote of at least 9-3 to impose the sentence. The invalidated Florida law allowed a jury to recommend a death sentence by a majority vote, with the Hurst decision finding that "advisory" procedure violated the constitutional right to a trial by jury. An unresolved issue is whether the Hurst ruling should be applied retroactively to cases like Lambrix, who had exhausted his appeals, or King, whose 2009 conviction and sentence has been upheld on its initial appeal. Assistant Attorney General Carol Dittmar told the Florida justices that Hurst should not apply to King, where a jury unanimously recommended the death penalty after they had found King guilty of kidnapping, raping and murdering Lee, a 21-year-old North Port mother of 2 children. The jury heard a 911 call from Lee where the terrorized woman pleaded for help and repeatedly begged King to release her. Although some have suggested a "fairness" standard should apply the Hurst ruling to all Florida death row inmates, Dittmar told the court that finality in the law "needs to trump fairness." "Certainly the citizens of this state and certainly the families of these victims need to have confidence that when a sentence is final it will only be disturbed when there is a tremendously important reason to do so," Dittmar said. In his questioning, Justice Charles Canady seemed to be in alignment with Dittmar's argument that the Hurst decision was a "limited procedural ruling" without retroactivity, rather than the argument from King and other inmates that the decision had "fundamental significance" and should apply to many if not all the death row inmates. Canady said without finality in the law, a new decision could be used to "reach back and apply to any case no matter how remote in time." "Every decision we make would mean that if someone had been convicted under a different understanding of the law previously, that would be up for grabs always," Canady said. In addition to the Hurst challenge, King's lawyer told the justices that his sentence and conviction should be overturned because of fundamental mistakes by the lawyers who represented him at his initial trial. Maria Perinetti, a lawyer with the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel office in Temple Terrace, said King's trial attorneys failed to object when the state prosecutors rejected an 18-year-old African-American woman as a potential member of the jury. The prosecutors eliminated her citing several "race neutral" reasons, including her statement that life in prison was worse than a death sentence and that her brother had previously faced a drug charge. Perinetti said the removal of the female juror could have been challenged as a discriminatory move by the prosecutors. "A defendant is entitled to a non-discriminatory jury selection process," she said. But several justices seemed to be skeptical of that claim as part of King's post-conviction appeal. "We're sort of re-examining in a microcosm this few seconds of a trial where nothing affected the fairness of the conviction," said Justice Barbara Pariente. "So that's my problem." The court will issue its opinion in the case at a later date. (source: Sarasota Herald-Tribune) LOUISIANA: 2 men indicted in kidnapping, murder of Baton Rouge couple, TV station reports 2 men face the death penalty if convicted in the kidnapping and beating death of a Baton Rouge couple, WAFB reported Tuesday (Feb. 2). Ernesto Alonso, 42, and Frank Garcia, 48, were both indicted on 2 counts of 1st-degree murder and 2nd-degree kidnapping. Denis Duplantier and Suzanne Duplantier were found parked at a Hammond truck stop on Oct. 19, 2015. Their home had been burglarized the night before, according to WAFB. (source: nola.com) OHIO: A death penalty trial has been postponed until August for an Illinois man charged with kidnapping a Kentucky woman and fatally shooting her along Interstate 75 in southwest Ohio The trial of Terry Froman, of Brookport, Illinois, had been scheduled to begin on Feb. 22 in Lebanon. The Hamilton-Middletown Journal-News reports (http://bit.ly/1S4emMJ ) that the trial was continued Thursday to Aug. 15 due to medical issues with a mental health expert. The judge says a new expert is set to testify. Froman has pleaded not guilty to charges including aggravated murder and kidnapping in the September 2014 slaying of 34-year-old Kim Thomas of Mayfield, Kentucky. Authorities say Froman killed his estranged girlfriend's 17-year-old son in Kentucky and then kidnapped and killed her along the highway about 30 miles north of Cincinnati. (source: Associated Press) UTAH: Death penalty dropped from 2010 double-murder case The prosecution in a 2010 double-murder case said the death penalty is now "off the table" for a suspect involved. The move was done at the request of the victim's family who want the case to be resolved sooner rather than later as the issue has been batted back and forth between dueling motions. "We have been talking with the victim's mother in the case for some time," Deputy Washington County Attorney Ryan Shaum said. "It was her desire to get this case moving." The Washington County Attorney's Office filed its intent to seek the death penalty for Brandon Perry Smith, 34, in January 2014. Smith is accused of killing 20-year-old Leeds resident Jerrica Christensen Dec. 11, 2010. Smith was subsequently charged with 1st-degree felony aggravated murder. Smith's co-defendant, Paul Ashton, was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of 27-year-old Brandie Jerden and the attempted murder of James Fiske. Since the prosecution's notice to seek the death penalty, the defense has filed motions to attempt to have the option removed and to have the death penalty declared unconstitutional by the court. Taking that off allows us to move this case along much quicker "In light of our notice to seek the death penalty - that causes much more delay in the proceedings in litigating the death penalty issues," Shaum said. "Taking that off allows us to move this case along much quicker (and) allows (the victim's family) to get a quicker resolution, at least on the legal issues, at a quicker rate." Though the death penalty is no longer on the table, Shaum said the prosecution believes there is enough evidence to secure a murder conviction. "We felt we could retain justice and get the case resolved short of seeking the death penalty," Shaum said. Ellen Hensley, Christensen's mother, who has been attending court hearings since the case began, said she was happy the case can now move forward. Multiple attorneys she consulted told her the case could carry on for another 5 years due to the continuing battle over the death penalty. We deserve to be able to move forward with our lives "We deserve to be able to move forward with our lives, to put this nightmare behind us," Hensley said. "We can't do that as long as we keep coming back to court." Members of Smith's family were also present in the courtroom Wednesday. Following the hearing they also said they are glad the death penalty has been removed. Gary Pendleton, Smith's attorney, was also pleased. It makes his job a little less complicated, he said, although the dynamics of the case have changed. "It changes a lot, drastically," Pendleton said. As the case will no longer be one of capital murder, Mary Corporon, who was brought in as co-counsel funded by the state's Indigent Defense Fund, could be removed from the case. It is a matter the attorneys will be addressing as the case moves forward. Should Corporon's services end up being defunded and leaving, Pendleton will have to take on case matters Corporon had been addressing. The removal of the death penalty also makes way for issues that haven't been addressed yet, Pendleton said. One of those issues relates to 2009 legislation that removed the burden of proof from the prosecution to the defense in homicide cases where the suspect was under "extreme emotional distress." The defense has to prove that the extreme emotional distress is a mitigating circumstance justifying a manslaughter charge and not a murder charge. In a motion filed last month, Pendleton wrote: "The net result of these amendments is that an offense that was formerly punishable as manslaughter may now be punished as capital murder unless the defendant is able to carry the burden of proving that he acted under extreme emotional distress." "That, to me, is a significant issue," Pendleton said Wednesday. Fifth District Judge Michael G. Westfall set a July 1 deadline for the filing of any new motions. A possible 2-week trial date has been tentatively set for sometime after mid-October. In addition to a new motion regarding the 2009 legislation, Pendleton said he plans to get video testimony of a woman who knew Smith when he was a grade school student. The woman was a school counselor at the time, Pendleton said, and will testify to Smith's personality and the extreme emotional distress issue. Pendleton has long said that his client was manipulated into killing Christensen. Christensen would have been 26 years old on Friday, Hensley said. The family will be visiting her resting place with birthday cake, she said. "It's funny how her birthday is harder than her death date ... simply because she loved her birthday," Hensley said. "(I) don't want to forget about birthdays." (source: St. George News) CALIFORNIA: Death penalty upheld for man convicted of killing 4 people The state Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a Stockton man's death sentence for murdering 4 people in 1997 with a gun he had stolen from the van of an Alameda County sheriff's deputy. In the unanimous ruling, the court rejected defense arguments that police had coerced Louis Peoples into confessing to the murders during a marathon interrogation after his arrest. Peoples had worked as a tow truck driver in Stockton for 7 months before being suspended in October 1997 for testing positive for methamphetamine. Later that month, prosecutors said, he called the company for a tow late one night, using an alias, and fatally shot the driver, James Loper, 29. Peoples called the company the next day, using his real name, said he was sorry to hear about Loper's death, and asked to return from his suspension but was turned down, the court said. A week later, prosecutors said, Peoples robbed a liquor store and killed the owner, Stephen Chaco, 39. He was also convicted of robbing another liquor store a week after that and fatally shooting the owner, Beson Yu, 56, and a clerk, Jun Gao, 46. Peoples, then 35, was arrested a day after the 2nd robbery. After questioning, police said, he led them to a vacant lot near his home where a pouch was found containing a .40-caliber Glock handgun that had been stolen in June 1997 from the van of Michael King, an off-duty Alameda County deputy who was visiting Stockton. Police said they also found a folder in Peoples' backpack that was labeled "Biography of a Crime Spree" and contained news clippings about the crimes and a note saying he had been motivated both by revenge and the need to support his wife and 2 children when he was unemployed. His lawyer said Peoples had been molested as a teenager, and presented psychiatric evidence of brain damage from his methamphetamine use. Because of extensive local news coverage, his trial was transferred to Alameda County, where an initial jury deadlocked on his sentence - voting 8-4 to spare his life, according to the defense lawyer. But a 2nd jury returned a death verdict in 2000. In his appeal, Peoples' lawyers argued that detectives had unlawfully coerced him in a 12-hour interrogation session that lasted until 4:45 a.m. The court said Peoples denied guilt for the first 9 or 10 hours before admitting the crimes. The detectives first tried to win his trust by suggesting he hadn't meant to shoot anyone, and later told him that his wife had implicated him and that they would "drag" her into the case and "lean on" his 12-year-old stepson if Peoples didn't cooperate, the court said. Those tactics did not cross the line into illegal inducements or coercion, the court said. The detectives "never offered him leniency for his confession and never threatened a harsher penalty if he remained silent," Justice Goodwin Liu said in the 7-0 ruling. While threatening to drag Peoples' wife into the case, the officers never suggested that they would charge her with a crime, Liu said. And although Peoples showed signs of fatigue during the questioning, Liu said, the detectives gave him numerous breaks, and food and drink, and repeatedly offered him the chance to speak with a lawyer, which he declined. Additionally, Liu said the trial judge, Michael Platt of San Joaquin County Superior Court, spoke "discourteously and disrespectfully" to Peoples' lawyer throughout the trial but never did so in the jury's presence. A state commission later removed Platt from office for fixing traffic tickets and other misconduct. Phillip Cherney, Peoples' appellate lawyer, said Thursday that Platt, with the Supreme Court's approval, had also allowed the prosecutor to present a misleading view of the defendant as a remorseless killer. Finding the proposed defense evidence unreliable, the judge excluded letters Peoples had written to his family, expressing remorse, and barred testimony by the pastor for 1 of Peoples' victims, who would have said he spoke with Peoples and considered him genuinely remorseful. Platt's rulings prevented the jury from hearing "powerful evidence" that Peoples had become a changed man in his nearly 3 years behind bars, "once the meth was out of his system" and "it began to settle in what he had done," Cherney said. The case is People vs. Peoples, vS090602. (source: San Francisco Chronicle) ********************** San Jose: DA to seek death penalty in brutal baby rape, killing Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen will seek the death penalty against a man charged with forcing a 16-month-old boy into a sex act so brutal that it tore up his lips and throat before suffocating him, the Mercury News learned Wednesday. Rosen's decision to pursue a capital case against 42-year-old Alejandro Benitez, in an era when opposition to the death penalty continues to rise in California, is the 2nd time he has opted for the ultimate punishment against a defendant since taking office 5 years ago. Rosen is also seeking the death penalty against Antolin Garcia-Torres for the alleged 2012 kidnapping and killing of 15-year-old Sierra LaMar, who disappeared just north of Morgan Hill on her way to her school bus stop. Rosen issued a short statement after prosecutors notified the court of his decision Wednesday afternoon. An autopsy revealed that the boy, Kaden Bernard, had over 40 different injuries -- both old and new, internal and external -- covering his body from head to toe. "This was a nightmarish and extremely violent crime against the most vulnerable of all victims," Rosen said. "It is the worst of the worst." No decision regarding the death penalty has been made in another chilling case in which prosecutors charged a 22-year-old San Jose man last month with raping, beating and suffocating a 2-year-old boy as the child's mother slept in another room. Benitez has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder in the commission of a serious and dangerous felony, which in this case is a lewd act on a child. His court-appointed lawyers, who had presented their case for life without parole to senior prosecutors on Rosen's special death penalty advisory committee, expressed frustration Wednesday. They pointed out that Rosen's decision came on the same day the National Registry of Exonerations reported a record 149 exonerations in 2015, including 5 inmates who had been sentenced to death. None of the 5 were in California. "On the very day a report was issued showing five people sentenced to death were exonerated last year alone, we are extremely disappointed with Mr. Rosen's decision to seek the death penalty," said Brian Matthews, the lead attorney for Benitez. "His decision validates a deeply flawed system and disregards the substantial cost to the public." The toddler's ordeal began the morning of April 11, 2012, when his mother dropped him off at the East San Jose home of baby sitter Juana Ayala. That afternoon, Ayala called police to report that the child had choked while drinking the bottle of milk his mother had left for him. Semen consistent with Benitez' DNA profile was later found on the boy's clothing. Rosen's announcement comes as a recent Field poll found that 47 % of voters favor replacing the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole in California, up from 40 % in 2014. At the same time, the poll shows that 48 % of registered voters would support proposals to accelerate the state's notoriously slow system of resolving death penalty appeals to pick up the pace of executions. However, support for speeding up the process has dropped since from 52 % in 2014. Death penalty opponents are preparing a measure for the November ballot that would abolish California executions, while advocates of capital punishment are proposing a conflicting measure to reform and speed up the death penalty system. If voters were to approve both measures in November, the one with the most votes would settle the death penalty question in California for now. Benitez's trial is unlikely to start before the November election, meaning if the ban passes, the prosecution would be forced to stop seeking the death penalty. California voters rejected the last effort to abolish California's death penalty, in 2012, by a 52 to 48 % margin. However, the ban was approved in 7 of the 9 Bay Area counties, except in Solano and Napa. In Santa Clara County, the proposed ban passed with 54.7 % support. The state has executed 13 inmates since 1978, but nearly 750 remain on death row, the largest in the nation. Matt Cherry, executive director of Death Penalty Focus, which is backing the measure to abolish capital punishment, said pursuing the Benitez trial will cost Santa Clara County alone an extra $1 million. Last year, the state Legislative Analyst's Office found that banning the death penalty would reduce state and local costs associated with murder trials, appellate litigation and prisons by about $150 million annually. But Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, praised Rosen's decision. "It's certainly not a waste if it's one of the worst of the worst crimes," Scheidegger said. "That's what a DA should do." ---- Other Potential Death Penalty Cases that came before DA Jeff Rosen Paul Castillo: Charged with murder, kidnapping, assault on a police officer. DA decided in 2012 against seeking death penalty; he pleaded guilty and received life sentence without parole. Samuel Corona: Charged with murder, torture. DA decided in 2011 against seeking death; he pleaded guilty and received life sentence without parole. Miguel Bacigalupo: Charged with robbery, 2 counts of murder. A jury returned a death verdict in 1987 that was reversed on appeal. DA in 2012 decided against seeking retrial of death sentence, converting it automatically to life without parole. David Ghent: Charged with rape and murder; 1979 conviction and imposition of death penalty reversed on appeal. DA decided in 2013 against seeking death; case pending. Kenneth Thomas: Charged with 2 counts of murder in a residential robbery. DA decided against seeking death; case pending. Antolin Garcia-Torres: Charged with kidnapping, murder. DA in 2014 decided to seek death penalty; case pending. Jonathan Wilbanks: Charged with carjacking, murder. DA decided in 2013 against seeking death penalty. He pleaded guilty and received life sentence without parole. (source: insidebayarea.com) ****************** See which California counties still send criminals to death row, despite lack of executions It's been exactly a decade since California last executed a murderer. But since then more than 180 California criminals have been sentenced to death. The sentences have not been uniformly distributed. Some counties have stopped or almost stopped sending murderers to death row. Others continue to condemn prisoners with relatively high frequency. It's unclear whether these criminals will ever be executed. California halted executions in 2006 following a court order related to whether the state's drug protocol constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. State officials have worked to resolve that question. Late last year, they unveiled a new lethal injection method that for the 1st time in state history calls for the use of only one drug to execute inmates. Proponents for competing ballot initiatives - one that would speed up the process for executions and one that would abolish the death penalty -- are collecting signatures for the November 2016 ballot. Among large communities, Riverside County is the outlier, condemning murderers to death row at more than 5 times the statewide rate during the last 10 years. More than 5 % of murder arrests in Riverside County resulted in a sentence of death during the last 10 years, according to a Bee review of data from the state Department of Justice and the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. By comparison, about 1 % of murder arrests statewide resulted in a sentence of death over that same period. A few small counties, particularly Kings County and El Dorado County, sentenced murderers to death at a high rate - but those counties also have a relatively low number of murders, which potentially inflates their rates. On the other end of the spectrum, Sacramento County saw almost 1,000 murder arrests in the last decade, and 4 murderers condemned, state figures show. None of the roughly 350 murder arrests in San Francisco over that period resulted in a sentence of death. [sources: Arrest data from California Department of Justice -- Condemned inmate data from California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation | Note: Condemned inmates shown are those sentenced from 2006 through 2015. Murder arrests shown are from 2005 through 2014. There is generally at least a 1 year lag between a murder arrest and a sentence of death] (source: Sacramento Bee) USA: Clinton lays out rationale for death penalty support Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday night explained her rationale for continuing to support the death penalty in certain situations. "What I hope the Supreme Court will do is make it absolutely clear that any state that continues capital punishment either must meet the highest standards of evidentiary proof of effective assistance of consult or they cannot continue it," Clinton said during the Democratic primary debate. "Because that to me is the real dividing line. I have much more confidence in the federal system and I do reserve it for really heinous crimes in the federal system, like terrorism," she said. "I have strong feelings about that. I thought it was appropriate after a very thorough trial that Timothy McVeigh receive the death penalty for blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people including 19 children in a daycare center." But Clinton also offered some caveats. "So I do for very limited, particularly heinous crimes believe it is an appropriate punishment," Clinton said. "But I deeply disagree with the way that too many states still are implementing it. So if it were possible the federal from the state system by the Supreme court that would, I think, be an appropriate outcome." (source: politico.com) **************** Bernie Sanders had a powerfully simple message about the death penalty After Hillary Clinton said during the MSNBC Democratic debate that she reluctantly supports capital punishment, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) drew a contrast. "I just don't want to see government be part of killing, that's all," he said. Sanders added that he could understand Clinton's stance, saying that "all of us know that we are seeing in recent years horrible, horrible crimes and it's hard to imagine how people can bomb and kill 168 people in Oklahoma City or the Boston Marathon bombing," but too many "innocent people, including minorities, African-Americans, have been executed when they were not guilty." He also said that the world already has "so much violence and killing," and he doesn't believe "the government should be part of the killing. When somebody commits any of these terrible crimes that we have seen, you lock them up and you toss away the key, they're never going to get out. I just never want to see government in the killing." (source: theweek.com) ********************** Hillary Clinton will support abolishing death penalty once she's forced to Hillary Clinton, asked about her support of the death penalty during Thursday night's Democratic debate, said that "for particularly heinous crimes, I do believe it is an appropriate punishment." "I thought it was appropriate after a very thorough trial that Timothy McVeigh receive the death penalty for blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people including 19 children in a daycare center," Clinton said, saying that it was particularly suitable punishment for acts of terrorism. At the same time, Clinton made clear that, should the Supreme Court decide to place restrictions or prevent the states from carrying out capital punishment, she would support such a situation. "What I hope the Supreme Court will do is make it absolutely clear that any state that continues capital punishment either must meet the highest standards of evidentiary proof of effective assistance of consult or they cannot continue it," she said. "If it were possible the federal from the state system by the Supreme court that would, I think, be an appropriate outcome." People of color disproportionately receive death penalty sentences, compromising "43% of total executions since 1976 and 55% of those currently awaiting execution" according to the ACLU. Since 1976, 1 out of 10 people sentenced to death have been exonerated after evidence proved their innocence. The majority of the Democratic Party supports abolishing the death penalty. Bernie Sanders, asked the same question as Clinton, answered with fewer caveats. "Of course there are barbaric acts out there," he said. "But in a world of so much violence and killing, I just don't believe that government itself should be part of the killing." (source: deathandtaxesmag.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Feb 5 10:56:07 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 5 Feb 2016 10:56:07 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 5 INDONESIA: Australian resident facing possible death penalty in Indonesia denies poisoning murder The woman accused of being the 'coffee killer' is a permanent Australian resident who is facing the possibility of the death penalty after allegedly lacing her friend's iced coffee with cyanide on a holiday in Indonesia. Jessica Kumala Wongso, 27, was charged with premeditated murder earlier this week over the death of her friend Wayan Mirna Salihin, 27, on January 6. If found guilty, the charge carries a minimum jail sentence of 20 years and a maximum penalty of life in prison or death. Mirna died in Jakarta, Indonesia after having an iced coffee with Jessica and another friend, Hani, at the Olivier cafe in Grand Indonesia shopping mall earlier this month. Police have accused Jessica of lacing Mirna's drink with cyanide after the newlywed reportedly sipped the iced coffee then started convulsing. She was rushed to hospital and died that day. Jessica, who denies involvement in Mirna's death, was the one who ordered the drink that killed Mirna, according to police. News.com.au can exclusively reveal that Jessica, her parents and 2 siblings have been permanent residents of Australia since emigrating from Indonesia about 8 years ago. The family resides in Sydney. A source close to the family told news.com.au that Jessica was on holidays in Indonesia with her parents and was due to return to work as a graphic designer in Sydney just weeks after her arrest. "She's innocent," the source, who is in contact with Jessica, said. "She's just a common Australian; a 27-year-old young lady who was having a coffee then got into trouble for something she didn't do. "She was in the wrong place at the wrong time and (now) she could die." NSW Ambulance confirmed Jessica was employed with the service until just a few months ago. "Jessica Wongso was employed as a temporary agency contractor in an administrative position within NSW Ambulance from July 2014 until her resignation in November 2015," a statement issued to news.com.au from NSW Ambulance read. "As this is a matter under police investigation, NSW Ambulance is unable to comment further." The Jakarta Post reported the Australian Federal Police was contacted by Jakarta Police "to look into the relationship between Mirna and the friends during their time studying together", reportedly at Sydney's Billy Blue College of Design and Swinburne University of Technology. Wayan Mirna Salihin died from suspected cyanide poisoning. Her friend Jessica Kumala Wongso has been arrested in relation to Mirna's death. The AFP confirmed "it has been approached by the Indonesian National Police (INP) in relation to this matter". "The AFP is currently considering this request in accordance with normal police-to-police assistance processes and policies," an AFP spokesman said. "It is not appropriate for the AFP to comment on an INP investigation. "As this is a matter for Indonesian authorities, further questions should be directed to the Indonesian authorities." Indonesian chief detective Krishna Murti said police have gathered about 20 witness statements, including evidence from experts, and conducted a re-enactment. "Jessica's statement is highly inconsistent with the facts we have gathered," Mr Murti told reporters. "We will confirm whether her statement as a suspect is still consistent with her one as a witness or if she will give another statement." Indonesia National Police Commission member Edi Saputra Hasibuan said the cafe's CCTV footage allegedly shows Jessica moving "the coffee drink ... twice". Jessica's lawyer Yudi Wibowo said the evidence was "legally insufficient" and fails to show "her physically pouring poison into the coffee". Yudi said Jessica was innocent. "She is not afraid. She is tough because she has done nothing wrong in relation to the case," he said earlier this month. Yudi has questioned the autopsy process undertaken on Mirna's body, saying he did not believe she died from cyanide poisoning, as her friend Hani had sipped coffee from the same cup. Police confirmed they found cyanide in Mirna's stomach and in the coffee she drank before her death. Yudi has called for a 2nd autopsy to be conducted in another hospital, after it was first completed in Kramat Jati Police Hospital on January 10. Mirna recently married her partner, Arief Soemarko. Yudi also denied rumours there was a love triangle between his client and Mirna's husband. "There is nothing like that. Jessica has a boyfriend overseas," he said, according to local media reports. (source: The Cairns Post) MALAYSIA: Hundreds of Indonesian Workers Face Death Penalty in Malaysia A total 126 Indonesian Migrant Workers are facing the death penalty in Malaysia, according to Lalu Muhammad Iqbal, director for the protection of Indonesian nationals and legal aid at the Foreign Affairs Ministry. "The government is looking for solutions to address the issue," Iqbal said at the Ponorogo Legislative Council (DPRD) on Thursday, February 4, 2016. Iqbal suggested that issues with Indonesian migrant workers could be addressed by consultation, legal and diplomatic efforts. Institutions involved in conducting the efforts include the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the Manpower Ministry and non-governmental organizations (NGO). Over the last few years, the institutions had been cooperating to save migrant workers from the capital sentence. Iqbal revealed that a total of 282 migrant workers in Malaysia had been saved from the death penalty in the period of 2013-2015. Migrant Institute Executive Director Adi Candra Utama said that drugs cases entangling migrant workers were caused by domestic issues. Based on investigations, Adi added, age manipulation cases were commonly found. "The [data] manipulation occurs starting from the lowest level (from the village)," Adi said. The internal factor had resulted in 80 % of migrant workers' issues. Meanwhile, the external factors accounted for 20 % of migrant worker cases. "We need to reform the system from the top to provide better protection for migrant workers," Adi suggested. (source: tempo.co) THAILAND: Murder and rape reignites death penalty campaign A horrific murder and rape in southern Thailand has sparked a campaign to prevent death sentences from being overturned for those convicted of deadly sexual assaults. Spearheaded by actress-turned-activist Panadda Wongphudee, its supporters call for an end to the right of convicted murderer-rapists to seek sentence reductions or pardons, which campaigners said allow the perpetrators to leave prison too soon and go on to repeat their crimes. The petition comes in reaction to a group of men accused of holding a young woman in a jungle hut in Phatthalung province for 3 days before sexually assaulting her in front of her boyfriend, who they then killed, and leaving her for dead. Although none of the 4 suspects arrested Monday is known to have been convicted of such acts or received early release from prison, the horror of the crime has again tapped into a well of anger over violence against women and the perception that the law does not take it seriously. "They confessed and they are minors, so they will certainly get a reduced sentence, but they don't look repentant [on TV]at all," Panadda said. "So what can we do to make sure that they will really change their way?" (source: thaivisa.com) PAKISTAN: Death penalty: Convict to be executed on Feb 9 On 9th February 2016 death sentence of a criminal will be carried out in Central Jail Bahawalpur.Superintendent Central Jail Bahawalpur District and Session Judge Bahawalpur Rana Masood Akhtar issued a letter setting the date of the execution of Haider Shahzad. Shahzad was involved in a murder case registered in Hasilpur police station. (source: The Express Tribune) INDIA: Death penalty: 'Rarest of rare' cases are not so rare in India now A West Bengal court's verdict awarding death penalty to 11 convicts, including a Trinamool Congress leader, for the murder of a woman has raised questions over the doctrine of 'rarest of rare' propounded by the Supreme Court. Aparna Bag, a resident of Ghughurgachi of Nadia district of West Bengal, was murdered by a group of people on November 13, 2014 over a land dispute. On Thursday, a court in Krishnanagar handed death sentence to the 11 accused. Death penalty in India In India, death penalty is prescribed for murder, gang robbery with murder, abetting the suicide of a child or insane person, waging war against the government and abetting mutiny by a member of the armed forces. Capital punishment is also awarded under some anti-terror laws for those convicted of terrorist activities. Murder convicts get life imprisonment Generally, courts award life imprisonment to convicts in a murder case. Only in "rarest of rare" cases, murder convicts are given death penalty. Death sentence is imposed on the convict only when the court comes to the conclusion that life imprisonment is inadequate having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case. Section 354(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which was added to the Code in 1973, requires a judge to give "special reasons" for awarding death sentences. Capital punishment can be inflicted only in gravest cases of extreme culpability and in choosing the sentence the condition of the convict is also to be taken into account. What is "rarest of rare"? In 1980, in the Bachan Singh case, the Supreme Court propounded the "rarest of rare" doctrine and since then, life sentence is the rule and the death sentence the exception. There is no statutory definition of "rarest of rare". It depends upon facts and circumstances of a particular case, brutality of the crime, conduct of the offender, previous history of his involvement in crime, chances of reforming and integrating him into the society etc. Test for "rarest of rare" The generally applied test while sentencing a convict to death is whether the survival of an orderly society demands extinction of life of the person who has committed the offence and whether failure to impose death sentence on him would bring to naught the sentence of death provided under Section 302 of IPC. Pre-planned, brutal, cold-blooded and sordid nature of a crime, without giving any chance to the victim, are generally taken into account to decide whether a particular case falls within the parameters of "rarest of rare". What does Supreme Court say? "Death penalty should be imposed when collective conscience of the society is so shocked that it will expect the holders of the judicial power centre to inflict death penalty irrespective of their personal opinion as regards desirability of otherwise of retaining death penalty," said the Supreme Court in Bachan Singh Vs. State of Punjab. The crime has to be viewed from various angles - manner of commission of murder, motive for commission of murder, anti-social or socially abhorrent nature of crime and magnitude and personality of victim of murder. Are trial courts following "rarest of rare" doctrine"? But the manner in which death penalty is being given in a large number of cases raises a serious question. Are trial courts in India giving a go by to the 'rarest of rare' doctrine? The question becomes all the more relevant because not all convicts awarded death penalty are executed in India. The number of death sentences pronounced has been very high despite the "rarest of rare" doctrine that limits the scope of awarding capital punishment. According to an Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) report - The State of Death Penalty in India 2013 - Uttar Pradesh topped the list with 370 death sentences, followed by Bihar (132). But sentences for 4,321 convicts were commuted from death penalty to life imprisonment during this period. This, of course, included many convicts who were given death penalty before 2001. The highest number of commutation - 2,462 - happened in Delhi, followed by Uttar Pradesh (458). But thousands of convicts still remain on the death row. Huge gap between death sentence and actual execution Data show there is a huge gap between death sentences pronounced and actual executions. According to an ACHR report based on National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, there have been several death sentences between 2001 and 2011, but only a few of these have actually been carried out. Indian courts awarded death penalty to 1,455 convicts from 2001-11, an average of around 132 convicts per year. But an overwhelming number of death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment during this period. The only convict to be executed during this period was Dhananjoy Chatterjee (2004) who was hanged for the murder and rape of a 14-year old girl in Kolkata. This was the country's 1st execution since April 27, 1995, when Auto Shankar, a serial killer, was executed in Salem, Tamil Nadu. Thereafter, there have been only 3 executions - Mumbai terror attack case convict Ajmal Kasab in 2012, Parliament attack case convict Afzal Guru in 2013 and Mumbai serial blasts case convict Yakub Memon in 2015. Is SC becoming averse to death penalty? The president and governors are exercising the power "to grant pardons, etc., and to suspend, remit or commute sentences in certain cases", given to them, under Articles 72 and 161, to save a fairly large number of convicts from the gallows. While the executive have been refusing mercy pleas of only terror convicts, judiciary is not following the same. Of late, the Supreme Court has refused to impose capital punishment in cases in which one would have expected it to send the convicts to the gallows. Many were surprised when the SC declined to award death sentence to the convicts in the Graham Staines, Jessica Lall and Priyadarshini Mattoo murder cases on the ground that these did not fall within the category of "rarest of rare". It commuted the death penalty of Rajiv Gandhi's killers to life imprisonment in February 2014 on the ground of inordinate delay in deciding their mercy pleas. A month later, it also commuted the death sentence of 1993 Delhi terror convict Devender Pal Singh Bhullar to life imprisonment on the grounds of delay in deciding his mercy petition and that he suffered from a mental illness. Punishment is natural response to crime This principle is almost universally accepted and that letting off criminals can result in vigilante justice. Also, the punishment has to be proportionate to the degree of wrongdoing and mitigating circumstances have to be considered while deciding the quantum of punishment. Should India abolish death penalty? India has been voting against a UN resolution calling for a moratorium on the death penalty. But in effect, there has been a near moratorium on the death penalty in India. According to Amnesty International, in India, at least 100 people in 2007, 40 in 2006, 77 in 2005, 23 in 2002, and 33 in 2001 were sentenced, but not executed, to death. India's figure is minuscule compared to China which executed thousands, Iran (1,663), Saudi Arabia (423), the US (220) and Pakistan (171) during 2007-12. ACHR director and coordinator of the National Campaign for Abolition of Death Penalty in India, Suhas Chakma, says: "The sanctity of the rarest of rare doctrine has been eroded considerably and awarding death penalty has become routine for courts in India. "India should abolish death penalty altogether and join the comity of civilised nations that have done away with this extreme form of punishment," says Chakma. (source: Hindustan Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Feb 6 09:34:24 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2016 09:34:24 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., N.C., FLA., KY. Message-ID: Feb. 6 TEXAS: Court of Criminal Appeals Candidates Emphasize Experience Although the Court of Criminal Appeals is the highest criminal court in the state - and it deals with hot-button issues including the death penalty - its 9 judges don't attract much attention. That can make campaigning for a seat on the court difficult. Several candidates running for the court's open seats said they doubt most Texans know the court even exists. But the 3 Court of Criminal Appeals races on the March 1 Republican primary ballot - for places 2, 5 and 6 - are worth paying attention to (the Democrats running don't have primary opponents). In 1 race, 3 Republicans are locked in a heated battle to take back the seat from an incumbent who defected to the Democratic party. In another, one candidate is calling for a complete overhaul of the court system. Across all 3 races, there are accusations of insufficient commitment to conservative values. Voters across the state are eligible to vote in the Court of Criminal Appeals elections. Here's the breakdown: Place 2 The current Place 2 judge, Democrat Larry Meyers, is the longest-serving member of the court; he's held the seat since 1992 and he's looking to stick around. But his isn't a typical incumbent story - he's switched parties since the last election, making him the only Democrat in statewide office in Texas, and he knows his chances of getting re-elected are slim. This fall, Meyers will face the winner of 3 Republicans seeking to claim his seat - Judge Mary Lou Keel of Harris County, and Judges Chris Oldner and Ray Wheless, both from Collin County. Keel and Oldner are seeking to define the race by their criminal law qualifications, and both said they'd much prefer the other to Wheless. Keel, a former trial and appellate prosecutor, has presided over 5 death penalty cases as a felony trial judge. Given the role of the Court of Criminal Appeals as the top appellate court for Texas death penalty cases, Keel said she is ready for the job. "I've got more experience than both of my opponents put together," Keel said. Oldner, a district court judge in Collin County, says his own experiences with the death penalty - when he was a felony prosecutor - has given him a unique perspective. : "I think it's important that the court has people who have been in the courtroom, looked people in the eye and asked for the death penalty," Oldner said. "I've asked for convictions in the toughest cases." Wheless, also a district court judge in Collin County, has emphasized his commitment to conservative values in his campaign materials and focused on the credentials that set him apart, including his double certification in civil trial law and personal injury law. Wheless has also highlighted his history with narcotics cases - he helped establish Collin County's 1st felony drug court program. There is 1 point on which Keel and Oldner agree: Wheless should not be on the state's highest criminal court. Both say Wheless doesn't have sufficient experience in criminal appeals, pointing out that he is the only candidate who has not been board certified in criminal law. "There are 2 people in this race who are highly qualified and who would do a great job on the bench," Oldner said. "There is a 3rd person who has excelled at politics, and that's it." "I don't understand why Judge Wheless wants to be on a court he's so unqualified for," Keel said. Wheless worked in private practice and served as Plano's municipal prosecutor before being appointed to the Collin County district court. He says he's perfectly qualified and that ultimately the voters will decide, but he declined to comment on the specific nature of his opponents' complaints. "I like criminal law, I like hearing criminal cases," Wheless said. "Criminal law is interesting to me." Wheless, who's garnered endorsements from a number of prominent Tea Party organizations - including Texas Right to Life, Texas Home School Coalition and the Texas Eagle Forum - says his opponents' criticism does not bother him. "They are entitled to run their campaigns the way they want, and I am running mine," Wheless said. Place 5 Brent Webster, Sid Harle and Steve Smith Brent Webster, Sid Harle, and Steve Smith are 3 of the 4 candidates running in the Republican primary for Court of Criminal Appeals Place 5. The 4 Republicans vying for the Place 5 seat on the court also vary significantly in background and motivation. One says he is running to take back the court for conservatives, and another hopes to use the position to advocate for a total overhaul of the state's court system; another does not have a campaign website. Sid Harle has the most judicial experience - he's served as a state district judge for 27 years and presided over several death penalty cases, and he served for 2 years on the Court of Criminal Appeals' rules committee. He also recommended the state convene the court of inquiry that led to Michael Morton's high-profile exoneration. Morton was wrongfully convicted of the murder of his wife and served almost 25 years in prison before DNA evidence connected another man to the crime. Harle said his background in forensics, including 2 years of service on the National Forensic Science Commission, make him especially qualified for the court. "Arson, ballistics, DNA evidence - we're going to be seeing a lot of those cases," Harle said. "The Morton case dealt with one of those worst examples of bad science and bad gatekeeping by a judge - as a judge, a big part of the workload is looking at the underlying forensic science." Harle's most vocal opponent is Steve Smith, a former Texas Supreme Court justice. Smith advocates merging the state's 2 highest courts, the Court of Criminal Appeals and the Supreme Court, and has focused on his opposition to what he calls "judicial lawmaking." Smith said he entered the race largely because he thinks Harle is too moderate. "I got in at the last minute, right before the filing deadline, when it was clear Harle would not have competition," Smith said. "The balance between moderate Republicans and conservative Republicans has shifted, and it's important that a proven conservative take this spot." Smith cites Texas v. Villlarreal, a case in which the Court of Criminal Appeals ruled 5-4 that blood drawn from drivers without their consent and without a warrant is not admissible evidence in a DWI case, as an example of a case that he says could've easily been decided the other way with a 5th conservative voice. "Those important cases are being decided 5-4, and I think it's important to educate the voters that, contrary to public perception, the CCA is not far-right at the moment," Smith said. "That's cause for concern." Harle has said it is not appropriate for judges to address how they would rule in specific cases in advance of hearing them in court. "You can talk about your judicial philosophy, but you can't really broadcast what you're going to do to that degree, or you'd be subject to recusal," Harle said. A 3rd Republican, Brent Webster, a Williamson County assistant defense attorney, has never served in public office. His campaign materials focus on major conservative themes - his commitment to defending 2nd-amendment rights, his anti-abortion rights stance, and a belief in fiscal responsibility. "As a Judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, not only will Brent bring these values to the bench, he will be guided by them," his website says. Webster could not be reached for comment. The 4th Republican candidate, Scott Walker, a criminal defense attorney from Fort Worth, does not have a campaign website and did not return multiple requests for comment. The winner of the Republican primary will face Democrat Betsy Johnson, a criminal defense attorney from San Antonio, in the fall. Place 6 Richard Davis is challenging incumbent Michael E. Keasler in the Republican primary for Court of Criminal Appeals Place 6. Compared to the other Court of Criminal Appeals races, the Place 6 race has been quiet. Judge Michael Keasler, a Republican who has served on the court for 17 years, is running to keep his seat. Keasler, 73, would hit the CCA's mandatory retirement age of 75 in 2 years, triggering a law that caps the normally 6-year term at 4 years. Keasler does not have a campaign website and did not respond to requests for comment. Richard Davis, an attorney from Marble Falls, is Keasler's only Republican opponent - and Davis said he hopes voters keep Keasler's inability to serve a full term in mind when they head to the polls. Davis added that although he's never served as a judge, his work as a prosecutor in Sherman and Ector counties qualify him for the role. "My extensive trial experience gives me a more balanced view than my opponent, whose legal career prior to holding office was to prosecute in 1 county of this state," he said. This fall, the winner will face Democrat Robert Burns, a district judge from Dallas County. (source: Texas Tribune) **************** Don't mess with Texas, where law is hard, mistakes common Among the 3,000 counties that make up the United States, there is 1 in Texas where it's best not to mess with the law, because justice is hard and mistakes are common. Harris County has executed a record 125 people since the US Supreme Court overturned the death penalty in 1976. "The best answer I know is that it's a huge county -- 4 million people -- that's very conservative, in an active death penalty state, and for a long time had a notoriously blood thirsty DA," Samuel Gross of the University of Michigan law school told AFP. Home to the sprawling city of Houston, Harris County accounts for 9 % of all modern US executions. It has executed more people than that any of the 31 states which administer the death penalty, except for the state of Texas as a whole. "There are 4 major reasons why Harris County has put so many people on death row: overzealous prosecutors, poor legal representation, racial bias, and the absence of a life without parole sentencing option until 2005," said Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty information Center. Studies have shown that Harris County prosecutors were three times more likely to seek the death penalty against African Americans than against white defendants between 1992 and 1999. Juries there were more than twice as likely to impose death sentences on African Americans during the same period. Lawyers for Duane Buck, sentenced to die in Harris County in 1997, filed an appeal with the Supreme Court Thursday because an expert witness told jurors he posed a higher risk of recidivism because he was black. - Pleading guilty, even if innocent - Harris County also accounted for 1/3 of the nation's exoneration cases in 2015, according to a study Gross published Wednesday. Many of those who spent years behind bars until they could prove their innocence are African Americans like Alfred Brown, who was arrested in 2003 at the age of 21 for a double homicide and sentenced to death in 2005. Prosecutors suppressed phone records showing Brown was at his girlfriend's home at the time of the crime and jailed his girlfriend on perjury charges until she agreed to testify against him, according to a series of columns which netted Houston Chronicle reporter Lisa Falkenberg a Pulitzer Prize. Brown was released in June after 12 years behind bars. The vast majority of exonerations are in drug cases where people caught up in the system are pressured to plead guilty because they have little hope of clearing their names. "It's shocking but it is very common," said Jim Cohen, a professor at Fordham Law School. "They are pushed by the prosecutor and they are pushed by the defense attorney because the defense attorney is saying, 'if you don't plead guilty and you are convicted after trial, you're going to get a much bigger sentence'." But the evidence which pushed them to confess was often flawed or even inadmissible. The field tests used by police in Harris County and elsewhere in the nation are "notoriously unreliable," and "routinely misidentify everything from Jolly Ranchers (candies) to chalk to motor oil as illegal drugs," the University of Michigan report said. "They are inadmissible as evidence in court but sufficient to justify an arrest and they may convince an innocent defendant that she is bound to be convicted at trial." Some of those who plead guilty might have thought the pills or powders they were carrying contained illegal drugs when they did not, the study concluded. Others, especially those with previous convictions who could not afford to post bail, agreed to "attractive plea bargains" rather than risking years in prison. (source: Yahoo News) PENNSYLVANIA: A sad case of unequal justice from the 1930s At 7:03 a.m. on June 8, 1931, Alexander McClay Williams was put to death in the electric chair at Rockview Prison in Centre County. He was 16 years old. Williams had been convicted in the stabbing murder of a matron at the Glen Mills Schools, where he had been a resident since the age of 12, when he was charged with setting a barn on fire. More than 8 decades later, questions remain about the case and whether Williams was wrongly convicted of a crime he did not commit. The case has haunted local educator and author Sam Lemon, who has spent years examining the case and raised serious questions about Williams' guilt and a system of law that could so easily dispatch a young African-American youth to death. Lemon believes strongly that the Williams case was a miscarriage of justice. In the process, his work offers a chilling look at how race received distinctly different forms of justice in 1931. Some would argue, given the events across the nation the past couple of years, that things have not changed all that much in 8 decades of the struggle for civil rights and equal treatment under the law. Lemon's makes a strong case that the execution of Williams, believed to be the youngest person executed by the state of Pennsylvania, was anything but just. Williams was convicted by an all-white jury of the murder of Glen Mills matron Vida Robare. She had been brutally stabbed 47 times with an ice pick. Lemon has spent 30 years researching the case. He first heard of it from his grandmother, whose father, Lemon's great-grandfather, had the task of representing Williams in court. William H. Ridley was the 1st African-American admitted to the Delaware County Bar Association. In October 1930, he was the only African-American attorney in Delaware County, and found himself by the court to represent the young Williams. He would soon encounter several problems. Lemon believes 3 of the youth's constitutional rights were violated: his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself; his Sixth Amendment right to confront any witnesses; and his 14th Amendment right to due process and equal justice under the law. Lemon, who points out there was no physical evidence linking Williams to the murder, as well as no fingerprints or witnesses, believes the teen???s confession was coerced. He's not the only one. Robert Keller, a former Delaware County prosecutor who is now a criminal defense attorney, reviewed Lemon's findings. Keller agrees that Williams was questioned continually without counsel. "It is clearly an important case for all to hear about," Keller said. "The justice system of the '30s clearly failed this young African-American." Keller is working with Lemon to push for a pardon for Williams. Back in 2005, the United State Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty for anyone under the age of 18. That came about 3/4 of a century too late for Williams. And it might not have kept him from a date with death anyhow. Adding insult to injury, Williams' death certificate appears to have been altered. It correctly notes his date of birth as July 23, 1914, but his age was clearly altered by someone who converted the 6 into an 8, making it appear as if Williams was 18. Williams' case was certainly not the first time in American history where race cast a shadow over the justice system. 8 decades after he was walked to the death chamber, Lemon points to the Trayvon Martin case, unrest in several U.S. cities, including Ferguson, Mo., after the shooting of black youths by police, as evidence that while we've made great strides, the pursuit of justice for all Americans continues. February is Black History Month. Every year we take time to note the accomplishments of African-Americans, and the continuing pursuit of the Rev. Martin Luther King's elusive "dream." Alexander McClay Williams did not have much in the way of dreams. In his scant 16 years, he had a troubled life - and an even more troubling death. We congratulate Lemon and others for their work in uncovering and seeking to redress the wrongs inflicted on Williams. Maybe part of the dream is realizing the nightmare too many suffered along the way. And working to ensure they never occur again. (source: Editorial, The Mercury) ****************** Murder suspect calls his lawyers 'bums' and 'corrupt' Calling his public defenders "bums" and "corrupt," a Riegelsville man facing the death penalty in a Easton homicide case on Friday sought to fire his lawyers, saying they were pressing him to plead guilty to murder. A shackled and handcuffed Jeffrey S. Knoble Jr., who was placed in a wheelchair to restrain him, railed against the three attorneys standing feet from him in the Northampton County courtroom, and asserted his innocence in the slaying last year. "They don't fit my needs," Knoble said of Chief Public Defender Robert Eyer and the two experienced public defenders, Matthew Goodrich and Matthew Potts, who are assisting him. "They're bums. They're corrupt." Knoble, 26, could face the state's ultimate punishment if convicted of 1st-degree murder in the early March 11 killing at the former Quality Inn on South Third Street. He is charged with shooting 32-year-old Andrew "Beep" White, who authorities have called a "good Samaritan" who had rented a room for Knoble that night because he had no place to stay. Knoble appeared before Judge Emil Giordano after he wrote letters to the judge and the case's prosecutor, saying he wanted to fire his lawyers because "they sold me out" and were pressing him to accept a plea bargain under which he would receive life in prison without parole. "It's my life," Knoble said in court to Giordano. Giordano said he would issue a ruling on the request next week, but the judge told Knoble that if he cannot afford an attorney, he does not get to choose the lawyers he is appointed. Knoble's defense team said little in court, even as their client lashed out against them in a room packed with deputy sheriffs. "My appearance remains entered," Eyer said. "Mr. Goodrich's appearance remains entered. Mr. Potts' appearance remains entered, and we're ready to proceed." Knoble was arrested the day of the shooting after his mother called police after her son showed her a cellphone video of a man's corpse, according to testimony. Knoble's lawyers have said they are preparing a mental-health defense, including the possibility that their client was insane or operating under diminished capacity. Jury selection in the case's trial is slated to begin May 31. Friday was only the latest time that Knoble has had outbursts in court. When he was formally notified in June that he would face the death penalty, Knoble thundered against the justice system and the media, saying there was no way he would receive a fair trial. "I know how you guys work. You're all corrupt," Knoble told Giordano at the time. But in his letters to Giordano and First Deputy District Attorney Terence Houck, it was Knoble's lawyers who faced that accusation, with the defendant complaining "they are not doing anything for me." In the letters dated Monday, Knoble threatened to go to the press, saying they "would love it." "I'm not stupid," Knoble wrote Houck. In court, Houck tweaked Knoble over that letter, noting the defendant misspelled his 1st name as "Terance." "If he's going to send anything else to me, I'd like him to spell my name right," Houck said. Giordano several times pressed Knoble to offer specific complaints about his lawyers' performance, even as Knoble insisted that the judge had no choice but to give him new counsel. "Right here's a paper trail," Knoble said. "So if you keep them on my case, I'm automatically coming back to you [on appeal.]" Giordano said he appreciated the legal advice. (source: Morning Call) NORTH CAROLINA: Suspects in 2 slayings could face death penalty Suspects in the slayings of 2 women more than a year ago were told they could face the death penalty as they appeared before a judge for the first time Thursday. Justin Gray Reynolds, 28, who has had addresses on Bitmore Road, Brunswick and most recently on Lee Ward Road, Nakina; and Megan Alicia Haynes, 27, of Howard Cox Road, Tabor City; were each charged late Wednesday with 2 counts of murder in the October 2014 killings of Jeanette Nancy Thut, 74, and Donna Lee Gore, 55, at their home on Blacksmith Road near Bolton. Reynolds was Gore's son, a news release from the Columbus County Sheriff's Office said. Family members who had last seen Thut on Oct. 24, 2014, reported her missing 11 days later, on Nov 4. A deputy who went to Thut's home, while looking around the grounds, noticed a "foul odor" coming from a storage building, Columbus County District Attorney Jon David said during a first appearance hearing for Reynolds. Detectives would find the bodies of both women inside that building, David said, Thut wrapped in a piece of carpet or blanket with 15 to 17 stab wounds. Gore was found on the concrete floor. She had been strangled to death, the prosecutor said. Sheriff's detectives working on the case developed new leads and evidence just this week, David said. "The wheels of justice turn slow," David said earlier Thursday, "but justice never sleeps." Determining motive isn't necessary in a criminal case, David said during a news conference held just before the court hearings. "You can chase motive all over the courtroom and never catch it," David said. David would not discuss motive, or details of the killings during the news conference. "We do our talking in the courtroom," he said. David alluded to theft, and the possibility of getting caught, as a motive during the hearing. Reynolds and Haynes were living in a mobile home on the Thut property at the time of the killings, David said. Thut had discovered that the young couple had stolen some of her property, and "was in the process of notifying the Columbus County Sheriff's Office when she was killed." Both Reynolds and Haynes took property from the Thut home and sold it at pawn shops in the days following her death, David said. Haynes is also facing credit card fraud charges in Bladen County, accused of using Thut's credit card in Elizabethtown after her death, the prosecutor said. Death penalty A "death penalty panel" made of up senior prosecutors will meet in the coming weeks to determine whether the state will seek the death penalty against either Reynolds, Haynes or both, David said. That decision could come in about a month, and will be announced, he said. Though both Reynolds and Haynes were calm before the judge, Haynes appeared confused and sad, and Reynolds could be heard cursing after he was escorted by deputies out of the courtroom. District Court Judge Pauline Hankins heard Reynolds' charges first, and appointed Harold G. "Butch" Pope to represent him. Retired Superior Court Judge William C. "Bill" Gore was appointed to represent Haynes, after declining to represent Reynolds. Gore explained that he'd already represented Haynes in another case. Pope asked Hankins for a "reasonable bond" for Reynolds, noting that no decision has been made on seeking the death penalty. Hankins denied Pope's request, ordering that Reynolds remain in custody without bond. Gore, after hearing David outline specifics of the case during Reynolds' hearing, said he would "stipulate" to no bond for his client, eliminating the need for the prosecutor to explain why bail should be denied. David agreed, but quickly added that Haynes had tried to escape through a rear window of her home when deputies came to arrest her, eliciting an excited "objection" from Gore that abruptly halted the prosecutor's explanation. Probable cause hearings for both Reynolds and Haynes were scheduled for Feb. 25. (source: Fayetteville Observer) FLORIDA: Death Row Sentences Still Uncertain for Most Inmates In June 2002, The US Supreme Court issued its "Ring Decision" finding only a jury could determine if death was appropriate. Florida Justices immediately downplayed its significance..and judges were reminded of that decision this week by the Attorney General's office because they want to narrow the changes to existing death sentences. Justice Fred Lewis wrote the original opinion. "We can be wrong. I have to be big enough to admit." In January the nation's highest court did indeed say Ring applied to Florida. Just Barbara Pariente read it outlaid more than once. "As we hold the sentencing scheme unconstitutional." Death row attorneys are asking the court to re-sentence all 389 death row inmates to life in prison. The state wants the court to keep death sentences for everyone already there. Justice Lewis doesn't think that's fair. "And that 1 person is executed today, but the 1 that comes up tomorrow is not, and there's really no difference between their cases" said Lewis from the bench. Right now, there are 43 active death appeals here at Florida's Supreme Court. And because those appeals aren't final, all 43 will likely be be automatically re-sentenced to life in prison. But what about the other 346? Since Ring, 40 inmates went to their death in Florida. Rex Dimmig is the 10th Circuit Public Defender. "So they followed their normal procedural sorts of rules. Unfortunately it does result in people having been executed that we now know were unconstitutionally executed" says Dimmig. Now the court must decide if it wants to chance getting it wrong again by keeping most death sentences. Or avoid that mistake by sentencing every prisoner facing death to life without parole. State lawmakers are looking at new sentencing schemes for Florida. This week a House committee adopted a 9-3 jury recommendation. The Senate is considering requiring a unanimous verdict. Neither house is considering what to do about those already on death row. (source: flanews.com) ******************** Study shows racial bias in death penalties in Florida The U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida's death penalty statute because judges rather than jurors were making the ultimate decision about who should be sentenced to die. This narrow ruling highlights a serious problem with Florida's capital punishment scheme, but new research suggests that this is just one of many flaws in how the state determines who should be executed. I recently conducted a study that looked at the race of victims in all homicides in Florida since 1976, including those that resulted in execution. I found that executions are very rare: just 0.3 % of homicides lead to an execution. Most murders involve people of the same race. But there are tremendous disparities depending on the characteristics of the victim: -- In fact, 72 % of all executions carried out in Florida between 1976 and 2014 were for crimes involving white victims despite the fact that 56 % of all homicide victims are white. -- And 71 % of the executions carried out against black inmates were for homicides involving white victims. -- No white person has been executed in Florida for a murder involving a black victim to date. With 40 years of experience with the modern death penalty and more than 30,000 murders in Florida, the fact that no white person has ever been executed for killing a black person needs to be recognized for what it is: evidence of a severely broken system based on race. We can quibble about racial disparities that are measured by a few percentage points. But these are stark results with effects measured by orders of magnitude. They clearly show that Florida's death penalty system is plagued by vast racial and gender disparities and that black lives are not valued the same as white lives. Bias enters the process at many different points, from the prosecutor's initial decision about whether to charge the crime as 1st- or 2nd-degree murder, to the decision to seek either life in prison or the death penalty. This is exacerbated by the fact that Florida's death penalty statute is so broad that the vast majority of homicides could be charged as 1st-degree murders eligible for the death penalty and that decision is completely up to the discretion of the local prosecutor. Also Florida is the only state that doesn't require any unanimity in a capital jury verdict. The homicide rate in counties that have produced no executions is significantly lower than the homicide rate in counties with executions. It's difficult to argue that executions are deterring future murderers with numbers like these. Florida had almost 30,000 homicides from 1984 through 2012 and 89 executions through 2014: Just 0.3 % of homicides result in an execution. Given the flaws and inequities my study revealed, maybe it's just not worth it. (source: Column; Frank R. Baumgartner is a professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is the author of "The Impact of Race, Gender, and Geography on Florida Executions."----Florida Times-Union) ************* Why Florida Loves the Death Penalty In Florida, there's no shortage of things that can kill you. It's the lightning-strike and shark-bite capital, as the Orlando Sentinel helpfully dubbed it. Also, alligators. But leaving natural phenomena aside, Florida is also one of the most execution-friendly destinations in America. The Sunshine State has 389 death row inmates - more than any other besides California, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Alarmingly, Florida also leads the nation with 26 death row exonerations. "If you add it all together, Florida's the worst of the worst," when it comes to capital punishment, says Mark Elliott, director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. Meanwhile, American support for the death penalty is near a 40-year low, according to a Pew Research poll conducted last spring. The fact that DNA evidence can exonerate people who were long ago falsely convicted has inspired many to doubt the efficacy of the criminal justice system, and laws around the country are changing to mirror that shift in public opinion. In January, the Supreme Court - which still leans in favor of the death penalty in the abstract - deemed Florida's execution sentencing protocol unconstitutional. But rather than take the death penalty off the books, politicians in Florida are currently arguing over new justifications they might use for killing convicts. Which begs the question of why, in a swing state that's often considered a barometer for the the rest of the country, officials are so dead-set on preserving capital punishment. Bob Dekle, a law professor at the University of Florida, says the death penalty has been a part of the state's culture as long as he can remember. First it was hangings, and then, in 1923, it was the electric chair. Dekle's granddaddy was a sheriff in Union County in northern Florida back around the time of World War I, when the state's executions were still carried out at the local level. The old man threw the switch on an inmate himself once, a duty Dekle says grandpa didn't particularly enjoy. But that was local custom - at least until 1941, when local sheriffs were replaced by black-hooded executioners. Things carried on that way until 1972, when Supreme Court justices, in a 5 - 4 decision, said that the death penalty was cruel and unusual - and often had a racial bias. Florida was the first state to pass a new law in hopes of resuming executions later that year, but a national moratorium remained in place until the Supreme Court's 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision. State officials were anxious to resume capital punishment, reflecting a sense of vigilante justice that permeates the Deep South, as well as some uniquely Floridian sensibilities. "There's always been a sense in Florida that if you feel you have been victimized, you have an obligation to protect your honor by avenging what has taken place," Robert Snyder, a professor of American Studies at the University of South Florida, once told the Tampa Bay Times. "A sort of bestial spirit resides deep within the heart of people in Florida." That bestial spirit produced a penal code that has been notoriously lax when it comes to executions. In most states, juries have to unanimously agree on aggravating factors to recommend a defendant be put to death. Florida is one of just 2 states where a simple majority is sufficient, and it's one of just 3 where judges can go rogue and take the execution route even if a jury doesn't call for it. Suffice it to say Florida's death row tends to be pretty packed. On May 25, 1979, a 30-year-old named John Spenkelink was the 1st person sent to Old Sparky once it got fired up again. According to the Tampa Bay Times, Spenkelink, who was convicted for murdering his roommate, was given 2 shots of whiskey before taking his seat in the chair. Dozens of men - and 2 women - were sent to die there in the coming decades. In fact, the frequency with which people were executed became a point of civic pride; in 1986, Tampa Mayor Bob Martinez ran for governor with the campaign promise that Florida's electric bill would go up if he were elected. By the late 1990s, however, a number of malfunctions raised questions about whether or not the electric chair constituted cruel and unusual punishment. In March 1997, the state tried to electrocute Pedro Medina, but his head basically caught on fire as witnesses gasped for air. An official turned off the chair while Medina, who was mentally ill and possibly innocent, was still breathing. Still, politicians grasped at straws, trying to justify the death penalty. State Senator Ginny Brown-Waite, who witnessed a particularly gruesome electrocution in 1999, said that the prisoner's nosebleed formed the sign of a cross on his shirt, which she suggested might be a sign from God that the execution was divinely mandated. In 2000, Florida at least began granting prisoners the choice between Old Sparky and lethal injection; only 1 man has requested the chair since. On January 7, Florida carried out the first execution in America this year. But on Tuesday, the State Supreme Court postponed the next one as lawmakers try to appease justices in Washington. The conversation will likely not address the racial issues brought up in the 1970s Supreme Court cases, although the degree to which the death penalty is imposed along those lines remains startling. (A January report authored by a professor at University of North Carolina found that no white person has ever been sentenced to death for killing a black person in Florida.) For his part, Dekle - who has personally witnessed 3 executions in Florida - says other states passed stricter death penalty laws when capital punishment was reinstated decades ago specifically to discourage the Supreme Court from striking them down again. 43 Florida death row inmates have filed direct appeals and might see their sentences reduced to life in prison as a result of the January ruling. "It's a mess that could have been avoided if the Supreme Court had 40 years ago said, 'Wait a minute, this ain't right," Dekle says of the troubled Florida law. "Eventually, they're gonna hammer out a new mechanism for imposing the death penalty, and quite likely people on death row are gonna get new sentencing hearings. And maybe 40 years from now, the Supreme Court will decide that's unconstitutional too." (source: vice.com) *************** Segura trial will go forward with death penalty in limbo The death penalty - for now - does not apply in the brutal 2010 murder of Brandi Peters and her 3 children, a judge ruled Friday. Leon Circuit Judge Terry Lewis, however could not rule whether to allow the testimony of a witness Henry Segura???s attorneys say points to 2 other suspects. Segura, 37, is charged in connection with the murders of Peters, 27, her twin daughters, Tamiyah and Taniyah Peters, 6, and their son, JaVante Segura, 3, who were found dead Nov. 20, 2010, at their Saddle Creek Run home. The trial, set to begin Feb. 22 will go continue as scheduled, Lewis said. Prosecutors had requested a continuance to allow them to investigate the defense's new claims. Lewis said he will not exclude the death penalty entirely, but the decision to allow it relies on how and when the Florida Legislature reworks guidelines for capital cases. Florida's sentencing scheme in death penalty cases was ruled unconstitutional last month by the U.S. Supreme Court. "At this point I don't have any authority to impose the death penalty," Lewis said during a hearing Friday. "There are a lot of uncertainties." Segura's defense attorney Nathan Prince said going ahead with trial with uncertain sentencing guidelines was troubling. "I don't think there is any lawful manner with which we could move forward," he said in court. Last week, Prince and co-counsel Chuck Hobbs filed motions suggesting Peters actually was killed because she was working as a drug courier, had been skimming drugs and refused to pay back upwards of $90,000 to a Mexican drug cartel. The filings include testimony from James Carlos Santos, a former member of the Vice Lords gang in Chicago who's serving time in Tomoka Correctional Institute on charges including armed robbery. His written affidavits casts doubt whether Segura is responsible for the murders and implies others may have committed them, Prince said. But Assistant State Attorney Jack Campbell said the allegations don't prove other suspects have a clear link to the crimes. He is distressed by the attempt to interject new evidence just before the trail. Past judges have ruled Santos' testimony could not be used at trial. Prosecutors are also trying to exclude DNA evidence found at the scene of the murders. It was revealed in June that the DNA was a partial match to Colombian national Angel Avila-Quionens who had a connection to the same cartel Peters was reportedly skimming drugs from and was known by Santos. Lewis did not rule whether it could be presented in trial. "You don't let trash science come into the court room and don???t let trash testimony come in," Campbell said in court. "He's just going to be throwing rank hearsay around." (source: Tallahassee Democrat) ********************** Court, lawmakers must overhaul death penalty The court found Florida's death penalty sentencing process was unconstitutional because it vests final authority in a judge rather than a jury. Under state law, judges give "great weight" to a jury's recommendation in a death penalty case. But the trial judge ultimately decides. In its 8-1 opinion, the court cited a 2002 case, Ring vs. Arizona, which established that juries and not judges shall decide the fate of defendants in capital cases. In response, the Florida Supreme Court issued an indefinite stay of the execution of Michael Ray Lambrix, which had been scheduled for Thursday, and is exploring whether the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling should apply retroactively to other cases. Simultaneously, legislators are proposing to rewrite the sentencing laws. A House bill would require the 12 jurors to be unanimous in finding at least 1 aggravating factor in a capital case in order to recommend death. That change addresses the high court's Jan. 12 ruling in Hurst vs. Florida, which faulted the state for allowing judges - not juries - to determine the facts necessary to impose a death sentence. The bill also would require the vote of at least nine jurors to recommend a sentence of death. Until the high court threw out the law, Florida was the only state that allowed juries to recommend death by a simple 7-5 majority. Though the Supreme Court did not address unanimity, that standard as a basis for justifying a death sentence is in keeping with the court majority's decision by putting more authority into the hands of jurors. Along that line, the Legislature should require jury recommendations for death to also be unanimous. The 9-3 requirement being proposed is a nod to prosecutors. The Florida Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments on the issue last week, should agree that applying Hurst retroactively makes both legal and common sense in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision. That decision did not create a clear path for state Supreme Court justices because it did not directly address whether it should be applied retroactivity. But the state's argument - that Hurst is procedural in nature and that applying it retroactively, which could affect hundreds of cases, is too burdensome for the courts and victims' families - is pinched legal logic and shows contempt for fairness under the law. Attorney General Pam Bondi is once again on the wrong side of justice. This is not downplaying the horrific nature of these murders or ignoring the pain and suffering of the victims' families. It is about ensuring equal treatment, a cornerstone of our legal system. Florida does not find itself in this mess because of the defense bar or activist judges. The U.S. Supreme Court set a precedent for this case in 2002, in Ring vs. Arizona, prompting the Florida Supreme Court more than a decade ago to urge the Legislature to reform death sentencing laws. That never happened. As the Tampa Bay Times' Anna M. Phillips reported, Florida has more than 170 people on death row today who might not have been condemned to die in any other state. Of the 389 people on Florida's death row, 4 out of 5 were sent there by a split jury. The system for rendering an imperfect punishment is terribly flawed. The Legislature and the courts should not compound the damage by buying the state's flawed argument that certainty in sentencing can trump fairness guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. (source: Editorial, Tampa Bay Times) KENTUCKY: >From death row to parole? Killer could apply 2 men convicted of notorious murders in Kentucky as teenagers, including Kevin Stanford of Louisville, could become eligible for release because of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The court ruled Jan. 25 that its 2012 decision banning mandatory life-without-parole sentences for virtually all juvenile killers must be applied retroactively. That means hundreds of inmates serving sentences for murders they committed as youths could become eligible for parole hearings or new sentencing hearings. They include 2 in Kentucky, Stanford and Sophal "Saggy" Phon of Bowling Green, whose lawyer this week asked the Kentucky Court of Appeals to apply the ruling to his case. Stanford was sentenced to death for the 1981 murder of Baerbel Poore, when he was 17. With an accomplice, he repeatedly raped and sodomized her during a robbery of the gas station where the 20-year-old single mother worked as an attendant. Citing his age at the time of the crime, Gov. Paul Patton in 2003 commuted his sentence to life without parole. Stanford's lawyer, Tim Arnold, an assistant public advocate, declined to say whether his client, who is now 52 and housed at the Kentucky State Penitentiary, would seek a parole hearing or a new sentence. (source: Courier-Journal) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Feb 6 09:35:57 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2016 09:35:57 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----LA., ARK., NEB., ARIZ., CALIF., WASH., USA Message-ID: Feb. 6 LOUISIANA: Evidence of prior abuse against 8-year-old boy, killed in 2012, can be presented to jury at trial of accused killer, Supreme Court rules A jury can hear about all of the prior physical abuse a Baton Rouge man allegedly inflicted on his 8-year-old son - including breaking the child's leg, shoving his head into a toilet and hitting, choking and punching him - leading up to the boy's beating death in 2012, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled Friday. Michael Robertson, 50, is charged with 1st-degree murder in Xzayvion Riley's death on June 12, 2012. There is no trial date, and prosecutors have not said if they will seek the death penalty. Xzayvion's mother, Lavaughn Riley, 35, also faces a 1st-degree murder count. She will be tried separately. Robertson was her boyfriend at the time of the boy's death. Prosecutors contend Xzayvion's death was the culmination of an escalating pattern of alleged abuse that included Robertson injuring the boy's mouth with a belt in November 2008; choking him and shoving his head into a toilet in August 2010; breaking his leg in February 2012 and neglecting to seek medical treatment; and, according to his sister, hitting and punching the boy "a lot" in the years leading up to his death and forcing him to run for unspecified amounts of time. "Each of the acts at issue involves the battering and/or abuse of the victim by the defendant over the course of several years in his short life, and have independent and relevant bases for admissibility," the Supreme Court wrote Friday. East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore III hailed the ruling as a victory for Xzayvion. "This defendant prevented this child from his ability to speak to this jury as to his past abuse. Through the court's ruling today, we are now able to have this defendant's prior acts of abuse presented to the jury," Moore said. "This child will be able to tell the jury the entire truth through the presentation of the prior abuse evidence." Jim Craig, who is Robertson's lead attorney and co-director of the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center in New Orleans, noted that the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office investigated several of the alleged prior incidents of abuse and cleared Robertson of any wrongdoing. "Criminal trials about the death of a child are always emotional, and there is a recognized danger that a jury may be unfairly influenced by allegations of other acts, even when the proof of these allegations is weak, as it is here," Craig said. "But assuming the Supreme Court does not reconsider this ruling, we will prepare to show the jury that these alleged incidents do not prove that Michael Robertson abused his son Xzayvion." State District Judge Don Johnson ruled last year that the 2008 incident was too remote from the charged crime to be admissible at trial, but the high court disagreed Friday. "The victim was only 8 years old at the time of his murder, and acts of abuse perpetrated against him in the years before his death are not so remote as to negate their probative value," the justices wrote. They also reversed Johnson's decision to bar prosecutors from using the observations of Xzayvion's sister. The justices said the evidence she will testify about has independent relevance. The 2010 incident, which left the boy with an injured neck and bruising to his upper and lower body and groin area, and the 2012 broken leg incident both are admissible as well, the high court said. Johnson had determined that the neck injuries in the 2010 incident were more prejudicial than probative, and he allowed the introduction of the broken leg and lacerations and bruises from the February 2012 incident for the purpose of showing Robertson's identity only. "We find that the trial court abused its discretion in excluding these 4 incidents or permitting the state to introduce them only for a limited purpose," the Supreme Court stated. Following the alleged 2010 incident, the state Department of Children and Family Services put a safety plan in place to limit Robertson's involvement with his son, prosecutors have said. The plan was in place until April 2011. Xzayvion's death was classified as a homicide. Coroner's officials found he died of overwhelming infection caused by a ruptured bowel from blunt-force trauma to his abdomen. An autopsy revealed 60 external signs of recent and past trauma, including a human bite mark. Riley has acknowledged that she held her son down in 2010 while Robertson hit him with an open hand on the stomach. Craig also noted that Riley has said some of Xzayvion's injuries occurred accidentally during what she described as horseplay between Robertson and the boy. (source: The Advocate) ARKANSAS: State asks justices to hear challenge to execution law State attorneys are seeking an opportunity before the state's highest court to defend the constitutionality of the state's execution law and to conceal the source of the state's execution drugs. Late Thursday, the Arkansas attorney general's office filed a brief challenging a trial judge's order to share the source of its supply of lethal drugs, and it also asked the Arkansas Supreme Court to hold oral arguments over a legal fight that began nearly 10 months ago with the passage of an execution law that shielded the source of execution drugs from public disclosure. In its filing, Solicitor General Lee Rudofsky and Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Merritt argued that attorneys representing a group of death-row inmates failed to state the proper facts and claims that would show Act 1096 to be unconstitutional. They asked the Supreme Court to void a bench order that prison officials must share the source of the drugs, and asked the court to either dismiss the prisoners' suit or return the case to the trial court with instructions favorable to the state. An attorney representing the inmates, Jeff Rosenzweig, declined to comment on the filing but said he was not surprised by the request for oral arguments. "We're not going to contest [the request]. It certainly seems appropriate for oral arguments," he said. "We anticipate the Supreme Court will grant it." Arkansas has not executed a prisoner since 2005. And for years, the death penalty process has been frozen by a series of lawsuits as well as difficulty in finding drug manufacturers willing to sell to the state for the purpose of execution. The statute being challenged, Act 1096 of 2015, set down rules for prison officials to follow in obtaining and using a 3-drug execution cocktail. The act ensured that suppliers of the drug would remain confidential so they would not be subjected to harassment from anti-death penalty activists. Rosenzweig filed suit the day the law was passed in April 2015, arguing that the constitutional rights of his 9 death-row clients were being violated. Rosenzweig has argued that the new state law violates the agreement made between his clients and the state in a 2013 settlement that required the state to disclose the identity of any drug manufacturers. Attorneys for the inmates argue that one of the drugs involved, midazolam, has resulted in botched executions elsewhere, which violates a condemned prisoner's constitutional protection against cruel or unusual punishment. The prisoners, their attorneys argued, have a right to know where the drugs came from and to inspect them. In September, Gov. Asa Hutchinson set execution dates for 8 of Rosenzweig's clients. The executions were stayed by the Supreme Court in late October. In early December, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen refused to grant state attorneys' request for a summary judgment and a dismissal of the prisoners' suit. Instead, he ruled that part of Act 1096 protecting the identity of drug suppliers was unconstitutional. The high court stayed Griffen's order pending the current appeal. In Thursday's brief, state attorneys argued that past court rulings, including a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling involving midazolam, showed the drug was not likely to cause cruel or unusual punishment and its use was thus constitutional. They also argued that the state has a compelling interest to protect the identities of drug suppliers and that such a protection does not violate the prisoners' rights to due process. (source: arkansasonline.com) NEBRASKA: Let death penalty die I am writing in support of the Editorial Board's opinion that defending our state legislature's abolition of the death penalty should be our number one priority for 2016 ("Editorial board agenda for 2016," Jan. 16). It's been almost a year since our legislature made the historic vote to repeal the death penalty and override the governor's spiteful veto. In a blatant and desperate attempt to sway the voting, Governor Ricketts spent $54,400 of state funds in an illegal attempt to purchase enough lethal injection drugs to kill 300 people from an overseas supplier. After his veto was overridden, Ricketts spent $200,000 of his personal funds and $100,000 from his wealthy father to mount a crooked campaign to bring the death penalty back. We need to send a message that Nebraska values cannot be bought and sold, despite what our governor may be used to. The system of capital punishment is barbaric and broken beyond repair. It does not deter crime. Most violent crimes aren't committed by people carefully considering the consequences of their actions. It does not provide closure to victims families. The long, drawn out process of appeals can be even more traumatizing to endure than the initial impact of the crime, not to mention extremely expensive for all parties involved, including the state. It isn't even reliable. Since 1973, 144 innocent people sentenced to death have since been exonerated by new evidence. It isn't justified. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, not morally superior. So, when we the people vote on November 8 this year, which I know you all who love this great democracy will do, let the death penalty stay dead. Let's move forward to putting our time and money towards more productive pursuits for the betterment of our state. Audrey Nance, Lincoln (source: Letter to the Editor, Lincoln Journal Star) ARIZONA----death sentence overturned Death Penalty Vacated for Ariz. Rape & Murder A man who once scored 62 on an intelligence test - where an IQ of 65 or below qualifies as mental retardation - cannot be executed for a 1980 rape and murder, the Ninth Circuit ruled Thursday, converting the sentence to life in prison. "There can be no doubt that the crime in this case was truly horrific," Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote a divided 3-judge panel. "The Constitution, however, regards intellectually disabled defendants as less morally culpable for their crimes, and for this reason, prohibits their execution." Robert Douglas Smith was sentenced to death in 1982 for the rape and murder of Sandy Owen in Tucson. At the time of Owen's abduction in 1980, Smith had 5 failed marriages under his belt. He had been on a cross-country road trip with a couple, and was frustrated that they had intercourse in front of him, while he had no one with whom to be intimate. The ruling describes in horrific detail Owen's rape and murder, in which both he and his friends on the road trip participated, saying the trio celebrated the killing afterward by playing "We Are the Champions" as they drove off. In earlier years, Smith had been held back in every grade and sent to a special school for children for children unable to learn. He was only in the 8th grade when he turned 16 and dropped out. Arizona did not outlaw the execution of people with intellectual disabilities until 2001, however, and Smith's trial occurred more than 20 years after the state created a framework to evaluate capital defendants for intellectual disability. State courts that eventually evaluated whether Smith was intellectually disabled at the time of the crime concluded he was not, denying Smith's claim in 2012 under a landmark precedent. In the 2002 decision Atkins v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the execution of intellectually disabled criminals amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The Ninth Circuit converted Smith's sentence 2-1 Thursday to life in prison, saying Smith's IQ may have improved while in prison, but that he was clearly intellectually disabled at the time in 1980. "Considering Smith's intellectual functioning test scores and his history of significantly impaired adaptive behavior," Reinhardt said Smith "demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning." The dissent by Judge Consuelo Callahan meanwhile blasts the majority for "expressing supreme confidence in its own ability to detect past intellectual disability despite substantial conflicting evidence and the fact that Smith is not now intellectually disabled." Callahan said Smith's testing in 2005, which revealed an IQ between 87 and 93, is "undeniable" evidence that Smith failed to meet his burden. The dissent also emphasizes Smith's ability to live independently and support himself for 15 years after dropping out of school, before the murder. The doctors who examined Smith in 1980 also "determine his competency to be tried found no signs of intellectual disability," according to the dissent. Reinhardt, who authored the lead opinion, included a specially concurring opinion as well. This lengthy addition complains about how Atkins has been applied in Arizona, which has 124 inmates on death row, the 8th highest number of any state, with 15 executions since Atkins. "The constitutional infirmity of Arizona's statute creates a recurring problem with potentially far-reaching consequences," Reinhardt wrote, saying the court should have held that both aspects of Arizona's intellectual-disability statute "violate the Eighth Amendment because they permit the execution of individuals whom Atkins deems categorically ineligible for capital punishment." Judge Mary Schroeder concurred in all but one 11-page section of the 55-page lead opinion. (source: Courthouse News) ************* Death Row Diaries: The 1st inmate in the state to be executed by lethal injection ABC15's "Death Row Diaries" takes a look at Arizona???s most notorious death row inmates past and present. JOHN GEORGE BREWER Date of Birth: November 8, 1965 Executed: March 3, 1993 John George Brewer was the 1st Arizona inmate executed by lethal injection. Brewer had repeatedly declared that he deserved the death penalty, and he never pleaded for his life, criticizing "'civil libertarians who seek to forward their own agenda on the back of my case." He never pleaded for his life In 1987, Brewer and his girlfriend, Rita Brier, were living together in a Flagstaff apartment. In the early morning hours of November 11, they argued about Brewer's excessive dependence on Brier. Later that day, Brier told her 22-year-old boyfriend she was leaving him to help him learn to live on his own. Brewer locked the bedroom door and began to beat and strangle Brier. Brier fought for her life in a long struggle as Brewer bit her, tried to gouge her eyes out and choked her with his hands. Brewer eventually used a tie to strangle his girlfriend to death. She was 22 weeks pregnant. After taking some time to rest from the attack, Brewer took a shower. He then had sexual intercourse with the corpse, walked to a nearby bowling alley, called police, and turned himself in. Brewer pled guilty to 1st-degree murder and was convicted in Coconino County Court. His automatic appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court was upheld. In February 1993, Brewer's case entered the federal court system where Brewer's mother filed a petition challenging Brewer's competency. She offered new evidence, specifically 2 letters written by Brewer from death row where he talked about his belief in the god "Dantain" who ruled the planet "Terracia." He also described "Fro," who he believed was the child of his god who lived in his girlfriend, writing, "I am the one who killed Fro, the savior of Terracia." Despite this evidence, the Federal District Court ruled against Mrs. Brewer and her son was put to death on March 3, 1993. (source: ABC news) CALIFORNIA: Death penalty for Northridge killer of 4; 'Thug' has 'resume of violence' A 34-year-old man who killed four people outside a Northridge boarding home in 2012 was sentenced to death Friday. Ka Pasasouk was convicted in November of 4 counts of 1st-degree murder for the Dec. 2, 2012, shooting deaths of Teofilo Navales, 49, of Castaic; Robert Calabia, 34, of Los Angeles; Amanda Ghossein, 24, of Monterey Park; and Jennifer Kim, 26, of Montebello. The same jury recommended a month later that he be sent to death row. In court Friday, Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler rejected an automatic motion to reduce the jury's recommendation of a death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole, along with a defense motion for a new trial. In addition to the murder counts, he was also convicted of one count each of attempted murder and possession of a firearm by a felon, along with assault with a semiautomatic firearm, for confronting other people nearby shortly before the killings. Jurors found true the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders, triggering the penalty trial in which they were tasked with determining whether to recommend death or life imprisonment without parole. During the guilt phase of the trial, Deputy District Attorney Dan Akemon told the jury that Pasasouk was "fueled by drugs and alcohol" and had the "perfect opportunity for vengeance," along with the perfect opportunity for a robbery, when he came across Navales - with whom he had an altercation months earlier - in a dark and confined area and shot him twice. Calabia, Ghossein and Kim were shot to death to silence them as potential witnesses as Pasasouk was "trying to get away with murder," the prosecutor said. One of Pasasouk's attorneys, James Goldstein, had urged jurors to consider the lesser charge of 2nd-degree murder, arguing that his client's judgment was "impaired" by being under the influence and that he could not have premeditated the killings. During the penalty phase of the trial, the prosecutor told the panel that Pasasouk has a "resume of violence" and has spent 20 years in and out of juvenile and adult correctional facilities. "He has thumbed his nose at society at every turn in favor of leading a thug life ... He is a hardened career criminal," Akemon said. "Tell him he deserves the death penalty for what he has done ... In this case, there is only 1 just punishment, and that is the death penalty." The prosecutor said Pasasouk robbed the 4 victims of their futures, fled the crime scene and discarded the murder weapon in an effort to get away with the killings. He was arrested 2 days later at a hotel-casino near the Las Vegas Strip. Another of Pasasouk's attorneys, Larry Sperber, countered that justice has already been served by the jury finding Pasasouk guilty of the crimes. He told jurors that his client was born at a refugee camp in Thailand and "is not a normal, healthy person." He acknowledged that Pasasouk "did some terrible things" and told jurors that he was asking for justice but not mercy for his client. As early as age 14, Pasasouk was described in 1 report as having a "very dysfunctional and chaotic early life," with parents unable to be contacted by a probation officer when their son was 15, Sperber said. He said that his client has a well-documented history of having a lack of learning skills, suicidal tendencies, alcoholism and drug abuse, and had begged not to be paroled from prison in October 2011 because he knew that he needed help and wanted to remain behind bars. Pasasouk's attorney said there was a "lifelong pattern of mental disease that he's suffering from" and contended that his client is "not a career criminal." Jurors also heard from Pasasouk's older brother, Torasonh, who is in a substance abuse program and described his parents as drinking "most of the time" during their childhood. He said their father was often abusive. Last year, family members of the victims filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey and Probation Chief Jerry Powers, alleging they didn't do enough to protect the public from Pasasouk once he was released from prison in January 2012. A judge dismissed the civil rights case in August, ruling that the government officials were immune from liability. (source: mynewsla.com) WASHINGTON: Death penalty foe returns to campus A nun, an advocate and a writer. Sister Helen Prejean of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has spent her entire life as an advocate against the death penalty through writing and action. And she has brought that movement to Gonzaga, again. Tonight in Jepson's Wolff Auditorium, Prejean is scheduled to address the GU community to share her lifelong work. Prejean began her career when she was a young woman working in the poor areas of New Orleans. During her term working in the St. Thomas housing project, she became pen pals with Patrick Sonnier, a man convicted for the murder of 2 teens, who was sentenced to die by electrocution in the Louisiana prison system. Prejean repeatedly visited Sonnier in prison up until his execution in 1984. Prejean witnessed the execution. She documented her experiences in her book "Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty," which claimed a spot on the New York Times best-seller list for 31 weeks and was translated into 10 languages. That same book was then turned into a major motion picture in 1996 featuring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. In addition to being nominated for four Academy Awards, Prejean's story gained international notoriety in literature and on the silver screen. Making her 1st return to GU since 2013, Prejean will take the podium to address the death penalty, faith and her story. (source: The Gonzaga Bulletin) USA: The problem with Hillary Clinton's stance on the death penalty Thursday night's Democratic presidential debate included one brief exchange that showed some overlap but also a sharp philosophical difference between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on a persistently fractious issue: the death penalty. The exchange came in response to a question by co-moderator Rachel Maddow, who asked Clinton whether she still stood by an earlier statement in which she "reluctantly" endorsed capital punishment. "Yes, I do. And - you know, what I hope the Supreme Court will do is make it absolutely clear that any state that continues capital punishment either must meet the highest standards of evidentiary proof of effective assistance of counsel or they cannot continue it because that, to me, is the real dividing line. "I have much more confidence in the federal system, and I do reserve it for particularly heinous crimes in the federal system, like terrorism. I have strong feelings about that. I thought it was appropriate after a very thorough trial that Timothy McVeigh received the death penalty for blowing up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, including 19 children in a day-care center. "I do for very limited, particularly heinous crimes believe it is an appropriate punishment, but I deeply disagree with the way that too many states are still implementing it. If it were possible to separate the federal from the state system by the Supreme Court, that would, I think, be an appropriate outcome." Sanders staked out the opposite turf from Clinton, arguing that the death penalty is too prone to error to be trusted but also said more broadly that "of course there are barbaric acts out there. But in a world of so much violence and killing, I just don't believe that government itself should be part of the killing." To her credit, Clinton has said she "would breathe a sigh of relief" if the Supreme Court were to ban the practice. But there are 2 underlying problems with her position as staked out Thursday night. First is the implication that effective counsel is all it takes to guarantee a fair trial, when many of the death penalty exonerations we've seen in recent years have hinged on prosecutorial or investigative misconduct (including hiding potentially exculpatory evidence from the defense) and lying witnesses. Even the best defense lawyers will have trouble overcoming such practices. 2nd is Clinton's suggestion that somehow the federal system has got it right on how to get a clean conviction and a method of execution that is not unconstitutionally cruel and unusual. She cited the case of McVeigh, whose atrocious act of anti-government terrorism killed 168 people, including children at a day-care center, in the federal Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. That was a heinous act of terrorism, and she called his execution "appropriate." But it's only appropriate if you view vengeance as the purview of the state. McVeigh was irredeemable and caused unimaginable pain and loss, but that doesn't mean it was just for the government to kill him in return. If killing is wrong, then it's inconsistent to vest that power in the state. That's the moral argument against the death penalty. The pragmatic one - expensive, indiscriminate, prone to manipulation - doesn't inherently give the federal system a pass. In an adversarial judicial system, the goal is to win as much as it is to reach truth and justice. Since McVeigh's execution, the federal government has put to death 2 more men: Juan Raul Garza just 8 days after McVeigh in 2001, and Louis Jones Jr. in 2003. Neither involved terrorism. In the 1st case, the government executed Garza despite international protests that the courts had allowed the prosecutor to tell the jury that Garza, a major drug-trafficker convicted of ordering the murders of 2 people and killing a 3rd himself, was a suspect in more murders in Mexico - crimes for which he had never been charged and for which he could not mount a defense during the sentencing hearing. Would the jury have voted for death without that information? Who knows, but insinuation should not be evidence in determining whether someone lives or dies. The execution of Jones was even more problematic. A highly decorated Gulf War vet with diagnosed psychiatric problems from his service, Jones' life fell apart after the war, propelled largely by his exposure to chemical agents. He was convicted of the 1995 rape and murder of a 19-year-old female Army recruit on a military base. A horrific crime, yes, but it seems to fall outside Clinton's endorsement of capital punishment "for particularly heinous crimes in the federal system, like terrorism." And there's nothing to suggest that the federal system can't fall victim to the same sorts of manipulations that dog the state courts. And the federal death row includes people convicted of the same kinds of murders for which state courts invoke the death penalty. In fact, the only person on federal death row convicted of terrorism killings is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving Boston bomber. Minorities also make up a disproportionate number of federal sentences (44% black, 39% white, 13% Latino and 2% Native American). It's hard to see much daylight between the federal and state capital punishment systems, other than a matter of scale. The 60 people currently under a federal death sentence (these are the eligible crimes) are dwarfed by the estimated 2,950 people on state death rows. The death penalty isn't likely to be a pivotal issue in the nominating contests for either major party, nor in the general election. That's unfortunate. It's among the most pressing ethical issues of the day, and challenges to it could well bring more cases to the Supreme Court in the relatively near future. As it is, Florida and Delaware are struggling to reconfigure their systems after a recent Supreme Court decision that juries and not a judge must determine death sentences. And here in California, voters may have a choice of 2 death-penalty initiatives, 1 to ban it and the other to speed up the execution calendar. More candidates ought to be talking about it, and more voters should be bringing it up. And I hope Clinton will re-think her stance on it. (source: Opinion, Scott Martelle----Los Angeles Times) ****************** Democrats debate the death penalty There was not much discussion of federal courts during Thursday night's Democratic debate, but there was an interesting exchange on capital punishment. (Kudos to debate moderator Rachel Maddow for asking substantive questions.) Here's the relevant portion of the MSNBC transcript: MADDOW: Secretary Clinton, on the issue of the death penalty, here in New Hampshire, the one person who is on death row is there for killing a police officer. It's a crime that has caused anguish in this state, both among death penalty opponents and death penalty supporters. The last time I had the chance to talk with you on this issue, on the death penalty, you said that capital punishment has a place in a very few federal cases, but you also said you would breathe a sigh of relief if the Supreme Court abolished the death penalty nationwide. Tonight, do you still support capital punishment, even if you do so reluctantly? CLINTON: Yes, I do. And - you know, what I hope the Supreme Court will do is make it absolutely clear that any state that continues capital punishment either must meet the highest standards of evidentiary (ph) proof of effective assistance of counsel or they cannot continue it because that, to me, is the real dividing line. I have much more confidence in the federal system, and I do reserve it for particularly heinous crimes in the federal system, like terrorism. I have strong feelings about that. I thought it was appropriate after a very thorough trial that Timothy McVeigh received the death penalty for blowing up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, including 19 children in a daycare center. I do for very limited, particularly heinous crimes believe it is an appropriate punishment, but I deeply disagree with the way that too many states are still implementing it. If it were possible to separate the federal from the state system by the Supreme Court, that would, I think, be an appropriate outcome. MADDOW: Senator Sanders, you have singled out the death penalty, and Senator Clinton's support for the death penalty, as an issue that makes it hard to consider as progressive in your mind ... SANDERS: ... Look, I hear what the Secretary said, and I understand, but look, there are - all of us know that we have seen in recent years horrible, horrible crimes. It's hard to imagine how people can do, bomb, and kill 168 people in Oklahoma City, or do the Boston Marathon bombing, but this is what I believe, and for a couple of reasons. Number one, too many innocent people, including minorities, African Americans, have been executed when they were not guilty. That's number 1. We have to be very careful about making sure about that. But, 2nd of all, and maybe, in a deeper reason, of course there are barbaric acts out there. But, in a world of so much violence and killing, I just don't believe that government itself should be part of the killing. So, when somebody commits ... (APPLAUSE) SANDERS: ... Somebody commits any of these terrible crimes that we have seen, you lock them up, and you toss away the key. They're never going to get out. But, I just don't want to see government be part of killing. That's all. (source: Jonathan H. Adler teaches courses in constitutional, administrative, and environmental law at the Case Western University School of Law, where he is the inaugural Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Business Law and Regulation----Washington Post) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Feb 6 09:36:49 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2016 09:36:49 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 6 CHINA: Investigative Report: A Hospital Built for Murder----Tens of thousands may have been killed so the Tianjin First Central Hospital in China could transplant organs for profit By 2006, from his base at the Tianjin First Central Hospital, Dr. Shen Zhongyang had performed over 1,600 liver transplantations, boastful Chinese media reports say. Tianjin First, a hospital whose transplant ward he led, was just getting a new, well-funded building courtesy of the local government. Shen had patented his own surgical technique for rapid liver perfusion and extraction, and official transplantation websites were calling him China's "great transplant pioneer." With all the celebration in the Chinese press of the doctor's life-saving operations, little attention was paid to the sources of the organs he transplanted. Dr. Shen's career was being built on a pile of corpses - that much was apparent - but the real question was: where did they come from? The official explanation, that only formally executed prisoners are used, relies for its credibility on the number of transplants corresponding roughly with the number of executions. In Tianjin, that would be about 40 executions a year - a number derived from calculating the city's population against the national death row total. Official numbers from the hospital are scarce, but penetrating that secrecy makes clear that Tianjin First Central Hospital, one of the busiest and most acclaimed in the country, for years having enjoyed extensive official backing, transplanted many times more organs than a supply of executed prisoners could support. Moreover, it appears to have transplanted many times more organs than it says it did. In a detailed study of its activities based on publicly available documents, Epoch Times found sufficient evidence to throw into great doubt, if not demolish entirely, the official narrative of organ sourcing in China. This is simply due to the number of transplants: they are far too high. That's a problem for China. It means that the vast majority of organs transplanted at the Tianjin First Central Hospital - and by extension, other major hospitals around the country - could not have come from executed prisoners. Nor did they come from volunteers in any significant numbers, given that it is only very recently that a voluntary organ donation system has been attempted in China, and it is still in its fledgling stages. This inevitably raises another question, which the Chinese authorities have found particularly vexing but have never addressed: where did the organs actually come from? What is the secret organ source that in the year 2000 suddenly became the basis for a nationwide expansion of organ transplant capacity, for which the Tianjin First Central Hospital stands as an exemplar? For years human rights researchers have alleged that the captive population of Falun Gong adherents, a persecuted Chinese spiritual practice, is the likely source. The gaping disparity in the Tianjin case, along with a variety of other circumstantial evidence, adds ammunition and urgency to their claims. This issue has largely been dodged by luminaries in the international medical community. But the circumstantial evidence bolstering the alternative explanation - organized mass murder of prisoners of conscience, using the tools of medicine, in the service of profit, by the world's most populous nation - continues to grow, and with it frustration among doctors that nothing is being done. A Surgeon Starting In the late 1990s, Shen Zhongyang, a liver transplant surgeon, was at a definite ebb in his career: the organ transplantation industry in China was little developed, operations were risky, so willing recipients were few, and organ supplies were limited. In May of 1994, he rendered Tianjin its first liver transplant after persuading a 37-year-old migrant worker suffering from cirrhosis to undergo a transplant. At the time, transplants were done free of charge for the recipients, largely due to the low success rate. Years passed with no notable developments, and in 1998 Shen returned from Japan where he had obtained his M.D. Upon return, he spent his own money (100,000 yuan, or $15,000) to set up a small transplant unit at the Tianjin First Central Hospital. Progress was slow at first: by the end of 1998 his transplant unit performed just seven liver transplants. In 1999, they performed 24. In 2000, things quickly turned around as a new organ supply abruptly came online. Over the next decade Shen Zhongyang did some of the briskest organ transplantation business in China. In Tianjin, numbers kept going up: 209 liver transplants by January 2002; and then a cumulative total of 1,000 by the end of 2003, according to a report in Enorth Netnews, the mouthpiece of the Tianjin municipal government. Tianjin First Central Hospital's successes are a microcosm of the Chinese organ transplantation system: its operations are opaque; paramilitary ties lurk in the background; organ procurement remains unexplained and rapid, suggestive of a pool of donors waiting to be selected from; and the surgical techniques are consistent with live or close-to-live harvesting from donors. Doing the Build-Out The most significant moment for the expansion of Tianjin First, an apparent sign of confidence of continued abundant organ supply, was the 130 million yuan ($20 million) investment in December 2003 by the Tianjin Municipal Bureau of Health to construct a 17-story (including a ground and 2 basement levels) transplant building. Named the Orient Organ Transplant Center, with a 500 bed capacity and floor space of 36,000 square-meters, it was to become a "comprehensive transplant center capable of liver, kidney, pancreas, bone, skin, hair, stem cell, heart, lung, cornea, and throat transplants," according to Enorth Netnews. The entire Tianjin First Central Hospital then consisted of an emergency ward, an outpatient center, and the transplant building towering above them both. By 2004, while the Oriental Organ building was under construction, in order to accommodate demand, Shen???s transplant empire expanded to 5 branches sprinkled across Tianjin, Beijing, and Shandong Province. In their official materials, the group claimed to perform the highest number of liver transplants in the world, and the highest number of kidney transplants in China. The Beijing branch was located in the General Hospital of the People's Armed Police, the Communist Party's 1-million strong paramilitary force, where Shen Zhongyang served as director of the transplant department. If one transplant center in China had to be chosen for its notoriety, it would probably be the Orient. The facility became a major headache for Chinese authorities, Western apologists, and the official story behind China???s transplant industry. Hospital With a History Ethan Gutmann, a researcher whose 2014 book, "The Slaughter," documents what he says is the mass killing of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience for their organs, described the website as his "favorite party trick." "I would speak to a college audience and ask anyone who had any doubts to visit the website on their smartphones," he said in an interview with Epoch Times shortly after the website advertising the services of the hospital was shut down in June 2014. It was precisely this center that inspired an exasperated letter in early 2014 from the normally deferential international transplantation establishment, rebuking China for flouting recent promises to no longer use organs from executed prisoners. "The Tianjin website continues to recruit international patients who are seeking organ transplants," the letter co-signed by The Transplantation Society says. "The underlying abuse by these medical professionals and widespread collusion for profit are unacceptable." It was a high-profile operation targeting wealthy customers with a premium, very rare product: fresh human organs available at a rapid turnaround, no questions asked. That a center so large and sophisticated would be built, staffed, equipped, and operated at high capacity for nearly a decade, when China had practically no voluntary donations, has chilling implications, researchers say. "It means there's an absolute conviction that you're going to find donors to supply those organs," said Maria Fiatarone Singh, a professor of health medicine at the University of Sydney, in a telephone interview. "In the context of no voluntary donation system, it implies a complete belief that this unethical supply will be huge and continuous, and that there's a huge profit to make from it." Singh is a board member of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, a medical advocacy group that raises awareness about transplant abuse in China. But how many transplants did Tianjin First actually conduct? The Trouble With Numbers It is extremely difficult to get an accurate handle on the actual number of organ transplants conducted in China over the years, either in aggregate, or even at a single hospital. In a closed society, information of this sort is highly politically sensitive. China did not even have a national organ transplantation system until recently. It was a Wild West of hospitals competing for business, doing deals with organ brokers, and getting their hands on human supply however they could. Statistical integrity, or any kind of reliable statistics at all, are the least of the victims. In the United States, finding out the number of organ transplants that take place is simple. The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, affiliated with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, maintains a database that can be queried by dozens of criteria. The total number of transplants performed in the United States from January to September in 2015, for example, was 23,134. Other datasets provide specific hospital information. The Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients is able to spit out a report showing detailed transplant information at any given transplant center. The most active in New York state, for example, is the NY Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia Univ. Medical Center. A report with data current as of April 2015 shows that it performed 110 liver transplants in 2013 and 142 in 2014. The 60 page report provides an abundance of information about those on the waiting list, donor types, transplant rates, and more. Nothing like this information is available on Chinese hospitals - and for good reason: it's a state secret. Dr. Huang Jiefu, the Chinese official who interfaces with the rest of the world on organ transplantation policy, was remarkably frank about why numbers are so hard to pin down, in a rare interview with Chinese journalists last year. The interview was part of an intense run of publicity as Huang sought to get out the message (later debunked) that China was no longer using organs from executed prisoners. "The death penalty is a state secret," Huang said. "Organs were sourced from executed prisoners. If you know the number of transplantations performed, then you would know the state secret." The reporter pressed further, and Huang countered again: "The issue you are talking about is too sensitive. That's why I cannot tell you that clearly. If you think about it, you will understand. Because the country has no transparency, you don't know how the organs were obtained; the number of performed transplantations was also a secret." But numbers inevitably seem to trickle out from the holes in even the Chinese Communist Party's formidable propaganda machine. In the case of Tianjin First Central Hospital, there are several ways of getting them. While the procedure may have a certain monotony about it, let us consider each in turn. The Official Graph The 1st datapoint is simply a graph from a now defunct but archived page belonging to the Orient Organ Transplant Center, showing the cumulative liver transplants from 1998 to 2004. The yearly numbers grow almost geometrically: 9, 24, 78, 129, 272, 289, and 800. These figures, however, are contradicted by figures in other official sources. The same page advertises the waiting time for a liver transplant as 2 weeks - unheard of in countries with voluntary donation systems. Livers are a useful organ for calculating how many executions must have been carried out for transplants, given that they are a vital organ, and a transplantation of a full liver requires a death. Given that executions in China have traditionally been the sole source of transplant organs - whether that has changed is another matter - the question of number becomes significant. The problem with the graph is that it stops at 2004. The Pastiche Another method is to simply look at media reports that provide numbers. In this case, beginning in 2000, the number is 78 - same as above. The source is a puff piece about Shen Zhongyang in Science and Technology Daily titled "He brought liver transplant technique to the pinnacle of world medicine." A later source in 2000 gives a cumulative total of 100. In 2001 there is no cumulative figure, but the annual total is 109 liver and 80 kidney transplants, the sources being a Chinese medical encyclopedia and news reports. In 2002 there is no annual figure, but the cumulative is 300, according to a profile of Shen Zhongyang. In 2003 the cumulative total in Tianjin is 645 (though up to 400 other transplants were performed by the Tianjin First team in other hospitals around China, according to an official news report) and the annual 253. This is when a budget is approved at the end of the year for the construction of the 17-story Oriental Organ Transplant Center. In 2004, no specific yearly total was published - but the cumulative total stood at 1,000, according to a report on Medical Education Net, a large Chinese online medical encyclopedia. In 2005, no cumulative total was published, but the yearly total sat at 647 (according to an official, laudatory profile of Shen published in 2014.) In 2006, 655 transplants were recorded, according to an official profile of Shen and a medical paper he authored. In that paper, he said that his center had surpassed the world record of liver transplants maintained by the University of Pittsburgh for 10 years. And then ... radio silence. Tianjin's Orient Organ Transplant Center officially opened on Sept. 1, 2006. It remains unclear why, right when the numbers would be expected to jump, annual data dries up. Incidentally - or not - in March of 2006 allegations began emerging that Falun Gong prisoners were the major source of China's booming organ trade. Chinese officials dismissed the reports as nefarious propaganda, though never seriously refuted either their argument or inference. In all available sources, only 2 numbers appear post-2006, both from the same source: a glowing profile of Shen Zhongyang by the Tianjin propaganda authorities. The Official Profile The official profile of Shen Zhongyang is published on ttwj.gov.cn. The website is run by the Office of the Tianjin Municipal Government Human Resources Leading Small Group, and serves as the mouthpiece for the Tianjin leadership. "The Tianjin Party Committee and government pays a great deal of attention to human resource work," the About Us section on the website notes. The profile discusses the incredible success of Shen Zhongyang, his enterprising spirit helping the construction of the Chinese transplant industry, and provides a few transplant numbers. The early figures are roughly the same as those above, and while after 2006 no precise numbers are given, the profile declares that "for the next 2 years it became the foremost liver transplant center by volume, and made the Orient Transplant Center the largest scale transplant center in Asia." It adds that as of the end of 2013, the Center had performed the most surgeries in China for 16 years straight. Some of its techniques had become the "most advanced" in the world. And, crucially, it provides two more numbers: A cumulative total of 5,000 liver transplants in 2010, and a cumulative total of "nearly 10,000" by the end of 2014, supposedly a quarter of the national total. Graphed, the series now looks like this: Tianjin_First_Central_Hospital_cumulative_transplant_numbers__chartbuilder Those numbers are already disturbingly high, and extremely difficult to fit into the official narrative of executed-prisoners-as-organ-source. It is still unclear why annual numbers ceased after the major new transplant center was built, which calls into question whether the neat, rounded numbers can be trusted. The real number of transplants, according to other records, may have in fact been much, much higher. There are 3 indicators of this probability: anecdotes of a booming business in providing organs to Korean tourists; significant transplant figures by Shen Zhongyang's colleagues; and a guerrilla analysis derived from Tianjin First Central's own renovation records, dredged from an obscure Chinese database. Korean Connection Korean patients began streaming into China, and in particular Tianjin - just a 90 minute flight from Seoul - in 2002, according to Li Lianjin, head nurse at Tianjin First Central Hospital. The hospital had provided organ transplants to over 500 Korean patients between 2002 and 2006, Li said. Li spoke to Phoenix Weekly, a magazine run by the Hong Kong-based, pro-Beijing Phoenix television station. The article was titled "An investigation of tens of thousands of foreigners coming to China for organ transplants." All this activity took place before the Oriental Organ Transplant Center came online in September of 2006. So doctors improvised. One third of their original 12-story building was converted to house transplant patients; the 8th floor of another hospital (the International Cardiovascular Hospital) was also used for Korean recipients; and the 24th and 25th floors of a nearby hotel were also reserved for those waiting. 2 nurses were assigned to that location. "Even so, we're still short of beds," Li said. Tianjin was an agreeable destination for Korean organ tourists because in Korea they could typically only receive partial liver transplants from living donors. But in China, they could get whole livers, "and the donor livers are of excellent quality," the report says. Procedures were also expedited: foreign patients would simply fax their medical records then fly in. Waiting times were extremely short by international standards. "Originally, patients had to wait about a week. But now, because more and more people have joined the queue, the waiting times are longer. The longest time now is a bit over 3 months," the report says. 3 months is still a remarkably short waiting time to guarantee a liver. The Chosun Ilbo, a large Korean daily newspaper, reported that Tianjin First Central performed 44 liver transplants in 1 week in December 2004, including 24 in a day (including kidney transplants), according to the Phoenix report. Patients from other countries were also there: from Japan, Malaysia, Egypt, Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. The cafe in the ward on the 4th floor became an "international club," where patients of different ethnicities met to exchange their experiences, reported Chosun Ilbo. The report includes this anecdote: "Surgeons at the hospital are busy every day, shuttling between wards and operating rooms. They have no time to greet each other. Every day they mumble the same thing: 'Today I'm so busy, ten surgeries a day.' Some doctors spend the entire night in surgery." No numbers are given in the report, but it at least confirms that the staff at Tianjin First had been extremely busy leading up to the completion of the new transplant building. Staffing The Oriental Organ Transplant Center has 110 doctors participating in liver and kidney transplants, among whom 46 are chief surgeons and physicians, and 13 attending physicians, according to the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong, a network of researchers who performed the monumental task of cataloging the staff of hundreds of hospitals around China. Media reports, speeches by a select number of Shen Zhongyang's colleagues, as well as information on the hospital's own website and other records, indicate many of them had each completed a large number of transplants themselves. For instance, by 2011, Vice President of the hospital Zhu Zhijun had completed at least 1,400 liver transplants, 100 of which were partial liver donations from living relatives, according to his profile on the website "We Doctors Group," a directory for Chinese doctors. As of July 2006, associate chief surgeon Pan Cheng had personally performed over 1,000 liver transplants, and 1,600 liver graft procurements. Chief surgeon Gao Wei completed over 800 liver transplants after ten years of practice, according to his undated profile on "Good Doctors Online," another well-known Chinese doctors database. Associate chief surgeon Song Wenli from the renal transplant department performed around 2,000 kidney transplants; associate chief surgeon Mo Chunbo over 1,500, both according to undated profiles on the same site. Some of those operations did not result in the killing of a donor - hundreds of donations were from living relatives, for instance (if they were indeed from relatives) - but many of them must have. If the average total transplant volume of these surgeons was simply extrapolated to the rest of the staff - not necessarily a reliable methodology - the total transplant volume, as of 2014, would immediately be several times greater than the official number of 10,000. It is clear from just a few doctor profiles, however, that the figures are beginning to approach the totals announced by the hospital. Of course, the doctors whose profiles are available may simply be outliers. Or they may be inflating their records, or have participated in joint operations - all distinct possibilities. In any case, even given drastic discounts, the surgeons' own organ numbers seem to far outstrip the official ones. But building records indicate that the transplant volume could be much higher than even that. Renovating a Transplant Center Given that the municipal government spent about $20 million (130 million yuan) in building the Orient Organ Transplant Center, common sense dictates that there would be an intended use for it. But this is China. Huge amounts of infrastructure spending is wasteful, often used to prop up local economic figures rather than create productive businesses. Thus, the mere fact of construction and renovation cannot tell us everything. There is compelling evidence, however, that the new building was put into immediate and extensive use. This comes from the hospital's own building and renovation records in the China Construction and Remodeling Database, a public resource maintained by a variety of officially-affiliated agencies, providing details of construction and renovation work from across China. These documents show what seems to have been deliberately hidden in every other available Chinese source: that it was full speed ahead at Tianjin First after the new transplant center came online in 2006. The key evidence is a 22 page PDF file, available for download after creating a username and password on the site, which discusses the further renovations to the new building, completed in 2008. The renovation described in the document is primarily to the main building, the outpatient building, and the emergency ward (the transplant building is left untouched), and included the addition of insulation to the facade "in order to save energy and increase the comfort of patients." Another floor would be also be added to the outpatient building, taking it from 3 to 4 stories. The key line, though, is this: "There is a daily average of 2,000 outpatient services conducted per day; the bed utilization rate is 86 %; kidney and liver transplantation beds are at 90 % utilization." The total number of beds devoted to transplantation at Tianjin First during this period was 500, at the Oriental Organ Transplant Center. Total bed count at the hospital sat at 1,226, with 726 originally available. Total floor space was 46,558 square meters, the document states. Thus, according to these documents, 450 beds were used for transplants, whether livers, kidneys, or other organs. According to Tianjin's advertising materials for foreign patients, the total time an organ tourist would expect to stay in the hospital could be between one and 2 months, depending on the wait time for an organ, and how long it takes to convalesce. If an average patient stay was 30 days per transplant, then 5,400 transplants per year would have taken place at the Oriental Organ Transplant Center from late 2006 until the end of 2008. If the stay was two months, the total would be 2,700. It is impossible to know the actual average length of stay at Tianjin First, but transplant surgeons who reviewed this report considered that either of those scenarios would be plausible. But was this high level of utilization a mere blip in the 2 years following the opening of the new center? No, according to other renovation reports. It soon became the norm. The next available datapoint on transplant-relevant bed usage rates at Tianjin First comes from a profile of the hospital on Enorth Netnews, the official Tianjin government mouthpiece, on June 25, 2014. It says that it had "made progress" across various departments in 2013, and achieved a bed usage rate of 131.1 %, an increase of 5.7 % from 2012. (The report does not make clear how a utilization rate of over 100 % is possible, but it is common in Chinese hospitals to see extra beds wedged between established bedding places.) By 2013 it had also added 300 beds, bringing its total number now to 1,500. The hospital had also adjusted the number of beds allocated to different departments, including the organ transplant center, though it did not specify how many beds were allocated to each area. It is difficult to know how many of the 1,500 total beds, or 500 Orient Organ Transplant Center beds, were used for organ transplants in 2012 and 2013. But there is a consistency in the reported utilization rates: 90 % utilization reported in 2009, and 130 % for 2013. Whether that ratio plummeted for four years before soaring - or slowly grew, as the trend of official transplant numbers (though clearly manipulated) indicate - is impossible to tell, though a steady increase seems most intuitive and internally consistent. Yet more construction took place in 2015 at a newly opened site, including an outpatient service able to process between 6,000 to 7,000 people per day, an emergency center able to process 1,200 daily, an underground carpark able to hold 2,000 vehicles, and a helipad. The new construction, which began in July 2015 and was scheduled for completion at the end of 2017, will have a total of 2,000 beds. It is unclear how many of them will be devoted to transplants. Guerrilla Numbers What numbers emerge from this kaleidoscope of activity? The hospital would have us believe that when their new transplant center came online, giving them hundreds of additional beds and much more sophisticated facilities, there was no increase in the transplant rate. The only official data for the post-2006 period is a figure of 5,000 cumulative transplants in 2010, and 14,000 in 2014 - a neat, linear increase. But the facts paint a different picture: anecdotal reports from Korean organ recipients say that occupancy was far more than the hospital could handle; building records showing the need for continued expansion after 2006; and impressive staff resumes showing thousands of transplants from a few of the over 100 doctors. With utilization of the 500 beds at Oriental Organ Transplant Center near or above capacity from 2007 to end of 2013, the total number of transplants could range anywhere from around 20,000 to around 60,000, depending on the length of stay of patients. Only very rough estimates are possible given the many unknowns. This is far higher than the claimed cumulative total of 10,000 liver transplants over 15 years reported in official sources. That number already presents an awkward dilemma to explain away - but the numbers based simply on bed utilization rates are far higher than any known source of organs is able to explain. Of course, there is no way to know whether in its building renovation documents hospital staff are simply lying. But it's unclear what incentive the hospital would have for fabricating the data on its renovation plans, submitted to a national database years after the funds had been committed, and the construction completed, by municipal authorities. Floor space or numbers of beds are tangible infrastructure that cannot easily be falsified, and bed occupancy ratios, from 2 separate official sources, show the same upward trajectory of high-usage from late 2006 until end 2013. There are many caveats to these estimates, however, including the fact that the number of executions implied by the bed occupancy rates is not clear. The ratio is likely not 1:1, given that the donation of a single kidney, to a relative, for instance, is neither fatal nor unethical. Tianjin First certainly engaged in this form of transplant activity. Further, one death can yield multiple transplant organs. At the same time, Chinese media reports contain anecdotes of Shen Zhongyang going through several livers - each bringing death even as it carried potential life - for a single patient. Given the multiple variables and vast unknowns, it would be foolhardy to suggest a firm estimate for the number of executions that may have taken place to fuel the business of Tianjin First. But whatever the figure, the implications are the same: the need for a mysterious, unknown organ source. So, where did the organs come from? Prisoners Can't Explain It China's only serious source of organs through these years is, according to the official explanation, executed prisoners. In an interview with China Health News in January 2015, Huang Jiefu, the official who serves as the voice of China's transplant policy, says: "For a long time China has not been able to establish a national donation system ... from the 1980s until 2009, there were only 120 cases of citizen donations. China is the country with the lowest donation rate in the world." The number of executions in China is a state secret and no numbers are provided, but estimates have long been made by third party organizations. Those vary from 12,000 to 2,400 per year during the period in question, according to Duihua, a U.S.-based human rights organization focused on China. If the nationwide death penalty was 6,000, for the purpose of our analysis, the number of executions taking place in Tianjin would be about 42 (given a population of about 7 million and a proportional distribution of executions.) If the number of executions nationwide was 5,000, there would only be 35 executions in Tianjin. But many prisoners are not eligible organ donors because of blood diseases, drug addiction, age, and other disqualifying maladies. Procedures around executions involve the local courts and prisons, which have their own relationships with hospitals and doctors, as indicated by abundant testimony from Chinese officials and defectors. The fief-like nature of the Chinese bureaucracy means it???s not as though Tianjin First could have its pick from any execution taking place anywhere in China. In particular, Tianjin First's build-up was not an isolated phenomenon: dozens, if not hundreds of other transplant hospitals in China were establishing training programs for surgeons, building new facilities, and promoting their ability to deliver fresh organs to recipients in short order - weeks or months at most. In 2014 Xinhua, the state mouthpiece, reported that in past years there were 600 hospitals in China, vying and contending for organ sources. All of those transplant centers needed organs, too. And then there are the unnerving advertisements on the hospital's website, which have since been taken down. "It is true that the source of organ supply are fairly abundant in China compared with that in western countries," an archived page on the site says blithely in 2008, in English, obviously targeting foreign transplant tourists. In the guide for prospective recipients, it outlines the few steps necessary to get a new organ. There's no waiting list. One simply emails the paperwork, pays $500, and gets on a plane. Step nine is "Staying in hospital to be carefully checked-up, to be well treated while waiting for a matching donor (1 month ??? )." The website's landing page in Chinese, on the other hand, advertised a waiting time of 2 weeks. In another section, the question is posed: "What are the initial procedures while arriving?" The answer: "Once your data are set, the hospital will start to search all over China for an organ that matches." "Just that 1 line is so shocking," said Maria Singh, the University of Sydney professor who sits on the board of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, in a phone interview. "We'll search the country far and wide for your organ,!" she continued. "Searching for your organ? To search the country for a donor when there is no registry for donors. What does that mean? It means that absolutely they're looking for the guy they can kill for your surgery. It's just outrageous. It's pretty hard to believe." In a recent documentary with this very title - "Hard to Believe" - Arthur Caplan, the founding director of the division of medical ethics at New York University Medical Center, explains the contrast in starker terms: "In the U.S., in Europe, you have to be dead first in order to be an organ donor. In China, they make you dead." This rapid matching from what appears to be a pool of prematched donors is consistent with both death row prisoner use and harvesting from prisoners of conscience. But when it comes to volume, death row prisoners simply could not sustain the kind of supply Tianjin needed. Of course, by itself this is positive proof of nothing - except that the organs had to come from somewhere else. Recognizing this is the critical first step in any further exploration of the problem: if the organs aren't from volunteer donors or executed criminals, then they must be coming from somewhere else. "Anyone who is even remotely familiar with the trends of organ donations worldwide cannot accept the claims of miraculously replacing a huge and well established organ source from executed prisoners within a single year by voluntarily donated organs," said Dr. Jacob Lavee, the president of the Israel Transplantation Society and director of the heart transplantation unit at Tel Aviv University???s medical center, in an email. Lavee continued: "If indeed the use of organs from formally executed prisoners has dwindled, the large number of organ transplants which, apparently, continue to be performed in Tianjin and elsewhere in China, must have an alternative organ source, which needs to be explained." Into that breach come researchers who have raised allegations of a hidden and largely overlooked mass murder. Coupled with volumes of other evidence, they describe a crime against humanity in which the doctors stand alongside the murderers; the cause of death is the surgery itself, as organs are drained of blood and pumped with cold preservative chemicals. David Matas, the co-author of a seminal report on organ harvesting from Falun Gong, said in a telephone interview: "What this research does is pose the question; it doesn't answer the question. But it does put into doubt the established answers that have been given." The Forbidden Question There's a potential clue about the organ source in one of the many hats that Dr. Shen Zhongyang is found wearing: he appears on the website of the Beijing Armed Police Forces General Hospital, where he serves as director of the organ transplantation department, in full paramilitary regalia. The People's Armed Police are a domestic standing army of 1.2 million, deployed around the country and mobilized to suppress riots. The most fundamental obstacle in performing large numbers of organ transplants is a donor source. Given that China had no voluntary, open transplant system, political connections, often mediated through brokers, have been the only way to get bodies. As Huang Jiefu himself remarked in an interview in early 2015: "Our country is very big. This source of using prisoner organs, this kind of situation naturally would come to have all kinds of murky and difficult problems in it. You know what I'm trying to say? It became filthy. It became murky and intractable. It became an extremely sensitive, extremely complicated area, basically a forbidden area." He then went on to blame the abuse of organ transplantation in China on Zhou Yongkang, the deposed former security czar. Prisoners of conscience, of course, never came up. Theories about how Tianjin First Central turned on the organ spigot thus revolve around its political ties, including that of Shen Zhongyang, who became a member of the Communist Party's faux advisory body, the Chinese People's Political and Consultative Conference, in 2013. Shen is also a member of the standing committee of the Chinese Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party, 1 of the 8 legal political parties in China that give a window dressing of democracy while stiffly following the Party line. But it's his paramilitary title that is most significant for organ sourcing, given that military and paramilitary hospitals are plugged into the security apparatus that hold hundreds of thousands of political prisoners, and are believed to be involved in much of the illegal trafficking in human organs. A handful of investigators have been tracking the military-organ nexus for years. In his 2014 book "The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China's Secret Solution to Its Dissident Problem," American journalist Ethan Gutmann marshals a mass of evidence, collected over nearly a decade, to show that practitioners of Falun Gong, a traditional spiritual discipline, have been primary targets for organ harvesting. Falun Gong, a practice of self-cultivation which involves exercises and moral teachings, has been persecuted in China since 1999, after the Party leader at the time, Jiang Zemin, declared it a challenge to Party rule. By the late 1990s, the number of people practicing it seemed to exceed the membership of the Communist Party. Hundreds of hospitals around China, like Tianjin First, all saw a dramatic spike in organ transplants in 2000, the year after the persecution began in July 1999. "There's no national organ distribution at this point. There's no organ donation system. The official answer is the death penalty," says David Matas. "But then you've got organ size and blood type compatibility issues, hepatitis in prison, very short waiting times, all of that." With no official explanation for the battery of unanswered questions, suspicions, and mounting circumstantial evidence, "you're pushed back into what myself, David Kilgour, and Ethan Gutmann have been saying," says Matas. "That it's prisoners of conscience." He continued: "The bigger the scale, the bigger the requirement for an explanation, and that explanation is not forthcoming. There's no obvious other source." Gutmann, asked what he thought the likely source of Tianjin's organs was in a telephone interview, said: "I think the majority of these organs are being sourced from Falun Gong." He added: "There has been a large resident population of Falun Gong, of between 1/2 a million to a million at any given time within the laogai system through this entire period," using the Chinese term that refers to the system of labor camps. "This is the only potential source, numerically, which they could be pulling from. There may be some Uyghur Muslims and Tibetans in there too, though the rates of disappearance are not as high for those communities." Gutmann's interviews of hundreds of refugees found that 1 in 5, and sometimes 2 in 5, Falun Gong detainees were subject to blood testing while in captivity. Those released from labor camps also describe disappearances of those tested. In covertly recorded telephone calls with overseas investigators since 2006, doctors and nurses in China, believing they are speaking to a fellow doctor or the relative of an individual in urgent need of a new liver, have acknowledged that they source their organs from Falun Gong prisoners. In his book, Gutmann describes the exams, which his interviewee, a Falun Gong refugee, thought little of. "What she described was terrifying and inexplicable - rather than the doctor administering a normal physical examination, it was more like he was already picking over a fresh corpse ... I remember feeling an unfamiliar chill as my safe, hedging cloak of skepticism fell away for a moment." Tianjin Blood Exams As in prisons and labor camps around the country, there are anecdotal reports of prisoners of conscience in Tianjin being singled out for blood and urine tests during the period in which Tianjin First Central was at its peak of operations. These accounts are drawn from Minghui.org, a clearinghouse of first-hand information about Falun Gong in China. Articles on the site are typically submitted by practitioners of Falun Gong, friends, or family members, often documenting their experiences under persecution. The site is widely used by by academics and human rights researchers studying the practice or its repression, and is considered a reliable source for insight into the Falun Gong community in China. A simple search across Minghui.org for the terms "blood test" and "Tianjin" reveals 9,720 results. Many of these are likely duplicates or do not refer to personal experiences of blood test at Tianjin, but a large number appear to do so. A typical case, submitted on Nov. 9, 2007, is titled "The persecution I witnessed and experienced at the Tianjin Women???s Prison." Like many submissions on Minghui, the report is anonymous, for obvious reasons. It says: "The Third Squadron in the prison specifically targeted Falun Gong ... the squadron leader of every Third Squadron in each section of the jail called out the Falun Gong practitioners 1 by 1, and gave them blood and urine tests. They didn't call out criminal prisoners. The squadron leader said it was because they wanted to look after the Falun Gong prisoners." The prison is a little over 30 minutes away from the hospital. The author, reflecting back on the experience, writes "I still wonder where those practitioners who disappeared ended up." Other cases of blood tests are reported at the Qingbowa Re-education Through Labor camp. Qingbowa is a 23 minute drive from Tianjin First. The Shuangkou Re-education Through Labor is another camp in which, according to reports on Minghui, Falun Gong practitioners report having their blood tested while in detention. Shuangkou is also about a 30 minute drive from Tianjin First. Falun Gong practitioner Hua Lianyou reports having her blood taken in June 2013 in the Binhai Prison, which is about 45 minutes from Tianjin First. Xu Haitang, a practitioner of Falun Gong, reports having her blood drawn in June 2006 at the Banqiao Women's Labor Camp, which is about 90 minutes away. Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting, the Washington, D.C.-based medical advocacy group, conducted its own preliminary analysis on these reports of blood tests on Minghui, writing: "In screening of the survivor reports it was noted that medical exams were not unique occurrences. While single cases as outliers might lack significance, this data reveals a large number of victim accounts that are not isolated instances, and suggests a systematic use of various medical exams imposed upon detained Falun Gong practitioners." Of course, none of this is proof that the blood tests were for the purpose of blood matching for organ transplant. But it is also true that the actual reason for blood and urine tests is unclear, and even confusing: the incarcerated individuals are, after all, in prison due to a campaign, led from the highest levels of the Communist Party, to eradicate their belief system. They are typically subject to torture, electric shocks, and beatings in detention, in an attempt to have them renounce their beliefs. Falun Gong had been slandered in the state press, and adherents to it incited against, dehumanized, mocked, and declared to be enemies of the state. Thousands of deaths from torture have been reported, and no investigation or punishment takes place because of the state-sanctioned nature of the campaign. So why would prison officials be extracting blood for the benefit of the captives? It's this context that has led analysts to believe that the blood tests and disappearances in captivity of Falun Gong, along with the transplant boom that took place soon after the persecution began, are most likely explained by mass organ harvesting. The Awkward Silence Even if the international medical community wished to refrain from concluding preemptively on a massive crime against humanity, one might expect at least a demand for further attention and investigation into just where the organs are coming from, and the extent to which prisoners of conscience have been targeted. It would, after all, constitute one of the most disturbing mass crimes of the 21st century. Indeed, a number of respected organizations and individuals have made clear that they see a serious problem, and that the idea of mass harvesting from Falun Gong is not to be relegated to the realm of science-fiction conspiracy theories. The United Nations Committee Against torture in 2008 said: "The State party should immediately conduct or commission an independent investigation of the claims that some Falun Gong practitioners have been ... used for organ transplants and take measures, as appropriate, to ensure that those responsible for such abuses are prosecuted and punished." Arthur Caplan, the ethicist at New York University's Medical Center, lent his name to a 2012 petition calling on the White House to "Investigate and publicly condemn organ harvesting from Falun Gong believers in China." In an interview at the time, he said: "I think you can't stay quiet about killing for organs. It's too heinous. It's just too wrong. It violates all ideas of human rights." The recent documentary film "Human Harvest," which directly addresses the question of harvesting from Falun Gong, won a prestigious Peabody Award in 2014, the broadcast equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize. The awarding of a Peabody requires the unanimous support of the 17 board members, who in their summary of the documentary described a "highly profitable, monstrous system of forced organ donation." Some countries, including Israel and Taiwan, have adopted legislation aimed at preventing their citizens traveling to China to receive organs, after the reports of harvesting from Falun Gong emerged. All this makes the reaction of some of the key players in the international transplant scene - the kind of individuals whose imprimatur would lend sufficient public heft to the allegations as to prompt broader international censure and calls for investigation - all the more jarring. They have been uncurious about the question of crimes against humanity, adopting instead a complaisant stance, part of Kissingerian-styled bid to help the project of China???s organ transplant reform. Dr. Francis Delmonico, the former head of The Transplantation Society and previously the key international liaison with China on transplant issues, wrote in an email: "My only comment is to encourage the assessment of the Tianjin First Central Hospital to report verifiable data." The word "only" had been put in bold. Doctors like Jeremy Chapman, the Sydney-based former head of The Transplantation Society, and Dr. Michael Millis, a liver surgeon at the University of Chicago medical school who has worked closely with Chinese officials, have also evinced little interest in pursuing the tough questions. When pressed about potential Falun Gong organ sourcing, Millis remarked in an interview with Martina Keller, a journalist with the German magazine Die ZEIT, "That is not my sphere of influence. There are many things in the world that are not my focus or interest." The current head of the The Transplantation Society, Dr. Philip O'Connell, and the World Health Organization's liaison to China on organ transplant issues, Dr. Jose Nu???ez, did not respond to emails. The WHO's Guiding Principles on organ transplantation require that the entire organ transplantation process be transparent and open to scrutiny - yet WHO officials have done little to make such public demands on China. Responding to the relative dearth of attention afforded the question of the missing organs by doctors, Kirk Allison, a professor of ethics at the University of Minnesota, wrote in an email: "This kind of curiosity matters. First, because truth matters; moral hazard matters; human rights matter; and the lives of the exploited, even if dead, matter. They have a moral claim on us." Dr. Lavee, the respected Israeli heart surgeon, wrote in an email: "I feel embarrassed that my colleagues worldwide do not feel, like me, the moral duty to request China to open its gates for an independent, thorough inspection of its current transplant system by the international transplant community." He added: "As a son of a Holocaust survivor, I feel obliged to not repeat the dreadful mistake made by the International Red Cross visit to the Theresienstadt Nazi concentration camp in 1944, in which it was reported to be a pleasant recreation camp." (source: The Epoch Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Feb 6 09:37:48 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 6 Feb 2016 09:37:48 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 6 MALAYSIA: Malaysian court drops charges against 11 Filipinos accused of waging discord The charges against 11 of the 27 Filipinos accused of waging conflict against the Malaysian King and being a member of a terrorist group in connection with the Lahad Datu incident that took place in February 2013 were ordered dropped by the High Court of Kota Kinabalu on Friday, February 5, the Philippine Embassy in Kuala Lumpur reported. In a report to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), the Philippine embassy said Judge Stephen Chung found no prima facie evidence against the Filipinos. The prosecution was given 14 days to file an appeal for the dismissal of the charges. If no appeal is filed, 10 of the 11 acquitted will be released and eventually sent home. One of the 11, Totoh bin Hismullah may remain in Malaysia as he had been found by the Court to be a Malaysian citizen and no longer a Filipino. The remaining 16 Filipinos, however, have been ordered by the Court to present, through their legal counsel, evidence in their defense after prima facie evidence were found against them. This will give the Defense side an opportunity to rebut the Prosecution's evidence. The determination made by the Court is only preliminary and was based on the evidence presented by the Prosecution. A verdict on the culpability, if any, of the 16 remaining accused will not be rendered only after the Defense has completed the presentation of its evidence, which is expected to begin later this month. Majority of those accused were supposedly members the Sulu Sultanate's Royal Security Force (RSF). One of those allegedly charged is the nephew of Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III, Datu Amir Bahar, who was captured not in Lahad Datu but in Sandakan. The accused Filipinos were charged for violating 2 articles of Malaysia???s Penal Code: Section 122 (waging war against the King); and Section 130 KA (terrorism). While Section 130 KA (terrorism) calls for a jail term of up to 30 years, Section 121 (waging war against the King) can fetch the death penalty. The Philippine Embassy in Kuala Lumpur has hired the services of Malaysian lawyer Datuk N. Sivananthan, one of the few Asian legal practitioners accredited by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, and 6 Sabah-based counsels to represent the accused. Their services were paid for by the Philippine government. The Lahad Datu incident began when a group, all followers of Sultan Kiram, landed in Tanduo village on February 9, 2013 drove out the residents, and occupied it to signify a presence that stood for ownership of the land that belonged to the Sulu Sultanate but passed on by Britain to Malaysia in 1957 after granting independence to its colony once known as Malaya. It ended with at least 3 people dead, a still undetermined number of wounded, and several members of the Sultanate of Sulu arrested. (source: mb.com.ph) EUROPEAN UNION/IRAQ: Statement by the spokesperson on the application of death penalty in Iraq Executive orders for the execution of 80 persons have recently been announced in Iraq, with further possible execution orders to follow. This is a regrettable development as, following the formation of a new Government in Iraq in 2014, a review of all pending cases was undertaken. This review and a possible permanent suspension of all executions had been seen as a positive signal by the EU, in line with its principled opposition to the use of the death penalty. Capital punishment is counter-productive as a crime deterrent. The EU strongly encourages Iraq to reinstate a de facto moratorium on the death penalty. (source: europa.eu) AUSTRALIA/INDONESIA: Justice Minister Michael Keenan's approval required for AFP to assist with possible death penalty case in Indonesia Justice Minister Michael Keenan would have to personally sign off on the Australian Federal Police assisting an Indonesian police investigation into a woman who could face the death penalty. In a case that has gripped Indonesia, 27-year-old woman Jessica Kumala Wongso, who studied in Australia, has been charged with the premeditated murder of her friend, Wayan Mirna Salihin. The AFP confirmed it had been approached by the Indonesian National Police for assistance but would seek ministerial approval before releasing any information. Under the AFP guidelines on international police assistance in death penalty situations, ministerial approval is required if a person has been detained, arrested, charged or convicted of an offence that carries the death penalty. Ms Wongso and Ms Salihin reportedly studied together at Billy Blue College of Design in Sydney and Swinburne University of Technology. Ms Wongso worked for NSW Ambulance until late last year. "The AFP has been advised by the Indonesian National Police of the arrest of Ms Wongso for murder, which attracts the death penalty," a spokesman said. "The AFP can confirm that they have not released any information to the Indonesian National Police in relation to this request and will seek ministerial approval for any such release." The AFP faced criticism for handing over information to Indonesian authorities about the Bali 9, which led to their arrests for heroin smuggling in 2005. The coordinators of the Bali 9, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, were executed in Indonesia last year. New guidelines for the AFP's role in cases involving the death penalty were introduced in 2009 after a federal court exonerated the AFP from acting unlawfully in the Bali nine case but argued new protocols were needed. The guidelines require senior AFP officials to take into account a series of factors before providing assistance in potential death penalty scenarios. These include whether the information is favourable to the defendant, the nationality of the person involved, the person's age and personal circumstances, the seriousness of the suspected criminal activity and the likelihood the death penalty will be imposed. Australia's interest in promoting and securing cooperation from overseas agencies in combating crime is also a consideration. This information would all be provided to Mr Keenan by the AFP to assist him make a decision. A spokeswoman for Mr Keenan said the minister was yet to receive a formal request for approval of assistance from the AFP under the death penalty guidelines. Ms Wongso and Ms Salihin met at Olivier Cafe in Grand Indonesia Shopping Mall on January 6. Ms Salihin took a sip of the Vietnamese iced coffee, which Ms Wongso had reportedly ordered for her. She began to suffer convulsions and foam at the mouth and died on the way to the hospital. Jakarta Police spokesman Muhammad Iqbal said Ms Wongso had been arrested last Saturday. "She is being detained under article 340 (of the criminal code) for premeditated murder," he said. Mr Iqbal said Ms Wongso and the victim had a connection with Australia which is why police had sought assistance from the AFP. Ms Wongso's lawyer, Yudi Wibowo, said police had no proof of his client's involvement. "What can the AFP provide? Criminal records, she has none. She and Mirna were just friends, nothing else. What's being reported (in the media) are all lies, not true." He said Ms Wongso was doing fine, considering the circumstances. "Right now, we are just going along with the police investigation." (source: smh.com.au) JAPAN: 'Death Penalty Movie Week' to be held in Tokyo 8 films from home and abroad on the theme of capital punishment will screen at a Tokyo theater from Feb 13 to 19, providing Japanese viewers with an opportunity to contemplate the death penalty while their country maintains the policy in the face of a global trend towards its abolishment. Films to be presented during the 5th "Death Penalty Movie Week" include "Freedom Moon" which depicts the struggle for exoneration by a death-row inmate Iwao Hakamada and his sister, as well as "Death by Hanging," directed by the legendary Nagisa Oshima in 1968. Hakamada, a former professional boxer convicted of a 1966 quadruple murder, was released in March 2014 after a court decided to reopen the high-profile case. But despite his release, he remains on death row as prosecutors have appealed the court's ruling. A movie on another death row inmate, Masaru Okunishi, who was convicted for the 1961 murder of 5 women, will also be shown. Okunishi had once been acquitted over the murder known as "the Nabari wine poisoning case," but the verdict was overturned. While on death row for more than 40 years, he sought exoneration through retrial, but died of pneumonia last October at the age of 89. >From abroad, "The Sleeping Voice," a 2011 Spanish film set in 1940s Spain under the authoritarian rule of leader Gen. Francisco Franco, and 2 other European movies will also be screened. "We need to give consideration through the screening to the fact that innocent people are sometimes killed in the name of the state," the organizer, Forum 90, said. "At the same time we expect viewers to think about and discuss how a person who actually killed someone should be punished," the anti-death penalty group noted in its leaflet. During the 7-day event at the Eurospace movie theater in Tokyo's Shibuya district, 4 movies will be shown per day, accompanied by sessions with guest speakers, including a lawmaker, scholars as well as Kim Sung Woong, director of "Freedom Moon," and Hakamada's sister Hideko. Attracting around 4,500 viewers in total to the annual event during the past four years, Masakuni Ota, a Forum 90 member, said, "We have provided diversified standpoints in thinking about the death penalty by screening various movies." "We welcome not only death penalty abolitionists but also those ardently supporting it" so the issue of capital punishment can be discussed from multiple points of view, he added. Japan hanged 2 death row inmates in December, bringing the total number of executions under the second Shinzo Abe administration which began in December 2012 to 14. Around 70% of nations have abolished the death penalty by law or in practice. Tokyo was urged by the U.N. Human Rights Committee in 2014 to "give due consideration to the abolition of the death penalty," but has legitimized its continuance by citing the outcome of a survey, which indicated more than 80 % of people in Japan support the death penalty. (source: Japan Today) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Feb 7 09:59:01 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2016 09:59:01 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., GA., FLA., OHIO, IDAHO Message-ID: Feb. 7 NORTH CAROLINA: In Orwellian move, NC State Archives blocks access to death penalty photo In George Orwell's novel "1984," the luckless Winston Smith labors in a Ministry of Truth office where he "re-creates" the past by removing or changing historical documents to reflect Big Brother's political demands. Winston doesn't know whether he's changing a fact or a fallacy another worker has already introduced. He erases some people entirely after the Party executes them. I couldn't help but think of Smith's grim legacy recently. Last month, I requested from the North Carolina State Archives a photograph of the 1st inmate executed by lethal gas. I'd first seen Allen Foster's mug shot in a 2004 edition of the state's authorized history journal and wanted a high-resolution copy. But the Archives - the state agency in charge of safeguarding the primary sources of our history - refused my request. I dug deeper. I discovered that the Archives is blocking access to all historical material related to executions. This is especially important at a time when we as a state and a nation are engaged in a vital discussion about the death penalty. By blocking access to information, the state is harming education, stifling debate and undermining free speech. The photo I sought is 80 years old. 3 conjoined panels depict 20-year-old Foster in custody in 1936. Foster allegedly robbed and raped a Hoke County woman in 1935. At the time, rape was a capital crime. Foster's mother unsuccessfully pleaded with Gov. J.C.B. Ehringhaus to spare his life. On Jan. 24, 1936, the state executed Foster, an African-American, the 1st in the state to die by lethal gas. At the time, officials considered gas more humane than hanging. Yet Foster died horribly. The January cold prevented the gas from working properly. As sociologist Trina Seitz described in the North Carolina Historical Review, Foster gasped for 3 minutes before losing consciousness. Then "he convulsed wildly." In all, it took him 11 minutes to die. Request denied In her article, Seitz reproduced the photo I wanted, which she legally obtained from the archives more than a decade ago. I requested the photo as part of work I was doing on a national exhibit on mass incarceration, coordinated by the Humanities Action Lab at New York's New School. Along with 20 other universities, 16 Duke students, a colleague and I were preparing our contribution, a history of the death penalty in North Carolina. The students read Seitz's article as well as a UNC-sponsored site that reproduces the photo from the NCHR. Imagine my surprise when the state archivist replied that current interpretation of law prevented access. I reached out to other researchers and learned that the state archivist is denying access to all historical death penalty records. Among the statutes she cites are GS 148-74 and GS 148-76, in part meant to protect prisoner privacy, a worthy goal for living inmates and their families. Specifically, GS 148-74 requires the state to "minimize duplication and maximize effective use of ... records and materials." My students' project achieves both goals. It's an overreach to apply this to a case 8 decades in the past. GS 148-76 is meant to empower the Department of Public Safety to keep records that enhance the public's safety, irrelevant in the case of a man executed before World War II. Worthy of Orwell Claims of confidentiality are equally spurious. Foster's mug shot was public at the time of his execution as is the mug shot of every inmate in prison today. Just go the offender lookup page on the prison system's website, or peruse The Slammer at a gas station. But it's not just 1 photo or a certain category of records. Suppressing historical documents on the death penalty is part of a wider effort by our current legislature to restrict or deny public access to information, an effort worthy of Big Brother. One new law shields the identity of companies that sell death penalty drugs to North Carolina. Another, which took effect Jan. 1, aims to silence whistle-blowers. Anyone who secretly gathers information in order to uncover and correct abuses can be sued by business owners for bad publicity and be required to pay a fine. Newspapers like this one have and will continue to insist that the state release records that we as citizens have a right to. But why should we as citizens be content with a system that forces us to fight for every paper - or photo? Foster's execution and his photograph are our history. To deny access is tantamount to sending the past down the memory hole for destruction. And the only point of that is to suppress what should be robust and informed debate. (source: Op-Ed; Robin Kirk co-directs the Duke Human Rights Center at the Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke University----newsobserver.com) GEORGIA: A death for a death solves nothing----Capital punishment isn't humane, no matter how it's done, nor does it prevent crime; it simply kills The state of Georgia killed another one of its citizens last Tuesday. His name was Brandon Astor Jones. The 72-year-old Jones was killed because in 1979 he killed Roger Tackett, a Cobb County convenience store manager. According to the state, what Jones did to Tackett was murder; what it did to Jones was a legal execution. So one killing begat another killing, the latter state-sanctioned. That makes no sense ethically or morally. The only place it would seem to make sense is legally. But even there the legality of state-sanctioned killings - or "executions" as they are euphemistically called - is rather fuzzy. O.C.G.A. 16-5-1, the state statute defining murder and felony murder, reads in part: "A person commits the offense of murder when he unlawfully and with malice aforethought, either express or implied, causes the death of another human being." It took the state 36 years to kill Jones, which seems to involve a great deal of preparation and premeditation. While the state gets to define what is "lawful" and "unlawful," the difference between the 2 when it comes to killing another human being seems to be a rather fine line. There is no question Jones deserved to be punished for his crime. The question is whether taking his life because he took another person's life was morally and ethically the right thing to do. I once was an avid supporter of the "kill them all, let God sort them out" school of criminal justice. But as I have grown older and a bit wiser, and have seen the workings of the criminal justice system up close, it is quite obvious that it is neither efficient nor effective, particularly as it pertains to the death penalty. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Jones was the 61st person since 1976 to die at the hands of Georgia officials. While that may seem a substantial number, it ranks only 6th on the national list of executions over the last 40 years, behind Texas (533), Oklahoma (112), Virginia (111), Florida (92) and Missouri (86). Supporters of the death penalty claim it is a deterrent to those contemplating murder. But repeated studies have shown that this is simply not true. According to Hugo Adam Bedau, a professor of philosophy at Tufts University, "Most capital crimes are committed during moments of great emotional stress or under the influence of drugs or alcohol, when logical thinking has been suspended. In such cases, violence is inflicted by persons heedless of the consequences to themselves as well as others." That is an explanation, not an excuse for the crimes. Proponents of the death penalty in search of religious justification usually trot out Old Testament citations from Exodus 21:23-25: "But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise," conveniently ignoring the fact that Jesus countermanded that in Luke in the New Testament. Proponents also say that some crimes are so heinous that they deserve the ultimate penalty: death. In fact, there are crimes that are so heinous that those who commit them deserve to be removed from society forever. Think Jeffrey Dahmer, Timothy McVeigh and John Wayne Gacy. While some would argue that utilization of the death penalty certainly deters those convicted of murder of ever being able to murder again, others argue that permanently removing them from society through a life-without-parole sentence does the same thing. In some ways, death is easier; serving extended prison time is not. Just ask anyone who has spent time behind bars. Yet there are cases in which those convicted of murder actually become useful members of prison society and, by extension, society as a whole. Once such case involves Kelly Gissendaner of Gwinnett County. Gissendaner was convicted of orchestrating her husband's murder in 1997. Convicted and sentenced to death, she underwent a religious conversion in prison and began ministering to other women who also were incarcerated. She was credited with preventing several suicides among female inmates. Despite pleas from Pope Francis and Norman S. Fletcher, the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia that she be granted clemency and be allowed to continue her prison ministry, the Star Chamber that is the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles refused. Gissendaner was executed by lethal injection last September, the 1st woman killed by the state in 70 years. Lethal injection is the current method of execution in 33 states, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. But the term "humane execution" is an oxymoron if ever there was one. Lethal injection is nothing more than euthanasia; it is not the "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" of which the Bible speaks. It is simply our way of trying to convince ourselves that when the government decides to kill someone, it does so in a manner that elevates us above those societies and cultures in which the guilty (and sometimes the innocent) were crucified, drawn and quartered, stoned, decapitated, burned at the stake or fed to the lions. We congratulate ourselves for being a humane society because instead of actually killing people we just put them to sleep forever. How is death by lethal injection any more humane than what the Islamic State does to its victims by burning them alive or tossing them off rooftops or cutting off their heads in front of a camera so the world can see? One of the unanswerable questions about the death penalty is what does society gain from it other than the short-lived satisfaction of revenge and/or retribution? An execution certainly does not restore the victim or victims and their families to what they were before the crime was committed. And society certainly learns nothing about why these individuals committed crimes in the first place. We would be better served if those convicted of murder and other heinous crimes be studied to determine what sort of physiological, psychological or sociological flaws caused them to do what they did and try to put measures into place to keep others from committing similar crimes. But to do that, we would need to stop warehousing in our prisons large numbers of people for nonviolent crimes and instead focus on those violent criminals or those prone to violence. Even though the death penalty is considered legal justification for killing someone, just because something is legal, doesn't mean it is morally or ethically right. The death penalty does not kill violent crime. All it does is kill another person. (source: Op-Ed; Ron Martz is a Marine Corps veteran (1965-68), journalist and former educator. He lives in Northeast Georgia----Gainesville Times) FLORIDA: The conservative case against the death penalty Last month the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida's death penalty statute by an 8-1 vote. The court's decision in Hurst v. Florida has once again brought the issue of the death penalty to the forefront. I felt this was a good time to ask my fellow conservatives who still favor the death penalty to re-think their positions. Most conservatives share a deep and fundamental distrust of "Big Government" and its inability to effectively and efficiently carry out even menial tasks. The the death penalty process is a prime example of Big Government inefficiency. Mistakes happen, and a mistake in imposing the death penalty can mean the wrongful killing of an innocent person. According to the nonpartisan Death Penalty Information Center, 156 people have been exonerated from death row since the death penalty was re-enacted following the 1972 Furman v. Georgia Supreme Court case, which struck down death penalty statutes across the country. Of those 156 exonerations, Florida has led the nation with 26. In 2014 alone, 6 death row inmates were exonerated based on actual innocence. Make no mistake, innocent men have been executed. Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in Texas in 2004 for allegedly setting fire to his own home, killing his 3 daughters. 3 subsequent investigations have shown that the fire was not arson, and probably caused by faulty wiring. In 2015, the prosecutor on his case was charged with misconduct by the Texas Bar for withholding material evidence from Willingham's attorneys. To some in our justice system, the execution of an innocent man is of no concern. Oklahoma County District Attorney Bob Macy, who personally sent 73 defendants to death row, was quoted by The New York Times as stating that executing an innocent person is a sacrifice worth making in order to keep the death penalty in the United States. Also, when Louisiana death row inmate Glenn Ford was exonerated in 2014, the prosecutor admitted being partly responsible for Ford???s wrongful conviction because he was not as interested in justice as he was in winning. >From a taxpayer prospective, the cost of the death penalty far exceeds the cost of life without parole. In 2000, the Palm Beach Post reported that the 44 executions carried out in Florida between 1976 and 2000 cost an average of $24 million each. Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, recently testified that Florida spends $51 million a year above and beyond what it would cost to punish all first-degree murderers with life in prison. And the exorbitant cost is coming with little return. Florida has executed a total of 92 inmates since 1972. There are currently 389 inmates on Florida's death row, 13 having been there since the 1970s. At the current rate of execution, it would take over 150 years to execute just the inmates currently on death row. Conservatives who have publicly stated their opposition to the death penalty include former U.S. Sen. Jack Kemp, Col. Oliver North, columnist Tucker Carlson, talk show host Laura Ingraham and George Will. The United States is the only Western nation that still retains the use of the death penalty. Europe rid itself of capital punishment in the early 1980s, and the U.S. is now 5th in the world for the greatest number of executions after China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Is this the company we wish to keep? (source: Op-Ed; James S. Purdy has served as public defender of the Seventh Judicial Circuit since 2005. As a former assistant attorney general, he argued death penalty cases in the Florida Supreme Court on behalf of the state of Florida. He served as chairman of the Volusia County Republican Party in 1999----Ocala Star Banner) OHIO: Ohio and its death penalty disparities 7 states have abolished the death penalty during the past decade. 30 states either do not have capital punishment or have not conducted an execution the past 8 years. Will Ohio follow in their path? The state already has put off executions until November of next year. Officials are having difficulty securing the necessary drugs to conduct a lethal injection according to standards. Drug-makers have balked at participating. Of late, the complications for the death penalty have deepened. Frank Baumgartner, a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina, released an analysis reinforcing concerns about racial, gender and geographic disparities in applying capital punishment in Ohio. He looked at the 53 executions in the state from 1976 to 2014. 34 involved white men, and 19 involved black men. One striking aspect of the findings is that 65 % of the executions stemmed from cases in which the victim was white, even though whites accounted for just 43 % homicide victims. In a similar way, just 27 % of homicide victims were women, yet 52 % of the executions involved cases in which the victim was a woman. Baumgartner found that the likelihood of a murder leading to an execution in Ohio is 0.53 %. That likelihood changes significantly when the victim is white (0.81 %) and when the victim is black (0.29 %). Add the element of gender, and things again alter dramatically. The likelihood of an execution climbs to 1.55 % when the victim is a white female, and falls to 0.25 % when a black man is the victim. The likelihood is nearly the same when the victim is a white man or a black woman. All of this resonates more sharply in view of black men making up 44 % of homicide victims across the state. Crime statistics show that most homicides involve perpetrators and victims of the same race. Yet, as Baumgartner explains in assessing the Ohio executions, whites are likely to face the death penalty only when the victim is white. Blacks tend to face execution whether the victim is white or black. Geography matters, too, more than 1/2 of the executions taking place in Summit, Lucas, Cuyahoga and Hamilton counties. These are higher crime areas, obviously. What is noteworthy is the disparity in execution rates. Baumgartner points out that the rate in Hamilton is more than double the rate in Cuyahoga and nearly 9 times the rate in Franklin. County prosecutors have responded by noting that many factors are at work in seeking the death penalty. They have a point. At the same time, Baumgartner mostly bolsters previous examinations of capital punishment, the kind that set in motion a review of the death penalty in Ohio, pushed by Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor. That task force included a wide range of stakeholders and arrived at 56 recommendations to improve the process. A handful of the proposals have won legislative approval. Those who want to see capital punishment endure should be pressing for additional action. Even then, Ohio should prepare to end the death penalty. As Summit County knows, it is expensive. And for what? The Baumgartner analysis further exposes the disparities. (source: Editorial, Akron Beacon Journal) IDAHO: Idaho death penalty rarely used 9 people are awaiting execution in Idaho. Only 3 have been executed since 1977 under Idaho's death penalty. The issue of capital punishment continues to raise questions nationwide - financially and ethically. Those questions are now being asked in Canyon County, where prosecutors have filed papers to seek the death penalty against Brandon J. Shaw. He is the man accused of fatally stabbing Chelsey Rae Malone in November outside her home in the 2700 block of Berlin Place in Nampa. She was just 23 years old. At only 23, Shaw may seem young to potentially sit on death row, but all nine inmates currently awaiting execution in Idaho entered prison between the ages of 20 and 36. The oldest inmate currently on death row is 65-year-old Thomas Creech, who has been on death row since age 32 after he was convicted of beating an inmate to death in Ada County. Creech began his term on death row in January 1983. The youngest inmate to ever enter Idaho's death row is James Hairston, who was convicted and sentenced to death in November 1996 for fatally shooting 2 people in Bannock County. Hairston was 20 years old when he entered death row. Since 1977, the state of Idaho has executed only 3 people, including murderers Paul Ezra Rhoades, Richard Leavitt and Keith Wells - a statistic some might say is unusual given Idaho's conservative political climate. The state is 1 of 31 states that permits death as a sentencing option for 1st-degree murder convictions. BRANDON SHAW'S CASE In the local case of Brandon Shaw, prosecutors filed the notice to seek the death penalty against him on Jan. 7, citing aggravating circumstances that made the alleged crime eligible for a sentence of death. The notice stated the suspected "murder was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel, manifesting exceptional depravity" and "by the murder, or circumstances surrounding its commission, the defendant exhibited utter disregard for human life." Shaw, who has no prior criminal history, is charged with 1st-degree murder with an enhancement for the use of a deadly weapon, assault with the intent to commit a serious felony and another enhancement for the use of a deadly weapon, and 2 counts of burglary. The Canyon County Prosecuting Attorney Bryan Taylor's office declined to comment directly on Shaw's pending case. "The Canyon County Prosecuting Attorney's Office goes through an intensive review each time the death penalty is considered," according to a written statement from the office. "This lengthy and detailed process involves the solicitation of thoughtful input from the victim's family, the investigating officers, the relevant chief (or sheriff), the handling attorneys, and the chief deputies of our criminal and civil divisions for the Prosecutor to consider. It is a decision fundamentally guided by our commitment to justice and the public safety, and, like each exercise of prosecutorial discretion this Office is required to make every single day, is not taken lightly. The office, in general, does not comment on active cases. "... We especially won't make public comment about the details of a case to explain a decision to file a death penalty notice, because those details could have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused and interfere with the right to a fair trial," the prosecutor's office said in the statement. "That said, we will publicly present our case to a jury at the appropriate time, and are confident in the charging decisions that have thus far been made in the case." Shaw's next court appearance is set for 9 a.m. Feb. 26. DEATH PENALTY EXPENSES Nationwide statistics have shown the cost of sentencing someone to death exceeds the price of sentencing them to life in prison for a variety of reasons, including the price of trials, appeals and the execution itself. In Idaho, a statewide fund is in place to protect counties from taking on the full financial burden of a capital punishment case. Every county in Idaho, except for Jefferson County, utilizes a Capital Crimes Defense Fund established in 1998 to help counties pay for trial expenses. In 2014, the Canyon County Board of Commissioners contributed $66,436 to the Capital Crimes Defense Fund. Pursuant to the fund, counties pay the first $10,000 of trial costs before submitting reimbursement claims to the fund, and they must pay the wages of the lead defense attorney. In March 2013, a Joint Legislative Oversight Committee conducted a study regarding the state's death penalty statute and expenditures after 2 people were executed within 2 years. According to the Idaho Legislature's 2013 study, 11 counties have been reimbursed more than $4 million for defense costs since 1998. In Canyon County, since 1998, there have been nine cases that utilized the Capital Crimes Defense Fund. As of 2013 in Canyon County, $450,638 in claims have been paid for cases against 9 defendants. : Part of those expenses come from the use of expert witnesses and the length of time it takes to complete adjudication in the process of reaching either a guilty verdict or an acquittal is lengthy. Capital cases in Idaho, between 1998 and 2013, took an average of about 14.5 months to adjudicate, regardless of whether they went to trial. That's about 3.1 months longer than it takes to adjudicate non-capital cases, according to the state report. For defendants who did go to trial, between 1998 and 2013, capital cases took 20.5 months to complete. Non-capital cases took about 7 months less time to complete trial. Those state averages were regardless of whether the defendant was found guilty or not guilty. In a Jan. 19 meeting with the Canyon County Board of Commissioners, Chief Public Defender Tera Harden addressed Brandon Shaw's case and the financial issues surrounding capital punishment cases. Harden said 3 public defenders will need to be approved and qualified by the Supreme Court to work on Shaw's case. Defense attorneys must be death penalty-certified to defend a potential capital punishment case and meet specific criteria mandated by the Idaho Supreme Court. Harden also told commissioners that her office has 2 investigators assigned to the case and they will be having "enormous costs as it relates to experts" in trial. According to minutes of the meeting, it is Harden's "personal opinion that it is the most fiscally irresponsible thing that can be done by anyone in a prosecutor's office, and costs will be staggering." DEATH ROW APPEALS While initial trials can be pricey for counties, the cost of the multiple appeals death row inmates undergo is even greater. The Idaho Department of Correction pays $88.24 per day to hold a death row inmate in custody at a maximum security prison - regardless if the inmate is on death row or not. But that's where many of the similarities end. The state has an Appellate Public Defender's Office with a capital punishment defense unit. From July 1, 2004, to Dec. 21, 2013, the office spent $477,716 on death penalty appellate litigation, according to the 2013 report. From 2001 to 2013, staff at the office spent an estimated 79,178 billable hours on capital litigation for 10 defendants sentenced to death - an average of 7,918 hours per defendant. By comparison, during that same time, the office's appellate unit accumulated only 16,980 billable hours of litigation for 95 defendants with a life sentence - an average of only about 179 hours per defendant, according to the legislative report. NATIONAL CLIMATE While neighboring states, such as Washington, have ceased carrying out executions, states such as Texas continue to perform them regularly. On Jan. 27, 35-year-old James Freeman was executed by lethal injection for fatally shooting a game warden 9 years ago during a shootout after a 90-minute chase that began when he was suspected of poaching, according to the Associated Press. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has at least 8 other inmates set to die through July. Last year, 13 convicted killers were put to death in Texas, accounting for nearly 1/2 of all the 28 executions carried out nationwide, according to the Associated Press. Many states, including Delaware, have not outlawed the death penalty, but they have put a stay on some cases. In Delaware, at least 8 Kent County capital murder cases were put on hold Feb. 1 as the Delaware Supreme Court considers whether the state's death penalty statute is constitutional after a recent federal ruling. Superior Court President Judge Jan Jurden issued the order, which affects at least 40 cases being handled by the state's Office of Defense Services, according to the Delaware State News. A series of Supreme Court decisions has affected multiple inmates on death row this month and last. On Feb. 2, Florida's highest court delayed the execution of a condemned inmate, Michael Lambrix, just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court found flaws in the way the state sentences people to death. Lambrix was scheduled to be executed Feb. 11 for the murder of 2 people in 1983 and the jury's death recommendation was not unanimous for either murder, according to the AP. The U.S. Supreme Court found Jan. 12 that Florida sentencing procedure is flawed because it allows judges to reach a different decision from that of juries. Juries play only an advisory role in recommending death in Florida. Judges have recommended death against the jury's recommendation in the cases of 3 of Florida's current death row inmates, state officials said. The last time it happened was 1999. With the 2016 presidential election season in full swing, multiple candidates - both Democrats and Republicans - have been publicly questioned on whether to outlaw the death penalty, varying widely in their responses. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Democratic presidential candidate, said in a recent debate he does not support the death penalty. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican presidential candidate, has said throughout his campaign he is a proponent of the death penalty as a potential sentencing option. *************** DEATH ROW INMATES Inmates on Idaho's death row, according to the Idaho Department of Correction: --Azad Abdullah, 38, entered prison in November 2004, at the age of 27, for 1st-degree murder in the arson death of his wife in Ada County. --David Card, 56, entered prison in September 1989, at age 29, for shooting t2 people to death in Canyon County. --Thomas Creech, 65, entered prison in January 1983, at age 32, for beating an inmate to death in Ada County. --Timothy Dunlap, 47, entered prison in April 1992, at age 23, for 1st-degree murder of a woman during a bank robbery in Caribou County. --Zane Fields, 57, entered prison in April 1991, at age 33, for 1st-degree murder for a stabbing death in Ada County. --James Hairston, 39, entered prison in November 1996, at age 20, for 2 shooting deaths in Bannock County. --Erick Hall, 44, entered prison in October 2004, at age 33, for 2 counts of 1st-degree murder for raping and killing 2 women in Ada County in 2000 and 2003. --Gerald Pizzuto, 60, entered prison in May 1986, at age 30, for beating two people to death in Idaho County. --Robin Row, 58, entered prison in December 1993, at age 36, for the arson deaths of her husband, son and daughter in Ada County. DEATH ROW HISTORY Since 1977, Idaho has only executed 3 people convicted of murder. There are 8 men on Idaho's death row and 1 woman. In Idaho, 40 offenders have been sentenced to death since 1977. 21 of those inmates later received a sentence other than death, such as life in prison with or without parole. Since then, 4 died in prison, 4 were released from prison and 3 were executed. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice, from 1977 to 2013, 1,359 offenders were executed in the United States, 2 of whom were executed by the federal government. Since 1864, Idaho has executed 29 offenders, according to the study. >From 1998 to 2013, 251 defendants were charged with 1st-degree murder in Idaho, and prosecution sought the death penalty in only 42 of the cases. Of those 42, 7 were sentenced to death. In Canyon County, from Jan. 1, 1989, to Feb. 5, 2016, there have been 46 1st-degree murder charges filed in the county. Of those 46 cases, 25 were convicted, 1 was acquitted, two cases are pending, and 16 cases were dismissed. None of those people were sentenced to death. The Canyon County Courthouse only had records available for 1st-degree murder cases dating back to 1989. The only death penalty sentence on record to come out of Canyon County was 56-year-old David Card's case. Card entered prison in September 1989, at age 29, for shooting 2 people to death in Canyon County on June 5, 1988. Qualifying for capital punishment The proceedings in a jury trial for a capital punishment case are different than a standard felony trial, or even a non-capital punishment murder case. To qualify for the death penalty, a jury must agree there are aggravating circumstances in the death without any mitigating circumstances that would cause a death sentence to be unjust, and the jury must have a willingness to impose a sentence of death. An aggravating circumstance would include issues such as a previous murder conviction or if the murder was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel. A mitigating circumstance would include such issues as the absence of violent behavior or if the defendant was under extreme duress at the time of the death. Capital cases have different sentencing procedures from non-capital cases in Idaho. The jury plays a significant role in whether a person is sentenced to death, whereas in other trials, jurors only declare a verdict. If the jury finds no aggravating circumstances, the judge may sentence the defendant to 10 years to life in prison. If the jury finds at least one aggravating circumstance, but also finds mitigating circumstances sufficiently compelling to make the death penalty unjust, the judge sentences the defendant to life in prison without the possibility of parole. According to the Idaho Statute, if the defendant is convicted of murder in the 1st degree, there will then be a separate sentencing hearing. At that hearing, additional evidence may be presented and the jury will be given additional instructions. Additional information other than just the facts around the suspected murder. At the conclusion of that hearing, the jury will then decide if the defendant will be sentenced to death. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Defense attorneys in capital punishment cases To defend a suspect in a murder case in which the prosecution has announced its intent to seek the death penalty, defending attorneys must meet certain criteria and be death penalty certified, according to the Idaho Supreme Court. Lead trial defense attorneys in capital cases must meet the following criteria: 1. Be in good standing with the Idaho State Bar 2. Be experienced and active trial attorneys with at least 5 years of experience in criminal defense or prosecution 3. Have served as lead counsel in no less than 4 felony jury trials that were tried to completion and served as lead or co-counsel in one case in which the death penalty might have been imposed, or served as lead counsel during the sentencing of a death penalty case 4. Are familiar with the rules, practice and procedure of the district courts in Idaho 5. Are familiar with and experienced in the utilization of expert witnesses and evidence, including, but not limited to, psychiatric and forensic evidenc 6. Have attended and successfully completed at least 12 hours of Idaho State Bar approved training or educational programs which focus on capital cases within the last 2 years 7. Have demonstrated the necessary proficiency and commitment which exemplify the quality of representation appropriate to capital cases, according to the Idaho Supreme Court Co-counsel defense attorneys in the cases must meet the following qualifications: 1. Be in good standing with the Idaho State Bar 2. Be experienced and active trial attorneys with at least 3 years of experience in criminal defense or prosecution 3. Have served as lead counsel in no less than 3 felony jury trials that were tried to completion 4. Are familiar with the rules, practice and procedure of the district courts in Idaho 5. Have attended and successfully completed at least 6 hours of Idaho State Bar approved training or educational programs which focus on capital cases within the last 2 years 6. Have demonstrated the necessary proficiency and commitment which exemplify the quality of representation appropriate to capital cases, according to the Idaho Supreme Court ADAM DEES CASE In many 1st-degree murder cases, such as that of Adam Dees in Ada County, a defendant may plead guilty in exchange for prosecutors agreeing not to pursue the death penalty. The 22-year-old Nampa man was charged for brutally killing 3 people in their Boise foothills home during a robbery. He pleaded guilty to 3 counts of 1st-degree murder and 1 count of robbery. Dees admitted to the March murders of 80-year-old Theodore Welp; his 77-year-old wife, Elaine Welp; and their 52-year-old son, Thomas Welp, who were found dead March 10. Ada County prosecutors said the Welps' family also did not want to undergo a lengthy death penalty trial. Dees was sentenced in September to 3 life sentences plus 25 years without the possibility of parole. CANYON COUNTY CASES In Canyon County, from Jan. 1, 1989, to Feb. 5, 2016, there have been 46 1st-degree murder charges filed in the county. Almost all of those cases were not death penalty cases, however. Of those 46 cases, 25 were convicted, 1 was acquitted, 2 cases are pending, and 16 cases were dismissed. None of those people were sentenced to death. The Canyon County Courthouse only had records available for 1st-degree murder cases dating back to 1989. (source: Idaho Press-Tribune) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Feb 7 09:59:49 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2016 09:59:49 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 7 NIGERIA: NBA Chair Advocates Death Penalty For Corrupt Public Officers The chairman of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) Ilorin branch ,Barrister Mansuma Issa has advocated capital punishment for any public officer found guilty of corruption. He noted that countries like Singapore, China ,Taiwan ,Vietnam and South Korea which had adopted death penalty have succeeded in the fight against corruption. Mansuma made the suggestion during an interview with newsmen in Ilorin, Kwara state. The NBA chairman said the association is in support of the anti- corruption war of President Muhammadu Buhari's administration. He lamented that funds that should ordinarily be spent on the health,education,agricultural sectors and terrorism were diverted to individuals pockets, stating that offenders either caught for capital or simple offenses should be treated in accordance with the law. He said that the Nigerian judiciary was still operating in the pre-independence era and in colonial courts where judges still write in long hands. Mansuma appealed to the federal and state governments to provide the judiciary with verbatim recording machines to ease their assignments. He bemoaned the deteriorating condition of the Nigerian prisons and called on the government to improve the condition of the prisons which he said, ordinarily, should serve as reformatory homes. (source: lealdership.ng) MALAWI: Ritual murders of people with albinism must end The killing of a woman with albinism in Malawi highlights the government's shocking failure to protect the right to life and personal security of this vulnerable minority, said Amnesty International. The mutilated body of Eunice Phiri, a 53-year-old woman with albinism, was found on 28 January in the Kasungu National Park. Her arms had been cut off - a practice common with ritual murders where people with albinism are killed for their body parts which are sold for use in witchcraft. "It is deeply worrying that there's poor security for people with albinism in Malawi despite an increasing number of attacks against them," said Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International's Director for Southern Africa. "The government's human rights obligations require them to protect everyone's right to life. They must ensure that the police have the resources to protect those at risk of attacks." These crimes must be investigated and those suspected of responsibility brought to justice without recourse to the death penalty. In 2015 alone, 45 incidents including killings and attempted killings, and abductions and attempted abductions, as well as opening of the graves of people with albinism were reported by activists in Malawi. Some of those who were abducted have never been seen again. Attacks against people with albinism by individuals and gangs increased sharply in 2015. Children were withdrawn from schools by their families fearing attacks. In November 2015, Amnesty International researchers met people with albinism and their families who described how they live in constant fear of attacks and abuses. Some had to move from rural to urban areas for their own safety. "The government must take urgent action to protect people with albinism and to address the root cause of the violence and discrimination they suffer," said Deprose Muchena. "They must also take steps to ensure that superstitions and harmful cultural beliefs which fuel the attacks are tackled." Background According to police information, Eunice Phiri was tricked by three men, including her brother, into accompanying them on a trip to Zambia through the Kasungu National Park where she was killed and her body dismembered on 23 January 2016. Erroneous beliefs and superstition have put the safety and lives of people with albinism at risk, including from killings, abductions, and mutilations. On 19 March 2015, Malawian President Peter Mutharika issued a statement condemning attacks on people with albinism, and called on police to arrest perpetrators and provide protection to people at risk of attack. Although some arrests were made, concerns remain about the inadequacy of police investigations and some perpetrators getting sentences which were not in line with the gravity of the crime. (source: Editorial, Maravi Post) TANZANIA: 19 face death penalty over albino killings in Tanzania 19 people have been sentenced to death after being convicted of killing albinos, the Tanzanian government has confirmed. Home Affairs Deputy Minister, Hamad Yusuf Masauni told Anadolu Agency on Saturday that the convicted are among 133 people arrested and charged with killing people with albinism from 2006 to 2015. "Other albino attacks and killings cases are in different stages in different courts countrywide," the minister said in a telephone interview from Dodoma, Tanzania's administrative capital. Masauni said at least 75 people with albinism have been killed in Tanzania since 2006, while more than 100 people have been attacked and mutilated. Such attacks are due in large part to widespread superstition in East Africa that body parts of people with albinism carry magical powers that witch doctors claim to harness, or other beliefs that view albinos as cursed or causing bad luck. Commenting on the plea from people with albinism asking the government to implement death penalties for those convicted of the killings, the minister said the government is keen on exercising the court's ruling. "Death penalties have long procedures and processes to be followed before implementation. Once we are done with the process, those found guilty will be executed," Masauni said. Last year, the government formed a tripartite committee involving government officials, people with albinism, witch doctors who are believed to have a hand on albino killings and other stakeholders, as a strategy to combat attacks and killings of people with albinism. The Tanzanian government has also targeted witch doctors, arresting more than 200 of them in different parts of the country, as part of the fight against albino killings. The government, civil society and various groups including those with albinism have also joined hands to prevent attacks through special concerts, radio and TV programs in both public and privately owned media outlets. Apart from Tanzania, albino attacks and killings have also been reported in other East African countries, including Burundi and Kenya. (source: newsfultoncountry.com) EGYPT: Egypt court reduces death sentences for 8 convicted in 'Suez Cell' case----The case goes back to 2010, when 27 people were charged with planning attacks on the Suez Canal but were released due to lack of evidence. They were referred to court in November 2013 Cairo Criminal Court reduced Saturday death sentences on 8 convicted of terrorist charges to 10 years in prison in the retrial of the "Suez terrorist cell" case. In March 2014, the court sentenced 26 people to death and one to 15 years in prison on charges that include planning attacks on ships passing through the Suez Canal, manufacturing missiles and explosives to carry out attacks, monitoring and planning to attack security targets, and illegal possession of guns, automatic rifles, explosives and ammunition. The case goes back to 2010 when 27 people were charged with planning attacks on the Suez Canal. They were released due to lack of evidence. They were referred back to court in November 2013. Since the March 2014 verdict, 6 defendants appealed and 2 others, tried in absentia, were arrested. The verdict can be further appealed. Most of the convicted were tried in absentia, and thus given the maximum penalty for their crime - the death sentence. If the rest of the defendants hand themselves in to the authorities, they can also appeal their initial death sentences. (source: ahramonline.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 8 09:19:18 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2016 09:19:18 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., ARK., MO., CALIF., USA Message-ID: Feb. 8 NORTH CAROLINA: Jurors to be scrutinized on death penalty The trial of Antwan Andre Anthony is set to begin today, but it could be a month before prosecutors begin calling witnesses to testify. Anthony, 33, is charged with 3 counts of 1st-degree murder in the deaths of 3 cousins who were working together at their family's convenience store outside of Farmville. He is accused of robbing, kidnapping and murdering Mokbel Mohamed Almujanahi, 16; Nabil Nasser Saeed Al'mogannahi, 26; and Gaber Alawi, 24, on April 1, 2012, as they were closing the Hustle Mart-3 convenience store on N.C. 121 north of Farmville. (source: Daily Reflector) ARKANSAS: Lawyer's own view of 'train wreck' performance doesn't justify resentencing, top state court says An Arkansas judge should not have granted a new sentencing hearing for a death-row inmate based on his lawyer's concession that his performance in the trial's last phase was "a train wreck," the Arkansas Supreme Court has ruled. The court said the judge considering the ineffective assistance claim by convicted murderer Brandon Lacy should have relied on an objective assessment of his lawyer's performance, rather than the lawyer's self-assessment, report the Times Record Online and the Associated Press. The court's Feb. 4 decision (PDF) remanded for a new hearing on ineffective assistance in the penalty phase of trial. Lacy's lead lawyer, Steve Harper, had said his closing argument at the end of the trial's sentencing phase was "one of the worst I've ever given." He explained his work in the sentencing phase way: "By the time that portion of the trial came around, I'd had to adopt a lot of the burdens of every portion of the trial and it was - it was a train wreck. By the time it came around I was physically, mentally, emotionally exhausted. I was beat dead, and I didn't give a good closing. ... Could have been a lot better." Lacy's family members had testified in the sentencing phase that he had a difficult and abusive childhood, and he was drinking heavily beginning at an early age. Harper's opening and closing arguments in this phase were "very brief," the supreme court said. Lacy had also contended his lawyers were deficient because they failed to present an affirmative defense of mental disease or defect during the guilt phase of the trial. The supreme court upheld the judge's determination that Lacy was not entitled to relief on that ground, citing findings by 3 psychologists that Lacy had no such impairment. (source: ABA Jounral) MISSOURI: Missouri Senate to debate death penalty repeal this week A Republican-sponsored proposal to repeal the death penalty is likely to come up for debate early this week in the state Senate. Director of the State Public Defender System Michael Barrett supports a repeal. He says the death penalty is not an effective deterrent to murders and says the money spent arguing resulting cases could be better spent on more effective public safety items. He says those cases are far more expensive than the typical ones his office deals with. "2 years ago we represented 74,000 individuals in this state - misdemeanors, felonies, sex offenses. You combine all the expenses, personnel, overhead costs, we resolved these matters for an average of $345 per case," said Barrett. "When you look at the death penalty costs, it's $166-thousand per case." Barrett argues that money could go to other public safety needs. "We are not eradicating the rape kit backlog. Look at the number of unsolved murders we have in the state and we don't have the resources to solve them. Look at the active warrants that are out there, where we don't have the resources to round up these guys," said Barrett. Senator Bob Onder (R-Lake Saint Louis) opposes a repeal, and tells Barrett he's not convinced 1 would make much difference in those needs. "You saying we get rid of the death penalty, we put 1 drop into the bucket," said Onder. Onder also disagreed with those that argue for a repeal in light of people sentenced to death and later set free. "I think those are the cases that are few and far between. Those are the rare cases that you suggest making bad policy in response to," said Onder. A repeal is supported by Democrats and some Republicans, but it considered unlikely to reach Governor Jay Nixon (D) in a Republican-controlled legislature, and Nixon supports the death penalty. Missouri has always had the death penalty except during a national moratorium in the 1970s. The state Corrections Department lists 28 men as being sentenced to death. (source: missourinet.com) ***************** Shame and joy behind 149 exonerations The National Registry of Exonerations reported last week that 2015 was a banner year for clearing prisoners wrongfully convicted of major crimes, including homicide and rape. Last year, 149 prisoners across the country were excused. Good news for them, but awful news for the integrity of the nation's criminal justice system. The fact that 149 people went through the dreadful ordeal of arrest, arraignment, prosecution and imprisonment - for crimes they did not commit - is shameful. The registry, produced by the University of Michigan Law School, underscores the need for significant criminal justice reforms to minimize the chances of wrongful prosecution in the future. Some might dismiss such goals as a liberal utopian ideal, but the fact is that criminal justice reform is being embraced nationwide by tea party conservatives. Why? Because few things exemplify the overreach of an all-too-powerful government than one that yanks away an individual's freedom without legal justification. The GOP-dominated Missouri Legislature needs to get in step. Conservatives in the heavily Republican Texas Legislature have embraced some of the most far-reaching criminal justice reforms in the country, according to the New York-based Innocence Project. And they did so even when Democrats were the authors and sponsors of reform bills. We're talking about such measures as easing prisoners' access to DNA evidence in the appeals process, ensuring poor defendants have access to high-quality public defenders and radically altering the weight given to eyewitness lineup identification. Texas also has dramatically increased the compensation to prisoners whose freedom was wrongfully taken away. 1 of the 2 Missouri cases listed in the National Registry in 2015 involved an eyewitness who identified the wrong person - Cornell McKay of St. Louis - in an armed robbery case. He had faced a sentence of 12 years in prison until St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce dismissed the charges in May because the actual perpetrator had admitted committing the crime, and investigators reportedly hid their suspicions that they had the wrong man. The other was a botched murder conviction that landed Russell Faria, of Troy, in prison for life. Exculpatory witness statements and evidence were hidden from Faria's attorneys before trial. In Texas, prosecutors who hide exculpatory evidence in order to win a conviction now can face disbarment and prosecution. Connecticut, likewise, has implemented impressive reforms that repealed the death penalty and modified sentencing guidelines so that nonviolent drug offenders no longer face mandatory prison time. There's always room for improvement. This state's record on racial disparities in the prison population, particularly in the over-representation of African Americans from low-income backgrounds, suggests more-than-ample room exists to level the playing field through reform. Let conservatives lead the way. (source: Editorial, St. Louis Post-Dispatch) CALIFORNIA: Pull the plug on death penalty in California It has been more than 10 years since an inmate on California's death row has been executed, and California citizens are split about what should be done about the state's death penalty law. According to a recent Field poll, 47 % of Californians favor replacing the death penalty with life without the possibility of parole. Support for getting rid of the death penalty increased by 7 % points since 2014. The poll also found, however, that 48 % of Californians support speeding up the execution process by limiting the number of inmates' appeals. This year, 2 initiatives dealing with those opposing perspectives on the death penalty may be on the ballot. The 1st, "The Justice That Works Act of 2016," would formally eliminate the death penalty in California and replace all death sentences with life without the possibility of parole. "The Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016" would limit the appeals inmates on death row may file, which would effectively speed up executions. Today, there are 746 inmates on California's death row, up from 646 in 2006. Although 117 death row inmates have died since 1976, only 13 were executed. The overwhelming majority died from natural causes, such as old age, or suicide. There are so many inmates on death row that California ran out of space to house them all. Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown requested over $3 million from the Legislature to build more death row cells. It's clear that the current system is unsustainable. But would limiting death penalty appeals actually speed up the execution process, or "fix" a system that is arguably broken on its face? There's little evidence to suggest it would. Indeed, in 2008, the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice issued a report that declared the death penalty in California "dysfunctional." The commission found it wasn't the lengthy appeals process slowing down the execution process, but, rather, the lack of available legal representation for inmates on death row - many of whom wait years for the state to appoint lawyers to their cases due to their indigent status. "To reduce the average lapse of time from sentence to execution by 1/2" the report said, "[California] will have to spend nearly twice what we are spending now." The death penalty is also expensive to maintain. According to that same 2008 report, California spends approximately $137 million per year just on the death penalty. If it were to expand the number of lawyers appointed to represent inmates to clear up the backlog, the state would have to spend another $95 million, or roughly $232 million per year. In 2006, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel stopped all executions in California, stating that the state's execution process was flawed. In 2014, a federal judge declared capital punishment in California unconstitutional, but that decision was reversed in 2015 by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It's up to voters to decide what should be done about the death penalty, but evidence has shown capital punishment in California is a bungled, expensive mess. Even if it is "fixed" in the ways one of the ballot initiatives proposes, it's going to cost California taxpayers twice as much as it does now, with no real guarantee that additional executions are carried out. Replacing this broken system with life without the possibility of parole would still ensure that the most heinous criminals die in prison, but would prevent taxpayers from spending billions on a system proven to be a complete failure. (source: Opinion; Lauren Krisai is director of criminal justice reform at Reason Foundation----Orange County Register) USA: Gary Lee Sampson Case Heading Back To Court Federal prosecutors and lawyers for a man sentenced to death in the 2001 carjack killings of 2 Massachusetts men will be in court this week to discuss his retrial. Gary Lee Sampson pleaded guilty and was given the federal death penalty in 2003 in the killings of 19-year-old Jonathan Rizzo, of Kingston, and 69-year-old Philip McCloskey, of Taunton. He also admitted killing a third man, Robert Whitney, in New Hampshire during the same weeklong crime rampage and received a separate life sentence. Sampson's death sentence was overturned in 2011 after a judge found that 1 of the jurors at his trial had lied. A new judge recently took over the case and scheduled the retrial to begin in September. A status conference is scheduled Tuesday in U.S. District Court. (source: Associated Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 8 09:20:13 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 8 Feb 2016 09:20:13 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 8 JAPAN: Death By Hanging: Criterion Collection (Blu-ray) List Price: $39.95 Review by Randy Miller III During his wildly unpredictable career, director Nagisa Oshima (1932-2013) refused to make the same movie twice. Frequently changing aspect ratios, filming techniques, subject matter, and even color palettes, Oshima's most recent film perpetually stood in stark contrast to what he'd just completed...or what was lurking right around the corner. His 12th feature-length production, 1968's Death by Hanging, was released right in the middle of the director's most prolific period: Oshima helmed more than a dozen productions between 1965 and 1972, each one more than a little different than the last. Though it wasn't his most controversial film, Death by Hanging definitely ruffled a few feathers upon its original release and still manages to challenge audiences almost 50 years later. The story sounds simple on paper...but whatever first-time viewers might expect out of Death by Hanging, they'll get something different. Our central figure is known as "R", and he's been sentenced to death for the rape and murder of 2 young women; his story is based on the fate of Korean-born Japanese man Ri Chin'u, who was imprisoned as a minor and executed in 1962 for similar crimes). In Oshima's alternate universe, "R" survives the hanging: he's got a pulse 21 minutes after the failed execution but no memory of his crime or identity, and the bureaucrats in charge have no idea how to proceed. Known only by their titles---"Education Officer", "Priest", "Doctor", "Warden", etc.---they reluctantly agree to recreate the crimes to jog his memory and justify a second execution. This isn't exactly where Death by Hanging takes a sharp left turn: if we're being honest, the entire film is a series of sharp left turns. Yet from here onward, it moves further and further into the realm of pitch-black farce, never to return. At once a scathing critique of the death penalty and an examination of the treatment of Korean-born Japanese citizens in the wake of World War II, Death by Hanging is an extremely tough film to process the first (or even second) time through. The film's wily, unpredictable nature runs the risk of alienating those who need to hear its message the most; as a result, only those sharp enough to connect all the dots might discover that Death by Hanging's finer points seem a little dulled by all the chaos. Luckily the terrific performances by almost everyone involved---none more than Do-yun Yu as "R", which was his only credited acting role---make the faces and characters almost impossible to forget, and the film's messy but efficient visuals complement many of its unspoken words and themes. As a whole, Oshima's film is a passionate and challenging production, which makes it easier to appreciate than enjoy. Criterion's new Blu-ray edition of Death by Hanging actually marks the film's Region 1 debut, and this is a fairly well-rounded release that does it justice. The film's recent restoration looks great in high definition, and a handful of brief but appropriate supplements (including a terrific interview with Japanese film critic and historian Tony Rayns, who also discusses other segments of Oshima's career as a whole) that add another level of texture and background information for those intrigued by its interesting, unpredictable structure. Death by Hanging isn't exactly "blind buy" material for those new to Oshima's unique brand of filmmaking, but seasoned fans should enjoy this one. (source: dvdtalk.com) ************* Words about sentences: the Japanese vocab of crime and punishment When reporting on Japanese trials, Western journalists occasionally describe a defendant as being sentenced to "life in prison." Technically, Japanese law does not have shushinkei, literally "punishment until the body is finished"). Instead, there is muki choeki, imprisonment with labor for an undefined term), the 2nd harshest punishment after shikei, the death penalty, also sometimes colloquially referred to as kyokkei, the "ultimate punishment". Indefinite imprisonment may sound much like a life sentence (or what happens at Gitmo), and officially, it is. Sort of. But there is an important difference: hope. Even murderers sentenced to indefinite terms can aspire to kari shakuho, parole, if they can be repentant model prisoners for 2 or 3 decades. There may be a trend toward kei no genbatsuka, harsher punishments, sometimes attributed to more severe sentences being meted out in trials before saiban'in, lay judge panels since that system started in 2009. Still, accounts by keimusho, prison insiders suggest kyosei shisetsu, correctional facilities full of criminals without hope would be much harder to manage. America could learn something here. Japanese keibatsu, punishment, sometimes also rendered keijibatsu has a very different history from in the West, with a prominent theme being leniency. Ancient Japan adopted imperial China's baroque, highly relational system of ritsu, rules of punishment, but toned down their severity, never adopting, for example, the infamous ryochikei, death by a thousand cuts. Astonishingly, in 818 Emperor Saga actually abolished the death penalty, a moratorium that lasted over 3 centuries, during which period politically important offenders, at least, were instead sentenced to ryukei, exile to remote islands like Sado or Oki. That ancient Japan went so long without a death penalty is a remarkable historical fact, one that seems inconsistent with the state's continued use of koshukei, death by hanging in the 21st century. Currently Japan's keiho, penal code provides for 6 types of punishment. First, the rarely imposed and more rarely carried-out death penalty. Then there is choeki, imprisonment with labor, usually imposed for a defined term of up to 20 years, though multiple offenses can lead to longer terms. Muki choeki, discussed earlier, is rare - only 23 such sentences were meted out in the 2014 government year. There is also kinko, sometimes imprisonment without labor. Choeki seems to be reserved for morally culpable or harenchizai, "infamous" crimes) like murder or theft, while kinko is more likely for negligent or political offenses. The difference may be largely theoretical, though, since most people sentenced to kinko reportedly volunteer for labor anyway. Labor as punishment reflects the Japanese emphasis on kyosei, corrections, kosei hogo, rehabilitation and protection - particularly of juvenile offenders and shakai fukki, returning to society. Part of the exercise is thus for jukeisha - inmates, or literally, "people receiving punishment" to acquire skills and discipline, the lack of which may have gotten them into prison in the first place. Choeki means many things are made at Japanese prisons: traditional and modern furniture, household items and car accessories, for example. Most sentences of imprisonment are for just a few years, and those of 3 years or less may be suspended. If the convict does not re-offend during the suspension period, the original sentence is vacated. Suspended sentences may also be combined with hogokansatsu, probation. Another form of punishment is koryu, short-term detention for a period of a month or less. Confusingly, it is a homophone for another koryu, which refers to pretrial detention, which is technically not a form of punishment. Punishments that don't take your freedom take your money or stuff. A supplementary sanction in some cases is bosshu, confiscation of assets or property related to the commission of the underlying crime. Bakkin) are penal fines of 10,000 yen or more, while karyo are for lesser amounts. Here another homophone rears its head: karyo refers to the myriad nonpenal fines imposed by laws outside the criminal sphere. To distinguish the 2, penal karyo are sometimes referred to as togaryo, while nonpenal fines are referred to as ayamachiryo. What's the difference? Nonpenal fines do not result in zenka, criminal records. Moreover, you don't have to work them off in prison as you would if sentenced to a penal fine while broke. Drivers may be hit with hansokukin, a special administrative fine imposed for minor traffic violations; special because if you don't pay, you can end up in criminal court. Finally, there are tsuichokin, financial penalties that are most common in the world of tax and imposed when you fail to pay a tax or other public duty. (source: Colin P.A. Jones is a professor at Doshisha Law School in Kyoto)----Japan Times) SRI LANKA: Prisoners On Death Row To Get Life Imprisonment Following a set of recommendations made by a committee appointed to look into the death sentence issued on several convicts, it has been decided to convert the death sentence imposed on 34 of those convicts into life imprisonment. President Maithripala Sirisena had taken the decision after considering the reports on the 34 convicts submitted by the committee which was appointed by the former President. The committee has also finalized reports on another 60 convicts on death row and these reports will also be handed over to the President for his consideration, a committee member told The Sunday Leader. Since the death sentence is not implemented in Sri Lanka an issue has arisen on the convicts who are on death row. Human rights groups have urged the Sri Lankan government not to implement the death sentence despite pressure from some groups and individuals following a spate of gruesome murders in the country. (source: The Sunday Leader) NIGERIA: NBA Ilorin Chairman suggests Death Penalty for corrupt public officers NANMansuma Issa, Chairman, Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Ilorin branch, has advocated capital punishment for corrupt public servants in the country. Issa, who made the suggestion in llorin, Kwara, on Sunday while speaking with newsmen, also said that the punishment should be extended to other African countries. He decried the level of corruption in Africa, especially in Nigeria, and said that capital punishment would stem graft and brazen looting of public funds. According to him, countries like Singapore, China, Taiwan, Vietnam and South Korea which adopted death penalty to curb corruption had succeeded in fight against corruption. The NBA chairman said that corruption had become endemic in Africa and had necessitated the association's support for the corruption war being fought by the President Muhammadu Buhari's administration. He lamented that funds which would have been spent on the health, education and agriculture as well as for the fight against terrorism were diverted to individual pockets. He called for the strengthening of the judiciary so that offenders could face trial in accordance with the law. Issa said that the Nigerian judiciary was still operating pre-independence pattern and in colonial courts where judges still wrote in long hands, describing the act as "very stressful and retrogressive". He appealed to the federal and state governments to provide the judiciary with verbatim recording machines to ease their assignments. He assured that judges in the country could still be trusted, especially in the fight against corruption. Issa, however, admitted that there might be few cases of corruption in the judiciary and urged the disciplinary committee of NBA not to take the issue of corruption in the judiciary lightly. He said that any judge found guilty should be dealt with accordingly. On Constitution amendment, he said that the 1979 Constitution was well crafted except for the variation in the laws of the principles of federalism and the control of resources. He called for the modification of those areas of the Constitution, noting that there was no "perfect constitution" anywhere in the world but a "workable constitution". Issa disclosed that the greatest challenge facing NBA in Kwara was allegations of diversion of clients' funds by some of its members. He warned that anyone found wanting in such allegation would be forwarded to the national disciplinary committee of the association for necessary action. He urged the government to improve the condition of the prisons, saying that it was also part of the challenges the association faced while fighting for the right of its clients. He described the condition of Nigerian prisons as embarrassing and dehumanising and said that inmates should not be treated as enemies of the people. (source: bellanakja.com) EGYPT: Egypt sentences more Muslim Brotherhood members to death A court in Egypt has handed more death penalties to supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood. The military court in Alexandria gave the death penalty to 8 people. The defendants were charged with organizing a terrorist group tasked with targeting the military. Egypt has cracked down on dissent since former president Morsi was ousted. (source: presstv.ir) SAUDI ARABIA: Anonymous Calls For Saudi Arabia Ban from 2016 Olympics Online activist collective Anonymous and @OperationNimr - a voice campaigning to nullify the death sentence handed to Saudi Arabian youth are both calling for the exclusion of Saudi Arabia from this year's Rio Olympics. With a nod to Saudi Arabia's controversial human rights record, Anonymous and @OperationNimr are calling on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to keep out Saudi Arabia from the summer Olympic games, @OperationNimr revealed to Hacked. Despite an outcry from activists and human rights groups, Saudi Arabia recently executed and crucified 47 people on January 2, 2016. A majority of those executed included prominent Arab Spring activists and pro-democracy supporters. Anonymous has previously endeavored to shed light on the death sentences handed out by the Saudi Arabian government toward its youth. Known for its hacktivism, Anonymous took down several government websites in early September 2016. The targeted hacking run brought focus to a 2012 death sentence handed to the then-17-year-old teenager, Mohammed al-Nimr. A Saudi court judgement noted that Nimr had "encouraged pro-democracy protests [using] a Blackberry." In response, websites such as Saudi Airlines, the Ministry and Justice and more were taken offline. "Hundreds of innocent people die each year because of the Saudi Government, and they (the Saudi Government) will now be punished for their actions," Anonymous said at the time. In a report by Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia is revealed as "one of the most prolific executioners in the world." Executions are known to be carried out for "crimes" such as witchcraft, sorcery and adultery. The latest call to ban Saudi Arabia is yet another attempt to bring the kingdom state's death penalty practices under the world's scanner. Between January 1986 and June 2015, at least 2,200 known people were executed in Saudi Arabia, 1/2 of whom were foreign nationals. Significantly, over 1/3 of these executions took place for offences that did not figure within the threshold of "most serious crimes." Under international law, "most serious crimes" is a category for which the death penalty can be imposed. (source: hacked.com) GAZA: Hamas armed wing executes member 'for spying for Israel' The armed wing of Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, said Sunday it had executed 1 of its members, with sources familiar with the case calling him a senior official accused of spying for Israel. "The Al-Qassam Brigades announce that the death penalty pronounced against its member Mahmud Eshtawi has been applied today at 1600 hours," Hamas's armed branch said in a statement. Executions have previously been carried out in the Gaza Strip, including in public squares in the Palestinian territory, but it appeared to be the first time Al-Qassam itself had sentenced one of its own through a court martial and executed him. The statement did not provide details on the accusations against him other than to say that "the Brigades' military and Islamic judicial committee issued the sentence because he violated rules and ethics." Eshtawi's duties included overseeing tunnels that have previously been used to store weapons and carry out attacks against Israel, the sources said. According to the sources, he was in charge of a large unit and was previously a close associate of Mohammed Deif, the Al-Qassam chief who has been a frequent target of Israeli assassination attempts. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said in late December that 9 death sentences had been issued in the Gaza Strip in 2015 and 2 in the occupied West Bank. Since the start of 2016, 4 Gazans have been handed death sentences after being accused of spying for Israel. The Gaza Strip has seen 3 wars with Israel since 2008. (source: Agence France-Presse) INDONESIA: Family of Murdered 7-Year-Old Boy Demands Death Penalty for Perpetrator The family of the 7-year-old boy who was allegedly kidnapped and murdered on Sunday (07/02) has demanded the death penalty for the perpetrator. Jamaludin - a 1st grade student at the SDN Beji 3 in Depok, West Java - was abducted by 35-year-old Januar Arifin, also known as Begeng, who was regularly seen in front of the boy's school. The 2 often used to hang out together and played video games at a rental store near the school. The boy was last seen alive at 12 p.m. on Saturday while leaving the school in Januar's company. Januar allegedly gave the boy Rp 2,000 (15 cents) to convince him to go with him to his home in the Lubang Buaya area of East Jakarta. The boy's parents reported that their son had been abducted after receiving a text message from the suspect. Police raided Januar's home in the early hours of Sunday. Jamaludin's body was found in the bathroom, with bruises and what appeared to be signs of strangulation on his neck. The Depok District Police said Januar had apparently planned the abduction 3 days in advance, while Tribunnews.com reported that the suspect allegedly sexually assaulted Jamaludin before killing him. "He must be sentenced to death. Don't let him live, because there will be more victims. Begeng is a psychopath. We don't want him to serve a light sentence," one of the deceased boy's relatives, Tuti Ningsih, said at the victim's home in Depok on Sunday. The Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) has meanwhile renewed a call for the chemical castration of sexual offenders. "We really appreciate what the police have done, but [other than] finding the motives behind [the abduction and] the murder, the government still has to create laws to legally punish child abusers," KPAI commissioner Erlinda said in Depok on Sunday. Januar is currently being detained at the Beji Subdistrict Police Station for further questioning. An autopsy has already been completed on Jamaludin's body and the result was handed to the police, who will now complete their investigation. However, the KPAI has demand that the perpetrator should also be examined by a psychiatrist. Jamaludin's parents buried their son in their hometown in Garut, West Java, on Monday. (source: Jakarta Globe) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Feb 9 09:02:06 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2016 09:02:06 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, DEL., N.C., FLA., ALA. Message-ID: Feb. 9 TEXAS: State Bar board affirms disbarment of prosecutor who sent innocent man to death row The disciplinary board of the Texas State Bar on Monday affirmed the agency's decision to disbar Charles Sebesta, the former prosecutor who oversaw the wrongful death sentence of Anthony Graves. Graves, who spent 18 years in prison, including 12 on death row, for a fiery multiple murder he did not commit, filed a complaint against Sebesta in January 2014. He asked the Bar to hold Sebesta accountable for withholding critical evidence of his innocence. "The bar stepped in to say that's not the way our criminal justice system should work," Graves said. "This is a good day for justice." In June, the Texas State Bar revoked the former Burleson County district attorney's law license finding that he had engaged in prosecutorial misconduct in Graves' case. Sebesta appealed that ruling, and last month his lawyers told the State Bar of Texas Board of Disciplinary Appeals that he should not be disbarred based on technicalities in the rules that govern lawyer discipline. They argued that in 2007 the Bar had already ruled that there was no cause to disbar Sebesta and that the agency couldn't change its mind in response to a new complaint Graves filed. But a lawyer for the commission for lawyer discipline at the State Bar argued, among other things, that lawmakers in 2013 had changed the statute of limitations governing prosecutor discipline specifically to allow the kind of sanction Sebesta faced. Under the new law, those who have been wrongly convicted have up to four years after their release to seek discipline against prosecutors who engage in conduct such as withholding evidence and eliciting false testimony. Graves was sentenced to death in 1994 and close to execution twice. The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Graves' conviction in 2010. The court found that Sebesta secured Graves' conviction through several instances of prosecutorial wrongdoing, including withholding key evidence and suborning false testimony. In their ruling on the Sebesta's disbarment Monday, the disciplinary board called his conduct in the Graves case "egregious." The board's decision on Sebesta's appeal is final. (source: Dallas Morning News) DELAWARE: Moral Monday rallies target Delaware's death penalty About 20 people stood outside Dover's Legislative Hall on Monday morning, chanting and holding signs that called for an end to the state's death penalty. Organizers promised to hold more of the rallies, called Moral Monday protests, to try and pressure lawmakers into ending the punishment. "Lawmakers cannot just reject our desire to repeal the death penalty at the outset of the legislative session and expect us to simply go away," said the Rev. Donald Morton, executive director of the Complexities of Color coalition. "We intend to be here every week making a lot of noise with old fashioned protests, speeches and rallies to remind the politicians that they can't keep ignoring these festering issues of basic human rights." A bill to abolish the state's death penalty failed in the state House of Representatives last month, 23-16. Organizers said they plan to push lawmakers to listen to their constituents. "This is a growing coalition. More folks are going to come," said Jeremy Collins, a member of Delaware Repeal Project. "There are going to be demonstrations all across the state, but we're going to occupy this space until the Delaware Legislature makes up their mind that they are going to do the right thing." Kristin Froehlich, board president of the Delaware Citizens Opposed to the Death Penalty, said people should know that the death penalty does not bring the closure that lawmakers think. Because most death penalty cases linger in the court system for more than a decade, Froehlich said families of victims are often re-traumatized when the matter comes up for appeals. Ending the death penalty brings legal finality and allows survivors to move forward, said Froehlich, whose brother was murdered in Connecticut in 1995. "My Christian values support life," she said. "They don't support murder. They don't support killing." While state lawmakers are not in session on Mondays, Morton explained that Moral Monday is a movement started in 2013 by the Rev. William Barber II, pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and president of the North Carolina NAACP. The rallies, started in response to several actions by North Carolina's government, have been characterized by civil disobedience. "We wanted to make sure that there is a consistent proverbial badgering of individuals who have consistently voted 'No' against repeal," Morton said. "And to let them know that not only is it us symbolically gathering like this, but it is also to let them know that for those that occupy those seats that have voted 'No' continually that we want to make sure that we want candidates that vote 'Yes.'" (source: The News Journal) NORTH CAROLINA: Prosecutors to seek death penalty against Griffin Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty against an Asheville man charged with murder in the deaths of 3 people, including 2 women whose disappearance sparked a week-long search of the French Broad River. The office of Buncombe County District Attorney Todd Williams on Wednesday filed a request for a Rule 24 hearing in the case of Pierre Lamont Griffin II, 23. The hearing is typically a formality, required when state prosecutors want to notify the court that they intend to seek capital punishment. It is the 2nd time Williams has requested such a hearing since he assumed the office 13 months ago. The hearing request comes days after a Buncombe County grand jury indicted Griffin on 3 counts of 1st-degree murder stemming from a series of Oct. 27 shootings. Officers allege that Griffin killed Tatianna Diz, 20, and Alexandra King, 22, before dumping their bodies in the French Broad. Their remains were found near a train trestle on Emma Road in the River Arts District more than a week later. Shortly after those shootings, according to officials, Griffin went to the Pisgah View Apartments home of Uhon Trumanne Johnson, 31, fatally shooting him before leading police on a high-speed chase across three counties. In addition to other charges related to the deaths and the chase, Griffin was also indicted in connection with the theft of three motorcycles in July 2015 from a Candler man. That man, Kenneth Cryderman, on Monday said Griffin was a sophomore at Reynolds High School when he became friends with Crydermans' oldest son, also in high school at the time. Griffin, well-liked and bright, soon became a fixture in the family, including accompanying them on a trip to Myrtle Beach. "Pierre was a very, very smart kid, a beautiful kid," Cryderman said. The charges were a shock, he said. Griffin, he said, had asked to borrow a truck to move furniture while the family was on vacation. When Cryderman returned and realized the small, 2-stroke engine dirt bikes were missing, he confronted Griffin. One had been taken to a pawn shop, where Buncombe County sheriff's deputies recovered it; two others had been ridden "full out, until the tops blew out of them," according to Cryderman, a general contractor. "At that point, I cut him out of our lives," he said. In the previous several months, Griffin had sporadically worked for Cryderman's company doing odd jobs, but seemed like he was deteriorating. "He would do anything from digging holes to building houses and he would do anything you asked him to do," Cryderman said. "But he was very erratic." Cyderman said he feared Griffin was suffering from drug abuse. "He was struggling to just to get through the day." (source: Asheville Citizen-Times) FLORIDA: A bill requiring a jury to have a unanimous verdict for recommending the death penalty is moving through the Florida Senate The legislation (SB 7068) passed the Criminal Justice Committee on Monday. Last week, the House passed a measure that requires only nine of 12 jurors to recommend capital punishment. Both chambers would prohibit a judge imposing the death penalty if the jury recommends life in prison without parole. A judge though could decide on life in prison, even if the jury recommends death. Both chambers are tasked with revising Florida's sentencing process after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the current method unconstitutional last month because it allowed a judge to decide independently whether there were necessary aggravating circumstances. Sen. Greg Evers says he believes there are enough votes in the Senate for the bill to pass. (source: Associated Press) ************* Bill requiring unanimous verdict for death penalty advances Legislation requiring a unanimous verdict from the jury to recommend the death penalty will head to the state Senate floor after passing a committee vote Monday. The Senate's Criminal Justice Committee passed its version of a bill (SB 7068) that would revise Florida's sentencing process for the death penalty. The Legislature is tasked with rewriting how to sentence someone to death after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the current method unconstitutional. In an 8-1 ruling last month in Hurst vs. Florida, the court said the sixth amendment was violated because state law allowed a judge to decide independently whether necessary aggravating circumstances exist. The Senate and House bills are mostly similar except for one key matter: what it takes for the jury to agree to the death penalty. The Senate bill (SB 7068) requires a unanimous decision of all 12 jurors, but the House measure (PCB CRJS 16-07) requires only 9. Current Florida law requires a simple majority of 7. "We're going to move our bill forward, because we believe that is what the Supreme Court says and that we are not an outlier with the other states," said Sen. Greg Evers, who is committee chairman. According to data compiled by the Florida Supreme Court's Clerk's office, only 69 of 330 death penalty cases - 21 % - in the past 15 years had unanimous jury verdicts. The Senate committee said in its analysis of the bill that a decline in death penalty sentences was likely, but the level is undetermined based on the data because only a simple majority was needed in previous cases. Both chambers are similar on other key points, including notifying defendants in sufficient time that prosecutors will seek the death penalty at the arraignment (45 days for Senate, 30 days for House), a jury having to unanimously agree on all aggravating factors and a judge not being able to override the jury's recommendation of life without parole by imposing the death penalty. Florida was the only state remaining that called for a simple majority to find the presence of a sufficient number of aggravating factors. Now, if it isn't unanimous, life without parole can be the only sentence. Public defenders support the Senate version while state attorneys are opposed because of unanimity. The prosecutors do agree with the House version. Mark Schlakman, the senior program director of Florida State University's Center for the Advancement of Human Rights, said he believes the Senate bill is stronger because it responds to the Hurst vs. Florida ruling in a stronger way. "If the Legislature in an effort to reconcile goes on the lowest common denominator (9-3 or 10-2, like Alabama) that doesn't insulate Florida from constitutional scrutiny," he said. Evers said there is the possibility of some negotiations with the House but he believes that the Senate's bill has enough votes to pass. Rep. Carlos Trujillo, who oversaw the House bill that passed committee last week, said the process is far from finished. The Legislature must agree by the end of session March 11. Florida has 389 inmates on death row, 157 of which have been there for more than 20 years. Florida is second to California in inmates sentenced to death. (source: Associated Press) ********************** Hillsborough prosecutors continue to seek death penalty amid statewide confusion In the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down Florida's death penalty sentencing statute, Hillsborough County prosecutors are proceeding as if nothing has changed. On Monday, prosecutors announced their intention to seek the death penalty against a 30-year-old woman accused of murdering her parents-in-law in their Riverview home last November. Marisol Best, who has pleaded not guilty to two counts of 1st-degree murder, is the latest to join the list of defendants who could face the death penalty in Hillsborough. Currently, there are at least 17 such cases, the oldest of which has been awaiting trial for more than 5 years. Prosecutors did not elaborate on their decision, but since the Supreme Court's ruling last month in a case called Hurst vs. Florida, prosecutors statewide have argued forcefully that the court's decision requires minor adjustments to state law and should not prevent death penalty cases from going forward. This line of reasoning is only beginning to be tested in the courts. A Pinellas County circuit judge recently ruled the state can't seek the death penalty in a 1st-degree murder case that was scheduled for trial this month. "This court concludes that there currently exists no death penalty in the State of Florida in that there is no procedure in place," wrote judge Michael Andrews. In the Hurst decision, the Supreme Court said Florida's unusual sentencing procedure is unconstitutional because it does not give enough authority to jurors, who play an advisory role in recommending life or death. Judges must consider the jury's vote, but they can act independently, sentencing defendants to life or death regardless of the jury's opinion. Since the Hurst decision came out, Hillsborough prosecutors have filed notices to seek the death penalty 3 times. Other than Best, the state's recent targets include a 46-year-old man accused of sexually assaulting a homeless woman and killing her and her male companion, as well as a 21-year-old man who authorities say beat an elderly woman to death during a robbery. He made off with $30. Hillsborough public defenders are pushing back, using the court's decision as a cudgel against what they see as an alarmingly high number of capital cases. Last month, they filed a motion asking a judge to bar prosecutors from seeking the death penalty against Carlos Ruben Rivas, 52, who has been charged with killing a homeless man in Tampa in 2012. "The Supreme Court's ruling in Hurst basically eliminated the State's authority to impose death as a sentencing option," wrote Hillsborough Assistant Public Defender Theda James. Prosecutors responded by arguing that the court's decision didn't invalidate the death penalty, but merely a facet of the state's sentencing scheme. With Rivas' trial scheduled for April, lawmakers would have plenty of time to amend the statute, they said. Simply filing a notice to seek the death penalty does not mean prosecutors ultimately will. Last week, without explanation, Hillsborough prosecutors withdrew the threat of the death penalty from the case of Rubin Jay Brooks, a man accused of a double homicide in Plant City. They did the same in 2014 to Julie Schenecker, who was convicted of fatally shooting her two teenage children. Shortly before her high-profile trial, prosecutors decided her mental health issues were so severe that the state Supreme Court would likely reject a future death sentence. But as defense attorneys are quick to note, prosecutors' decision to seek the death penalty colors everything about a case, from how slowly it moves through the court system, to the experience required of the attorneys who work on it, to the final bill shouldered by taxpayers. "If I've got over a dozen of these cases pending and I've got 4 or 5 lawyers that are death-qualified, it could reasonably take us 5 or 6 years to try those cases," Hillsborough Public Defender Julianne Holt said in an interview last month. "I would venture to say that everyone is feeling the pressure of the number of cases we have," she said. (source: Tampa Bay Times) **************** Florida's death penalty is shameful Judge, jury and executioner: Although this idiom is meant to refer to someone having ultimate power and authority over one's fate, the legal system of the U.S. is designed in such a way that these 3 functions are meant to remain relatively distinct and act with a measure of independence from one another. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court found 2 of these roles to be a little too close for its liking in the case of Hurst v. Florida. In an 8-1 ruling, the court found that Florida's methodology for imposing the death penalty was unconstitutional, violating the Sixth Amendment's stipulation that a defendant have the right to an impartial jury. The ruling was predicated on the premise that far too much power is allotted to Floridian judges when considering aggravating or mitigating circumstances (factors that, respectively, increase or decrease the severity of a sentence) that would qualify a defendant for the death penalty. In the eyes of the court, the Sixth Amendment requires "Florida to base Timothy Hurst's death sentence on a jury's verdict, not a judge's factfinding," according to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who delivered the majority opinion. The opinion continues: "Florida's sentencing scheme, which required the judge alone to find the existence of an aggravating circumstance, is therefore unconstitutional." The case was reversed and remanded, meaning that it was now the Florida Supreme Court's responsibility to adjust Floridian law in accordance with the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling. Although the decision was issued Jan. 12, it would not be until last Tuesday, Feb. 2, that the ruling in Hurst v. Florida would have a discernible impact on our states legal proceedings. As reported in these very pages, the Florida Supreme Court delayed the execution of Cary Michael Lambrix. Lambrix, who was convicted of the murders of Clarence Moore and Aleisha Bryant in 1983, had been scheduled to die by lethal injection this Thursday. After hearing arguments for and against applying the Hurst ruling retroactively - which would most likely result in Lambrix and others on Florida's death row having their sentences reduced to life in prison, rather than execution - it is now up to the justices on Florida's highest court to decide whether to go ahead with the execution of Lambrix and the 388 others languishing on death row. Concurrently, members of the Florida House of Representatives are working to draft a bill that would bring our state's death penalty statute in line with those of other states and the U.S. Supreme Court's interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. It should surprise few that we strongly believe this should never have been an issue to begin with. The death penalty is a barbaric punishment fit only for barbaric societies: It is morally presumptuous, a drain on our tax dollars, a prominent blemish on our democracy and, here in the U.S., tinged with a considerable degree of racism and classism. For a country that so emphatically prides itself on being a pluralistic, self-determining society, the U.S. seems all too comfortable in the same company as China, Iran and North Korea when it comes to murdering its own citizens. Whether Lambrix and others are granted a permanent reprieve, we have no doubts that the Florida Legislature will find a way to ensure future sentences legally satiate their bloodlust. (source: The Independent Florida Alligator) ***************** Denise Amber Lee's murderer files appeal of death sentence The man convicted of abducting and killing a 21-year-old mother and wife is appealing his death sentence as part of the ripple-effect felt by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling Florida's sentencing is unconstitutional. Denise Amber Lee was taken from her family's North Port home in 2008. Investigators said she did everything she could think of to save her life fighting her attacker to the very end. The void in her husband, Nathan Lee's heart is too deep to ever be filled. It has been that way for 8 long years. "It is hard every day. Waking up, Denise isn't there," he said. "The boys wake up and they don't have their mom." A jury found Michael King guilty of her murder and sentenced him to death. Now, cases like King's are being reviewed because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Florida's death penalty sentencing process is unconstitutional. It said the method gives too much power to judges who are not bound by the jury's vote. "Initially, I wasn't concerned because it was such a clear-cut case with a unanimous jury verdict. It seemed the trial was run so well," said Nathan. During a scheduled hearing on another issue, King's lawyer appealed the death sentence, saying it should be changed to life without parole. The court did not rule on that, leaving Lee's family at a standstill. "I don't think he deserves all these rights, but that's not the way the system works. I think about what Denise went through and what he did to her. It's really tough, but I understand there is a system in place. We have to respect that and hope it works," said Nathan. (source: Fox News) ******************* Woman accused of drowning ex-partner's daughter appears in court A trial is now likely early next year for a woman charged with killing the daughter of her ex-girlfriend. Kimberly Lucas appeared in court Monday. She's charged with drowning 2-year-old Elliana Jamason and trying to kill the girl's 10-year-old brother. This happened in Jupiter nearly 2 years ago. The woman's attorneys are fighting attempts by prosecutors to seek the death penalty in the case. There'a hearing on that matter set in March. (source: CBS news) ****************** UWF to host lecture with lead prosecutor of Ted Bundy case The University of West Florida will host George R. Dekle Sr. on Feb. 10, 2016, at 6 p.m. as he discusses the investigation, prosecution and execution of Ted Bundy. The lecture will take place in the Music Hall of the Center for Fine and Performing Arts, Building 82, on the UWF Pensacola Campus. Dekle, a professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, served as the lead prosecutor in the late 1979 case, where Bundy stood trial for the kidnapping and murder of an 8th grade student. Bundy was captured in Pensacola on Feb. 15, 1978 - 5 days after being added to the FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list. He was convicted in February 1980 and received his 3rd death penalty sentence. Dekle also was integrally involved in the post-conviction defense of the judgment and death warrant and served as an official witness to Bundy's execution at Florida State Prison on Jan. 24, 1989. Currently, Dekle serves as the director of the Criminal Prosecution Clinic at the University of Florida's Levin College of Law. Additionally, he is the assistant director of the Criminal Justice Center and a master lecturer for the College of Law, where he teaches prosecutorial ethics, Florida criminal procedure, and criminal clinic - prosecution. A member of the Florida Bar for 43 years, Dekle has authored a number of books and professional publications including, "The Last Murder: The Investigation, Prosecution, and Execution of Ted Bundy." Before joining the faculty at the Levin College of Law, Dekle was 1 of Florida's most distinguished prosecutors from 1975-2005, with a 2-year stint as an assistant public defender prior to that. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the UWF Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at justice at uwf.edu. (source: Univ. West Florida news) ALABAMA: Executions hardly an exact science Federal defenders in Alabama wanted one attorney to be allowed to observe the placement of intravenous lines used to administer a lethal injection that killed their client, Christopher Brooks, on Jan. 21 at Holman Prison in Atmore. They also requested access to a cellphone or landline during the execution in case something went wrong and they had to quickly call the judge because of a botch. Phone access was a concern to them because Alabama used the drug "midazolam," which was also used in the ghoulish execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma in 2014, during which Lockett "writhed, groaned and convulsed" for 43 minutes before eventually dying of a heart attack in the execution chamber. Midazolam has also been used in 2 other cases that went awry. Brooks' lawyers argued that, without access to a phone, their client would be "without meaningful access to the courts during his execution, as his only witnesses ... will be unable to contact the courts and seek intervention if something arises during his execution that warrants seeking a stay or other appropriate relief." They pointed out that in the 2000 execution of Robert Glenn Coe by lethal injection in Tennessee, a federal district judge, Aleta Trauger, ordered just what they were requesting. Trauger based her order on Coe's First and Fourteenth Amendment rights to meaningful access to the courts and his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. Instead of extending to Brooks' lawyers the same kind of phone access, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Govan Jr., on behalf of the Alabama Attorney General's Office, said no. Specifically, Govan wrote to Brooks' attorneys: "These requests are overbroad, unprecedented and are not relevant to any claim in any current litigation. Moreover, these requests appear to be premised on speculative concerns based on executions from other states involving different execution protocols. Finally, your requests could disrupt and interfere with the Department's ability to perform their duties and responsibilities in carrying out Brooks' execution." Let's break that down. Overbroad? No, the 2 requests were specific. Brooks' attorneys wanted to be able to see the executioner stick the IV in their client, and they wanted access to a phone in case something went wrong and they needed to get the judge involved quickly. Unprecedented? As it concerns the phone request, no. The Coe case in Tennessee is one example of an attorney being allowed access to a phone during an execution - the gruesome execution of Joseph Wood in Arizona is another. Relevant? It is hard to see why the request for a phone to call the judge in case of a botch would be irrelevant. Speculative concerns? Midazolam was used in both Joseph Wood's execution in Arizona and Clayton Lockett's in Oklahoma, and it was used in Brooks' execution, too. What is there about Joseph Wood's 660 gasps, or Lockett's 43-minute execution as he "writhed, groaned and convulsed" on the gurney that is speculative? Disrupt and interfere with the carrying out of the execution? Isn't it difficult to imagine a federal public defender (and officer of the court) who is observing a needle being inserted and happens to have a phone handy in case it goes bad being "disruptive" and "interfering" with the execution? Who does the Alabama Attorney General's Office think they are kidding? Nevertheless, Chief Judge Keith Watkins of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama denied both requests by Brooks' lawyers. Press reports noted that the execution went as "smoothly" as killing a reasonably healthy 43-year-old man can go. In any event, it appears there was no visible evidence Brooks suffered bodily distress as the lethal drugs were administered. This prompted Alabama Prison Commissioner Jeff Dunn to say that the execution with the controversial sedative drug midazolam went ":exactly as planned." Perhaps. Or, perhaps Alabama just got lucky this time? Hard to say, isn't it? As executions around the country demonstrate, killing another human being, even when done by the state, is hardly an exact science. But, in hindsight, in case it hadn't worked "smoothly" - like in the McGuire, Lockett, and Wood cases - wouldn't it have been prudent, and fairer, to allow 1 defense attorney to bring in a cellphone? You know ... just in case? 181 men and 5 women remain on Alabama's death row. If their executions go forward, shouldn't they be fair in every respect? And if a death row inmate in Alabama can't get the same basic rights as a death row inmate in Tennessee, shouldn't we abandon this dastardly practice, the death penalty, altogether? (source: Column; Stephen Cooper is a former D.C. public defender and worked, for 3 years, as an assistant federal public defender in the Middle District of Alabama - employed by the same office that represented Christopher Brooks-----Montgomery Advertiser) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Feb 9 09:03:27 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2016 09:03:27 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TENN., MO., COLO., CALIF., US MIL. Message-ID: Feb. 9 TENNESSEE: State will seek death penalty in Memphis police officer';s death Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty in the case of the man accused of killing Memphis police officer Sean Bolton last year. Tremaine Wilbourn was arraigned in Criminal Court Monday, and the state filed notice that it intends to seek the death penalty, according to documents in the case. The state listed 3 aggravating factors in the decision: the victim was an on-duty police officer; Wilbourn has a felony conviction for a prior crime of violence, in this case a federal bank robbery in 2005; and the killing was committed to avoid arrest. The tragedy began Aug. 1 in the Parkway Village area when Bolton, who would have turned 34 the week after the shooting, pulled in front of a red 2002 Mercedes-Benz that was stopped on the side of the street. Bolton got out of his cruiser and approached the car, police said, but the passenger got out and a struggle ensued. Police say that Wilbourn pulled out a gun and fired at Bolton at close range. An autopsy report showed that Bolton was hit 8 times. Police later found drug paraphernalia as well as 1.7 grams of marijuana in the Mercedes. A man who lives in the neighborhood picked up Bolton's police radio and called dispatchers for help. Bolton was rushed to the Regional Medical Center in critical condition, where the autopsy report shows doctors spent an hour trying to revive him, but could not. After a massive manhunt, Wilbourn surrendered 2 days after the killing. Officials have charged Wilbourn, 30, with 1st-degree murder in Bolton's death. Although Wilbourn was officially being held on a $10 million bond, a judge revoked that potential bond Monday in light of the death-penalty filing. Wilbourn is due back in court March 7. (source: The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal) ***************** Death penalty to be considered in Kirsten Williams murder case It could be years down the road, but Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich says she is prepared to consider the death penalty in the murder of 7-year-old Kirsten Williams. 4 men have been charged with 1st degree murder in the April shooting, which resulted in the death of the young girl as she played down the street from her home. The preliminary hearing in this case will take place on June 23, but legal maneuverings have already begun on both sides. Weirich explained the upcoming process to FOX13. "If those charges are murder 1st degree, then the conversation begins with the D.A.'s Office about the death penalty and that's a decision that I make in meeting with the prosecutors assigned to the case," Weirich said. FOX13 did some digging regarding both the statistics and recent histories concerning death penalty cases in Memphis and Shelby County. Our research revealed 3 convicted murderers have been sent to death row since 2010. We looked specifically at Jessie Dotson, the infamous Lester Street killer of six, and Sedrick Clayton, who was convicted in 2014 for 3 murders. Well before their respective trials, both underwent a mental evaluation. It is a process that's apparently being conducted with some, but not all, of the co-defendants in the Williams murder. "The mental exams were on the co-defendants, not on Mr. Stokes," Carlos Stokes' Attorney, Marty McAffee, said. "I didn't see any problem at this point. No need to have an evaluation of Mr. Stokes at this point." When the time comes, the District Attorney's office will have to make the call of whether or not they want to pursue the death penalty. For those having to make the decision, it is not a choice that is made lightly. "It is a difficult decision to make and it's completely guided by the law of the State of Tennessee," Weirich said. "Not everyone in a 1st degree murder case is eligible for the death penalty." (source: Fox News) MISSOURI: Missouri Senate debates repealing death penalty The Republican-led Missouri Senate for the 1st time in years debated a bill to repeal the state's death penalty, though the measure is unlikely to advance. A bipartisan group of lawmakers to implored their colleagues Monday to end capital punishment. Missouri has executed 18 killers in the last 2 years. Republican Sen. Paul Wieland of Imperial, who is Catholic, introduced the measure. He opposes both abortion and the death penalty. Others who testified in support cited people on death row who were later exonerated. Some argued black defendants are disproportionately sentenced to death. Sen. Kurt Schaefer, a Columbia Republican running for attorney general, opposed it. He says killers sentenced to death commit the most egregious crimes. Wieland says he doesn't think the bill has enough support to pass the Senate and doesn't plan to bring it up again. (source: Associated Press) COLORADO: Colorado bill would allow death sentence without unanimous vote----Lawmakers are considering legislation that would make Colorado 1 of just 3 states that do not require unanimous verdicts 5 months after 2 of Colorado's most notorious mass murderers received life sentences, lawmakers are considering legislation that would toss the requirement that death sentences be unanimous. The bill would allow a death sentence if at least nine of the 12 jurors vote for it. Removing the requirement would put Colorado in the minority of states - there are only 3 - that allow for non-unanimous verdicts in capital cases. A unanimous vote would still be required to convict someone of a crime. Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, said he is sponsoring the bill because he "wants to save lives" and have a penalty "that will cause the bad guy to think twice before they pull the trigger." "Colorado has a death penalty sentence on the books. But in reality, I think we have set the bar so high through the process that it's impossible to actually garner a conviction in cases where it is so obviously deserving of the death penalty." But critics peg the legislation - which could still be amended - as an effort to make it easier to obtain a death sentence. "We require the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt all criminal charges to a unanimous jury," said Colorado public defender Doug Wilson. "So (under the proposed bill) someone charged with shoplifting would get a unanimous jury, and yet when we decide we want to execute one of our citizens, we would leave it to a jury of less than 12." Rarely used in Colorado, the death penalty was center stage last summer as prosecutors sought the punishment for two men convicted of 2 devastating crimes. The trials of James Holmes and Dexter Lewis stretched on for weeks and months but ultimately ended in life sentences for each. Holmes, who was convicted of killing 12 people and wounding 70 inside an Aurora movie theater in July 2012, was sentenced to life during the final phase of sentencing, in which 3 jurors did not vote for a death sentence. Shortly after, during the 2nd phase of Lewis' death penalty hearing, at least one member of a Denver jury found that the details of his life suggested mercy outweighed the details of the crime that suggested death. Lewis, who was convicted of stabbing 5 people to death in a bar in 2012, also was sentenced to life in prison. Currently in Colorado, juries must have unanimous verdicts in each of the 3 phases of a death penalty sentencing hearing. Under the measure, a minimum of 9 jurors would be required to move through the first 2 phases and to hand down a death sentence. Death penalty laws in Alabama, Delaware and Florida allow jurors to hand down or recommend a death sentence without unanimity. In January, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down part of Florida's sentencing process that required judges - not juries - to make critical findings and gave judges the ability to disregard a jury's recommendation. The high court has not directly addressed unanimity requirements in death penalty cases, but Florida lawmakers are considering legislation that would make unanimous verdicts mandatory. "I'm not gauging my decision on what other states have said. I'm gauging my decision on what I have observed in Colorado," Lundberg said, referring to the Holmes case. "That proves that our system is inadequate." Wilson said the legislation would violate defendants' rights and encourage prosecutors to file more death penalty cases. But Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler, who prosecuted Holmes, said the proposed change would not increase filings. It would foster a much-needed conversation about the death penalty, he said. "What I would be in favor of is having a conversation about the status of the death penalty in the state of Colorado," Brauchler said. Denver District Attorney Mitchell Morrissey, however, cautioned that, as it's currently written, the legislation could cause the state to repeat a previous mistake. In 1995, Colorado briefly switched to a controversial law that allowed a three-judge panel, instead of a unanimous jury, to sentence a defendant to death. After that system was found to be unconstitutional and the state returned to unanimous juries in 2003, a handful of cases that ended in death sentences churned in litigation for years. Morrissey saw the pressure and stress those cases placed on victims and warns against passing a law that could cause the same result. "Why wade into this area when you have a statute that works, that's been upheld?" Morrissey said. The bill is scheduled to go before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. ****************** Lawmakers debate 2 ways to make death easier in Colorado Whether the Grim Reaper will register as a lobbyist remains to be seen, but Death's agenda is up for debate in 2 forms at the Capitol this week. One proposed law on tap for legislators would make it easier for juries to sentence someone to death. Currently it takes a unanimous vote of all 12 jurors, but Republican Sen. Kevin Lundberg of Berthoud wants to get that number down a little lower. Like, maybe 9. Or 10. Or maybe 11 jurors. But not all 12. That just makes executing someone in Colorado too hard, he says. He doesn't like the idea that 1 lone holdout could spoil a death sentence. "If the policy is that the death penalty is appropriate for the worst of crimes, then a jury should not be composed of people who disagree with that basic point," Lundberg told The Colorado Independent about his bill. Critics of the measure say it might not pass constitutional muster, and the bar shouldn't be lowered for easing executions. The senator will make the case for his legislation at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to the Senate calendar. (source for both: The Colorado Independent) CALIFORNIA----new death sentence Killer of 3 Pinoys in LA gets death penalty The convicted killer of 4 people including 3 Filipinos in a boarding home in Northridge, Los Angeles, in 2012 was sentenced to death on Friday, a report on the Daily News said. Ka Pasasouk, 34, was convicted in November for killing Teofilo Navales, Robert Calabia, Amanda Ghossein and Jennifer Kim on December 2, 2012. A separate report on Northridge-Chatsworth Patch, citing Deputy District Attorney Dan Akemon, said the killings amounted to "a robbery gone wrong." The victims were all shot to death. The Daily News report said Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler ordered that Pasasouk be "put to death within the walls of San Quentin State Prison." Pasasouk, who the defense said was a victim of abuse as a child growing up in a refugee camp in Thailand, showed no visible reaction during the hearing, the report said. The defense had requested mercy for Pasasouk, who they said has an intelligence level that is "near retardation." (source: gmanetwork.com) ************** Is it time to put an end to the death penalty in California? Question of the Week Voters in California are more evenly split today on whether the state should eliminate the death penalty than they have been in recent memory. 2 years ago, about 40 % of California voters said they favored replacing capital punishment with life in prison without possibility of parole. A new Field poll found that 47 % of voters today support eliminating the death penalty, though another 48 % say they would prefer to see the state move more swiftly on executions. Where do you stand? Tell us by answering our Question of the Week: Is it time for California to put an end to the death penalty? This likely won't be the last time readers will be confronted with this question. 2 measures seek a spot on the November ballot: One would abolish the death penalty in California (an effort to repeal failed in 2012), the other would hasten executions. Meanwhile, the California Department of Corrections is moving ahead with proposed reforms to its execution procedures. It's been 10 years since a federal judge halted executions in California and ordered the state to improve its procedures, which called for injecting condemned prisoners with a lethal combination of drugs. A 2011 attempt to update the 3-drug protocol failed; now corrections officials are proposing a single-drug procedure that is still under public review. What do you think? Are you one of those California voters whose thoughts on capital punishment has shifted? What made you change your mind? Are you concerned about the cost of housing death-row inmates for decades while they appeal their convictions? Do you object to the death penalty on moral grounds? If you are a voter who changed your mind, what argument persuaded you most? Or do you favor speeding up executions in California? Do cost concerns or moral issues factor into your position? How so? Email your thoughts to opinion at langnews.com. Please include your full name and city or community of residence. Provide a daytime phone number. Or, if you prefer, share your views in the comments section that accompanies this article online. (source: Editorial, Los Angeles Daily News) ***************** 4th man charged in fatal Downey home invasion robbery A 4th person was charged last week with killing a Downey real estate agent in a home invasion robbery in January, authorities said. Michael Harrod, a 24-year-old from Anaheim, pleaded not guilty Feb. 2 to murder, home invasion robbery and 1st-degree burglary with the person present, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. Harrod is a white man, according to online sheriff's department records. 3 other men have also been charged in the crime. Harrod, who is related to a longtime friend of the victim, Jim Rudometkin, 59, had known him "for some period of time," said Downey Police Sgt. Kevin McCaster. Harrod was aware that Rudometkin was in the process of moving from his childhood home into an apartment, McCaster said. "They believed him to be of some wealth, and possibly an easy target since he wouldn't be there," McCaster said. Investigators believe Harrod helped plan the break-in at Rudometkin's home, and drove the other 3 men there on Jan. 17, McCaster said. When the men arrived at the home and knocked on the door, they heard a television and Rudometkin eventually answered at the side door, McCaster said. A neighbor saw the suspects push Rudometkin inside the home and called police, McCaster said. When officers arrived, the 3 men ran out the back door of the home and jumped over a fence. Investigators found Rudometkin inside, unresponsive. He had been tied up and beaten, and the cause of death was listed as blunt-force trauma and heart disease. 2 of the suspects, Henry Willie Sao, 28, of Long Beach, and Paul Darvais Misikei, 18, of Anaheim, were arrested shortly after police arrived. Investigators arrested 17-year-old Sakaopo Atanasio Folau of Anaheim on Jan. 19. All 3 are charged with capital murder, home invasion robbery and 1st-degree burglary with a person present. Misikei and Sao could face the death penalty if convicted. Folau, who has been charged as an adult, is ineligible for execution because of his age. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. Prosecutors have not yet said if they will pursue the death penalty in the case. The 4 are due back in court Feb. 10 in Department J of the Los Angeles Superior Court's Norwalk Court. (source: Los Angeles Times) US MILITARY: New HBO documentary features Hasan shooting It has been more than 6 years since Nidal Hasan, a former Army major and psychiatrist, armed himself and entered the soldier readiness center on Fort Hood, killing 13 soldiers and wounding 42 others. But now a popular streaming and entertainment channel is debuting a documentary tonight that sheds new light on Hasan, who was sentenced to death for the 2009 shooting. The documentary titled, "Homegrown: The Counter-Terror Dilemma," will premier at 9 p.m. on HBO and is directed by Greg Baker. Military.com reported the documentary is a collaboration between Baker and Peter Bergen, the New York Times bestselling author of "United States of Jihad," which the documentary largely draws from. Baker and Bergen previously worked together on the 2013 documentary, "Manhunt: The Search for bin Laden," according to Military.com. In their new documentary, Baker and Bergen speak with Nader Hasan, Nidal Hasan's cousin, who said the 2 grew up together near Washington, D.C. Nader Hasan said his cousin lost both his parents and heard many harrowing confessions of possible war crimes from soldiers while he worked at the Walter Reed Medical Center. Apparently, Nidal Hasan became so conflicted about the wars in the Middle East, Nader Hasan said he offered to repay his commission and leave the service. Nidal Hasan was shot by an officer who responded to the shooting and was paralyzed from the waist down as a result. At the end of December, the military finalized Nidal Hasan's record of trial, which would begin the process of appeal in his case. In November, John P. Galligan, who is representing Hasan in his appeal, said those anxiously awaiting Hasan's death may be waiting indefinitely. "Is the death penalty in this case going to be sustained on appeal?" asked John P. Galligan, a criminal defense attorney of more than 30 years in Belton. "I say, probably not." Nidal is currently on death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. (source: Killeen Daily News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Feb 9 09:04:14 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2016 09:04:14 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 9 BANGLADESH: Supreme Court starts hearing Mir Quasem Ali's appeal against war crimes verdict The Supreme Court has started hearing the appeal by Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir Quasem Ali against the war crimes tribunal's verdict. The 5-member Appellate Division bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha started the proceedings on Tuesday. The hearing began with defence counsel SM Sajahan reading out the charges against his client. Attorney General Mahbubey Alam represented the State during the hearing. The Jamaat leader has been given the death penalty by the International Crimes Tribunal for crimes against humanity on Nov 2, 2014. A top financier of the party, he filed an appeal seeking acquittal on Nov 30 that year. Mir Quasem is said to have been the 3rd man in vigilante militia Al-Badr's command structure during the 1971 Liberation War. Under his command local collaborators of Pakistan Army let loose a reign of terror to suppress the Bengali freedom struggle in Chittagong. An executive council member of Jamaat, he was arrested on June 17, 2012 from the office of newspaper Naya Diganta less than 2 hours after the tribunal issued a warrant for his arrest. (source: benews24.com) GAZA: Palestinian human rights defenders condemn execution by Hamas Palestinian human rights defenders are condemning the killing by Hamas of one of the resistance organization's own members in Gaza. On Sunday, the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, announced it had executed Mahmoud Rushdi Ishteiwi. In a brief statement on its website, Qassam said that the slaying of Ishteiwi implemented a death sentence issued by "the military and Sharia judiciaries of Qassam Brigades for behavioral and moral excesses that he confessed." The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), which gave Ishteiwi's age as 35, condemned the slaying and called on the "attorney general to investigate it and take all necessary legal measures to ensure justice." "Killing Ishteiwi in such a way constitutes an assault on the rule of law and might institutionalize a serious case of extrajudicial execution," PCHR added. According to its investigation and information given to PCHR by Ishteiwi's sister Buthaina last July, her brother was arrested in January 2015 on suspicion of "collaboration with the Israeli forces, misappropriation of funds and behavioral excesses." "Prosecuting collaborators with the Israeli forces is necessary, and the Palestinian armed groups play an important role in such prosecution," PCHR stated. "However, only official authorities should open investigations and hold the perpetrators to account." Following news of Mahmoud Ishteiwi's execution, Buthaina Ishteiwi told the Wattan news outlet that she believed her brother had been killed due to a dispute with his superiors. While PCHR's statement on Ishteiwi suggests that collaboration may have been one of the accusations against him, the Qassam Brigades statement announcing the execution does not make that claim. Typically, when Hamas has announced killings of alleged collaborators, it has not published their names, supposedly to spare their families the public ostracism that comes with such a grave accusation. Split authority Under the laws of the Palestinian Authority, death sentences issued by courts can only be carried out after ratification by the PA president. The West Bank-based PA leader Mahmoud Abbas has not ratified any death sentences in a decade. Hamas has however continued the use of the death penalty in Gaza. The surprise victor in legislative elections in 2006, Hamas took control of the internal governance of Gaza in 2007 after fierce battles with Abbas' rival Fatah party, which refused to hand over power. This has meant in practice that most areas of governance, including the judicial system, have been split. According to PCHR, a total of 172 death sentences have been issued since the PA was established in 1994, of which 30 were in the West Bank and 142 in Gaza. 84 death sentences were issued since Hamas took over in Gaza in 2007. Up to 2010, according to PCHR, about 1/2 the death sentences were for homicides and about half for collaboration with Israel. Earlier this month, a military court in Gaza, ostensibly operating under the Palestine Liberation Organization's Revolutionary Penal Code of 1979, sentenced four individuals to death by hanging on accusations of collaboration with Israel, according to the Gaza-based Al Mezan Center for Human Rights. And last week, Hamas reportedly arrested a woman on suspicion of spying. The woman allegedly used a condolence visit to the families of Hamas fighters recently killed in tunnel collapses to try to glean sensitive information. Rule of law Collaboration is seen by Palestinians, as it has historically been seen among all occupied populations, as a serious threat to life and safety as well as to the operational security of resistance organizations. Israel makes intensive efforts to recruit informants, preying on the misery that its nearly 9-year siege of Gaza and repeated devastating assaults have generated. "Everything starts and ends with money," an agent from Israel's domestic intelligence agency, Shin Bet, which recruits Palestinian informants, told the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz in 2014. But Israel also tries to coerce collaboration in other ways, including blackmailing patients who require difficult to obtain permits to travel to Israel for life-saving medical treatment. Israel has also periodically dropped leaflets over Gaza with telephone numbers for would-be Palestinian informants to contact its agents. Hamas, for its part, has used a number of means to try to combat the phenomenon, from public information campaigns to executions, occasionally carried out gruesomely in public, as happened during Israel's summer 2014 assault. It has not been rare for revolutionary and resistance groups in different countries to resort to such brutality against alleged collaborators. But however serious the threat from informants, Palestinian human rights defenders have been adamant that even wartime collaboration must be dealt with according to the rule of law. Both PCHR and Al Mezan have moreover long advocated the total abolition of the death penalty in all cases. In the short film at the top of this article, titled "Against the Death Penalty" and released in December, PCHR highlights its campaign to end the practice once and for all. (source: theelectronicintifada.net) PAKISTAN: 92% of Pakistanis support hanging terrorists: survey According to a Gilani Research Foundation Survey carried out by Gallup Pakistan, sweeping majority of Pakistanis (92%) support the rule of hanging terrorists. A nationally representative sample of men and women from across the four provinces was asked, "Some people support the rule of hanging terrorists while others are against this. Please tell, to what extent do you support or oppose this rule?" In response, 64% said that they support it a lot, 28% said that they support it to some extent and 6% said that they oppose it to some extent. 2% said that they oppose it a lot. The study was released by Gilani Research Foundation and carried out by Gallup Pakistan, the Pakistani affiliate of Gallup International. The recent survey was carried out among a sample of 1826 men and women in rural and urban areas of all 4 provinces of the country, during December 21 - December 28, 2015. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted a 6-year moratorium on executions on December 17, 2014, a day after Tehreek-e-Taliban militants massacred more than 150 people -- mostly children -- at Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar. Since that time Pakistan has executed more than 300 death row convicts. Amnesty International estimates that Pakistan has more than 8,000 prisoners on death row, most of whom have exhausted the appeals process. Supporters argue that the death penalty is the only effective way to deal with the scourge of militancy in the country. But critics say the legal system is unjust, with rampant police torture, poor representation for victims and unfair trials. (source: Dunya News) ENGLAND: Andy Warhol artwork made of 14 ELECTRIC CHAIRS expected to fetch 6m pounds at auction A giant Andy Warhol canvas made up of 14 small electric chairs is expected to sell for 6 million pounds at auction. The American pop artist worked on a Death and Disaster Series which included images of electric chairs used to deliver the death penalty in the 1960s. And in 1980 he revisited the theme as part of his Reversals series, which was a postmodern reworking of his best-known compositions. The monumental piece is 2-metres high and features 14 electric chairs, which Warhol viewed alongside the dollar bill, Coca-Cola sign and Marilyn Monroe's face as all-American emblems. It is regarded as Warhol's most hard-hitting "visual shorthand" for American national identity and also one of the most internationally renowned. His electric chair paintings are in collections at the Guggenheim in New York and the Menil Collection in Houston. This piece, which has been in private ownership for 20 years, is the star lot at Bonhams' Contemporary Art sale which takes place in London on February 11. It has been given a guide price of 4 to 6 million pounds. Ralph Taylor, Bonhams senior director of Post-War and Contemporary Art, said: "It is incredible to stand in front of this piece. "Warhol's transformation of the electric chair motif into a striking abstract pattern encrypts the implications of the original image. "The longer you look at it, the more its significance slowly dawns, gaining force from its very discretion. "For me, this ironic twist is closely tied to an intense impression of Warhol's personal self-reflection as an artist. It is so rare to come across such a historic icon of post-war and contemporary art outside museums." (source: The Mirror) THAILAND: Cambodia arrests man wanted for Spaniard killing in Bangkok The prime suspect in the grisly murder and dismemberment of a Spanish national in Bangkok was returned to Thailand yesterday after his arrest in Cambodia, police said. Multiple body parts belonging to businessman David Bernat were found floating in Bangkok's Chao Praya river last month. Police believe he was kidnapped and murdered for financial reasons, with investigators saying they have traced more than $1mn moved from the victim's bank account after his death. Last week they named their chief suspect as Artur Segarra, 36, also a Spanish national, saying they were confident he remained inside Thailand because he had recently withdrawn money from a cash machine inside the country. But Cambodian police said Segarra was apprehended in a restaurant on Sunday in the town of Sihanoukville. "We arrested him yesterday late afternoon," Chuon Narin, police chief of Kampong Som province, said yesterday. He was later handed over to Thai police in the eastern province of Trat. General Panya Maman, the officer leading the murder investigation, said Segurra would be sent to Bangkok for interrogation. "A criminal court has issued an arrest warrant against Artur for premeditated murder and illegal disposal of a body," he told reporters. If charged and convicted, Segurra could face the death penalty. The gruesome case has dominated Thai media coverage in recent days with television networks airing grim footage of officers hauling Bernat's remains out of the river. Police questioned a Thai woman over the weekend who was allegedly seen with Segarra in recent days. Investigators initially struggled to identify the victim. Last week police said they believed the man was of Asian origin and suggested that Chinese triads might have been involved because of the method chosen to dispose of the body. The wide Chao Praya winds its way through Bangkok, which boasts a large network of canals, and it is not unusual for bodies to be dumped in the city's waterways. But it is rare for a foreigner to meet such a grisly fate. Cambodian police have returned a number of high profile criminal suspects to Thailand in recent months, including 1 of the alleged perpetrators of last summer's Bangkok bombing and an Australian wanted for his alleged involvement in the murder of a fellow national and former Hells Angels member in Pattaya. (source: Gulf Times) TURKEY/EGYPT: Erdogan rules out meeting Egypt's Sisi over death sentences for Brotherhood Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he will not meet with Egyptian President Abdul Fatah Sisi until Egypt lifts the death sentences of Mohammed Morsi and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders. "My stance on that issue is clear; in the first place, I will not meet Sisi until the decisions of death penalty for Morsi and his friends are reviewed and lifted. Our ministers may meet with their counterparts," Erdogan said according to a Feb. 7 report by the Turkish Hurriyet newspaper. Erdogan, a strong supporter of the Brotherhood, blasted Morsi's ouster in 2013 and later referred to Sisi as a "tyrant." Cairo responded by expelling the Turkish ambassador and Ankara did the same. Following Moris's ouster, the Muslim Brotherhood was officially branded a terrorist group and outlawed in Egypt. Sisi's government continues to crack down on the Brotherhood and its supporters in the country. Erdogan added that a meeting between Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and his Egyptian counterpart would be acceptable as "Turkey and Egypt are 2 peoples, 2 countries which are from the same culture and believe in the same standards of judgments. Of course, we shouldn't break away." (source: WorldTribune.com) SAUDI ARABIA: Ali Mohammed al-Nimr: Saudi Arabia on verge of beheading protester 'tortured as a child into confessing' A young protester who was reportedly forced to admit to crimes after being tortured when he was a teenager could be beheaded in the coming days. Ali Mohammed al-Nimr was arrested in Saudi Arabia in 2012, along with 2 others who were also minors at the time, following anti-government protests in 2011. In 2013, aged just 17, he was sentenced to death by beheading and crucifixion. He is the nephew of the outspoken Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who was executed on 2 January without warning, along with 46 other prisoners. His mother, Umm Bakr, told The Times she fears her son was used "as a card against his uncle", and says after he was arrested he was tortured into signing confessions for a number of false charges including carrying a weapon. Mohammed al-Nimr, his father and the brother of Sheikh Nimr, believes his son was "just like any other youth," he said: "When the movement started, he joined, believing he would take on the burden for the people." However, he claims police knocked Mr al-Nimr off his motorcycle and arrested him, informing his family he would only be released if "his uncle stops talking". The mass execution sparked widespread protests around the world and lead to a sharp decline in relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Following the mass killing of 46 prisoners earlier this year, the largest mass execution in Saudi Arabia since 1980, the British government maintains it doesn't expect the Mr al-Nimr's sentence to go ahead. But his father doubts he will be released: "Perhaps before 2 January, I might have believed that. Now unless I see him back home again, none of these assurances can give me any comfort." (source: The Independent) AFGHANISTAN: Taliban Reportedly Execute Afghan Woman For Adultery----The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission says Ghor is among the provinces with the highest number of so-called Taliban "desert courts." Afghan officials say a woman has been executed after being accused of adultery in a remote Taliban-controlled village in the western province of Ghor. Abdul Hai Khatibi, a provincial government spokesman, said on February 8 that the execution was carried out in the remote Taliban-controlled village of Zanu on February 5. The woman was identified by her 1st name, Zahra, but her age was unknown. Khatibi said Zahra was detained by the Taliban along with a man, identified as Ayub. Ayub was shot while trying to flee and is currently in Taliban captivity, the spokesman said. However, district Governor Muhammad Hussein Daneshyar told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that the woman was shot dead by her husband, who accused her of having an extramarital affair. Afghan official say the area has been under militant control for more than a year. There was no comment from the Taliban. The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission says Ghor is among the provinces with the highest number of so-called Taliban "desert courts." (source: rawa.org) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 10 09:24:09 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2016 09:24:09 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., N.C., FLA., ALA. Message-ID: Feb. 10 TEXAS----new execution date Killer at Dallas-area Subway store holdup set to die in May A 42-year-old man sent to death row for a fatal shooting during a Dallas-area sandwich shop robbery in 2002 has received an execution date. Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark said Tuesday convicted killer Terry Darnell Edwards is scheduled for lethal injection May 11. The U.S. Supreme Court in November refused to review his case. Edwards was convicted of killing 26-year-old Mickell Goodwin at a Balch Springs Subway store where she worked. The store manager, 34-year-old Tommy Walker, also was gunned down. Evidence showed Edwards had been fired from the sandwich store a few weeks before the July 2002 shootings. About $3,000 was taken in the holdup. Edwards is among 10 inmates scheduled for execution in the coming months in Texas, the nation's most active death penalty state. (source: Associated Press) ********* Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----15 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----533 Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. # 16---------February 16--------------Gustavo Garcia--------534 17---------March 9------------------Coy Wesbrook----------535 18---------March 22-----------------Adam Ward-------------536 19---------March 30-----------------John Battaglia--------537 20---------April 6------------------Pablo Vasquez---------538 21---------April 27-----------------Robert Pruett---------539 22---------May 11-------------------Terry Edwards---------540 23---------June 2-------------------Charles Flores--------541 24---------July 14------------------Perry Williams--------542 (sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin) ************** Man Found Incompetent for Trial in Houston Deputy's Death A Houston man accused of fatally shooting a sheriff's deputy at a gas station last summer has been ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial for capital murder. State District Judge Susan Brown ordered 31-year-old Shannon Miles be sent to a mental hospital. After four months of medication and treatment, his competency will be re-evaluated. Harris County prosecutors Tuesday didn't dispute arguments from Miles' lawyers that he's schizophrenic and doesn't understand the seriousness of the legal proceedings. Miles is a charged in the Aug. 28 slaying of Harris County Deputy Darren Goforth. The deputy was shot 15 times while putting gasoline in his patrol car. If convicted, Miles could face the death penalty. Records show Miles has been committed to mental health facilities at least twice in recent years. (source: Associated PressP ******************* Prosecutors said this death row inmate was dangerous because he's black. Now he's asking the Supreme Court for a new trial 20 years ago, a psychologist testified that a Texas man facing the death penalty was more dangerous because he was black. Now, after years of legal wrangling, he???s facing his last chance to get the death sentence overturned. In 1995, Duane Buck shot and killed his former girlfriend and her friend in Houston. He never contested his guilt. During his trial, Buck's defense attorney called a psychologist named Walter Quijano to testify. On direct examination, Quijano noted that blacks and Latinos were "over-represented in the criminal justice system." Then on cross-examination, the prosecutor asked Quijano if "the race factor, black, increases the future dangerousness for various complicated reasons." Quijano said yes. Based on that testimony, Buck asked the Supreme Court to give him a new trial in a petition filed last week. His attorneys argue that because Buck's lawyer at the time did not object to this testimony, he should get a 2nd hearing on the grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel, a violation of his Sixth Amendment rights. In order to sentence an inmate to die, Texas law requires a jury to find that they will be a danger to the public in the future. The prosecutor stressed Quijano's testimony about Buck's race during his closing argument, and the jury sentenced him to death. "He was basically saying because you're black, you need to die," Buck told a documentary filmmaker. "My lawyer didn't say anything and nobody else, you know, the prosecutor or the judge, nobody did. It was like an everyday thing in the courts." Quijano testified about black people being especially dangerous in 6 death penalty cases. The Texas Attorney General - now-U.S. Senator - John Cornyn admitted in 2000 that Quijano's race-based testimony was "inappropriate." The other 5 defendants sentenced to death after his testimony have all received new hearings, but prosecutors continue to object to a hearing for Buck. It's unclear whether Quijano is still practicing. Phone calls to a number listed in his name did not go through. The Supreme Court stayed Buck's execution in 2011 but then denied him a new trial. In a dissent of that decision, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the trial was "marred by racial overtones." Buck's lawyers hope that new precedents set since then guaranteeing adequate legal representation will result in a different verdict this time. While Buck's case is certainly an egregious example of a death penalty injustice, it's hardly unique. In Houston's Harris County, black defendants are more than twice as likely than white defendants to receive the death penalty. And advocates have long complained that people facing execution in the state don't always receive adequate legal counsel. Even if the Court eventually grants Buck a new hearing, it's a long shot that would mean a change in sentence. The other 5 defendants who got new hearings were re-sentenced to death. But Kate Black, Buck's new attorney, said that she thought her client has a better chance. Buck has been on death row for 18 years without getting a single disciplinary violation, she said. "As someone who's represented a number of death row inmates, that's incredibly unique," Black said. "I think if the jury heard about the way he's conducted himself they would see how wrong that prediction about dangerousness was." A decision from the Court is expected later this spring. (source: fusion.net) PENNSYLVANIA: Easton murder suspect can't fire 'corrupt' lawyers, judge rules----Lawyer request denied An Easton murder suspect isn't entitled to new lawyers in his death-penalty case, though he calls his defense team "bums" and "corrupt," a Northampton County judge ruled Tuesday. Last week, Jeffrey S. Knoble Jr. sought to fire his public defenders, complaining they were pressing him to accept a plea bargain in which he would admit to murder and accept a sentence of life in prison without parole. ? But in a 4-page decision Tuesday, Judge Emil Giordano denied Knoble's request, finding the 26-year-old Riegelsville man was making vague and unsubstantiated allegations that failed to prove his relationship with his lawyers was irreconcilably broken. The right to a free attorney doesn't include the right to pick the lawyers of your choosing, Giordano said, and without more specific allegations, Knoble cannot be allowed to "attorney shop." The ruling came 4 days after Knoble lashed out in court against Chief Public Defender Robert Eyer and the two experienced public defenders assisting him, Matthew Goodrich and Matthew Potts. The hearing Friday came after Knoble wrote letters to Giordano and the case's prosecutor, charging his defense team had "sold me out" and wanted him to plead guilty. Knoble could face the state's ultimate punishment if convicted of first-degree murder in the early March 11 killing at the former Quality Inn on South Third Street. He is accused of shooting 32-year-old Andrew "Beep" White, who authorities have called a good Samaritan who had rented a room for Knoble that night because he had no place to stay. Knoble was arrested the day of the killing after his mother called police after her son showed her a cellphone video of a man's corpse, according to testimony. Knoble's lawyers have said they are preparing a mental-health defense, including the possibility that their client was insane or operating under diminished capacity. Jury selection in Knoble's trial is slated to begin May 31. ? In denying Knoble's bid for new counsel, Giordano highlighted Eyer, who said Friday that he, Goodrich and Potts were ready to proceed in their representation of the defendant. Giordano said he knows the three attorneys and believes they are "honest, forthcoming, hardworking and competent." Eyer did not return a phone call seeking comment Tuesday. First Deputy District Attorney Terence Houck called Giordano's ruling expected, saying Knoble failed to offer any specific complaints against his team. "Ultimately, this is just a ploy on his part to delay the trial," said Houck, who doubted the decision will end Knoble's complaints. "I believe you'll see this again as we get closer to trial," Houck said. Friday was only the latest instance in which Knoble has had outbursts in court. When he was formally notified in June that he would face the death penalty, Knoble thundered against the justice system and the media, labeling them corrupt and saying there was no way he would receive a fair trial. (source: Morning Call) ***************** Westmoreland DA gets until March to decide on death penalty in cop killing Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck will have until March 26 to decide whether to seek the death penalty against a New Florence man accused of killing police officer Lloyd Reed in November. Peck said Tuesday he will study several factors before determining whether Raymond Shetler Jr., 31, will face the death penalty for the Nov. 28 shooting of Reed, 54, who was responding to a domestic call in St. Clair when he was fatally shot. "I'm interested in being provided with any mitigating circumstances he may have," Peck said. In order to seek the death penalty, the prosecution must convince a jury that aggravating circumstances about Shetler and the crime outweighs mitigating factors. Peck said the killing of a police officer is an aggravating fact the prosecution can use to seek the death penalty. Shelter's record of prior violent crimes could be another aggravating factor, Peck said. Shetler was in court on Tuesday for a hearing to determine if he violated probation for a reckless endangerment charge he pleaded guilty to in October. At that time, Shetler was sentenced to serve 2 years on probation and ordered to undergo a drug and alcohol abuse evaluation. When asked Tuesday by Judge Rita Hathaway why he didn't have that evaluation done, Shetler responded: "I don't write the music, I just play in the band." Shetler has been in jail without bail since his arrest a few hours after Reed was gunned down. Police said Shetler fired 3 times at Reed, hitting him once in the chest. Following a preliminary hearing late last year, Shetler told reporters he didn't realize Reed was a police officer and that he was sorry for his actions. The deadline for Peck to decide on the death penalty was to be Wednesday. Peck said that because of his busy court schedule he needed more time to investigate the case. Reed's family members have taken no position on the death penalty, Peck said. "They are looking for guidance and direction from me," Peck said. (source: triblive.com) NORTH CAROLINA: Jurors hear from North Hills murder suspect in videotaped interrogation Jurors in the trial of Travion Smith spent a portion of the day Tuesday watching the remainder of a videotaped interview between the defendant and Raleigh police Detective Eric Gibney from May 2013. Smith, 23, is charged with 1st-degree murder in 30-year-old Melissa Huggins-Jones' death and could face the death penalty if convicted. Huggins-Jones was new to the Triangle, having divorced and moved from Tennessee to an apartment complex off Six Forks Road with her 8-year-old daughter, Hannah Olivia Jones. On the morning of May 14, 2013, Hannah wandered out of the apartment and approached a nearby construction crew, asking for help. A construction worker followed the girl back into the apartment and found Huggins-Jones dead in her bed, covered in blood. An autopsy determined she had died from repeated blows to her head and neck. According to investigators, a laptop stolen from Huggins-Jones' apartment complex connected Smith to the murder. ? On Monday, there was a lot of debate between the attorneys and the judge as to what parts, if any, of a videotaped interrogation would be shown to the jury. Smith and his co-defendants, Ronald Lee Anthony and Sarah Rene Redden, were questioned by police when initially identified as suspects. Investigators used statements from each against the others. Anthony pleaded guilty in 2015 to first-degree murder in Huggins-Jones??? death and was sentenced to life in prison. Redden testified for the state against Smith last week and hopes to get a lesser sentence as a result. In the videotape jurors watched on Tuesday, Gibney repeatedly told Smith that his co-defendants were pointing the finger at him, and that he needed to tell the truth to save himself. "They are putting you in there. They are putting it all on you," Gibney said. "You deserve an opportunity to tell your story." At first Smith only admitted to breaking into cars the night of the murder, but eventually said Anthony entered Huggins-Jones' apartment through a sliding door on the balcony while he waited outside. Smith said it was then that he heard a blood-curdling scream. "It was just like a horrifying scream, like something you hear in a horror movie," Smith said. "It sounded like panic." Smith said he ran and eventually ended up reuniting with Anthony. Police were called to the apartment complex to investigate reported car break-ins the night of the murder, but did not learn of Huggins-Jones' death until the next morning. Smith told officers he repeatedly asked Anthony what happened inside the apartment, but he never got an answer. "I didn't know what was going on, and he wouldn't tell me nothing," Smith said. "I didn't go to sleep for 2 whole days. I couldn't eat nothing because I didn't know what was going on." Smith said he called his father to talk about what he thought might have happened in Huggins-Jones??? apartment. "I called my father and talked to him and said, 'Dad, I don't know what's going on. I think, I think, I think my friend just killed somebody. I don't know for sure yet.'" he said. Former City-County Bureau of Identification agent Tracy Gold took the stand late Tuesday morning. She was one of the main investigators at the murder scene. For the remainder of the day, the jury got the opportunity to see photographs of the victim's body and physical evidence from the crime scene. Much of the evidence was blood stained and prompted an emotional reaction from the audience and jurors, who openly shed tears. (source: wral.com) ******************** Raleigh taxi driver murdered, Louisburg man charged A Louisburg man is being held without bond after being charged in the murder of an on-duty taxi driver in Raleigh Monday morning, Raleigh Police said.<>P> Major Earl Edwards Jr., 25, has been charged with 1 count of murder in connection with the death of Jose Nicolas Dominguez, 55, of Raleigh. He appeared in court Tuesday afternoon and was appointed a capital public defender, meaning he is eligible for the death penalty. Edwards remained silent during the appearance where he learned he would be held without bond. His next scheduled court appearance is March 1. Police responded to a shooting call at Hodges Creek Apartments in the 2000 block of Hodge Creek Drive at approximately 1:25 a.m. Monday. Upon arrival, officers found Dominguez dead at the scene. Dominguez was a driver for Amigo Taxi. A dispatcher for Amigo said Dominguez was called to the complex to pick someone up when he was killed. Another driver for the company told WNCN Dominguez had been driving a taxi in Raleigh for several years and the area is regarded as usually being safe. "I never have heard anything [bad] about these apartments...I have been here many times with no problems," said Joaquin Loyola. Loyola called Dominguez "a very good friend." A 911 call released on Monday afternoon was from a person who drove a car into the parking lot, heard a "pop" and then saw the taxi driver lying on the ground motionless. "I pulled up and seen there was a male laying there...he's not moving he's not responsive," the caller said. The investigation of the homicide remains underway. (source: WNCN news) FLORIDA: Poll: Majority of Florida Residents Want Unanimous Juries In Death Penalty Cases 1 in 3 Floridians prefer the death penalty as a punishment for people convicted of murder. That's according to a new poll from Florida International University's School of Law. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down parts of Florida's system for handing down death sentences. Since then, the legislature has been scrambling to come up with a fix. Stephen Harper is a visiting professor at FIU. Harper said he and his colleagues conducted the poll to learn about public opinion as the debate continues in Tallahassee. "A little bit surprising was the strength of those in favor of a unanimous jury," he said of the poll's findings. "Almost 70 % supported or strongly supported a unanimous jury." In Florida???s recently-overturned system, juries needed a simple majority vote to recommend the death penalty. The new Florida House proposal would require nine jurors to agree. The Senate version would require a unanimous decision to hand down the sentence. The state will have to come up with a new system before any new death penalty cases can move forward. (source: WMFE news) *********************** Senate panel OKs unanimous verdict for death penalty Legislation requiring a unanimous verdict from the jury to recommend the death penalty will head to the Senate floor after passing a committee vote late Monday. The Senate's Criminal Justice Committee passed its version of a bill (SB 7068) that would revise Florida's sentencing process for the death penalty. The Legislature is rewriting how to sentence someone to death after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the current method unconstitutional. In an 8-1 ruling last month in Hurst vs. Florida, the court said the sixth amendment was violated because state law allowed a judge to decide independently whether necessary aggravating circumstances exist. The Senate and House bills are mostly similar except for one key matter: what it takes for the jury to agree to the death penalty. The Senate bill (SB 7068) requires a unanimous decision of all 12 jurors, but the House measure (PCB CRJS 16-07) requires only nine. Current Florida law requires a simple majority of 7. "We're going to move our bill forward, because we believe that is what the Supreme Court says and that we are not an outlier with the other states," said Sen. Greg Evers, committee chairman. According to data compiled by the Florida Supreme Court's Clerk's office, only 69 of 330 death penalty cases - 21 % - in the past 15 years had unanimous jury verdicts. The Senate committee said in its analysis of the bill that a decline in death penalty sentences was likely, but the level is undetermined based on the data because only a simple majority was needed in previous cases. Florida was the only state remaining that called for a simple majority to find the presence of a sufficient number of aggravating factors. Now, if it isn't unanimous, life without parole can be the only sentence. (source: Orlando Sentinel) ALABAMA: Capital murder suspects across Alabama seek to bar death penalty Attorneys for 25-year-old Antonio McCary Jones, a Birmingham man charged with killing a fellow drug dealer by shooting him 14 times, last week told a judge that if Jones is found guilty the death penalty should not be an option. Alabama's sentencing scheme in death penalty cases is the same as Florida's, which was ruled unconstitutional last month by the U.S. Supreme Court, Jones' lawyers argued Friday. In both Alabama and Florida, judges are allowed to override jury recommendations for either life without parole or death. "The dilemma we're trying to resolve is do we want 12 people deciding death or life, or one person," Joe Basgier, one of Jones' lawyers, said after the hearing. Basgier and Jones' other attorney, Hube Dodd, are not alone in making the argument. The ink was hardly dry on the U.S. Supreme Court's Jan. 12 ruling in Hurst v. Florida before lawyers around Alabama began filing motions seeking to bar the death penalty for their clients facing capital murder charges because of the similarities between the 2 states' capital punishment sentencing laws. That has had local district attorneys scrambling to defend Alabama's capital sentencing law and putting circuit judges in the position of having to hold hearings and rule on the issue. Several judges have already denied the motions, at least one has taken it under advisement, and a few are awaiting further guidance. Not the same District attorneys and Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange say Alabama's law is not the same as Florida's and has already been declared constitutional. "The U.S. Supreme Court ruling regarding the Florida death penalty does not affect Alabama's law. The U.S. Supreme Court specifically upheld Alabama's current system as constitutional in the case of Harris v. Alabama in 1995," according to a statement from the Attorney General's Office. "In the Florida case (Hurst), the holding is that a jury must find the aggravating factor in order to make someone eligible for the death penalty. Alabama's system already requires the jury to do just that," according to the Attorney General's statement. "The jury must unanimously find an aggravating factor at either the guilt or sentencing phase - such as when the murder was committed during a robbery, a rape, or a kidnapping." The Attorney General's Office also stated Alabama's death penalty system was challenged last year to the U.S. Supreme Court on the same grounds that Florida's was challenged. The court, however, declined to take that case, or even to hold the case until after it resolved the Florida case, the Attorney General noted. Justices - with two dissenters - declined to hear the appeals of Courtney Lockhart and Christie M. Scott based on Alabama's judicial override - a practice that has become part of the debate over the death penalty. Is the same Defense attorneys argue that that ultimate decision to sentence a defendant to death is made by a judge and not a Jury, just as in Florida. "The jury does make its own sentencing recommendation after a comparable weighing process, but that recommendation 'is not binding upon the court,'" according to Basgier and Dodd's motion. Rarely, if at all, has a judge in Alabama overridden a jury recommendation for death and sentenced a suspect to life without parole. But there are a number of cases in which a judge has overridden a life without parole recommendation and imposed a death sentence. According to several motions filed by defense attorneys around Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court in its ruling in the Hurst case also overruled 2 previous cases - Hildwin v. Florida in 1989 and Spaziano v. Florida in 1984. Both those cases had been used by the court in upholding Alabama's death sentencing scheme in 1995, according to the motions. "As a result, the cases that upheld Alabama's death penalty scheme are no longer valid," according to Basgier and Dodd's motion, which mirrors other defense lawyer's "Hurst" motions. The Alabama Attorney General's Office had filed a brief in the Hurst case asking that the U.S. Supreme Court not overrule Spaziano because that case "had provided the legal foundation for Alabama's death penalty scheme," according to Basgier and Dodd's motion. Jefferson County Circuit Judge Stephen Wallace said he would reserve ruling on the issue. Wallace did question during the hearing what happens when a judge may be privy to information a jury did not have when it was considering whether to recommend life without parole or a death sentence. Other cases The dilemma we're trying to resolve is do we want 12 people deciding death or life, or one person" - Joe Basgier Among the other capital murder defendants with cases currently pending around Alabama who have filed "Hurst" motions are: - DeMarcus Means, who is charged in last year's shooting death of his girlfriend, Haileigh Green, in Shelby County. A judge has not yet held a hearing on the motion. - Deandra Marquis Lee, who is charged in the 2012 slayings of 3 people - 9-year-old twins and their caregiver - in Lowndes County. The motion was filed last week. - Stephon Lindsay, who is charged in Etowah County with killing his toddler daughter in 2013 with either a sword or knife. Etowah County Circuit Judge William B. Ogletree on Thursday denied the request to bar the death penalty in his case, which goes to trial Feb. 22. - Jason Paul Hopkins, who along with Dane Leach, is charged in the strangulation death and robbery of a Highland Park man. Jefferson County Circuit Judge Tommy Nail denied the motion last week, Hopkins' attorney, Philip Petersen, said. - Stanley Chatman, who is already serving 99 years in prison for a murder and who once served time for manslaughter, is now awaiting trial for capital murder in the 2013 slayings of Jonathan and Jeremi Berry, 17, and the attempted murder of the twins' mother, 31-year-old LaTasha Berry in Wylam. Jefferson County Circuit Judge Tracie Todd has set a hearing for March 3 to consider the Hurst motion. - John Clayton Owens, who is charged in Madison County with the death of his 91-year-old neighbor in August 2011. His trial began Monday with jury selection. Owens had filed a petition to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals for a writ of mandamus to direct Madison County Circuit Judge Alison S. Austin to stay his trial until the issue of whether Alabama's capital sentencing scheme is constitutional can be resolved or, in the alternative, stay the penalty phase of his trial until the issue is resolved. The appeals court denied the motion Friday. But that court did not address the constitutionality of Alabama's capital sentencing law in its order. "Owens may raise the issue of the constitutionality of Alabama's capital sentencing scheme on appeal should he be convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death," according to the order. Petersen, who is president of the Greater Birmingham Criminal Defense Lawyer's Association, said one problem with the short (8-page) Hurst v Florida ruling is that it wasn't very clear. "It was a muddled up opinion not direct on every point and was only helpful to Florida." Jefferson County District Attorney Brandon Falls said he doesn't expect any adverse rulings by trial judges on the Hurst motions. He noted Alabama's rules have been reviewed previously and the U.S. Supreme court has had a fairly recent opportunity to do it again. "Honestly, anytime a judge overrides a jury's recommendation (for death) the appellate courts are looking for a reason to overturn it," Falls said. But Falls wasn't surprised his office is faced with responding to a flood of Hurst motions. Lawyers have to file the motions for their clients so they could benefit if sometime in the future an appeals court does find an issue with Alabama's capital murder sentencing structure. Among the 1st motions seeking to use Hurst on behalf of an Alabama client was that of Christopher Brooks, who was executed by lethal injection on Jan. 21. Brooks' attorneys in the days prior to the execution had argued to the Alabama Supreme Court that his execution should be stayed because Florida's sentencing scheme is the same as Alabama's. The Alabama Supreme Court rejected that appeal and Brooks' lawyers quickly took the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which also declined to stop the execution. However, three of the U.S. Supreme Court justices had reservations about Alabama's death sentencing law in the denial of Brooks' stay. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, with whom Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg agreed, noted that the court in Hurst v. Florida had overruled the two cases that underpinned Alabama's law. But procedural obstacles would have prevented the court from granting the stay of Brooks' execution, she wrote. Justice Stephen Breyer, however, stated that the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that Alabama's sentencing scheme is much like and based on the one used in Florida that has been declared unconstitutional. "The unfairness inherent in treating this case differently from others which used similarly unconstitutional procedures only underscores the need to reconsider the validity of capital punishment under the Eighth Amendment," Breyer wrote in the Brooks' opinion (source: al.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 10 09:25:28 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2016 09:25:28 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., KAN., S. DAK., UTAH, USA Message-ID: Feb. 10 MISSOURI: Proposed Missouri budget change could allow attempts to defund the death penalty A proposed change in the state budget could allow opponents of the death penalty to attempt to pull funding for it. Members of Missouri's execution team are paid in cash to keep their identities hidden, per the law - that includes the doctor that administers a lethal injection and a compounding pharmacy that makes the pentobarbital used. That money has come out of a fund for expenses and equipment in the Department of Corrections' budget, so state lawmakers and others looking at the budget didn't know how much was spent on executions. A House subcommittee approved Representative Jeremy LaFaver's (D-Kansas City) proposal to create a specific line in the budget for executions. "Including it in the budget in this fashion I think is going to allow for a little better transparency and tracking of this important task that our state does," said LaFaver. If his action stands, legislators who oppose the death penalty could now see where it's funded in the budget and by how much, and could propose pulling that money. LaFaver wouldn't say if a proposal to pull the money for executions will be offered. The idea passed a mostly-Republican committee chaired by Representative Kathie Conway (R-St. Charles), who says she supports the need for transparency as long as no identities of execution team members are released. Conway also said there is little chance an effort to defund executions would clear the Republican legislature. "From what I heard happened in the Senate [Monday], yes I think that most Republicans are [in favor of the death penalty]. Personally, I am," said Conway. On Monday the state Senate debated a proposed repeal of the death penalty. Most Republicans spoke against it and the issue was tabled. The line LaFaver's action created includes a proposed amount of half-a-million dollars. Conway expressed concern about tying up that much money with the expectation that few executions will be scheduled during the 12 months it covers, beginning July 1. LaFaver agreed to offer an amendment to reduce that amount to more closely reflect the execution-related expenses the Corrections Department expects, but he also wants additional money to cover potential federal fines. He referred to the Corrections Department Director, George Lombardi, last week telling the budget committee that the state has not issued federal tax reporting forms, or 1099s, to members of its execution team going back to the mid 1980s. LaFaver said money in that line beyond the projected costs of executions, "would also allow for the payment of any penalties that would be assessed to the state from the IRS for not complying with the federal tax law requirements of issuing a 1099." LaFaver said he will work to come up with a figure more reflective of potential execution costs and IRS penalties to propose to the full budget committee when it considers the corrections budget. The full budget committee is the next stop for that bill. (source: missourinet.com) *************** Bill to abolish death penalty in Missouri presumed dead in the Missouri Senate A bill that would have abolished Missouri's death penalty has unofficially become the first bill to die during the 2016 legislative session. Paul Wieland, R-Imperial, is Senate Bill 816's sponsor. He told reporters he knows there aren't enough votes in the Senate to abolish the death penalty, but calls Monday's debate on the floor a victory in itself. "I was glad to see a lot of senators talking about (how) they felt about the bill," Wieland said. "As I said on the floor, everyone has a different conscience ... just ask yourself the question: Is the way we're implementing (capital punishment) here in the state of Missouri good public policy?" Less than an hour into Monday's debate, Wieland officially had the bill placed on the Senate's informal calendar, where bills that are hotly debated or blocked via filibuster often end up. Although bills can be removed from the informal calendar for further debate or passage, they often sit inactive until they die on the final day of the legislative session. Wieland said that he has no plans to revive the bill because he knows there aren't enough votes to get it passed and because the Senate needs to spend time on other issues. Several senators from both parties spoke in support of Wieland's bill. From Rob Schaaf, R-St. Joseph: "We know for a fact that there are innocent people who have been convicted and executed. We know that that's true, and yet we continue just blindly moving forward. We know that there are people who receive inadequate legal representation ... This is a very good reason to think about whether or not we should have the death penalty." >From Maria Chappelle-Nadal, D-University City: "If you are African American, and you're the victim, and you're shot, and the person who shoots you is white, the likelihood of (him) going to death row is very slim. If you are African American and you kill someone who is white, nine times out of 10 you're going to be on death row ... that's inconsistent." After Wieland laid the bill aside, fellow Republican Mike Parson of Bolivar took the floor and spoke in opposition to the death penalty abolition bill. Parson noted that all of the "debate" that took place up to that point was in support of the proposal. "Mainly what I've heard up here is (that) it's almost as though we're talking about victims, but what we're really talking about is killers," Parson said. Parson, a former county sheriff, spent several minutes recounting murder cases that took place in Missouri, which included double murders committed by Steven Ray Thacker, who was later executed in Tennessee for another murder. "There (are) cold-blooded killers out there," Parson said. "I looked (Thacker) in the face, and I can tell you today that ... he would (have) hurt somebody, he would (have) killed somebody again if (we had) let him out." Parson is seeking the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor. Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, also spoke against scrapping the death penalty. The former prosecutor is seeking the Republican nomination for attorney general. While Wieland's bill is for all practical purposes dead, there are 2 bills in the Missouri House that would abolish the death penalty, 1 sponsored by a Democrat and a Republican. House Bill 1402 is sponsored by Jeanie Kirkton, D-Webster Groves, and House Bill 2064 is sponsored by T.J. Berry, R-Kearney. Neither bill has been scheduled for a hearing, though. On the opposite end of the debate are bills that would allow for more methods of execution and would speed up the execution process. (source: St. Louis Public Radio) KANSAS: Kyle Flack capital murder case: Jury selection about half done in Franklin County District Court----Flack is charged with killing 3 adults, 1 toddler Jury selection in the capital murder trial of defendant Kyle Trevor Flack, who is charged with killing four victims, is about half-way done as of Tuesday. Beginning Feb. 1, 6 prospective jurors filed into Franklin County District Court in Ottawa during the morning court session, then in the afternoon session, to be questioned by prosecutors and defense attorneys. The questioning will continue through Friday this week and is expected to continue a day or 2 next week, court administrator John Steelman said Tuesday. After prosecutors and defense attorneys conduct the process that results in choosing 12 jurors and four alternate jurors, the 2 sides will make opening statements. As of Tuesday, opening statements were scheduled for Feb. 17. The Franklin County District Court mailed a summons to 600 county residents, and of that number, about 350 showed up to fill out jury questionnaires, Steelman said. District Judge Eric W. Godderz and prosecution and defense attorneys whittled down that number to 136 prospective jurors, Steelman said. Some were eliminated because they no longer lived in the judicial district, and some had medical issues. Flack, 30, is charged with capital murder in the slayings of Kaylie Smith Bailey, 21, and her daughter, Lana-Leigh Bailey, 18 months; 2 counts of premeditated 1st-degree murder of Andrew A. Stout, 30, and Steven White, 31; and criminal possession of a firearm by a felon. The 4 were killed between April 20 and May 1, 2013. If convicted of capital murder, Flack could face the death penalty. In Kansas, juries hearing death penalty cases 1st decide whether to convict or acquit the defendant. If the defendant is convicted, jurors then resume deliberations to decide whether to recommend the death penalty or a life sentence without parole to the judge. (source: Topeka Capital-Journal) SOUTH DAKOTA: Senate committee set to take up bill to repeal death penalty A state Senate committee is set to consider a measure that would repeal the death penalty in South Dakota. The Senate State Affairs committee is scheduled to take up the bill on Wednesday. Republican Sen. Arthur Rusch of Vermillion is the measure's main Senate sponsor. Rusch, a former judge, says he has personally prosecuted a death penalty case. He says he's seen firsthand how costly and hard it was on jurors and court personnel. The Senate State Affairs committee during the 2015 legislative session voted down 2 measures to repeal or limit the death penalty. (source: Associated Press) UTAH: Legislation would abolish Utah's death penalty There are 9 men on Utah's death row, 3 of whom have been there for almost 30 years. A bill in the works from Sen. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, would cap that population - abolishing the death penalty in future Utah cases, even though he once supported the practice. "In 2015, you can only be theoretically in support of the death penalty, because it is broken," said Urquhart, an attorney. "Even for the most ardent supporter of the death penalty, you gotta question it." Under the bill as it is being drafted, those currently on Utah's death row could still be executed, Urquhart explained, but the punishment would be off the table in all future prosecutions. Eight of the death-row inmates were convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death before 1999. One was retried in 2015 and again convicted and sentenced to die. The most recent death sentence in Utah was given in 2008, when Floyd Eugene Maestas was convicted of the stabbing and strangulation death of 72-year-old Donna Lou Bott during a 2004 break-in and robbery at her Salt Lake City home. The last time Utah carried out the death penalty was June 18, 2010, when Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed by firing squad, an event that made international headlines. Abolishing capital punishment might be an uphill climb. The practice has historically been supported by conservative Utahns and the Republican-dominated Legislature, even as its use nationally is on the decline and polls show the majority of Americans now prefer the alternative punishment of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the most serious crimes. Some 69 % of Utahns approve of the death penalty, according to a recent poll conducted by SurveyUSA for The Salt Lake Tribune and the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. Fewer than 1 in 5 (19 %) of those surveyed disapprove of the punishment and 12 % were undecided, according to the data collected Jan. 6-13 from 989 registered Utah voters. The overall poll question had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 % points. More Republicans supported the practice than Democrats - 82 % to 53 % - although 62 % of independents also backed it. Support from men also outnumbers that of women, 72 % to 66 %, according to poll data. Urquhart seems undeterred by the results, even though he said he knows he may face similarly vigorous opposition from his legislative colleagues. Utah's conservative, sometime libertarian-leaning politics may actually help pass a bill, he said. Conservatives don't believe that government does many things well and certainly not perfectly, he said. "And yet we arrogate to ourselves the power over life and death," he said. "There's a serious disconnect there." Other red states have already grappled with the issue and changed course, including Nebraska, which last year voted to repeal the death penalty, although a petition drive to reverse the vote has blocked the decision from taking effect until after the 2016 election. Other states, including Montana and Ohio, have imposed moratoriums on capital punishment in the past year after they were unable to obtain the drugs used for lethal injection. Oklahoma has suspended the practice after the investigation into a botched execution found it has used the wrong drug. That is not necessarily an issue in Utah, which last year reinstated the firing squad as the method of execution in the event that lethal injection is not available. Urquhart voted for the bill. Additionally, the risk of false conviction - an estimated 4 % of those on death row nationally are believed to be innocent - and the high cost of prosecution and appeals has also been a factor in many states. In Utah, a 2012 study by legislative fiscal analysts found that, when compared to a sentence of life without the possibility of parole, the costs associated with capital punishment are significantly higher. According to the report, from trial to execution - a period averaging 20 years - state and local governments spent more than $1.6 million per death-row inmate. Counties bear the brunt of that financial burden at about $1.1 million, the state report showed. Cost is an issue to consider, Urquhart said, but it's not his only concern. "There is no deterrence in the death penalty right now if you execute someone decades after the crime," he said. "So you're left with good old-fashioned vengeance. That standing alone is not adequate justification. That is the reality of what we are doing right now. It just doesn't make any sense." Utah House Speaker Greg Hughes, R-Draper, shares Urquhart's concern for missteps by government that have left some wrongly executed and said he doesn't understand why some defendants are sentenced to death while others avoid the penalty. "I probably have said this more quietly than publicly, but I don't support the death penalty," said Hughes, who expressed discomfort with a sentencing process that pits the families of victims against those of the accused. "How do you have a guy who may have killed his wife and unborn child and put her in a mattress and not have the death penalty and have other circumstances where crimes have been committed and you have sentenced them to death. There's an arbitrary feel to it." Data from the Utah courts show the outcomes in these cases are mixed, with prosecutors who charged a capital crime often trading the punishment away in exchange for a plea that resolved the case. Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clinton, who has sponsored most of the recent legislation to increase the number and type of death penalty-eligible crimes in Utah, disagrees with those numbers. According to Ray, the calculation doesn't consider the number of appeals filed by inmates sentenced to life without the possibility of a parole, nor factor in the cost of medical care used by aging inmates nearing the end of life. "I think the costs kind of even out," he said, "when you factor in those types of situations." And then, Ray said, there is the matter of justice. "I don't now how you put a price tag on justice," he said. "[The death penalty] is not really a deterrent to murder ... but it is justice and you need to have that form of justice available for certain individuals." Ray said he believes Utah is one of the few states that gets the death penalty right, because the standards for prosecution are high and the punishment is used sparingly. But, he said, he understands that individuals have strong personal philosophical differences on the issue. "I'm open to the discussion," he said. "It's a fair discussion to have." The Utah Justice Coalition, the Utah chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Libertas Institute, the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys all support Urquhart's effort. Paul Boyden, director of Utah's Statewide Association of Prosecutors, said he could not comment on the bill because he has not yet seen it. (source: Salt Lake Tribune) *************** Trial date scheduled in Smith murder case A new trial date has been scheduled for a St. George murder suspect whose case has worked its way through court proceedings for more than 5 years. Brandon Perry Smith, 34, will receive a 10-day jury trial scheduled to begin Oct. 17 in 5th District Court. Smith is accused of killing a 20-year-old Leeds resident during a violent after-midnight incident at a downtown St. George home that also resulted in the shooting death of a 27-year-old St. George resident and the shooting injury of a male acquaintance on Dec. 11, 2010. Smith's codefendant, Paul Clifford Ashton, who turns 37 later this month, is already serving a life without parole sentence for his role in the shootings. Smith was previously scheduled to receive a trial last year, but his attorneys asked the court to postpone the trial while they pursued a failed attempt to appeal the judge's ruling that Smith's Miranda warning rights were not violated by St. George police investigators. Unlike Ashton, Smith faced the prospect of a death penalty ruling if he is found guilty at trial, but the prosecution announced last week that it was dropping the bid for capital punishment in an effort to help move the case toward a swifter resolution. "The state is taking this action at the request of the family of the victim in an effort to avoid delays associated with litigating a capital homicide case and to focus on bringing the case to trial as soon as possible," Deputy County Ryan Shaum said Feb. 3. "This was something we had spent a lot of time thinking about. ... In looking at what our end goal is in this case, we thought that we could still obtain justice and get the case resolved short of seeking the death penalty." Although the death penalty is no longer being considered, the prosecution is continuing to pursue a first-degree felony charge of aggravated homicide against Smith, which could lead to a life in prison without parole sentence or at least a minimum of 25 years behind bars if he is found guilty. (source: The Spectrum) USA: Repeal of the death penalty is a step toward peace Antonyms for "peace" could be any of the following: War, disagreement, hate, discord, agitation, disharmony, distress, frustration, upset, worry, disturbance. We can add the "death penalty" as an antonym to "peace." The American death penalty is the tip of the sword that is emblematic of the violent nature that continues to exist in much of our land. The United States has a history of violence from its very beginnings. The decimation of the native peoples and a land that was built to a great degree with the labor of slaves are all parts of our national heritage that are shameful and should be left in the past. As a country, as a citizen of the modern world, we should have matured enough that our moral fiber strains toward peace, not war, hate, or retribution. The continued use of the death penalty violates efforts toward peace, by hanging onto the acceptance of violent vengeance as a part of our identification as a nation. National polls still shows a majority of those polled favor a death penalty - the bad news. The good news is that majority has been declining steadily for the past 2 decades. In 2015 there were fewer executions (28) than in the past 25 years, carried out by only 6 states. Also, there were fewer death sentences (49) handed down, a drop of 84.4 % since the 315 executions in 1996. While the use of the death penalty and executions falls, it also narrows in its use to the southern states, those same "Bible Belt" states that supported slavery, that resisted civil rights, and many people continue to cling to the retributive citations from the Bible to justify this act of violence perpetrated by the government. Retribution is a step away from peace. Retribution only adds to the level of violence. There are alternatives to execution in terms of imprisonment to keep the public safe. While only 6 southern states carried out executions in 2015, 31 states still have it on the books as the law. The death penalty is a hollow icon for being "tough on crime." The alternative is being "smart on crime," working to deter crime. Being "smart on crime" is using taxpayers' resources to rehabilitate the addicted, provide services to the mentally disabled, intervene into abusive households, enhance early childhood education and provide greater support for community policing. The death penalty is a failed public policy. The nation-wide repeal of the death penalty would be a step toward peace. The "evolving standard of decency" is the judicial theory that led the United States Supreme Court, in 2002, to declare execution of those with "mental retardation" as unconstitutional. Then in 2005 the Court declared unconstitutional the execution of juveniles. It is time for the application of the "evolving standard of decency" to apply to all government executions and allow us to take a giant step toward peace in our land. (source: Guest Column; Ron Steiner is a Board of Directors member of .Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, http://oadp.org/. Editor's note: Oregon is among the states that still has the death penalty law and has 34 people on death row awaiting execution. Since the death penalty was reinstated in a 1984 vote, 2 people have been executed and both had waived their rights to appeal----Herald and News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 10 09:26:13 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2016 09:26:13 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----woprldwide Message-ID: Feb. 10 PAKISTAN----execution Death row convict executed in Bahawalpur----A death row prisoner was hanged at the New Central Jail Bahawalpur on Tuesday morning. A death row prisoner was sent to the gallows at the New Central Jail Bahawalpur on early Tuesday morning, Dunya News reported. Death row convict Haider Shehzad was executed for killing a man named Muhammad Amin over a dispute. The dead body of Shehzad was handed over to his relative after the execution. (source: Dunya News) **************** Peshawar school: Exceution of 2 attackers Pakistan's Supreme Court on Tuesday stayed the execution of 4 men convicted by military courts for their involvement in terrorist attacks in Pakistan. A 2-member bench headed by Justice Dost Mohammed heard appeals filed by 4 death row convicts. 2 men namely Ali Rehman and Taj Mohammed were convicted of facilitating the deadly attack on Army Public School (APC) in Peshawar on December 16, 2014 while Muhammad Zubair was involved in Nowshera bomb blast and Mohammed Ayaz was accused of opening fire on a security check post in Mohmand Agency. During the proceeding, the defence lawyer argued that the concerned high court did not even look into the record of appeals against the military tribunals' decision. The apex court observed that military courts should give a reason in their judgment. The attack on Army-run school, which was claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban, led the government to lift a 2008 moratorium on the death penalty. However, most of the nearly 300 people hanged since then have been convicted criminals, not militants. Meanwhile, Justice Dost Mohammed issued notices to the attorney general of Pakistan as well as JAG branch to appear in court on February 16. Earlier in December 2015, the authorities hanged 4 APS convicts at a high-security prison in the Kohat city. The attack on army-run school, which was claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban, horrified the country and led the government to lift a 2008 moratorium on the death penalty. However, most of the nearly 300 people hanged since then have been convicted criminals, not militants. The military courts were established as part of a crackdown on militancy following the massacre. Parliament had approved the use of the courts for the coming 2 years, and cases are referred to them by provincial governments. But some have called for the trials to be more transparent. The International Commission of Jurists has condemned the military courts as "secret, opaque" and in violation of fair trial obligations. (source: The Asian Age) INDIA: Death sentence for killing students A district court on Tuesday awarded death sentence to a man and life imprisonment to another for killing 2 students of Purnea district when they came there to write an examination 2 years ago. Additional District Judge Rajesh Kumar Pandey awarded death sentence to Lala Chaurasia and life imprisonment to Chamo for pushing 2 polytechnic students to death from a mountain. The court also slapped a penalty of Rs 10000 each. 4 students had come to write an examination in 2014 and had gone to a temple at Hiranya mountain where they were looted by 4 miscreants of their cash and ATM cards. On finding they were told wrong PIN numbers they pushed the 2 students to death from a height of 300 m. A 3rd student fell on a bush along with 1 of the attackers and survived, while the 4th student managed to flee from the scene. (source: The Hindu) PHILIPPINES: Duterte bats for public executions anew Presidential candidate and Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte's latest sound bite reinforced his iron-hand stance against crime: He not only wants the death penalty back, he also wants the execution to be opened to the public. "I will work for the restoration of the death penalty. I will really bring it back, and make it in public, so that the people will see for themselves [how criminals are punished]," Duterte told a cheering crowd that attended a rally here on Wednesday. Duterte first expressed his support for the restoration of the death penalty and the introduction of public execution before the campaign period in Davao City. The 1987 Constitution abolished the death penalty, although it does not close its door to its restoration. Section 19 of the Charter???s Bill of Rights (Article III) states: "Excessive fines shall not be imposed, nor cruel, degrading or inhuman punishment inflicted. Neither shall the death penalty be imposed, unless, for compelling reasons involving heinous crimes, the Congress hereafter provides for it. Any death penalty already imposed shall be reduced to reclusion perpetua." Duterte spoke to a crowd of about 3,000, mostly college students, inside the University of Cagayan Valley gymnasium here. Repeating a promise he made earlier, Duterte asked voters to give him "3 to 6 months" to stamp out criminality in the country. He said he would take "full responsibility, legal or otherwise" for any human rights or administrative charges that may be slapped against lawmen who would be accused of killing criminals. The feisty mayor flew to this city without his vice presidential candidate, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano. From the airport, Duterte first met with Tuguegarao Archbishop Sergio Utleg. His convoy then drove around the city, where people who lined up the main street chanted "Duterte! Duterte!" In his 40-minute speech, the audience laughed every time he punctuated his statements with one-liners about his penchant for executing criminals. (source: inquirer.net) THAILAND: Myanmar convicts to appeal Koh Tao murder verdict A legal team is preparing an appeal against the guilty verdict and death penalty for 2 Myanmar defendants, who are at the centre of the high-profile double murder case on Thailand's Koh Tao island. "We will lodge an appeal on February 24," the defendants' lawyer Nakhon Chomphuchart disclosed recently. "We are confident our appeal will carry enough weight". Koh Samui Court has found Nakhon's clients, Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Htun, guilty of killing 2 British tourists - Hannah Witheridge and David Miller. They were also convicted of raping the female victim. Along with the guilty verdict, the court handed down the death penalty to the 2 defendants. The brutal crimes, which took place in 2014, have made headlines both locally and internationally. The case has also received serious attention from authorities in Thailand, Myanmar and Britain. (source: asiaone.com) BANGLADESH: 2 men get death penalty for murdering 10-year old Maria in 2014 The other convict has been sentenced to 5 years in prison. District and Sessions Judge AKM Enamul Haque delivered the verdict on the 2014 sensational murder case on Tuesday. According to Public Prosecutor Haris Uddin, the convicts murdered the 4th grader and hid the body in July 2014 at Gazipur's Konabarhi. Abdul Alim, 45, and Suman Sheikh, 22, were given death sentences, and Alim's wife Shefali Begum the prison term. All 3 convicts have received different monetary penalties as well. Jaydebpur Police Inspector Alam Chand, the investigation officer of the case, told bdnews24.com, "Maria's father Akteruzzaman would often misbehave with the convicts, which led them to murder the child." Alim worked as the gatekeeper at the deceased's house, while Suman was a co-worker of Akteruzzaman at a factory at Konabarhi. On Jul 14, 2014, Maria set out for school in the morning, but never returned home at Konabarhi's Ershad Nagar Housing Estate, according to the case documents. Her family started looking for the child. On being asked, Suman and Alim said they had seen Maria playing in front of the house. The neighbours also joined the search, but the 3 convicts tricked them into not looking in the garage of the housing complex. Later, Maria's body was found in the garage with a t-shirt wrapped around her neck. Her books and school bag were found in the reserve water tank. Maria's father filed a murder case with Jaydebpur Police against those 3. Although Alim was present before the court on Tuesday, Suman had jumped the bail during the hearing. Konabarhi police had earlier said during primary interrogation that Suman had confessed to strangling the child following a failed rape attempt. (source: bdnews24.com) ************* Retired HC judge appointed as war crimes convict's lawyer A recently-retired High Court judge has been appointed as defence lawyers for a person convicted of crimes during Bangladesh???s 1971 liberation war with Pakistan. Nazrul Islam, a High Court judge who is now on pre-retirement leave, defended Mir Quasem Ali, a Jamaat-e-Islami leader awarded with death penalty by a special war crimes tribunal in 2014, put his argument in the case being heard by the Appellate Division. During the hearing, Surendra Kumar Sinha, head of 5-member panel of appeal court judges, remained the retired judge saying those are taking privileges from the public exchequer as judges should follow the official rules. The retired judge responded saying he was engaged pleading within the purview of law. The appeal court adjourned the hearing until Monday as Wednesday was the s2nd day into the hearing as the defendant challenged the trial court's verdict handed down on November 2, 2014. Quasem, known as one of the prime financiers of Jamaat-e-Islami and a member of the executive council of the party, was found guilty of genocide and other crimes against humanity during the war. Defence lawyer SM Shajahan submitted arguments in favour of his client. Earlier on February 2, the Supreme Court fixed the date for 9 February to hear the appeal hearing of Mir Quasem. (source: newsnextbd.com) TAIWAN: Can Tsai Ing-Wen Change the Politics of Death?----The incoming president faces a debate over the death penalty. Following her electoral victory last month, KMT lawmakers have clashed on several issues with Tsai Ing-wen, who will be inaugurated as Taiwan's 1st female president on May 20, and her Democratic Peoples Party. Among them, Tsai has been pushed to reveal her stance on the abolition of the death penalty. While capital punishment remains relatively popular in Taiwan, Lin Hsin-yi, Executive Director of the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, has pointed out that none of the KMT lawmakers who attacked the DPP over the abolition of the death penalty have been reelected. For her, "this congress is more friendly to human rights." What will this mean for the death penalty in Taiwan? In early June 2015, 6 death row inmates were executed at four locations around Taiwan. The executions attracted some positive domestic attention but raised numerous concerns internationally. Taiwan has come under fire from international human rights organizations on several occasions for failing to adhere to procedural guidelines and for apparently using capital punishment for political purposes. Such accusations could amount to violations under international law but this could change with Tsai and the DPP, which has tended to support abolition. The Politics of Death The Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP) has observed that, "all the executions since 2010, when the four-year moratorium was lifted, took place when the government approval rate was low." Taiwan had a moratorium on capital punishment from 2006 to 2010. In March 2010, then Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng voiced support for the abolition of capital punishment and stated she would refuse to sign any execution warrants. This fueled a pro-death penalty social movement led by entertainer Pai Ping-ping, whose daughter had been murdered in 1997. That led to Wang's resignation. Tseng Yung-fu took over at Justice and reinstated the death penalty. In April, negotiations surrounding a trade agreement between China and Taiwan saw public approval of the government plummet. On April 30, 2010 the first executions since 2006 took place. The Ministry of Justice consistently denies allegations of impropriety, but has refused to provide records of its meetings on death row inmates or on the criteria for deciding the timing of an execution. There have been executions, timed around episodes of low government approval, every year since the moratorium was lifted. The executions in June are emblematic. In March 2015 4 subway commuters were killed in Taipei and in May an 8-year-old girl was killed at her school. Public outcry demanded the death penalty for the attackers. Abolitionist politicians and rights campaigners were harassed and threatened. In early June, then opposition party chairperson, Tsai drew considerable domestic media attention for a high-profile trip to the United States, at the expense of the already unpopular KMT. Amid public outrage over the heinous murders and growing popularity for the opposition party, the timing of the 2015 executions is suspect. There were also several legal irregularities. The initial list of those to be executed included Chiou Ho-shun, who had been sentenced in 1989 following 4 months of secret detention and reports that he had been tortured into confession. Amnesty International has repeatedly called for his release. 3 of the men who were executed had filed special appeals on the day of their executions. This could reflect either a cursory or non-existent review. There has never been a successful case of a death row inmate filing a special appeal or commutation. Lawyers for the 3 inmates were not notified of the rejection of the appeal until after the executions. More concerning, 2 of the men executed in June, Wang Hsiu-fang and Wang Chun-chin, had no legal representation at their final trial before the Supreme Court. Taiwan's Criminal Procedure Code does not guarantee legal defense for final appeals. In 2012 a draft was proposed that would change this in cases involving a minimum punishment of three years but it has not yet become law. Many current death row inmates did not have lawyers at their final trials. In 2012, the final appeal retrial in 1 death row case found the 3 defendants not guilty of the 1991 murder for which they had spent more than 20 years in prison. This raises concern over the right to a fair trial, which includes the right to legal defense and appeal. If political calculations have been behind the timing of executions since 2010, it could constitute an arbitrary imposition of the death penalty, which would amount to a violation of the right to life. International law does not explicitly ban capital punishment but places strict procedural guidelines on those countries that have not abolished the death penalty. Taiwan and International Law In 2009, Taiwan announced that it had ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations but effective ratification was accomplished through the Implementation Act, establishing that all domestic law align with the Covenants. Article 6 of the ICCPR guarantees the right to life and protection from arbitrary loss of life. It prohibits the death penalty when it may constitute a violation of other rights, most notably the prohibition against torture. Preventing the arbitrary deprivation of life requires that any decision to impose the death penalty must be narrowly circumscribed by clear and transparent principles in line with the Covenant. This requires strict adherence to Article 14???s right to a fair trial. The Human Rights Committee has noted that, "the imposition of a sentence of death upon conclusion of a trial, in which the provisions of article 14 of the Covenant have not been respected, constitutes a violation of the right to life." Anyone sentenced to death is entitled to seek pardon. This is enshrined in ICCPR Article 6(4). Number 8 of the 1984 Safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty adds that no execution shall be carried out pending an appeal, pardon or commutation. The right to seek pardon carries the expectation that in some circumstances a pardon may be granted, otherwise the right is relatively empty. Although not legally binding, UN General Assembly resolution 65/206 calls upon all states to "make available relevant information with regard to their use of the death penalty, which can contribute to possible informed and transparent national debates." This is important for ensuring a fair trial and strict adherence to procedural rules at every stage of the process, from the initial trial to final appeal and scheduling of the execution. Tsai Ing-wen's Challenge While advocates for the abolition of the death penalty have felt Tsai Ing-wen hasn't been explicit enough in her position, KMT lawmakers have challenged her for supporting abolition. Among them was Alex Tsai, who was quite vocal on pro-death penalty issues during his campaign but was ultimately not reelected. This failure for pro-death penalty lawmakers points to a possible decrease in voter emphasis on maintaining the death penalty. This presents the best opening for a return to a moratorium and steps toward abolition without sacrificing political capital for the DPP. Tsai Ing-wen is likely to face conflicting pressure moving forward, says Lin of TAEDP. The new president may face public pressure to carry out an execution from those in favor of continuing the death penalty. Counteracting that is international pressure. In 2013, Taiwan received a delegation of independent experts to review its implementation of the ICCPR and ICESCR. The 2nd review will take place in early 2017 and the death penalty is likely to be a high priority. If Tsai wants to demonstrate her commitment to human rights she will need to consider Taiwan's implementation of the 2 Covenants. Who Tsai appoints as the Minister of Justice is among the 1st key indicators. Lawyer Gu Lixiong, known for his support for abolition, was assumed my many to be a likely appointee but his election to the legislature rules him out. In 2009, abolition-minded Justice Minister Wang Ching-feng created a working group on the death penalty, which included NGOs, lawyers, and academics. Although the working group was dismantled shortly after her resignation, Tsai has been advised to create something similar, which could also support public education and participate in a national dialogue on abolishing the death penalty. Even if abolitionist-minded lawmakers are able to float a bill, there???s too little understanding and support for the passage of any such law, which is where the importance of such a working group can be seen. Moving Forward Until a more thorough investigation into the use and potential political abuse of the death penalty takes place, Taiwanese human rights groups say Tsai should announce an immediate moratorium. She should promise to more closely implement the ICCPR and encourage the Legislative Yuan to establish a National Human Rights Commission in line with the Paris Principles. Although in December the Executive Yuan granted a Freedom of Information Request filed by TAEPD last August requesting the Ministry of Justice to reveal its decision making process on signing execution orders, the system remains far from transparent. How Tsai responds to these issues leading up to and following her inauguration in May will matter. (source: Michael Caster is a graduate student at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Previously he worked as a human rights advocate and civil society consultant based in East Asia----The Diplomat) SINGAPORE: Belgian accused of killing son to be remanded another 6 weeks pending forensics report A Belgian man accused of killing his 5-year-old son in their D'Leedon condominium home in October last year will be remanded in Changi Prison for another 6 weeks, pending the completion of a forensic investigation report. Philippe Marcel Guy Graffart appeared in court via video-link on Wednesday. His case will be mentioned again on March 23. The 41-year-old was charged on Oct 7, last year, with the murder of Keryan Gabriel Cedric Graffart. He allegedly committed the act at his 32nd-storey home at 3 Leedon Heights, the day before he was first brought to court. He was then remanded for 4 weeks at the medical centre in Changi Prison for a psychiatric assessment. He was subsequently remanded at the Central Police Division to assist in investigations. Graffart worked for the Singapore investment management arm of Nordea, a company that describes itself as the largest financial group in northern Europe. Graffart's lawyer Ramesh Tiwary told The Straits Times that he will study the forensic report once it has been completed. Mr Tiwary also said that he has been in touch with his client, having visited him a few times in prison. Asked about Graffart's condition, the lawyer said: "He's naturally very depressed about what's happened." If convicted of his charge, murder with intention, Graffart faces the mandatory death penalty. (source: straitstimes.com) ETHIOPIA: British Father Marks 600 Days of Illegal Ethiopian Detention A British man who was kidnapped and rendered to Ethiopia will this Saturday mark 600 days of illegal detention. Andargachew 'Andy' Tsege, a father of 3 from London who turns 61 today, has been held by Ethiopian security forces since his disappearance on 23rd June 2014, when he was forcibly taken from an airport in Yemen to Ethiopia. Mr Tsege is a prominent member of the Ethiopian opposition, and is held under a sentence of death imposed in absentia in 2009 in relation to his political activities. Today Mr Tsege's partner and 3 children will deliver to 10 Downing Street a petition signed by nearly 130,000 people, calling on the Prime Minister to intervene to secure his release. The Ethiopian authorities have refused to say whether Mr Tsege's death sentence will be carried out or not, and have not permitted him to see a lawyer or his British family. During recent visits to him by the British ambassador, Mr Tsege has indicated that he is not being held as a regular prisoner, and has not been told by the authorities what will happen to him. Torture and mistreatment is common in Ethiopian prisons, and there are fears for Mr Tsege's mental and physical health. Harriet McCulloch, a deputy director at human rights organization Reprieve, which is assisting Mr Tsege, said: "It is deeply disappointing that, nearly 600 days on from his kidnap, Andy Tsege is no closer to freedom. Andy has been subjected to an appalling ordeal - including rendition, illegal detention and an in absentia death sentence - as punishment for his political activism. There are now serious concerns for his mental and physical health. It's clear the Foreign Office views Ethiopia's actions as totally unacceptable - the government must do more to secure his release." (source: Reprieve is a UK-based human rights organization that uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guant???namo Bay---- Common Dreams) EGYPT: Court adjourns former President Morsi's trial for espionage The Cairo Criminal Court has adjourned until Saturday the trial of ousted President Mohamed Morsi and 10 other members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood members over charges of espionage and for revealing national security documents to Qatar. The public prosecution demanded on Tuesday handing down the death penalty on former President Morsi and his co-accused. The defendants face charges of embezzling reports by military intelligence, the Armed Forces, the National Security Agency and the Administrative Control Authority that included confidential data. The previous court session was adjourned to bring the 7th suspect from prison and hear testimony of Cairo's general transportation authority chief. It also ordered the summoning of a technical person to exhibit the CDs presented during the last session. The court also ordered for a copy of the decision on the dissolution of the Muslim Brotherhood and resumption of arrest of the suspects. Meanwile, the Zagazig criminal court has on Tuesday sentenced 63 members of the Muslim Brotherhood to terms in jail ranging between 3 years to life. (source: starafrica.com) JAMAICA: You have no right to life The letter came from the St Catherine District Prison (as it was called then in the 1980s), and from a man on death row. I was then the pastor of the Phillippo Circuit of Baptist Churches. He said he had read my articles in the newspapers but had never seen one with my view on the death penalty, and he was urging me to write and make the public aware that even though he was convicted and sentenced to hang for murder, he had a right to life. In my weird brain, I thought to myself, "What a curious expression and claim, for who can really guarantee life to anyone?" This question of mine still occupies my mind, and I have chided the notion of a 'right to life' in sermons and studies arguing that life is a grace gift from God and not a right per se. Very recently, it came back to me, so I asked an eminent lawyer friend if there is a conceptual difference between a right to life and a right not to be subjected to cruel, inhumane or degrading punishment. He patiently walked me through sections of the most popular human-rights documents and a few prominent cases to show me that there is a conceptual difference. Let it be abundantly clear that I do not agree with capital punishment, nor do I agree with the glib arguments about a right to life. Christians who are horrified at my view here should bear in mind a caution from theologian, philosopher and lawyer John Warwick Montgomery: "... The Church's [reason for being] is the saving of souls. A live prisoner is at least in principle capable of conversion; a dead prisoner is not." (See his Christ As Centre and Circumference: Essays Theological, Cultural and Polemic, 2012, p. 599) As I tell worshippers in the churches where I serve as pastor, "I am half-crazy in some of my views, so feel free to question me after any sermon." Ponder this before you attempt to drop the fraction before crazy. Despite the fact that Jamaica has ratified most of the international human rights treaties, what is really there to prevent our authorities from hanging you after you have been found guilty of a most 'heinous murder' and sentenced to be hanged? INTERNATIONAL LAW BREACHES International opprobrium and castigation, all after the fact of your death? Think of the numerous ancient and recent breaches of international law by countries minus meaningful sanctions! Bear in mind, too, that developed and developing countries not only have the ability to do it, but have, in fact, eliminated citizens whom they regard as dissidents, enemies of the state, or inimical to the country's security. Even if I fully concur with the milder and more defensible right not to be subject to cruel, inhumane or degrading punishment, there is still no airtight, guaranteed entitlement here. There is many a slip between rope and neck, remediable only long after the fact. I am just saying that we should raise questions on a so-called 'right' that we cannot safeguard in prospect but only attempt to address or remedy in retrospect after a breach. Life is foundational to the enjoyment of every entitlement or good in life, but life itself is not a right but a gift or loan from the Almighty. [Clinton Chisholm is a theologian] (source: Letter to the Editor, Jamaica Gleaner) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 10 14:39:06 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2016 14:39:06 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., VA., OHIO, FLA., S. DAK., NEB., USA Message-ID: Feb. 10 TEXAS----impending execution Texas death row inmate moves one step closer to execution The U.S. Supreme Court refused Wednesday to reconsider its refusal of the case of a 42-year-old man set to die next week for the slaying of a suburban Dallas liquor store clerk. The high court, without comment Wednesday, rejected the request from Gustavo Garcia, who's scheduled for lethal injection Feb. 16. Garcia was 18 in December 1990 when Craig Turski, 43, was shot to death during a holdup in Plano. Authorities tied him to a 2nd slaying a month later, also in Plano. Garcia's attorneys contended 2 prospective jurors at his trial improperly were excused. The justices initially refused to review his case last month. Garcia was 1 of 7 inmates involved in at attempted escape from death row in 1998. (source: Associated Press) PENNSYLVANIA: DA gets more time to mull death penalty in officer slaying A western Pennsylvania prosecutor will have until March 26 to decide whether to seek the death penalty against a man charged in the shooting death of a police officer. 31-year-old Raymond Shetler Jr. is charged in Westmoreland County in the Nov. 28 death of Officer Lloyd Reed after the officer responded to a domestic call in St. Clair. District Attorney John Peck said Tuesday that he would study several factors and wanted to hear about any mitigating circumstances in the case. Jurors in death penalty cases weigh such factors against aggravating factors, which Peck said would include the killing of an officer and the defendant's criminal record. Peck said relatives of the victim have taken no position on the death penalty but are "looking for guidance and direction from me." (source: Associated Press) VIRGINIA: House votes to allow electric chair as fallback option for executions The Virginia House of Delegates passed legislation Wednesday to allow inmates to be executed via electric chair if the state lacks the necessary drugs for lethal injection. The bill passed on a 62-33 vote after Del. Jackson H. Miller, R-Manassas, delivered a graphic retelling of the 2006 murder of Richmond's Harvey family. The killer in that case, Ricky Javon Gray, is scheduled to be executed March 16, but the the Virginia Department of Corrections has said it lacks the drugs needed to put Gray to death. "This isn't expanding the death penalty, said Miller. "But the case I just told you about is exactly why we have this punishment on our books." Condemned Virginia inmates have been able to choose between lethal injection and the electric chair since 1995. Just seven of 87 inmates executed since then have chosen the chair. Miller has argued that the state's ability to "carry out justice" could be jeopardized if an inmate chooses lethal injection and no drugs are available. The bill, House Bill 815, now goes to the Senate. (source: Richmond Times-Dispatch) OHIO: Ohio Mental Health Advocates Push Execution Exemption for Defendants with Serious Mental Illness Learn more at www.OAMIE.org The Ohio Alliance for the Mental Illness Exemption (OAMIE) was represented before the Senate Criminal Justice Committee in testimony today by former Ohio Senator Bob Spada, who serves on the board of directors of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Ohio, a convener of the Alliance. "We believe that those who commit violent crimes while in the grip of a psychotic delusion, hallucination or other disabling psychological condition lack judgment, understanding or self-control," said Spada. "Until such time as the U.S. Supreme Court decides on this question, the responsibility for prohibiting the execution of such individuals in Ohio rests with the Ohio General Assembly." Spada attached to his written testimony a statement from OAMIE partners to the members of the Committee in support of S.B. 162, legislation which will prohibit the execution of defendants with specific mental illnesses at the time of the crime. Also testifying today were Professor Daniel T. Kobil of Capital University Law School, on behalf of more than 50 Ohio law professors who have signed a letter to the legislature in support of S.B. 162, and Dr. Jeffrey L. Smalldon, a forensic psychologist who has provided expertise on mental health issues in numerous Ohio capital cases. Today's testimony has been posted in addition to all past proponent and interested party testimony at http://oamie.org/s-b-162-testimony/. The proposed legislation, which to-date has had only one opponent testify over the course of 6 hearings, is supported by leading organizations concerned with mental health issues in Ohio, including the following: National Alliance on Mental Illness of Ohio, Ohio Psychiatric Physicians Association, Ohio Psychological Association, Ohio Council of Behavioral Health & Family Services Providers, Ohio Association of County Behavioral Health Authorities, Mental Health and Addiction Advocacy Coalition, Buckeye Art Therapy Association, Ohio Empowerment Coalition, and the National Association of Social Workers - Ohio Chapter. The public is invited to learn more about the legislation on our web page, www.OAMIE.org (source: Ohio Alliance for the Mental Illness Exemption) *********** 'Voice of Experience' to explore death penalty A Catholic priest and a former death row inmate are coming to Cincinnati to share their powerful story in a program called "Voices of Experience: The Death Penalty," at 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 18, at St. Anthony Church in Madisonville. Joe D'Ambrosio spent more than 20 years on death row for a crime he didn't commit. The Rev. Neil Kookoothe, who is also a nurse and an attorney, met D'Ambrosio during a pastoral visit to death row. Kooksoothe's unique skill set led him to discover the holes in the case keeping Joe there. The 2 became a team, and Joe finally walked off death row, a free man, in 2012. "Voices of Experience" is sponsored by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Ohioans to Stop Executions, St. Anthony Church and the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati is the 38th largest Catholic diocese in the country, with almost 500,000 Catholics, and has the 6th largest network of Catholic schools in terms of enrollment. The 19-county territory includes 211 parishes and 111 Catholic primary and secondary schools. (source: disneydailynews.com) FLORIDA: Florida Gov. Remains Mum on How to Fix State's Death Penalty Despite an ongoing emotional debate, Gov. Rick Scott is refusing to say how Florida should fix the state's death penalty law. The Florida Legislature is currently divided over how to rewrite the law after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the current sentencing method unconstitutional. Scott has not made any recommendations, and on Wednesday, he said that he won't weigh in until state legislators send him a bill. Scott's decision to let legislators work out the details contrasts with former Gov. Jeb Bush. After botched executions threatened Florida's death penalty, Bush called a special session. The governor recommended changes that included the state's switch to lethal injection from the electric chair. The House and Senate are at odds over whether a jury should unanimously agree to recommend a death sentence. (source: nbcmiami.com) SOUTH DAKOTA: Bill sponsor: Death penalty overburdens counties, jurors The main sponsor of a measure that would repeal the death penalty in South Dakota says the practice overburdens counties and traumatizes jurors and court personnel. Republican Sen. Arthur Rusch is a former judge. He told the Senate State Affairs Committee on Wednesday that he's personally prosecuted a death penalty case and seen the damaging effects firsthand. The committee carved out an hour and a half Wednesday to hear from proponents and opponents of the measure. Rusch says death penalty cases are unfairly taxing on county governments and have long-term effects on those involved. He also says he doesn't believe the punishment is an effective deterrent on crime. The committee voted down 2 measures to repeal or limit the death penalty in the 2015 legislative session. (source: Associated Press) NEBRASKA: Popular Democracy and Capital Punishment in Nebraska 2015 saw fewer individuals executed and fewer individuals sentenced to death in the United States than any year since 1991 and the early 1970s (pre-Furman v. Georgia), respectively. It was the 6th straight year that executions had declined. Many articles have been written about the slow decline of the death penalty in America. Usually, discussions of the death penalty focus on Texas (though Oklahoma has been prominently featured of late). The state that I find fascinating, however, is Nebraska. In 2015, Nebraska became the seventh state to repeal the death penalty (not counting those states that made no provision for the death penalty when the Supreme Court's decision in Gregg v. Georgia reinstated the death penalty nationally). But after Nebraska's legislature repealed the death penalty (and overrode a gubernatorial veto on the same), events took a turn not seen in other states. The Cornhusker state is one of a few where actions of the legislature can be overturned by referendum. Governor Pete Ricketts, who had vetoed the repeal only to see that repeal overridden, not only supported the referendum effort to overturn the repeal, he personally donated much of the financial backing for the initiative. Per the Nebraska Constitution, once the repeal petition received enough signatures to get the referendum on the ballot, the repeal bill was suspended. On Westlaw, affected statutes, including repealed sections authorizing the capital punishment as well as new sections describing the effects of repeal and transition away from execution, are accompanied by a note that the legislated change "been suspended by operation of Article III, # 3, of the Nebraska Constitution; see Historical and Statutory Notes." Nebraska's last execution was carried out in 1997. There are currently 10 individuals on death row in Nebraska. They'll find out in November what happens next. (source: Max Milstein, Attorney Editor, Thomson Reuters Max is a Senior Attorney Editor for Thomson Reuters ----blog.legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.com) USA: 'Headley can still get death sentence in U.S.' Headley had agreed to plea-bargain with the U.S. government and was sentenced to 35 years in prison on terrorism charges, says the Special Public Prosecutor. In a startling revelation, Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam claimed on Wednesday that Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative David Coleman Headley could still be sentenced to death by the U.S. court for his involvement in the 26/11 Mumbai attack if he is found to be lying to the Indian court. Headley had agreed to plea-bargain with the U.S. government and was sentenced to 35 years in prison on terrorism charges that would otherwise have attracted the death penalty there. Among the conditions in the plea-bargain is a commitment from Headley to depose truthfully before foreign judicial commissions. The only question now is how India would prove whether or not Headley is lying, as most of the evidence and all his handlers are in Pakistan. And even if India had conclusive evidence that Headley was lying in the video deposition, would the appropriate U.S. authorities accept India's claims? "Headley has given an undertaking before the U.S court that if he is not truthful in his replies before the court here, then the U.S government is entitled to seek the death penalty for him," Mr. Nikam told The Hindu. Mr. Nikam also claimed that only if he is satisfied with Headley's replies and only if he certifies it will Headley become an approver. Only his offer to become an approver has now been accepted. "The pardon granted to Headley is conditional and, according to the Indian law, the public prosecutor is authorised to forfeit the pardon. I will take a call only after the completion of evidence. Also, to decide if his pardon is to be forfeited or kept alive, I have to probe Headley on various angles and it can be decided after considering his entire evidence." "Headley was handed a lesser punishment because of the plea-bargain and on the agreement that he would also be truthful in his deposition to foreign judicial commissions," a senior government official said. "The U.S can reopen the case if its finds that the agreement has been breached." Mr. Nikam claimed he got the clearance from NSA Ajit Doval to make an offer to turn Headley into an approver. Later, when they presented the idea to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he also concurred. (source: The Hindu) ************* Judge Accepts Challenge of Law in Death Penalty Case----In an order issued Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford said there was "strong disagreement" in "judicial and scholarly" circles about the legality of the death penalty The federal judge hearing the death penalty retrial of a Vermont man charged with killing a Rutland supermarket worker more than 16 years ago said he was open to hearing a constitutional challenge of the federal death penalty law. In an order issued Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford said there was "strong disagreement" in "judicial and scholarly" circles about the legality of the death penalty. "Preliminarily, and with an open mind about the arguments recently made by both sides, the court is looking at the constitutional challenge to the death penalty," Crawford wrote in the entry order dated Tuesday. Crawford said that cases from the 1970s identified and tried to correct problems with the death penalty but "40 years later the question of a systemic violation of the Eighth Amendment remains." Crawford scheduled a hearing for Feb. 26 so defense attorney for Donald Fell and prosecutors can discuss the details of the case and be ready for a hearing on the issues this summer. Robert Dunham of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center said Crawford's ruling was an important development in the case. "Judges don't grant evidentiary hearings if they don't have concerns about the issues," Dunham said. Fell was arrested in 2000 shortly after the abduction and killing of Terry King, a North Clarendon grandmother. At the time, prosecutors decided the case should be heard in federal court. Vermont has no death penalty. In 2002, the judge then hearing the case declared the federal death penalty unconstitutional. Two years later, an appeals court overturned that ruling, allowing the original trial to go forward. Fell was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to death for the abduction and killing of King. A judge ordered a new trial because of juror misconduct. A second trial is scheduled for February 2017 Last fall, Fell's attorneys asked the court to rule the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Fifth and Eighth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. (source: NECN) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 10 14:40:18 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2016 14:40:18 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 10 NORTH KOREA: North Korea executes army chief of staff: South Korean media North Korea has executed its army chief of staff, Ri Yong Gil, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported on Wednesday, which, if true, would be the latest in a series of executions, purges and disappearances under its young leader. The news comes amid heightened tension surrounding isolated North Korea after its Sunday launch of a long-range rocket, which came about a month after it drew international condemnation for conducting its 4th nuclear test. A source familiar with North Korean affairs also told Reuters that Ri had been executed. The source declined to be identified, given the sensitivity of the matter. Ri, who was chief of the Korean People's Army (KPA) General Staff, was executed this month for corruption and factional conspiracy, Yonhap and other South Korean media reported. Yonhap did not identify its sources. The source who told Reuters the news declined to comment on how the information about the execution had been obtained. South Korea's National Intelligence Service declined to comment and it was not possible to independently verify the report. The North rarely issues public announcement related to purges or executions of high-level officials. A rare official confirmation of a high-profile execution came after Jang Song Thaek, leader Kim Jong Un's uncle and the man who was once considered the 2nd most powerful figure in the country, was executed for corruption in 2013. In May last year, the North executed its defense chief by anti-aircraft gun at a firing range, the South's spy agency said in a report to members of parliament. The North's military leadership has been in a state of perpetual reshuffle since Kim Jong Un took power after the death of his father in 2011. He has changed his armed forces chief several times since then. Some other high-ranking officials in the North have been absent from public view for extended periods, fuelling speculation they may have been purged or removed, only to resurface. (source: Reuters) MALAYSIA: Perak police nab 3 family members, seize drugs worth RM228,000 Perak police seized 4.57 kilogrammes (kg) of heroin, worth about RM228,859, following the arrest of a couple and their son in Taman Gopeng Baru, Gopeng last Friday. Perak Narcotics Crime Department chief, ACP R. Ravi Chandran said police managed to seize the drugs after detaining a 58-year-old man who was in a Proton Waja that was parked in front of a house in the housing estate, on Feb 5, at about 3.50pm. "Police found 5 transparent plastic packages believed to be filled with heroin weighing about 4.53kg when the car was inspected. In a follow-up search at the suspect's house, police arrested his wife and 20-year-old son after finding plastic packages believed to contain heroin weighing 50.70grammes,??? he told reporters at the Perak police headquarters, here today. Ravi said the 3 suspects were being remanded for 7 days beginning Saturday to assist investigations. He said the drugs were believed to be for distribution around Gopeng, Kampar and Ipoh and was sufficient to supply some 3,500 drug users. Ravi said the family head who was detained worked as a farmer and had 6 previous criminal records, while his wife and son had no previous criminal records. "We are also investigating when the family started trafficking drugs actively. The farmer also tested positive for methamphetamine," he said while thanking the public for the tip-off. The case would be investigated under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 which carries the mandatory death penalty if convicted. (source: themalaymailonline.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Feb 11 09:34:55 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2016 09:34:55 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., VA., N.C., GA., FLA., ALA., MISS., LA. Message-ID: Feb. 11 TEXAS----impending execution Death Watch: Double Death Penalty----Garcia, convicted of capital murder, contends that his confessions were improperly admitted as evidence In Jan. 1991, 19-year-old Gustavo Garcia, his wife, and a 3rd accomplice, 15-year-old Christopher Vargas, stepped into a Plano convenience store for a robbery and ultimately shot and killed the store clerk, 18-year-old Gregory Martin, while he was on the phone with his pregnant girlfriend. The girlfriend, who heard the shotgun blast, called police, who arrived on the scene to find Garcia's wife, Sheila Maria Garcia, outside by a gas pump. Garcia was hiding inside one of the store's coolers. During interrogations, police were able to link Garcia to the December slaying of 43-year-old Plano liquor store clerk Craig Turski. Garcia confessed to that murder via written statement: "I killed the clerk with the shotgun," he wrote. He was charged with capital murder for both slayings but only tried in Turski's death. Vargas was convicted of capital murder in Martin's death and sentenced to life in prison. Garcia went to trial in Dec. 1991. On Dec. 19, he was handed the death penalty. A Dec. 1994 decision from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the decision, however, noting that Garcia's written confession did not include the necessary language indicating that Garcia "knowing[ly], intelligent[ly], and voluntar[il]y" waived his right to remain silent during interrogations. The sentence was later reinstated during a follow-up hearing. In late Nov. 1998, Garcia was 1 of 7 inmates in Huntsville's Ellis Unit who took part in an elaborate attempt to escape the prison. One succeeded, though he drowned in a lake shortly after jumping the prison wall. Garcia and 5 others surrendered while still on the Huntsville grounds. In June 2000, Garcia was granted a new sentencing hearing (along with 5 others) after the Texas Attorney General learned that former Texas Department of Criminal Justice Chief Psychologist Dr. Walter Quijano testified that Garcia could be a continued threat to society if he was given a life sentence simply because he was Hispanic. But Garcia was handed another death sentence in March of 2001. On Jan. 19, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review Garcia's case without comment. Through his attorneys, Garcia, now 42, continues to contend that his confessions were improperly admitted as evidence, and that he did not receive adequate counseling during his trial. With his execution scheduled for Feb. 16, Garcia stands to be the 3rd Texan executed this year, and the 534th since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1976. (source: Austin Chronicle) ************************ Court upholds death penalty for man who killed Ofc. Jaime Padron The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has issued an option to uphold the death penalty for the man who is currently on death row for the 2012 murder of Austin Police Officer Jaime Padron. After reviewing Brandon Daniel's case, the court ruled the case had no merit and, "Consequently, we affirm the trial court's judgment and sentence of death." When an individual is sentenced to death, the case is automatically appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeals. Daniel was found guilty of capital murder and sentenced to death in February 2014. A few weeks after his trial, Daniel sent Judge Brenda Kennedy a letter stating why he wanted to waive any and all of his appeals. In the letter, Daniel wrote: "I want justice to be served and I feel that the punishment is appropriate for my crime; we are both interested in saving the taxpayer's money, the time of all involved and in sparing my family and the victim's family anymore angst than necessary; and finally, I would like to limit my time in prison to the least amount possible." By waiving all appeals, officials say the execution process could happen within 2 years. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice says inmates that receive capital punishment stay on death row an average of nearly 11 years before being put to death. (source: KXAN news) ******************* Attorney: Death penalty may be out in family massacre case The attorney for a man accused of fatally shooting 8 people at a suburban Houston home says his client may be intellectually disqualified for a death sentence if convicted. Philip Scardino is the lead attorney for David Ray Conley, who's charged with 3 capital murder counts and accused of shooting dead his estranged ex-girlfriend, her husband and 6 children, including his own son. Scardino tells the Houston Chronicle (http://bit.ly/20ML6Pw) that Conley is undergoing tests and the results aren't yet available, but there's some indication that that he may have "an intellectual disability." The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the intellectually disabled are disqualified from execution. Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson has made no decision yet on whether a death sentence will be sought in Conley's prosecution. (source: Associated Press) ***************** 2nd investigator in probe of slain Texas deputy fired for misconduct An investigator in the fatal ambush shooting of a Houston-area deputy has been fired for inappropriate behavior, the Harris County Sheriff's Office said on Wednesday, making him the second person in the probe to be terminated. The office said it had fired Deputy M. DeLeon on Tuesday for being untruthful in the course of the investigation into the death of Harris County Sheriff's Deputy Darren Goforth. Goforth, 47, was fatally shot in a hail of bullets on Aug. 28 as he fueled a patrol car at a Houston-area gas station. The suspected shooter, Shannon Miles, 31, was committed this week to a state mental hospital for 120 days after prosecutors found he was not competent to stand trial at this time. Miles has been charged with capital murder, which is punishable by death. In October, the Harris County Sheriff's office fired Sergeant Craig Clopton, a homicide investigator, after a receiving a report that he had sexual relations with a witness in the case. Clopton had "consensual sexual relations" with the same woman who has claimed she had been in a sexual relationship with Goforth, court papers said. Defense attorneys have argued that Goforth was filling up his patrol car while on his way to meet the woman cited in the case. The move is seen as an attempt to argue that the deputy was not on duty at the time he was killed and Miles should not face the death penalty. (source: Reuters) CONNECTICUT: The Death Penalty and Stare Decisis We have recently opined that the Connecticut Supreme Court was right to abolish the death penalty entirely last year in State v. Santiago. At the beginning of this year, state prosecutors argued to the Supreme Court in State v. Peeler that Santiago should be overruled. The only significant new development in Peeler is the retirement of 1 of the 4 justices in the 4-3 majority in Santiago. So naturally, the arguments of Peeler's lawyers focused on stare decisis. In our view the reason Santiago should be followed is that it was correctly decided, not because of stare decisis. Death penalty decisions have always contained strong opinions from both sides. The Supreme Court frequently overrules decisions - recent as well as otherwise - whenever the majority believes "the most cogent reasons and inescapable logic require it." Even a cursory glance at the dissenting opinions in Santiago shows that that test is met in the minds of the 3 dissenters. Whatever opinion the 1 new justice who did not sit on the Santiago panel has, it is unlikely to be any less vigorous than that of the justices on one side or the other in Santiago. Stare decisis, in fact, has played a much diminished role concerning the constitutionality of the death penalty since the first modern case, State v. Ross, in 1994. 3 justices and 2 lower court judges decided Ross in a 4-1 decision. A year later, a 4th justice, Justice Richard Palmer, sat for the 1st time. Both sides reconsidered the issue de novo in State v. Breton and again split 4-1. One more year later, Justices Flemming Norcott Jr. and Joette Katz sat for the 1st time during death penalty arguments in State v. Webb as part of a 5-judge court. Before that decision was released, Chief Justice Ellen Peters and, for the 1st time, Justice David Borden sat. Both sides once again reconsidered the issue de novo and split 4-3. Ironically, the 5-judge panel probably would have decided the issue 3-2 the other way, subject, of course, to reconsideration en banc. In no other issue than the death penalty would the justices in Webb have considered it significant that only 3 justices sat in Ross and only 4 in Breton. Since 1996, the issue has come up a number of times and the dissenters have never stopped dissenting. Nor should they. The death penalty is an issue of unequaled moral significance for both sides. No justices on either side of the issue are likely to be - or should be - lukewarm. Stare decisis is important, but the death penalty is unique; relying on stare decisis diminishes its moral character. Santiago should be affirmed because it is the right decision. Period. (source: Editorial, ctlawtribune.com) VIRGINIA: Execute Like It's 1908 In 1908, Virginia legislators patted themselves on the back for "progressive" law #398, introduced by Henrico Delegate Throckmorton, titled "An Act to establish a permanent place in the State penitentiary at Richmond Virginia for the execution of felons upon whom the death penalty is to be imposed, and to change the mode of execution so that the death sentence shall be by electricity," and passed March 16 of that year. The new law modernized capital punishment in the Commonwealth. By eliminating the barbaric spectacles of hangings, and installing an electric chair in the basement of the State Penitentiary on Spring Street, death sentences would forever after be carried out in secret, seen only by a handful of handpicked witnesses. There would be no photography or filming, and no media coverage. Prior to #398, criminals from across Virginia were sometimes transported to Richmond to be "hanged from the neck until dead, dead, dead" or put to death in their own localities or where the crime occurred. To the dismay of prison officials, huge crowds sometimes flocked to the gallows to witness these public performances. 1 of those hanged in 1787 was a slave named Clem, who had been convicted of 2 murders. Clem was 12 years old. Those convicted of grand larceny in the 1700s, however, were not killed; they were released after having their hands doused with coal oil and horribly burned. While the hangings did not upset the crowds, the burnings certainly did, and citizens successfully petitioned the courts for solitary confinement for these convictions instead of "torture" by burning. Hanging was unreliable. In 2 instances in 1902 and 1905 the drop failed to break the prisoners' necks, and instead they strangled to death, pitching and kicking. 1 took 14 minutes to die. While in 1908 the electric chair was considered progressive; in 2016 it is a medieval torture device, best relegated to the museums. Instead, it has found new life in the 2016 General Assembly with House Bill 815, a bill to change the default method of execution back to the chair if lethal injection drugs are not available. This Bill just passed the House February 10 on a vote of 62-33. Virginia's chair currently at Greenville Correctional in Jarratt is the same straight-back oak armchair built by penitentiary inmates in the summer of 1908, and wired by the Adams Electric Company of Trenton New Jersey at an appropriated cost of $1,000. Although its original wiring has been upgraded, the brutality of its killing is unchanged. On August 10, 1982, it took 2 55-second jolts of electricity to kill Frank J. Coppola. The 2nd jolt set his head and legs on fire, filling the death chamber from floor to ceiling with rancid smoke. On October 17, 1990, when Wilbert Lee Evans was hit with the first burst of electricity, blood spewed from the right side of the mask on his face, drenching his shirt. Evans continued to moan before a 2nd jolt of electricity was required to kill him. The autopsy concluded that the voltage surge elevated his high blood pressure. 2 cycles of electricity, applied 4 minutes apart failed to kill Derick Lynn Peterson on August 22, 1991. Prison physician Dr. David Barnes inspected Peterson with a stethoscope, announcing each time "He has not expired." 7 minutes after the 1st attempt to kill Peterson, a 2nd cycle of electricity had to be applied. It is perplexing that Virginia considers herself progressive in so many areas yet wishes to apply the death penalty the same way she did 108 years ago. We may as well step back just 1 more year, to 1907, and strip away the veils of secrecy behind electrocutions and make them public again. Allow all 3 news channels to cover the execution in all its violent, lurching glory and put the event on prime time. Stream it live online so that everyone gets a taste of what is going on down in Jarratt. Pack a sandwich. If we are going to do it, we need to do it right. And, as for live witnesses to the executions, I suggest the 62 House members who voted yes on HB 815. (source: Op-Ed; Dale Brumfield is an author and Digital Archaeologist from Doswell, Virginia----bearingdrift.com) NORTH CAROLINA: Jurors hear from investigators, witness graphic video of North Hills murder scene Various City-County Bureau of Identification agents took the stand Wednesday in the trial of Travion Smith, who is charged with 1st-degree murder in the death of a mother in her North Hills apartment in May 2013. But so far, there has been no direct link from the murder scene to Smith. Smith, 23, is 1 of 3 people charged in connection to 30-year-old Melissa Huggins-Jones' death and could face the death penalty if convicted. Huggins-Jones was new to the Triangle, having divorced and moved from Tennessee to an apartment complex off Six Forks Road with her 8-year-old daughter, Hannah Olivia Jones. Her son had stayed behind with his father in Tennessee to finish the school year. On the morning of May 14, 2013, Hannah wandered out of the apartment and approached a nearby construction crew, asking for help. A construction worker followed the girl back into the apartment and found Huggins-Jones dead in her bed, covered in blood. An autopsy determined she had died from repeated blows to her head and neck. On Wednesday, Tracy Gold, 1 of 4 CCBI agents that testified, talked in detail about physical evidence she collected and processed from the crime scene. During cross-examination, she outlined the process she used to collect fingerprints and shoe impressions. Agent Mike Galloway took the stand and introduced a video he took of the crime scene. The video showed exterior and interior views of Huggins-Jones' apartment. At times, the graphic video caused an emotional reaction from family members and others watching the trial. CCBI Supervisor Chris Hill also took the stand Wednesday and testified that he collected Huggins-Jones' clothing, fingerprints, nail clippings and sexual assault kit during the autopsy. He showed the jury Huggins-Jones' bloody shirt and pants she was wearing the night she was killed. Testimony from Special Agent MacKenzie DeHaan was cut short as the trial recessed at 5 p.m. DeHaan, a forensic biologist, was asked by crime scene investigators to examine various items and samples collected from the scene for DNA evidence. Ronald Lee Anthony and Sarah Rene Redden are also charged in Huggins-Jones' death. Anthony pleaded guilty in 2015 to 1st-degree murder, to avoid the death penalty, and was sentenced to life in prison. He may testify against Smith. Redden, of Wake Forest, has not been offered a plea deal, but testified against Smith last week. The trial resumes as DeHaan takes the stand Thursday at 9:30 a.m. (source: wral.com) GEORGIA: Ga. Lethal Injection Secrecy Law Is Constitutional A death row inmate failed to persuade a sharply divided en banc panel of the Eleventh Circuit Feb. 2 that he should be allowed to pierce Georgia's lethal injection secrecy law in order to collect information that would help him challenge the constitutionality of the state's death penalty protocol. By a slim 6-5 vote, the judges voted to deny en banc review and paved the way for the inmate's execution on Feb. 3. But the closeness of the vote and a strongly worded dissent has given some hope to those who say states shouldn't be allowed to shroud their execution procedures in secrecy. "I think that the closeness of the vote and the emphasis in the majority opinion on the timing of the challenge suggests that another challenge brought earlier by another death row inmate might obtain a different result," Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham told Bloomberg BNA. No Due Process Right-of-Access The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit's en banc decision let stand a Feb. 1 panel ruling, which held that Brandon Jones had no due process right to discover the information shielded by Georgia's stringent secrecy law, Ga. Code #42-5-36. Jones's lawyers insisted that the law, which blocked the convicted murderer from learning anything about the specific drug sources Georgia relies on or the qualifications of those who administer those drugs, violated his right to due process because it interfered with his ability to make a case that the protocol presents a risk of severe pain that is substantial when compared to the known and available alternatives. But the panel, in an opinion by Judge Stanley Marcus, shot the challenge down, noting that it had rejected a similar attack in 2014 and adding that no other circuit court has recognized this type of due process right-of-access challenge. Judge William H. Pryor Jr. joined Marcus in ruling against Jones, but Judge Charles Reginald Wilson dissented. Jones - who at 72 was Georgia's oldest death row inmate - was put to death almost 37 years after he and an accomplice murdered a convenience store clerk during a botched robbery. Jones's accomplice was executed decades ago. Secrecy Under Siege Federal challenges to similar secrecy statutes in Arkansas, Missouri, Ohio and Louisiana have failed in the Fifth and Eighth circuits and in a federal district court in Ohio. An Arkansas judge in December 2015 overturned the state's execution secrecy law and directed the department of corrections to disclose the drugs it will use in executions and the sources of those drugs. A day later, however, the Arkansas Supreme Court stayed that order and is now accepting briefs from the parties. The inmates in that case are arguing that without disclosure of the source and other information they have no way to determine whether the midazolam, vecuronium bromide or potassium chloride obtained by the state will cause them to experience a demonstrated risk of severe pain and that the risk is substantial when compared to the known and available alternatives. Cash-Filled Envelopes Various news organizations have filed suits in Arizona, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Oklahoma claiming that the secrecy provisions - dubbed "black hood" laws on the notion that executioners in days of yore wore black shrouds to preserve their anonymity - violate the First Amendment and various state "sunshine" laws. "The only way to effectively determine whether a policy is being properly administered and carried out is to have access to the information concerning the administration of that policy," Dunham said. "Secrecy is not only antithetical to traditional notions of good government, it's bad public policy," he added, because it can be used to shield incompetence or wrongdoing. "Sunshine is the best disinfectant," he said. Dunham cited a recent report from BuzzFeed news indicating that Missouri's concern for secrecy has led it to pay its executioners with "envelopes of cash" in transactions that likely violated federal tax reporting requirements. Proven Track Record Marcus wrote both the panel decision and the opinion for the six-member majority that denied Jones's petition for en banc review. Marcus said that the full court wouldn't hear the case for the reasons stated in the panel order denying Jones's motion for stay and then offered some "additional thoughts." Jones's petition was not only barred because it runs counter to Eleventh Circuit precedent and the trend in other circuits, Marcus said, but also because Jones couldn't identify any liberty interest that was jeopardized by the Georgia protocol. Even if the court overruled existing precedent and struck down Georgia's statute, Jones still wouldn't be able to plead a known and available alternative source of pentobarbital, Marcus said. "[W]e ought to be particularly reluctant to interfere in Georgia's enforcement of its lethal injection protocol since its current protocol - using compounded pentobarbital provided by an undisclosed source - has actually been used at least 7 times in the last year, without incident," Marcus wrote. Untimely Challenge In any event, Marcus added, the "equities" were not in Jones's favor because stays of execution are disfavored when the claim could've been brought in a more timely manner. Jones waited almost 3 years after the secrecy law was passed and only filed suit in federal court at the end of December 2015, Marcus noted. Jones seeks a "newly created federal due process right to pre-litigation discovery," Marcus said, "all in the hope that learning the identity of the manufacturer will somehow provide a springboard to establish a potential, if currently unidentifiable, infirmity in Georgia's execution protocol." "That asks us to do too much," Marcus said. Chief Judge Edward Earl Carnes and Judges Gerald B. Tjoflat, Frank M. Hull, William H. Pryor Jr. and Julie E. Carnes joined Marcus's opinion. Macabre Catch-22 In a dissent joined by Judges Beverly B. Martin, Robin S. Rosenbaum, and Jill Pryor, Judge Charles Reginald Wilson argued that the secrecy provision denies death row prisoners the "basic ingredient of due process" by preventing them from accessing information necessary to protect their Eighth Amendment rights. Judges Rosenbaum and Jordan added separate dissents, arguing that the Georgia law has "constitutional problems." According to Dunham, death row inmates in states with secrecy laws like the one in Georgia, are in a "Catch-22" situation. "They're already dealing with the macabre requirement from Glossip v. Gross, that they have the burden of coming forward with a different way to terminate their own life," he said. Now they have to try to meet that burden even though the state won't give them access to the information they need to meet that test, he added. Jones was represented by the Federal Defender Program, Atlanta, and McDermott Will & Emery LLP, Chicago. The Georgia Department of Corrections was represented by the Georgia Attorney General's Office, Atlanta. (source: Bloomberg BNA) FLORIDA: Another judge says FL has no death penalty Another in a growing list of Florida judges has said the state does not have a death penalty until it addresses a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Defense attorney Jeff Brown said he was not surprised when Hillsborough County Judge Samantha Ward blocked prosecutors from seeking the death penalty in a murder case involving Carlos Rivas. "Judge Ward has recognized what everybody already knew, that Florida doesn't have the death penalty. The U.S. Supreme Court has said the death penalty statue we have is unconstitutional," said Brown. In November of 2012, prosecutors say Rivas killed a homeless man after stealing his money. With his trial set to start in April and a death sentence looming over him, Rivas was likely relieved to hear Judge Ward say this: "OK, based on the Hurst decision that concluded that Florida's capitol sentencing scheme is unconstitutional, I believe there currently exists no statutory authority in Florida in which the state can seek the death penalty, or there is no statutory authority where the court can impose the death penalty. I'm going to grant the defendant's motion to preclude the death penalty as a possible sentence." Hillsborough State Prosecutors argued the court did not strike down the death penalty itself. They say the U.S. Supreme Court's decision only applies to the sentencing process in which the jury recommends life or death, but the judge makes the final decision. "It's like being on the Titanic and just saying, 'full steam ahead. Let's just keep going, there's an iceberg there,' Brown said. "We don't have a statue. The idea that we will continue to seek the death penalty without a statue and hoping it gets fixed beforehand is crazy to me." The situation has not stopped prosecutors from seeking the death penalty. In early February, prosecutors said Marisol Best, accused of killing her in-laws in November, will face a death sentence, if convicted. Expect that decision to be challenged by her attorneys soon. (source: Fox News) ALABAMA: Alabama Gunman Kills 2, Including Former Business Partner A gunman fatally shot 2 people, 1 a former business partner, at a law firm and a nearby accountant's office in western Alabama on Wednesday morning, authorities said. The suspect, 57-year-old Jimmy Cooper, was shot in the arm and leg before being taken into custody, Marion County District Attorney Jack Bostick said at a news conference. Cooper faces 2 capital murder charges in the deaths of Donny Miller, 67, and Linda Cole, 61. Miller was Cooper's former business partner and Cooper was a client of Cole's, Bostick said. Court records show Cooper had owned an insulation company and was ordered to pay more than $59,000 in a 2010 lawsuit. A lawsuit Miller filed in 2014, said that he, Cooper and Cooper's daughter had been partners in a foam insulation business. Miller had the lawsuit dismissed in June. Police haven't released a motive in the shootings in Hamilton, a city of roughly 6,800 about 90 miles northwest of Birmingham. The district attorney says he plans to pursue the death penalty. Sheriff Kevin Williams said deputies were at the county courthouse close to the scene when Cooper tried to flee. Deputies and police confronted Cooper, but it was unclear who shot him. Senior Trooper Johnathan Appling said in an emailed statement that a civilian assisted law enforcement officers. The State Bureau of Investigation is looking into the incident. The sheriff said Cooper was apprehended behind a nearby bank after he was shot and had made it clear he wasn't going to surrender. "He had full intentions of killing law enforcement or putting them in the situation where they had to protect themselves," Alabama Secretary of Law Enforcement Spencer Collier said. "It's put everyone in shock," Bostick said. "Obviously, this is not something anyone ever anticipates or expects. I would say the entire community is just stunned at this point." Cooper was taken to the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital with injuries that weren't life threatening. It was unclear whether he had an attorney. Williams used the shooting as an opportunity to call for increased funding for mental health services. The sheriff said one of Cooper's relatives signed a commitment order on him in July. He was taken to a behavioral health center in Jasper for an evaluation and was released, Williams said. The sheriff later added that authorities are investigating how Cooper got the handgun that was used in the shooting. "It's certainly a problem; it's certainly something we need to address," Republican state Sen. Gerald Dial, chairman of the Alabama Senate Health and Human Services Committee, said of Williams' call for increased mental health services funding. "We've not done that as I would like to see it done in the past few years." Too often, law enforcement is faced with handling suspects who are in need of mental health services, Williams said. "We have a problem with mental patients with guns," Williams said. "Our problem in the state of Alabama - we have nowhere to put them. Our county jails are being flooded with mental patients that we legally can't really take care of; we're not trained fully." A December 2015 report by the Treatment Advocacy Center said that despite the U.S. population doubling since the 1950s, the number of public psychiatric beds has dropped by more than 90 %. The report also said severe mental illness is thought to be a factor in up to half of all deadly law enforcement encounters. (source: ABC news) MISSISSIPPI: Mississippi death penalty on hold; US Court of Appeals denied executions blocking A US federal court of appeals blocked an injunction that halted Mississippi's executions using lethal injections. The court of appeals said that the lower court ill-treated its discretion when it barred the use of particular injection drugs. In August, US District Judge Henry T. Wingate issued a preliminary order which blocks the state from executing prisoners. However, the 5th Circuit US Court of Appeals said that Judge Wingate's ruling was incorrect. Moreover, one of the juries at the Circuit, Judge Walker Elrod rejected the arguments coming from the death row prisoners, as reported by ABC News. The prisoners who are to face death penalty said that Mississippi can't execute them since the state will not be using a certain class of drugs required by the state law. The death row inmates who brought the lawsuit argue that the state's protocol for execution infringes the state requirement that an 'ultra-short-acting barbiturate or other similar drug' be used. The death row prisoners then pointed the possible use of pentobarbital, as reported by Buzzfeed. The lawyer for the 2 death row inmates who challenged the protocol said that the executions in Mississippi are unlikely to restart immediately. Attorney Jim Craig said that the inmates will seek for more injunctions against the state's method of execution as Yahoo News reported. The lawyer also said that they could request a review of the case by the full 5th Circuit US Court of Appeals, but have not yet decided. Republican Governor, Phil Bryant also released a statement saying that 'the 5th Circuit's ruling affirms his belief' that Mississippi is legally administering the death penalty. Meanwhile, Attorney General Jim Hood of Mississippi said that the state's lawmakers should find other means of executions as lethal injections are more conducive for lawsuits. The Democrat Attorney General suggested electrocution, gas chamber, hanging, and firing death squads when lethal injections are not available. The last lethal injections that were administered by the Mississippi was back in 2012. (source: lawyerherald.com) ***************** Federal appeals panel vacates injunction delaying inmate's execution A federal appeals panel has struck down a lower court's temporary injunction against Mississippi's efforts to execute a man found guilty of murdering a Metairie-raised woman in 1976. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled Wednesday that a U.S. district judge in Mississippi should not have granted the plaintiffs an injunction in a case contesting whether 1 of the drugs used in the state's lethal injection process conforms to state law. 1 of those plaintiffs is Richard Gerald Jordan, who was convicted 40 years ago of kidnapping Edwina Marter from her Gulfport home. Jordan took Marter, who was raised in Metairie, to extract a ransom from her husband, but Jordan shot her in the back of the head when she tried to escape in DeSoto National Forest. At 69, Jordan is the longest-serving inmate on Mississippi's death row. He has been given the death penalty 4 times, having successfully challenged the first 3 convictions in court. In his latest challenge, backed by the MacArthur Justice Center in New Orleans, Jordan and 2 other inmates say the 1st drug in a 3-drug cocktail that Mississippi now uses for lethal injections is not an "ultra short-acting" barbiturate, as required by state law. In August, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate, of Jackson, Mississippi, granted an injunction blocking the execution based on 1 of 3 objections raised by the plaintiffs. The 5th Circuit ruling said Mississippi's sovereign immunity prevents a federal court from issuing an injunction against state officials solely to require them to adhere to state law. There must be a federal provision or constitutional issue at stake. Jordan and his fellow plaintiffs say their constitutional right to due process is being violated through the use of the illegal drug. The 3-judge appeals panel, however, found that the plaintiffs failed to meet the legal standard to warrant the injunction, handing the matter back to Wingate. "Plaintiffs have not demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their claims because they have not established a liberty interest in the enforcement of (the law) and because they have not shown that Mississippi's alleged deviation (from it) would 'shock the conscience,'" wrote 5th Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod. Jim Craig, co-director of the MacArthur Justice Center, said in a statement after the ruling was issued that it has "long been established" that the 1st drugs used by Mississippi in lethal injections - either midazolam or a compounded pentobarbital - have been known to not properly anesthetize a condemned prisoner, causing him to "suffer from the tortuous effects of the 2nd and 3rd drugs." Craig wrote that the MacArthur Center is hoping Wingate will grant another injunction based on the center's other 2 arguments against the use of the drugs, which he said have been at the center of several botched executions that amounted to "chemical torture." "We are studying the ruling to determine whether to seek review by the full 5th Circuit and/or the Supreme Court," he wrote. (source: The Advocate) LOUISIANA: Remorseful Former Prosecutor Apologizes for Sending Innocent Man to Death Row In 1984, Glenn Ford was tried and convicted for murdering Isadore Rozeman. He was 34-years-old at the time. Even though there wasn't enough evidence to prove Ford had committed a crime, former Louisiana prosecutor Marty Stroud did everything in his power to make sure he received the death penalty. After serving 30 years on death row for 2st-degree murder, evidence finally surfaced that proved he was, in fact, innocent. Ford became on of the longest serving death row prisoners in America's history. On March 11, 2014, he was released from Angola Prison. Sadly, he passed away only a few months later from lung cancer. Stroud later came forward to admit that he failed to look into information that could have cleared Ford, as well as choosing an all-white jury and completely taking advantage of a defense team that had never handled a criminal case. "I was arrogant, judgmental, narcissistic and very full of myself," Stroud wrote in his letter to the Shreveport Times. "I was not as interested in justice as I was in winning." Before Ford died, Stroud met up with him to apologize in person, but the exonerated man wasn't interested in forgiveness. "I'm sorry I can't forgive you," Ford said. How can you blame him? He spent 30 years on death row for a crime he didn't even commit. To this day, there is a legal battle against the state for his wrongful conviction. (source: First to Know) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Feb 11 09:37:27 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2016 09:37:27 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, MO., OKLA., KAN., S. DAK., COLO., UTAH Message-ID: Feb. 11 OHIO: High court upholds decision overturning death sentence for convicted killer of YSU student The Ohio Supreme Court is refusing to reconsider its decision overturning he death sentence of a man convicted of killing a Youngstown State University student 30 years ago. The state's high court revealed on Wednesday that it was rejecting the Mahoning County Prosecutor's motion to reconsider last year's ruling in the case of 58-year-old Bennie Adams. In a 5-2 decision handed down last October, the justices said that the state failed to prove that Adams committed aggravated burglary as part of his killing of Gina Tenney in 1985. A burglary conviction was needed along with guilty verdicts on rape, kidnapping and aggravated robbery charges to qualify Adams for the death penalty, according to the ruling. The prosecution argued that the bottom line is that the jury unanimously agreed that Defendant purposely caused the death of Gina Tenney while committing aggravated murder. Prosectuor Paul Gains said that Adams,"essentially stalked his young neighbor until he eventually forced his way into her apartment, hit her, raped her, strangled her with a cord, tied her wrists, suffocated her, stole her car, dumped her body in the river, tried to get money from her bank account, returned to her apartment to steal her television, and cleaned up trace evidence with her potholder." The case has been sent back to Mahoning County for re-sentencing, which cannot include the death penalty. Adams was long a suspect in Tenney's killing but was not charged until 2007 based on newly developed DNA evidence. (source: WFMJ news) MISSOURI: Budget Change Could Defund Death Penalty in MO A proposed change in the state budget could allow opponents of the death penalty to attempt to pull funding for it. Members of Missouri's execution team are paid in cash to keep their identities hidden, per the law - that includes the doctor that administers a lethal injection and a compounding pharmacy that makes the pentobarbital used. That money has come out of a fund for expenses and equipment in the Department of Corrections' budget, so state lawmakers and others looking at the budget didn't know how much was spent on executions. A House subcommittee approved Representative Jeremy LaFaver's (D-Kansas City) proposal to create a specific line in the budget for executions. "Including it in the budget in this fashion I think is going to allow for a little better transparency and tracking of this important task that our state does," said LaFaver. If his action stands, legislators who oppose the death penalty could now see where it's funded in the budget and by how much, and could propose pulling that money. LaFaver wouldn't say if a proposal to pull the money for executions will be offered. The idea passed a mostly-Republican committee chaired by Representative Kathie Conway (R-St. Charles), who says she supports the need for transparency as long as no identities of execution team members are released. Conway also said there is little chance an effort to defund executions would clear the Republican legislature. "From what I heard happened in the Senate [Monday], yes I think that most Republicans are [in favor of the death penalty]. Personally, I am," said Conway. On Monday the state Senate debated a proposed repeal of the death penalty. Most Republicans spoke against it and the issue was tabled. The line LaFaver's action created includes a proposed amount of half-a-million dollars. Conway expressed concern about tying up that much money with the expectation that few executions will be scheduled during the 12 months it covers, beginning July 1. LaFaver agreed to offer an amendment to reduce that amount to more closely reflect the execution-related expenses the Corrections Department expects, but he also wants additional money to cover potential federal fines. He referred to the Corrections Department Director, George Lombardi, last week telling the budget committee that the state has not issued federal tax reporting forms, or 1099s, to members of its execution team going back to the mid 1980s. LaFaver said money in that line beyond the projected costs of executions, "would also allow for the payment of any penalties that would be assessed to the state from the IRS for not complying with the federal tax law requirements of issuing a 1099." LaFaver said he will work to come up with a figure more reflective of potential execution costs and IRS penalties to propose to the full budget committee when it considers the corrections budget. The full budget committee is the next stop for that bill. (source: ozarksfirst.com) OKLAHOMA: New Oklahoma prisons chief: Facilities crumbling, morale low A longtime Republican political operative who previously headed the Federal Emergency Management Agency has the daunting task of leading Oklahoma's overcrowded and underfunded prison system, which has come under scrutiny after problematic executions. Joe Allbaugh said Wednesday that he's made unannounced visits to more than a dozen Oklahoma prisons. He says facilities are crumbling and overcrowded, guards are underpaid and understaffed, morale is low and the state is ill-prepared to handle a projected increase in inmates. The 63-year-old Oklahoma native was appointed interim director last month and says he's still interested in taking the job full time and working to turn things around. He's a death penalty supporter and says he's ready to update the state's execution protocols, which are the subject of a grand jury investigation. (source: Associated Press) KANSAS: Bledsoe case good reason to abolish penalty Jailed wrongly in a 1999 murder case, Floyd Bledsoe spent 16 years behind bars before being exonerated in December in Jefferson County. He is one of many. Of the 149 exonerations in the U.S. last year, 58 involved homicide cases. On average, an exonerated person has spent more than 14 years in prison. "I think it's starting to be accepted in the general public that mistakes happen and the mistakes need to be fixed," Oliver Burnette, executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project, recently told the Topeka Capital-Journal. "Last year was a blockbuster year for exonerations. Every year is." The high number of wrongly convicted inmates in our prison system makes it all the more urgent to abolish the capital punishment. While not all of those murder cases were capital cases, some of them were. And it's now clear from evidence after past executions that some defendants in this country were wrongly put to death. Bledsoe, now adjusting to life outside of prison, recently testified before the Kansas legislative committee, urging them to repeal the state's death penalty law. He said it all. "We must stop the death penalty today. Tomorrow it might be too late for 1 person." (source: Ther Marysville Advocate) ************ Repeal the death penalty It is time to repeal the death penalty. State Representative Steven Becker, along with 11 Republican and six Democrat House members, have introduced Bill 2515 that calls for repeal of the death penalty in Kansas and would replace it with a maximum sentence of life without parole. According to the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty, the bill has a good chance of passing IF it can get a committee hearing. Chairman Barker of the Judiciary Committee has already said that he will not give the bill a hearing. But John Rubin, Chair of the House Corrections and Juvenile Justice Committee, has requested that the bill be assigned to his committee for a hearing. So, the important action at this time is to ask Ray Merrick, the House Speaker, to give HB 2515 a hearing. This bill deserves discussion and debate, which is only possible with a hearing. Contact information for Ray Merrick: ray.merrick at house.ks.gov Phone number is (785) 296-2302. Repealing the death penalty is too important a moral as well as financial issue to let this opportunity pass. Valetta Seymour, Moundridge (source: Letter to the Editor, The Kansan) SOUTH DAKOTA: Attempt To End Death Penalty In SD Fails A bill to end the death penalty in South Dakota failed in the state legislature. State Senator Art Rusch, who spent many years as a prosecutor and circuit judge, brought Senate Bill 94 to the House State Affairs Committee Wednesday. Testimony on both sides was often emotional. Lynnette Johnson of Sioux Falls lost her husband on his 63rd birthday in 2011. Ronald "RJ" Johnson was attacked and killed during an escape attempt by 1 men serving life prison terms. Johnson's widow is opposed to repealing executions in the state. "Can you imagine the pain? Look at his hands, look at his fingers. This is his finger; look at it. Look at it. He fought so hard to stay with us - can you imagine? Just until his hands couldn't take it anymore. Until his hands couldn't take it anymore - he had to drop his hands," Johnson says. "And you know what? They didn't have to, because there was certainly nobody around to help Ron; he was in this building by himself. But look it. Look what they did to my Ron." Compare Lynnette Johnson's thoughts to those of SuZanne Bosler, whose father was stabbed 24 times and died of his wounds. Bosler told the Senate State Affairs Committee she had a chance to have her father's killer put to death - and didn't. "I considered, and I learned that James Byrd Campbell's title, like everybody else on death row, is 'murderer.' And I felt if I was going to help the government plan to kill him, then that would be my title too. And I refuse - I refuse to be like him. I refuse to be like him," Bosler says. "I hold onto my father's belief in the sanctity of life - his integrity, his true convictions on how precious life was - everybody's life was to him." Attorney General Marty Jackley says he's aware of the strong feelings for and against executions in the state. He says his job is to protect innocent lives in South Dakota. "And unfortunately, in our society there are just some individuals that are so dangerous, so vile, that in order to protect innocent life, you might have to take a life," Jackley says. The State Affairs Committee defeated a "do pass" motion on the measure; members then deferred Senate Bill 94 to the 41st Legislative Day. (source: sdpb.org) ****************** Senate committee rejects measure to repeal death penalty A Senate committee has defeated a measure that would repeal the death penalty in South Dakota. The Senate State Affairs committee voted 7-2 on Wednesday against the plan. Republican Sen. Arthur Rusch, a former judge, is the measure's Senate sponsor. He says the practice overburdens counties and traumatizes jurors and court personnel. Rusch told the committee that he has personally prosecuted a death penalty case and has seen the damaging effects firsthand. Rusch says death penalty cases are unfairly taxing on county governments and have long-term effects on those involved. He also says he doesn't believe the punishment is an effective deterrent on crime. The committee voted down 2 measures to repeal or limit the death penalty last session. (source: Associated Press) COLORADO: Bill to make death penalty easier to give fails A bill that would make it easier for Colorado juries to give the death penalty failed Wednesday when a Republican senator joined Democrats in saying that unanimous verdicts for capital punishment should stay a requirement. The measure was inspired by 2 verdicts last year, in which jurors couldn't agree on execution for mass murderers and the defendants received life in prison. A Denver jury last summer refused to give the death penalty to a man who stabbed 5 people to death in a bar in 2012. A few weeks earlier, suburban Denver jurors couldn't agree on execution for theater shooter James Holmes, who killed 12 people in 2012. The life sentence for Holmes in particular showed that Colorado's death penalty system is "broken," said Sen. Kevin Lundberg, the bill's sponsor. His measure would have changed death verdict requirements from a 12-0 jury vote to 11-1. "I believe it's tainted the entire process, and we need to address this issue that the policy of Colorado of having the death penalty for the most heinous crimes is attainable," Lundberg said. Colorado has executed just 1 person in nearly 1/2 a century, and only 3 people sit on its death row. Sen. Ellen Roberts, the Republican head of the committee that heard the bill, helped voted it down. It failed 3-2. "The death sentence is a very drastic state action. We need to be absolutely sure," Roberts of Durango said after the vote. The hearing attracted a few dozen death penalty opponents, some of whom carried signs outside urging Colorado to continue requiring unanimous verdicts for the death penalty. "The decision to impose the sentence of death is probably the most serious decision we ask any citizen sitting on a jury to make," said Peter Severson, director of the Lutheran Advocacy Ministry-Colorado. Only 1 witness testified in favor of the change - Tom Sullivan, father of theater shooting victim Alex Sullivan. He talked about how upset he was that the Holmes jury couldn't agree on execution. "I thought that the violence of this crime ... would be enough for the verdict to be death. I was wrong," Tom Sullivan said. Roberts said before the vote that she "too was dumbfounded by the result of the Holmes trial," adding that she doesn't oppose the death penalty. (source: Associated Press) **************** Colorado bill to allow death sentence without unanimous vote dies----The bill was killed with a 3-2 vote in the Colorado Senate Judiciary Committee Colorado lawmakers Wednesday killed a bill that would have eliminated the requirement that death sentences be unanimous by jurors. The bill died in the Senate Judiciary Committee on a 3-2 vote. Originally, the bill sought to allow a death sentence if at least nine of the 12 jurors voted for it. But the bill's sponsor, Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, amended the bill Wednesday, changing the requirement from nine jurors to 11. 10 people testified in opposition to the bill during the packed committee hearing, including representatives from the Colorado Public Defender's office, religious organizations and anti-death penalty groups. Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center said even with the amendments, the legislation would make Colorado's death sentencing process unlike any other state in the country. "Standing alone does put you in a target zone," Dieter said. Tom Sullivan, whose son, Alex, was killed during an attack at an Aurora movie theater on July 20, 2012, was the only person to testify in favor of the bill. James Holmes, the man convicted of killing Sullivan's son and 11 others, was sentenced to life after the jury in his case was not unanimous in their final vote. "I'm not sure if justice was served if only one person voted no," Sullivan said. (source: The Denver Post) UTAH: Lawmaker unveiling plan to abolish death penalty in Utah A Republican state lawmaker wants Utah to join 19 states and the District of Columbia in abolishing the death penalty, but supporters of the idea acknowledge it's a longshot in the conservative state. The proposal from Sen. Steve Urquhart has not yet bene unveiled. The Republican lawmaker from St. George says it would allow executions to go forward for the 9 people on death row in Utah. Urquhart said he doesn't want to interfere with those cases out of concern for the family members of victims. But he says the delays and costs associated with executions make it an ineffective punishment and he's not sure the government should be in the business of killing people. (source: Associated Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Feb 11 09:38:11 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2016 09:38:11 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 11 BANGLADESH: Death penalty won't be abolished in Bangladesh: Huq Law Minister Anisul Huq has dismissed the chances of an abolition of the death penalty in Bangladesh. However, he has said the government will try to avoid capital punishment in future laws. He spoke of the government stance while talking to reporters after a views-exchange meeting with a delegation of the European Parliament in Dhaka on Thursday. The minister said, "When the issue of the death penalty was raised, I told them unambiguously that the laws which now provide for the death penalty would not be changed." "We'll try to do that (abolishing the death penalty) when we enact new laws in future. Since capital punishment is not that much acceptable as punishment, we'll bring about changes," he added. "But if we think capital punishment is the best weapon to combat any serious crime, the death penalty may remain in a relevant new law," Huq said. The European Union has long been urging Bangladesh to scrap the death penalty. It made the call even as Bangladesh executed several war criminals after their conviction by war crimes tribunals. (source: bdnews24.com) *************** HC upholds death penalty in ex-UK envoy Anwar attack case The High Court has reinstated a lower court's verdict that convicted 5 Huji militants for the assassination attempt on former British High Commissioner Anwar Choudhury which killed 3 people and left more than 70 others injured at the shrine of Hazrat Shahjalal in Sylhet. The bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Amir Hossain gave the verdict in the murder case on Thursday afternoon. The court started hearing on the death references on January 6 this year. Anwar, currently serving as the British Ambassador to Peru, along with 70 others sustained injuries in the attack launched after the Jumma prayers on May 21, 2004. Hailing from Sylhet, Anwar served as the British High Commissioner to Bangladesh until 2008. 3 militants of banned militant outfit Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami Bangladesh (HujiB) - Mufti Abdul Hannan, Sharif Shahedul Alam Bipul, and Md Delwar Hossain alias Ripon - were sentenced to death while 2 others - Hannan's brother Muhibullah alias Muhibur Rahman alias Ovi and Mufti Mainuddin Khaja alias Abu Jandal - given life-term jail by the Sylhet Divisional Speedy Trial Tribunal on December 23, 2008. Another case was filed over the use of explosives is currently under trial at a Sylhet court. In his confessional statement, Hannan said that Jandal had supplied the grenades through Bipul and Ripon. HujiB received the grenades from Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). (source: Dhaka Tribune) ******** Bangladesh upholds Islamists' death sentence for UK envoy attack Mufti Abdul Hannan was behind a number of deadly grenade attacks including on a rally of current PM Sheikh Hasina in Aug 2004. A Bangladesh court Thursday upheld the death sentence of a top Islamist militant and 2 of his followers for a 2004 failed assassination attack on the British ambassador that left three people dead. The High Court dismissed appeals by Mufti Abdul Hannan, head of Harkatul Jihad Al Islami, and two members of the banned militant Islamist group who have all been convicted over a spate of deadly attacks. "The High Court has upheld the verdict. Unless they make another appeal in the country's highest court, there is now no bar to their execution," deputy attorney general Sheikh Moniruzzaman Kabir said. "Mufti Abdul Hannan was behind a number of deadly grenade attacks including on a rally of current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2004 in which more than 20 people were killed," he said. There was no comment from the defence lawyers, who did not turn up for the verdict. The trio were convicted of murder and masterminding the grenade attack in May 2004 on then British high commissioner Anwar Choudhury, who was only slightly injured. The attack came just weeks after the Bangladeshi-born diplomat took up the post and occurred as he was visiting a historic Sufi shrine in the northeastern city of Sylhet. The High Court also on Thursday upheld life sentences for 2 other militants for their roles in the blast that left 3 worshippers dead and scores injured. The British High Commission had welcomed the conviction of those involved but opposed the use of the death penalty. Police said at the time of the attack that the group was plotting "to avenge the deaths of Muslims in Iraq and across the world by America and Britain". (source: Deccan Chronicle) PAKISTAN: Pakistan army confirms death sentences for 12 militants Pakistan has hanged nearly 350 inmates, mostly routine criminals, since lifting a 2008 moratorium on executions in 2014. The death sentences of 12 hardcore militants was confirmed on Thursday by army Chief General Raheel Sharif, days after they were given death penalty by the military courts for committing "heinous offences relating to terrorism". The convicts were found guilty of various acts of terrorism in the country, including breaking of Bannu Jail, attacks on armed forces, law enforcement agencies and civilians, army said in statement. "Today Chief of Army Staff confirmed death sentences awarded to another 12 hardcore terrorists, who were involved in committing heinous offences relating to terrorism," it said. The convicts were tried by military courts set up after attack at Peshawar school on December 16, 2014 which killed at least 150 people, mostly students. The venue and timing of trial was kept secret due to security reasons. Already several militants conceited by these courts have been hanged, including the facilitators of the Peshawar school attack. (source: Deccan Chronicle) IRAN: Iranian Musicians Jailed, Facing Possible Execution For Playing Metal As an American, I sometimes forget how provocative heavy metal as an artform could be, particularly in less secular countries. Everybody talks about freedom of speech in this country and some would lead you to believe we are losing that freedom, but last time I checked, nobody in this country is facing potential death just for being in a metal band. That's exactly what's happening to Iranian band Confess members Nikan Siyanor Khosravi and Khosravi Arash Chemical Ilkhani. Both men were arrested by the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution and are facing charges of blasphemy, advertising against the system, running an illegal and underground band and record label promoting music considered to be Satanic, writing anti-religious lyrics and granting interviews to forbidden foreign radio stations. These serious charges resulted in the 2 band members, aged 23 and 21 sitting in solitary since last November until finally making bail on February 5th, paying the equivalent of $30,000 US. The musicians are lawyering up and could face a minimum of six months to six years in prison, and worse, if they are found guilty of the blasphemy charge, they could be executed! It's easy to see how they could be charged with blasphemy, especially when they have a song named "I Am Your God." The band's new album, In Pursuit of Dreams, also features tracks titled "New World Order," "Teh-Hell-Ran" (a play on words of the Iranian capital Tehran), "The Alphabet Of Power" and "5 Years In A Cave." It was released on the group's own label, Opposite Records. The government has allegedly seized all of their personal online accounts, including e-mail and Facebook, although as of this writing their profile on Facebook is still active. We're not exactly sure what we can do to help the band at the moment, but we figured raising awareness is a start. We have started the hashtag #FreeConfess. (source: Robert Pasbani, metalinjection.net) SAUDI ARABIA: Butcher kills man with skewer for girl, sets his body on fire----He and the girl face death penalty An Indian butcher in Saudi Arabia killed another Indian with a skewer and set his body on fire after an argument over a girl, a newspaper reported on Thursday. Police arrested the butcher after civil defence men putting out a fire at an apartment found the scorched body of the victim a few days after he was murdered. The butcher at first denied involvement but confessed during interrogation that he killed the man after a rift over an Indian girl. Sada newspaper said the girl worked as a housemaid for the victim and had an affair with both men at their separate apartments in the Western Red Sea port of Jeddah. It said the butcher faces the death penalty for murder while the girl may also be executed for having a relationship with 2 men and covering up for the killer. (source: emirates247.com) UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Death sentence for maid killers in UAE A couple who killed their maid then tried to cover up the crime by burning her body with acid have been sentenced to death. Abu Dhabi Criminal Court handed down the verdict on Wednesday after convicting the Palestinian husband and wife of murdering the Ethiopian woman. The court was told that on the day of the murder in 2014, a fight broke out between the wife and the maid. Prosecutors said the wife beat her maid with a stick so badly that the maid fell unconscious and later died. "Her husband poured a chemical substance on the maid's body to try to hide her identity," said a prosecutor. The couple wrapped the woman's body in white cloth then placed it in a suitcase that they dumped in the desert during the night in the Al Ajban area of Abu Dhabi. Although the body was badly burned, police officers were still able to uncover the identity of the maid after her corpse was found. Her killers were later arrested while hiding out in a hotel with their children. "They made the woman work for them for many months but they never paid her anything. They instead killed her," a prosecutor told court. Prosecutors charged the couple with murder, torture and depriving the maid of her freedom. Prosecutors had demanded the death penalty in the event of a conviction. Both the wife and her husband had denied all the charges. But Chief Justice Idris bin Mansour found the pair guilty. The maid's family had also refused blood money and asked that the pair be executed for the murder of their relative. Under UAE law, a death sentence can be appealed within 14 days of the verdict being issued. (source: 7days.ae) KENYA: 12 men on death row challenge mandatory sentence 12 death row inmates have petitioned against a law imposing mandatory death sentences on capital offenders. Joseph Kaberia and 11 others, serving different terms at the Kamiti Maximum Prison, argue the penal code is arbitrary, cruel and inhuman. The convicts argue they are not challenging the legality of death sentence or their convictions. They say they want the mandatory death sentence addressed, calling it a constitutional point and a matter of general public importance. Chief Justice Willy Mutunga recently issued policy guidelines on the death penalty, stating that courts must impose death sentences for offences that attract the penalty. The CJ made the directive following conflicting decisions of the Court of Appeal over mandatory death sentences. In the case of Godfrey Mutiso, three judges ruled that a mandatory death sentence is unconstitutional. But in a subsequent decision, 5 judges of the same court, in the case of Joseph Mwaura and others, emphasised that courts do not have discretion concerning offences with a mandatory death sentence. (source: The Star) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Feb 11 14:05:55 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2016 14:05:55 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., FLA., USA Message-ID: Feb. 11 GEORGIA----impending execution Georgia Gives Travis Hittson Execution Date of February 17, 2016 Travis Clinton Hittson is scheduled to be executed at 7 pm EST, on Wednesday, February 17, 2016, at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Georgia. 44-year-old Travis is convicted of the murder of 20-year-old Conway Uttereck on April 5, 1992, in Warner Robbins, Georgia. Travis has spent the last 23 years of his life on Georgia's death row. Travis was deprived of affection growing up and rarely received affirmation from others, leading to depression and the belief that no one could love him. Travis was enlisted in the US Navy. Many shipmates testified that he was good-natured, although dim-witted. He worked hard and was eager to please. He was also known to drink frequently and do stupid things when drunk. He did not have a prior criminal record. Travis Hittson, Edward Vollmer and Conway Utterbeck were all stationed together aboard the USS Forrestal, an aircraft carrier based in Pensacola, Florida. All 3 men were members of the electrical division of the engineering department. Vollmer and Hittson were on the same work detail, while Utterbeck had a different assignment in the same area of the ship. On Friday, April 3, 1992, Vollmer invited Hittson and Utterbeck to his parents house in Warner Robins, Georgia, for the weekend. The 3 men arrived at the house late Friday evening. They spent most of the day on Saturday hanging around the house. In the evening, Vollmer and Hittson began drinking. They eventually left the house, leaving Utterbeck alone. During the early morning hours of Sunday, April 5, 1992, Vollmer and Hittson headed back to the house. Hittson alleged he was "very drunk" by that time. During the drive back, Vollmer told Hittson that Utterbeck had a hit list with their names on it and that Utterbeck was going to kill both of them. When the 2 men arrived back at the house, Vollmer put on a bulletproof vest and long branch coat and took 2 guns from his vehicle. He gave Hittson an aluminum bat that was also in the car. Vollmer told Hittson that Utterbeck was inside waiting to shoot them. Hittson entered the house first and found Utterbeck asleep on a recliner. Hittson struck him on the head with the bat. Utterbeck woke up and attempted to defend himself while Hittson struck him 2 more times, enough to subdue Utterbeck. Utterbeck, however, remained conscious. Vollmer entered the kitchen, where Hittson had dragged Utterbeck, and gave Hittson a firearm. Utterbeck asked "what did I ever do to you?" and begged for his life. Hittson shot Utterbeck point blank in the head. Hittson and Vollmer stripped and robbed Utterbeck before going to a nearby restaurant to eat. They then returned to the house to clean up. Vollmer instructed Hittson to dismember the body, first using a serrated steak knife, then a hacksaw from a tool shed. Hittson, at Vollmer's instruction, cut off one of Utterbeck's hands before being to saw off the head. When Hittson became sick, Vollmer finished sawing off the head, the other hand, and both feet. Vollmer also skinned part of Utterbeck, including his genitalia. Hittson denied participating in such mutilation. The duo wrapped the body parts in plastic bags. They buried the torso in a shallow grave in a nearby wooded area. Upon returning to the house, a local women noticed the car, the odd location, and the out of state plates. She wrote down the license plate number and identifying information about the vehicle. She turned this information over to police after Utterbeck's body was discover 2 months later. Hittson and Vollmer spent the remainder of the day cleaning up evidence of their crime, including hiding evidence from 2 individuals who came by the house. The left to return to Pensacola that evening. They disposed of Utterbeck's clothing and ID in a nearby dumpster and attempted to find a suitable place to bury Utterbeck's hands, head, and feet. The reported to work on Monday, April 6, with body parts still in their trunk. That night, they buried the remaining body parts in shallow holes in a nearby wooded area. Utterbeck was noted as missing and when questioned, Vollmer and Hittson claimed that they had dropped Utterbeck off at a bar on their way back on that Monday. Utterbeck's torso was discovered on June 16, 1992, by loggers. Police were unable to identify the torso. The report from the women about the strange car had taken down the license plate incorrectly, preventing police from immediately identifying it as belonging to Vollmer. The Navy, in its attempts to locate Utterbeck, sent a request to other law enforcement agencies for information regarding unidentified bodies matching Utterbeck's description. Georgia police responded the same day regarding their unidentified torso. Vollmer and Hittson were once again questioned, this time by the Navy and the Georgia police from Houston County. Hittson eventually confessed to the crime and led investigators to the remaining body parts and told them where to find the baseball bat he had used. Hittson was sentenced to death, while Vollmer was sentenced to life in prison. Please pray for peace for the family of Conway Utterbeck. Please pray for the family of Travis Hittson. Please pray that if Travis is innocent, lacks the mental competency to be executed, or should not be executed for any other reason that evidence will be presented prior to his execution. Please pray that Travis will come to find peace through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, if he has not already. (source: theforgivenessfoundation.org) FLORIDA: State of the Death Penalty Michael Lambrix was supposed to die today. 3 months ago his death warrant was signed by Governor Rick Scott. Michael was moved to a special "Death Watch" cell, steps from the execution chamber. He was fitted for his burial suit and was visiting with his friends and family for what he assumed would be the final time. However, thanks to the recent ruling from the United States Supreme Court that Florida's death penalty statute is unconstitutional, Michael was allowed to challenge his sentence. Attorney Brian Stull of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project was among those who filed a brief on behalf of Michael. Last week the Florida Supreme Court agreed to a stay of execution while they sort out the question of which death row inmates might be entitled to a new sentence. While the courts are doing their work, I am continuing to ask the Governor and Cabinet to grant Michael a clemency hearing. Historically, clemency has always been the last safeguard of our criminal justice system, particularly in death penalty cases. As we know all too well, the courts don't always get it right. Lawyers and judges make mistakes, all the evidence isn't heard, and injustice results. That's why the Governor and Clemency Board have the power to commute a death sentence to one of life imprisonment. In Florida, however, our Governor's office has turned the clemency process into a sham, despite Florida having the most unreliable death penalty system in the country. The last Governor to grant clemency was Bob Graham, and that was more than 30 years ago. Governor Scott is now executing inmates at a record pace without apparently considering whether they might be worthy of clemency. The case for clemency is particularly strong for Michael Lambrix. Michael's case started in 1984 when a woman named Francis Smith was found driving the car of a man who had been reported missing. Francis led law enforcement to a rural area in Glades County where the bodies of a man and a woman were discovered. Francis claimed that Michael Lambrix had killed both people. She cut a deal with prosecutors to test facing any charges herself. However, prosecutors never disclosed this deal to the Court or to Michael's attorneys. Michael's attorneys were handling their 1st death penalty case. They wouldn't let him testify at his trial and threatened to withdraw if he did. The first jury to hear this case could not reach a decision. The 2nd jury found Michael guilty and recommended the death penalty on a less than unanimous vote. Only later did it come out that a key witness had lied after being pressured. Only later did it come out that Francis Smith was having a sexual relationship with the lead State Attorney investigator in the case. Only later was DNA technology developed that could show that Michael was not the killer. Unfortunately for Michael, the courts have ruled that it is too late for any of this evidence to be considered. After spending the past 31 years on death row, in solitary confinement, you wouldn't be surprised if Michael had been driven insane or to despair but that's not the case. Michael has spent his time on self-reflection and improvement. After focusing on his own education during his 1st years in confinement, Michael began reaching out to people around the world. I have heard from people from Australia, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and more. Everyone wanted me to know what a positive impact Mike has had upon their lives. From solitary confinement on Florida's death row, Mike's letters and essays have been published in anthologies and shared with people around the world. At a minimum, Michael Lambrix deserves a hearing before the Clemency Board where these facts could be presented. His case represents a failure of the court system and of the clemency process. Here is what I would ask you to do. Please contact the members of the Florida Clemency Board and deliver this message: "Please grant a clemency hearing for Michael Lambrix, whose sentence was just stayed by the Florida Supreme Court. At a time when our state's death sentences are under serious scrutiny, the evidence in this case is especially questionable. Michael has spent the past 30 years and done everything possible to improve himself and to help others. Our death penalty system is in crisis, and Floridians deserve to know that their leaders are working to ensure that our justice system is in fact just. You have an opportunity to review the facts of this case as a member of the Clemency Board Please grant him a clemency hearing, so his case can be reviewed, and you don't end up executing a potentially innocent man." You can write any of the folks below at The Capitol, Tallahassee, FL 32399-1050, or better yet, call them today. Governor Rick Scott: 850-488-7146 Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi: 850-414-3300 Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater: 850-413-2820 Commissioner of Agriculture Adam Putnam 850-245-1000 (source: aclufl.org) USA: Judge in Vermont death penalty case accepts challenge of law The federal judge hearing the death penalty retrial of a Vermont man charged with killing a Rutland supermarket worker more than 16 years ago said he was open to hearing a constitutional challenge of the federal death penalty law. In an order issued Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford said there was "strong disagreement" in "judicial and scholarly" circles about the legality of the death penalty. "Preliminarily, and with an open mind about the arguments recently made by both sides, the court is looking at the constitutional challenge to the death penalty," Crawford wrote in the entry order dated Tuesday. Crawford said that cases from the 1970s identified and tried to correct problems with the death penalty but "40 years later the question of a systemic violation of the Eighth Amendment remains." Crawford scheduled a hearing for Feb. 26 so defense attorney for Donald Fell and prosecutors can discuss the details of the case and be ready for a hearing on the issues this summer. Robert Dunham of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center said Crawford's ruling was an important development in the case. "Judges don't grant evidentiary hearings if they don't have concerns about the issues," Dunham said. Fell was arrested in 2000 shortly after the abduction and killing of Terry King, a North Clarendon grandmother. At the time, prosecutors decided the case should be heard in federal court. Vermont has no death penalty. In 2002, the judge then hearing the case declared the federal death penalty unconstitutional. 2 years later, an appeals court overturned that ruling, allowing the original trial to go forward. Fell was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to death for the abduction and killing of King. A judge ordered a new trial because of juror misconduct. A 2nd trial is scheduled for February 2017 Last fall, Fell's attorneys asked the court to rule the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Fifth and Eighth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. (source: Associated Press) ******************* Meet the woman who defends America's most hated criminals (including the Boston bomber) "We meet in the most tragic of circumstances," Judy Clarke, the lead defence lawyer representing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, began. She stood at a lectern, facing the jurors, in a dark suit accented by a blue-and-purple scarf that she wears so often it seems like a courtroom talisman. To her right, George O;Toole, the judge, looked at her over his spectacles. Behind her was Tsarnaev, the slim, soft-featured young man who was on trial for the bombing at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013 - along with San Bernardino, the worst domestic terrorist attack in America since 9/11. Outside the courthouse, snow from successive blizzards had piled up in grubby dunes. Clarke, who lives in San Diego, despises cold weather, but she had endured an entire New England winter. 'Judy was in Boston for a year before the case went to trial, meeting with this kid,' her friend Jonathan Shapiro, who has taught with Clarke at Washington and Lee University School of Law, told me. It was early March 2015, and nearly 2 years had passed since Tsarnaev, along with his older brother, Tamerlan, detonated 2 homemade bombs near the finish line of the marathon, killing 3 people and injuring 264; they then carjacked a Mercedes, murdered a police officer named Sean Collier, and engaged in a shoot-out with the cops. Dzhokhar, 19 at the time, accidentally killed Tamerlan, who was 26, by running over him in the getaway car. Dzhokhar was discovered, wounded and expecting to die, inside a dry-docked boat in the suburb of Watertown. While he was recovering in hospital, Miriam Conrad, the chief federal public defender in Massachusetts, contacted Clarke, and Clarke decided to take the case. Clarke may be the best death-penalty lawyer in America. Her efforts helped spare the lives of Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber), Zacarias Moussaoui (the so-called '20th hijacker' in the 9/11 plot) and Jared Loughner (who killed six people and wounded 13 others, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords, at a Tucson mall). 'Every time Judy takes a new case, it's a soul-searching process for her,' Clarke's old friend Elisabeth Semel told me. 'Because it's an enormous responsibility.' On rare occasions when Clarke withdrew or was removed from a defence team, a defendant received the death penalty. But in cases that she tried through the sentencing phase, she had never lost a client to death row. Her speciality is what the Supreme Court has called 'the worst of the worst': child rapists, torturers, terrorists, mass murderers, and others who have committed crimes so appalling that even opponents of the death penalty might be tempted to make an exception. Tsarnaev was indisputably guilty; the lead prosecutor, William Weinreb, described in his opening statement a video in which Tsarnaev is seen depositing a backpack directly behind an eight-year-old boy on Boylston Street and walking away before it explodes. The prosecution referred to Tsarnaev as Dzhokhar, his given name, which is Chechen and means 'jewel'. But as Clarke addressed the jury she used the nickname that he had adopted as a high-school student, in Cambridge, Massachusetts: Jahar. In a capital case, a defence attorney seeks to humanise the client to the point that jurors might hesitate to condemn him to death. Clarke has said that her job is to transform the defendant from an unfathomable monster into 'one of us'. Her use of the nickname also signalled genuine familiarity. Clarke spends hundreds of hours getting to know reviled criminals. Her friend Tina Hunt, a federal public defender in Georgia who has known Clarke for 30 years, said, 'Judy is fascinated by what makes people tick - what drives people to commit these kinds of crimes. People aren't born evil. She has a very deep and abiding faith in that idea. Most of Clarke's success in death-penalty cases has come from negotiating plea deals. She often cites a legal adage: the first step in losing a death-penalty case is picking a jury. Clarke looked at the jurors 1 by 1. 'For the next several weeks, we're all going to come face to face with unbearable grief, loss, and pain caused by a series of senseless, horribly misguided acts carried out by 2 brothers,' she said. Clarke is tall, with straight brown hair and long arms that dangle, a little comically, like the boughs of a weeping willow. Her style with a jury is warm, conversational, devoid of bombast. Whenever she paused for emphasis, the muted clatter of typing would fill the room as journalists with laptops live-tweeted the proceedings. 'There's little that occurred the week of April 15 - the bombings, the murder of Officer Collier, the carjacking, the shoot-out in Watertown - that we dispute,' she said. Clarke was acknowledging her client's guilt. So why bother with a trial? Each juror had a digital monitor for viewing evidence, and Clarke flashed a photograph of Jahar as a young boy, dark-eyed and floppy-haired, sitting next to a much larger Tamerlan. Clarke said, 'What took Jahar Tsarnaev from this to Jahar Tsarnaev and his brother with backpacks walking down Boylston?' "Her speciality is what the Supreme Court has called 'the worst of the worst': child rapists, torturers, terrorists, mass murderers" Before-and-after photographs are standard exhibits in Clarke's repertoire. The effect is deliberately jarring. Clarke promised the jury that she would not try to minimise or excuse Tsarnaev's conduct. Instead - in a vanishingly fine distinction - she hoped to present his life in a way that might mitigate his moral culpability. The jurors stared past her at Tsarnaev. He sat at the defence table, fiddling with his unruly dark hair, in a blazer and a shirt that was unbuttoned a little rakishly for a murder trial. 'It's going to be a lot to ask of you to hold your minds and hearts open,' Clarke said. 'But that is what we ask.' Among death-penalty lawyers, Clarke is known, without irony, as St Judy, on the basis of her humility, her generosity and her devotion to her clients. She has not given an interview to the mainstream press in 20 years. But, in a 2013 commencement speech, Clarke said that her clients have obliged her to 'redefine what a win means'. Victory usually means a life sentence. Even so, Clarke said, she owes a debt of gratitude to her clients, for 'the lessons they've taught me - about human behaviour and human frailty - and the constant reminder that there but for the grace of God go I.' But Clarke's convictions are rooted in constitutional law, not the Bible, and in the courtroom she is unabashedly gladiatorial. In 1990 she told the Los Angeles Times, 'I love the fight.' Clarke is driven by an intense philosophical opposition to the death penalty. She once observed that 'legalised homicide is not a good idea for a civilised nation.' As the Tsarnaev case began, Clarke told the jury that she would not contest the 'who' or the 'what' of the case. She would focus on the 'why'. Clarke, who is 63, grew up in Asheville, North Carolina. At Furman College, in Greenville, South Carolina, she studied psychology. She married her college boyfriend, Thomas (Speedy) Rice - a jovial, round-faced man who also became an attorney. After she completed law school, at the University of South Carolina, they moved to San Diego, where, in 1977, she joined a small office of federal public defenders. Clarke worked tirelessly on behalf of undocumented immigrants, drug dealers and others who could not afford a private attorney. She asked new hires to sign a 'blood letter' committing to work at least 60 hours a week. Clarke routinely put in 80. A death-penalty trial consists of 2 parts: the 'guilt phase', in which the jury determines whether the defendant committed the crime, and the 'penalty phase,' in which the jurors vote on a sentence. Although Clarke had effectively conceded Tsarnaev's guilt in her opening statement, this did not stop prosecutors from summoning people who had lost limbs, or family members, in the bombing. Some entered the court in wheelchairs, others on prosthetic legs. They described how their bodies had been damaged by shrapnel from the blast. Before-and-after photographs are potent exhibits for prosecutors as well, and as William Campbell testified about how his 29-year-old daughter, Krystle, was killed, jurors saw a photograph of her at her 1st communion, wearing a fluffy white dress. After each witness, Clarke murmured, 'We have no questions.' Sometimes she thanked them for their testimony. In the Tsarnaev case, Clarke was joined by Miriam Conrad, the federal defender in Boston, and defence attorney David Bruck, whom she had met at law school. They maintained a quiet intimacy with their client. But Tsarnaev wasn't easy to manage. Each day he sauntered to the defence table and slouched in his chair, his rangy limbs arrayed in a posture of insouciance. Some commentators felt that Tsarnaev was smirking, though his lawyers noted in court that his features had been slightly twisted by nerve damage sustained when he was shot in the face by the police. Clarke sat on Tsarnaev's left, and Conrad, an animated woman in her 50s, on his right, so that the jurors always saw him flanked by women. They whispered and exchanged little jokes with him, and they touched him - a pat on the back, a squeeze of the arm. This was deliberate: like the Pope stooping to embrace a disfigured pilgrim, the women were indicating that Tsarnaev was not a leper. The centrepiece of the government's case was a montage of photographs and videos taken on the day of the bombing. One image, captured shortly before the 1st blast, shows a family of 5 watching runners cross the finish line. Just behind them, semi-obscured by a tree, stands Tsarnaev, in a backward baseball cap. On March 5 the family's father, Bill Richard, a slim, haunted-looking man, took the stand. After the blast threw him across the street, he recalled, he scrambled to find his children. He located his 11-year-old, Henry, who was unharmed, and then saw his 7-year-old, Jane, lying by the tree. He picked her up, but her leg did not come with her. 'It was blown off,' he said. Bill saw his wife, Denise, hunched over their 8-year-old son, Martin, who had been closest to the blast. Bill wanted to help care for Martin, but his daughter was losing blood so rapidly that she was not likely to survive unless he got her to an ambulance. He took one final look at Martin. 'I knew he wasn't going to make it,' Bill said. 'From what I saw, there was no chance.' He ran to an ambulance, and Jane survived. Denise was blinded in 1 eye. While jurors and spectators wept, a medical examiner described the blast's impact on Martin's body. Wearing rubber gloves, he held up the shorts that Martin had been wearing. They could have been long pants, he said - it was hard to tell. The fabric had melted. Investigators had retrieved from Jahar's laptop a downloaded copy of Inspire, a publication associated with al-Qaeda, which featured an article titled 'Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom'. In the Tsarnaevs' family apartment in Cambridge, the FBI had discovered the residue of explosives. Prosecutors also had what amounted to a confession from Jahar. Believing that he was dying in the dry-docked boat, he had written a message in pencil on the fibreglass interior. Initially, the government wanted to remove the section of the boat bearing the confession and display it in court. The defence objected that the jury needed to see Jahar's message in its full context. One day in March, Judge O'Toole accompanied the lawyers, the jury and Tsarnaev to a warehouse where the boat sat, raised, on a trailer. The boat was streaked with Tsarnaev's blood and riddled with more than a hundred bullet holes. 'God has a plan for each person,' Tsarnaev wrote. 'Mine was to hide in this boat and shed some light on our actions.' He was 'jealous' of Tamerlan for having achieved martyrdom. 'The US government is killing our innocent civilians,' he added, noting that 'Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all.' The note was difficult to read, because bullets had ripped through it. But near the end Tsarnaev wrote, 'I don't like killing innocent people it is forbidden in Islam but due to said [bullet hole] it is allowed. All credit goes to [bullet hole].' For all the putative radicalism of these sentiments, there was an inescapable sense, even as the government presented its case, that Jahar Tsarnaev was less a soldier of God than a wayward child, curiously detached from his terrorist acts. He was hardly ascetic: at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth Jahar was known as a pot dealer. In a capital case, much of the exertion involves detective work. Collaborating with investigators and mental-health experts, Clarke assembles a 'social history' - a comprehensive biography of the client, often drawing on decades of family records. She tracks down relatives, teachers, neighbours and co-workers, looking for signs of mental illness or instability in the client's past. By searching for what Tina Hunt called 'the key that turns the lock', a capital-defence attorney operates on the broad assumption that the perpetrators of terrible crimes are also victims themselves - indeed, that only victims of mental illness or awful circumstances could commit such crimes. You might think that spending time with killers would disabuse a lawyer of any illusions about the virtues of humanity. But a dozen of Clarke's friends and colleagues assured me that she ardently believes in the essential goodness of each client. 'She has a well of compassion that just runs a little deeper,' Elisabeth Semel said. On April 8 the jury convicted Tsarnaev of all 30 counts in the indictment. For the penalty phase, Clarke and her colleagues summoned more than 40 witnesses to tell Jahar's life story. He and his parents had come to America in 2002, and were later joined by his 2 sisters and Tamerlan. The parents, Anzor and Zubeidat, were attractive and ambitious but volatile: Anzor, who found work as a mechanic, suffered from night terrors; Zubeidat was by turns smothering and neglectful. The Tsarnaevs lived in a cramped apartment in Cambridge, and their immigrant hopes gradually eroded. Jahar's sisters married young; each had a child, got divorced, and returned home. Tamerlan failed in his efforts at a professional boxing career, and at everything else he tried. He married an American, Katherine Russell, and they soon had a child. She and the baby joined the others in the apartment. By 2010, Tamerlan had become immersed in a strain of Salafist Islam that had taken root on the internet. In 2012 he travelled to Dagestan for 6 months, hoping to participate in jihad, though he apparently whiled away most of his time in cafes, talking politics. (According to the Boston Globe, Tamerlan heard voices and may have suffered from undiagnosed schizophrenia.) Jahar was the sweetheart of his family - a doe-eyed, easygoing child who adored his older brother and made friends easily. He did well in school, was moved up a year and become captain of his high-school wrestling team. Several tearful teachers took the stand and described him as bright and gentle. By the time he started college, however, his family was falling apart. His parents separated and left the country. Tamerlan, meanwhile, was becoming more radical, walking around Cambridge in the kind of flowing white robe one sees in Saudi Arabia. Neither the government nor the defence claimed that the brothers were part of a larger conspiracy; rather, in Clarke's awkward phrasing, Tamerlan 'self-radicalised' through the internet. The question at the heart of the defence was whether Jahar did, too. In college, he spent evenings getting high and playing video games with friends. Several of them testified about his kindness. Some didn't even know that he was a Muslim. The defence argued that Jahar didn't engineer the terrorist plot. Tamerlan bought the bomb materials, made the bombs, and shot Officer Collier. In Chechen culture, 1 defence expert testified, an older brother is a dominant personality whom the younger brother must obey. A cognitive scientist testified that teenaged brains are impulsive, like cars with powerful engines and faulty brakes. Tsarnaev was young, had no history of violent conduct, and fell under the spell of a charismatic mentor. One of Tsarnaev's teachers, whose husband had been his soccer coach, testified, 'He's very coachable. He would do what the coach said.' Jahar Tsarnaev sat silently at the defence table, occasionally reaching for a carafe of water to refill his attorneys' cups. There was such dissonance between the grotesque crime and the mild- mannered perpetrator that, outside the courtroom, an avid group of supporters, many of them young women, maintained that he must be the victim of a frame-up. "It's a defence you don't often have recourse to in these types of cases: "He was a good kid, one of ours,"' Carol Steiker, a death-penalty specialist at Harvard Law School, told me. 'He also reads as white, which is helpful in these kinds of cases.' One of the cameras in the courtroom was positioned to approximate the judge's view from the bench. David Bruck objected that the camera violated the defence team's 'zone of privacy', but the camera stayed, offering an intimate perspective of Tsarnaev's detachment. He whispered and sometimes smiled with his attorneys, but he avoided looking at the witnesses, instead examining his fingernails or doodling. 'I really miss the person that I knew,' one of his college friends, Alexa Guevara, said, through tears, on the stand. She tried mightily to catch his eye, but he would not meet her gaze. Tsarnaev broke this mask of indifference only once. His aunt Patimat Suleimanova came from Dagestan to testify. But when she took the stand she was immediately convulsed by sobs. Tsarnaev dabbed tears from his eyes until she was escorted from the stand. This marked, in some ways, a promising development for the defence - a signal that the defendant had feelings, after all, and that his death would devastate his family. At the same time, it underscored Tsarnaev's implacability during weeks of harrowing testimony about the devastation he had caused. Clarke, in her opening statement, said that Jahar's terrorist path was 'created' and 'paved by his brother'. If he had fallen under the sway of a violent older sibling, it seemed logical that Tsarnaev, after 2 lonely years in prison, might feel remorse. But Tsarnaev's demeanour betrayed no contrition. This was critical because, according to studies, capital juries are heavily influenced by whether or not the defendant shows remorse. To prove that Tsarnaev was untroubled by his crime, the prosecution presented a still image taken by a surveillance camera in a holding cell in the courthouse. The image was captured several months after the attacks. Tsarnaev wears orange scrubs and scowls at the camera, his middle finger raised. 'This is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, unconcerned, unrepentant, unchanged,' 1 of the prosecutors said. The defence immediately moved to show the jury the video from which the still was taken, and it emerged that Tsarnaev had aimed other gestures at the camera, including a 2-fingered gang sign, in the casual pose of a teenager on Instagram. The camera had a mirrored surface, and he carefully tousled his hair. Watching Tsarnaev in court, I sometimes wondered if Clarke was trying to save someone who didn't want to be saved. Perhaps he still envied Tamerlan's martyrdom. In death-penalty work, clients often come to desire a swift end. They may be suicidal, or hopeless, or insane; they may have made a considered decision that death by injection would be preferable to a lifetime of solitary confinement. Such clients, known as "volunteers', present death-penalty lawyers with a dilemma. An attorney's job is to advocate vigorously for a client's interests. But there may come a point at which that duty diverges from the imperative to save the client's life. David Bruck made a dramatic case against the death penalty. He has worked as an attorney or an adviser on scores of capital cases. He showed the jurors a photograph of ADX, the federal maximum-security prison in Florence, Colorado, where several of Clarke's former clients are held: a series of stark buildings nestled into barren, snow-covered terrain. It called to mind Siberia. If Tsarnaev was spared the death penalty, Bruck explained, he would live a life of near total isolation at ADX. He would have no contact with other inmates or the outside world. If the jury delivered a death sentence, Bruck continued, its decision would surely be followed by more than a decade of appeals, each one accompanied by a new wave of publicity for Tsarnaev and pain for the victims. Only then - maybe - would he be executed. Supporters of the death penalty often argue that it brings 'closure' to the victims, but Bruck's logic seemed unassailable: if you want a sense of finality, send him away. 'No martyrdom,' he said. 'Just years and years of punishment, day after day, while he grows up to face the lonely struggle of dealing with what he did.' On April 17, under the headline 'To end the anguish, drop the death penalty', the Boston Globe carried an open letter from Bill and Denise Richard. 'The defendant murdered our 8-year-old son, maimed our 7-year-old daughter, and stole part of our soul,' they wrote. 'We know that the government has its reasons for seeking the death penalty, but the continued pursuit of that punishment could bring years of appeals and prolong reliving the most painful day of our lives.' On a May morning, as gulls hung on the breeze in Boston Harbour, Clarke addressed the jury a final time. She dismissed the idea of Jahar as a radical, arguing that he had been in his brother's thrall. 'If not for Tamerlan,' she said, the attack 'would not have happened'. She played the video of Jahar putting his backpack behind the Richard family. 'He stops at the tree, not at the children,' she insisted, a little lamely. 'It does not make it better, but let's not make his intent worse than it was.' Clarke called Tsarnaev a 'kid'. In his confession inside the boat, she argued, he was merely parroting the rhetoric of others. 'He wrote words that had been introduced to him by his brother.' At one point Clarke nearly conceded the logic of capital punishment. 'Dhzokar Tsarnaev is not the worst of the worst,' she said. 'That's what the death penalty is reserved for.' Then again you could argue that if Tsarnaev wasn't among the worst of the worst Clarke would never have taken the case. And Clarke - who once defended someone who slashed a pregnant woman's belly and strangled her to death in order to steal the baby from her womb - has devoted her career to the notion that even the very worst should be spared. But she knew that these jurors didn't oppose the death penalty, so she appealed to their sympathy, reminding them that they were standing in judgment on one of their own. As her closing neared its crescendo, her normally casual demeanour assumed a frantic urgency, and she gesticulated - pounding her fist, slicing the air - as if she were conducting an orchestra. 'Mercy is never earned,' Clarke said. 'It's bestowed.' Clarke reminded the jury that they were making a moral judgment. 'This is an individual decision for each of you,' she said. After 14 hours of deliberation, the jury returned with a death sentence. All but three of the jurors believed that, even without the influence of Tamerlan, Jahar would have carried out the attacks on his own. Only 2 believed that the defendant was remorseful. 'Judy would probably say, if the public saw everything she sees, it would look at the client or the case differently,' David Bruck once remarked. But in this instance Clarke had failed to paint a picture of her young client that was moving enough to save him. Judge O'Toole had warned the jurors not to read anything into the defendant's manner in court, but Tsarnaev's inscrutability appears to have hurt him. Most jurors declined to speak to the press, but one of them told the Daily Beast, 'My conscience is clear ... And I don't know that he has one.' Unbeknown to that juror, and to the public in Boston, Tsarnaev had already expressed remorse for his actions. On June 24, 6 weeks after the jury dispersed, Judge O'Toole presided over the formal sentencing of Tsarnaev, and Clarke made a fascinating remark. 'There have been comments over time with regard to Mr Tsarnaev lacking remorse,' she said. 'It's incumbent upon us to let the court know that Mr Tsarnaev offered to resolve this case without a trial.' Tsarnaev had not simply agreed to plead guilty before the trial, Clarke said; he had written a letter of apology. But it was never shared with the jury, because the government had it sealed. I spoke recently to Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge in Massachusetts who now teaches at Harvard. 'This could have been an immediate plea,' she said. 'He was prepared to cooperate with the government. Why go through with it all?' (A spokesman for the prosecutors declined to comment on why the letter was suppressed.) A 2nd juror, 23-year-old Kevan Fagan, was asked by the radio station WBUR about the Richard family's letter opposing the death penalty. 'If I had known that, I probably - I probably would change my vote,' he said. Before Judge O'Toole could deliver the death sentence, Clarke said, 'Mr Tsarnaev is prepared to address the court.' He rose, next to her, wearing a dark jacket and a grey button-down shirt. 'I would like to begin in the name of Allah, the exalted and glorious, the most gracious, the most merciful,' he said. He spoke in a thick accent that sounded vaguely Middle Eastern. (Before the bombing, he had sounded more conventionally American.) 'This is the blessed month of Ramadan, and it is the month of mercy from Allah to his creation, a month to ask forgiveness of Allah,' he continued. Turning to Clarke and her colleagues, Tsarnaev said that he wanted to thank his attorneys. 'I cherish their company,' he said. 'They're lovely companions.' Then he thanked the jury that had sentenced him to death. The Prophet Muhammad, he noted, had said that 'if you are not merciful to Allah's creation, Allah will not be merciful to you'. Tsarnaev went on, 'I'd like to now apologise to the victims.' He recalled that after the bombings he began to learn about the injured and the dead. 'Throughout this trial, more of those victims were given names.' When the witnesses testified, they conveyed 'how horrendous it was, this thing I put you through'. Tsarnaev did not look at the many victims who had gathered in the courtroom. He stared straight ahead, his hands clasped around his belt buckle. 'I am sorry for the lives that I've taken, for the suffering that I've caused,' he said. He prayed that the victims might find 'healing', and he asked Allah 'to have mercy upon me and my brother and my family'. Tsarnaev spoke in precisely the language of religious devotion that the prosecutors might have predicted. But people often change considerably between the ages of 19 and 21. He had spent those 2 years in solitary confinement, with plenty of time to ponder his actions - and to read the Koran. I wondered, as he addressed the court, if Tsarnaev was mature enough - or distant enough in time from the bombing and from the death of his brother - to have arrived at a firm evaluation of what he'd done. Tsarnaev will not be executed any time soon. Since 1988, 75 defendants have been given the federal death penalty, but only three have been put to death. Appeals drag on for decades. The very scenario that Bill and Denise Richard hoped to avoid - the endless replay of the city's trauma in the interests of retributive justice - will come to pass. Clarke has been known to say, of a death sentence that has not yet led to execution, 'This case has a few miles to go.' Clarke's friends say that the loss has been devastating to her. But the people who know her agree that this will not be her last case - she will pick herself up and keep fighting. (Last month Clarke and her colleagues filed an appeal against his conviction for murder and other related charges.) Tsarnaev concluded his courtroom remarks with a few final encomiums to Allah. Then he sat stiffly and waited for Judge O'Toole to deliver the death sentence. Clarke reached out and placed her hand on his back. (source: The Telegraph) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Feb 11 14:06:40 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2016 14:06:40 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 11 SINGAPORE: Masseuse charged with murder of boyfriend A masseuse was charged at the Magistrate Court here today with the murder of her boyfriend last month. Ng Choon Wah, 53, together with another suspect who is still at large, is accused of causing the death of Ng Kin Hock, 52, at a house in Taman Bahagia here at about 12.30 am on Jan 28. The victim's body was found at a rubber plantation in Jalan Nyior 3 days after the murder. Choon Wah was charged under Section 302 of the Penal Code, which carries the mandatory death penalty upon conviction. She nodded when asked if she understood the charge after it was read in front of Magistrate Nuruhuda Mohd Yusof. No bail was offered for the accused. Deputy Public Prosecutor Norafiah Saini appeared for the prosecution. Nuruhuda then set March 24 for mention of the case. (source: New Straits Times) IRAN: Death Sentence Is Tehran's Answer To Ahwazi Calls For Freedom The human rights situation has been worsening quickly in Iran. More than 2,000 people have been hung during Hassan Rouhani's tenure as President of the regime. This is the biggest scale of executions in the past 25 years. These mass executions will be added to the black pages of the Iranian regime's history of human rights violations since the Iranian revolution in 1979. The large-scale execution of political and ideological prisoners has resulted in Iran being named one of the top countries committing executions per capita during the past few years. Unlocked from its sanction-based constrictions, Iran is now fully free to underwrite terror and carry out more executions against Ahwazi Arab and throughout the country. 5 Ahwazi are facing imminent execution in public. The names of these Ahwazi Arab prisoners are QaisObeidawi, HamoodObeidawi, Mohammad Helfi, Mehdi Moarabi and Mehdi Sayahi. The 5 men were condemned following a trial filled withheinous violations of the judiciary process by the Revolutionary Court of mullahs in Iran. These prisoners were arrested in April 2015 and on Tuesday, June 16, 2015, were brought in front of television cameras of Press TV by Ministry of Information to make public confessions of about their fictional crimes. Farhad Afsharnya, the regime's supposed Chief Justice for the AL- Ahwaz region saidthe execution of the 5 Arabs was confirmed, it will be ratified by the court and execution will be carried out in public. These Ahwazi activists were only concerned with advancing cultural and social awareness for the cause of Ahwaz people and were not connected to an armed struggle against the state. The Iranian regime has stepped up its ferocious crackdown against Ahwazis and all none- Persian activists after the tension between Iran and its neighbours heightened as a result of Iran's involvement in Middle Eastern wars, such as in Syria and Yemen. Similar sentences have been issued in closed rather than public court proceedings, give a substantial reason to conclude that the Iranian judicial system only pay lip service to any idea of due process. Furthermore, it becomes apparent that human rights are overlooked by any president while the judicial system is not independent. These executions might occur anytime soon after Iranian parliamentary election at the end of February. The Iranian regime's massive hypocrisy in condemning Saudi Arabia's questionable human rights record is breathtaking. Any use of the term "moderate" in connection with Iran's president Hassan Rouhani is ludicrous hyperbole; he is simply the president elected from the list of candidates chosen for the position by the Guardian Council, consisting of 12 Islamic theologians and Jurists, according to the Iranian constitution. Under the constitution, secular candidates or those who fail to embrace the Islamic Republic's theocratic hardline Shiite values are nominally capable of being selected but, in reality, are not. The parliament or Masjid has little power over the regime's religious courts to stop or even slow down the rate of executions, with the courts routinely issuing verdicts without even hearing evidence or investigating the charges against accused individuals as might be expected under legal systems elsewhere in the world. 1 example of the Iranian regime's legal system is the common charge of muharebeh or 'enmity to God,' routinely used against human rights activists and dissidents, which invariably receives the death penalty, often administered in public by stoning or mass hangings by cranes. Many of those hanged take up to 20 minutes to die slowly and painfully of strangulation. The victims' bodies are left for some time before being removed as a way of intimidating the public into silence. Since Hassan Rouhani took office in 2013, over 2,000 Iranians, including women, many of them Ahwazi Arabs, Kurdish and Baluchi Sunnis, have been executed, almost all after ludicrous kangaroo trials in which they were unrepresented and not allowed to submit any evidence in their defence. Recently, 6 of 33 Sunni men currently on death row were publicly executed in a mass hanging, while another woman was sentenced to death by stoning. This is the "moderate" Iranian regime. This report sheds light on this failure of the Iranian regime to respect the rightsof the Ahwazi Arab people in Al-Ahwaz, the south and south west part of Iran. Conducted behind closed doors, before biased judges and in the absence of legal representation, the unfair trials of Arabs in the AL-Ahwaz region are part of a long-standing persecution of this oppressed people in Iran. Despite the fact that this recurring miscarriage of justice is in flagrant violation of the Islamic Republic's constitution, Iran's jails are filled with Ahwazi political prisoners who face brutal punishments, a lifetime in prison or execution. Over the past decade, hundreds of Ahwazi Arab prisoners ranging from poets, teachers to bloggers and human rights activists have been executed on trumped up charges in kangaroo courts. Rather than finding reasonable evidence for the commission of a crime, judges generally rely on confessions, which have been drawn out from the accused through physical torture and psychological duress. Meanwhile, friends and relatives of the accused are kept in the dark, often not informed of where their loved one has been imprisoned, or even buried. As we follow carefully the history of Ahwazi Arab people of repression, violence and capital punishment, we see that they have a long record of systematic crackdown over decades. Meanwhile, the execution of Ahwazi intellectuals historically has inflicted an irreversible blow to the liberty movement of this occupied nation that has been struggling to achieve its fundamental rights of self- determination for years. The executions of early leaders of Ahwaz liberation movement in 1963, the oppressive policies of Islamic Republic of Iran against Ahwazi people in every phases of their life, the tragic bloody massacre of Mohammareh city in 1979, and the severe crackdown of popular uprising in 2005 provide ample evidence that the intellectual, Ahwazi public figures, and the political class of this nation repeatedly have been targeted for imprisonment, repression and execution. The largest popular uprising of Ahwazi people broke out on 9 April 2005 when people from several cities turned out into the streets and protested against the distribution of circular(petition) attributed to Mohammad Ali Abtahi, former vice president-parliamentary legal affairs of the president Mohammad Ali Khatami. The latter events of popular uprising in April 2005 in Ahwaz which was a nonviolent demonstration against the wicked policy of central government focused on altering the demography of Ahwazi Arab people reminded the nation of the catastrophic massacre when so many people were killed in the course of the widespread peaceful demonstration, so many people massacred in the street by Iranian squad riot forces. At the time, many civil and cultural activists were executed and many clean-handed and innocent young protesters were killed under tortures, their bodies discovered in Karoon River. These bodies were wrapped up in plastic and their hands were tied up behind their backs by rope. After the massacre, terrible panic and suffocating climate dominated in the region and subsequently, the executions of highly educated, intellectuals, and civil and political activists started again. Notably, in 2005, dozens of teachers and cultural activists were arrested and after unfair trials and without access to legal representation, they were charged with vague charges such as acting against the national security, enmity with God, corrupting the earth and blasphemy , and then condemned to execution or life imprisonment. As an example, MR. ZamellBawi, who was studying law at senior semester at university and was waiting for his graduation ceremony, was arrested by intelligence security and under physical and psychological tortures was forced to incriminate himself falsely. After a show trial in revolutionary court in Ahwaz he was sentenced to death and his verdict confirmed by the higher tribunal in Tehran. Additionally 6 immediate members of his family who were mostly students and cultural activists, were sentenced to life imprisonment and exiled to far- away prisons outside Ahwaz. In 2005, Ali OudaAfravi , Mehdi HantoushNavaseri, in 2006, Ali Matori, Malik al-Tamimi, Abdullah Soleimani (Kaabi), Abdul Amir Faraj Allah, Mohammad Lazem Kaab, Khalaf DhrabKhazraei, Ali Reza Asakereh, in 2007, QasemSalamat, Majed Albughbish, Razi Zargani, RaisanSawari, AbdolrezaHantoushNavaseri, Muhammed Ali Sawari, JaafarSawari, in 2008, Hussein Asakereh, Abdul Hussein Al -hareibi, Ahmad Meramzy, ZamellBawi, in 2009, Khalil Kaabi and Said Sadon were sentenced to death on false charges of "enmity against God" and after months of torture in solitary confinement in secret prisons secretly were hanged. It is noteworthy that all these executed people were the educated and the political and cultural activists of the Ahwaz nation and the bodies of these people had not been handed over to their families. Hashem Shabani, an Ahwazi Arab poet and human rights activist was executed for being enemy of God and threatening national security. In reality, he spoke about against brutal treatment of Ahwazi Arabs, apparently he was campaigning for the Ahwazi people who are oppressed, mocked and treated as third citizens by Iranians. We have to keep in mind that if somebody is an Arab, then they are not the same as being an Iranian Persian because of their ethnic background. There is a cultural bias against Ahwazi Arabs in the mainstream Persian population. In 2011, the brothers Heydariyan (3 people) along with their friend, Ali Sharifi, were arrested in the wake of civil protests in Ahwaz. According to credible reports, they were charged with enmity with God and at were sentenced to death after confessing under torture. They were denied a fair trial and judicial proceedings and in 2012 were hanged in secret. Ali Chbyshat and Khalid Mousavi were arrested in 2011 and were kept for seven months in solitary confinement by the Intelligence Service without access to lawyers and then convicted to death penalty and hanged in secret. Because of the severe repression, censorship, lack of freedom of the press and the judicial system's lack of transparency and lack of coverage for any of the non-Persian prisoners, there is no possible way to give exact figures of all the death sentences among non-Persian ethnic groups in Iran. Iran not only has the world's highest execution rates but the executions have mostly been carried out against ethnic groups such as Ahwazis, Kurds and Baluchis who are struggling to achieve their national and linguistic identity and self-determination rights. There are thousands of underage prisoners who have been executed in Iran. According to the International Covenants on Human Rights, the death penalty is forbidden for people who commit crimes while under 18 years of age. Waging war against God is one of the leading charges used by the Iranian regime to justify the inhuman executions of ethnic groups in Iran. Since the 80s, the clerical regime used it as a weapon to suppress many political and ideological opponents. Most executions of prisoners who were accused of "enmity against God" belong to none-Persian ethnic nationalities in Iran, mostly Ahwazi Arab, Baluch, and Kurdish activists. The regime defies international law by holding all the bodies of the executed prisoners. Hundreds of Ahwazi prisoners' bodies have been withheld by the Iranian authorities. Many human rights organisations called on the regime authorities to hand over the bodies of the executed political prisoners to their anguished families. This is a part of the regime's collective punishment policy against the Ahwazi Arab people, Iran has refused to deliver the bodies of hundreds of Ahwazis executed since 2005 to date under the pretext that their families will hold funerals for them, which will serve as a catalyst for Ahwazi uprising. This reflects the racism of the Iranian regime against Ahwazi Arabs. Finally one must question the purpose of the regime behind the high number of executions and the human tragedies. In a country where most of fraud and administrative and financial corruption are committed by the regime officials, while the oppressed nations are living in extreme poverty, why is it that these officials have not been prosecuted or executed? It can be concluded that the executions of non-Persian prisoners have political and security aspects in a bid of the ruling regime in Iran to expand its domination and control over the occupied and oppressed nations of Ahwaz, Kurdistan, Baluchistan and other peoples in the country. When the Iranian regime learned that its agenda has been failed to put out the peaceful resistance of Ahwazi people the Iranian authorities with the help of their deeply flawed criminal justice system began to prioritize the death penalty of Ahwazi prisoners, amid warnings from the human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International. Since the Ahwazi uprising, the death sentences and executions are being imposed and carried out on Ahwazi prisoners even more extensively, after procedures that violate human rights standards. Iranian television stations like Press TV continue to broadcast self-incriminating testimonies of Ahwazi detainees even before the opening of a trial, undermining the fundamental rights of defendants to be considered innocent until proven guilty. Is it just Ahwazi political prisoners who must be executed for using their pens, the only weapons they raised in the struggle for the rights of the Ahwazi people? Why is it a crime in the Iranian state to write about the lack of basic rights to a decent existence for the Ahwazi people who live below the poverty line, while their land is teeming with natural resources such as oil, natural gas, mining stone and running water? All remain inaccessible to the people of Ahwaz, including the right to clean drinking water. Where is the justice when the Ahwaz region, the so-called heart of Iran's economy, is considered one of the poorest regions in Iran? >From 2003 to date, the climate in Ahwaz has dramatically deteriorated due to air pollution caused by Iran's industrial activities in Ahwaz. Ahwaz is one of the most polluted areas in Iran and the larger Middle East, and it is an area where there is a visible increase in the number of people dying from pollution related diseases. One has only to visit the out-patient department in hospitals in the Ahwaz to find them filled with patients suffering from cancer and other pollution related chronic lung diseases. If our political prisoners have established campaigns, it is only because they could not close their eyes and remain silent to the horrific sufferings of their people. The world is learning slowly that Ahwazi political prisoners are quickly sentenced to death after unjust show-trials where they are charged with "enmity against God", or that they post a risk to national security, or militant activities and secession. The vast majority of Iranians, the pro-Iranian Mullah regime who view themselves as human rights advocates who claim to be distraught over the rivers of blood flowing in Syria and other Arab nations are weeping crocodile tears if they're honest, having remained silent for decades on the plight of the Ahwazi Arab peoples and other brutally oppressed ethnic groups in Iran who are murderously subjugated and brutalised solely for claiming their lawful rights. Iran by dominating on the wealth of this nation has increasingly plundered it and as a result of it, the villages and towns of Al-Ahwaz were destroyed day by day. The chauvinist policies of Iranian governments have had to try to completely deny the existence of Ahwazis. In return, when Ahwazis protest at the ongoing oppression, they will be dealt with live fire or arrest and then execution. It seems that execution sentence is the Iran's last resort to liquidating Ahwazi prisoners. (source: Rahim Hamid, Ahwazi Arab freelance journalist and human rights activist; countercurrents.org) BANGLADESH: HC upholds death for 3 Huji men The High Court yesterday upheld death penalty of 3 Huji members, including its chief Mufti Abdul Hannan, and life imprisonment of 2 others over the 2004 grenade attack on the then UK envoy in Bangladesh. The 2 other condemned operatives of the outlawed militant outfit are Sharif Shahedul Alam Bipul and Delwar Hossain alias Ripon. The court also upheld the life imprisonment of Muhibullah alias Muhibur Rahman alias Ovi and Mufti Main Uddin alias Abu Zandal, also Huji members. Former UK high commissioner to Bangladesh Anwar Choudhury along with around 70 others was hurt and 3 were killed in the attack at the shrine of Hazrat Shahjalal (RA) in Sylhet. The Bangladesh-born envoy, barely 18 days into his new assignment, suffered minor leg injuries in the grenade attack after Juma prayers. Yesterday, the HC bench of Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Justice Amir Hossain handed down the verdict after accepting the death reference of the case and dismissing the appeals filed by the convicts seeking acquittal of the charges. The grounds, on which the HC delivered the verdict, could not be known as its full text was not released yesterday. After receiving the full HC judgment, the convicts will have 30 days to appeal against it before the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, according to Deputy Attorney General Shaikh AKM Moniruzzaman Kabir. If they did not do so, there would be no legal bar to executing the sentences, he told journalists after the HC verdict. No counsels of the convicts were present in the courtroom when the HC judgment was handed down. On December 23, 2008, the Sylhet Divisional Speedy Trial Tribunal sentenced Mufti Hannan, Bipul and Ripon to death, and Ovi and Abu Zandal to life imprisonment for the grenade attack and the killings. All 5 convicts, who are now in jail, filed separate appeals with the HC in 2009, seeking acquittal. (source: The Daily Star) INDIA: SC puts on hold child rapist-murderer's death sentence The Supreme Court on Wednesday put on hold the execution of the death sentence of Vasanta Sampat Dupare who had sought recall of its verdict upholding his conviction and death sentence for raping and stoning to death a 4-year-old girl in Maharashtra in 2008. An apex court bench of Justice Dipak Misra, Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit agreed to hear the review plea by the 55-year-old death row convict as his counsel submitted that the lower court had not properly examined the additional evidences and the related exhibits in the course of the trial. Putting on hold the death sentence, the bench told his counsel to satisfy it as to how its earlier judgment, sought to be recalled, was wrong. A bench headed by Justice Misra had on November 26, 2014 had rejected Dupare's plea challenging the Bombay High court decision upholding his death penalty. The apex court while upholding the death sentence had said "the rape of a minor child is nothing but a monstrous burial of her dignity in darkness. It is a crime against the holy body of a girl child and the soul of the society and such a crime is aggravated by the manner in which it has been committed". (source: twocircles.net) ENGLAND/PAKISTAN: Britain funds counter-narcotics program linked to death penalty in Pakistan, court hears Secrecy regarding Britain's funding of a counter-narcotics operation in Pakistan linked to the death penalty faced scrutiny Thursday as a tribunal heard arguments on whether the British government should publicly disclose details on the matter. Despite Britain's official policy of opposing the death penalty, it has funded the counter-narcotics program since the 1990s. Pakistan's Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF), which has received millions of pounds in UK taxpayers' money, has openly gloated about securing death sentences for non-violent drug offenders. Yet amid growing calls for transparency, ministers have repeatedly refused to release documents examining whether UK funding given to the group could result in executions. Global human rights organization Reprieve says juveniles and exploited drug mules are often executed in states such as Pakistan and Iran. The group is challenging the UK government in the Information Rights Tribunal over its refusal to disclose a broad range of information relating to the Pakistan agreement. Reprieve is demanding the government release its appraisal of human rights and execution risks related to the program, steps it has taken to mitigate these risks, and whether parliamentary approval was secured for the scheme. At the center of the case is the government's Overseas Justice and Security Assistance (OSJA) guidelines, which were introduced by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office following the 2011 Arab Spring. The guidance was drafted to ensure that the human rights implications of the government's security and justice work abroad are considered in full. But since the OSJA was implemented, ministers have refused to be transparent about the assessments that have been undertaken and who signed off on them. Director of the death penalty team at Reprieve, Maya Foa, said the government's determination to keep this information secret is steadfast. "The FCO is falling over itself to prevent information about how it ensures its overseas activities align with basic British human rights principles from coming to light. Yet if the measures taken were sufficient, why would there be any need to keep them secret?" she said. "The British public has a right to know if their taxes are funding death sentences and executions in countries like Pakistan and Iran, where juveniles and exploited drug mules are sent to the gallows on a daily basis. Ministers need to come clean." In December 2014, Pakistan ended an unofficial moratorium on executions. Since this policy change was enacted, Pakistan's government has made its intention clear to execute each and every one of its citizens on death row. At present, this group is estimated to eclipse 8,000 people, more than 100 of whom are believed to be alleged drug offenders. In February 2014, a previous hearing relating to Britain???s funding of the counter-narcotics program was conducted in secret, following a request from the government. Thursday's hearing is expected to be the last before a formal judgment is issued. RT approached the FCO for comment on the case but is yet to receive a response. (source: rt.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Feb 12 11:56:04 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2016 11:56:04 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., N.C., FLA., ARK. Message-ID: Feb. 12 TEXAS: Prosecutors Are Almost Never Disciplined For Misconduct----Sometimes the prosecutor needs to be prosecuted. In 1994, Anthony Graves was convicted on charges of setting a fire that killed 6 people in south Texas. He spent the next 18 years in prison -- 12 of them on death row. On 2 separate occasions, he came close to execution -- all for a crime he didn't commit. But Graves was spared the death penalty long enough to get an appeal. A closer look at his case eventually revealed that Graves was an innocent man who was railroaded by Charles Sebesta, a Texas prosecutor who withheld evidence and presented false testimony to secure a conviction against Graves. More than a decade later, a federal appeals court would overturn the conviction. Graves was freed, and later filed a complaint against Sebesta, seeking his disbarment. The Texas bar's Board of Disciplinary Appeals sided with Graves, calling Sebesta's conduct "egregious" and revoked his right to practice law. As of this week, Sebesta is now officially, and finally, disbarred. While Sebesta's actions may appear obviously condemnable to the casual observer, experts say it's actually surprising that he was punished for them. "It's almost unheard of," U.S. Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski told The Huffington Post. Kozinski is a leading voice on prosecutorial misconduct, who famously wrote in a 2013 opinion that the problem had "epidemic" levels in the U.S. Prosecutors are rarely punished for misconduct, and the cases that have led to disbarment or even criminal charges are few and far between. When prosecutors do face severe consequences for breaking the law, it's when their behavior is deemed to be deliberate and seemingly indefensible. At the same time, their punishment may not be proportional to the damage they have inflicted upon innocent people, which illustrates the considerable latitude the legal process affords to prosecutors. For example, take disgraced former prosecutor Mike Nifong, who was involved in the 2006 Duke lacrosse case, in which three members of the team were falsely accused of rape. Nifong, among numerous serious legal misdeeds, was accused of misleading presentations of evidence including withholding DNA evidence, yet spent a grand total of 24 hours in jail following his disbarment. In the 2013 case of Ken Anderson, the former Texas prosecutor and judge ultimately pled no contest to felony charges of criminal contempt of court for intentionally withholding evidence in a case against Michael Morton, an innocent man, who wrongfully spent 25 years in prison for the murder of his wife. For his violations of the Constitution, Anderson was forced to give up his license to practice law, was ordered to perform 500 hours of community service and to spend 10 days in jail -- the first prosecutor ever to go to jail for wrongfully convicting an innocent man. These 3 cases, by far, represent some of the most severe sanctions ever lobbed against criminal prosecutors accused of serious misconduct. Prosecutors are the most powerful government agents in the American criminal justice system. With more than 2,300 offices across the nation, they have complete and unrivaled access to evidence that can determine a person's guilt or innocence. Multiple Supreme Court rulings over the years have sought to chip away at the unilateral power of prosecutors, requiring them to provide any and all evidence to the defense that might be favorable to the defendant. But this puts defense attorneys on the back foot as they're forced to blindly trust that prosecutors will turn over all their evidence. Prosecutors can also cut deals with witnesses, co-conspirators and defendants to compel someone to testify. They can pile on charges to produce sentences "so excessively severe they take your breath away" to strong-arm someone into taking a plea deal to reduce that sentence. If prosecutors can't find someone to talk, they can always turn to a jailhouse snitch who may be able to coax out a damning bit of evidence from a jailed defendant. That testimony, obtained legally or otherwise, can often be used to lock down a conviction. And in the end, prosecutors are largely shielded from any liability that might result from their actions thanks to a Supreme Court ruling granting them "absolute immunity." Of course, the vast majority of prosecutors behave ethically. But even 1 bad actor in a prosecutor's office can have a significant impact on countless defendants and cases. And based on the data that is available, it's clear that there are more than just a few bad apples. "There are disturbing indications that a non-trivial number of prosecutors -- and sometimes entire prosecutorial offices -- engage in misconduct that seriously undermines the fairness of criminal trials," Kozinski wrote last year in a landmark paper critiquing the criminal justice system. "The misconduct ranges from misleading the jury, to outright lying in court and tacitly acquiescing or actively participating in the presentation of false evidence by police." The trouble is identifying the misconduct. Because so much of what prosecutors do is behind the scenes -- gathering evidence and working with police and investigators as they build their case -- malfeasance is often not discovered until years, sometimes decades, after a person has been convicted. In many cases, it's never discovered at all. But the data that is available on prosecutorial misconduct clearly points to a problem that is steady and widespread. Misconduct by police and prosecutors occurs with such frequency that it has become one of the primary causes of wrongful convictions, according to the Innocence Project. A 2013 report from the Center for Prosecutor Integrity, illustrated just how rare it is for prosecutors to face punishment of any kind. Using data from nine major studies that analyzed the prosecutorial misconduct at both state and national levels, CPI identified 3,625 cases between 1963 and 2013. Of those, only 63 prosecutors -- less than 2 % -- were ever officially sanctioned for their wrongdoing. And in those rare instances when prosecutors were disciplined, they frequently received a "slap-of-the-wrist," the CPI report reads. There has also been a significant spike in exonerations in recent years. While this phenomenon used to be rare, wrongful convictions have soared, with more overturned in 2015 than any year in history. And while not every wrongful conviction involves a misbehaving prosecutor, a significant portion do. But identifying the misconduct is only part of the equation. Meaningful discipline must then follow as a further deterrent. That can't -- and doesn't -- happen when there's no one willing to prosecute the prosecutors. State authorities are ill-equipped to tackle prosecutorial impropriety for a variety of reasons, says Daniel Medwed, a law professor at Northeastern University who has written about this phenomenon in depth. Those reasons can range from the general style of case to that of skepticism over complaints filed by criminal defendants who may simply be seen as "disgruntled" by authorities and not be taken as seriously as they perhaps should be. But there may be something more intangible and pervasive at play. Medwed told HuffPost he believes there's an engrained culture across criminal justice offices that has created a system in which lawyers are reluctant to take on prosecutors, even when they are behaving badly. "[Prosecutors] are politically powerful people who do a tough job under arduous circumstances," he said. "I think lawyers often give them the benefit of the doubt. This is a huge problem. We must hold them accountable." To that end, Sebesta's disbarment is at least a step in the right direction. But it remains an outlier to the broader trend. To further curb bad behavior, stricter rules must be implemented to crack down on the prosecutors who engage in misconduct. And those rules must be fortified with the promise of stiff and certain punishment for anyone who would undermine the principle of justice in pursuit of an unjust conviction. (source: Matt Ferner, Huffington Post) PENNSYLVANIA: Death penalty attorneys want Oakland-based company to reveal source code for DNA analysis Defense attorneys in 2 death penalty cases want an Oakland-based company to reveal the source code for a program that connected their clients to murders, which could further delay the trials. The Allegheny County District Attorney's Office had used Cybergenetics and its "True Allele" system to connect crime-scene DNA evidence to Michael Robinson, accused of killing Tyrone Coleman and Lawrence Short in Duquesne in 2013, and Allen Wade, accused of killing sisters Sarah and Susan Wolfe in their East Liberty home in 2014. The district attorney's office hired Cybergenetics to analyze DNA evidence and make connections to the suspects that the Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office could not. 2 Common Pleas judges, Jill E. Rangos and Edward J. Borkowski, have denied the defense attorneys access to the "source code," the basic computer instructions, for True Allele. The attorneys have laid the groundwork for appeals to Pennsylvania Superior Court, though neither has officially filed. Robinson attorney Ken Haber asked Rangos to sign off on an appeal of her denial of the source code, but Rangos declined in an order issued last week. Haber said he will appeal even without the judge's approval, though that could affect whether the Superior Court will call for an immediate pause to Robinson's trial, scheduled for June. Wade's attorneys from the public defender's office filed a motion last week to either vacate Borkowski's order denying their subpoena of the source code or amend the order in a way that would authorize an appeal. No appeal had been filed as of Thursday; the case is scheduled to start with jury selection Tuesday. (source: triblive.com) ******************** Death sentence vacated for Crispell in murder of St. Marys woman Convicted murderer Daniel Crispell has been given another shot at life, as Potter County Senior Judge John Leete has overturned his sentence of death for the 1989 murder of a St. Marys woman at the DuBois Mall. In a January ruling on last year's Post Conviction Relief Act hearing in Clearfield County, Leete blasts Crispell's trial counsel for failing to investigate his client's past, his mental health and even his medical records. Crispell was sentenced to death in June of 1990 after being found guilty of the kidnapping, robbery and brutal stabbing of Ella Mae Brown in October 1989. He and co-defendant Christopher Weatherill were apprehended in Arizona after Crispell allegedly tried to snatch someone's purse. Weatherill, who was 17 at the time of the murder, testified against Crispell in exchange for a sentence of life imprisonment. A 7-day-long hearing on Crispell's PCRA was held in 2014. In Leete's finding of facts in the case, he recounted that Crispell was represented at trial and appeal by F. Cortez Bell, how Clearfield County's court administrator; who was assisted by Paul Cherry, who is now a Clearfield County judge. The prosecutor in the case was Fredric Ammerman, who is now Clearfield County's president judge. Leete rejected most of Crispell's arguments in the PCRA, ruling that Crispell is "entitled to a new sentencing hearing because of a variety of prejudicial matters relating to counsel's inadequate performance throughout the sentencing phase" of his trial. In Leete's discussion, he indicated that Crispell's trial was the 1st capital punishment case Bell ever handled as an attorney. And while Crispell told his attorneys to leave his family out of his defense, Leete ruled that the attorneys still had a duty to investigate his past. "There was a completely inadequate and incomplete investigation into many aspects of the defendant's past," Leete wrote. "Here, there was much evidence readily available that was not utilized." The judge said an Arizona public defender who had been involved with Crispell's case there had tried to contact Bell, but got no response. And an Arizona psychologist who had done a mental health test on Crispell was never contacted either. "Further, (Crispell) was not evaluated by any mental health expert at the behest of counsel, nor did counsel attempt to secure any funds for the same," Leete wrote. "Counsel was totally unaware that (Crispell) had allegedly been the victim of sexual abuse, which would have been revealed in medical records had they been utilized." If Bell would have responded to the Arizona attorney, he would have learned that several significant mental health issues were apparent in Crispell, the judge wrote, including his "impulse control, depression and other mental health issues including family concerns." Leete noted that Crispell sent letters to his counsel, which an expert later called "a cry for help." "Available but not obtained by counsel were medical record in which (Crispell) reported being the victim of rape in the state of Florida as well as a suicide attempt at age 16," Leete wrote. All of that information could have been used as mitigation factors at the time of sentencing, and may have resulted in a sentence of life in prison rather than the death penalty, the judge said. "The defendant has demonstrated clear prejudice," Leete wrote. "The court would reach the opposite conclusions had counsel done a thorough investigation, discussed it in detail with Crispell, and then been told by Crispell not to use the investigation information." After his 14-page discussion, Leete wrote a brief order, saying "the sentence of death imposed on defendant is vacated, and the matter is remanded for a new penalty phase hearing." (source: Bradford Era) NORTH CAROLINA: 5 jurors seated in Anthony trial 5 jurors have been seated in the Hustle Mart-3 triple homicide trial that began Monday in Pitt County. 3 women and 2 men have been accepted by both prosecutors and defense attorneys in the death penalty case against Antwan Andre Anthony, 33. He is accused of shooting and killing Mokbel Mohamed Almujanahi, 16; Nabil Nasser Saeed Al'mogannahi, 26; and Gaber Alawi, 24, on April 1, 2012, as they were closing the Hustle Mart-3 convenience store on N.C. 121 north of Farmville. During jury selection Thursday, after Pitt County District Attorney Kimberly Robb excused a black woman who said she was not sure whether she could give someone the death penalty. Anthony's attorney, Terry Alford, objected. (source: The Daily Reflector) FLORIDA: Bondi backs prosecutors in death penalty debate Siding with prosecutors, Attorney General Pam Bondi is endorsing a proposal to address last month's U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down Florida's death-penalty sentencing process as unconstitutional. Bondi told The News Service of Florida on Thursday she "absolutely" supports a measure, backed by state attorneys, that would require a unanimous jury verdict on at least 1 aggravating factor before a defendant can be eligible for the death penalty and would require at least 9 jurors to vote in favor of death for the sentence to be imposed. Bondi said she is working closely with the House and Senate, along with state attorneys, her solicitor general and the chief of her capital appellate unit, to "come to a consensus of what we all believe will be in the best interest of Floridians" to fix the state's flawed law. "We all want a death penalty scheme that will be upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court," Bondi, who served as an assistant state attorney in Hillsborough County before her 2010 election, said Thursday. "We all have a common interest. We're working together." The court's Jan. 12 ruling, in a case known as Hurst v. Florida, found that the state's system of giving judges - and not juries - the power to impose death sentences was an unconstitutional violation of defendants' Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury. The 8-1 decision dealt with the sentencing phase of death-penalty cases after defendants are found guilty and focused on what are known as "aggravating" circumstances that must be determined before defendants can be sentenced to death. A 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, in a case known as Ring v. Arizona, requires that determination of such aggravating circumstances be made by juries, not judges. Under Florida law, juries make recommendations regarding the death penalty, based on a review of aggravating and mitigating circumstances, but judges ultimately decide whether defendants should be put to death or sentenced to life in prison. Of the 31 states with the death penalty, Florida is 1 of only 3 that do not require unanimous jury recommendations for the death penalty to be imposed. The other 2 - Alabama and Delaware - require at least 9-3 jury decisions, while Florida law currently requires a simple majority vote. House and Senate proposals would require unanimous jury decisions on at least one aggravating factor, a change supported by the prosecutors. But the chambers have not agreed on whether a unanimous jury recommendation should be required before the death penalty can be imposed, included in a Senate proposal but vehemently opposed by prosecutors as well as Bondi. "The U.S. Supreme Court has not required (unanimity)" in previous cases, Bondi said, and the court did not address the issue in the Hurst case. When asked why she and the prosecutors supported a 9-3 supermajority vote to recommend the death penalty, Bondi said, "Compromise." Defense lawyers and other experts argue that Florida's "outlier" status on jury recommendations in death-penalty cases makes the state law vulnerable to future court challenges. The U.S. Supreme Court considers "evolving standards of decency" in evaluating state death penalty laws, 10th Judicial Circuit Public Defender Rex Dimmig told the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. "They look at what other states do," Dimmig said, urging the panel to "take us out of the situation of being an outlier state." Prosecutors fear that requiring unanimous jury recommendations would result in fewer death sentences, as illustrated by an analysis by legislative staff. Of the 20 death sentences ordered in 2012, only 2 came after unanimous jury recommendations, according to a House staff analysis. Unanimous jury recommendations were made in just 20 % of the 296 instances in which defendants were sentenced to death between 2000 and 2012, the analysis showed. In 75 % of the cases over the 13-year period, at least 9 jurors recommended death. But it is unknown whether the votes would have been different if a unanimous jury recommendation was required for defendants to be sentenced to death. "We've talked about whether or not, sometimes when you get on some of the most heinous cases a 9-3 vote, did those three (jurors) vote according to the law and the instructions they were given, or, once they knew that there was a majority, did they sit back," 4th Judicial Circuit State Attorney Angela Corey told the News Service on Wednesday, referring to discussions between Florida's state attorneys. "We discussed that in great detail. I don't know that we'll ever be able to go back and know." Senate leaders indicated the chamber would be willing to cede on the unanimity issue as lawmakers try to match up their proposals (HB 7101, SB 7068) before the legislative session ends on March 11. Both chambers have agreed that jury decisions on at least one aggravating circumstance should be unanimous. Bondi and legislators share a sense of urgency to resolve the issue because no new death sentences can be imposed until the law is fixed. "We need a sentencing scheme in Florida," she said. The Florida Supreme Court last week indefinitely postponed the execution of Cary Michael Lambrix, who had been scheduled to die Thursday, while the justices consider the implications of the Hurst decision. The Florida court, however, has not yet ruled on whether to delay the execution of Mark James Asay, scheduled for March 17. Oral arguments in Asay's case may be heard on March 2. Lawyers for Asay and other death row inmates contend that the Hurst decision should be retroactive and apply to all of the 390 inmates sentenced to die for their crimes. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling did not say whether it should apply retroactively, and Bondi's lawyers instead have identified 43 cases that would qualify for reconsideration as a result of the Hurst decision. Myriad factors - timing, aggravators involved in determining whether defendants were eligible for the death penalty and the jury instructions - have to be considered when evaluating whether Hurst applies, Bondi said. "It has to be on a case-by-case basis," she said. Death penalty cases are among the most complicated in the legal system, and the injection of dozens of cases into an already drawn-out process could delay resolution even further. "We're prepared to tackle it," Bondi, whose office represents the state in death penalty appeals, said. "This is the ultimate sentence, the death penalty. We want to be certain it is carried out in a constitutional way. That's 1 thing we all agree on." (source: Palm Beach Post) ARKANSAS: Missed Debate Question: Where Do You Stand on the Killing of Rickey Ray Rector? The PBS debate moderators missed a golden opportunity to ask Hillary and Bernie a crucial question: What did they think about the execution of Rickey Ray Rector in 1992? This is not ancient history. Rather, it is a vital case study in political morality. This life and death decision reveals crucial views on crime, punishment, ethics and political opportunism. Since Bernie opposes the death penalty, we know how he would respond. To be fair, it's a much tougher question for Hillary, both because she supports the death penalty and because it happened on Bill Clinton's watch. She was there when the issue was discussed and decided. Did she approve? Does she still approve? The sad case of Rickey Ray Rector In 1981 Rickey Ray Rector, a black man, shot Arthur Criswell in a Conway, Arkansas dance hall over a $3 cover charge dispute. A few days later at his mother's home, Rector said he would turn himself in, but only to Officer Bob Martin whom he knew. Officer Martin was called by Rector's family to take him to jail. When Martin turned his back for a moment to talk with the family, Rector shot him dead. Rector then went outside and shot himself in the temple. But he didn't die. Instead he was basically lobotomized, becoming mentally incompetent. (How incompetent? Even though he could talk, he had no coherent understanding of the world around him including the concept of death. His IQ was measured at 63. When he was served his last meal before execution, he asked if the guards could hold his dessert until later.) The Rickey Ray Rector case developed into constitutional test of cruel and unusual punishment. Does it violate the constitutional to execute a mentally incompetent person? The Supreme Court chose not to hear his appeal and the execution schedule continued. As governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton had the power to execute Rector or commute his sentence to life-imprisonment. At the time, January 25, 1992, he also was running for president. So just before the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, he flew back to his home state to make sure the execution took place. It was gory. It took 50 minutes to find a vein. Why did Bill Clinton execute Rector? Jeff Rosenweig, a Clinton friend and one of Rector's lawyer said at the time: "My personal opinion is that in his heart of hearts he's against the death penalty. In my opinion, this is a very easy way to show you're tough on crime." Mike Gauldin, a spokesperson for Clinton at that time said "the Governor had indeed changed some of his policies toward prison inmates since he returned to office in 1983. In his 1st term, he commuted the sentences of 70 inmates convicted of a wide variety of crimes. Since 1983, he has commuted 7." Crime issues would become very important to Clinton's run for the presidency. It was generally thought that Governor Dukakis damaged his own presidential campaign when during a TV interview he said he would not even execute a murderer who had raped and killed his own wife. In 1992, the New York Times reported, "It is clear that many political experts feel a record of favoring the death penalty is a major plus for a Democratic Presidential candidate." Other analysts suggest more opportunist reasons. "In 1979, he had commuted the sentence of a mentally ill, convicted murderer, James Surridge, 73. Less than a year after his release, Surridge committed another murder. The case later came to be known as Bill Clinton's own Willie Horton," reports Politico. He may have lost his 1980 bid for the Arkansas governorship because of it. Some also claim, that killing of Rickey Ray was timed to shift media attention from the emerging Jenifer Flowers scandal that threaten to sink his presidential run in New Hampshire. Tough on Crime Legacy During his 2 terms as president, Bill Clinton continued his hard-line position on crime. As a result, the prison population more than doubled. The number of youth housed in adult prison also doubled. By the time he left office the US had the largest prison population in the entire world. In an article entitled "Hillary Does not Deserve Black People's Votes," Michelle Alexander offers a stinging assessment: "Bill Clinton presided over the largest increase in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history. ... He supported the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity for crack versus powder cocaine, which produced staggering racial injustice in sentencing and boosted funding for drug-law enforcement. Clinton championed the idea of a federal "3 strikes" law in his 1994 State of the Union address and, months later, signed a $30 billion crime bill that created dozens of new federal capital crimes, mandated life sentences for some 3-time offenders, and authorized more than $16 billion for state prison grants and the expansion of police forces. ... Human Rights Watch reported that in 7 states, African Americans constituted 80 to 90 % of all drug offenders sent to prison, even though they were no more likely than whites to use or sell illegal drugs. Prison admissions for drug offenses reached a level in 2000 for African Americans more than 26 times the level in 1983." What does any of this have to do with Hillary? Bill's actions as President are not current campaign issues, except as Hillary uses them to validate her own experience. What did she learn from the Rickey Ray execution and the tough-on-crime Clinton administration? We know that Hillary changed her position on capital punishment. When she first came to Arkansas, she worked to undermine the legality of executions. She stopped doing so when Bill became the state's Attorney General. We know from the February 4th debate that she still believes in state executions: "I do, for very limited, particularly heinous crimes I believe [the death penalty] is an appropriate punishment" But we do not know where Hillary stands on the case of Rickey Ray Rector. Key Questions for Hillary to answer: At the time, did Hillary disagree with Bill's decision to execute Rickey Rae? Did she challenge Bill's presidential incarceration policies? Or did she consider them justified, even though those policies differentially harmed people of color? Most importantly, is Hillary now willing to say publically that the execution of Rickey Rae Rector was morally wrong? How she addresses this troubling episode would speak volumes about whether she deserves our support. (source: Les Leopold, the director of the Labor Institute in New York is currently working on a national economic educational campaign with unions and community organization----Huffington Post) ********************* The Secrets Behind The Legend Of Judge Isaac C. Parker Many myths and rumors surround the life of the Issac C. Parker, also known as the Hanging Judge. 5NEWS uncovered some of the little-known facts behind the legend of Judge Parker in his old office located in the commissary building on the grounds of the Fort Smith National Historic Site. In countless movies and books, Judge Isaac C. Parker is portrayed as a villain; a cruel man who would hand out the death penalty to anyone who entered his court. After touring his office, we found out everything we thought we knew about the Hanging Judge might not be true. "He did sentence more people to be executed than any other federal judge, but that's only when you look on the surface," Pat Schmidt, a park ranger at the National Historic Site, told us. Schmidt said there are probably more myths about the judge than there are facts. "That's Hollywood, dime store novels," Schmidt said. "There was a lot of, during this period, there was a lot of sensationalism." So what's actually true? In his 21 years as a judge he heard more than 13,000 cases. "A little over 600 of those dealt with capital crime, and 160 were convicted, and 79 were actually executed, so that actually comes down to less than 1% of his cases that ended up with someone on the gallows," Schmidt said. "Doesn't really sound fair to call him the hanging judge for that." The Hanging Judge nickname didn't even become popular until decades after his death, and Schmidt said Parker did not hand out death sentences to just anyone. "He didn't have a choice," Schmidt said. "During this time period, if you were convicted of murder, rape, treason or obstruction with an execution, then the automatic sentence was execution." One of the most common misconceptions about Parker is that he watched his executions, but from the windows in his office, you have a view of the river not the gallows. "The thing about Judge Parker is he was opposed to the death penalty," Schmidt said. "He was even quoted as saying, 'I'm in favor of abolishing the death penalty.'" In fact, the judge didn't even come into his office on days of executions. So why did people make him the villain? Schmidt said some people were trying to scare others from moving to the area. "Land speculators and folks associated with the railroads wanted Indian territory to remain a territory because the rules and laws were different as a territory, and they could, to a certain degree, get away with more things," Schmidt said. Schmidt said there are no records that indicate Parker was ever a mean man. She said the Hanging Judge is really just a character meant for westerns. "They were trying to make him out to be crueler than what we really was, and in many interviews that I've read where they've talked about him and talked about what kind of man he was, they said he was jovial, always had a kind word, would stop and talk to people, and would even stop and talk to people that you wouldn???t expect him to," Schmidt said. Judge Parker did not hand down death sentences by saying, 'Hang by the neck 'til your dead dead dead.' He didn't get his entertainment from watching men hang. The real story is that the hanging judge didn't want to hang anyone at all. (source: KFSM news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Feb 12 11:57:37 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2016 11:57:37 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA., KAN., S.DAK., WYO., USA Message-ID: Feb. 12 OKLAHOMA: AG Talks Creating A State-Run Lethal Injection Drug Pharmacy In the middle of a controversial investigation into the state's lethal injection, Attorney General Scott Pruitt is talking about the future. He wants the state to open its own compounding pharmacy to mix and create the deadly cocktail of drugs that have become harder to get a hold of. "Accessing those drugs, buying those drugs is very challenging because there are limitations placed upon those by the manufacturers," Pruitt said Thursday. Right now, the state uses a private pharmacist in Texas that was responsible for sending the wrong drug for the executions of Charles Warner and Richard Glossip. In those instances potassium acetate was used in the case of Warner and nearly used on Glossip. Potassium chloride is the correct drug according to state protocol. Pruitt said a state run compounding pharmacy would remove the need for a private "middle-man" pharmacy potentially increasing safety, efficacy and transparency for the development and testing of the deadly 3-drug cocktail used in lethal injection executions. "It would be better if we took that all out of the equation, made the state the center piece of compounding those drugs and then providing access to defense council and others who want to test the efficacy of those drugs," he said. There are several hurdles however. Oklahoma does not have a license from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) that other states have that allows them to hold the lethal injection drugs for an extended period of time. Only a handful of states currently hold licenses, including Arizona and Texas. Compound pharmacies can also register with the Federal Drug Administration, but are not required to do so under federal law, according to DeathPenaltyInfo.org. Access to the drugs is also becoming more difficult. Drugs like pentobarbital have been blocked by European manufacturers that have said they don't want their drugs used in executions. Pruitt blamed opponents of the death penalty for the lack of access. He said they campaigned against the use and the companies buckled under the pressure. "The states have a responsibility to the families and to the justice system to carry out this responsibility in a sober and responsible way," Pruitt said. But not everyone is so sure. Ryan Keisel, Executive Director at Oklahoma ACLU said Oklahomans should be asking a different question all together. "It's not how can we come up with new and novel or innovative ways to execute people, but should we be in the business of executing people at all?" he asked. The pharmacy would also mean a new cost for tax-payers as the state's budget hole ballooned again this week to $1.3 billion. "Roads and bridges are falling apart, schools are moving to 4 days a week ... and here they want us to double down to give them a longer leash to carry out the ultimate authority? It seems backward to me," Kiesel said. Pruitt says the pharmacy actually could be a cost saving measure, but didn't say how much. He added the talk of a compounding pharmacy was only just an idea that he has spoken to legislators about in the past, but there was no formal proposal or bill to create one. When asked about the ongoing investigation, Pruitt said the pharmacy and the investigation had "very little or nothing do with" the other. He said there were no problems with the neither state's protocol, nor the drugs themselves, but that the administration of the lethal cocktail of components was what is being investigated. 5 executions are on hold pending the conclusion of a grand jury investigation that was started in September 2015. Pruitt did not answer a question about when the investigation would be complete, and said he "couldn't get into it at this point, but we will soon." His spokesperson, Aaron Cooper, said the jury meets at the end of February and their findings, if a decision is made, should be made public, barring an order to seal the findings from a judge. The Department of Corrections declined to comment on this story Thursday. (source: news9.com) ******************** Defendant in Moore beheading repeats request for death penalty; judge holds off A murder defendant told a judge Thursday he still wants to plead guilty and be given a death sentence for beheading a co-worker at a Moore food distribution plant. "As a Muslim, we are not afraid to die," Alton Alexander Nolen said. Nolen told the judge he wanted to waive any further hearings and go ahead and plead guilty Thursday. He said he already had thought about the consequences of agreeing to the death penalty. He said he would not accept life in prison or life in prison without the possibility of parole as punishments. His intentions have put him at odds with his court-appointed defense attorneys, who contend he is not mentally competent to make that decision. Cleveland County District Judge Lori Walkley told him she would not accept his guilty plea yet, saying she wanted to give him more time to think about it. Nolen is scheduled to be in court again May 20 and could plead guilty then. If he does plead guilty, another date will be scheduled for his sentencing. Delay is normal In planning multiple hearings, the judge is following legal guidelines for cases where a murderer essentially volunteers for the death penalty. The judge noted she had a duty to protect the integrity of the system and was going to move slow rather than fast. In a 2006 decision, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals complimented a Canadian County judge for repeatedly offering to allow a murderer to change his mind "at virtually every stage of the proceedings." Nolen, 31, is charged with 1 count of 1st-degree murder, 1 count of assault and battery with a deadly weapon, and 4 counts of assault with a dangerous weapon. Nolen, who cut fruit at the plant, is accused of beheading co-worker Colleen Hufford inside Vaughan Foods on Sept. 25, 2014, shortly after he was suspended for making racial remarks. He also is accused of assaulting 3 other workers who tried to stop him as he cut Hufford's neck. He is accused of then trying to behead another co-worker and of charging with a knife at the company's chief operating officer, who shot him. Nolen, a Muslim convert, had started working at the plant in January 2013 while at a halfway house for felons finishing prison sentences, records show. He lived in an apartment in Moore near the plant. Hufford, 54, of Moore, appears to have been chosen at random. She was attacked from behind. Nolen's intentions to plead guilty and accept a death sentence first were revealed in testimony at a competency hearing in October. At the conclusion of the hearing, the judge found him to be mentally competent despite those intentions. "The fact that he does not agree with the strategy of his attorneys does not mean he is incompetent," Walkley wrote in a 3-page order. (source: The Oklahoman) ******************** Governor Fallin's Legal Counsel Steps Down Amid Execution Investigation A 3rd high-ranking official associated with Oklahoma's death penalty protocols stepped down Thursday. Governor Mary Fallin's legal counsel Steve Mullins announced his resignation after working for the governor since February 2012. Mullins testified before the grand jury in October into investigations of Oklahoma's executions. The death penalty has been under scrutiny in the state after a series of troubled executions, including a botched execution in 2014 when Clayton Lockett writhed and moaned on the gurney for more than 40 minutes and 1 last year where the wrong drugs were used to carry out the death penalty. Former Oklahoma State Penitentiary warden Anita Trammell and Department of Corrections director Robert Patton have also resigned. The grand jury is scheduled to release its findings next week. All executions are currently on hold in Oklahoma. In his resignation letter, Mullins said he is taking a voluntary buyout and is trying to "better control stress" in his life. Before working for Fallin, Mullins served as assistant United States Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma and a senior legal advisor for the Department of Justice. (source: KGOU news) KANSAS: House members press for repeal of Kansas death penalty----Advocacy focuses on cost of trial, appellate process paid by taxpayers A bipartisan group of state representatives advocated Thursday for repeal of the Kansas death penalty as a step toward alleviating a steep financial obligation weighing on a state government struggling to deal with a projected deficit. Reps. Steven Becker, R-Hutchinson, John Bradford, R-Lansing, and Boog Highberger, D-Lawrence, expressed support for repeal of the state's capital punishment statute during a news conference at the Capitol organized by the Kansas Coalition Against Death Penalty. Becker said many aspects of the death penalty warranted scrutiny and debate, but Kansans could focus on financial benefit of dropping from the criminal code of the option of executing inmates convicted of murder. Murder trials in district court and years of appeals guaranteed to result from death sentences are costly. "The death penalty is such an inefficient practice in our state that could truly save millions of dollars," Becker said. "Yesterday, we had about a 5-hour debate on the floor on our state budget and this morning we received a Supreme Court opinion that I think requires us to come up with about $54 million more for public education in the state. We are desperate for money and one of the sources we could find would be the repeal of the death penalty." Becker said proponents of repeal speak of moral objections or criminal justice issues, yet the state should no longer ignore economic incentives of reform. The state's current budget deficit could reach nearly $200 million over through mid-2017. "The cost savings is such an issue in our fiscal, our financial environment in the Statehouse that it has risen to the top, I think, as to the strongest argument," Becker said. Kansas reinstated the death penalty in 1994, but has not performed an execution in more than 50 years. There are currently 9 people held under death penalty sentences in Kansas. The 3 legislators at the news conference said they would prefer Kansas law be changed to replace capital punishment with a penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Becker and Bradford are sponsors on House Bill 2515, which would abolish the death penalty and create the crime of aggravated murder. Repeal would not be retroactive, however, and would apply to cases filed after July 1, 2016. The House has not conducted a committee hearing on the bill, while a parallel version in the Senate died in committee. Bradford said bipartisan support for this shows the importance of repealing the death penalty. "This isn't partisan, it's a moral issue," Bradford said. The Coalition Against Death Penalty argues the cost for the state goes up as more cases lead to conviction and appeals filed in existing cases. The coalition advocates for reallocation of the budget devoted to capital cases to other areas of public safety. "There are much better uses for the resources that we???re using for the death penalty in the state of Kansas," Highberger said. He said he understood the severity of the crimes in cases where the death penalty was sought, but the Legislature must acknowledge flaws with the death penalty. "This isn't about the seriousness of the crimes," he said. In January, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against 3 Kansas inmates whose death sentence had been vacated in decisions issued by the Kansas Supreme Court. The nation's highest court focused on sentencing procedures in appeals by inmates Jonathan and Reginald Carr, who went on a Wichita murder spree in 2000. The other appeal involved a 3rd inmate, Sidney Gleason, who was convicted in a double murder. (source: Topeka Capital-Jourrnal) SOUTH DAKOTA: Prosecutor's cost in death penalty case: $100 The steep legal costs associated with the death penalty are well documented. It isn't uncommon for expenses to exceed $1 million in the lead up to an execution. Which is why a prosecutor's claim about the cost of trying a capital murder case caught some by surprise this week in Pierre. Speaking at a legislative hearing for a proposal to abolish the death penalty in South Dakota, Minnehaha County State's Attorney Aaron McGowan said the James McVay murder trial cost his office $100. Can that be right? "That was for a hotel room for the arresting officer out of Wisconsin," McGowan said. His office didn't have to hire expert witnesses, calling on county law enforcement, a penitentiary deputy, the coroner and a friend and family member of the victim, Maybelle Schein. "We were able to try the case within our normal operating costs without a lot of additional expenses - other than the hotel room referenced," McGowan said. The $100 figure doesn't include the cost of staff and other regular operations, and it doesn't tell the full story about where costs add up in death penalty cases. The prosecutors' expenses are just a sliver of the overall cost of capital cases, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. "From an economic perspective, the death penalty cases can be pursued cheaply by the prosecution, but when they do so, they are imposing a tremendous financial cost on other parts of the government and taxpayers across the state," Dunham said. Mike Butler, a defense lawyer in Sioux Falls who has tried 4 death penalty cases, said he doesn't doubt McGowan's accounting of the McVay case, but it's also not a good representation of a typical death penalty case. McVay's confession, the evidence and the fact that he was an unsympathetic figure simplified the case. Butler said the only real decision for the jury to make was whether to sentence McVay to death. "From an evidentiary point of view it was simple, straight-forward case," Butler said. Dunham said that McGowan only spent $100 outside of his normal budget stands out to him. "Well, if that is in fact true," Dunham said, "it is a shame it cost so little to take someone's life." (soruce: Argus Leader) ************** Do you think South Dakota should repeal the death penalty ttp://www.yankton.net/poll_93239872-d0f4-11e5-9ac1-57687676f0af.html (source: Yankton Press) WYOMING: Social-issue bills fail in House Wyoming will remain 1 of 5 states in the nation without a hate crimes law. The state's House of Representatives handily voted down a bill Thursday that would have created extra penalties for violent crimes committed because of the victim's race, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin. Rep. Charles Pelkey, D-Laramie, sponsored the proposal that would have increased prison time for the bias-motivated offenses by 25 %. He said there should be stronger punishments for these types of crimes because they are more "egregious" than typical violent felonies. "They are, in essence, an assault against the entire community," he said. The proposal needed a 2/3 majority vote for it to be introduced. But it was defeated with only 10 of the 60 members supporting it. Rep. Bob Nicholas, R-Cheyenne, was among those who opposed the measure. He said the extra punishments are not needed. And he said proving that a crime has a bias component would be a difficult task for judges or juries. "I would submit to you that a murder is a murder," he said. "And if you kill someone or maim them, the penalties are severe enough." Death penalty abolishment fails The proposal was one of several bills that the House rejected Thursday - the 2nd-to-last day for the introduction of new bills. The House also voted down a proposal to abolish the death penalty in the state. Bill sponsor Rep. Cathy Connolly, D-Laramie, said this would save the state money on costly trials and appeals and prevent a scenario where an innocent person is executed. "The vast majority of countries have abolished the death penalty," she said. "So whether it's for moral or religious reasons or financial reasons to the state or counties, let's eliminate the death penalty." But Rep. Bill Pownall, R-Gillette, said the death penalty can be meaningful for the victims or their families. "Don't forget the victims in all these cases," he said. "That is one thing I think we are lacking." (source: Tribune Eagle) USA: With death penalty decision uncertain, judge delays Dylann Roof's federal trial A federal judge on Thursday delayed Dylann Roof's trial in the deadly attack on Emanuel AME Church because prosecutors still have not decided whether to seek execution. Roof could face the death penalty on 9 of his 33 charges in federal court, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Richardson said the decision by Washington-based Justice Department officials could take another 2 months. Such delays in high-profile federal cases are typical. After the Boston Marathon bombings in April 2013, it took then-Attorney General Eric Holder more than 9 months to announce he would seek the death penalty against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Nearly 8 months have passed since Roof's arrest. Attorneys for the 21-year-old Eastover resident already have said he would plead guilty if the government opts against capital punishment. U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel urged prosecutors during a hearing Thursday in downtown Charleston to inform him promptly of any development so a trial date can be set. "There are obviously important and alternate paths to go here based on that decision," the judge said. Roof's federal charges in the June 17 shooting of 9 black parishioners at the Calhoun Street church include civil rights violations. Officials have called the shooting a hate crime. Because of the delays in the federal case, Roof is likely to be tried 1st in state court in July. State prosecutors already have said they would pursue the death penalty. Thursday's hearing in federal court served as a chance for Roof's defense team and prosecutors to update Gergel on the status of the case. Roof, who remains at Charleston County's jail, was not there. Attorneys did not address the prosecution of Roof's friend, 21-year-old Joey Meek of Lexington County, whose trial was delayed earlier this month as his lawyers continue to pore over evidence. Meek faces up to 8 years in prison on 2 felony counts of not alerting police when Roof talked about his scheme and of later lying to FBI agents about how much he knew. Evidence in the cases continues to flow at a steady clip. Roof's defense team, led by attorney David Bruck, last month got a hard drive full of data, and the FBI has since authored more reports, Richardson said. While Richardson said the government would be ready for a trial soon, Bruck said his ability to defend his client depends on the death penalty decision. A trial could be avoided, he said, if Roof pleads guilty and gets life in prison. Roof already had waived his right to a speedy trial because his lawyers need time to review "vast amounts" of evidence to defend him in a death penalty trial, Bruck said. "He has offered to plead guilty," said Bruck, who also represented Tsarnaev in the Boston trial. "Everybody knows that. That has been the position since the 1st day of this case. The only issue is the government's decision to accept that plea." Federal prosecutors have said that they planned to send their case to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch's office in December. The Justice Department's Review Committee on Capital Cases typically makes a recommendation to Lynch within 90 days. Though 2 representatives of the department's Civil Rights Division, which typically leads such prosecutions, attended Thursday's hearing, Richardson answered the judge's questions. The prosecutor said that many people must give input and express opinions before a decision is made. "We feel like we are much closer," he said. (source: The Post and Courier) *************** Unjust, inaccurate and expensive: The case against the death penalty Many people believe that only guilty criminals get the death sentence. However, this is not true at all. According to Michael McLaughlin's Huffington Post article "Shocking Number of Innocent People Sentenced To Death, Study Finds," more than 4 % of death row inmates are actually innocent. This points to a huge flaw in our court systems. On top of this, most death row inmates are convicted without any incriminating DNA evidence. If the United States courts put innocent people on death row with no DNA evidence, then why do we bother with "innocent until proven guilty?" >From 1989 to 2012, The United States court system wrongly convicted over 2,000 death row inmates. What most supporters of the death penalty do not realize is that every execution costs approximately 2 to 3 million dollars to be processed and carried out. If you multiply 2 million dollars by the 2,000 inmates wrongly convicted and sentenced to death row, you would find an extra four billion dollars that our country has wasted by murdering our own innocent people over the course of only 23 years. This is money our country cannot afford to waste. Recent studies have shown that most of the people on death row are male, black, poor and younger than the average citizen. For example, from 1976 to 2012, 20 white men were sentenced to death for the murder of African Americans. If you compare that to the 253 African Americans sentenced to death for the murder of white victims, you will notice that black Americans are judged and punished much more severely than white criminals for similar crimes. These racial differences imply that white lives are more important than black lives and that white deaths are taken more seriously. If the government is persuaded by racism, how can we expect racism to end in our everyday society? For example, let's take a look at the case of Mahmood Mattan, a black man convicted for the murder of Lily Volpert, a local storeowner. One day, Lily was sitting outside the back door of her shop when she noticed a "colored man" looking around inside. She went inside to help him and he continued on his way. Later in the day, an older woman entered the store and reported a "colored man" lingering outside of the shop. When the next customer entered Lily's shop, Lily was lying on the floor with her throat cut and over $100 stolen out of her drawer. 3 hours later, Mattan was arrested. Although there were no eyewitnesses, the prosecution accused Mattan of lying, their logic being that the only reason he would have to lie would be to cover "murderous activities." Of the 41 witnesses who testified against Mr. Mattan, only 2 of them had evidence. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. 46 years after his execution, evidence was found that Mahmood Mattan was innocent and the court sent their apologies to his family. Mattan was executed due to the stereotype associated with the color of his skin. Now let's take a look at how the execution of innocent people affects both the victims and the executed victim's families. Although the death penalty is meant to punish the criminal and give justice to the victim, the family members of both the criminal and the victim are often punished as well. For example, family members of the victim report that instead of giving them closure, the long appeals process of the death penalty prolongs their suffering. Both the family of the executed and the family of the victim often experience symptoms such as depression, grief, post-traumatic stress disorder and even suicide. Children of the innocently executed may have difficulty with healthy relationships, social situations and truancy. The execution of the innocent is a major problem in the United States today. However, this is a problem that has a solution. I strongly believe that we should abolish the death penalty. Instead of execution, murderous prisoners should receive a sentence without a deadline. Not only does wrongful execution cause the United States to spend millions of dollars, but it also divides us among ourselves, separating us into whites and blacks. We need to stand together to make a change. (source: Opinion, Jamie Pitera, The Miami Student) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Feb 12 11:59:42 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2016 11:59:42 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 12 VIETNAM: 2 Vietnamese arrested for smuggling meth near China border Police in the northern province of Cao Bang on Thursday arrested a man and a woman for smuggling more than 1 kilogram of methamphetamine in a box of snack cakes near the China border. The 55-year-old man and his wife, 52, from Hanoi, said they planned to sell the drug in the capital and nearby provinces. Vietnam has some of the world's toughest drug laws. Those convicted of smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamine face the death penalty. The production or sale of 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal narcotics is also punishable by death. (source: Thanh Nien News) BANGLADESH: Bangladesh must abolish the death penalty now----Bangladesh's Law Minister responded to European condemnation of his country's use of the death penalty. But his suggestion that Dhaka may rethink the issue in the future, isn't good enough, writes Grahame Lucas. The Bangladeshi Law Minister Anisul Huq's remarks on the death penalty came after a meeting with a European Parliament delegation in Dhaka on Thursday. According to reporters present, Huq responded to calls from members of the delegation to abolish the death penalty in his country by categorically ruling out any changes to the law at the present time. This was a coolly calculated slap in the face for his visitors from Europe and a clear sign that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina intends to continue her quest to call Islamist leaders to account for the crimes they allegedly committed during Bangladesh's war of liberation in 1971. It reinforces the view that the Dhaka government has no intention of rethinking the political impact of the so-called International War Crimes Tribunal. The Tribunal has been underway in the country since 2010 and has imposed a series of death sentences on high profile Islamist leaders, several of whom have already been hanged. International criticism of the Tribunal's work has been consistently damning. Defense lawyers have been prevented from carrying out their work properly, some witnesses for the defense have not been allowed to testify and some of the testimony by prosecution witnesses has been farcical and based largely on hearsay. The latter is not surprising seeing how much time has elapsed by the alleged crime and the trial. The Tribunal clearly does not meet international judicial standards. Nonetheless, it continues to impose the death penalty against the Islamist opponents of the Dhaka government. The death penalty is irreversible and when used against political opponents it creates martyrs and triggers further political instability. While the death penalty remains popular with Hasina's Awami League and its supporters, its continued use is without doubt creating a fertile breeding ground for Islamist terror. Just recently James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence in the US, warned that Hasina's continuing efforts to undermine the political opposition would foster the rise of Islamist terrorists. He is right. Moreover, Clapper pointed to the fact that Islamist terrorists had claimed responsibility for the slaying of at least 11 progressive writers and bloggers since 2013. However, Sheikh Hasina remains in denial of the obvious consequences of her policies and claims that the so-called Islamic State does not have a foothold in her country, despite evidence to the contrary. At the very least she is guilty of sticking her head in the sand, at worst of an extreme form of cynicism. While the desire to finally close the 1971 chapter in the country's past is both honorable and understandable, Bangladesh continues to move away from the path of reconciliation between those who support secularism in the majority Muslim country and those who wish to see Islam play a greater role. With more of those convicted by the War Crimes Tribunal now awaiting execution, the need for dialogue across the political spectrum is greater than ever, as it the need to abolish the death penalty now, rather than after the damage has been done. (source: Opinion, Deutsche Welle) INDONESIA: Coffee Murder Suspect Taken for Psychiatric Observation Jessica Kumala Wongso, the woman accused of having murdered her friend last month by placing cyanide in her coffee, was taken to a Jakarta hospital on Thursday (11/02) for psychiatric observation in an effort to establish her motive, police said. The 27-year-old Jessica was examined by Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital psychiatrists, who are expected to help explain "why and how" she allegedly committed the murder of Wayan Mirna Salihin (27), Jakarta Police general crimes director Sr. Comr. Krishna Murti said. "She has so far denied the allegation, let alone revealing her motive. But it does not matter if she doesn't want to. We have our own ways," he told reporters on Thursday. "We are working on this with the experts. They are analyzing her character, and the results will be revealed in court," Krishna said. "We are obliged to explain her plans and actions in the case." Police have charged Jessica with the premeditated murder of Mirna, which could see her facing the death penalty. Mirna died at a Jakarta hospital shortly after she started to suffer convulsions after taking a sip of her iced coffee at a cafe in Grand Indonesia mall on Jan. 6. Lab tests confirmed traces of cyanide inside her stomach, as well as in her coffee drink, which police found was ordered by Jessica, who had arrived at the cafe almost an hour earlier. ******************************* Police: Killer of Bogor Girl (7) to Face Death Penalty Noval Fajar Bakti, the 31-year-old man suspected of having killed a 7-year-old girl in a dispute over a loan with her mother, will face the death penalty, the Bogor Police chief has said. Adj. Sr. Comr . Suyudi Ario Seto, the chief of Bogor Police, said on Friday (12/02) that the suspect will face murder charges as he had planned to hurt the child and had even bought a knife in preparation. Noval is believed to have attacked both the girl, Sarah, and her mother, Yunida, in their home in the Taman Lestari housing complex in the Citeureup subdistrict of Bogor last Saturday. He allegedly told police he had asked Yunida for a loan as he needed money to support his family, but that the woman had asked him to pay her back twice the amount. As the dispute escalated, Yunida started screaming "thief!" which caused Noval to panic and launch his assault. The girl died in a nearby hospital while the mother is still being treated for her wounds. (source for both: Jakarta Globe) PHILIPPINES: Duterte favors public executions of criminals Rodrigo Duterte may have learned a lesson from late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Or maybe he picked up the lesson from former President Joseph Estrada. Speaking at a political rally on Wednesday, the opposition presidential candidate and Davao City mayor reinforced his iron-hand stance against crime - he not only wants the death penalty back, he also wants the execution to be in public. "I will work for the restoration of the death penalty," Duterte told a cheering crowd here. "I will really bring it back (and make) it public so that the people will see for themselves (how criminals are punished)." The 1987 Constitution abolished the death penalty although it does not close its door to its restoration. Section 19 of the Charter's Bill of Rights states: "Excessive fines shall not be imposed, nor cruel, degrading or inhuman punishment inflicted. Neither shall the death penalty be imposed, unless, for compelling reasons involving heinous crimes, the Congress hereafter provides for it. Any death penalty already imposed shall be reduced to reclusion perpetua." Death by musketry Duterte spoke to a crowd of about 3,000, mostly college students, at University of Cagayan Valley gymnasium here. Marcos ordered the execution by firing squad in public of Chinese drug trafficker Lim Seng in January 1973, 4 months after declaring martial law. In May 1972, before martial law was declared, the 3 convicted rapists of movie star Maggie dela Riva were executed by lethal injection in the presence of the media. Duterte promise Another convicted rapist, Leo Echegaray, was executed by lethal drugs, also in the presence of the media, in February 1999 during the Estrada presidency. Repeating a promise he made earlier, Duterte asked voters to give him "3 to 6 months" to stamp out criminality in the country. He said he would take "full responsibility, legal or otherwise," for any human rights violation or administrative charges that may be slapped against lawmen accused of killing criminals. >From the airport, Duterte met with Tuguegarao Archbishop Sergio Utleg before his convoy drove around the city, where people lining up the street chanted, "Duterte! Duterte!" Pressed by Utleg for details on his political platform, Duterte told the archbishop: "I will be very drastic. I will order the police and the military (to use all measures) as granted to me (by law) should I win the race. "I assure you, if (you are concerned about stories that I would be killing people), that is not something we will do," he said. During the motorcade around the city, Duterte stood at the back of a pickup truck. He waved at cheering women and raised a clenched fist to acknowledge his male supporters. He invited the people of Tuguegarao to visit Davao City and see for themselves what he had achieved as mayor for 22 years. "I will even take care of your hotel expenses. But please, the first batch should all be beautiful women," he said. (source: Philippine Inquirer) ************** Speedy trial sought for death row inmate's 'recruiters' ---- Lawyers' group calls on Indonesia to grant clemency to Filipino Mary Jane Veloso A Philippine bishop has called on authorities to speed up the prosecution of the alleged recruiters of Mary Jane Veloso, the Filipino woman on death row in Indonesia for drug trafficking. "The government should continue to focus with resolve their efforts to go after illegal and exploitative recruiters," said Bishop Ruperto Santos of Balanga, head of the Episcopal Commission on the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People. The prelate was speaking Feb. 12 after Veloso's alleged recruiters refused to enter a plea during their Feb. 11 arraignment on human-trafficking charges. Judge Nelso Tribiana of the Nueva Ecija Regional Trial Court entered a "not guilty" plea for Maria Cristina Sergio and her partner, Julius Lacanilao, before setting the next hearing for March 9. Sergio and Lacanilao's refusal to enter a plea was "a legal strategy" that should not derail the legal process "that should proceed with haste," Santos said. The prelate urged the government to be more resolute in going after recruiters who victimize overseas Filipino workers and "put them to much danger and enslavement." The International Association of Democratic Lawyers also called on the Philippine government to ensure that Veloso comes home alive by expediting the case against the alleged recruiters. Veloso is facing the death penalty for attempting to smuggle 2.6 kilograms of heroin into Indonesia. She was scheduled to go before a firing squad last April, but the execution was postponed at the last minute, pending an investigation into her claim that she was the victim of human trafficking. In a letter addressed to the Philippine government, the international lawyers' group said Veloso's case should "not drown in all the fanfare" for the coming national elections in the Philippines. The group expressed dismay over what they described as the "snail's pace" of the case "due mainly to the high-handed dilatory legal tactics that the defense lawyers have overzealously resorted to in court." "We call on the Philippine government to exert all efforts to expedite the prosecution of [Veloso]'s traffickers," the group said. It also appealed to the Indonesian government to keep Veloso's reprieve in effect "for as long as the legal proceedings in the Philippines are going on, and/or to magnanimously grant her clemency on both legal and humanitarian grounds." In 2015, Indonesia executed 14 people by firing squad, including citizens from Brazil, the Netherlands, Australia, and Nigeria. (source: ucanews.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Feb 12 15:30:57 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2016 15:30:57 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CALIF. Message-ID: Feb. 12 TEXAS: Alleged devil worshiper charged with murder A Houston man has been charged in the death of a 16-year-old who went missing in January. Edward O'Neal Jr., 18, is charged with murder in the death of Ryan Robert. On Jan. 15, Christina Roberts reported her son Ryan missing after he never came home from school. A few days later, he was found brutally murdered in the woods near his home. At the time when her son's body was discovered, Roberts told KHOU 11 News she knew who did it and reported O'Neal to the police. "I just want justice for my son," Roberts said in January. "I'm beyond frustrated. I'm angry." For Roberts, O'Neal's arrest was a long time coming. Roberts says one of O'Neal's relatives came to her back and January and said O'Neal had admitted to the murder. The relative then told Roberts where Ryan's body was, he was found in that spot stabbed to death. The suspect's father, Edward O'Neal Sr., helped check his son into Ben Taub's psychiatric unit last month and says O'Neal has a history of mental illness and devil worshiping. "Oh I know that he's worshiping the devil and stuff," said O'Neal. "He didn't tell me nothing. He didn't say nothing about doing nothing. He's mentally retarded." The suspect and victim were close friends, Roberts says O'Neal even lived with her for a few months at one point. Although a motive isn't clear Roberts believes the murder was a satanic ritual and wants O'Neal to pay for the life he allegedly took. "Give him life," said Roberts. "Give him the death penalty, I don't care which one but I don't want him harming not another person." Edward O'Neal is currently in the Harris County Jail on a $50,000 bond. (source: KHOU news) CALIFORNIA: Setting a deadline on California death penalty cases will never work; here's why John Gajdos, in his Jan. 22 letter to the editor, suggests the California legal system set the "clock" so that condemned inmates have a maximum of 5 years from sentencing to execution in San Quentin prison. The letter reflects the absolute failure of the criminal justice system to educate the public on how capital punishment laws actually work in this state. The process is extraordinarily complex. All capital cases automatically go from the trial court directly to the California Supreme Court after the death judgment is rendered. Each year, the state's highest court receives thousands of petitions for review, covering both civil and criminal matters. From these, the 7 justices and their staffs cull the petitions down to a few hundred or so. Since the court has no discretion with regard to capital cases - it has to take them - they have to be incorporated into the court's workload. Thus, it might take more than a year for the court to hear an appeal in a specific case, and that's if everything proceeds apace. Following trial, transcripts have to be readied for the appeal, a process that can take months. Complicating the timeline is the fact that appellate attorneys have to be hired to represent condemned defendants. For obvious reasons, these attorneys should be well-versed in death penalty jurisprudence. Because most condemned inmates have no money to pay attorneys who ordinarily charge $500 or more per hour, public defenders - already vastly over-burdened with other cases - have to add these cases to the pile. Some inmates go years without appellate attorneys. Then comes the actual appeal process. First the attorneys have to decide which issues they want to highlight. This process can take some time, particularly if the attorneys are juggling other capital cases. Among the potential issues: "incompetence" of counsel. There have been cases, in fact, where trial attorneys fail to even put on a defense. Or there may be police misconduct, such as gathering evidence without search warrants. Or prosecutors succeed in convincing jurors to vote death for a defendant who is mentally challenged, with an IQ below 70, for example. There is no way to make capital punishment "workable." And what if a condemned individual participated in a crime with another person? Was he, or she, acting on his or her own volition, or under duress? This issue is particularly relevant for women or for younger people who might commit crimes - drug-related murders, for example - out of fear of retaliation from older, violent or authoritarian individuals. DNA evidence also presents another complicating issue; over the past few years, more than 100 condemned inmates nationally have been exonerated via new evidence. Death penalty proponents often minimize this factor, arguing the vast majority of death row inmates are guilty; so what, if a few innocents are executed along the way? It's a small price to pay for ridding society of bad people. That is not how the law works, however. DNA testing sometimes takes a long time, since labs are backed up with samples from convicted and condemned inmates proclaiming their innocence. When the state Supreme Court finally hears a case, that is not the last step. If the court upholds a death sentence, the case can be appealed to federal courts. California has absolutely no control over what a federal appeals court decides to do, or how long it takes to render a decision. In fact, some cases involve more appeals to federal than state courts. Before he was executed in 1992, 14 years after murdering 2 boys in San Diego, attorneys for Robert Alton Harris filed dozens of appeals in federal courts. Mr. Gajdos suggests defense attorneys wait until the last minute to file appeals, but no attorney, at least in modern times, has ever waited until an execution is imminent to file his or her 1st appeal. There can be no schedule for executions. It may be true that California's capital punishment machinery is hopelessly broken and that abolitionists have purposely gummed up the machinery. Death rows hold some very bad people, but so do maximum security prisons in general. And there lies the biggest issue: Juries sometimes sentence people to life in prison who have committed far worse crimes than those waiting on death row. And some prosecutors rely on jailhouse ???snitches,??? accomplices who walk away free after testifying against their partners in crime who earn death sentences. There is no way to make capital punishment "workable." Creating a "timeline" is an absurdly impossible solution. Better to end the death penalty and place all of California's most vicious and violent felons in the general population in increasingly over-crowded prisons where they can live 6 or 7 to a cell for the rest of their miserable lives and save taxpayers millions of dollars each year. (source: Opinion; Kathleen Cairns teaches history at Cal Poly and has written 3 books on the death penalty----San Luis Obispo Tribune) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Feb 12 15:32:03 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2016 15:32:03 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 12 RUSSIA/UKRAINE: Kremlin-backed militants threaten death sentences for prisoners A spokesperson for the so-called Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) has claimed that the militants are not holding any civilians or anybody else illegally. All those in custody, Darya Morozova asserts, are "under investigation" and could be sentenced to death. The remarks came on the eve of the 1st anniversary of the Minsk II agreement, and less than 2 weeks after 60-year-old religious specialist Ihor Kozlovsky and volunteer Marina Cherenkova were both seized by the militants. Prominent DPR militant Alexander Khodokovsky is reported to have asserted that Mr. Kozlovsky, who is a much-respected academic, could have been involved in "destabilizing the situation" and had "multiple contacts with various organizations in Ukraine engaged in destructive activities here." According to the Minsk agreement of February 12, 2015, all persons illegally held must be exchanged, on an "all for all" basis. A recent planned exchange fell through, according to the Ukrainian side, because the militants suddenly put forward new and impossible demands. The militants, in turn, blame Ukraine. Yurii Tandit from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) center trying to organize exchanges speaks of 130 people on its list of Ukrainians held hostage. The figure for people registered as missing is much higher - over 600. Ms. Morozova, who calls herself the "DPR human rights ombudsperson," spoke to Yuliya Polukhina for an article published in the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta on February 8. Her words have been widely discussed and commented on in Ukraine, so the lack of any retraction from Ms. Morozova or other militants suggests they do reflect the position currently taken. Ms. Morozova was asked to comment on the 30-year "sentence" handed down to Yevhen Chudnetsov, a Ukrainian soldier from the Azov regiment who was captured in February 2015. The militants claim he surrendered. Novaya Gazeta writes that relatives of Mr. Chudnetsov, who is from the Donbas area, missed the "trial" because it began half an hour earlier than scheduled. The "prosecutor" had demanded the death penalty, so an appeal can in theory be lodged by either the defendant or the prosecution. This seems highly theoretical in the Chudnetsov case, since from the outset he has not had a lawyer. There is disturbingly little information about this so-called trial or what indeed Mr. Chudnetsov was charged with. There is, however, a video that was widely shown on all Russian propaganda channels. In it, Mr. Chudnetsov looks as if he has been beaten and has had about half his teeth knocked out. The torture he was almost certainly subjected to is not mentioned. Instead, it is claimed that he surrendered and then at a press conference he oluntarily provides what is purported to be information about the foreigners supposedly instructing Azov - from Georgia, Sweden and the U.S. - or fighting as mercenaries, and the foreign weapons purportedly used. Ms. Morozova is asked by Novaya Gazeta if people like Mr. Chudnetsov could be part of the list of people to be exchanged. She replies that, for the moment, that is not possible, and that the DPR is working on the same principle as the Ukrainian authorities. She claims that Ukrainian authorities have 30 people sentenced to terms ranging from 15 years to life and are in no hurry to pardon them. They are not being handed over, she claims, so the militants "try them [their prisoners] within the framework of our legislation. We do not in principle have prisoners of war, and the people who are in our custody are all facing charges. Procedural matters are under way, trials, and they will soon be convicted." The interviewer then asks Mr. Morozova: "You mean all of those captured as prisoners of war can be tried?" She answers: "Quite right." Ms. Morozova chillingly goes on to claim the DPR is holding no more than 30 people (not the 133 cited by the SBU), and that there are no civilian hostages. "We have only prisoners of war who were detained in battle," she claims, and says that they have proof these detainees killed people and were responsible for the deaths of civilians. She asserts that most of those still being held were seized near Ilovaisk, and claims that some are accused of rape, murder and torture. Many Ukrainian soldiers died near Ilovaisk, after the militants' promise of safe passage proved to be a treacherous lie. Neither then, nor on other occasions, was it only soldiers who were taken prisoner and tortured, as the experience of journalist Yevhen Vorobyov demonstrated. Her list of prisoners for exchange from the militants' side, she says, comprises 1,490 names. She asserts that the DPR knows definitely that these people are in detention in government-controlled territory, facing criminal charges. The SBU, meanwhile, says that it is aware of only 465 people. Ms. Morozova, in fact, calls 500 from the almost 1,500-strong list "political prisoners" and claims they are in detention either for involvement in the so-called referendum of May 11, 2014, or because they spoke out in support of the self-proclaimed republics. Asked about the prosecution's demand for the death penalty in Mr. Chudnetsov's case, Mr. Morozova confirms that yes, according to the "DPR Criminal Code," the death penalty can be used, and may well be. The DPR introduced its own "criminal code" back in August 2014, with the death penalty for particularly grave crimes. In a 2nd resolution passed by the DPR "Council of Ministers" on August 17, 2014, military courts and a system of military justice were introduced. More about these so-called military courts was revealed in November of that year with the list of capital offenses including insubordination, state treason, spying and desertion, as well as looting, robbery, etc. Former Russian military intelligence officer and militant leader Igor Girkin in January confirmed extrajudicial executions, although in fact, his senior aide Igor Druz had confirmed this to the BBC back in August 2014. The main difference was that Mr. Girkin admitted only to killing "looters," while Mr. Druz was entirely open, saying that the militants had killed a number of people "to prevent chaos." Now the militants are claiming that they are not holding any hostages or others illegally, and say that any people in their custody are under criminal investigation. Like Ihor Kozlovsky, one presumes. Or people like Yevhen Chudnetsov, "sentenced" to 30 years without a lawyer in a "trial" his family missed because it happened half an hour ahead of schedule. (source: Halya Coynash, a journalist, is a member of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group in Ukraine----The Ukrainian Weekly) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Feb 13 10:15:15 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2016 10:15:15 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, GA., FLA., ALA. Message-ID: Feb. 13 TEXAS----impending execution Plano man set for execution A Plano man is set to be executed Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his latest - and likely final - appeal. In December 1990, then-19-year-old Gustavo Garcia shot and killed store clerk Craig Turski, according to police. He confessed to the crime after being arrested in connection to the murder of another store clerk the following month. Police found Garcia hiding inside a store cooler after his friend, Christopher Vargas, 15, shot and killed Gregory Marin, 18. Garcia was charged in that case but never tried. Garcia's attorneys have long contended that his written confession should have been thrown out because it did not include language that he had "knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily" waived his right to remain silent. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned his conviction in 1994, only to reinstate it during a follow-up hearing. In 1998, Garcia joined 6 other inmates in a daring prison escape attempt. Garcia surrendered before making it off prison grounds. Garcia was given a new sentencing hearing in 2000 after a chief psychologist with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice testified that being Hispanic made him a threat. Garcia received another death sentence in 2001. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Garcia's latest appeal. It then refused to revisit that decision Wednesday. Garcia will be the 3rd Texan executed this year, and the 1st one from Collin County since 2010. He will be just the 7th Collin County man executed since Texas resumed the death penalty in 1982, according to officials. (source: starlocalmedia.com) GEORGIA----impending execution GA Pardons and Parole Board to hear clemency request of death row inmate The Georgia Pardons and Parole Board will consider a clemency request for a death row inmate slated to die on Wednesday, Feb. 17. Former Navy crewman Travis Hittson, 45, was convicted of killing fellow sailor Conway Utterbeck back in 1993. Hittson's attorneys have argued in the past that their client was emotionally and physically mistreated as a child, had limited intelligence, and severe alcohol problems. They also say Hittson was only following the directions of another sailor also convicted in the killing - Edward Vollmer. They say Vollmer masterminded the killing and manipulated Hittson. Additionally, they argue Hittson should not be put to death since Vollmer, who is serving a life sentence, has the possibility of one day being released on parole. If clemency is not granted, Hittson will be put to death by lethal injection at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the State Prison in Jackson. (source: WTVM news) FLORIDA: When it comes to Florida's death penalty, it's a dog's life You might get the idea that Florida's lawmakers are real sticklers when it comes to sanctioning executions. But only if you consider dogs, and not people. This month, both houses of the state legislature demonstrated unanimous concern for a black Labrador retriever named Padi that had been condemned to death for biting off part of a 4-year-old boy's ear last summer. The boy encountered Padi in a veterinarian's office in Bradenton. Accounts differ as to what led the dog to bite the boy. Was he playing with the dog or tormenting it? The bite itself occurred out of sight when the boy followed the dog under a desk. A movement to keep Padi from being euthanized grew, and it was picked up by Rep. Greg Steube, who introduced what became known as "Padi's bill" to his colleagues. The legislation restricted dogs from being labeled "dangerous" if their attacks came as a result of being tormented, assaulted or abused. And it gave dog owners more legal rights to keep their pets from being euthanized by the government. As for the 390 people facing state-sponsored euthanization in Florida, their issues aren't being handled with the same sort of alacrity that was exhibited for Padi. And Florida's people-euthanization law is as seriously flawed as its animal-euthanization law had been. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court, on an 8-1 vote, ruled that Florida has been operating with a death row sentencing procedure that is unconstitutional because it allows a judge, rather than a jury, to decide whether a person is condemned to die. During the sentencing phase in murder cases where the death penalty is sought, 12-member juries weigh mitigating and aggravating factors in the crime, then deliberate to give a life-or-death recommendation to the judge. Unlike the verdict of guilt or innocence, the jury recommendations on death are not required to be unanimous in Florida. The judge can ignore the jury recommendation and give weight to evidence not presented at the trial when deciding whether the defendant will be executed. As a result of this system, 279 of the 390 inmates on Florida's death row have been condemned to death with less than unanimous jury recommendations that they be executed. In the case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, Timothy Hurst, 19, was convicted in the 1998 killing of the store manager of a Popeye's chicken restaurant in Pensacola where they both worked. The jurors weighed aggravating circumstances - that the murder to facilitate a robbery was done with a box cutter, making it especially heinous and cruel - along with mitigating circumstances, that Hurst had an IQ of 69, the result of being poisoned in the womb with the daily alcohol consumed by his 15-year-old mother. The jury verdict was 7 for death, 5 for life in prison. The trial judge then held a separate hearing, using his own reasoning to sentence Hurst to death. "The Sixth Amendment protects a defendant's right to an impartial jury," U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the majority of the court. "The right required Florida to base Timothy Hurst's death sentence on a jury's verdict, not a judge's fact-finding." The ruling has put Florida's death row executions on hold until the state legislature fixes the sentencing law. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling didn't address whether it was constitutional to execute people on less than unanimous jury verdicts. Out of 32 death penalty states, Florida is 1 of 3 that doesn't require a unanimous jury recommendation for death. A poll commissioned by the Florida International University College of Law found that 73 % of Floridians support requiring juries to make unanimous decisions when condemning a person to die. The poll found support for this position among different political parties, genders, regions, races, ages, and religions. The Florida Senate agreed: To kill a person, the jury recommendation for death should be unanimous. But the Florida House is balking, the same Florida House that unanimously rushed to spare the Labrador retriever from an unfair euthanization process doesn't want to spare some death row inmates from euthanization just because a few people on their juries who weighed all the evidence in their cases think they ought to live. As long as 9 of the 12 jurors vote for death, that's close enough to kill, the Florida House consensus has been, creating a rift that has stalled the legislation. So when it comes to diligence in fixing Florida's capital punishment laws, you're better off being a 4-legged perp than a 2-legged one. (source: Column, Frank Cerabino; Palm Beach Post) ALABAMA: No DNA linking John Clayton Owens to slaying of elderly neighbor, jurors hear No DNA links John Clayton Owens to the August 2011 murder of his 91-year-old neighbor, jurors learned Friday afternoon. Details of the autopsy of Doris Richardson and testimony from a DNA analyst took up the majority of the afternoon Friday, the 2nd full day of testimony in Owens' capital murder trial. He faces the death penalty in the death of Richardson, who was found slain in her home at 2206 Bide-A-Wee Drive on Aug. 26, 2011. Dr. Valerie Green, the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences pathologist who performed Richardson's autopsy 3 days after her death, testified that the elderly woman died of manual strangulation. She said there were obvious signs of trauma on Richardson, who stood just 4 feet, 9 inches tall and weighed about 105 pounds. The first thing the doctor noticed was bruising and abrasions on the victim's neck. The marks could be consistent with blunt force trauma, Green said, but alongside all of the other autopsy findings, the wounds were more consistent with Richardson's throat being squeezed. She also had bruising on her arms and legs, as well as bruises inside her mouth, on the inside of her lips where they align with her gum line. Those wounds were consistent with pressure being placed over Richardson's mouth. Though she did not have her top dentures in, her bottom set were in her mouth. The extensive bruising on her arms was consistent with defensive wounds, Green said. When Green opened up Richardson's neck, she found that the woman's hyoid bone, the U-shaped bone that supports a person's tongue, was fractured. A 2nd bone behind the Adam's apple was broken and there was bleeding in her neck muscles. Richardson also had petechial hemorrhaging in her eyes, another common sign of strangulation. Green said she could not say how long it took Richardson to die. On cross-examination, defense attorney Ron Smith asked Green if medications Richardson was taking for various medical conditions, such as blood thinners, could cause her to bleed easily. He questioned whether the pathologist would expect to see soft tissue bleeding in a woman in her 90s. Green said she would not anticipate it unless something occurred to cause the bleeding. Smith asked whether Green could say with certainty that all of the injuries she found were caused the night Richardson died. She said she could not. He also asked whether she could say with certainty that all of the injuries were caused by strangulation. "I can say that the injuries of the neck were caused by the manual strangulation," Green said. Owens, 32, is accused of killing 91-year-old Doris Richardson, who was found slain in her bed on Aug. 26, 2011. He faces the death penalty in Richardson's death. Prior to Green's testimony, the 1st witness after the lunch break Friday was Lillie Harper, forensic biology section chief for the DFS' Huntsville lab. Harper's testimony dealt with DNA testing on items found at the crime scene. Prosecutor Tim Gann had Harper explain the different methods of finding DNA from semen, saliva and skin cells. He focused mainly on what is called "touch DNA," which involves what is left behind when a person touches a surface. Harper testified that the presence of touch DNA on a surface depends on a wide variety of factors, including the surface type and the length of time a person touches that surface. She added that a surface could have DNA on it, but if crime scene investigators do not collect enough skin cells or body fluid in a sample, the DNA might not be found. "There are a lot of variables there as to whether we would detect it or not," Harper said. Harper testified that in the Owens case, she analyzed Doris Richardson's nightgown, a rape kit taken from Richardson's body at the morgue and DNA reference samples from Richardson, Owens and Owens' friend, Jimmy Justice. Justice was a potential suspect in the case because he had 2 stolen guns from Richardson's house in his possession. There were no signs of semen in the rape kit, and Richardson had no foreign DNA under her fingernails, Harper said. The victim's nightgown, dentures and bedding also were negative for semen. Harper said Richardson's own blood was found on the nightgown and dentures. Later in the investigation, in 2013, Harper received Richardson's dentures for further testing, along with the handle and dial of the safe from her house, a flashlight found on her kitchen table, a barbecue fork used to pry her back door open and a reference DNA sample from Owens' uncle, Thomas Owens. The defense has pointed the finger at Thomas Owens as Richardson's real killer. Harper said that in the second round of testing, she found no DNA on either the safe handle or dial. She was able to obtain a limited profile on the flashlight that did not match Richardson or either Owens. Harper said the results didn't mean that the people named had never touched the items. "You can just say that what was detected...." Gann asked. "Could not have come from them," Harper finished for him. She also said DNA testing cannot determine with certainty who the last person to touch an item was. On the barbecue fork, she could not include or exclude Richardson as the source of DNA she found. She was able to exclude both John and Thomas Owens as the source. Again, Harper said the DNA results did not mean that the people tested had never touched the fork. Under cross-examination by Smith, Harper testified about the testing done on hairs found at the scene of the crime. Hair found on Richardson's nightgown did not produce a DNA profile. Harper explained that the root of the hair must be intact to find nuclear DNA. Hair without a root can be tested for mitochondrial DNA, but the Huntsville forensics lab does not perform mitochondrial DNA. Smith asked if a manual strangulation would leave DNA from the killer on a person's neck. Harper said it is possible, depending on the circumstances. Jurors learned during testimony on Thursday that Richardson's neck was not swabbed for DNA or analyzed for fingerprints. Smith brought up feces found in a toilet at Richardson's house, which a crime scene technician previously testified had not been processed for DNA. The attorney asked Harper if the stool could contain DNA material. "Yes. When you think that this is passing through a person's body, coming into contact with biological material in the body as well as the body itself, there could be some cells," Harper said. She said skin cells could also be found on used bath tissue, which was also found in the toilet after Richardson's death. No tests were conducted on the tissue, either. Officer Jeff Kreiter, one of the Huntsville police officers who took Owens into custody at Big Spring Park the day of his arrest, testified briefly Friday. Kreiter told jurors that he and a colleague walked up behind Owens, who had been designated a "person of interest" in the case, called out his name and, when Owens responded, placed him under arrest without incident. The only thing Owens said at the time, Kreiter said, was, "How did you find me?" The final testimony of the day came from Charlie Gray, the lead investigator on the case. Gray went over much of the same ground that jurors heard from previous witnesses, describing the start of the investigation on Bide-A-Wee Drive. Gray talked about canvassing several of Richardson's neighbors, who said they had noticed that her bedroom light remained on overnight the night of Aug. 25. The neighbors also noticed that her newspaper - which she picked up from her lawn religiously by 6 a.m. each day - remained in the grass all day on Aug. 26. When he first went to Owens' home at 2204 Bide-A-Wee Drive, there was no answer and no one appeared to be home. He said he first talked to Thomas Owens the following day, when the older Owens reported finding some of Richardson's stolen property in and outside his home. Though Thomas Owens testified Thursday that he and a cousin found some of the items hidden between the bed and the wall in his nephew's bedroom, Gray testified that Owens initially said he'd found the items on John Owens' bed. Gray said that once he had placed the coins, jewelry and empty jewelry boxes into evidence, he showed them to Richardson's daughter, Carolyn Bentley. She was able to identify the items as her mother's and tell him where each item had been kept in her mother's ransacked house. When Gray initially questioned John Owens, the suspect claimed he had last been in her house several weeks before the murder to fix her broken hot water heater. He also cut her grass on occasion and did other odd jobs for her. Owens' story changed when he learned that police had searched his bedroom and found the items he'd stolen from Richardson. Then, Gray said, Owens admitted stealing the items, but said he'd done so a week before the homicide. He denied killing her. Circuit Judge Alison Austin ended the day shortly after 5 p.m. Testimony will resume with Gray on the stand on Tuesday, following the Presidents Day holiday. (source: al.com) ****************** Man sentenced to death again Jessie Livell Phillips, the Albertville man convicted in 2012 for the death of his estranged wife and unborn child was re-sentenced to death today. Phillips shot his estranged wife, Erica Phillips, during an altercation at a Guntersville carwash on Feb. 27, 2009. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2012, but a recent Supreme Court case brought into question the constitutionality of Alabama's capital punishment system causing Judge Tim Riley to reconsider the conviction. "The judge re-imposed the death penalty today," District Attorney Steve Marshall said. "Part of the question the judge was dealing with was regarding a recent Supreme Court case that brought into question Alabama's system. "The same Supreme Court case shut down Florida's system, and Alabama's is similar. That was the question today. He decided to not rule ours unconstitutional." (source: Sand Mountain Reporter) ***************** True Opelika crime story ---- How a murderer on the run was brought to justice A missing woman, a concerned family and skeletal remains, all tangled in a web of crime, lies and intrigue. While that sounds like a plot straight off the silver screen - it was a well-documented Lee and Macon County crime of 1914. The 28 newspaper articles capturing the details provided the sources for this story. Photographs of Pomp Dickerson showed he was a handsome man, the son of Squire and Emma Dickerson. According to the 1920 U. S. Census, this family's race was listed as Mulatto. Contacts with descendants revealed Emma was Native-American while Squire was African-American. As an adult, Pomp worked for the railroad in Philadelphia, Penn. He met and married Bessie. The couple came to Alabama to visit the Dickerson family in the little Texas community of Macon County near the southwest Lee County line. After a time, Pomp returned alone to Philadelphia, telling his family that Bessie had returned earlier. Bessie was never seen alive again. After a time, Bessie's family became concerned about her disappearance and contacted Alabama authorities. Today it would be called a missing person report. Griffin Butler was Lee County Sheriff when the investigation started. John Moon was Sheriff when it ended. This was a time when public resources were scarce. Education for law enforcement did not exist. Officials just did the best they could in conducting criminal investigations. As the investigation continued, witnesses revealed they saw the couple walking near the family home; Pomp was carrying a gun. A gunshot was heard. The skeletal remains of a female were soon found. Clothing matching the description of Mrs. Dickerson's was found with the remains. Pomp was arrested in Philadelphia and extradited to Lee County. Deputy Sheriff W. A. "Tobe" Betts brought the suspect back to Opelika. The Opelika Daily News of Dec. 2, 1914 documented Pomp's trial, which reportedly attracted the largest crowd ever seen here. The jury was charged at 11:30 a.m. and returned a verdict of guilty at 2 p.m. Death on the gallows was the sentence. Judge Duke set the execution date for Jan. 29, 1915. On Dec. 3, a follow-up article provided more details of the trial. A letter written by Dickerson, while in jail, to a friend in Philadelphia was intercepted by authorities. Dickerson requested his friend write a letter to the sheriff saying she was alive and to sign it "Bessie Dickerson." "The defendant never lost his composure," even though the state dumped Bessie's bones out of a sack before the court. Case closed? No. There was much more to come. The Jan. 29 execution date was suspended because this case was appealed to the Alabama Supreme Court, but that court upheld the lower court's decision. Dickerson's execution was rescheduled for June 25, 1915. On May 18, Pomp claimed that his father, Squire Dickerson, fired the shot that killed Bessie. Squire Dickerson was arrested and jailed. A subsequent hearing found no basis for Pomp's claim and Squire was released. With only 4 more days to live, Pomp Dickerson escaped from the Lee County Jail. He had carved a wooden key with his pocket knife from a slat of a straight chair and opened the cell door with it. Promptly, a wanted notice with a reward of $200 from Governor Henderson and a $200 reward from Sheriff Moon for the arrest of Pomp Dickerson was posted. To satisfy doubters of the wooden key story, a 2nd wooden key was quickly carved by a second person. The cell door was opened with this key, before witnesses. Pomp was recaptured within a few days in a corn crib 5 miles from town toward Gold Hill. He was armed and shots were fired. Dickerson was hit in the arm but taken into custody. Mitchell Merchant, who was married to Dickerson's cousin, was arrested for harboring the fugitive. Dickerson was returned to the county jail, put in a cell on the 2nd floor, shackled and chained to the wall with a guard outside the door. Dickerson, suffering from the gunshot wound, was treated. July 26, 1915, Judge Duke re-sentenced Pomp Dickerson "to be hanged by the neck until you are dead on August 27, 1915 - and God be your helper." Pomp was ordered taken to Montgomery since the Lee County Jail was "unsafe for the confinement of a prisoner under the sentence of death." Dickerson's conviction was upheld by the Alabama Supreme Court. In early August, Pomp was again in the news as prison authorities reported a suicide attempt. The local paper reprinted an article from the Montgomery Advertiser claiming that Pomp's mother brought him a basket of poisoned food. The jailer put out the word if Pomp died from the poison his mother would be sentenced to death. After that confrontation the mother grabbed the basket and "rushed for the door." The food was listed as fried chicken, a cake, pies and biscuit. At some point before the date of execution, Pomp Dickerson was returned to Opelika where he was to be hung. He also confessed to the murder for the 1st time, before a number of people including Dr. and Mrs. J. W. Darden, Rev. W. T. Paulk, pastor of the A. M. E. Zion Church, Deputy Tobe Betts and Deputy Percy Griffin, and asked that the written confession be given to the local paper. The lengthy confession was printed in the Daily News. It described an unhappy and troubled marriage. As to the murder, he said, "At that time a quick passion went all over me and before I could think, I shot her for she kept me in trouble and worried me all of the time. She had me almost crazy half of the time ... ." The date of the murder was given as July 22, 1914. An Aug. 27, 1915, headline read: "Pomp executed for murder at 11:15 today." After Deputy Betts adjusted the noose, Dickerson was asked if he had anything to say. He made a lengthy reply which included, "I want to let you all who have gathered here to see me and all the world to know I am receiving my just reward. I am paying, with my life, the just penalty for the crime I committed. I have made peace with my maker and I am going to my death without the least of fear..." 15 minutes after the trap was sprung, Dickerson was pronounced dead. His remains were released to the parents and interment took place in the Little Texas community in Macon County. Was that the end? Not entirely. In 2003, one of Pomp's sisters was still living. She was 105-years-old. A gentleman had contacted her concerning "lynchings" in the south. He was referred to Edna Ward who provided him copies of the Dickerson newspaper articles and assured him that Dickerson was legally executed following a jury trial which was reviewed and upheld by higher courts. Although over 100 years have passed since this murder, we offer it as excellent example of law enforcement at a time when resources and education for law enforcement were limited. (source: Edna Ward, Opelika Observer) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Feb 13 10:16:35 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2016 10:16:35 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KAN., NEB., MINN., UTAH, CALIF., USA Message-ID: Feb. 13 KANSAS: Wrongfully convicted man now taking up death penalty After spending 16 years in a prison cell for a crime he did not commit, Floyd Bledsoe is making it his personal mission to abolish the death penalty. In 2000, Bledsoe stood trial in the shooting death of his 14-year-old sister-in-law Camille Arfmann. A jury found him guilty of murder. "It is the most sickening feeling that I have ever felt in my life, you know, I mean, because your heart drops," said Bledsoe. He was sentenced to life. Just last October, new DNA evidence pointed to his brother, Tom Bledsoe, as the real killer. In November, his brother killed himself, but not before confessing in a suicide letter. Floyd Bledsoe stepped into the world a free man in December and is now taking on the death penalty. "Death is one thing that you cannot appeal and say, 'Oops, we're bad, you know, we're sorry,' you know it's over," said Floyd Bledsoe. Not everyone agrees with his push to end capital punishment, including Johnson County Prosecutor Steve Howe. "There are certain crimes, a very limited number of murders that are so heinous and atrocious that the death penalty warrants those actions," said Howe. Howe says Kansas has one of the most restrictive criteria for the death penalty. In 8 years in Johnson County, Howe has only sought the death penalty once, for Frazier Glenn Cross. Howe calls it a moral issue and a judgment call for prosecutors seeking death. "We do not want to convict a person and seek a death sentence unless we are absolutely sure, convinced that we have the right guy," said Howe. Still, it leaves little comfort to Floyd Bledsoe. "It's better to protect 1 innocent person then to condemn 1 innocent person with a hundred people," he said. A GoFundMe page has been started for Floyd Bledsoe to help with cost adjusting to life outside of prison walls. (source: KSHB news) NEBRASKA: Massachusetts donations boosted death penalty opponents' 2015 funds A Massachusetts group that opposes capital punishment has made another large contribution to an effort to sustain the repeal of Nebraska's death penalty. The Proteus Action League of Amherst, Massachusetts, gave $198,495 in October to Nebraskans for Public Safety, upping its total contribution to the anti-death penalty group to $598,495, according to year-end campaign finance reports released recently. Nebraskans for Public Safety formed just after the Legislature, over a veto by Gov. Pete Ricketts, repealed the death penalty in the state. That sparked a petition drive financed by Ricketts and others that was successful in suspending the repeal until Nebraska voters could decide the issue at the polls in November. Year-end reports by Nebraskans for Public Safety indicated that it had raised $750,190 during 2015, and had about $13,000 of cash on hand. By comparison, Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, the pro-capital punishment group that ran the successful petition drive, raised $940,133 during 2015. It reported having $9,991 of cash on hand, and $54,369 in unpaid legal and consultant bills at year's end. Dan Parsons, a spokesman for Nebraskans for Public Safety, said the group has entered "phase 2" of its campaign to retain the repeal of the death penalty, which is to mobilize voters to defeat the referendum. He made no apologies for the large donations from a group outside of the state and said that recently, more contributions have been received from Nebraskans. "Obviously, this is an issue that's not only important to Nebraska but the whole country," Parsons said. "Both sides will continue to get interest from outside of this state. We're not going to shy away from that." The Proteus Action League has said the primary source for its contributions in Nebraska is billionaire businessman Chuck Feeney, an Irish-American who has pledged to give away his $7.5 billion fortune to promote education, human rights and health care causes. Feeney founded the Atlantic Philanthropies, one of the largest private foundations in the world. >From Sept. 22 to the end of 2015, Nebraskans for Public Safety reported raising $288,611. That compares to $36,701 raised by Nebraskans for the Death Penalty. The largest new donation for the pro-death penalty group came from a Denver organization called Citizens for a Sound Government. That same group ran attack ads against then-Attorney General Jon Bruning, who was an unsuccessful challenger to Ricketts for the 2014 GOP nomination for governor. Ricketts was one of the prime financiers of Nebraskans for the Death Penalty's drive during 2015, contributing $200,000. Ricketts' father, Joe, who started the family company TD Ameritrade, gave $100,000. The pro-death penalty group collected more than 143,000 valid signatures from Nebraska voters in just over 2 months to force the referendum and the suspension of the death-penalty repeal. Their spending translated into about $6.30 per signature. ***************** Prison director says officials are mystified as Nikko Jenkins finds another way to hurt himself The latest acts of self-harm come as Nikko Jenkins awaits a hearing to determine whether he is competent to face a death-penalty hearing over his August 2013 killings of Jorge Cajiga-Ruiz, Juan Uribe-Pena, Curtis Bradford and Andrea Kruger. Convicted killer Nikko Jenkins used a prison guard's badge to slice his penis. Then, 2 days after that Jan. 26 mutilation, Jenkins attempted a more severe form of self-harm: He slid his waist chain up his torso, hooked it to a fence in the prison yard and lowered his body "in an attempt to hang himself from the fence," a prison report says. It didn't work. A correctional officer spotted Jenkins and radioed for help. Officers unhooked Jenkins from the fence, secured him to a gurney and escorted him to the prison's medical unit. The latest acts of self-harm come as Jenkins awaits a hearing to determine whether he is competent to face a death-penalty hearing over his August 2013 killings of Jorge Cajiga-Ruiz, Juan Uribe-Pena, Curtis Bradford and Andrea Kruger. Nebraska Corrections Director Scott Frakes said prison officials have been mystified as to how Jenkins keeps getting weapons of self-destruction. Jenkins, 29, says he is housed in solitary confinement in a barren cell, with only 2 blankets, at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln. Prison reports indicate that Jenkins has used the following to slice his penis: a broken floor tile, a piece of a radio, his eyeglasses, a screw from a shower. And, now, a guard's badge. According to a prison report concerning that incident: In mid-January, a corporal left his jacket on a chair in front of Jenkins' cell. Jenkins said the corporal also left the hatch to Jenkins' cell open. Jenkins reached through the hatch and "stole the badge from his coat," Jenkins wrote. A week later, at 12:30 p.m. Jan. 26, a lieutenant peered into Jenkins' cell and spotted Jenkins using the spike on the back of the badge to slice his penis. "I witnessed inmate Jenkins cut his penis with Corporal Eckery's badge," the lieutenant wrote. "Inmate Jenkins slid the badge under the door after he was given several directives." Jenkins wrote that it took 11 stitches to close that cut - which, as with the others, he said he did in homage to a serpent god. All told, Jenkins has received more than 75 stitches to close cuts that he has inflicted upon his face and penis in the past year. Frakes told The World-Herald this week that Jenkins' misconduct has vexed prison officials, causing them to focus "a lot of collective energy" on the issue. "He seems to be able to use anything to break his skin," Frakes said. "We dissect every incident for lessons learned." One of the lessons, according to Frakes: "What Nikko is undoubtedly good at ... (is) he learns how to find people's buttons." Frakes said he is trying to reinforce with his staff the need for absolute consistency in the way they act around Jenkins. Sometimes, in dealing with a manipulative prisoner, Frakes said, a staff member might promise a reward such as a peanut butter sandwich in exchange for the prisoner's good behavior for the rest of the worker's shift. But that reinforces the wrong behavior, Frakes said. Jenkins is "not the only challenging person or even the most challenging person" in the prison system, he said. Jenkins' behavior has caused several delays in the death-penalty proceedings as Judge Peter Bataillon has thrice ordered him to be evaluated for competency. Bataillon also has scolded Jenkins for cutting himself - and has grilled prison officials as to how Jenkins keeps getting sharp objects. The judge went so far as to ask if someone was slipping Jenkins razor blades in his mashed potatoes. Prosecutors have argued that Jenkins' motivation for mutilation is manipulation. They argue that he is feigning insanity in an attempt to prove himself crazy to legal observers. Important to note: Jenkins has released the reports of his mutilations to news media outlets. That said, the accounts released aren't his own scribblings; they are the typed reports of corrections staff members and appear to be on official Nebraska Inmate Case Management System forms. Frakes said officials are considering all options, including a transfer. Jenkins has a history of misbehavior at several institutions, including the Omaha Correctional Center and the Tecumseh State Prison. "Maybe a change of venue makes sense," Frakes said, but only if the prisons can meet Jenkins' behavioral health and mental health needs. (source for both: Omaha World-Herald) MINNESOTA: Bungled St. Paul hanging was Minnesota's last execution It took William F. Williams more than 14 excruciating minutes to die when he was hanged in the basement of Ramsey County Jail on Feb. 13, 1906. The rope stretched and his feet hit the floor when the trap was sprung, according to a report in that afternoon's issue of the St. Paul Daily News. 3 Ramsey County sheriff's deputies standing on the scaffold above had to pull up on the rope while Williams slowly strangled. A 27-year-old English immigrant convicted of murdering his male teenage lover, Williams was the last person executed in Minnesota. His botched hanging helped turn public sentiment against the practice, which drove the state Legislature to abolish the death penalty in 1911. "Gentlemen, you are witnessing an illegal hanging," Williams said from the gallows, still insisting he was innocent. "I am accused of killing Johnny Keller. He was the best friend I ever had." Williams and Keller met in 1903 as patients at a St. Paul hospital where they were being treated for diphtheria, the Pioneer Press reported at the time. They soon developed a romantic relationship. Despite the objections of the boy's parents, Williams and Keller spent 2 years living and traveling together. When Keller tried to end the relationship in April 1905, an enraged Williams went to the family's St. Paul apartment and fatally shot the boy and his mother. Williams' sensational trial coincided with that of another infamous St. Paul killer named Edward Gottschalk, who was described by the Daily News as "archfiend of the year" for his part in the grisly murder of a local butcher. The city's newspapers covered both cases from start to finish. Williams and Gottschalk were both sentenced to death by hanging, but Gottschalk "cheated the gallows as he had promised by hanging himself in his cell," the Daily News reported . Williams, only the 5th person hanged in Ramsey County history, spent much of his last day on Earth playing cards with his guards, whom he befriended while awaiting execution. The wife of Ramsey County Sheriff Anton Miesen prepared Williams a last meal of steak, German-fried potatoes, dessert and coffee. Miesen himself had tested the gallows the day before by swinging from the rope, but he failed to recognize "the grim but elementary law of physics that if weight is applied to a rope and to a human neck, both will stretch," wrote Walter Trenerry in his 1962 book "Murder in Minnesota." Reporters were barred from attending the execution, but Daily News reporter Joseph E. Hennessey managed to sneak in among the crowd of 32 witnesses. Williams "was the coolest man in the room" as he "walked manfully and bravely" up the 13 steps to the scaffold, Hennessey wrote. After his last words, a hood was placed over his head and the lever pulled. Williams' attorney called the execution "a disgrace to civilization." Newspapers compared execution by hanging to the Inquisition tortures of the Middle Ages, Trenerry wrote. 5 years later, the Minnesota Legislature voted to abolish the death penalty, and on April 22, 1911, Gov. Adolph Eberhart signed the bill into law. (source: twincities.com) UTAH: Human trafficking death penalty bill passes House A bill that could give human traffickers the death penalty has passed the Utah House of Representatives. House Bill 136 passed Friday afternoon by a vote of 44 to 28. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Paul Ray (R-Clearfield), specifies that if a child dies while being trafficked, that would be classified as aggravated murder and could result in the death penalty. Ray has told 2News he feels the bill would be a deterrent for those who seek to engage in trafficking children for labor or sex. But Rep. Brian King (D-Salt Lake City) spoke against the bill Friday on the House floor, saying he doesn't want to see an expansion of the death penalty. The bill now moves on to the full Senate. ()source: KUTV news) CALIFORNIA: California Death Row Inmates Remain Stuck In High Security Limbo This fall, voters in California may get to weigh in on 2 very different ballot measures on capital punishment - 1 to ban the death penalty and another to expedite executions. California still sentences convicted murderers to death, but there hasn't been an execution there since 2006. That's when a federal judge suspended capital punishment. On a rare tour of San Quentin State Prison, NPR found death row inmates stuck in high security limbo. KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: This fall, people here in California might get to vote on two very different ballot measures about capital punishment - one to ban the death penalty and another to expedite executions. California still sentences convicted murderers to death, but there hasn't been an execution here since 2006. That's when a federal judge suspended capital punishment. Scott Shafer from member station KQED in San Francisco recently got a rare tour of San Quentin Prison, and he found death row inmates stuck in high-security limbo. SCOTT SHAFER, BYLINE: California's death row population just keeps growing. There are now about 745 condemned inmates. Most of them are here at San Quentin prison. Between them and the outside - lots of locks and keys. They're some of the state's most notorious criminals. Some were serial killers, the details of their crimes - horrifying. In the prison yard, inmate Robert Galvan takes a break from doing pullups to talk through a chain-link fence. What's life like here? ROBERT GALVAN: Day at a time, you know? Day at a time - work out - same routine every day - get up, eat breakfast, work out SHAFER: Galvan is 42 years old. He's standing, shirtless, outside, in a 12-by-9 rectangular cage. His body is covered in tattoos. Galvan was sent to San Quentin a few years ago, after killing a cell mate at another California prison. Through the bars, Galvan says he deserves to be on death row, waiting a lethal injection that is now on hold. I ask if men here think there will be any more executions. GALVAN: Some think it ain't going to happen. Some think it's - you know, they're going to start firing it up, you know? But me, I'll cross that bridge when it come - when I come to it. SHAFER: Even without the imminent threat of execution, the decades of uncertainty weight on some inmates. Charles Crawford II was convicted of a double homicide he committed at the age of 22. He's 41 now. CHARLES CRAWFORD II: If they're going to do it, you know, do it and just, you know, not just have us sitting here for 20 or 30 years. SHAFER: That's the average time it takes before an inmate is executed here. In another part of the yard, five inmates shoot hoops on an enclosed cement court. One of them, Steven Livaditis, takes a break from playing basketball to talk through the fence. STEVEN LIVADITIS: I attempted to rob a jewelry store, and people ended up being killed because of my actions. SHAFER: Why did you shoot him? Livaditis seems to be fighting back tears. LIVADITIS: Because I was a - I was an evil person. I don't know any other way to put it, you know? SHAFER: Livaditis, now 51 years old, says he's turned to religion, and if he's executed, it'll be God's will. Most of the death row inmates are kept in East Block. It's loud and sort of dark. There's no privacy. As I walk past, one guy is showering. Another sits on a toilet inside his 6-by-9 cell. Many just lie on their beds or sit, reading, writing or watching TV. RAYMOND ANTHONY LEWIS: My name is Raymond Anthony Lewis. I'm in San Quentin State Prison on death row, where I've been since March 13 of 1991 - going on 25 years. SHAFER: Lewis stands in his cell, leaning close to the bars, reinforced by metal mesh. Unlike many inmates here, Lewis admits to his crime, and he's tired of waiting to be put to death. LEWIS: Just recently, within the last year, I've asked my attorneys to stop my appeal. SHAFER: Why is that? LEWIS: Because this is not living. It's just existing. There's nothing here. There's no emotions, no life. SHAFER: You think most people here would rather be dead than be living here? LEWIS: Oh, yes, without a doubt. Without a - we talk about it every day when we out on the yard. People are just tired of it. The state is not killing nobody. You know, guys here are dying from - either from health reasons, old age or committing suicide. SHAFER: That's one thing I noticed - how old many of these inmates are. Some look so frail it's almost hard to imagine the terrible, gruesome crimes they committed, all of them, including Lewis, waiting for an execution day that might never come. LEWIS: This is the hardest part. Dying is easy. SHAFER: 117 condemned inmates have died since California reinstated capital punishment in 1978. Only 15 were executed. Most died of natural causes. For NPR News, I'm Scott Shafer at San Quentin prison. (source: npr.org) ****************** Hearing postponed in Modesto death penalty case A judge on Thursday has rescheduled a preliminary hearing to begin July 18 for 2 men charged with murder, arson and burglary in the deaths of a Modesto couple found inside their burning home. The hearing for defendants Brandon Pettit and Felix Valverde initially was scheduled to start March 23. Authorities believe the defendants are responsible for the deaths of Pettit's parents, Scott and Janet Pettit. They were found by firefighters putting out a blaze in the bedroom of their home in the early hours of Aug. 8, 2013. The Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office has decided to seek the death penalty. The court has appointed 2 attorneys to represent each defendant, which is required in capital murder cases. Prosecutors allege that the defendants committed the murders for financial gain. A filed criminal complaint indicates that the Pettits were shot in their home. Investigators have said they believe the fire at the Divan Court home was started to cover up the murders and have confirmed that the victims were dead before the fire started. The defendants have remained in custody since their arrest 8 days after the house fire. At the conclusion of the preliminary hearing, Stanislaus Superior Court Judge Dawna Reeves will decide whether there is enough evidence for the defendants to stand trial. (source: Modesto Bee) USA: 'El Chapo' Brooklyn Trial: U.S. careful not to seek death penalty against Sinaloa cartel leader to secure extradition Mexican drug king pin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman may face trial in Brooklyn, New York on drug-trafficking charges once extradited from Mexico, law enforcement officials said Monday. Prior to the trial, the United States has to come to an agreement not to seek death penalty against Guzman to avoid conflict with Mexico's extradition proceedings. Guzman has been indicted in Brooklyn, Chicago, Manhattan, Miami and other cities across the United States where his cocaine ring was said to have operated. The Justice Department determined that of these Brooklyn has the strongest case against Guzman. Other factors, such as availability of credible witnesses and lack of other potential complications, were also considered. Joaquin Guzman was indicted in a Federal District Court in Brooklyn in 2014 on charges of distributing more than 457,000 kilograms of cocaine. According to Pix 11, the operations were allegedly carried out between 2002 and 2014 "through a network of corrupt police and political contacts." The Brooklyn indictment also links Guzman to over a dozen murders and attempted killings. There's has been no final decision as to the venue of the trial or the finality of El Chapo's extradition to the United States. Nonetheless, the Mexican government gave assurance that they are taking preliminary steps to begin formal extradition proceedings, the New York Times wrote. However, the alleged leader of the Sinaloa cartel has reportedly sought the prohibition of his transfer in a Mexican court to slow down the process by months. Aside from the issue of jurisdiction and extradition, another cause of concern for authorities is the issue of security. The recent breakouts from New York's maximum-security state prisons have prompted federal law-enforcement officials to devise a well-thought out plan to secure Guzman. "The biggest fear would be his access to money [to try to escape from prison], because money can make things happen," said industry consultant Ron McAndrew, as quoted by The Wall Street Journal. "People are bought and sold every day." Before trial can commence, the United States would have to be careful not to seek death penalty against Guzman if ever he is convicted on capital charges. Mexico does not impose the death penalty, and it will certainly not extradite convicts to the United States if they were only to face the capital punishment. If convicted, Guzman would most likely serve his sentence in the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility, otherwise known as Supermax, located in Colorado. The Supermax houses over 400 convicts which the federal government has considered too dangerous to be joined with other inmates. Some of its well-known inmates are Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and 1994 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef. (source: lawyerherald.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Feb 13 10:17:18 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2016 10:17:18 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 13 GERMANY----film festival entry Steve Coogan Film at Berlin Fest Puts Death Penalty on Trial Is it possible to discuss an emotive topic like the death penalty with both passion and reason? Steve Coogan hopes so. The British actor-comedian plays a lawyer battling to keep his client from the gallows in Berlin Film Festival entry "Shepherds and Butchers," set in South Africa in the last years of apartheid. Adding to the ethical complexity, the defendant is a white death-row prison guard, who has killed seven black men in an apparent road rage incident. Coogan says director Oliver Schmitz's film, which has its world premiere at the festival on Saturday, is "a powerful indictment of capital punishment" but not "sanctimonious or preachy." "No one is demonized in this film, apart from the system itself," Coogan said over the phone from New York, where he's filming taut domestic drama "The Dinner" alongside Laura Linney and Richard Gere. "It's about the brutalizing effect on those who carry out executions and the dehumanizing effect on all those involved." There's no doubt where Coogan stands on the issue; he thinks capital punishment is "repellent and morally objectionable." But he said Schmitz's film, which also stars Andrea Riseborough and young South African actor Garion Dowds, approaches the topic without "hand-wringing or pious pontification." "The film is very honest in its presentation of literally what happens, and sometimes it's hard to watch," Coogan said. "It's a literal representation of the minutiae of what happens when the state kills people. "It lets the actions do the talking for themselves." Like many comedians, 50-year-old Coogan relishes the chance to get serious. He has worked hard to expand his career beyond its comic origins - a particularly difficult task in Britain, where his best-known creation, pompous radio personality Alan Partridge, is a comedy icon. He has given his comic skills free rein in road series "The Trip" and "The Trip to Italy," in which he drives, eats and banters with Welsh comedian Rob Brydon. But he also co-wrote and helped produce 2013 feature "Philomena," in which he starred alongside Judi Dench as a jaded journalist who helps an Irishwoman search for the son taken from her decades earlier by Catholic church officials. The film, based on an actual case, was nominated for four Oscars, including best picture. "I think a film is interesting if the subject matter is divisive or has some tension within it," Coogan said. "If you try to make films all things to all men you end up with some kind of nondescript soup, which may tick all the boxes in terms of the bottom line, but I don't think it makes for very interesting art. "With 'Philomena,' one of the most gratifying things about it was that people left the theatre talking animatedly about forgiveness and whether it was appropriate. To provoke discussion is a good thing." (source: Associated Press) EUROPEAN UNION: British MP Lambert accepts Bangladesh criticism for her call to spare 1971 war criminal Mujahid's life----Member of European Parliament Jean Lambert says her letter urging the government to review the death sentence of war criminal Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid should not be seen as "a partisan move on behalf of any particular party." "I'll be hated to be saying that ...," the chair the European Parliament Delegation to South Asia said at a press beefing on Friday when she was asked why she had made the appeal to spare the Jamaat-e-Islami secretary general's life. Mujahid was hanged in November last year along with BNP leader Salauddin Quader Chowdhury for the horrific crimes against humanity they had committed in 1971 to thwart the independence of Bangladesh. Just before the verdict of their final review in October, Lambert had written in her "personal capacity" to the Bangladesh government through the ambassador in Brussels. In the letter, she had called for a review of Mujahid's death sentence. The EU, as a matter of policy, does not support death sentence to any person in any part of the world. But the British MP Lambert had made the request to the Hasina government specifically in Mujahid's case. bdnews24.com had seen the letter and run a story. "You're right in saying that it was a specific case. I think you are also right in implied criticism that why I did not mention others," she said. "It was a case where I was asked to intervene. You are absolutely right, I should raise other issues of death penalty." But the member of European Parliament (MEP) added: "I don't want to be misinterpreted that this was support of any particular individual in terms of who they are. It's a question about raising opposition to death penalty." (source: bdnews24.com) IRAN: Infographic: Capital Punishment in Iran - 2015 IHRDC's final update of its chart of executions carried out by the Iranian government in 2015 counts 966 executions, an increase of nearly 34% from the previous year. The infographic below highlights some of the details behind these numbers, including the charges leading to the death sentences of the individuals in question, the 8 top cities for executions in the last year, and trends in overall executions and the executions of juvenile offenders over the last year. Iran has led the world in executions per capita for years. Among these 966 executions, 625 - nearly 2/3 - arose from drug trafficking charges. This represents a rise of over 75% in executions for this charge over the previous year. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) establishes that the death penalty may only be used for "the most serious crimes", and international legal experts have long averred that drug-related offenses do not fit in this category. Iranian law envisions the use of capital punishment for a wide variety of crimes, including armed robbery, drug trafficking, fraud, and sodomy. These executions took place in a highly problematic judicial context. There have been hundreds of reports of violations of due process in Iran in recent years, including the denial of access to counsel, the denial of the right to be heard by a fair, independent, and impartial judicial body, and a routine reliance on confessions extracted under physical and psychological duress as primary forms of evidence in capital cases. see: ttp://www.iranhrdc.org/english/news/features/1000000626-infographic-capital-punishment-in-iran-2015.html (source: Iran Human Rights Documentation Center) PAKISTAN: JI calls for revoking Qadri's death penalty Jamaat-i-Islami leader Prof Mohammad Ibrahim Khan has asked the president and the prime minister to revoke death penalty of Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, the murderer of the former Punjab governor Salman Taseer, and set him free 'honourably'. "President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif should show wisdom in the case of Qadri. They should not only revoke his death penalty but also set him free from the jail honourably," a statement issued here on Friday quoted the former senator as saying. The Supreme Court of Pakistan has upheld the death sentence of Qadri. "If the president and prime minister don't show wisdom then it can trigger crisis across the country," he cautioned. The JI leader said blasphemy should not be associated with an individual but this was an issue of the entire Muslim Ummah. He urged ulema to highlight the issue of death penalty of Qadri in their sermons in mosques. Justifying action of Qadri the JI leader said late governor Taseer had visited the jail where he met Asia Bibi who was detained in blasphemy case. He said Mr Taseer not only met Asia Bibi but also expressed sympathies with her and started efforts for her release. Prof Ibrahim raised reservations over Mumtaz Qadri case and said instead of blasphemy law he was treated under the anti-terrorism law. He said law in Taseer case was 'misused'. (source: dawn.com) DONETSK PEOPLES REPUBLIC: DPR court hands down 1st death sentence 1 person has been sentenced to death in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), Lyudmila Strateichuk, DPR Supreme Court judge and acting chairman of the DPR Military Tribunal, said. "1 such sentence has now been handed down. There are cases that are pending consideration, and they also envisage the death penalty. These cases involve killings and espionage," Strateichuk told reporters on Friday. She also said the republic's military tribunal has considered two criminal cases against DPR troops, and over 40 are pending consideration. "The military tribunal has now tried 2 criminal cases, both defendants are DPR troops. Another 46 cases are pending trial," she said. (source: interfax-religion.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Feb 14 08:27:49 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2016 08:27:49 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.H., PENN., N.C., FLA. Message-ID: Feb. 14 NEW HAMPSHIRE: Evidence mounts against death penalty "This bill suspends the imposition of the death penalty until such time that methods exist to ensure that the death penalty cannot be imposed on an innocent person." That is the description of Senate Bill 463, a bipartisan piece of legislation that is the very definition of reasonable: Until the justice system is perfect, the state shouldn't execute anybody. For opponents of the death penalty in New Hampshire, it is just another chapter in a fight that has been raging many for years. Unless a great number of lawmakers suddenly find the political will to do the right thing, its passage is doubtful. The trouble is that this is a society too accepting of collateral damage. Politicians talk of innocents killed by American weapons overseas as if the victims weren't people at all but rather battlefield layers to be stripped away. And then they strip away the social safety net to punish the lazy and those who wish to exploit the system. If a few kids go to bed hungry or live on the streets, so be it. The same goes for death row. If 1 innocent person out of 25 guilty ones has to die, that is simply the price to be paid in this eye-for-an-eye world. Anyone who has read Franz Kafka should feel a chill: In his world, you are that 1 out of 25. One day you are living your hardscrabble life and the next you are in a cell answering questions about a heinous crime of which you have no knowledge. But there's enough evidence, and enough investigative incompetence, to suggest otherwise. Once those who hold your fate in their hands are convinced of your guilt, it's just a matter of making the pieces fit together, even when they don't. But that's not a Kafka novel; it's Kevin Cooper's story. There is no riveting Netflix documentary about him, so don't feel bad if the name doesn't ring a bell. Cooper has been on death row in California since 1985, after he was found guilty of murdering Douglas and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica, and 10-year-old Chris Hughes in Chino Hills. It was a brutal crime. According to a lengthy NBC News report last month, the victims received more than 144 wounds in 4 minutes. The 1 survivor, 8-year-old Josh Ryen, had his throat slit. Although Josh would later point the finger at Cooper, a black man, he initially told police that 3 white or Latino men murdered his parents, according to NBC. Other witnesses spotted 3 white men driving away from the house in the family's stolen station wagon. And a woman called police to say that on the night of the murders she found her husband's coveralls splattered with blood. He was a white man and convicted murderer. The police never tested the blood on the coveralls, NBC reported, and instead discarded them in a dumpster. As sometimes happens, the police had their man and any evidence that didn't fit that narrative was discarded. So Cooper was sentenced to be executed on Feb. 10, 2004. The Ninth Circuit Court decided at the last minute to review his case, NBC reported, eventually ordering new proceedings after a number of problems were found with the original case. That led to 5 years of legal wrangling before the conviction was ultimately upheld in 2009. This past November, California lifted its moratorium on executions, and so the hands of time began moving faster for a potentially innocent man waiting for his final day on Earth. Cooper is black. He is poor. He was on the run from police - and hiding out in a house near the crime scene - when the murders happened. If Cooper is indeed innocent, as several federal judges have suggested, it has all the makings of a Kafkaesque nightmare. One of these years, New Hampshire lawmakers will wake up and realize that to take one innocent life is to take one too many, and so will abolish the death penalty. Let this be the year. (source: Editorial, Concord Monitor) PENNSYLVANIA----female may face death penalty Grandmother charged in toddler's death in Pennsylvania----Grandma doesn't remember how baby died in her care, police say ; Pietrina Hoffman, 52, says she blacked out and when she awoke, her granddaughter was dead A grandmother left responsible for 2 children is now charged with criminal homicide after police say she killed a toddler and starved another child. Pietrina Hoffman, 52, burst into tears as she was walked out of the district magistrate's office in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania after being charged, WNEP-TV reports. Mahanoy City police have been investigating this case for about a month after one-year-old Navaeh Doyle was found dead on January 10 inside Hoffman's home. Her two-year-old granddaughter was also found, showing signs of starvation. Hoffman says she doesn't remember anything about what led up to the death of little Navaeh, just that she took sleeping pills and blacked out, according to court documents. Kathy Haage, a family friend, tells WNEP she believes the woman and says she's in shock over Hoffman's arraignment. Investigators say, however, Hoffman left the baby's body on the floor for hours before calling 911. Hoffman is also accused of having a cup of coffee and phoning her husband before calling for help. If convicted, she could face the death penalty. The magistrate did not set bail for Hoffman. (source: ABC news) NORTH CAROLINA: Justice demands the death penalty Olivia's Italian Restaurant employee Debbie French weeps against the memorial taped to the door of the restaurant for Sudanese delivery driver Bakri Khidir Mohamed Khidir. Tammy Weeks speaks to the media in Blacksburg, Va. Weeks says her 13-year-old daughter, Nicole Lovell, fought health problems all her life and had dreams of singing on "American Idol." On Christmas Day, a 1-year-old girl in Chapel Hill was shot in the head and killed. The child, Maleah Williams, was outside playing with toys when 2 men emerged from a vehicle and opened fire. 2 months earlier, Bakri Khidir Mohamed Khidir, a driver for Olivia's Italian Restaurant, was shot and killed when he delivered an order to a vacant house on Greensboro's Farlow Drive. Jeremy Alexander Carter, 21, has been charged with the murder in the death of Khidir, a 30-year-old Sudanese immigrant. Finally, consider this opening paragraph from an article by The Associated Press published in early February: "2 Virginia Tech students carefully planned the kidnapping and killing of a 13-year-old girl, arranging a predawn rendezvous online after buying cleaning supplies and a shovel at separate Walmart stores, a prosecutor alleged on Thursday." The body of the victim, Nicole Lovell, was dumped in woods in Surry County. She had been stabbed to death. David Eisenhauer and Natalie Keepers, 18 and 19, respectively, have been charged. The late Russell Kirk, one of the 20th century's most influential writers, would be alarmed by this sequence of events. Order, he wrote, is "the principle and the process by which the peace and harmony of society are maintained." It "implies the obedience of a nation to the laws of God, and the obedience of individuals to just authority. Without order, justice rarely can be enforced, and freedom cannot be maintained." If we are serious about the restoration and preservation of order, the only appropriate punishment for the likes of Carter and Eisenhauer, if they are found guilty, is death. The majority, in fact, supports capital punishment. Yet, abolitionists - those who oppose capital punishment - have a peculiar tendency to empathize with the perpetrators rather than the victims of such crimes. While the majority demands justice, abolitionists urge understanding, compassion and forgiveness. Debate over the death penalty often gets bogged down in the minutiae of economics: Is it cheaper to house and feed a killer for decades, or are we better off, financially, to execute him? But this is merely a peripheral concern; the majority's objective is retribution, expense be damned. Besides, what price do we put on justice? Other commentators wring their hands over whether capital punishment is a deterrent, but this, too, is only somewhat relevant. If the death penalty is the just sentence for a convicted murderer (and it is), whether it deters other potential killers is interesting only as an intellectual exercise. (It is worth noting that an executed man has never killed again.) If capital punishment were widely practiced and carried out in a timely fashion, we would send an unmistakable message: If you take an innocent life, we will take yours. The family of Bakri Khidir believes the man who killed him should be executed, and their reasoning is profoundly persuasive. In these pages last month, Khidir's cousin, Abdelrahman Ali of Greensboro, said that in his religion, "If you kill an innocent person, it's as if you killed the whole community." Indeed. In the wake of the killing of Maleah Williams, News & Record editors opined: "The beginning of the solution is to face this crisis squarely and to not accept it as simply the way things are - to declare that we, as a community united, denounce it and won???t stand for it anymore." Well, yes, but rhetoric alone is insufficient. The best way to demonstrate that we mean business is to swiftly execute those who prey on the innocent, the weak and the defenseless. Order must be restored. (source: Opinion, Charles Davenport Jr. is a freelance writer in Kernersville----greensboro.com) FLORIDA: Dying Inside: Teenage Murderer James Morgan Wasn???t Executed, But Is His Life Worth Living? In 1987, when I first interviewed James Morgan, he was on death row in Florida, sentenced to die in the electric chair for murdering a widow in a small town north of Palm Beach. He killed her when he was 16 years old. Local newspaper reporters struggled to find words for the crime: Heinous, grisly and senseless didn???t do it justice. Nothing could describe what Morgan did to 66-year-old Gertrude Trbovich, a widow who lived on a narrow drive where homes sat on manicured lawns, flanked by hibiscus and palm trees. Morgan was evil, wicked and vile, the prosecutor said at trial. Yes, he was young. But he was incapable of change and would never find a moral compass. People like him were a danger to society whether they were 40 years old, 60 or beyond. (As of 2016, Morgan's "expected release date" is set for 2094, when he'd be 134 years old.) "Have you watched how he doesn't move?" Morgan's public defender told jurors at 1 of his trials. Morgan had 4, each one ending in the death penalty and each overturned on appeal. "Look at him," the public defender said, trying to make jurors see that Morgan was mentally ill. "He sits in the same position for hours and hours!" What jurors saw was a blank-faced young man who didn't look sorry enough. At 1 trial he wore a blue and yellow checked sports coat and light blue pants, the local newspaper noted. He was described as emotionless. The jurors' compassion evaporated, as it would for anyone, when they saw the full-color photos of Trbovich beaten and slashed to death, and a knife encrusted with her blood. In Morgan's case, the prosecutor placed the knife on the railing of the jury box. It took jurors only about an hour of deliberating before they recommended the death penalty. By the time I met Morgan, I'd also looked at crime scene photos. But I was trying to look at another part of the picture, as well. I was traveling to death rows around the country for a magazine article about the dozens of juvenile offenders who'd been condemned to die, a number that would eventually grow to 226. Some of the teens were as young as 15 at the time of their crime. In all, 22 would be executed. There was a central theme in their cases: Prosecutors argued that the teens could never change. How anyone could predict the future that way was a mystery to the American Psychological Association, the American Bar Association, human rights groups, social workers, adolescent psychiatrists, and parents, who knew that teenagers turned into a different person often enough to cause whiplash. For years, on and off, I thought about the death row teens and wondered how they'd grown up. Morgan was among the most damaged of all of them. If he could transform himself even in a small way, it could prove prosecutors wrong, I imagined. But I knew I couldn't gauge his progress unless I could meet him decades in the future. This past year, I got the chance. The murder On June 6, 1977, Gertrude went shopping with 1 of her friends before returning home to Stuart, on the Treasure Coast in southeast Florida. The beloved mother, mother-in-law and grandmother lived in a pretty neighborhood on a street above the St. Lucie River. Morgan lived on the poorer side of town. His father had a lawn maintenance business and asked his 3 kids to help out with the mowing when they weren't in school. By 9th grade Morgan was free to help out every day. Morgan had struggled in school since kindergarten, about the time an older cousin introduced him to sniffing gasoline, court documents said. The habit made Morgan hallucinate and hear things that nobody said. But Morgan didn't mind it, aside from the fact that he got a whipping from his mom if she caught him. In grade school one of Morgan's uncles began to sexually abuse him; 2 cousins molested Morgan as well, legal documents said. Morgan's parents argued over his father's heavy drinking, which his mother didn't approve of, the documents added. Sniffing gasoline, at least, helped Morgan forget things. It also caused brain damage. Morgan dropped out of school after 8th grade. He still couldn't read or write. By age 15 and 16, he was getting drunk more and more often. His father put him to work. On the day in question, Morgan was mowing the lawn for Trbovich. He had a hangover from sniffing gas and getting drunk the night before. When a cousin dropped him off at Trbovich's house that afternoon he was barefoot and wearing a denim jacket, despite the pressing heat. That day he'd sniffed gasoline and had some beer, and now he felt even sicker. He wanted to call his father and get a ride home. Trbovich was in the cool of her dining room when she heard the knock on the door. She opened it and saw a pale, bedraggled 16-year-old with dirty blond hair to his shoulders, tall for his age, and shoeless. Morgan asked to use the telephone, and she let him inside. But when Morgan dialed his father, he got no answer. Morgan was starting to feel angry. He asked to use the bathroom. Trbovich gave him permission. As he walked past her - she sat quietly at her desk, writing a letter - he began to think she'd smelled the beer on his breath. He thought he heard her mumble something about reporting it to his mother. Trbovich was going to tell his mother he was drinking, he convinced himself. His mother hated drinking. He was going to be in big trouble. When Morgan left the bathroom he saw Trbovich, still writing a letter. It was to his mother, he thought. He took a crescent wrench from his pocket and bludgeoned her on the head. She looked at him, terrified. He saw "a look of disgust" - the same look he'd seen on his mother's face when she was angry about his father's drinking. Enraged, Morgan beat Trbovich with the wrench and smashed her with a vase. He fractured her skull and pounded one of her hands so hard that her wedding ring flattened into an oval. He picked up a serrated bread knife and stabbed her 67 times, court records said. He bit her on the breast, sexually assaulted her, made a brief attempt to clean up some of the blood and fled. Police found Morgan's bloody bare footprint on a piece of stationery that fell to the floor. Trbovich had written the time in the corner: 3:15 p.m. The letter stopped in midsentence. Morgan deserved life imprisonment, not death, his public defender argued at the trial 6 months later. The boy couldn't remember the stabbing; he was a brain-damaged 16-year-old with the emotional maturity of a grade-schooler; he was in a psychotic frenzy when he attacked the elderly woman; and he was legally insane at the time, the defense attorney said. The prosecutor countered that Morgan was utterly sane and that the murder was premeditated. The teenager was "a pretty cool cat" and "a controlled, insensitive" killer, a psychiatrist testified. Jurors agreed. By New Year's Eve, 1977, Morgan was in an airplane for the first time in his life, handcuffed and shackled in a single-engine plane en route to prison in the piney woods of north Florida. He'd be on Florida State Prison's death row for more than 16 years. The meeting I heard Morgan before I saw him. He wore handcuffs connected to a chain around his waist, and leg shackles that kept him at a shuffle, the chain clinking between his ankles. Morgan was 6-foot-2 and bone-thin, with a pale, narrow face. A guard brought him to the narrow concrete and plexiglass interview room and he arranged himself across the table from me, clanking even more loudly. He said hello, almost inaudibly. He looked disoriented. "I didn't know the interview was today," he said. Morgan was 27 years old. He'd lived for a decade in a windowless 6-by-9-foot death row cell, 23 hours a day, at Florida State Prison, home of the notoriously malfunctioning electric chair Old Sparky, which in the future would set a man's head on fire. His cell was a stifling, 3-sided concrete vault, big enough to take a few strides up and back. He couldn't see other inmates without holding a mirror through the front bars. But he could hear them. The din was relentless: shouts, screams, mouthing off and the metal-on-metal overdub of banging steel doors, slamming gates and jangling shackles. The sounds traveled everywhere, including to the narrow room in the main part of the prison where I'd waited for Morgan to appear. "I'm a little nervous," he told me. That morning he'd been strip-searched, shackled and escorted off the row. Nobody mentioned the interview. Morgan was convinced the guard was taking him to the colonel's office, where inmates went if the governor signed their death warrant. He was going to be electrocuted, he told himself. Then a guard locked him in a holding cell for hours. The whole time, he was terrified that he was going to die soon in the electric chair. He had a receding chin and long, delicate fingers, the only thing about him that seemed willing to move. He mumbled. His right hand gravitated to the side of his face and wanted to stay there, fingers near his mouth, as if trying to guard his words. There weren't many of them. He missed his parents. "I miss everybody." His eyes welled up. "My mom especially," he said. No, he didn't remember the murder, he said. He shook his head, looking miserable. "I think about what I done every day. I'd do anything to take it back. I'm sorry for the pain I caused the victim's family," Morgan said. "But I don't remember nothing." How could he not remember? He'd killed an innocent woman; he'd demolished the lives of Trbovich's children, who would spend more than 10 anguished years attending his criminal trials, seeing the gruesome crime scene photos, hearing the details of the murder again and again, constantly reminded of her last minutes. He'd wounded his family; ruined his life; and haunted even his lawyers and jurors, who had to stare at the evidence. It was hard to believe he couldn't remember the horror when he was the one who created it. But some of the court testimony backed him up. Morgan's lack of recall was so profound that one of his public defenders - desperate for information so he could mount an insanity defense - hired a hypnotist to pry out the details. After an hourslong trance, Morgan described the delusion about Trbovich tattling on him, a psychologist testified. The evidence told the rest of the story. Morgan left the knife in the house, as well as his fingerprints, handprints, and footprints. A forensic dentist said Morgan's teeth even matched Trbovich's bite mark. "I wish I hadn't of hurt my family," Morgan said. He hated it that his parents suffered, sitting through his criminal trials and waiting for legal appeals. Morgan's father died before the start of Morgan's 3rd trial, in 1985. His mother died of cancer the month after the trial, after hearing her son condemned a third time. The Palm Beach Post noted her death in a small item that called her "the mother of 3-time convicted murderer James Morgan and said nothing else about her life. Morgan didn't hear from his siblings after his parents' deaths. Since his time on the row, 17 fellow inmates had been executed. "You know when it happens because the lights flicker," he said. The state power company didn't provide electricity for executions, so the prison used an on-site generator for the 2,000 volts. The lights blinked when the generator powered on. "It's not a good feeling," Morgan said. Do you have hopes you'll get out, I asked. He paused long enough for me to wonder if he was going to answer. "I never did have too many hopes about anything," he managed. Not long after, the interview time was up. There was no way I could tell if he'd changed since he was 16. Morgan was polite and remorseful. But more than anything, he was dazed. If I wanted to know whether he could become a different person, I'd need to see him in the future. And I wasn't sure he had one. The law Morgan and the other death row teens around the country were part of a uniquely despised group of teenagers who, because of racial bias, retribution, rage or other reasons - none of them scientific - were singled out for the most extreme punishment. Typically, they were poor. "One searches our chronicles in vain for the execution of any member of the affluent strata of this society," as U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas once put it. Efforts to address unfairness in teen sentencing continue to be nudged along, incrementally, by the high court. As recently as Jan. 25, in the case Montgomery v. Louisiana, the justices extended the chance of freedom to juveniles serving mandatory life without parole, a sentence that in the past guaranteed that they'd "only leave in a coffin," as critics put it. Imprisoning a minor for life under an automatic sentencing scheme is cruel and unusual punishment, the court had ruled in the landmark 2012 case, Miller v. Alabama. Children must be sentenced on an individual basis, with an eye to mitigating circumstances, the court found. Montgomery v. Louisiana forces states to apply Miller retroactively, potentially giving some 1,000 juvenile lifers the possibility of leaving prison. But there's no telling how much impact the case will have. Teens who were 15 and committed murder in the 1970s, like Wayne Thompson in Oklahoma, could be sentenced to death. A 15-year-old who murdered after 1988 could not be condemned because of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Thompson v. Oklahoma, which abolished capital punishment for pre-16-year-olds. After 2005, the line of demarcation was 18. The high court that year ruled in Roper v. Simmons that it is unconstitutional to give a death sentence to people who were minors at the time of their crime. Juveniles are inherently capable of reforming themselves, the justices decided. They aren't likely to have an "irretrievably depraved" character, because their character isn't fully developed yet. The Roper decision ended a practice that had survived for more than 350 years and resulted in more than 360 deaths. Now, the court was saying all those executions were wrongheaded. "The juvenile death penalty is built around the premise that these offenders are hopeless and will never lead decent lives, and we might as well take them out," said retired law professor Victor Streib, one of the world's leading authorities on capital punishment of juveniles, who was a co-counsel for Thompson v. Oklahoma. "The very nature of children is that they're never hopeless," Streib said. "To say that they can never be rehabilitated and they can never change - that is always wrong with kids." Morgan, for his part, was saved by 4 legal appeals to the Florida Supreme Court. In each case the justices reversed his death sentence, finding that the trial court made serious errors. In all, Florida spent 17 years and probably more than $1 million in its effort to execute Morgan, Streib once estimated. Morgan's 1st trial was a do-over because the proceedings were split into an insanity and a guilty phase, which was unconstitutional. Attorney Michael Salnick represented Morgan in 1984, the 2nd appeal: He argued that the trial court improperly denied Morgan an opportunity to present an insanity defense. The justices agreed and remanded again. In Morgan's 3rd trial, jurors weren't allowed to hear medical experts testify about what Morgan said while hypnotized, the key to his insanity defense. Another reversal followed. By 1994, the fed-up Florida Supreme Court ended the cycle, having found that the 4th trial was flawed, too. The court commuted Morgan's sentence to life in prison, meaning he would serve 25 years minimum and, at least technically, get a chance of parole. Salnick, based in West Palm Beach, is one of the few people who stayed in touch with Morgan. He's been in contact with him on and off ever since handling the appeal, when Morgan was in his early 20s. "James was always respectful," Salnick recalled. "He was calm. He read the Bible. Whoever he was on the outside, he wasn't that person on the inside." Since speaking to me about Morgan last year, Salnick has decided to represent Morgan again for what he hopes could be a resentencing. "I am so happy to be able to attempt to assist him," he wrote in a Jan. 15 email. No action has been taken yet, but he said he and Morgan settled on a fee. "I had to charge a retainer, so God bless him, he sent me a stamp and we were even." The walking death sentence It is March 2015 when I meet Morgan again. I'm in a large, sunny hearing room setting up a camera, and I'm certain I'll hear him arrive, jangling with metal like last time. Then I look up, and he's already through the door. He isn't wearing shackles, or even handcuffs. He ambles up to me and gives a tentative smile. He is 54 years old, with the thin lips and weary presence of a much older man. He's been behind bars for 39 years. Morgan's hair is silver, and he's wearing prison blues and dark-framed, oversize glasses that reach a third of the way down his cheeks. A correctional officer pops her head into the room, says, "Here's your inmate," and leaves. Morgan's current home is Union Correctional Institution, up the road from Florida State Prison. We sit on leather chairs at a long wood table. Birds gabble outside the windows. Morgan sits across from me, occasionally raising his hand to his face, the way he did when I first met him 28 years ago. This time it has nothing to do with guarding words. He talks slowly, but he doesn't stop for nearly 3 hours. He hasn't seen or heard from a relative in 20 years. Almost no one has visited in decades. How have you survived, I ask. "Have I? I dunno," he says. He spent his entire young adulthood - from age 17 to 34 - on death row: Dec. 30, 2015 was the 38th anniversary of his death sentence. Now he lives in an "over-50 camp" for the "elderly." The Department of Corrections calls inmates elderly at 50 because they age quickly, owing to poor health care before prison, and to poor health care inside it, human rights activists would add. Morgan tells me straight out that he's a different person than the teenager who arrived in 1977. "Am I better than him? Yes. Can I change the mistakes he done? No. Am I sorry for what he done? Yes. But I ain't the same person no more. That 16-year-old kid is dead," he says. His voice trembles. "That 16-year-old kid died a long time ago. "The trouble is, some people see prisoners as the animal they arrested," he goes on. "They see you as the animal they put in prison. "I sometimes I wonder if I would've been better off being executed. Because the only difference between being on death row and being out here is having a walking death sentence. That means never getting out of prison," he says. "It means being in a parole system that doesn't wanna parole nobody. Especially an ex-death row inmate or people with a life sentence." By the time the Florida Supreme Court took him off death row in 1994, he was already in his 30s. Now he had a new survival challenge. For his entire adult life he lived alone in a single cell and barely left it aside from brief showers and a few hours a week in an exercise yard. (He played volleyball: "Basketball is too violent.") The living within a crowd Now he was in the general population. His new cell was only slightly larger than the one on death row, and he had to share it with another prisoner. He was in rec yards and chow halls with crowds of men. He saw fights and a few stabbings. He got in fights himself decades ago. "But I matured." In the past 12 years he went a decade without a disciplinary report, but he recently got 2 DRs, he says. 1 was for "passing a magazine or book or something" from 1 cell to another; the other was for lying to staff about it, "like a dummy," he adds. "The correctional officer was right to give 'em to me." Death row, in one way, had some happier times. In 1989, while in county jail awaiting his fourth trial, Morgan, 28, married Rita Runge, 26. They met through a "looking for pen pal" ad in a tabloid. They divorced 2 years later. "She told me she can't live her life anymore without knowing what's gonna happen in the future," Morgan said. I had tried to contact dozens of people to ask them how Morgan had changed over the years, including his siblings, who didn't respond to phone calls, and Florida State Prison inmate James Hitchcock, who taught Morgan how to read and write when the 2 men were neighbors on death row. But when I tried to reach Rita Runge, all I found was an online obituary that said she died in 2011. I decide, reluctantly, to tell him about it. He clears his throat and can't talk for moment. He'd like to see the obituary, he says, and asks me to send it to him. He got used to thinking about dying on death row, he says, after staring at the table for a while. "It's like having a job - getting up every morning and going to it, right? You get up every morning, you realize you're on death row and the chances are you're gonna die. "Compared to then, when I was on death row - am I more competent? Yes. Am I more aware? More educated? Yes. Do I want to go out there and make a life for myself? I would like the opportunity to." Do you think you have enough remorse? I have to ask. "I look in the mirror every morning and have to face the fact that I took a human life. And ... I can't even begin to express," he pauses again. "I don't even know what I could say to 'em, except, 'I'm sorry.' I can't blame the victims for wanting me dead," he says. "I've paid almost 40 years for my mistake," he says. "They can make me pay for the rest of my life. And I'm not saying they would be wrong. But at some point you gotta give someone the opportunity to show that he's changed. Unless you got proof that we're a threat to society, give us a chance to prove ourselves." "But no one wants to take a chance that an inmate might murder someone again," I say. "I'm not going to hurt anybody. The other old people in the prison are like that, too. We're too old to go out and commit crimes. We're harmless to the public. "Guys in here is 70, 75 years old - they can hardly get around anymore. I'm blessed because I'm still physically capable. But I don't know what next year holds. "If I'm physically disabled," he says, "and I can't hold a job, and I can't take care of myself - then there's really no reason to get out of prison." It's one of his biggest fears. "When they're old, the majority of guys in here, they just stop trying to get out. I don't want to be one of them. I want to get out!" Today he works at the tag factory, making Florida license plates. Previous jobs were pouring cement, working in the kitchen, and doing maintenance and construction work. I mention that it can be hard out there. Paula Cooper, one of the only death row teens to win parole, was sentenced to death for a murder in Indiana when she was 16. She was released in 2013, was engaged to be married, had a dream job and was beloved by friends and co-workers. But she couldn't forgive herself for her crime. She committed suicide in May 2015. "I don't know," Morgan says. He doesn't seem to take in the story. "People say it's harder getting out than it is getting in. And maybe some of that is true. But I don't think it'd be that difficult." The last time Morgan was out in public was at his father's funeral in 1985. He was in county jail for his 3rd trial, and he was allowed to attend. The whole family was there, but the guards didn't want Morgan to get close to anyone. "I mainly wanted to see my mom," Morgan says. His eyes tear up. He adjusts his glasses and clears his throat. "They let me stand next to her," he says. It was the last time he saw her or any other relative. He went from his parents' home to a prison cell. He doesn't know about the Internet, or Walmart, or spending a day without having someone tell him what to do. Everything outside of prison would have to feel alien to him after this many years. The transition would be unimaginable. Maybe in the end what Morgan represents is a problem that's unimaginable. No one can undo the harm to the Trbovich and Morgan families. No one can repay Morgan or other teenagers for their years on death row, which - as it turns out - is cruel and unusual punishment, akin to torture, the U.S. Supreme Court has said. For now, Morgan says he reads the Bible, and goes to church services and AA meetings. "But I know I can go out there if they gave me the chance." He doesn't know exactly what he'd do first if he got freed. But he thinks he'd go to McDonald's, then to the beach. And he'd like to see the St. Lucie River near his home. He makes customized license plates these days that say "Save the Manatee," and those are his favorites. When he was a kid, he saw a manatee once in the river. "You gotta love manatees," he says. "They're so harmless. They're so innocent." (source: Amy Linn, a 2015 Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellow, is a freelance writer and magazine editor.----Juvenile Justice Information Exchange) ********************* History of Death Penalty for Juvenile Offenders In 1642, Thomas Granger, 16, was hanged in Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts, for having sex with a mare, a cow and some goats. It was America's 1st documented execution of a child offender and the debut of the juvenile death penalty. The practice would end 363 years later after the deaths of at least 366 child offenders - people under the age of 18 at the time of their crime. The youngest girl to be executed was 12-year-old Hannah Ocuish, a Native American child who was hanged in Connecticut in 1786 for murdering a 6-year-old white girl. James Arcene, a Cherokee, was the youngest ever to be condemned. He was hanged in Arkansas in 1885 for a murder-robbery he helped commit when he was 10. The execution came 13 years later (not out of deference for his young age, but because it took that long for lawmen to arrest him). Others were rushed to their deaths. In 1944, African-American George Stinney Jr. was electrocuted in South Carolina when he was 14, making him the youngest person executed in the 20th century. Stinney died less than 3 months after his arrest for allegedly murdering two white girls in small-town South Carolina. His trial took a day. An all-white jury deliberated 10 minutes before finding him guilty. His lawyer didn't file an appeal. (In 2014, a South Carolina court took the remarkable step of exonerating him posthumously, finding that he'd suffered an egregious miscarriage of justice.) In 1964, Texas executed African-American youth James Echols - the last teen to get the death penalty for rape. Echols' victim was a white woman. He was put to death at 19, 2 years after the crime. After Echols' execution, laws allowing the penalty stayed on the books but weren???t used for the next 21 years. Capital punishment's popularity was waning. States held back from imposing it, waiting to see how court challenges would resolve arguments that it was unconstitutional. Abolitionists asserted that the penalty was meted out to a fractional number of teens who - for reasons of discrimination, caprice, fear, rage, tough-on-crime politics or some inchoate loathing - were punished far more harshly than scores of other offenders who committed equally horrific or worse crimes. By 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Furman v. Georgia largely agreed. Death sentences for all age groups were imposed so arbitrarily - so "wantonly" and "freakishly" as Justice Potter Stewart put it - that they violated the Eighth Amendment, the court held. The ruling in effect struck down all death penalty statutes as they then existed, but it allowed states an opportunity to craft new, less discriminatory laws. More than 30 states enacted statutes that would pass judicial muster. The modern era of the death penalty began. By 1974, teenagers once again arrived on death row. They would leave it for good, three decades later. The U.S. Supreme Court outlawed juvenile death sentences in 2005 in the landmark case Roper v. Simmons, brought by Christopher Simmons, a Missouri teen who was 17 when he and a friend murdered a woman. Executing juvenile offenders was cruel and unusual punishment, the high court found. Teens are inherently capable of rehabilitating themselves; they are too immature to be considered as culpable as adults, the justices decided. The Simmons ruling spared the lives of 72 juvenile offenders still on death row at the time. For others, the decision came too late. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BY THE NUMBERS The juvenile death penalty in the modern era, 1974-2005 Number of juvenile offenders executed between 1974 and 2005, when the U.S. Supreme Court abolished the punishment: 22 Number sentenced to death: 226 % executed who were African American: 50 % of African Americans in population as a whole: 12 Number of executed who were white: 10 Who were Hispanic: 1 Of all executed teens, % whose victims were white: 81 Of executed blacks, % convicted by all-white juries: approximately 30 Approximate number of former death row teens who are behind bars today, resentenced to life in prison with little or no possibility of parole: 187 Who are now almost 60 years old: 9 Number of juvenile offenders exonerated: 3 Years that juvenile exoneree Kwame Ajamu spent in an Ohio prison for a murder he did not commit: 28 That Leon Brown spent in a North Carolina prison for a rape and murder he did not commit: 30 Male juvenile offenders sentenced to death: 221 Female: 5 Number of females executed: 0 % of teen offenders executed in Texas: 60 % executed in Texas, Virginia, and Oklahoma combined: 81 Year the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty for offenders younger than 16: 1988 Aside from the United States, number of United Nation members today that have refused to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which bans the juvenile death penalty and protects children's health and welfare: 0 Number of countries other than the United States that officially and publicly sanctioned the juvenile death penalty in 2005: 0 % on death row in 2005 who were people of color: 66 About 95 % or more of death row inmates of all ages who experienced at least one (and up to 9 or more) of the following: --physical, sexual, psychological abuse; --neglect, poverty, trauma, mental disorders, illiteracy, substance abuse; --intellectual or neurological impairments, head injuries; --witnessing family violence; --parental substance abuse or mental illness; --death or absence of parent: (source: Juvenile Justice Information Exchange) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Feb 14 08:28:34 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2016 08:28:34 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KAN., OKLA., S.DAK., COLO., CALIF., USA, US MIL. Message-ID: Feb. 14 KANSAS: Law of discretion ---- Jessica's Law should be used carefully because of the power it gives prosecutors Judges sit behind the bench, expected to hand out justice, which they could do if it weren't for laws getting in the way. Politicians and legislators have, during the past couple of decades, taken justice out of the hands of judges and handed them to prosecutors, who are now the most powerful people in the courtroom. They decide, when signing the charging document, the future of the case. Sentencing laws have taken discretion away from judges and were meant to help equalize punishment. But in doing so, the laws have handed the ultimate decision to the first people to bring a criminal case to court. The most critical prosecutorial decisions are those involving the death penalty for some murders and Jessica's Law for accused sex offenders. The death penalty is being argued throughout the country. But Jessica's Law is one that deserves more debate because of its potential for injustice. Jessica's Law was first passed in Florida in reaction to the 2005 abduction and murder of 9-year-old Jessica Lundstrom by John Couley, 46, a convicted sex offender who lived nearby. The egregious crime caused such an outcry that Florida passed a strict law to help keep sex offenders off the streets. Other states quickly adopted similar legislation, and by 2006, Kansas had enacted it. Here, Jessica's Law punishes a first offense of having sex with a child under the age of 14 with a mandatory life sentence and no parole eligibility for 25 years. Some would say good riddance, and in some cases they would be correct. The problem with such laws is they don't see past the offense. 2 recent Reno County cases show the discrepancy in how justice can be applied simply by how cases are charged. Samuel Peterson last week pleaded guilty to soliciting sex with a 12-year-old Hutchinson girl and given probation. Under the facts of the case, it sounded like a reasonable conclusion to what had been a bad situation. Peterson was 19 when he met the girl, who represented herself as a college-aged student on an adult website. It wasn't until later he learned the truth, after he'd climbed a ladder into her bedroom to have sexual relations with her. Peterson never faced the harsh threat of Jessica's Law with its life sentence. He was charged with a lower level of indecent liberties with a child and faced 5 years for fondling. Although he was given probation on a lesser offense, he will have to register for life as a sex offender. The week before, Britany Becker, 20, was charged with indecent liberties with a child for fondling a 13-year-old boy who was a friend of the family. She was charged under Jessica's Law and faces life in prison. As elected officials, prosecutors walk a tightrope of public opinion. By not charging a woman the same way as a man, for example, they're open to criticism and public backlash. The problem with Jessica's Law is that it shows no distinction between a 20-year-old, who may have not fully matured, and a 46-year-old who may be a more dangerous threat to other children. By going for the harshest penalty from the start, prosecutors also are in danger of causing injustice. People have confessed to crimes they didn't commit to avoid long sentences and plead guilty to lesser crimes. Overcharging by prosecutors has led to injustices and innocent people being convicted of crimes. In California, Jessica's Law offenders were put on house arrest with a GPS monitoring system. But over and over, those failed, until 2 offenders were able to escape tracking and murder four women in Orange County while wearing the ankle bracelets. Like the death penalty, the law doesn't always work as it's supposed to. Without knowing the full facts of Becker's case, it's difficult to say if the charge is correct. Kansas law does grant judges the ability to give a lesser sentence for circumstances such as the age of the defendant or lack of criminal history. But practically speaking, it's difficult for a judge to depart from the law once a charge is filed. What we do know is that Jessica's Law is often a charge from which there is no turning back. It's a law that treats everyone with equal disdain. It puts a young adult accused of fondling a neighbor - no question a crime - in the same league as a grown adult trafficking a 12-year-old into a life of prostitution. As we've seen in Reno County, cases with similar facts can even be charged as different crimes. The young people who were abused are both harmed. 1 has a chance to change his life, the other just faces life in prison. The punishment should fit the crime. Jessica's Law is so unforgiving that it should be used sparingly, if at all. (source: Ron Sylvester----Hutchinson News editorial board) OKLAHOMA: Scalia cast key vote in Oklahoma death penalty case The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was a reliable conservative vote on any number of topics the court took up during his 30-year tenure, including a case last year dealing with Oklahoma's death penalty. Scalia died Saturday at a ranch resort in west Texas, the San Antonio Express News reports. In 2015, Scalia was 1 of 5 justices who sided with Oklahoma in Glossip v. Gross, in which attorneys for three Oklahoma death row inmates argued that the sedative the state used in its execution protocol could lead to an unconstitutional level of pain before death. The court rejected that argument by a 5-4 vote. Writing in a concurrent opinion, Scalia was characteristically colorful, taking Justice Stephen Breyer to task for arguing that capital punishment ought to be ended entirely. Breyer's dissenting opinion was, Scalia wrote, "full of internal contradictions and (it must be said) gobbledy-gook." "A vocal minority of the Court, waving over their heads a ream of the most recent abolitionist studies (a superabundant genre) as though they have discovered the lost folios of Shakespeare, insist that now, at long last, the death penalty must be abolished for good. Mind you, not once in the history of the American republic has this Court ever suggested that the death penalty is categorically impermissible." (source: The Oklahoman) SOUTH DAKOTA: Death-penalty repeal killed for 3rd straight year For the 3rd year in a row, state legislators last week defeated a measure that would have repealed the death penalty in South Dakota. The Senate State Affairs committee voted 7-2 against the bill, whose main sponsor was Sen. Arthur Rusch, R-Vermillion, a retired circuit judge. Rusch, who has prosecuted a death penalty case, told the committee he has seen the death penalty's damaging effects firsthand. He said capital punishment financially overburdens counties, traumatizes both judges and jurors, and is not an effective deterrent on crime. In his 12 years as a state's attorney who handled 20,000 criminal cases, Rusch said he saw that "the only thing about punishment that is an effective deterrence is that the punishment is quick and certain." He said South Dakota's death penalty is certainly not quick nor certain. The last 3 individuals to be executed in South Dakota, the lawmaker said, were those who essentially consented to it by abandoning their avenues for appeal. Meanwhile, 1 death row inmate, Charles Rhines, has been appealing his sentence since it was handed down 23 years ago. Rusch said that besides being a costly government program, capital punishment can also lead to mistakes that cannot be rectified, which includes the killing of innocent people. "It really affects and offends the true conservative principles of respect for life, of fiscal responsibility and limited government," he said. The death row inmate in whose case Rusch presided, Donald Moeller, was executed in 2012 for the crime of murder. The opponents at the hearing included the widow of Ronald Johnson, a state correctional officer who was killed by 2 inmates during an escape attempt in 2011. One of the inmates, Eric Robert, was executed in 2012. His accomplice, Rodney Berget, has been on death row for 4 years. The defeated bill, Senate Bill 94, was introduced with 24 bi-partisan co-sponsors. In the previous legislative session, a measure repealing the death penalty was also defeated in the Senate State Affairs committee. In 2014, a similar bill suffered the same fate at the House committee level. ****************** Death penalty facts Here are a few factoids about the death penalty in South Dakota. -- Since 1877, 18 people have been executed in South Dakota or this part of Dakota Territory, according to the Cultural Heritage Center. -- In a famous case, Jack McCall was hanged at Yankton on March 1, 1877 for shooting and killing Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood. -- Thomas Egan was hanged at Sioux Falls in 1882 for the murder of his wife. Years later, his stepdaughter admitted to committing the crime while on her deathbed. -- South Dakota entered the union with capital punishment in place in 1889. The state banned the death penalty in 1915, but reinstated it in 1939. South Dakota again abolished the practice in 1977 and reinstated it in 1979. -- From 1889 until 1915, executions in South Dakota were done by hanging. In 1984, lethal injection was introduced. During the period in between, capital punishment was carried out through electrocution -- The last individuals to be executed in the state were Eric Robert on Oct. 15, 2012, and Donald Moeller 15 days later. Both were sentenced to death for murder. -- The state's 3 death row inmates are housed at the Jameson Annex of the South Dakota State Penitentiary, the prison's maximum-security area, in Sioux Falls. -- Executions are carried out in the State Penitentiary's execution room. [source: South Dakota Department of Corrections] (source: Rapid City Journal) COLORADO: Conversation starts on death penalty Is a government program a failure if it is rarely, if ever used? And if so, should government leaders look to make it easier to use the program or abolish it completely? In the abstract, that was the question posed last week by the Senate Judiciary Committee when considering whether to lower the bar for the implementation of the death penalty in Colorado. Sponsored by Republican Sen. Kevin Lundberg of Berthoud, the proposed legislation would have abolished the requirement that all 12 jurors in a death penalty case agree on whether a convicted criminal should be put to death. Initially, the bill called for nine of the 12 jurors to be in agreement regarding the penalty; after an amendment in the committee, it was increased to 11 of the 12 jurors. The feeling was that a single juror should not have the power to block the state from following through on one of its programs: the administration of the death penalty in the interests of justice. To be honest, the bill was drafted to address a single crime - the Aurora theater shooting, in which defendant James Holmes was "only" convicted to spend life in prison without parole, but the jury could not agree unanimously to put him to death. What's worth noting is that for any jury trial, a single juror can block the state from convicting a defendant, whether it's a murder trial or one for a much less severe crime. That outcome does not always exonerate a defendant, however. If a hung jury results in a mistrial, prosecutors can try again to press their case. Perhaps that is the route lawmakers could consider - providing options when a "mistrial" occurs in the penalty phase of a trial. However, the cost to taxpayers to prosecute such a strategy might also be a deterrent. Whether the threshold for execution stayed at a unanimous vote, 11 out of 12 or even a simple majority, the introduction of the bill started an important conversation about whether the government program of capital punishment is an effective one to continue. The bill died on a 3-2 vote, with Republican Sen. Elllen Roberts of Durango joining the 2 Democrats voting against it. It's unfortunate the bill didn't make it before more lawmakers because it would have been a compelling public policy discussion that goes to one of the core responsibilities of government: justice and its administration. (source: Reporter-Herald) CALIFORNIA: A swift death penalty might prevent more child killings To the editor: I had just returned home after holding my gorgeous 1-month-old granddaughter when I read the sickening news of the fate of 1-year-old Autumn Johnson. ("'Hearts are broken' after the fatal shooting of a 1-year-old Compton girl in her crib," Feb. 10) This is why we need a swift death penalty. The only way to stop such violence is if potential killers realize they too will die, and quickly. Steve Krimmel, Glendora (source: Letter to the Editor, Los Angeles Times) USA: Scalia in 2006: Criticism of Death Penalty Is 'Sanctimonious' In the 2006 case Kansas v. Marsh, Justice Antonin Scalia joined the majority in ruling that the state of Kansas' death penalty law was constitutional. The state's supreme court had struck down the law in 2004. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion, and Justice David Souter wrote a passionate dissent citing exonerations after death-penalty convictions, which he referred to as "hazards of capital prosecution." Justice Scalia's scornful response has been widely quoted as the number of exonerations in capital cases has grown. He wrote: There exists in some parts of the world sanctimonious criticism of America's death penalty, as somehow unworthy of a civilized society. (I say sanctimonious, because most of the countries to which these finger-waggers belong had the death penalty themselves until recently - and indeed, many of them would still have it if the democratic will prevailed.) It is a certainty that the opinion of a near-majority of the United States Supreme Court to the effect that our system condemns many innocent defendants to death will be trumpeted abroad as vindication of these criticisms. For that reason, I take the trouble to point out that the dissenting opinion has nothing substantial to support it. It should be noted at the outset that the dissent does not discuss a single case - not one - in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred in recent years, we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent's name would be shouted from the rooftops by the abolition lobby. The dissent makes much of the new-found capacity of DNA testing to establish innocence. But in every case of an executed defendant of which I am aware, that technology has confirmed guilt. Last year, at a speech at the University of Minnesota Law School, Justice Scalia said "it wouldn't surprise me" to see the death penalty fall, and added that he had little interest in being a swing vote on the court, saying instead, "I'd rather be right." As for his impressive and growing stack of dissenting opinions, he said, "I have never aspired to have the most dissents in the court's history." In fact, "I'm in 3rd place now," he added. "I hope I'm never in 1st place." (source: New York Times) US MILITARY: Bar Should Take Note of Military Justice Reforms Just as 2015 was ending, the Obama administration submitted to Congress a legislative proposal that would make significant changes in the military justice system. This is an important development, and the bar ought to gear up to review and comment on the proposal. The proposal is the result of 2 years of effort by a Pentagon Military Justice Review Group headed by retired Judge Andrew Effron of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. The review group solicited input from a broad range of organizations and individuals, both within the Pentagon and in the private sector. It unfortunately did not make public the comments and suggestions it received, and it appears that even the uniformed defense bar was not permitted to see the draft as it moved through the approval process. This makes it all the more important that what happens next - consideration by the House and Senate Armed Services Committees - be a truly open process, rather than merely a rubber stamp for the executive branch's draft. The 2 committees should set aside the substantial time needed to analyze the proposal, seek input from knowledgeable sources in the private bar and law schools, and conduct meaningful hearings. In important respects, the Pentagon proposal (which reflects suggestions from other parts of the executive branch) both improves and streamlines the military justice system. For example, it provides a statutory basis for terms of office for military judges (a long-overdue step), fixes the size of military juries and adds provision for a judge-alone misdemeanor court. It also enacts into positive law a variety of prohibitions that thus far had been developed on a case-by-case basis under the sweeping "general article," which covers conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline, among other things. Defense lawyers reading the draft may feel that the protection previously afforded by the requirement for a preliminary hearing before a general court-martial can be convened has been eroded. Other provisions as well are likely to prove controversial. 2 aspects of the proposal are particularly worthy of attention, and they most concern things not included. First, the bill does not fix the current arrangement under which GIs can ask for certiorari review by the Supreme Court only if the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces itself first grants discretionary review. This is a hurdle no other category of criminal defendants must face, not even the Sept. 11 plotters who face the death penalty in their pending military commission cases. It seems indefensible that service members would have less access to the nation's highest court than do other state and federal criminal defendants, not to mention Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants at Guantanamo. The other serious shortcoming is that the administration's proposal maintains the commander's power to decide how charges will be disposed of, even in cases that involve familiar civilian-type offenses such as rape or murder. It also maintains the commander's power to select the venire. These are both aspects of the commander-centric system we inherited from King George III. They cast a shadow over the independence and impartiality of our court-martial and do not comport with contemporary human rights standards. It's past time for them to go. Opinions will vary about aspects of this important legislative proposal. The subject deserves the thoughtful attention of the bar. (source: Editorial, Connecticut Law Tribune) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Feb 14 08:29:20 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2016 08:29:20 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 14 PAKISTAN: No juvenile convict executed after lifting of moratorium: expert Legal consultant on Child Rights for Ministry of Human Rights, Sharafat A. Chaudhry, said on Saturday that after lifting of moratorium on death penalty Pakistan has not executed any juvenile convict. Talking to Business Recorder, he said that Pakistan had been requested, being a state party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), to submit its response to a number of questions including death penalty to juvenile to which Pakistan has worked out a response for United Nations Committee on the Right of the Child (UNCRC) over death penalty of juvenile convict. One of the additional questions on Pakistan fifth periodic report on CRC for the UNCRC includes; "Please provide detailed information on investigations undertaken and their outcome, if any, into alleged juvenility, as well as into allegations of torture, in the cases of Ansar Iqbal, Shafqat Hussain, Aftab Bahadur, Faisal Mahmood and Muhammad Afzal - Please also explain how the right of a child to the rule of the benefit of the doubt is protected in cases where filed evidence of juvenility is dismissed on procedural grounds". Responding to the question case by case, Chaudhry said that it has been noted that learned trial judges properly scrutinise the prosecution evidence as well as defence pleas taken by the accused persons in their statements and while doing so, entire facts and circumstances of cases were considered by the courts. He said that the convicted persons - Ansar Iqbal, Shafqat Hussain, Aftab Bahadur, Faisal Mahmood and Muhammad Afzal - availed all judicial forums including the appellate forums of High Court and Supreme Court but could neither prove their innocence nor alleged claim of juvenility. "Additionally, on administrative grounds, the Ministry of Interior conducted inquires for these cases but the alleged claim of juvenility could not be proved," Chaudhry maintained. Responding to the question relating to the case of Ansar Iqbal, he said the Supreme Court had comprehensively analysed the record and judgements of trial court as well as of high court, adding that the top court had dismissed the claim of Ansar's juvenility on merit and not on technical grounds. He claimed the accused person presented fake documents to prove his claim of juvenility as Ansar's school leaving certificate claimed his year of birth 1979, Form- B, allegedly issued by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), records his year of birth as 1978 while the NADRA record related to his father shows 1974 as his year of birth. "The documents presented by Ansar could not be verified, thus the apex court decided to leave his appeal on merit considering all relevant material and evidence on record," Chaudhry said. He also said that in Shafqat Hussain's case the claim of juvenility was never claimed upto the criminal revision petition before Supreme Court whereas in case of Faisal Mahmood, the claim of juvenility was never agitated and proved by the record except his solitary statement recorded under Section 342 CrPC during his trial. (source: Business Recorder) ****************** Most of those being hanged in Pakistan not accused of terrorism: Reprieve Reprieve, an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) working on death penalty, says the GSP Plus status involves Pakistan committing to certain human rights reforms, including around the death penalty and they will share information with the European Union (EU) officials to ensure they have access to the evidence they need to assess whether these reforms have been delivered or not. Talking to a group of Pakistani journalists who visited Reprieve headquarters in London, Director of death penalty Maya Foa said as much as 345 people have been executed since the moratorium was lifted in December 2014 to February 05, 2016. "Majority of those executed not been terrorists or related to terrorism. An independent analysis by various organisations carried out last year estimated that 'fewer than 1 in 6' of those hanged between December 2014-July 2015 'were linked to militancy'. Reprieve is currently working on new figures which indicate the proportion since then may be even lower, but we have yet to finalise these," commented Maya. She said that the GSP Plus status involves Pakistan committing to certain human rights reforms, including around the death penalty. To a question about what is Reprieve's take on these executions and the government's argument that they are aimed at uprooting terrorism in Pakistan, she said as independent analysis has shown, the vast majority of those executed have not been terrorists. "Most of those being hanged have not even been accused of terrorism. Rather, they are often the poor and disadvantaged, or victims of the widespread use by the police of torture to extract false 'confessions.' It is hard to see how executing hundreds of people like this will do anything to make the country safer," she remarked. When asked what steps are being taken by Reprieve to stop death penalties in Pakistan, she said Reprieve continues to work to support some of the poorest and most vulnerable people on Pakistan's death row, who have suffered from torture, unfair trials and other abuses. "We are particularly concerned by the execution of people who were sentenced to death as children - something which happened at least 5 times last year. One example is Faisal Mehmood, who was executed on 27 May even though when the case reached the Supreme Court even the prosecutor agreed that he should not face the death penalty as he was under 18 at the time of the alleged crime (he was tried just months before the introduction of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance). The execution of juveniles is a serious breach of both Pakistani and international law and something which the government needs to address urgently. "The moratorium needs to be reinstated until serious flaws in the justice system such as this can be fixed," commented Maya. (source: The News) SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi YouTube stars call for gays to be executed in 'the most horrific ways possible' Popular Saudi Arabian YouTubers posted a shockingly homophobic video to YouTube - which was removed for hate speech. The clip was uploaded by Fe2aFala - popular Arabic vloggers who have more than 500,000 subscribers, racking up over 45 million views In a shocking video uploaded to the video site, the young men rant about "Deviant marriage in Riyadh", apparently after a local raid of a ceremonial gay wedding. They added: "We would like to thank the police for beating their asses." The vloggers play a clip appearing to show 2 "deviants" getting married - accompanied by an on-screen emoji poo. The men continue to insist that gays are "disgusting and nasty", asking Allah to send his "godly wrath" upon them. The men then discuss whether gays are "mentally ill" and needing a "cure" - or whether they are "animals" who need to be "executed in the most horrific ways". After outcry, YouTube took action to pull the video, with a message now explaining: "This video has been removed for violating YouTube's policy on hate speech." An LGBT rights campaigner said: "I translated this video from the Saudi Arabian YouTube channel Fe2aFala for the English-speaking audience to raise awareness against Fe2aFala's recent video dealing about promoting the killing and abusing of gay and transgender people, the issue has aroused after the unorganized gay marriage that happened recently in Saudi Arabia." (source: pinknews.co.uk) NORTH KOREA: The latest rumor from North Korea: Another general executed Yet another North Korean general is killed by the Pyongyang regime. That's the story that's been doing the rounds this week after a South Korean news agency quoted an anonymous South Korean official from an unnamed South Korean agency as saying that Ri Yong Gil, chief of the Korean People's Army [KPA] general staff, had been executed for corruption. \ It fit with the pattern that has emerged since Kim Jong Un took over the leadership of North Korea from his father at the end of 2011: Aging member of the old guard dispatched by young upstart leader. After all, it happened with Hyon Yong Chol, the defense minister executed by anti-aircraft gun for insubordination and treason. And to Pyon In Son, head of operations in the army, said to have disagreed with Kim. The 33-year-old leader even had his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, shot for amassing too much power. This rumor about Ri may well be true. But as with almost everything related to North Korea, very little is clear. A memo from South Korea's National Intelligence Service, obtained by the Washington Post, said that Ri was executed on Feb. 2 or 3 for factionalism and corruption charges. "Even though corruption and factionalism were given as reasons behind his execution, Ri had been considered a man on principle so it is more likely that these reasons were just given to justify his execution," the memo said. "This is another sign of Kim Jong Un's reign of terror," it said. But the South's spy agency has a history of being wrong about North Korea almost as often as it's right, and the Daily NK, a Seoul-based news service with informants inside Norh Korea, Friday reported that Ri had been arrested rather than executed. Ri was "going against the Party's monolithic teachings and monolithic military system" by "exercising privileges and partaking in factional bureaucracy," a source told The Daily NK. He was arrested at a party meeting and dragged out in handcuffs, the site reported. There is also recent precedent for top officials being given a time-out: Choe Ryong Hae, Secretary of the Korean Workers' Party, went missing for three months last year, reportedly because of corruption, then returned to the public eye last month. North Korea's state media reported he gave a speech at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League in Pyongyang. There were also rumors in South Korea that Hwang Pyong So, director of the General Political Bureau of the Korean Peoples' Army, had been knocked off at the end of last year after three weeks passed without him putting in an appearance. Then he showed up next to Kim during a trip to a tree nursery operated by the army (yes, in North Korea trees are a military issue.) Further obscuring the truth about Ri, the elderly general had appeared on state television in recent days, alongside Kim Jong Un, an unlikely occurrence if Ri had in fact been executed. Those who've been put to death are usually edited out of official news broadcasts. Ri, who has (or had) held a number of top military positions, was ranked number 76 on the national funeral committee formed after Kim Jong Il's death in December 2011, according to Michael Madden's biographical notes on his Web site, North Korea Leadership Watch. In 2012, Ri delivered a speech at a Korean People's Army rally commemorating the 1-year anniversary of the death of Kim Jong Il, and the following year accompanied Kim Jong Un on several field inspections. He was appointed Chief of the General Staff in August 2013, according to Madden. But he did not appear during footage broadcast this week of Kim celebrating North Korea's latest long-range rocket launch. What is clear is that the Pyongyang regime is in a state of upheaval ahead of the Congress of the Korean Workers' Party, scheduled for May. It would be the 1st time such a shin-dig has been held in 36 years, and many of Kim's recent moves - including the nuclear test and rocket launch - are considered preparation for the Congress. "The head of the party congress is going through the files of everybody in senior positions in the government, military or party very closely," Madden said. "This is where someone like Ri Yong Gil could possibly get in trouble. I think that's one of the reasons we've seen a lot of secondary personnel changes too." What that means is that there is plenty more change in and brinksmanship from North Korea over the next 3 months, Madden said. (source: Washington Post) INDIA: Decrying Afzal's Execution is not 'Anti-National' An event at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi on February 9 on Mohammad Afzal Guru, the Kashmiri young man who was executed in Delhi's Tihar Jail precisely 3 years ago on February 9, 2013, found 2 groups of students clashing with each other leading to the police being deployed on the campus to restore order. The incident occurred at the end of a cultural evening organised by some students (to mark Afzal's 3rd death anniversary) at the Sabarmati Dhaba against the execution of both Afzal and Kashmiri separatist leader Maqbool Bhat and for Kashmir's "right to self-determination". Afzal, as is well known, was executed after a long drawn judicial process (he was on the death row for nearly a decade) having been charged with organising the 2001 Parliament attack case. This event triggered a major controversy in the electronic media in particular with one TV anchorperson loudly accusing the students who held the cultural evening as "anti-national" parroting the BJP view on the subject since members of the BJP's students wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, had clashed with those students hurling the same accusation against the latter. One does not have to subscribe to the views of Afzal or for that matter other Kashmiri leaders, a large number of whom are alienated from India in the Valley, to understand the reasons for their alienation. One person who had been directly connected with Afzal as his lawyer was Nandita Haksar, the noted human rights activist and advocate. She was also the lawyer for Abdul Rehman Geelani, the Delhi University professor who too was implicated in the same Parliament attack case. Geelani was subsequently released the court having been unable to find strong evidence of his involvment in the attack. Nandita's book, The Many Facess of Kashmiri Nationalism: From the Cold War to the Present Day, has recently been published. In that she brings out her position quite clearly. She writes: "I had ensured that our campaign for his (Geelani's) acquittal had been in the language of Indian nationalism. The slogan I had come up with was: 'Defend Geelani, defend Indian democracy'.... I believed that to defend the corrupt police officers of the Special Cell who were trying to frame a Kashmiri Muslim would only undermine Indian democratic institutions, the media, the courts and the entire criminal justice system." She took the same position while trying to save Afzal from the gallows. In the book she refers to a meeting held on September 24, 2005 at Srinagar in defence of Afzal, and points out: "...that September day in 2005 all the leaders,... signed a joint statement: 'The judgement of the Supreme Court states that the attack on the Indian Parliament resulted in heavy casualties and has 'shaken the entire nation and the collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded to the offender.' We, the people of Kashmir, ask why the collective conscience of Indians is not shaken by the fact that a Kashmiri has been sentenced to death without a fair trial, without a chance to represent himself? Throughout the trial at the Sessions Court Mohammad Afzal asked the judge to appoint a lawyer. He even named various lawyers but they all refused to represent him. Is it his fault that the Indian lawyers think that it is more patriotic to allow a Kashmiri to die rather than ensure he gets a fair trial?.... We resolve to launch a Kashmir-wide signature campaign in support of our demand that the death sentence of Afzal be commuted. "It was clear that neither Afzal nor the Kashmiri leaders were claiming that Afzal was innocent. Afzal had never feigned innocence, which was why his story had such poignancy. In a letter sent from Jail No 2 on January 26, 2004, he had written: The magnitude and gravity of my unknowing, unwilling and unintentional involvement in the Parliament attack case was from the beginning emotionalised and magnified by the police through all possible means due to my helplessness and ignorance and unability to manage the suitable legal aid and the police made me scapegoat so as to mask their unability and failure and to make people fool. "In the trial court, Afzal had admitted that he had helped 1 of the 5 militants who attacked the Parliament buy a white Ambassador car for their mission. But he had not taken part in the actual attack and was not responsible for any death. "Afzal never had a lawyer to represent him right through the trial or during the appeal. The court records show that key witnesses against him were never cross-examined. The reason for this was largely that he and his family were too poor to engage a lawyer and the Kashmiri organisations never bothered to help him at that stage. "Could Afzal have been saved from the gallows? I believe he could have been. There were many sane voices in India who spole about the wisdom of not hanging Afzal. Even B. Raman, the former additional secretary in the Indian intelligence service's Researcha and Analysis Wing (RAW), had advised against the hanging of Afzal. The President of India had expressed his views that the death penalty should be banned in India and the president of the Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi, had intervened to save the woman convicted of being involved in her husband's assassination; Sonia was strongly against the death penalty." Several democratic-minded people subsribe to the stand of Nandita while decrying Afzal's execution. Can all of them be branded anti-national? (source: mainstreamweekly.com) **************** Dalits and Muslims: India's favourites for the death penalty In October 1931, Gandhi said of Ambedkar that "he has every right to be bitter. That he does not break our heads is an act of self-restraint on his part." Meaning that given the background of the atrocities against him and his communities, Ambedkar was entitled to be harsh with his words. I thought of that as another college protest has attracted the ruling party's anger. In Delhi, police have registered charges of sedition against students at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) over an event protesting the hanging of Afzal Guru. Sedition is the "the crime of saying, writing, or doing something that encourages people to disobey their government". The FIR was lodged by the BJP MP from East Delhi, Maheish Girri, who in a written complaint called the students "anti-constitutional and anti-national elements". Girri also wrote to Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani, telling them "strict action should be taken against the offenders so that such shameful and anti-India activities are not repeated". This is a repeat of the sequence in Hyderabad where the BJP acted strongly against students protesting the hanging of another man, Yakub Memon. That episode ended with the tragedy of one of the students hanging himself. JNU, which says it had not approved the event, has set up a committee to inquire but again, the same problem of representation has arisen. The students' union says there is no member on it from marginalised communities. There was a choice here for the BJP. Instead of throwing the book at the students, it could have shown some understanding of the issue, which is linked to caste directly. Why are dalits protesting against hangings in Hyderabad? Why is the focus on Muslims at JNU? Why are the students insisting on representation from marginalised communities when they are being judged by a committee? The fact is that India reserves the death penalty mostly for dalits and Muslims. A study that will be published later this year by the National Law University shows that 75 % of all death sentences and 93.5 % of all death sentences for terrorism were given to dalits and Muslims. The obvious issue here is that of prejudice. The government shows no signs of acting strongly when upper-caste Hindus commit acts of terrorism, as the case of bombings in Malegaon shows. And there is no hurry to hang the killer of Beant Singh, while Rajiv Gandhi's killers have had their death sentences commuted. They had also been convicted of terrorism, but not all of us are judged by the same rules. Let us leave aside the others like Mayaben Kodnani, convicted of murdering 95 Gujaratis and not even in jail. The 2nd issue is that of economics. Dalit and Muslim are also synonyms for 'poor'. Afzal Guru got almost no legal representation in the trial court stage. Given the reality, it should not surprise us that dalits and Muslims and their supporters are protesting against the government. They have every right to and are justifiably upset. They are seen as out of control and unbalanced, but they are arguing on fact. It is the BJP MPs who keep shooting off letters to Smriti Irani, demanding firm action against those who are acting on emotion. Those in the upper castes insist that all Indians must buy into their fantasies that they are a perfect society that everyone must bow to. Hindutva's constituency is middle class and upper caste. It detests the idea of reservations because it senses its privileges are being encroached upon. This is why the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh also does not like reservations and their statements on this have got the BJP into trouble during elections. The prime minister's response to this has been to accuse the opposition of invention and lies. But the facts are absolutely clear on the ground. Dalits are getting a voice and are standing up for their rights. There is nothing wrong with that and if they use intemperate language, they should not be treated as criminals. It is important the Indian government engage them, and listen to their argument, not only their slogans. Compare the wisdom of Gandhi we saw at the beginning to the knee-jerk actions of the leaders of Hindutva, first against the students in Hyderabad and now in Delhi. Indians must show some mature understanding of the issues. As long as the government does not even attempt to do that, we should not be surprised that those whom we are oppressing so cruelly and relentlessly will say, write and do things that encourage people to disobey the government. (source: Opinion, Aakar Patel, The Express Tribune) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 15 10:33:48 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2016 10:33:48 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., FLA., OKLA., UTAH, USA Message-ID: Feb. 15 GEORGIA: Kiwi's friendship with confessed killer, American Earl Lynd David Perfect hopes the letters he's selling from prisoner Earl Lynd will generate debate about the death penalty. His eyes well up with tears as he talks about the last time he spoke to his friend, Earl. He hasn't been able to bring himself to look at the letters since his pen pal was executed in 2008. Now, David Perfect is selling the correspondence, photos and gifts he received from the American murderer on TradeMe. "Every time I see [the letters and photos], it's just Earl. He's there all the time. Earl will always be a part of my life, he will always be a part of my family's life." Perfect's mother died when he was young, through domestic violence. He doesn't like talking about it. He grew up thinking the death penalty was the only way to deal with murderers. "But, through my own journey, I've realised you have to view both sides of everything so you can have a true understanding." He headed to the library to learn more about capital punishment, which he now calls "state-sanctioned murder". At the back of one of the books was a contact address for those who wanted to reach out to prisoners on death row. "I can't recall exactly what I wrote. I was just asking if there was anybody with similar interests. "I wasn't sure what I would find, the history of that person. I knew it would be quite challenging for me, but I felt compelled." It was 6 months before he received his 1st letter from Earl Lynd, a man who had killed his partner and a teacher in Georgia, US, in 1988. Lynd had been on death row for 15 years. His family had ultimately disowned him. But Perfect embraced Lynd. He discovered Lynd's love for Harley Davidson motorcycles and the 2 "just hit it off". "He was completely up front about it from the get go. He gave me his own history of what he had done and gave me a lot of background a lot of people weren't privy to." It's clear Perfect feels some sympathy for Lynd, who told him he was in a whirlwind of hardcore drugs at the time. "He's never denied the things he did - there is no denying that - but the justice system leaves a lot to be desired. "And I believe people who commit a crime should be punished, but not kept in a 6-by-4 cell for decades. "We don't even treat animals like that." But he still had to ask himself if he was writing to Lynd for the right reasons, and not due to a macabre curiosity. "But it wasn't. It was a genuine desire to reach out and touch another human being. [Lynd] said many times his relationship with me was very important, but it wasn't just me. He'd talk to my son on the phone, have pictures drawn for my daughter and he was always asking me about my family. "He was a very caring, loving guy." He believes the person Lynd was when he committed the crime was a different one that Lynd grew up to be. "At the end of the day, he's still a human being and he made some horrific choices and had an impact on so many lives ... but beneath that all he was still a good person once you peeled away the reasons why it had happened." The pair would talk about once-a-month, a bit less when Lynd's requests for appeals were being denied; "He was really struggling with stuff, as you can imagine". They spoke until Lynd was executed for his crimes in 2008. "That final conversation was pretty hard, pretty tough. I told him how much I love him and he said how much he loves me. He wished me and my family all the best for the future." Perfect's eyes fill with tears as he thinks about it inside his Hamilton home. And now, 8 years after the execution, Perfect has decided to sell the letters, photos and gifts Lynd sent to him from jail. As of 5pm on Monday, the TradeMe listing has attracted 42 bids for a total of $98. And although Perfect knows he can't control what happens to it all once it's sold, he hopes it can spark a new debate about the death penalty. "I thought, maybe, I should just destroy them, but there's no way I could do that. But if any good can come from it, I know Earl would be happy about that. "I've gained my experience with Earl. He enriched my life and I believe I did the same for him." See the listing (number 1029406369) on Trademe. LYND'S CRIME William Earl Lynd was convicted of fatally shooting his girlfriend on December 23, 1988. He was sentenced to the death penalty in Georgia, US, on February 27, 1990. On May 6, 2008, the 53-year-old was executed by lethal injection. It took him 17 minutes to die. He was the 1st inmate to die by injection since September 1989, when the US Supreme Court agreed to consider whether the three-drug combination represented cruel and unusual punishment. According to the Attorney General of Georgia website, CNN reports and the Ironton Tribune, Lynd and Ginger Moore were living together in Berrien County, Georgia, in 1988. They argued - while the 2 were high on Valium, marijuana and alcohol - and Lynd shot Moore in the face. She fell unconscious across the waterbed. As Lynd went outside to smoke a cigarette, Moore managed to stagger to the porch where he was sitting. He shot her again and she collapsed. He put her body into the trunk of Moore's car and drove to an old farmhouse before taking a nap. He then heard Moore kicking inside the trunk. Sheriff Brogdon testified that Lynd told him, with clinched fists, that he was "tired of that goddamn b---- thumping around in the car". He opened the trunk, and shot Moore for the 3rd and final time. He buried her body in a shallow grave he dug on a farm near Tifton, Georgia. Lynd proceeded to drive to Ohio where he flashed his lights at another car. That car was driven by Leslie Joan Sharkey, a home economics teacher. She was driving home early Christmas morning to spend the holidays with her family. When Sharkey pulled over, Lynd attacked her and shot her 3 times with his pistol. Although the victim managed to drive away and report the attack to the Ohio police, Sharkey died a day later. Then the man-hunt began. Lynd discarded most of the evidence against him, but turned himself into the Berrien County authorities. Lynd had previously been on trial for various attacks, kidnappings and sexual assaults. He spent 18 years on death row before he was finally executed. He declined to make a final statement before his death. (source: stuff.co.nz) FLORIDA----impending execution Death Row Inmate Argues To Delay Execution----Florida Supreme Court To Decide Whether Executions Can Go ForwardAttorneys for Florida inmate argue for execution delay "That would be a catastrophic (decision), we have almost 400 inmates sentenced to death". Florida's justices provided no reasoning for their decision Tuesday, but earlier in the day, they heard arguments from the state and an attorney for inmate Michael Lambrix, who told them the U.S. Supreme Court ruling should apply to all 390 people on death row. Florida has an execution set for next week. If Salvador denies that request, McClain will be back before the Supreme Court next month asking to delay Asay's St. Patrick's Day execution. Juries in Lambrix's case recommended death by 8-4 and 10 to 2 margins. No one should be executed, or sentenced to death, until the court unravels the many issues raised by the Hurst opinion. The court on Tuesday said that it would be delayed until it issued another order. Every other decision by a jury in a Florida court - from a civil contract dispute to a traffic or misdemeanor trial --requires unanimity. That leaves a big question. A Supreme Court ruling on Florida's death penalty could have an impact on a local murder case. Lambrix was sentenced to death for the 1983 slayings of 2 people he met at a bar. The U.S. Supreme Court found Florida's death penalty system flawed because it allows judges, not juries, to decide death sentences. That decision led to a moratorium on executions whiles states rewrote their laws on capital punishment. Juries play only an advisory role in recommending death in Florida. Florida's "statute is different", McClain said. Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, a Republican, argued in a court filing that it did not. "If Ring is not retroactive", prosecutors wrote in their brief, "then Hurst can not be retroactive". Lambrix was scheduled to be executed February 11. In court documents, Lambrix's lawyers raise a series of arguments that his rights were violated, including not being able to conduct DNA tests on the victims' clothing and on a tire iron that the state says was the murder weapon. "Florida's death sentencing scheme has been declared unconstitutional, and consequently, everyone on Florida's death row should be given a life sentence", she said. There's another group of people directly affected by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Florida's death penalty is in trouble. Eaton says he understands there are more than 40 cases like that now. Now is the flawless time to reevaluate Florida's death penalty system and make some real changes. "All of those cases in the pipeline are going to end up being reversed and life sentences are going to be imposed on them", he says. Some justices appeared conflicted about how to apply the Hurst ruling in Florida. For death penalty opponents, Florida's majority jury provision is likely next on the to-do list. (source: The Lake Andes Wave) OKLAHOMA: More than the Richard Glossip case: For the Constitution, for social justice, for reasons pragmatic and humane, put the death penalty into mothballs The execution of Richard Glossip, a resident of death row at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester for 18 years, has been delayed 4 times. He ordered 3 "final meals," and ate 2 of them, each time awaiting his date with lethal injection. After nearly 2 decades in prison, Glossip's most recent brush with execution (September 30, 2015) saw him pass most of one day in a mysterious form of solitary confinement, uncertain why prison officials were not going forward with his sentence in a "murder-for-hire" case dating back to 1997. Scores of intelligent people who have reviewed the case, including this writer, believe there is more than room for doubt about his guilt. Many have always said there was insufficient evidence for conviction. Regardless, information from witnesses never heard by judges or juries has raised serious (and new) questions. New witnesses stand ready to testify that Justin Sneed (the actual murderer) of inn-keeper Richard Van Treese has bragged about setting Glossip up to take the fall for the killing. Before all that, many of us reached the conclusion that whatever else it is, the Glossip case is Exhibit A for poor defense counsel, and a matter not worthy of the Ultimate Sanction. Glossip's is by far the best-known of the 5 pending Oklahoma executions. Doubts about his guilt should be sufficient reason for the state government to step away - permanently - from killing him. The best solution at this point is to take steps needed to convert his sentence to life, and prepare for either a new trial or his release after nearly 2 decades of incarceration. But concerns about executions reach beyond Glossip, and the dubious witness of one man given life in exchange for that testimony. On at least 1 occasion, Oklahoma used the wrong set of deadly drugs to execute a man. The term "botched execution" has become a short-hand for the last 3 scheduled deaths. Knowledge of shocking procedural errors devastated public confidence in the system over the past year. Due to a greater stress on finality of judgment than on justice per se, the drug usage error was nearly repeated in the case of Glossip. There are 3 broad categories of opinion in the current debate. First, there are those who sincerely believe that state killings are immoral. (However, there is more to all this than merely the efforts of passionate advocates to stop capital punishment in all cases.) Second, many believe the death penalty is morally permitted and can be constitutional, but even many of those people are reeling from the cumulative problems. Third, some Americans believe the system - with 156 exonerations nationwide (including 10 in Oklahoma) - is so broken, dysfunctional and riddled with error that it is beyond repair. I reside in the 3rd. The penalty is allowed under the U.S. Constitution and the constitutions of many states, but it is time to put it into mothballs. Months ago, I encouraged a moratorium on executions. But now, I argue that even if the penalty remains on the books, it is best to set it aside for reasons both practical and moral. Last fall, state Attorney General Scott Pruitt and Governor Mary Fallin went to the courts to gain a kind of moratorium. The state should never violate its own process ("protocols," as the rules are called) for the imposition of death. After months of investigation guided by Pruitt, the multi-county grand jury is preparing to release a report - if not this month, at least this year. 3 high-ranking state officials who testified behind closed doors before that panel of citizens have resigned their posts and left state employment. Despite the turmoil, A.G. Pruitt said in recent days he is prepared to start the clock ticking on all 5 pending executions - once the Department of Corrections is certain its protocol is ready. But rather than continue to spend millions of dollars litigating individual sentences of death, Oklahoma should set the death penalty process aside. Leaving capital punishment on the books but not in use avoids, as a conscious democratic and/or administrative choice, continued litigation and social division. This will not fully satisfy those seeking outright abolition, but it would give lawyers who want a decision declaring the death penalty unconstitutional motive and opportunity to find another state through which to get their case back to the nation's High Court. "Mothballs" for Oklahoma executions would not satisfy those who believe that because the death penalty is permitted under the law, it should be used for at least the most heinous cases. But pursuing both such clear cases and much more dubious ones brought unsustainable expense and undermined respect for the rule of law. It is a conservative value to believe that government should be limited in power. Even when the state has a particular power, it should not necessarily be exercised if its use becomes destructive of social comity, civil society, human relationships and the rule of law. Let us reason together, changing direction in a democratic matter. Rather than insist that one side or another "win" this argument, use resources burned up in capital cases for other purposes. Among those: Hold killers for life without parole, provide better legal counsel for murder cases, redirect resources from incarceration of the non-violent toward evidence-based programs of diversion, accountability and restitution. This would square constitutional values with a practical shift toward other means for punishment of the guilty, and leave room for individual redemption and renewal. The death penalty in contemporary America is such a broken channel for justice that the best thing to do is to step away - sooner, rather than later. (source: Darla Shelden, The City Sentinel) UTAH: Bill Expanding Death Penalty to Human Traffickers In Some Cases Advances A bill that would expand the death penalty to human traffickers reviewed approval from the Utah House Friday. Sponsored by Representative Paul Ray (Republican - Clearfield), HB 136 - Human Trafficking Amendments allows the death penalty to be an option in the event that a homicide that occurs while an individual is engaged in human trafficking, even if the individual did not commit the homicide themselves. The bill originally stated that the death penalty would only apply when trafficking children, but Ray substituted it to include the trafficking of adults as well. "If we are really going to get serious on human trafficking, we need to really put our money where our mouth is. We need to have some serious penalties," said Ray. Representative Brian King (Democrat - Salt Lake City) questioned the deterrent effect of imposing capital punishment on human traffickers and asked Ray if there was any data backing it up from other states that have similar laws. "I don't really follow other states when it comes to drafting our legislation, so I'm not aware of any," Ray responded. King finds that troubling. "If we don't have any information to suggest that we know that imposing the death penalty for human trafficking is something that is going to deter that, I would suggest that we're putting the cart before the horse." King also pointed to the financial implications of further expanding the death penalty. "We've got a real problem when we start talking about expanding the list of crimes for which we impose the death penalty for purposes of the cost alone that is associated with doing that." Ray believes having the death penalty as an option will make defendants more likely to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence. "This is a tool in the tool kit for prosecutors. If you have somebody who's just that heinous, they have that ability to go after the death penalty, but they also have the ability to plead out and allow us to continue on and have closure for that family." This is not Ray's 1st foray into capital punishment. During the 2015 General Session, Ray passed HB 11 - Death Penalty Procedure Amendments, which allows for death by firing squad to be imposed if the drugs used to carry out a lethal injection cannot be obtained 30 or more days prior to the execution date. The House passed the bill on a 44-28 vote and it now heads to the Senate. Meanwhile, Senator Steve Urquart (Republican - St. George) is drafting bill entitled "Death Penalty Amendments," which would do away with capital punishment entirely. (source: Utah Political Capitol) USA: Can we keep it real about Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia? Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is dead at 79. The influential conservative jurist was found dead of apparent natural causes in a West Texas resort. And his family and friends should have the space to mourn him. But before we hear people sing his praises and suddenly morph Scalia's legacy into something we are unable to recognize, let us remember the judge for his record. And that record was not kind to black people and those who care about civil rights and racial justice. A Reagan appointee, Scalia was the longest serving justice on the court. His critics remember him as a polarizing and intolerant figure, and one of the most regressive voices in the federal judiciary. A few years ago, he called the Voting Rights Act an "embedded" form of "racial preferment" for black people that discriminates against whites. "Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes," Scalia said. "Even the name of it is wonderful, the Voting Rights Act. Who's going to vote against that?" During recent oral arguments for the Fisher vs. University of Texas affirmative action case - in which a mediocre white woman shed white tears for not being admitted to college - Scalia promoted what is known as "mismatch theory." Used by foes of affirmative action, this is the white supremacist notion that blacks, who are intellectually inferior, are set up for failure when they attend colleges for which they are academically unprepared. Scalia said "those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school - a slower-track school where they do well." He added: "One of the briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas .... They come from schools where they do not feel that they're being pushed ahead in classes that are too fast for them." Opposing a new trial for death row prisoner Troy Davis in light of evidence pointing to his innocence, Scalia chastised his colleagues, arguing that mere innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence: This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is "actually" innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged "actual innocence' is constitutionally cognizable. In 1994, Justice Scalia voted against a petition to hear the case of Henry McCollum, a black man who, along with his brother, were wrongfully convicted of raping and killing an 11-year old girl as a result of coerced confessions and no physical evidence. McCollum became the man to serve the longest time on North Carolina death row until he was released due to DNA evidence proving his innocence in 2014. And yet, Scalia had pointed to McCollum's case as a prime reason for having the death penalty, calling a "quiet death by lethal injection" an "enviable" fate. Meanwhile, Scalia's passing is bound to create an epic political battle, in this already highly politicized election season. Republicans are now certain to make the 2016 presidential election all about the Supreme Court, perhaps even threatening to block anyone President Obama nominates. It is no secret the president now has the potential to tip the balance of the Supreme Court from a conservative majority to a liberal majority. Obama said he would nominate a successor "in due time," while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) believes the next president should make the call. "The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice," McConnell said. "Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President." "The President can and should send the Senate a nominee right away," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). "With so many important issues pending before the Supreme Court, the Senate has a responsibility to fill vacancies as soon as possible. It would be unprecedented in recent history for the Supreme Court to go a year with a vacant seat. Failing to fill this vacancy would be a shameful abdication of one of the Senate's most essential Constitutional responsibilities." A number of successors to Scalia have been suggested, including Padmanabhan Srikanth Srinivasan, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and an Obama nominee. Further, Kamala Harris is the 1st African-Americans and the 1st Asian-American state attorney general of California. And Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey has also been mentioned as a possible pick for the nation's high court. As people remember the newly deceased Antonin Scalia and reflect on his life and career, there will be the temptation among Scalia's supporters to rewrite history and give his legacy a makeover. Let's keep it real and judge his record for what it was and resist the temptation to whitewash him. (source: Opinion, David Love, thegrio.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 15 10:36:26 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2016 10:36:26 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 15 GREAT BRITAIN/THAILAND: Revealed: Britain's National Crime Agency Helped Thai Police Put 2 Men On Death Row----Critical evidence used to sentence 2 Burmese bar workers to death last year for the brutal murder of 2 British backpackers in the Thai resort of Koh Tao was secretly supplied by Britain's elite crime-fighting agency. The National Crime Agency secretly assisted the Royal Thai Police with a controversial murder investigation that put 2 Burmese migrants on death row despite government rules designed to stop British law enforcement contributing to capital punishment convictions overseas. BuzzFeed News can reveal that mobile phone evidence handed over by officers from Britain's elite crime-fighting force played a central part in the prosecution of Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo, who were sentenced to death on Christmas Eve for the murders of British backpackers David Miller and Hannah Witheridge in Koh Tao. The Foreign Office has previously expressed grave concerns about allegations that the two Burmese men were forced to confess under torture and a spokesman said after the verdict that it "opposes the use of the death penalty in all circumstances and we have made this position clear to the Thai government". British police are prohibited from supplying evidence to foreign authorities who still use capital punishment without written assurances that suspects will not be sentenced to death - unless they have ministerial permission. But sources close to the case and documents seen by BuzzFeed News have revealed that the National Crime Agency (NCA) passed on the information linking the Burmese suspects to the crime "verbally" without seeking any written assurances that it would not be used to sentence them to death, and the evidence became a crucial part of the prosecution. The 2 men, both 22, are appealing their death sentences and claim they were framed by the Thai police and coerced into confessing during severe beatings. The revelation that the NCA helped the investigation without any human rights assurances will plunge the agency into further controversy weeks after BuzzFeed News revealed its systemic use of illegal search and seizure warrants in the UK and serious flaws in its system for detecting money laundering. Both the Foreign Office and the Home Office refused to say whether ministers had given the NCA the green light to assist the Thai police without a death penalty assurance. The murder of the 2 young British backpackers on the idyllic Koh Tao shoreline made international headlines in September 2014. Witheridge, 23, from Norfolk, had been raped before being beaten to death while Miller, 24, from Jersey, had been violently attacked and abandoned to drown in the shallow waters of the island's shores. The murder weapon, a bloodstained hoe, was found nearby. The shambolic handling of the investigation by the Thai police quickly sparked widespread consternation. Officers initially questioned British brothers James and Christopher Ware, who had spent time with the 2 victims in Koh Tao, but the pair were released after being cleared by DNA testing. Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo were arrested soon after and forced to conduct a bizarre re-enactment of the killings on the beach in front of the world's media after the country's premier declared he was certain they were guilty. Claims soon emerged that the 2 men had been severely mistreated in custody. David Cameron was so troubled by the Thai investigation that he intervened in a face-to-face meeting with the country's military ruler, General Prayuth Chan-ocha, and it was arranged that a team from the Metropolitan police would be sent in as observers. The human rights risks in Koh Tao were deemed so high that the Met banned its officers from becoming actively involved in any aspect of the case because no death penalty assurance had been given. However, the secret role that Britain's elite crime-fighters, the NCA, played separately in the Thai investigation can now be revealed. BuzzFeed News has established that the agency received an urgent request from the Thai police for the serial number of Miller???s missing iPhone days after the young backpackers were found dead. The request put the NCA in a quandary. The government's "Death Penalty Assistance Policy" for British law enforcement agencies dealing with foreign investigations states clearly that "written assurances should be sought before agreeing to the provision of assistance that anyone found guilty would not face the death penalty". Capital punishment is still used regularly in Thailand and human rights groups have repeatedly raised concerns that migrant workers in the country are persecuted by police. But officers at the NCA were concerned that other British holiday-makers were at risk with the killers still loose, and they feared that the quality of the crime-scene evidence would deteriorate quickly. Government guidelines say that only in "exceptional circumstances where it is imperative that we act quickly to safeguard the integrity of evidence or protect British lives" can officers "deploy immediately without seeking assurances about the death penalty" - but only after consulting with ministers and the Home Office and Foreign Office. The NCA deemed the situation time-critical and rapidly made the "exceptional" decision to retrieve the serial number for Miller's phone and pass it on to Thai police verbally. Because of concerns about the use of capital punishment, they did so on the basis that it was for intelligence purposes only and not to be used to prosecute the 2 suspects. However, no written assurance was secured that it would not be used in court. The serial number immediately became a critical piece of evidence. It proved that a smashed iPhone found on a property linked to the 2 Burmese migrants had belonged to Miller - thus linking the victim to the suspects. The Thai police then made an official request to use the information in court, which the NCA refused in the absence of a death penalty assurance. But it was too late. The Thai police knew the iPhone belonged to Miller and they went ahead and used the information to secure the conviction of the Burmese pair. The judgment handed down at the Koh Samui Provincial Court sentencing both defendants to death on Christmas Eve 2015 shows that Miller's iPhone was a central plank of the prosecution case. Translations of the trial documents show the court was told that Miller???s smashed phone had been found at a property belonging to a friend of the Burmese bar workers. Wai Phyo said he had found the phone near the murder scene and taken it to his friend's house, leaving it there to be charged as he did not know the password. When he learned of the murders, the friend had tried to destroy the phone but police later found the smashed handset in his backyard. Andy Hall, a British human rights campaigner who worked on the defence in Thailand, said that there were questions over how the phone evidence was gathered. He said that "when the phone was discovered by the police behind the accused friend's house, suspiciously no photos were taken of the collection process" and that "the description of the phone found and the one presented in court could be interpreted as not matching". But prosecutors told the court that the phone belonged to Miller and the location of the bodies meant it was impossible that the phone had been found where the defendants claimed. This helped, along with DNA evidence collected from cigarette butts, a condom, and the bodies of the victims, to convict the migrant workers beyond "reasonable doubt", according to the judgment. Lawyers representing the pair said DNA samples from the alleged murder weapon - a garden hoe - did not match that of the two men, and Thailand's leading forensic scientist told the court that the evidence had been so badly mishandled that it was worthless. The prosecution case had also rested heavily on sperm samples collected from the crime scene, but when the defence asked to have the DNA independently tested Thai police officers failed to hand it over. The defendants' lawyers claimed that their initial confessions were a result of torture. They said the 2 Burmese workers were framed and severely mistreated in custody as part of the "systematic abuse" of migrants on Koh Tao. A re-enactment of the murders in which the defendants were paraded in front of the media was "staged under threat of violence", the lawyers said. Wai Phyo told the court that Thai police officers had severely beaten him and taken photos of him naked. "They also kicked me in the back, punched me, and slapped me, threatened to chop off my arms and legs, and throw my body into the sea to feed the fish," he testified. "They also said they would take me into another room and electrocute me." Human rights groups reacted furiously to the judgment, with Amnesty International calling for a retrial and an independent investigation into the torture allegations, while Human Rights Watch described the verdict as "profoundly disturbing" and Reprieve said it was "deeply alarming" that the 2 men had been sentenced to death "as without a fair trial serious doubts over their guilt will remain". But the families of the victims welcomed the verdicts and defended the handling of the case by the Thai police. Miller's family said in a statement outside the court that the police investigation "was not the so-called shambles it was made out to be" and "the evidence against Wai Phyo and Zaw Lin is absolutely overwhelming". The NCA refused to comment on the Thai murder investigation. But it said in a statement that: "In fast-moving investigations, potentially involving threats to life, it is not uncommon for intelligence to be shared verbally, with a record of the information shared being retained by the NCA." The statement continued: "The NCA monitors human rights concerns closely, having regard to the FCO's Overseas Security and Justice Assistance Guidance when sharing intelligence. We expect investigations and trials to be conducted in a fair and transparent way, in line with international standards. "Neither the NCA nor the British Government can interfere in another state's criminal or judicial processes, just as other governments are unable to interfere in our own processes." The Home Office, which oversees requests for assistance from foreign police forces, refused to comment on whether the NCA had asked for permission to hand over evidence about Miller's phone. The Foreign Office also declined to confirm whether it had been told about the specific evidence request, but said: "Ministers have been regularly updated on the Koh Tao murder cases since Hannah and David's deaths in September 2014, including on key liaison between UK law enforcement and the Thai authorities." Zaw Lin and Wai Phyo are applying to Thailand's court of appeal to overturn their death sentences. (source: BuzzFeedNews) **************** Most of those sentenced to death were spared The shocking statistic that 306 British soldiers were executed for military offences in the Great War masks a much greater number of incidences of the imposition of the death penalty. Only 10 % of those sentenced to death were ultimately put before a firing squad - formed, in most cases, by troops from the condemned man's own battalion. Although the military system of justice was operating in the midst of the most savage war of attrition experienced by soldiers up to that time, the putting into effect of a sentence of death was subject to a considerable degree of scrutiny before a man would learn in the final 48 hours of his life that he was to be executed. The military system of field general court martial was a simpler version of the stricter procedures that operated in peacetime at home. The procedure in the field of battle allowed for a panel of 4 officers, one normally to be of the rank of major or above. In the case of Henry Palmer, of Wallsend, uncovered recently by researchers at the Northumbria World War One Commemoration Project, the highest ranking officer was only a captain and 2 were second lieutenants, frequently men of only 19 years of age and barely months out of school. The court martial process was held simply to determine if an offence had been made out to the satisfaction of the panel. A man was sometimes allowed the assistance of a defending officer, someone who would have little in common with the accused and was thrust into the role with no legal experience. In many cases, the accused would be unrepresented and left to make whatever cross-examination he was allowed as the case proceeded. In the event that the panel found the case proved, the death sentence was automatic for a wide range of offences and took any discretion away from the panel that had actually had the man standing before it. There was no appeal against the sentence, and the papers in the case would then begin a relentless progression up the chain of command as the man's battalion, brigade, divisional and corps superiors added written comments or a simple agreement to the carrying out of the sentence. It would often be the case that the degree of discipline in the man's unit would feature as a mitigating or militating factor in the final decision of the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Douglas Haig. In the case of Palmer, the battalion had acted successfully in pressing an attack when Palmer had dropped out of the action. Nonetheless, his sentence was confirmed, even though the panel had recommended mercy on the grounds of his low intellect. In the case of William Hunter, of North Shields, the subject of the Peter Mortimer play, Death at Dawn, soon to be staged again at Wallsend Memorial Hall and in Newcastle, the officers in his battalion and superior units all found him to be of little quality as a fighting man and that discipline in his battalion had been poor of late, so Hunter was executed perhaps as a warning to others in his battalion rather than as a punishment for him. More about his case can be found in the 1983 book For the Sake of Example, by Anthony Babington, published by Secker and Warburg. Tickets are now available for the new performances of Death at Dawn. The play will be staged at the Frank Street hall from Friday, February 19, to Tuesday, February 23, and at the Discovery Museum, in Blandford Square, Newcastle, from Friday, February 26, to Wednesday, March 2, at 7.30pm nightly, but with no Sunday performances. (source: newsguardian.co.uk) INDIA: Madani demands death penalty for those who hurt religious Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind General Secretary Maulana Mehmood Madani has sought death penalty for those who hurt a person's religious values or disrespect a religious leader. "Death penalty or life sentences should be given to those who hurt a person's religious values or disrespect a religious leader," he said. Madani made the remarks while addressing the 'Huloos-e- Insaaf' conference convened by his outfit at the Faiz-e-Aam college here yesterday. "We are Indians by choice and not by chance. It was love for the country that made us stay back in India even after the partition," he said. He demanded that the UP government should fulfill the promise of 18 per cent reservation to Muslims made during the 2012 assembly polls. Madani said that the minority status of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and Jamia Milia Islamia be kept intact and innocent Muslims lodged in prisons should be released. Hindu and Christian leaders who were present at the event asked the people to rise above caste and religion to live in harmony. "Fire cannot be put out by fire, water is needed to do so. People of all religions should live with harmony and save the country from those who are taking it towards destruction," Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind's President Maulana Sayeed Arshad Madan said. "Neither the killing of Akhlaq signifies Hinduism nor the ones shedding the blood of innocent people with an Ak-47 can be called Muslims," Acharya Pramod Kirshnam said. "Raise the voice against those who indulge in injustice," Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind leader Maulana Usman said. Father Manish Johnson said, "We all should live with harmony and end all the hate." The leaders also took a pledge to rise above caste and religion and work for humanity. (source: Press Trust of India) BOTSWANA: Death row convict buys time ---- Lobatse man, Patrick Gabaakanye currently on death row is seeking an independent assessment on his mental status as a last attempt to avoid the hangman's noose Through a letter dated February 5, 2016 addressed to the Attorney General (AG), Athalia Molokomme, Gabaakanye has requested the AG to conduct or facilitate an independent assessment on his mental health and intellectual functioning. He contends that the assessment should be done in order to determine whether he suffers from a mental illness, intellectual or psychosocial disability as a matter of urgency. The notorious 59-year-old Gabaakanye commonly known as 'RraSelepe' having had his sentence of death upheld by the Court of Appeal (CoA) mid last year, is also currently awaiting the resolution by the High Court and CoA of outstanding issues relating to his clemency petition. His lawyer, Martin Dingake, has argued that Gabaakanye has never had a mental health assessment and as such, it cannot be ruled out that he suffers from such a degree of mental illness and or intellectual or psychosocial disability as will preclude his execution under applicable norms of international law, as well as under domestic law. "My client has never been afforded a competent psychiatric assessment. The sentencing judge was not able to take any mental health condition or intellectual/psycho-social disability into consideration when reaching a decision on sentence. He said if Gabaakanye was to be executed without consideration of any mental health condition or intellectual/psycho-social disability, his execution will be rendered arbitrary and will violate the right to life under Article 4 of the African Charter by the African Commission," he said. Dingake contends that international customary law prohibits the execution of those suffering from a mental disorder which includes not only individuals who suffered from such a disorder at the time of the offence but also of those who have become mentally ill after their death sentence is imposed. He explained that the term 'mental disorder' covered both psychosocial disabilities and mental illness many of which may not be immediately obvious. He said such included among others functional psychosis, schizophrenia, personality disorder, depression, epilepsy, and disorders arising from alcohol and drug dependence, noting that as such the African Commission has recognised the need to prohibit the execution of persons with psycho-social and intellectual disabilities. According to the letter, the 3rd of the UN Safeguards also provides that the death penalty shall not be carried on "persons who have become insane. In subsequent resolutions urging full compliance with the UN Safeguards, the United Nations Human Rights Commission repeatedly called upon states not to impose the death penalty on a person suffering from any form of mental disorder or to execute any such person." Dingake maintained that with all the provisions his client was entitled to such an assessment at sentencing in order that his personal and individual circumstances could be properly considered when determining sentence. He also pointed out that Gabaakanye needed the assessment report, as it has to be placed before the Advisory Committee on Clemency for consideration when they do finally meet. (source: mmegi.bw) UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Court sentences 4 Emiratis to death for joining IS A top court in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday sentenced four Emiratis to death after convicting them of joining the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria, local media reported. The 4, who were tried in absentia, are part of a group of 11 defendants accused of "joining the terrorist Daesh group in an Arab country", the official WAM news agency said, using an Arabic acronym for IS. Local newspapers said that the group had travelled to Syria. They were also charged with "promoting" IS online, helping to finance the group and insulting UAE leaders, WAM said. 3 other Emiratis, a Bahraini, a Mauritanian and a Syrian were handed jail sentences of between three and 10 years, the local Gulf News daily reported. Another Emirati was acquitted. Abu Dhabi's Federal Supreme Court does not allow international media access to such trials. The UAE is a member of the US-led coalition that has been bombing IS jihadists in Iraq and Syria since September 2014. UAE authorities have enacted tougher anti-terror legislation, including harsher jail terms and even introducing the death penalty for crimes linked to religious hatred and extremist groups. In July, the UAE executed an Emirati woman for the jihadist-inspired 2014 murder of an American school teacher in an Abu Dhabi shopping mall. Her husband is accused of seeking to carry out attacks on targets including Abu Dhabi's Formula 1 circuit and has reportedly claimed to be the local leader of IS. He is currently on trial. In another case, the same court jailed three Arabs for 10 years each after convicting them of ties to the Shiite Huthi rebels in Yemen, WAM said on Sunday. It acquitted 3 others for lack of evidence against them, it added. The UAE is also playing a key role in a Saudi-led coalition that has been battling the Huthis and their allies in Yemen since March last year. (source: Agence France-Presse) **************** Businessmen held in UAE were tortured into confessions, says UN report ---- Labour says UK should review relationship with United Arab Emirates in light of finding in case of four men who could face death penalty 4 businessmen who were arrested in the United Arab Emirates have been tortured into making confessions and could face the death penalty, according to a United Nations report and a legal opinion obtained by their British lawyer. The plight of the 4 men, who variously hold Libyan, American and Canadian citizenship, has been taken up by Labour's justice spokesman, Andy Slaughter, who is concerned about UK links to the Gulf state and previous complaints by Britons about being tortured in Dubai. The legal opinion by Geoffrey Robertson QC, a former UN judge, says the 4 businessmen - Salim Alaradi, who has Libyan and Canadian nationalities, Kamal and Mohamed Eldarrat, who have Libyan and US nationalities, and Issa al-Manna, a Libyan - have been wrongly accused of funding a terrorist organisation. They are due to go on trial in the secretive state security chamber court in Abu Dhabi on Monday. Alaradi was holidaying with his family at a beach hotel in Dubai when he was arrested last summer by the State Security Agency (SSA), according to Robertson's report. He was not permitted to notify his family or any lawyer of his arrest. "[Alaradi] was in secret detention - at an air force base, it is believed - [where] he claims he was tortured, a claim corroborated by serious bruising observed on his body, by similar claims by several of the men who were detained at the same time and have now been released, and by evidence of torture and ill-treatment in the UAE gathered by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch," the report states. Alaradi said he was subjected to sleep deprivation, chained in a stress position, hung upside down and beaten on the soles of his feet. "He was made to carry heavy weights while being beaten, subjected to waterboarding techniques and blasted for lengthy periods by ice-cold air," Robertson said. "His brother was in an adjacent cell, and heard him screaming." The organisations that they are alleged to have funded, the February 17 Brigade and Libya Dawn, are paramilitary forces that have been allied to the west and are not on the Libyan government's list of banned groups, according to Robertson. The UN working group on arbitrary detention (UNWGAD) will publish a report on the four men on Monday calling for their immediate release from custody. It says: "All of them were deprived of the right to challenge their arrest and detention before the judicial authorities and subjected to enforced disappearance, secret and incommunicado detention. [We] received reliable information on the acts of torture [inflicted on] the 4 victims..." The report documents claims that the men were subjected to electric shocks, whipped, had guns held to their heads, were drugged and "hung with a rope around the neck". Some said they had been placed in a freezer for up to 45 minutes. In its response to the UN panel, the UAE said: "[The 4 men] are completely free to choose, appoint and meet with a lawyer according to the rules of procedures governing correctional institutions." The UN working group is the same body that produced a critical report this month declaring that the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is resisting extradition to Sweden for questioning about an alleged rape, was being held under arbitrary detention in the UK. Prof Mads Andenaes, a former chair of the working group, told the Guardian: "Some states try to block rulings against the UAE, based on the usual 'your friend's friend is your friend, and your friend's enemy is your enemy' ... The UAE has had much more moderate responses to previous UNWGAD rulings against them than the UK. I hope that this not now going to change after the inappropriate UK responses in the Assange case." Labour's Slaughter said: "The UK has a special relationship with the UAE which should be reviewed in the light of the UN working group report. This case rings a warning bell to the UK government, which is sending international development funds to UAE to support the development of legitimate institutions, and selling them large quantities of arms." British human rights groups such as Reprieve have documented similar complaints from UK citizens held in the UAE, who have said they were tortured into making confessions. Sue Willman, a partner at the law firm Deighton Pierce Glynn and a member of the UK Law Society's human rights committee, said: "British citizens have also reported torture in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, where other Brits enjoy relaxing holidays. In the past year, I have been contacted by a growing number of ex-detainees and their families all complaining of torture and arbitrary detention there. "As my client faces the death penalty in a kangaroo court, it is time for the UK government to make it clear to its partners in the Gulf that it can no longer tolerate such flagrant breaches of basic human rights". (source: The Guardian) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 15 15:38:05 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2016 15:38:05 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, GA., MISS., OKLA., USA Message-ID: Feb. 15 TEXAS----impending execution Texas Inmate Set to Die Tuesday for Dallas-Area Store Holdup A suburban Dallas convenience store clerk was on the phone with his girlfriend when 2 people, 1 of them carrying a sawed-off shotgun, walked in. Gregory Martin told her he believed he was about to be robbed and to call police. Plano officers found 15-year-old Christopher Vargas standing over Martin's lifeless body and 18-year-old Gustavo Garcia hiding in a beer cooler with the shotgun near him. Authorities later determined the weapon had been used a month earlier in a robbery at a Plano liquor store where the cashier, Craig Turski, was fatally shot. Garcia, now 43, is set for lethal injection Tuesday night in Turski's 1990 slaying. He'd be the third prisoner executed this year in Texas, which puts more inmates to death than any other state. A federal judge said Friday he won't stop the execution, and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles refused a clemency petition. No additional appeals are expected, Seth Kretzer, one of Garcia's lawyers, said Monday. In the federal court appeal, Garcia's attorneys had argued that lawyers at his trial and in earlier appeals failed to uncover details of an abusive and alcohol- and drug-influenced youth - disclosures that could have convinced jurors to spare him from a death sentence. They also said they needed additional time to investigate those claims. "Garcia's guilt is clear," responded Fredericka Sargent, an assistant Texas attorney general. The U.S. Supreme Court last month refused to review an appeal that raised questions about deficient legal help, and last week turned down a request for a rehearing. Court documents show Garcia, who has spent more than half of his life on death row, shot Turski in the abdomen on Dec. 9, 1990, then reloaded and shot the 43-year-old cashier in the back of the head. A month later, Martin, 18, was shot in the head after he was taken to a back room. In a statement to police following his arrest for Martin's killing, Garcia said he'd ordered Turski to his knees when a customer entered the store. "I then panicked," he said. "I shot the clerk with the shotgun." On Thanksgiving in 1998, Garcia and 5 other inmates were scaling a pair of 10-foot-high prison fences when corrections officers opened fire on them and they surrendered. A 7th convict, Martin Gurule, was shot but managed to flee, making him the 1st inmate to escape Texas death row since a Bonnie and Clyde gang member broke out in 1934. Gurule's body was found about a week later in a creek a few miles from the prison, and an autopsy showed he drowned. "At least I can say I tried," Garcia said of the escape attempt in a 1999 interview with The Associated Press. "Facing execution is scarier." He declined an interview request as his execution date neared. Vargas, Garcia's partner in both fatal robberies, was tried and as an adult, convicted and is serving life in prison. His age made him ineligible for the death penalty. At least 9 other Texas inmates have execution dates set for the coming months, including 3 in March. (source: Associated Press) GEORGIA----impending execution Parole board set to meet Tuesday on condemned Houston County killer Travis Hittson The state Board of Pardons and Paroles is scheduled to hear clemency requests on behalf of condemned Houston County killer Travis Clinton Hittson on Tuesday. The board has invited Hittson's representatives to meet with the board at 9 a.m. to lay out a case for clemency. Hittson is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 7 p.m. Feb. 17 at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison near Jackson. A Houston County Superior Court judge issued the execution order for Hittson for the 1992 murder of Conway Utterbeck. In February 1993, Hittson was convicted of murder, theft by taking, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime. The jury recommended a death sentence, which was imposed in March 1993. In Georgia, the parole board has the sole constitutional authority to commute, or reduce, a death sentence to life with the possibility of parole or to life without the possibility of parole. (source: macon.com) MISSISSIPPI: Attorney General presents death penalty options With the recent expiration of Mississippi's lethal injection drugs, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood released a legislative agenda that could effectively nullify the logistical and ethical issues particular to the cocktails. In place of lethal injection drugs, which can be difficult to acquire and properly administer, Hood proposed 3 alternative execution methods for administering the death penalty in a press release on Jan. 27. If Hood's agenda is realized, Mississippi's 48 death row inmates could each face either the electric chair, a firing squad or nitrogen hypoxia. Mississippi previously used the electric chair during a period ending in 1952. Though Mississippi never employed firing squads, other states have, and it is still an accepted method of execution in Utah. Nitrogen hypoxia stands alone as Hood's only untested proposed method. Oklahoma adopted use of Nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method in 2015 and, supported by a report by Michael Copeland, an associate professor of criminal justice at East Central University in Oklahoma. According to the report, "An execution protocol that induced hypoxia via nitrogen inhalation would be a humane method to carry out a death sentence." The report based its argument on the work of right-to-die advocacy groups, such as the Final Exit Organization, which provides support and resources to the terminally ill considering suicide. Such groups commonly suggest inert gas hypoxia through "exit bags" as a preferred suicide method because it is considered humane and peaceful. To carry out a sentence through nitrogen hypoxia, a convict would breathe normally, inhaling the inert gas until losing consciousness and eventually succumbing to oxygen deprivation. USM associate professor of political science Robert Press said the issue of humane treatment extends well beyond method used to carry out the death penalty. "What I innately feel is a human rights abuse [is] to take another life," Press said. "That's not a religious point of view, it just simply seems inhumane." According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the South has the highest murder rate at 5.3 per 100,000. The South also holds the highest execution rate with over 1,145. Mississippi currently has 48 inmates on death row. Press said though people often feel anger toward death row convicts, the death penalty is simply unnecessary. "I understand the feeling of someone who's had a victim in their family been killed - that there is this desire for 'justice' or even revenge," Press said. "I fully understand that it's very human, but it's not an effective way to prevent that from happening again. And if one looks at the punishment of life imprisonment, sometimes without parole, that is punishment." According to Blake Feldman, a Mississippi ACLU advocacy coordinator, the death penalty is not just a poor form of deterrence. It is also unconstitutional. "With civil liberties, the first thing you think of is the Bill of Rights and then incorporate it and how it applies to the states is the Fourteenth Amendment," Feldman said. "A lot of death penalty issues get in through due process and the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment." Feldman said the inmates' potential innocence also contributes to the troubling nature of capital punishment. There have been 4 exonerations in Mississippi and over 156 nationally since 1971, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. (source: studentprintz.com) OREGON: Author to discuss 1940s Linn County murder, unjust execution Oregon State University will hold a book reading and discussion on Wednesday about a black man almost certainly unjustly executed for a 1943 murder on a train near Tangent. "The Color of Night: Race, Railroaders and Murder in the Wartime West," was written by Western Oregon University History Professor Max G. Geier, who will give his presentation from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in the 5th floor of the Valley Library's Special Collections and Archives Research Center. Light refreshments will be served. Geier's book tells the story of a Robert Folkes, a train cook from South Central Los Angeles who was charged with the murder of Martha James despite inconsistent and contradictory eyewitness accounts. James, a white and southern woman newly married to a Navy pilot, was killed in her train sleeping berth near Albany. The investigation into the case and the trial in Linn County Circuit Court garnered sensational media coverage at a time of intense wartime fervor and extensive black domestic migration. Folke's controversial execution in the gas chamber reshaped how Oregonians and others in the West thought about race, class and privilege, according to a news release. "Prosecutors, police and reporters colluded, in wartime, to stage the trial as a moralizing ritual for a public purpose that had little to do with justice," reads a summary of the book on the OSU Press website. The crime and its aftermath also galvanized civil rights activists, labor organizers and community leaders into challenging the flawed judicial process and ultimately the death penalty in Oregon. Attendees at the book reading also will get a sneak peak of a new oral history project under development at Special Collections and Archives - interviews with 20th century African American railroad porters. (source: Albany Democrat-Herald) USA: The Harrowing Testimonies of Death Penalty Executioners Texas has administered the death penalty to a record 531 people since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1982. While Texas's numbers are particularly high, state executions are also legal in 30 other states: The death penalty was a divisive issue in a recent Democratic debate, and made headlines earlier this week when the state of Missouri was accused of evading taxes by paying executioners in cash. The accounts of the "anonymous execution teams" who implement the death penalty are equally chilling, and rarely reach the public sphere, because their identities are protected by stringent state laws. Rare interviews from retired corrections officers, wardens, and prison chaplains, as well as those included in the 2000 Peabody Award winning radio documentary "Witness to an Execution" give us glimpses of executioners and their experiences. Here are the testimonies of 6 former executioners, wardens and prison personnel who have administered or supervised capital punishment. 1. Jerry Givens, former Virginia Executioner from 1982-1999. "If I had a choice, I would choose death by electrocution. That's more like cutting your lights off and on. It's a button you push once and then the machine runs by itself. It relieves you from being attached to it in some ways. You can't see the current go through the body. But with chemicals, it takes a while because you're dealing with three separate chemicals. You are on the other end with a needle in your hand. You can see the reaction of the body. You can see it going down the clear tube. So you can actually see the chemical going down the line and into the arm and see the effects of it. You are more attached to it. I know because I have done it." 2. Jennie Lancaster worked with the North Carolina Department of Corrections from 1977-2013 as a warden and eventual Chief Deputy Secretary. "At job interviews we don't ask things like, 'So how do you feel about wheeling away a body?' But maybe we should. It's not a role many of us picture ourselves playing." 3. Fred Allen participated in 130 executions as Captain of Corrections at Walls Unit Prison in Huntsville, Texas before he had a breakdown in 1998. "I was just working in the shop and all of a sudden something just triggered in me and I started shaking. And then I walked back into the house and my wife asked 'What's the matter?' and I said 'I don't feel good.' And tears - uncontrollable tears - was coming out of my eyes. And she said 'What's the matter?' And I said 'I just thought about that execution that I did 2 days ago, and everybody else's that I was involved with.' And what it was was something triggered within and it just - everybody - all of these executions all of a sudden all sprung forward." 4. Steve J. Martin began his corrections career on death row at age 23 at Texas State Penitentiary's Ellis Unit. "The whole thing made me step out of my role professionally, and touched me on an emotional level. I began to realize that this is how these things happen, executions. We do these things that personally you would normally never be involved in, because they're sanctioned by the government. And then we start walking through them in a mechanical fashion. We become detached. We lose our humanity." 5. Ron McAndrew, a former Warden at Florida State Prison, worked with the department of corrections from 1978-2000. "Searching my soul for answers that would satisfy the question on just why were we killing people and why our governor and politicians would do their 'chest pounding' over these ghastly spectacles was difficult. I began to remember myself as the person who went to Florida State Prison with a firm belief in the death penalty. And even though I still professed this belief, the questions of why we were doing this and if it were necessary, would not leave my mind. While appalled by the physical act of tying a person to a chair and burning him to death, I did not deny the reasons for the act. Here I want to say that one must be careful in searching his soul...one may just find that God is there and that He does not support the barbaric idea that man should execute man...After 23 years in Corrections, I have come to the conclusion that killing people is wrong. We have no business doing it, except in self-defense, in defense of someone else or in defense of the nation. And it's wrong for us to ask others do it for us." 6. Reverend Carroll Pickett served as the "death house" Chaplain from 1980-1995 at Walls Unit Prison in Huntsville, Texas. "After I had attended a few executions I developed a procedure. I would spend time with the condemned man working out what their last words would be so that I could pass the information on to the warden and make sure the killing wasn't started until the prisoner had finished speaking. When they were inside the death chamber they all wanted to maintain contact, they wanted me to hold their hand. But you can't do that because they are strapped and taped down. Instead I would stand right next to them and put my hand on their right leg where I could feel a pulse. That way, they always knew someone was with them to the very end." Pickett is now an outspoken critic of capital punishment. He says: "I know for a fact that I watched four innocent men being killed by the state of Texas, and many more men die who should never have been sent to the chamber...Of the innocent men, Carlos DeLuna was the hardest for me because I knew he had done nothing wrong. What was striking about him and the other innocent men was that they were the most peaceful at the point of their deaths." During DeLuna's death, the 1st lethal injection drug failed. Pickett recalls: "Those big, brown eyes were wide open. Here I am, 5 inches from his knee, 5 feet from his face, and he's looking straight at me. ... And I don't know what the question was in his brain. I don't know what he was thinking. If I wanted to be paranoid, I could say he was thinking, 'You lied to me.'" A Columbia Law report on DeLuna's death reads: "If the 1st drug failed - and Pickett was sure it did, at least at first - then Carlos would be awake when the 2nd drug started suffocating him. He also would feel a torturous burning when the third drug entered his veins. But the paralysis from the 2nd drug would prevent him from showing any distress. Carlos would be tortured to death, but only he would know it." (source: att.com) ************* The Bloody Hands Of Racist Homophobic Corporatist Scalia-Defending The Murder Of Innocents----Scalia was personally responsible for helping to put to death innocent people. "Scalia was prone to pronouncements that amounted to little more than demagoguery. His statements contributed to decades of operation of the machinery of death, which took lives in brutal state-sponsored murder." I opened a giant wooden door that separated the West Courtroom of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals from the bare hallway that connected the room to the fresh outside air. A small man with a patchy beard waited nervously to the right. He looked like a kid wanting an autograph from his favorite quarterback. He was a representative of the Texas Attorney General???s Office. He was waiting for my colleague and mentor. We'd just finished arguments in front of a panel of the Fifth Circuit. A few minutes prior, my mentor had argued that we were in front of the court to talk about the "most egregious violation of the 6th amendment in American history." It was a bold claim, of course. The kind of claim that a skilled appellate litigator would always avoid if it wasn't true. I thought that it was. Our client spent 3 decades in a Texas prison without a valid conviction or sentence. His case had been overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeals, the highest state criminal court in Texas. The district attorney's office that had once sentenced him to death had been ordered by the high court to either release our client or re-try him. They chose the 3rd rail, to just leave him in prison without doing a thing. He was a black man with a documented IQ of somewhere between 55 and 65. In layman's terms, that made him intellectually disabled or "mentally retarded." My mentor argued that because the State failed to try our client over the three decades that he was in jail, the State had violated his speedy trial rights. The little man with the teenage beard argued that it wasn't the State's fault. He argued that our client, who was barely lucid enough to know how to tie his shoes, should somehow bring himself to trial, even though he was behind bars in the Texas penitentiary. The little man with the teenage beard argued, in the alternative, that the federal court there did not have jurisdiction to decide on the case at that time because of arcane procedural reasons that only very skilled federal appellate litigators would understand. His argument could be boiled down to a very simple stew - we didn't do anything wrong, and even if we did, you should let the State of Texas kick this case around for two more years before we end up back in this exact same court to answer the question of whether this man's speedy trial rights were violated. It was all very civilized. Men in suits speaking into microphones that sent noise to men and women sitting in robes behind nice antique furniture. Others were there to argue cases that didn't resemble ours. Some looked up from their own notes when they heard my mentor speak of the gravity of the case before us. After we'd argued, our team exchanged the usual pleasantries. "I appreciate you flying down here to support us," my mentor said. I assured him that the soft poker at nearby Harrah's was as much a draw as lending my support to our client. We were all smiles. Then there was the little man with the teenage beard. He wanted to talk so badly. My mentor acknowledged him. The little man began to speak. "I think I worked with a professor who now works with you at the Law Center," he said to my mentor, referring to my alma mater in Houston. My mentor was gracious. He's the author of books about the death penalty. He's secured exonerations of a handful of innocent men. He's given a speech at the TED conference. He's the sort of man that anyone in our field would want to meet and greet. He talked with the little man for a few seconds. I couldn't bring myself to join in the pleasantries. I commented that my mentor was twice the man I was for even entertaining the conversation. My mentor had already been through the wars. He'd been taking on Capitol Mutts for so long that dealing nicely with another one was as natural as a politician shaking hands at a rally. I realized something in that moment. Something beyond the fact that my mentor was immensely better than me at work and life. I realized that the differences between me and the little man with the teenage beard weren't the sort of differences that could be bridged with a handshake and a short exchange of small talk. When I stripped away all of the bullshit, he had been arguing to keep my mentally retarded black client in prison despite a gross violation of that man's civil rights. Our client had been abused by the State for decades. When his case was overturned by the high appellate court, it was joined by 2 cousin cases where those gentlemen also received outright overturns of their death penalty cases. 1 of those men was black. The other was white. The black man was re-tried by the State. He was convicted a 2nd time, and he was sentenced to death. He had since been executed by lethal injection, poison pumped into his veins until he died on the gurney like a dog. The other man, the white man, had his sentence properly commuted under the law. He was paroled in the 1990s, left to live out his years with his family. Our client had been left to rot in a prison cell despite a legal right to a new trial. It wasn't a game. Our differences were not small, not political. The little man with the teenage beard had ostensibly spent the weeks before the oral argument planning creative ways to keep our client in prison a little bit longer. He'd been looking for ways to work around the 6th amendment rights that our client was due as a human. In the first few minutes I knew him, when he spoke to the judges of the Fifth Circuit, he'd spun himself into knots not arguing for mundane political advances, but for the continuance of Texas's keeping a man in a cage. The consequences of our sides were real. They came down right on the disabled head of our client. That leads me to Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court justice who died the day before Valentine's Day in 2016. In the wake of Scalia's death, opinions flowed over in my field. They flowed, too, from the average Joe not in my field. People who think like I do were just as gracious as my mentor had been to the little man with the teenage beard. They did that for 2 reasons. For one, they're better than me. Perhaps most importantly, they did so because they had to. Hilary Clinton said in a statement: "My thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of Justice Scalia as they mourn his sudden passing," she said. "I did not hold Justice Scalia's views, but he was a dedicated public servant who brought energy and passion to the bench." Bernie Sanders offered: "While I differed with Justice Scalia's views and jurisprudence, he was a brilliant, colorful and outspoken member of the Supreme Court." California Attorney General Kamala Harris wrote: "In his 3 decades on the Supreme Court, Justice Scalia left a lasting impression on American jurisprudence. Even those of us who vigorously disagreed with his views recognized the power of his intellect." Avowed death penalty opponent Sister Helen Prejean wrote: "I'm very saddened to hear about the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Although we didn't always agree, we were both Christians and were united on those essential principles. My thoughts and prayers are with Justice Scalia and his family." Even President Obama offered his thoughts on the value of Scalia's "service" to the public. I have immense respect for the people that offered these opinions. I have even more respect for the pressures that made them contribute to needless hagiography rather than telling the truth. There's no reason to make margaritas in celebration of Scalia's death. Celebrated civil rights lawyer Clarence Darrow once said, "All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike some one they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction." His is my sentiment. I disagree strongly with anyone who frames differences with Scalia as "political" ones. It's reductionist and revisionist, reducing important moral imperatives down to little more than questions that could be resolved in many ways. The problems with Scalia were bigger than that. The Constitution of the United States is not a legal document. The people who interpret it are making legal distinctions off of the document, and the people who argue using it are making legal arguments based upon it. But it is not a legal document. It's a moral document. It's a founding principle that gives equal rights to all men, regardless of race, religion, class or station. It's a document that understood how important it was to protect certain moral truths from the whims of politics. The Sixth Amendment exists because the founders recognized that a fair trial wasn't something to be left to voters, who are prone to getting things very wrong a few times before they get things right. The Fifth Amendment is there because the right of non-incrimination shouldn't be left to a guy who just discovered the criminal justice system when he stumbled upon Making a Murderer just before Christmas. That anyone believes they have "political" differences with Antonin Scalia is proof enough that his visage is worth truthful dissection. I differed most with Scalia on the death penalty and the treatment of condemned people. Today, I've watched as fellow criminal defenders have posted pictures of the justice, and even as some lamented the harsh treatment of the justice. One broke down her opinions as a mere "disagreement" on ideological grounds. She acted as if her and Scalia agreed on the importance of educating our children, but disagreed on the proper way to do it. That???s a political disagreement. With Scalia, it's much deeper than that. I'm friends with Anthony Graves, the 12th man ever exonerated off of death row in Texas, the 138th exonerated nationally. He's a black man who was sentenced to death for a mass child murder that he knew nothing about, only after prosecutors hid evidence, coerced witnesses, and manipulated the jury in the media. He was exonerated only after 18 years in custody. He suffered immensely, enduring solitary confinement, missing out on birthdays, Christmas mornings, and Easter egg hunts with his children. That he's now out and using his voice to change the world does not make up for the wrong that was done to him. My friend petitioned the Supreme Court to take up his case after his appeals were denied in state court and the lower levels of the federal system. As in most death penalty cases, the Supreme Court declined to take up my friend's case. Antonin Scalia left my friend to die. He didn't care. And why would he? Scalia once famously declared: This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is "actually" innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged "actual innocence" is constitutionally cognizable. For the uninitiated, the justice was saying, in effect, that the constitution is no barrier to executing a man who is actually innocent so long as that death sentence has been obtained in a nominally "legal" manner. He had other death penalty opinions that stood out, too. In 1994, Justice Harry Blackmun wrote an opinion questioning the constitutionality of the death penalty. Scalia responded by picking out what he perceived to be the worst of worst in death penalty cases. He picked Henry Lee McCollum, writing that McCollum's case was a great example of why the death penalty was still necessary. He wrote: "For example, the case of an 11-year-old girl raped by four men and then killed by stuffing her panties down her throat. How enviable a quiet death by lethal injection compared with that!" McCollum walked off of death row in 2015 after DNA evidence proved his innocence. So much for Scalia???s model case. You see, Scalia was prone to pronouncements that amounted to little more than demagoguery. His statements contributed to decades of operation of the machinery of death, which took lives in brutal state-sponsored murder. Of course he didn't stop at the death penalty. He dissented in Lawrence v. Texas, standing short in his belief that states should be allowed to jail gay people for having sex. His most recent headlines came when he suggested in an affirmative action case that black men might be better off at "less advanced schools," where they might do better. To cloak these moral distinctions as "political differences" is disingenuous. It's the sort of stuff that will allow an Antonin Scalia monument to be erected somewhere in honor of his "passion" or "service" in the decades to come, as the younger public is duped into believing that his opinions were just the product of a different kind of legal reasoning. Since when did adjectives like "passionate" become a good thing without context? A man who is passionate about causing pain isn't one to celebrate. In fact, it would have been better if he'd pursued his agenda with far less passion. The "service" of a man who dedicated his career to marginalizing the already marginalized is not a service we should honor. That man would have been better off choosing a high-dollar law firm, where he could have marshaled his considerable legal skills in favor of money before running himself into the ground. Death does not wash away the stench of planned cruelty. Scalia holds more moral responsibility for his decisions than the average villain. His weren't in-the-moment mistakes made under pressure. They were calculated judgments made after hours, days, and weeks of reflection. They were opinions written with the greatest of care. To reduce these opinions, and these differences to the unmoving label of "political" does a disservice to the pain his decisions brought to actual human beings. Like the little man with the teenage beard, Scalia's actions weren't without a victim. When he wrote of the death penalty, he directly weighed on my friend Anthony and plenty of others, too. When he ruled in Lawrence, he laid the groundwork for much of the hate that's made assaults on gay men and women a thing that we must tackle in 2016. If you call these political differences, as if they're just different methods of solving a problem, you demonstrate a stunning lack of understanding that when Antonin Scalia spoke and wrote, his words carried unique power that often led to death, added to prejudice, and threatened to set America back a hundred years. (source: grizzard; indybay.org) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Feb 16 09:36:59 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 09:36:59 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, VA., FLA., LA., TENN. Message-ID: Feb. 16 TEXAS----impending execution Attorneys for a Texas inmate facing execution for the shotgun slaying of a suburban Dallas liquor store clerk say no late appeals are planned No late appeals are planned for a Texas inmate facing execution for the shotgun slaying of a suburban Dallas liquor store clerk, his attorneys said. Gustavo Garcia's lethal injection scheduled for Tuesday evening would be the 3rd this year in Texas, which carries out capital punishment more than any other state. Garcia, 43, was sentenced to death for the fatal 1990 shooting of Craig Turski during a robbery. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected a clemency petition and a federal judge considering an appeal Friday refused to halt the execution. The U.S. Supreme Court last month refused to review an appeal that challenged the competency of Garcia's earlier legal help. Then last week, the high court turned down a request for a rehearing on that ruling. Seth Kretzer, one of Garcia's lawyers, said Monday he anticipated no last-day appeals to the courts. Garcia spent more than half of his life on death row for the killing of Turski, a cashier at a Plano liquor store. Garcia was 18 at the time of the slaying, which was 1 of 2 tied to him and 15-year-old Christopher Vargas. Vargas was tried and convicted as an adult and given a life sentence, but his age made him ineligible for the death penalty. Court documents show Garcia shot Turski in the abdomen on Dec. 9, 1990, then reloaded and shot the 43-year-old man in the back of the head. A month later, Garcia and Vargas entered a Plano convenience store armed with a sawed-off shotgun and carried out a holdup in which another clerk, 18-year-old Gregory Martin, was fatally shot in the head. Martin was on the phone with his girlfriend just before the shooting and told her to call police. Officers arrived and found Vargas standing over Martin's body and Garcia hiding in a beer cooler with the shotgun nearby. Authorities later determined the weapon was the same one used in Turski's death. In a statement to police after his arrest for Martin's killing, Garcia said he'd ordered Turski to his knees and then a customer entered the store. "I then panicked," he said. "I shot the clerk with the shotgun." On Thanksgiving night in 1998, Garcia and 5 other death row inmates were scaling a pair of 10-foot-high prison fences when corrections officers opened fire on them and they surrendered. A 7th death row prisoner, Martin Gurule, was shot but managed to flee, making him the 1st inmate to escape Texas death row since a Bonnie and Clyde gang member broke out in 1934. Gurule's body was found about a week later in a creek a few miles from the prison. An autopsy showed he drowned. "At least I can say I tried," Garcia said of the escape attempt in a 1999 interview with The Associated Press. "Facing execution is scarier." He declined an interview request as his execution date neared. Garcia's death sentence was overturned in 2000 on appeal. A year later, he was returned to death row after a 2nd punishment trial. At least 9 other Texas inmates have execution dates set for the coming months, including 3 in March. (source: Associated Press) ************** Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----15 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----533 Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. # 16---------February 16--------------Gustavo Garcia--------534 17---------March 9------------------Coy Wesbrook----------535 18---------March 22-----------------Adam Ward-------------536 19---------March 30-----------------John Battaglia--------537 20---------April 6------------------Pablo Vasquez---------538 21---------April 27-----------------Robert Pruett---------539 22---------May 11-------------------Terry Edwards---------540 23---------June 2-------------------Charles Flores--------541 24---------July 14------------------Perry Williams--------542 (sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin) *************** BBC Three's Life and Death Row: Meet the Texas prisoner who wants to die This is Daniel Lopez, a 27-year-old on death row in Texas, USA. He wants to be executed by lethal injection. His own legal team is arguing for him not to die, worried that he's mentally unstable and using the justice system as a form of suicide. But he's having none of it. He's been waiting more than 6 years on death row and is determined to get it over with as soon as possible. "The victim's family want me dead," he says. "Their closure's going to be when I'm dead. My family, it hurts them to see me here day in and day out. When am I going to get executed? This month, next month, next year? "I want them to move on." You can watch the first episode on BBC Three's iPlayer channel. Series 2 of Life and Death Row His chilling approach to his own execution is captured on film as he's interviewed from inside prison for BBC Three's new Life and Death Row season. In March 2009 Lopez was being chased by police. 1 officer was ahead of him on the highway preparing to stop his car with a line of spikes, to puncture his tyres. Lopez spotted him, drove at him and ran him over - killing Lt. Stuart Alexander. The documentary also has full access to the policeman's widow, Vicky Alexander. A society needs rules, they need laws ... I mean this is someone who took someone else's life, so they have a total disregard for another human being's life, you can't have people like that walking the streets As the time ticks down to Lopez's execution day she becomes increasingly anxious that the prisoner will suddenly change his mind. "I have nightmares now that we're gonna get there and he still has the right, right up to the last second, to say, 'No, I want my appeals.' Maybe that's what he has planned?" 'That's the penalty he has to pay for what he did' It's unusual for someone on death row to not make any attempt to stop their execution. Mrs Alexander says: "At least I'll know that he can't hurt anybody any more and that's what my husband would want too." She's a former nurse who cries as she explains how she's spent so much time trying to save lives. Now she's going to be a witness, observing from a side room, as life is taken away. "I've been through 6 1/2 years of hell. That's the penalty he has to pay for what he did." The film becomes tense and emotional as we also meet Lopez's ex-partner and his children. "I hope they understand that I truly love all my kids. They can move on and lead a good life, I wish they could have another father in their life that'll be a real good father to them. They could just forget about me." Alongside the main series there are also some additional extras such as a gallery from death row photographer Scott Langley, a short video explaining exactly how lethal injection works and testimony from a man who has witnessed more than 200 executions. As for episode one of Life and Death Row, we won't give away what happens in the end. But Lopez's scheduled date for execution comes the day after Vicky Alexander would have celebrated her 26th wedding anniversary. One of the last things Lopez says, as he fights back the tears, is: "It's to move everything along, to stop all this pain going around." ***Daniel Lopez was executed by lethal injection in August 2015*** (source: BBC news) VIRGINIA----impending execution State officials may be using Ricky Gray execution to bring back electric chair There is no mystery surrounding the murders committed by the man scheduled to be executed March 16. But there is a mystery about how the state will kill him. State Department of Corrections officials have given contradictory comments on whether they have the drugs to kill Ricky Gray. Gray is sentenced to die for killing 2 young girls in Richmond in 2006. In all, he and his nephew are linked to the killings of 9 people, including the girls' parents. Corrections officials have said they have 2 lethal doses of the 1st drug in the deadly cocktail needed for execution. They have also said they do not have enough of the 1st-step drug for the execution. "I wonder what it is that they are not telling us," said Megan McCracken of the Death Penalty Clinic at the UC Berkeley School of Law and lethal injection expert." "There is some sort of lack of transparency where ... Virginia says it can't get the drugs but has the drugs." Last week, the House of Delegates passed legislation that would make the electric chair an option for future executions. If it passes the Senate and Gov. Terry McAuliffe signs it, Gray could be executed in the electric chair after July 1. How - and when - Gray will die remains in question. Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax County, believes a theory flying around some circles in Richmond: The Corrections Department has the drugs it needs but is using the threat of not executing Gray as leverage to bring back the electric chair as an option that Department of Corrections officials can choose for the execution. "They did not introduce their (electric chair) bill last year, so it's either that they are trying to use the gruesomeness of the Ricky Gray case to justify this, or else it is one heck of a coincidence," Surovell, a long-time opponent to the bill, said. "If it's such an important department prerogative, I'm not clear why they didn't try the bill last year. I don't think the legislature got any more friendly with the last election." State law now gives condemned inmates the choice between the electric chair and lethal injection. Unless an inmate chooses the electric chair, the state's only option is lethal injection. That's become problematic for Corrections Department officials. They say lethal injection drugs have gotten more difficult to obtain. Major drug companies won't sell them to states because they don't want to be associated with the death penalty. Corrections officials obtained 3 vials of pentobarbital, the 1st drug in the state's 3-drug cocktail, from Texas last year to execute convicted murderer Alfredo Prieto. They used 1 vial to kill Prieto and say there are 2 unexpired vials left. But they also say they don't have the step-1 drugs they need to kill Gray. "The Department currently doesn't have the step-1 drugs necessary to carry out a death sentence by lethal injection. I can't comment further regarding lethal injection drugs due to potential litigation," Corrections spokeswoman Lisa Kinney said in an email. "The Department still has 2 vials of pentobarbital from Texas. They expire in April." When asked to clarify last week, Kinney said the Department of Corrections "absolutely does not have the lethal injection drugs necessary to carry out a death sentence by lethal injection." Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said that in a well-administered system, there are often backup supplies of the execution drugs. "The problem you have here is that because of Virginia's secrecy practices, we can't know," he said. "Generally when a state lacks the means to carry out an execution, it defers the execution." States that still use lethal injection have been forced to turn to compounding pharmacies, which make drugs on a small scale. There are questions about their potency, McCracken said. Legislators in past sessions have proposed bills giving the state the option to use the electric chair and to get its drug supply directly from compounding pharmacies. Both have failed. Kinney said execution dates are set by the court, not the department. Corrections Department officials do not have a position on the bill from Del. Jackson Miller, R-Manassas, she said. Sen. Kenny Alexander, D-Norfolk, said he opposes the measure because it puts the decision about what method to use in the hands of corrections officials and out of the hands of legislators, who represent the public. "I think as a society we decide what the method should be," he said. "What if you get a correction officer who has the drugs, but is bent on, or for whatever reason, just wants to use the chair? I think that's the wrong public policy." On Oct. 17, 1990, Wilbert Lee Evans was executed for shooting Deputy Sheriff William Truesdale to death in the Alexandria courthouse in 1981. Witnesses to the execution said Evans, whose face was partially covered by a leather mask, appeared to bleed profusely from his nose, ears and possibly his eyes. Prison officials later said he bled only from his right nostril. In the aftermath of Evans' execution, state officials started to consider other methods. Then-Gov. L. Douglas Wilder said he would support legislation changing the execution method. In 1994, Gov. George Allen signed a bill giving the condemned a choice between the electric chair and lethal injection. Today, the inmate still has that choice, but if an inmate does not choose within 15 days of the execution, the state must use lethal injection. The bill was opposed more than 2 decades ago by a mix of senators who said death sentences should be painful and others who argued that capital punishment should be abolished. Since the bill went into effect, 7 of the 87 people executed in Virginia have chosen the electric chair. "It just makes it too easy on someone who has committed a horrible crime," then-Sen. Frank W. Nolen, D-Augusta, said of lethal injection at the time of the bill's passing. "To me, to put that individual to sleep is not good enough. The punishment should correspond with the crime." Then-Sen. John H. Chichester, R-Fredericksburg, dismissed Nolen's argument. "Whether it's electrocution or lethal injection, the results are still the same," he said at the time. "All this bill does is give prisoners a choice." Before the vote on his bill in the House last week, Miller gave a graphic description of Gray's crimes. In all, Gray and his nephew Ray Joseph Dandridge are linked to the killings of 9 people, including Bryan and Kathryn Harvey. Bryan was a well-known musician and Kathryn was a former Virginia Beach homecoming queen who owned a toy store. Gray is sentenced to die for murdering their 9- and 4-year-old girls in Richmond on New Year's Day in 2006. All 4 were found in the basement of their burning home, bound, beaten with a hammer and stabbed, with their throats cut. The murders shocked the Richmond area. An endowment supporting the arts still gives out scholarships in the family's name . Surovell said he believes the Department of Corrections could be using Gray's execution as leverage because of what he sees as a pattern of secrecy within the department. Officials said they could not find drugs for executions in 2014 when another bill was introduced to bring back the electric chair. Then they got the pentobarbital from Texas to execute Prieto in October, the last man executed in Virginia. Surovell said opponents were concerned last year when a bill was introduced to prevent public disclosure of the drugs and drug manufacturers used in lethal injections. The measure passed the Senate but was defeated in the House of Delegates 56-42. "It's very clear to me that the DOC has an agenda to conduct executions with as little government or public oversight as possible, which is highly disturbing," Surovell said. The Department of Corrections' statements don't add up, UC Berkeley's McCracken said, adding, "If there is something wrong with this compounded pentobarbital, VDOC should explain what has changed." State officials defended use of the same batch of pentobarbital in federal court in October, and the court relied on the state's representations when it ruled that the department could use it, she said. (source: Virginian-Pilot) ************ Electric chair's archaic punishment should be limited by Virginia Senate Dear Virginia State Senate, I am concerned about the future of our beloved state and write to you in desperate need of help. This past week it has come to my attention that the Virginia House of Delegates has voted for the electrocution chair and lethal injections to be interchangeable means of dying via the death penalty. In other words, should the drugs be unavailable for an inmate to be put to death via lethal injection, the state would be able to forcibly constrict a prisoner to the method of electrocution. Considering that the House of Delegates' decision could soon be finalized by the State Senate's approval, I type with heavy hands and a heart sunken to the pit of my stomach, hoping that my prose might jolt humanitarian values back into the people who hold the power to stop this. It unnerves me to think that the government has become numb to the consequences of their decisions - those that seem so small when shelved aside global phenomenon - so instead I focus on my hope for clarity. Today, I plead for Virginia to restore my faith in the legacy of checks and balances; may the depth of our judicial system precede personal reservations and disengage the ability to harbor hate. It is true that monsters exist who have committed acts of murder against our own kind, but shall we turn wretched for the mere satisfaction of having their disgusting behavior served back onto them? I think not. In the United States, only 5 methods exist for means of capital punishment: hanging, firing squad, electrocution chair, gas chamber and lethal injection. The rush to find new alternatives for executions has never been more urgent, considering that lethal injections have been the primary method for over 30 states, and the U.S. has been suffering through a prolonged shortage of supplies. The Los Angeles Times in January 2011 first wrote about the retraction of sodium thiopental (a major anesthetic used in executions) under the contingency that the government was the primary buyer. Many other major drug companies have followed in their footsteps since. I understand that we shouldn't be focusing our fiscal budget on things like new advancements for death row, but there is a fine line between making prisoners unnecessarily comfortable and treating inmates with basic rights all humans possess. Each execution method has its downfall, but drugs are by far the most conscientious to this very idea. Surely as refined people of the state, senators must be aware of the process of electrocution. A human is groomed to conduct around 2,000 volts of electricity with the maintenance of a saline sponge wedged in between their legs and lying atop their head. Of course, the person's freedom is scrapped once the leather shackles wrap around the body from head to toe; a metal skull cap crowns the bald head and a blindfold is tied around the person's eyes while electrodes feed off the elastic flesh for 30-second increments. Justice William Brennan spoke of ghastly reactions to the electrocution process following the United States Supreme Court's decision to deny certiorari in Glass v. Louisiana (1985): "...the prisoner's eyeballs sometimes pop out and rest on (his) cheeks. The prisoner often defecates, urinates, and vomits blood and drool. The body turns bright red as its temperature rises, and the prisoner's flesh swells and his skin stretches to the point of breaking. Sometimes the prisoner catches fire ... Witnesses hear a loud and sustained sound like bacon frying, and the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh permeates the chamber." Why, then, are we entertaining the notion that a method so torturous should be permitted in the place of the more peaceful practice of lethal injection? A similar bill was passed through Virginia's House of Delegates in recent years but quickly denied by the Virginia State Senate. Later, Tennessee became the 1st and only state to enact a policy similar to the bill in question in the late months of 2014. According to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), only 7 other states have authorized the use of electrocution in rare cases such as preference or physically being incompatible for its drug contents. Virginia is one of those 7 states and has been teetering over the line labeled "do not cross" for ages. I would like to believe that members of the State Senate will have the same inclination to deny the bill as they had before. I truly believe that Tennessee should regret selling out on moral standards in order to stitch up the drug shortage issue with an easy fix that pleases the economy. David Raybin, attorney for Daryl Holton, recalls his experience of a Tennessee execution in 2007 in a company blog post: "It demeans us as a society to have this electric chair execution on the books, much less to actually use it. The electric chair is a carnival of death which brings no dignity to the victim or our judicial system." 67 inmates currently await capital punishment in Tennessee, pending a constitutional review of a punishment made legal over 2 years ago. Each case has not only had its execution date postponed multiple times for insufficient drug availability but now has an arguable Eighth Amendment appeal. After researching the shambolic history of the death penalty in DPIC, I note the countless times a state has withdrawn its anterior methods of execution. For example, Nebraska had electrocution as its primary method until February 2008. Then in 2015, state legislatures successfully repealed the death penalty. This is a common occurrence. With a mess of constant up-and-down battles for the relevance of capital punishment, the one underlying similarity I have detected is that our indecisiveness proves that the way we have been doing things up until this point is not right. There must be another way. With overwhelming data supporting each side of the argument, I too find it hard to submit a strong stance on the death penalty. I understand that the State Senate is often forced to make decisions on deadline, and I know this job cannot come easy. Senators of the state, you will not be able to right every wrong in our world with the restriction of a majority vote. Sometimes even the best people are deafened to the truth; the deceit of society's popular opinion has drowned out those sound cries. Instead, you must start rejecting what you do not believe in to salvage what rooted principles you have left. I may not be able to determine whether or not the death penalty itself is the essence of justice or a displacement of unavoidable barbaric desires, but I am confident that death by an electrocution chair is outright callous. The Virginia state motto, "Sic semper tyrannis," translated as "thus always to tyrants," should mean something to all of us. We must be able to distinguish ourselves from those who have abused power and deserve to be punished. If we do not take this opportunity to ban archaic practices like electrocution, we will have no case to build that we are better than those already behind cell walls. Sincerely, A concerned Virginian (source: Aly De Angelus, Collegiate Times) FLORIDA: House ready to move on death penalty changes Taking an approach backed by prosecutors and Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Florida House on Wednesday is slated to take up a bill that would revamp the state's death-penalty sentencing system. Lawmakers are hurrying to make changes after the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 12 ruled that the current system is unconstitutional because it gives too much power to judges, instead of juries, in sentencing defendants to death. The House and Senate agree on a key part of addressing the Supreme Court ruling -- requiring that jurors be unanimous in deciding that at least 1 "aggravating" factor exists before a defendant can be eligible for the death penalty. But the 2 chambers are divided on a high-profile issue about whether jurors should be required to be unanimous in recommending to judges that death sentences be imposed. In the past, Florida has required only majority recommendations. The House, with support from prosecutors and Bondi, wants to move to a 9-3 vote, while the Senate wants to require a unanimous recommendation. The House is slated to take up its bill (HB 7101) during a floor session Wednesday afternoon, according to a calendar of bills approved Monday by the Rules and Calendar Committee. (source: news4jax.vom) LOUISIANA: Execution scheduled for convicted serial killer could be delayed The execution of a death row inmate could be delayed, according to the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections. Convicted serial killer Daniel Blank, 53, was scheduled to be executed on March 14. However, in a news release, the DPS&C said they do not have the drugs necessary to carry the execution out. Safety and Corrections officials say that despite this, they still have a protocol they follow relating to carrying out a death warrant. "In the case of Offender Daniel Blank, it is our intention to proceed with that protocol until legal actions dictate otherwise. Due to ongoing death penalty litigation, the Department cannot comment any further regarding this issue," said officials in a news release. Blank admitted to killing 6 people, Victor Rossi, 41, Barbara Bourgeois, 58, Lillian Philippe, 71, Sam Arcuri, 76, Louella Arcuri, 69, and Joan Brock, 55, in Gonzales, St. Amant, LaPlace and Paulina between 1996 and 1997. He was arrested in November 1997 and sentenced to death in 1999. "The key issue is this [execution] date. We have worked very hard to get it stayed," said Blank's attorney Gary Clements. "[Blank] is in front of the Louisiana Supreme Court now to go against what happened to him in court. We have filed a RID, which is like an appeal, and it was filed on February 1. There is no reason why an execution date should have been set." Clements told WAFB they are still trying to prove Blank's innocence. Clements says what Blank actually admitted to and what the evidence actually was does not match up. The RID has been filed with the 23rd JDC and the Louisiana Supreme Court. (source: WAFB news) TENNESSEE: Tennesseans spend millions hiring attorneys for poor defendants Taxpayers in Northeast Tennessee spent $5.4 million over a 3 year period to hire attorneys for defendants who are not able to afford lawyers of their own, according to data from the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts. According to the state records, attorneys for indigent clients filed almost 14,000 claims for payments from July 2012 through June 2015 for almost 134,000 hours of work. Howard Hawk Willis Still Costing Tennessee Post-Conviction Convicted double-murderer Howard Hawk Willis, who currently sits on death row, cost the state more than any other defendant in Northeast Tennessee during that time. According to AOC data, 4 attorneys filed claims totaling $99,194 since 2012. A Washington County jury found Willis guilty in 2010 for the murders of newlyweds Adam and Samantha Chrismer. Investigators found the teenagers' dismembered bodies at a Johnson City storage facility. His indigent counsel filed claims for 1,410 hours, which is the equivalent of an attorney working on his case 24/7 for almost 59 days. Constitutional Right Whenever a defendant is unable to afford to hire his or her own attorney the Constitution requires the government appoint a lawyer for him or her. "There are rulings by both the Tennessee Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court that indigent defendants are entitled to representation," Washington County Sessions Court Judge Don Arnold said. At the beginning of every hearing Judge Arnold reminds defendants of their rights. By the end of an average hearing the judge says roughly 75 % of all defendants will receive court-appointed representation. It doesn't take much to secure indigent counsel. Defendants just have to fill out a form, swear they're telling the truth and then convince the judge. Judge Arnold said just because someone says they can't afford an attorney doesn't mean he'll appoint one. He knows taxpayers are paying for people's defense, so he said he doesn't award attorneys to anyone who asks. "I'm accused of being tough on appointing lawyers or public defenders for people because I look at whether or not people work," he said. "I don't feel like the taxpayers ought to pay for representation fully or bear the full burden of legal representation for people that go out and commit crimes against society and do not work or try to take care of their own debts when they're capable of doing that." Homicide Cases Cost The Most In addition to the Willis case, the other 4 most expensive cases were all highly publicized homicide cases. According to AOC records, attorney claims for Justin Stratton, convicted of a 2011 Washington County murder, cost just under $13,000. Meanwhile, Jawaune Massey, found guilty of the 2005 execution-style candle shop murders in Kingsport, cost just under $13,000 as well. An appointed attorney made a difference in the case of one of Massey's co-defendants. A Sullivan County jury found Leslie Ware not guilty of 1st-degree murder. Instead, jurors found him guilty of only lesser charges. Ware's representation cost just under $23,000, according to the AOC. Ware's case wasn't the only one where indigent counsel made a difference. Steven Rollins' attorney helped save his life. After years on death row the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the murder conviction of Rollins. The 2001 Kingsport bait shop killer pleaded guilty to 1st-degree murder, but this time a judge sentenced him to life in prison with the possibility of parole. According to AOC claims, the Rollins case cost more than $26,000 since mid-2012. Attorney Gene Scott often helps with death penalty cases, because he says those clients deserve it. "It's important that these people have representation and I think it's important that they have an experienced lawyer to do it," Scott said. Defendants Accused Of Petty Crimes Receive Representation Too Attorney Bill McManus filed 458 claims for more than $87,000 since mid-2012, according to AOC records. After practicing law in Florida as a public defender he returned to Northeast Tennessee. McManus said accepting indigent cases was the best way for him to help defendants and reestablish his practice. "It's the basis of what I do," he said of his business. "I'm still trying to establish myself here. You have to kind of get established with the judges and let the district attorney's office know you. Everybody deserves a good defense and my job is not to get the person off, it's to make sure that they're treated fairly by the state." New attorney Scott Shults said indigent representation is a first step in practicing law, but also an important step in the justice system. "I'm happy to do that, especially because when you're the defendant the deck is stacked and the chips are down," he said. "The state has a lot of resources and a lot of these people don't. The bedrock of this nation's legal system is the presumption of innocence. Sure, there's some money in indigent defense, but there's also a source of pride to try to stand up for what our country holds so dear." Lawmaker Says Indigent Costs Are Too High According to the AOC, the state budgets $30 million every year for indigent defendants across Tennessee. Rep. Jon Lundberg thinks there are ways the state can reduce the cost. "It's too much," he said. "I think there's a due diligence where a judge could question a little bit more to see if someone's indigent." The lawmaker filed legislation last season that would have required the study of the appointment of indigent defense attorneys, but the legislation didn't move forward. Although he trusts many judges ask the right questions, he says he'd like to see them ask even more questions before appointing attorneys. "We've got to step that up somehow," Lundberg said. "Whether it's encouraging our judges to go a little further and ask a couple more questions. You don't have to take 20 to 30 minutes per person. Questioning them, 'Who pays your cable bill? Who pays your cell phone bill? Who brought you here?'" A Pitiful Situation Back in Judge Arnold's courtroom, he thinks the public needs to be aware of the cost of court-appointed attorneys. "It's a pitiful situation to sit up there and look at the poor people that are involved in the system," he said. "It's unfortunate, but it's just a mark of our society I suppose." The judge said he knows the value of taxpayers??? money and pledges to keep asking tough questions. In some cases, judges make defendants pay for a portion of their indigent defense, but it never amounts to much. According to the AOC, the yearly amount equals roughly $225,000. Scott agrees the dollar figures are staggering. "It is a high number for the taxpayers to have to bear and, unfortunately, taxpayers are bearing the cost of a lot people's mistakes, but at the same time people are entitled to be represented," he said. "If a person is able to pay a bail bondsman to get out of jail they should be able to hire their own attorney, too." Other Changes On The Horizon? Attorneys like McManus argue the state needs to do more to fairly pay attorneys for representing indigent clients. He said court-appointed attorneys in federal court make significantly more money. According to AOC Communications Director Michele Wojciechowski, appointed attorneys earn $40 per hour for work outside of the courtroom and $50 per hour for time spent in court in Tennessee. She said there are also caps on the amounts indigent counsel can earn per case. As it stands, attorneys are capped at 2,000 hours every year, according to the AOC. Some lawmakers filed legislation this year that would increase the amount the state pays indigent attorneys. The proposed legislation would increase the $50 for every courtroom hour fee to $75 an hour. (source: WJHL news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Feb 16 09:38:45 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 09:38:45 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----UTAH, MONT., CALIF., USA Message-ID: Feb. 16 UTAH: The high cost of the death penalty: $1.6 million is just the tip of the iceberg Utah has filed 110 Aggravated Murder cases in the last 11 years, but has achieved only one execution, and only 1 new death sentence in that time. Republicans are sponsoring a bill in the 2016 legislative session to repeal the death penalty. The purpose of the bill is to eliminate an extremely expensive and grossly ineffective government program. In 2012 the Utah Legislature's Fiscal Analyst's Office completed a study comparing the cost of a typical Aggravated Murder case in which the death penalty was sought and obtained, with the costs of an Aggravated Murder case in which the death penalty was never sought and a sentence of Life Without Possibility of Parole (LWOP) was obtained. That study determined that the additional cost of just one case ending in execution was about $1.6 million more than 1 LWOP case. As striking as the $1.6 million number is, it is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the cost of the death penalty. Only 10% of an iceberg is visible above the water line. If you are measuring the size of the iceberg you must count the full mass of the iceberg. The same is true of the cost of the death penalty. The full cost of achieving 1 execution, or "cost per execution," must include the costs incurred in all the other death-eligible cases that do not result in execution. Utah has filed 110 Aggravated Murder cases in the last 11 years, but has achieved only one execution, and only one new death sentence in that time. These other death-eligible cases may not result in execution for several reasons: They may be resolved by plea bargain before trial, or the defendant may not be convicted of Aggravated Murder at trial, or the jury may vote for a sentence other than death. But, the extra expenses begin mounting as soon as counsel is appointed in each potential death penalty case. For example, in 2015, Washington State found that the additional cost per case to the state for a death penalty case was $1 million. Then, adding in the estimated costs incurred in all the death-eligible cases that did not result in execution, and dividing that total amount by the 5 executions Washington had since 1976, resulted in a cost per execution of about $24 million. That is 24 times the additional costs of one capital case. Similarly, a 2008 study in Maryland found that the additional cost per case for a case resulting in a death sentence was about $2 million more per case than when the death penalty was not sought. Then, adding in the estimated costs incurred in all of the death-eligible cases that did not result in execution, and dividing that total amount by the 5 executions Maryland had since 1976, resulted in a cost per execution of $37.2 million. That is 18.6 times the additional costs of one capital case. Utah's statistics are similar to those of Washington and Maryland. Utah has had only 7 executions since 1976. Utah's 2012 cost analysis reasonably estimated that the additional cost per case to prosecute a case to execution is $1.6 million, which is right in the middle of the additional cost per case estimates of Maryland ($2 million) and Washington ($1 million). Now, even if Utah's multiple for death-eligible cases not ending in execution were only half that of Washington and Maryland, say 10, then Utah's estimated cost per execution would be over $16 million per execution. Moreover, not only is the death penalty shockingly expensive, it is also grossly ineffective. The State very rarely achieves an execution. As noted, Utah has filed 110 Aggravated Murder cases in the last 11 years, but has achieved only 1 execution and 1 new death sentence in that time. Would we accept a Fire Department that only showed up at only 1 of every 110 fires? Would we tolerate a Roads Department that fixed only 1 of every 110 potholes? What is the point of paying for the death penalty system if the prosecutions almost never result in executions? Another important "cost" of the death penalty is a human one. When the State seeks the death penalty, the families of the murder victims have to wait decades for the cases, including appeals, to come to an end. And, for the vast majority, those cases never do end in an execution. But when the death penalty is not sought, none of the costs or delays associated with a death case are incurred. The families get swift and sure justice. And for the most dangerous murderers, an LWOP sentence ensures that the murderer will never leave prison. Utah policymakers should apply that same prudent analysis as they did with last year's Justice Reinvestment Initiative, and cut out these wasteful costs by eliminating the death penalty. A sentence of LWOP provides swift and sure justice to the families of victims. And the millions saved by eliminating wasteful death penalty prosecutions could be invested in more productive crime prevention measures, or returned to taxpayers in the form of a tax cut. (source: Opinion; Ralph Dellapiana is Director of Utahns for Alternatives to the Death Penalty----Deseret News) ************************ Lawmaker wants to abolish death penalty in conservative Utah A Republican lawmaker wants Utah to join 19 states and the District of Columbia in abolishing the death penalty, but supporters acknowledge that it's a long shot in the conservative state. Sen. Steve Urquhart of St. George said Wednesday that the delays and costs associated with executions make it an ineffective punishment. His proposal has not yet been unveiled, but he said he is not sure the government should be in the business of killing people. "We understand that government is not perfect. And that realization to take upon ourselves the godlike power of life and death - that's something we should really think about," he said. Urquhart knows there is strong support for capital punishment in Utah, but he said its expense and the chance of wrongful convictions might resonate with his libertarian and conservative colleagues. A panel of state lawmakers debated the issue in October, weighing whether a repeal would be the most moral and cost-effective path. They didn't take action but brought up a 2012 legislative report that estimated each capital punishment case costs taxpayers about $1.7 million more than a life sentence. The number was based on the assumption that each inmate spends about 20 years on death row appealing their sentence. The state's last execution was in 2010, and the 9 inmates on death row are all years away from exhausting their appeals. "In Utah, we almost don't have a death penalty because it happens so infrequently," said Republican Rep. Stephen Handy, who opposes execution. Handy of Layton called it an important discussion to have but said he doesn't think it will go anywhere this year. Republican Gov. Gary Herbert said in October that he's a strong supporter of capital punishment but it should only be used for "the most heinous of crimes." Herbert signed a law last year that bolstered the state's execution policy by ordering that a firing squad be used if lethal injection drugs cannot be obtained. Urquhart acknowledged that he voted in favor of the firing squad bill, saying that because Utah has capital punishment on the books, "firing squad is as quick and effective as any means." He said his proposal would allow executions to go forward for the nine people on death row now but remove it as an option for any new convictions. He said he doesn't want to interfere with those pending cases out of concern it will cause further pain for the victims' families. Providing a sense of justice for victims and their families is a reason to keep the death penalty, said Republican Sen. Lyle Hillyard of Logan. He said he would oppose Urquhart's proposal. Democratic Sen. Luz Escamilla of Salt Lake City said she would support Urquhart's proposal but didn't know where her Democratic colleagues stood and whether their support might help it pass the Republican-controlled Legislature. Urquhart said he's been discussing it with his colleagues and thinks it may pass the Senate. "If you're betting, bet against it," he said. "But I'm kind of optimistic. We are a libertarian state and that leads us to do some interesting things at times." (source: Associated Press) MONTANA: Mother of victim finds closure after former death row inmate dies in DOC infirmary Montana State Prison inmate Dewey Eugene Coleman died on Sunday at the Lewistown Infirmary of natural causes, according to a news release from the Montana Department of Corrections. He was 67. Coleman was on death row for almost 15 years before his sentence was commuted to life in prison. "I'm not sending flowers," said Eleanor Harstad Neurohr on Monday. Neurohr is the mother of Peggy Lee Harstad, the woman Coleman was convicted of killing in 1974. On July 4, 1974, Harstad, 21, was returning home to Rosebud from a 4th of July rodeo in Harlowton. She was spending the summer at her family's farm before beginning her teaching career in Plains. On the drive, her path crossed Dewey Eugene Coleman and Robert Dennis Nank. The 2 had been riding a motorcycle through Montana after leaving a veterans' hospital in Wyoming, where they had been treated for medical issues related to mental health. Their motorcycle had broken down and were stopping vehicles asking for assistance. When Harstad came upon the two men, they took control of her vehicle, a light-green car with a white-and-green checkerboard top. A friend had brought the car back from California for Harstad, Neurohr said. The men drove Harstad to a secluded area where they bound and sexually assaulted her; Nank later stated he was impotent at the time and did not succeed in assaulting Harstad. They drove with Harstad a little longer before they allowed her to get dressed again and then killed her by holding her down in the Yellowstone River until she drowned. The next day, Neurohr drove to the Harstad family ranch outside Forsyth into town to grab coffee with friends and run errands. As she headed into town, she saw the unmistakable checkered top of her daughter's car. She thought it was unusual to see a car so similar to her daughter's, but believed it was a road worker's. She was at a cafe when a call came in to the business; John Harstad, Peggy Harstad's father, was on the line. "He asked me if I knew where Peggy was, and I said, 'Yes, I think she's at a girlfriend's house or maybe with Lynda, her sister,'" Neurohr said in an interview with the Gazette on Monday. "And John said, 'Well, a car with her license plate was found parked along Frontage Road.'" Neurohr and her husband saw their daughter everywhere after that. The whole town rallied to help them find her. They even called in a Native American clairvoyant from Hardin who stayed at the Harstad ranch. Neurohr still credits the woman with pointing the family to the area on the Yellowstone River where Harstad's body was found. "Peggy was right across from where she said she would be," Neurohr said. "2 fisherman found her, and I remember, it had rained a lot that year, so the river was very high, and Coleman and Nank hadn't put Peggy in the main stream, so, when the water receded, the 2 fisherman saw her body." Her body was discovered in late August 1974 on the north bank of the Yellowstone River near Forsyth. "They wouldn't let me see her," Neurohr said. "I wanted so badly to see her." The night before Peggy Harstad's death, she kissed both her parents and thanked them for all they'd done for her. "She was kind, a loving, good-natured person," Neurohr said. When Harstad would come home from college, her sister Lynda Ottun would walk over from where she and her husband lived, and the 3 women would visit in the kitchen together. The girls would sit together on the counters laughing and chatting while Neurohr prepared dinner or lunch, Neurohr said. "I miss that," Neurohr said. After Peggy Harstad's death, Neurohr said she could never again get close to her older daughter. "Sometimes I wish I'd asked her, talked to her about it," Neurohr said. "But we were all hurting, hurting so deeply." Nank and Coleman were arrested in October 1974 in Boise. Nank entered a plea agreement to avoid the death penalty, in exchange for testifying against Coleman. Nank confessed that he and Coleman had raped, beaten and drowned Harstad, while Coleman denied that he was involved. Both were charged with deliberate homicide, aggravated kidnapping and rape, according to Gazette archives. Nank died in 1999 according to Montana State Death Records. Coleman was convicted and sentenced to 100 years for the homicide and 40 years for the rape charge. He received the death sentence for his conviction of aggravated kidnapping, a mandatory sentence at the time. That law was repealed in 1977. Coleman appealed his sentence, and the Montana Supreme Court determined the mandatory death sentence to be unconstitutional. Coleman was again sentenced to death in 1978 under a new statute. Just days before the hanging was to take place, Coleman was granted a stay of execution. Coleman later argued that his death sentence was handed down because he was black, and that Nank was given preferential treatment because he was white. The 2 men are interchangeable to Neurohr, who said the death penalty wasn't good enough for either. "My daughter suffered at their hands," Neurohr said. "They should suffer. That was my hate talking at the time, but I still feel what they got was far too plush." Both men pointed the finger at the other after the death of her daughter, but both could have stopped it, she said. "Killing my daughter, through that, I lost my husband," Neurohr said. John Harstad died from a heart attack in 1989, a month after an interview with the Gazette about his daughter's death, in which he remarked on the overwhelming support from the community. "It was just all too late," he had said of their efforts. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Coleman in 1988, commuting his death sentence to life imprisonment. Neurohr is the last surviving member of Peggy Harstad's direct family. Her sister, Lynda Ottun, died from cancer in 2005. Her adoptive brother, Rowland Limberhand Harstad, died in 2009 from a heart attack. The youngest brother, Monte Harstad, died in 2013, also following a battle with cancer. "Monte always thought he should have been with her," Neurohr said. "Even though he was just a little tyke, he thought, maybe if he'd been with her, she would have come home." In May 1974, a few months before Harstad was killed, she told her mother where she wanted to be buried when she died. She pointed to a big hill where she used to ride her horse, Neurohr said. From the top, she could see the family's entire ranch. "I remember I told her, 'Peggy, we're not going to talk about it, we're not going to think about it," Neurohr said. "'Parents don't bury their children.'" Coleman would have been eligible for parole this year. A previous hearing with the Montana Board of Pardons and Parole in 2011 did not go in his favor. "I'm happy about it," Neurohr said of Coleman's death. "But there's closure, it gives you a feeling, I can't really explain the feeling, it has all come to the end." (source: Billings Gazette) CALIFORNIA: Readers answer our question about the California death penalty: Letters We asked readers: Is it time to put an end to the death penalty in California? Death penalty more costly than life without parole It's time to end the death penalty in California. Since it was reenacted in our state in 1978, we have spent $5 billion on a system that has sentenced over 1,000 men and women to death while executing 13 of them. That comes to over $300 million per execution. And for what? Killing is not only wrong, when done by the state, it's an incredibly complicated, lengthy and expensive process. Over 150 men and women who were sentenced to death in the U.S. have been exonerated and freed, many after spending decades on death row. Los Angeles just paid out $17 million to two of them who had been wrongly convicted. Last year, federal Judge Cormac Carney held California's death penalty unconstitutional, saying, "For all practical purposes then, a sentence of death in California is a sentence of life imprisonment with the remote possibility of death." Hard as it is for some to believe, the death penalty is much more costly than life without parole. Killing is wrong in every way; let's get out of the business. Mike Farrell, Studio City ---- Victims' lives matter most I don't understand how anybody believes that a murderer deserves to live out the rest of their lives supported by the taxpayers, including the murder victim's family. I don't believe the death penalty is appropriate in all cases because each case has its own circumstances. But in a case where a person has been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and the crime includes other crimes such as rape, torture, multiple murders, that person should lose his life. I hear the argument that the state has no right to take a life or the state is behaving just as brutally as the murderer. Those are fallacious arguments. When you let a vicious convicted murderer live out his natural life you are cheapening the worth of the victim. Ken Pinckney, Walnut ---- Risk of mistakes too great It is time to abolish the death penalty. First, mistakes have been made. DNA has proven that convictions have been in error. Second, there are over-zealous prosecutors who may knowingly push for convictions of innocent people. And lastly, the cost to taxpayers for endless appeals is too great. Do not misunderstand. There are individuals so evil that they deserve to be put to death. However, if even one innocent person is executed, then the cost is too high. Terry Hales, Ontario ---- Some forfeit right to life In the early '90s while visiting my mother she asked my opinion of the death penalty. I immediately responded that there are people who have committed acts of such a nature that they have forfeited their right to live. That is still my opinion. Robert S. Kennedy Jr., Camarillo ---- Revenge isn't worth it There is no excuse ever for a society which calls itself civilized to have capital punishment. It doesn't bring the victims back. It does not right any wrong. It is simply revenge. I would rather see 100 prisoners housed at public expense than to see one person wrongly executed for a crime they did not commit. I don't give the state permission to murder in my name. Gary Durward, Rancho Palos Verdes (source for all: Letters to the Editor, Los Angeles Daily News) ***************** Lonnie Franklin Jr., accused of being 'Grim Sleeper' serial killer, goes on trial 30 years after the first of the Grim Sleeper serial killer victims was found fatally shot and discarded in a South Los Angeles alley, Lonnie David Franklin Jr. will face a jury Tuesday in a downtown courtroom. Franklin, a former garbage collector and police garage attendant, is charged with killing 1 girl and 9 women ranging in age from 15 to 35 over a span of 3 decades. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Opening statements begin Tuesday. The killings for which Franklin is charged came in spurts that were 13 years apart, resulting in the nickname "the Grim Sleeper" for the period of apparent inactivity. Franklin, 63, has pleaded not guilty. His attorney has promised a vigorous defense of the man neighbors described as friendly, helpful and reliable. "All I can say is stayed tuned," said the lawyer, Seymour Amster. The trial is expected to last 2 to 3 months, said Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman, the lead prosecutor on the case. A case with a lot of notoriety The case has already spawned a documentary about Franklin, an "official" website and a made-for-TV movie about a local reporter whose stories for the LA Weekly drew attention to the case. The LAPD has been both criticized for failing to alert the community sooner that there was a serial killer on the prowl (before Franklin was identified by name) and heralded for doggedly pursuing the case once the more recent slayings were discovered. Evidence in the case will span three decades of policing in Los Angeles: From the murderous, crack-fueled 1980s, during which at least 2 serial killers were operating in South L.A., to the relative calm of the 2000s and the creation of an LAPD cold case unit charged with taking fresh looks at unsolved slayings, to the modern era of advanced DNA testing. Prosecutors say they have tied Franklin to the killings with physical evidence, including saliva collected from bodies, and ballistic matches between slugs recovered from crime scenes and a .25 caliber handgun seized from Franklin's home the day he was arrested. A woman alleged to be a surviving victim of Franklin is expected to be a star witness against him. Enietra Washington was shot in the chest with a .25 caliber handgun and sexually assaulted before escaping. She has since identified Franklin as her assailant. In addition to the 10 counts of murder, Franklin is charged with 1 count of attempted murder in Washington's attack. (source: Fox news) USA: Former Ga. Justice: Scalia Death May Alter SCOTUS On Death Penalty The U.S. Supreme Court could take a different stance on capital punishment with the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. That's according to Norman Fletcher, former chief justice of Georgia's Supreme Court and an opponent of the death penalty, who said he believes the country's highest court will rule the practice unconstitutional in the next 3 to 6 years. "Anyone that President Obama might nominate - and if they were cleared - certainly would be more moderate than Justice Scalia on this subject," Fletcher said. Fletcher said that it's also possible with a nominee from a Republican president because of how justices actually vote when they get to the bench. "Frankly, many people have been surprised at how people turn out once they get to the court and have to actually deal with the issues that are so well-briefed and presented to the Supreme Court," Fletcher said. He cited the dissenting opinion in the Glossip v. Gross case out of Oklahoma regarding lethal injection practices as a sign the court could end the death penalty within the next decade. In the dissent, Justice Breyer wrote, "I believe it highly likely that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment. At the very least, the Court should call for full briefing on the basic question." Justice Scalia had often dissented in cases that restricted carrying out the death penalty, including the case of Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis, who was executed in 2011. Scalia wrote a dissenting opinion to a decision that sent Davis' case down to a lower court in Georgia for a new hearing, calling it a "fool's errand." Georgia is set to execute its second death row inmate this year the night of Tuesday, Feb. 16. Travis Clinton Hittson is scheduled for execution at 7 p.m. for murdering a fellow Navy sailor in 1992. (source: WABE news) ****************** Scalia's death: Another step in the demise of the death penalty? With executions long on hold here in North Carolina, it's easy to forget that we still have a long way to go in joining the most of the rest of the civilized world in abandoning the death penalty. What's more, as this recent post by Kristin Collins on the blog of the NC Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty reminds us, men still reside on death row in our state who were sentenced under the most absurd and outrageous of circumstances. Here's Collins: "Almost a year ago, Kenneth Neal was quietly removed from death row after 19 years awaiting his execution. According to the judge's order entered that day in March 2015, Neal was resentenced to life in prison without parole because he is intellectually disabled. In the years since Neal's 1996 conviction, the Supreme Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional to execute people with significant intellectual disabilities. What went unmentioned is that Neal likely never would have been sentenced to death in the first place had he not been assigned a notorious convicted felon as a defense attorney. On trial for his life, the courts assigned Neal an attorney who had, just a few years before when he was a district attorney, been caught up in a highly publicized child pornography sting. The attorney had been caught with sex tapes of children as young as 7 and 8, performing incestuous sex acts between siblings and parents - and the jury was well aware of the lawyer's crimes. Of course, such facts would have been unlikely to trouble the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who infamously declared that the Constitution did not bar the execution of even an innocent person who had received a "fair" trial. In the weeks and months to come, it's clear that the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court created by Scalia's passing will force the Court closer to the center of the American political debate than, perhaps, ever before. And whatever the outcome of that contest, it's hard to imagine that the next Justice appointed will be as avid and enthusiastic of a death penalty defender as Scalia. Let's fervently hope that's the case, anyway. (source: Commentary, Rick Schofield; ncpolicywatch.org) **************** Cruz makes his Supreme Court knowledge new focal point Ted Cruz has always talked about the Supreme Court as a candidate for president, but it's become the new focal point of his White House bid following the weekend death of Justice Antonin Scalia. The Texas senator on Monday recast the stump speech he's offered voters for the past several weeks to highlight the importance of electing a conservative who will appoint what he called the right kind of justices to the Supreme Court, which he described as currently being "activist" and "out of control." Cruz argued before the Supreme Court nine times by age 40, winning two cases and losing four, with three cases having a murkier outcome. He says that gives him alone "the background, the principle, the character, the judgment" to find a solid conservative to replace Scalia. The tea party darling also has vowed to filibuster any nominees offered by President Barack Obama, saying 1 more liberal Supreme Court justice could wipe out state-level abortion restrictions while undermining religious liberty and curtailing gun ownership. "This presidential election is the turning point between either prevailing or losing that fight for a generation," Cruz told a crowd in Florence, South Carolina. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Cruz clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist. His high court arguments were the bedrock of his underdog Senate victory in Texas and are woven into the DNA of his presidential run. If elected, Cruz would be the ninth president to have argued before the Supreme Court, but the first since Richard Nixon in 1966, according to The American Bar Association. Cruz constantly reminds audiences he defended states' rights, gun rights, the Ten Commandments and capital punishment before the high court. He doesn't suggest he won every case, but Cruz's defeats can get lost in translation. While canvassing for Cruz in Iowa last month, a volunteer visiting from Georgia proclaimed to caucus-goers that her candidate "won every one" of his 9 cases. Cruz did prevail in his final Supreme Court appearance. He won a patent infringement case in 2011 involving a deep fat fryer while working for a private Houston law firm. His other 8 appearances came during his five years as Texas solicitor general, a job he took on in 2003 at 32. Cruz didn't get to pick his own cases as he argued for Texas. But then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, now the state's governor, encouraged him to join out-of-state cases that could promote conservative values. "Ted Cruz was tireless in searching for every possible opportunity, not just to talk about, but to implement and execute, a conservative constitutional vision for the country," said James Ho, Cruz's successor as Texas solicitor general. In his first Supreme Court case in 2003, Cruz argued Texas shouldn't have to honor an agreement to improve health coverage for poor children. He lost 9-0. The following year, Cruz implored the Supreme Court to uphold a 16-year prison sentence for a man convicted of stealing a calculator from Wal-Mart. The justices remanded the case to a lower court, which sentenced the man to time served. The case Cruz most trumpets brought him to the Supreme Court twice and involved a Mexican national named Jose Ernesto Medellin. Medellin was convicted of the rape and murder of 2 teenage girls in Houston in 1993, but wasn't notified of his right to contact Mexican diplomats upon arrest, as dictated by the 1963 Vienna Convention. The International Court of Justice ruled in 2004 that U.S. courts should review the convictions and sentences for Medellin and 50 other Mexican-born prisoners because of the treaty violation. President George W. Bush directed state courts to review such cases, and Texas sued. "It was an unusual circumstance," Cruz, who once worked for Bush's presidential campaign and administration, told The Associated Press in 2014. "Especially when the president was a Texan, was a Republican and was a friend." The Supreme Court first sent the case back to state courts. Upon hearing it a second time, the justices sided with Texas 6-3 and Medellin was executed. In 2006, Cruz defended congressional redistricting maps drawn by Texas' GOP-controlled Legislature. The Supreme Court didn't declare them unconstitutional, despite claims they deliberately dispersed the voting power of the state's growing Hispanic population. But it did rule that a sprawling South Texas congressional district had to be redrawn. 2 more Cruz Supreme Court arguments came in 2007 and involved the death penalty. Cruz argued a man convicted of killing a former Taco Bell co-worker should be executed despite the jury not being instructed to consider several factors, including his having been abused as a child. Cruz also defended the death sentence of a killer whose schizophrenia meant he might not be able to understand why he was being executed. He lost both 5-4. Cruz also lost 5-4 his final case as solicitor general, an unsuccessful defense of states' imposing the death penalty in cases of child rape. It originated in Louisiana, but Cruz served as lead attorney for 10 states. In his filings, Cruz overlooked that in 2006, Congress had modified the military's justice code to add child rape as a crime punishable by death. He was so worried that The New York Times would write that his office "screwed up by not finding" that statue that he wrote to another attorney via email: "Would love to have some sort of response, so we don't look silly." (source: Associated Press) ********************* E.U.: Declaration by the Committee of Ministers on the death penalty in the USA The following declaration was adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 10 February 2016 at the 1247th meeting of the Ministers' Deputies. The Committee of Ministers deplores the execution of 5 persons in the United States since the beginning of 2016. It recalls that capital punishment contravenes the principles set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the European Convention on Human Rights and reiterates its appeal to the United States authorities to introduce a moratorium on the death penalty as a 1st step towards abolition. The Committee of Ministers is following with concern the debate relating to the lifting of the moratorium on executions in the State of California following the possible introduction of a new lethal injection protocol. It urges the Californian authorities not to go back on the moratorium put in place in 2006 so as to ensure that the death penalty remains a thing of the past. (source: Council of Europe; altervista.org) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Feb 16 09:39:36 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 09:39:36 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 16 THAILAND: Uighur suspects deny fatal Bangkok bombing charges 2 Uighur men accused of carrying out a bombing in the Thai capital that killed 20 people last year denied all charges at a military court Tuesday. The Bangkok court charged Adem Karadag and Yusufu Mieraili with 10 counts of criminal violation each, including terrorism and pre-meditated murder - both of which carry the death penalty. Both suspects maintained their innocence, with Karadag - also identified by Thai police as Bilal Mohammed and as Bilal Turk - insisting that he had entered Thailand after the Aug. 17 bombing, which also left 120 people injured. His lawyer Choochart Khanphai told reporters outside the courthouse, "my client since his arrest has never confessed to any charge." Khanphai attempted to correct his previous statements in the immediate aftermath of Karadag's arrest in September, which had accorded with those of authorities, who said his client had confessed to the crimes. "My previous statements were given at a time when I had no access to my client," he said. Police have said that both suspects have confessed to being paid by a mastermind to build and plant the bomb at a religious shrine in central Bangkok. The lawyer also underlined Tuesday that he had petitioned the court on Jan. 15 on the ground that his client said he had been tortured by plainclothes men while in military custody. "My client was intimidated by these men, they were waterboarded, threatened with large dogs and threatened with deportation to China." Both Karadag and Mieraili have refused to provide their addresses in China's northwestern Xinjiang region out of "fear of reprisal" from the government, who the Muslim Turkic minority group accuses of curtailing their cultural and religious rights. The next court date is set for April 20. Karadag has said through his lawyer that he is an ethnic-Uighur refugee from Xinjiang Province, and claims to have been naturalized as a Turkish citizen. While police have claimed the bombings were masterminded by human traffickers, angry at Thai authorities for clamping down on their networks, Khanphai has said that the bomb was connected to the controversial deportation of a Uighur group held in Thai immigration centers to China. Subsequent TV images of the Uighur sat on a plane blindfolded, handcuffed and under surveillance of guards, provoked uproar among local and foreign rights groups. The deported Uighur were from a group of around 400 held over immigration offenses in holding centers in Thailand at the beginning of 2014, many of whom claim to have Turkish nationality. In July, 85 men and 24 women from the group were deported to China, while around 180 were sent to Turkey. Many Turks welcome Uighur as their own, as they are among a number of Turkic tribes that inhabit a region they call East Turkestan and consider to be part of Central Asia, not China. In the past year, allegations of torturing suspects to gain confessions have been leveled at both Thai police and military. 2 Myanmar workers have claimed they were physically and mentally tortured until they confessed to the murder of 2 British tourists on the island of Tao, while Thai NGOs claimed in a report released earlier this month that the use of torture by security forces to obtain confessions in the country's Muslim majority south is "widespread and systematic". (source: aa.com.tr) BANGLADESH: Retired judge quits defence Retired High Court judge Nozrul Islam Chowdhury yesterday withdrew from the defence of war criminal Mir Quasem Ali. During the hearing on an appeal by Quasem challenging his death penalty, Justice Nozrul informed the Appellate Division that he would no longer be part of the proceedings. Later, he told reporters on the Supreme Court Bar Association premises that he had quit as Quasem's lawyer due to "serious adverse environment". It is not unconstitutional and unethical for a retired HC judge to move cases before the apex court, he said. Nozrul retired on December 12 last year and began appearing in the Appellate Division to move cases as a lawyer on January 3 this year. He said he had been involved with 2 other cases, in which Attorney General Mahbubey Alam was on the opposite side. The attorney general questioned the legality and ethical grounds of his moving the case on behalf of Quasem but he did not have anything to protest in those 2 cases. "Such attitude is unexpected." On February 10, the attorney general told the SC that the retired HC judge was still living at a government residence and using a car and gunman provided by the government. Against this backdrop, Justice Nozrul would be going against ethics of judges if he practised law in court, he added. Talking to reporters at his office yesterday, Mahbubey Alam thanked Justice Nozrul for his move. He added that there was no pressure from the government on Nozrul to do so. Meanwhile, SC lawyer Eunus Ali Akond filed a writ petition with the HC, seeking orders forbidding retired HC judges to practise law. In the petition, he prayed to the HC to scrap the constitutional provision that permits retired HC judges to practise law in the Appellate Division. Eunus told The Daily Star that the 15th amendment of the constitution was said to have restored the original constitution of 1972. The 1972 constitution did not allow retired HC judges to practise law in the apex court, he said, adding that former president Ziaur Rahman had amended the constitution in 1978 lifting the bar. However, under section 33 of the 15th amendment, retired HC judges are permitted to practise law, which is contradictory to the original constitution, Eunus said. 2 retired HC judges -- Justice Nozrul Islam Chowdhury and Justice Shahidul Islam -- are practising law in the SC although they are enjoying the state facilities and that goes against the 1972 constitution, he added. Eunus said he would move the petition before the HC for hearing next week. A 5-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha yesterday held the hearing on the appeal of Quasem for the 3rd day. The hearing will resume today. The International Crimes Tribunal in November 2014 sentenced the Jamaat-e-Islami leader to death, as he was found guilty of abducting, confining and torturing people during the Liberation War. Around 4 weeks later, Quasem filed the appeal with the SC, challenging the verdict. (source: The Daily Star) SYRIA: ISIS extremists publicly behead Syrian man for 'insulting the Caliphate' Extremists of the Islamic State (ISIS) executed on Monday a man in the city of Shaddadi in Syria's northeastern Hasakah province, after accusing him of "insulting the Caliphate". Saleh al-Rahim, 48, was publicly beheaded in central Shaddadi. "ISIS claimed that al-Rahim has refused to pay taxes to the al-Hisba (taxation) department, which the group considered a violation to its rules and an act of insult to the ISIS self-declared Caliphate," rights activist Ahmed Hussaini told ARA News in Shaddadi. The man was arrested at an ISIS security checkpoint near the village of Sarb in the vicinity of Shaddadi while trying to escape the ISIS-held area towards Hasakah city. The victim was brutally beheaded in front of hundreds of people in Shaddadi's central square, after one of the militants read a statement accusing him of insulting the Caliphate and deserving the death penalty, according to local sources. The city of Shaddadi is deemed the main bastion for ISIS jihadis in Hasakah province - where the group has recently lost large territories to the western-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). (soruce: ARA news) VIETNAM: Vietnam inmate avoids death penalty by getting pregnant; four guards suspended 4 prison guards in northern Vietnam have been suspended for alleged negligence after a female inmate, on death row for drug trafficking, became pregnant, which means her death sentence will be commuted to life in prison once her child is born, state media reported Tuesday. The Thanh Nien newspaper said Nguyen Thi Hue, 42, was arrested in 2012 for drug trafficking and sentenced to death in 2014. A court rejected her appeal the same year. The paper reported that while in prison Hue paid $2,300 to a male inmate to help her get pregnant. It said the 27 year-old male inmate twice put his sperm in a plastic bag with a syringe in a mutually agreed place and Hue inseminated herself. She became pregnant and is expected to give birth in about 2 months. Under Vietnamese law, Hue will have her death sentence commuted to life imprisonment for having a child under 3 years of age. Police in Quang Ninh province were not available for comment Tuesday. In 2007, 2 prison guards in northern province of Hoa Binh were sentenced for up to 5 years in prison for abuse of power for allowing a female inmate to get pregnant with a male inmate. (source: firstpost.com) KENYA: Mombasa man to hang for raping and killing 5-year-old A man yesterday was sentenced to death for defiling and strangling a 5-year-old girl. John Mwanzo, 42, defiled and killed the girl on December 30, 2012, at his home in Kizingo, Mombasa county. Judge Martin Muya sent Mwanzo to the hangman after he found the 42-year-old man guilty of murder. He was convicted last Tuesday. Muya said Mwanzo does not deserve mercy. "The crime you committed deserves a death penalty," he said. Mwanzo pleaded with the court to grant him a non-custodial sentence, saying he has 4 children who solely depend on him. He told the court he was remorseful. Mwanzo also urged the court to consider that he has been in remand since 2013 when the case started. (source: The Star) CANADA: Canada to fight for lives of citizens sentenced to death in all countries, including the U.S. It's not exactly a pardon from the governor, but the Liberal government says it will automatically plead for the lives of Canadians sentenced to death in the United States and any other country abroad. Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion announced the change on Monday as he met with the United Nations' top human rights official. The move effectively reverses 1 of the previous Conservative government's earliest and most contentious foreign policies. Dion also revealed plans to travel to Geneva at the end of the month to address the UN Human Rights Council, as Canada looks to re-engage with - and, some hope, help reform - its troubled human rights system. Successive Canadian governments had automatically sought clemency for Canadians sentenced to death by a foreign court. But that came to an end in 2007, when the Conservative government said it would begin asking for clemency on a case-by-case basis. The Conservatives said Canadians who commit crimes such as murder in a democratic country that adheres to the rule of law should not count on the government to help. Human rights groups and opposition parties said the Conservatives were effectively condoning the death penalty, which Canada abolished in 1976. In an interview Monday, Dion accused the Conservatives of "sending the message that Canada was not very sure we were against the death penalty, because we were ready to accept the death penalty under some circumstances. We were picking and choosing." In order to be able to maximize the possibility that you will get clemency for some, you need to ask for clemency for all. . Aside from running contrary to domestic policy in Canada, Dion said the Conservatives' position made it more difficult to successfully advocate for clemency in those situations when the government decided to act. "Our credibility to be able to get clemency was negatively affected," he said. "In order to be able to maximize the possibility that you will get clemency for some, you need to ask for clemency for all." Dion was extremely critical of capital punishment during the interview. Aside from the risk of innocent people being mistakenly sentenced to die, he said the death penalty "is not something that should be done in a civilized society, because a civilized society is looking for justice and not vengeance." Some will interpret that as criticism of the U.S. But Dion defended his comment, noting that "many Americans will agree with me." He added that the majority of states don't execute inmates. While the death penalty is legal in 31 states, moratoriums are in place in 20. Alex Neve, the head of Amnesty International Canada, applauded the government's move, calling it a "renewal" of Canada's commitment to human rights abroad. He said the 1st beneficiary should be Ronald Smith, an Alberta man on death row in Montana whose case was directly affected by the Tories' policy. Dion also announced that Canada will be redoubling its support for the UN's controversial human rights system, as he hosted UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein. It was the 1st such visit by the UN's top human rights official since 2006. The United Nations is not a perfect institution ... But in order to improve the situation, Canada must be there. Canada will contribute $15 million over 3 years to help UN Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which Al Hussein heads, investigate and report on human rights violations abroad. That is about double what Canada has given each year since 2013. Dion also said he plans to travel to Geneva at the end of the month to address the UN Human Rights Council (UNHCR), which has been steeped in controversy since it was established in 2006. Ostensibly the UN's leading organization for advancing human rights abroad, the council came under fire in September after members elected Saudi Arabia as its chair. The council has also spent a disproportionate amount of time and energy condemning Israel, while ignoring human rights violations elsewhere. "The United Nations is not a perfect institution," Dion acknowledged. "There are shortcomings everywhere, including with this human rights institution. But in order to improve the situation, Canada must be there. This idea that if it's not what we want, we'll pull out, has been a mistake that we need to stop." Shimon Fogel, head of the Centre for Jewish and Israel Affairs, said his organization remains deeply concerned about the council's "skewed and politicized character." He urged the government to adopt an "aggressive initiative," with Canada leading efforts to reform the UN's entire human right system. "We would hope and expect that (Dion) would set out the necessary steps to bring the UNHCR to a new, credible level of contributing to international peace and universal respect for human rights," Fogel said, "thereby earning the confidence of those who truly care about the protection of those rights." (source: National Post) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Feb 16 14:35:55 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 14:35:55 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., GA., MO., OKLA., CALIF. Message-ID: Feb. 16 NORTH CAROLINA: Attorneys: North Hills murder was 'tragic, completely senseless' After being delayed by winter weather Monday, closing arguments began Tuesday morning in the murder trial of Travion Smith, a 23-year-old who is charged with the 1st-degree murder of a woman in her North Hills apartment in May 2013. Smith is 1 of 3 people charged with 1st-degree murder in connection to Melissa Huggins-Jones' death and could face the death penalty if convicted. Huggins-Jones was new to the Triangle, having divorced and moved from Tennessee to an apartment complex off Six Forks Road, in the North Hills area with her 8-year-old daughter, Hannah Olivia Jones. Her son had stayed behind with his father in Tennessee to finish the school year. On the morning of May 14, 2013, Hannah wandered out of the apartment and approached a nearby construction crew, asking for help. A construction worker followed the girl back into the apartment and found Huggins-Jones dead in her bed, covered in blood. On Tuesday, the defense first had an opportunity to connect the dots for the jury. Smith's attorney said the case is about his co-defendant, Ronald Anthony, the man they say controlled Smith and is ultimately responsible for the murder. Anthony pleaded guilty in 2015 to 1st-degree murder to avoid the death penalty. "Everyone in this case is involved because of (Anthony)," Phoebe Dee said. But prosecutors disagree, saying that Smith was there with Anthony committing the murder, which makes him just as culpable. "The 2 were always together and are described as brothers," prosecutor Jason Waller said. Both sides called Huggins-Jones' murder "horrible, tragic and completely senseless." "(Huggins-Jones) was looking forward to a peaceful life here in Raleigh with her 2 kids, but that turned into a nightmare," Waller said. Defense attorney Jonathan Broun will have the opportunity to speak to the jury this afternoon, then the judge will give the jurors instructions on the law and deliberations will begin. If Smith is found guilty, the trial will move into a sentencing phase where the jury will have to decide if he will get the death penalty. Closing augments will continue at 1:30 p.m. and will be streamed on WRAL.com. (source: wral.com) GEORGIA----impending execution The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles says it will consider the clemency application of an inmate scheduled to be executed at midweek Court documents show Hittson, who was stationed in Pensacola, Florida, went with 2 other sailors, Edward Vollmer and Conway Utterbeck, to Vollmer's parents' home in Warner Robins. Hittson and Vollmer went out drinking and killed Utterbeck upon returning home. Vollmer reached a plea deal with prosecutors and is serving a life sentence for the killing. (source: Associated Press) MISSOURI: Cash, Killings and Secrets The State of Missouri paid its "confidential execution staff" in cash-stuffed envelopes, full of $100 bills. Yes, that's right, according to a recent Buzzfeed investigation, the people in Missouri responsible for actually executing death row inmates were paid, in total, over $250,000 in hard cold currency since 2013, in possible violation of federal tax laws. Can you imagine? On the night of a scheduled execution, a high-ranking corrections officer hands over an envelope, stuffed with thousands of dollars in cash, to the executioner, who is identified only by a pseudonym. The purpose of this circuitous payment route is to protect the identity of the executioner. To avoid a paper trail that could lead back to the identity of the state-paid death administrator. Now Missouri potentially finds itself in a bit of a tax pickle -- since these payments allegedly were not properly reported to the Internal Revenue Service. I don't want to get into the alleged tax evasion issue, although the idea of state government circumventing federal tax laws to get their death machine rolling is fascinatingly disturbing. What I want to talk about is the perceived need for secrecy in the first place. Punishment is done on behalf of society. When an offender commits a crime, society suffers the collective harm. When we punish, we punish on behalf of each and every one us. In some states, we punish using the death penalty. But if the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for certain defendants, then by definition it has to be carried out. Someone has to be the person to administer death. Otherwise, the death penalty is a punishment without death. Which would make it life without parole. Or something like that. So why the need for government secrecy about the execution team? Government secrets -- by and large -- are not a good thing. I've written here before about why secrecy is wrong in the context of lethal injection drugs. What about secrecy around the executioner? I am not sure I buy that either. Yet, it is true, that historically, the executioner's identity was kept secret. Think of the hooded hangman. And in keeping with that history, many modern state statutes continue to require that the executioner's name be confidential. That requirement reflects the reality that there is a stigma to being an executioner. And there are other concerns as well. Perhaps with the advent of the internet and social media, there is a real need to protect the executioner's privacy. Perhaps executioners themselves have some deep-seated ambivalence or conflict in the role that they play when they extinguish the life of another. Executioners who have gone public after the fact talk about the profound impact, and burden, that the job had on their own lives and their own world views. Or, perhaps, states are concerned that if names were made public, then no one would be willing to take the job. Think of the lengths that Missouri has undertaken to keep the executioner's identity a secret. Which brings me to my larger point. If government secrecy is necessary to avoid significant harm and duress to the executioner, then maybe the government should not ask people to perform such a troubling job in the first place. (source: Jessica Henry, Huffington Post) OKLAHOMA: Oklahoma grand jury probes executions after trail of resignations An Oklahoma grand jury investigating flawed executions in the state met on Tuesday after three top officials who previously testified before the panel submitted their resignations shortly after. Death penalty opponents said the resignations underscore the state's systemic failures in implementing the death penalty. The state's leaders see the grand jury as a necessary step in identifying problems that they can solve to then soon resume executions. The latest person to resign was Steve Mullins, the general counsel to Governor Mary Fallin, a Republican. Mullins, who announced his decision last week, said he was doing so because of the stress of the job. "One reason Oklahoma executions are so flawed is the lack of transparency. The public doesn't know where the state gets its drugs or the qualifications of those who carry out the executions," said attorney Dale Baich, who has represented death row inmates in Oklahoma. The other officials who resigned are State Penitentiary Warden Anita Trammell and Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton. Both said they were stepping down for personal reasons and to take on other work. The state set up the multi-county grand jury in October that has met behind closed doors. It is expected to finish its work in July and issue a report. Oklahoma drew international condemnation following a troubled execution in 2014 in which medical staff did not properly place an intravenous line on convicted murderer Clayton Lockett. The execution was halted after the needle popped out, spewing lethal injection chemicals in the death chamber. Lockett, seen twisting on the gurney, died about 45 minutes after the procedure began due to chemicals built up in his tissue. The state then revised its protocols but the two planned executions that followed last year were flawed, with the wrong chemical being added to the lethal injection mix. One of the executions was carried out and convicted murderer Charles Warner said in his final words, "My body is on fire." The other execution of Richard Glossip was halted just minutes before the planned time after the mistake was discovered. After that, the state placed a moratorium on executions. Oklahoma had been one the leading states in terms of executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, executing 112 death row inmates in the time, according the Death Penalty Information Center. (source: Reuters) CALIFORNIA: Prosecutors will seek death penalty against Martin Martinez in 5 Modesto slayings A prosecutor on Tuesday informed the court that the Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office will seek the death penalty against Martin Martinez, who is accused of killing his girlfriend, Amanda Crews, her 2 daughters, his mother and his niece last summer. Martinez appeared briefly in court Tuesday morning with his appointed attorney, Chief Deputy Public Defender Sonny Sandhu. The attorney has entered the not-guilty plea on behalf of his client and denied the enhancements and special-circumstances allegations. In a separate case, Martinez has already been ordered to stand trial on charges of murder and child abuse in the Oct. 2, 2014, death of Crews' 2-year-old son, Christopher Ripley. The trial in Christopher's death has not yet been scheduled. The 5 slayings occurred July 18 at Crews' home on Nob Hill Court in east Modesto. In addition to Crews, 38, the victims were her daughters, 6-month-old Rachael and 6-year-old Elizabeth; Martinez's mother, Anna Brown Romero, 57; and Martinez's 5-year-old niece, Esmeralda Navarro. Martinez was Rachael's father. Deputy District Attorney Rick Mury told Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Ricardo Cordova of the prodecution's decision to to seek the death penalty against Martinez during a brief hearing Tuesday morning. Prosecutors have filed a court document listing what type of evidence they would present to a jury if Martinez is convicted of 5 counts of murder along with special-circumstances allegations that make the case eligible for the death penalty. According to prosecutors, the evidence in these alleged factors in aggravation will include: -- Testimony of friends and relatives who discovered the victims' bodies. -- Photographs and videos of the victims in life. -- Victim impact evidence including testimony of family and close friends of the victims. -- The defendant's lack of remorse at the crime scene. -- Evidence of defendant's statements regarding the victims. -- Violence used in the homicides. -- Crime scene details to show advance planning and lack of remorse. -- All trial evidence regarding premeditation and deliberation, multiple homicides and lying in wait for the victims. The document filed Tuesday morning by Deputy District Attorney Annette Rees also indicates that prosecutors would present character evidence about the defendant that would included allegations of child abuse and domestic violence. In the penalty phase of capital murder cases, the same jury that convicts a defendant has to decide whether to put the defendant to death. The case charging Martinez with the 5 slayings has not yet reached the preliminary hearing phase, where the judge decides whether there is enough evidence for Martinez to stand trial. For now, the cases in the 5 slayings and Christopher's death will be prosecuted separately. They could be consolidated in the future. Prosecutors believe Martinez killed Crews and his mother with a knife. The criminal complaint filed last week includes knife enhancements in the deaths of Crews and Romero. Those enhancements do not appear on the murder charges for the children. Prosecutors have declined to discuss the manner of death for the children found at the Nob Hill Court home. Martinez since 2004 had worked as a stock/delivery clerk for the Stanislaus County Health Services Agency. Crews had worked as a doctor in Stanislaus County Health Services Agency clinics, most recently in Modesto. About 3:30 p.m. July 18, police officers conducting a security check at the Nob Hill Court home discovered the 5 bodies. They had been called by Crews' friends, who grew concerned after she and her daughter did not meet with them as planned earlier that day. Martinez was found in San Jose, where he has family. San Jose police arrested Martinez as he walked out of a movie theater with his father several hours after the slayings were discovered in Modesto. Modesto police investigators were about 2 weeks away from arresting Martinez in Christopher's death when the 5 other homicides occurred. Detectives had completed their investigation and were awaiting a report from a medical expert who reviewed Christopher's death. The boy suffered severe head injuries on Sept. 30, 2014, while he was alone with Martinez. The boy's mother had left the home to pick up one of her daughters and had asked Martinez to change the boy's soiled diaper. The toddler died at a Madera children's hospital after 2 days on life support. A child abuse expert and pediatrician at the hospital testified that the boy's brain had suffered severe swelling. Bleeding also was found just outside the brain. Martinez, 31, remains in custody at the Stanislaus County Jail. He is being held without bail. Judge Cordova scheduled the defendant to return to court March 21 for another pretrial hearing. (source: Modesto Bee) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Feb 16 14:36:39 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 14:36:39 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 16 CANADA: Canada defends its principles on death penalty abroad The Liberal government has signalled a major shift on seeking clemency for Canadians facing the death penalty abroad. Clemency will be sought "in each and every case, no exceptions," says Global Affairs Minister Stephane Dion, and not selectively as has been the practice since 2007. Ronald Smith, facing execution in Montana, got no support for his clemency plea in the United States from then-prime minister Stephen Harper, who said such backing would send the "wrong signal." The Federal Court disagreed; in 2009, it forced the government to ask for clemency, which it grudgingly did. Amnesty International believes only 2 Canadians are currently at risk of being executed abroad, both in the United States. (The federal government refuses to release numbers). But a few others in the Middle East did face this risk, and have since been freed or had sentences commuted. Dion says the death penalty "is not something that should be done in a civilized society." Supporting Canadian clemency requests abroad is a clear-sighted ethical stance from a government still defining its foreign policy. We may not have the largest clout on the world stage, but it???s worth declaring our principles clearly - and acting on them. Bravo. (source: Editorial, Ottawa Citizen) IRAN: Ahwazi: Iran Carrying Out Wave of Executions Hassan Rouhani's presidency has seen Iran's human rights record deteriorate markedly, especially with regards to the Ahwazi community. Human rights activists and intellectuals in particular are victims of a persistent and ruthless crackdown. They are illegally detained, face grossly unfair trials - often on spurious charges of "enmity to God" - and are then often sentenced to death and executed. Below is an article published by Countercurrents: The human rights situation has been worsening quickly in Iran. More than 2,000 people have been hung during Hassan Rouhani's tenure as President of the regime. This is the biggest scale of executions in the past 25 years. These mass executions will be added to the black pages of the Iranian regime's history of human rights violations since the Iranian revolution in 1979. The large-scale execution of political and ideological prisoners has resulted in Iran being named one of the top countries committing executions per capita during the past few years. Unlocked from its sanction-based constrictions, Iran is now fully free to underwrite terror and carry out more executions against Ahwazi Arab and throughout the country. 5 Ahwazi are facing imminent execution in public. The names of these Ahwazi Arab prisoners are Qais Obeidawi, Hamood Obeidawi, Mohammad Helfi, Mehdi Moarabi and Mehdi Sayahi. The 5 men were condemned following a trial filled with heinous violations of the judiciary process by the Revolutionary Court of mullahs in Iran. These prisoners were arrested in April 2015 and on Tuesday, June 16, 2015, were brought in front of television cameras of Press TV by the Ministry of Information to make public confessions about their fictional crimes. Farhad Afsharnya, the regime's supposed Chief Justice for the Al-Ahwaz region said the execution of the 5 Arabs was confirmed, it will be ratified by the court and execution will be carried out in public. These Ahwazi activists were only concerned with advancing cultural and social awareness for the cause of Ahwaz people and were not connected to an armed struggle against the state. The Iranian regime has stepped up its ferocious crackdown against Ahwazis and all none-Persian activists after the tension between Iran and its neighbours heightened as a result of Iran's involvement in Middle Eastern wars, such as in Syria and Yemen. Similar sentences which have been issued in closed rather than public court proceedings, give substantial reason to conclude that the Iranian judicial system only pays lip service to any idea of due process. Furthermore, it becomes apparent that human rights are overlooked by any president while the judicial system is not independent. These executions might occur anytime soon after the Iranian parliamentary election at the end of February [2016]. The Iranian regime's massive hypocrisy in condemning Saudi Arabia's questionable human rights record is breathtaking. Any use of the term "moderate" in connection with Iran's president Hassan Rouhani is ludicrous hyperbole; he is simply the president elected from the list of candidates chosen for the position by the Guardian Council, consisting of 12 Islamic theologians and jurists, according to the Iranian Constitution. Under the constitution, secular candidates or those who fail to embrace the Islamic Republic's theocratic hardline Shiite values are nominally capable of being selected but, in reality, are not. The parliament or Masjid has little power over the regime's religious courts to stop or even slow down the rate of executions, with the courts routinely issuing verdicts without even hearing evidence or investigating the charges against accused individuals as might be expected under legal systems elsewhere in the world. One example of the Iranian regime's legal system is the common charge of muharebeh or 'enmity to God,' routinely used against human rights activists and dissidents, which invariably receive the death penalty, often administered in public by stoning or mass hangings by cranes. Many of those hanged take up to 20 minutes to die slowly and painfully of strangulation. The victims' bodies are left for some time before being removed as a way of intimidating the public into silence. Since Hassan Rouhani took office in 2013, over 2,000 Iranians, including women, many of them Ahwazi Arabs, Kurdish and Baluchi Sunnis, have been executed, almost all after ludicrous kangaroo trials in which they were unrepresented and not allowed to submit any evidence in their defence. Recently, 6 of 33 Sunni men currently on death row were publicly executed in a mass hanging, while another woman was sentenced to death by stoning. This is the "moderate" Iranian regime. This report sheds light on this failure of the Iranian regime to respect the rights of the Ahwazi Arab people in Al-Ahwaz, the South and South-Western part of Iran. Conducted behind closed doors, before biased judges and in the absence of legal representation, the unfair trials of Arabs in the Al-Ahwaz region are part of a long-standing persecution of this oppressed people in Iran. Despite the fact that this recurring miscarriage of justice is in flagrant violation of the Islamic Republic's constitution, Iran's jails are filled with Ahwazi political prisoners who face brutal punishments, a lifetime in prison or execution. Over the past decade, hundreds of Ahwazi Arab prisoners ranging from poets, teachers to bloggers and human rights activists have been executed on trumped up charges in kangaroo courts. Rather than finding reasonable evidence for the commission of a crime, judges generally rely on confessions, which have been drawn out from the accused through physical torture and psychological duress. Meanwhile, friends and relatives of the accused are kept in the dark, often not informed of where their loved one has been imprisoned, or even buried. As we follow carefully the history of Ahwazi Arab people of repression, violence and capital punishment, we see that they have a long record of systematic crackdown over decades. Meanwhile, the execution of Ahwazi intellectuals historically has inflicted an irreversible blow to the liberty movement of this occupied nation that has been struggling to achieve its fundamental rights of self-determination for years. The executions of early leaders of the Ahwaz liberation movement in 1963, the oppressive policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran against Ahwazi people in every phases of their life, the tragic bloody massacre of Mohammareh in 1979, and the severe crackdown of popular uprising in 2005 provide ample evidence that intellectuals, Ahwazi public figures, and the political class of this nation repeatedly have been targeted for imprisonment, repression and execution. The largest popular uprising of Ahwazi people broke out on 9 April 2005 when people from several cities turned out into the streets and protested against the distribution of a circular (petition) attributed to Mohammad Ali Abtahi, former Vice President for Parliamentary and Legal Affairs of President Mohammad Ali Khatami. The latter events of popular uprising in April 2005 in Ahwaz, which was a non-violent demonstration against the wicked policy of the central government focusing on altering the demography of Ahwazi Arab people, reminded the nation of the catastrophic massacre when so many people were killed in the course of the widespread peaceful demonstration, so many people massacred in the street by Iranian squad riot forces. At the time, many civil and cultural activists were executed and many clean-handed and innocent young protesters were killed under torture, their bodies discovered in Karoon River. These bodies were wrapped up in plastic and their hands were tied up behind their backs with rope. After the massacre, terrible panic and a suffocating climate dominated the region and subsequently, the executions of highly educated, intellectuals, and civil and political activists started again. Notably, in 2005, dozens of teachers and cultural activists were arrested and after unfair trials and without access to legal representation, they were charged with vague charges, such as acting against the national security, enmity with God, corrupting the earth and blasphemy, and then condemned to execution or life imprisonment. As an example, Mr. Zamell Bawi, who was studying law at senior semester at university and was waiting for his graduation ceremony, was arrested by intelligence security and under physical and psychological tortures was forced to incriminate himself falsely. After a show trial in a revolutionary court in Ahwaz he was sentenced to death and his verdict confirmed by the higher tribunal in Tehran. Additionally, 6 immediate members of his family who were mostly students and cultural activists, were sentenced to life imprisonment and exiled to far- away prisons outside Ahwaz. In 2005, Ali Ouda Afravi , Mehdi Hantoush Navaseri, in 2006, Ali Matori, Malik al-Tamimi, Abdullah Soleimani (Kaabi), Abdul Amir Faraj Allah, Mohammad Lazem Kaab, Khalaf DhrabKhazraei , Ali Reza Asakereh, in 2007, Qasem Salamat, Majed Albughbish, Razi Zargani, Raisan Sawari, Abdolreza Hantoush Navaseri, Muhammed Ali Sawari, Jaafar Sawari, in 2008, Hussein Asakereh, Abdul Hussein Al-Hareibi, Ahmad Meramzy, Zamell Bawi, and in 2009, Khalil Kaabi and Said Sadon were sentenced to death on false charges of "enmity against God", and after months of torture in solitary confinement in secret prisons were secretly hanged. It is noteworthy that all these executed people were the educated and the political and cultural activists of the Ahwaz nation and the bodies of these people had not been handed over to their families. Hashem Shabani, an Ahwazi Arab poet and human rights activist was executed for being an "enemy of God" and threatening national security. In reality, he spoke about the brutal treatment of Ahwazi Arabs, while he was campaigning for the Ahwazi people who are oppressed, mocked and treated as 3rd citizens by Iranians. We have to keep in mind that if somebody is an Arab, then they are not the same as being an Iranian Persian because of their ethnic background. There is a cultural bias against Ahwazi Arabs in the mainstream Persian population. In 2011, the brothers Heydariyan (3 people) along with their friend, Ali Sharifi, were arrested in the wake of civil protests in Ahwaz. According to credible reports, they were charged with enmity with God and were sentenced to death after confessing under torture. They were denied a fair trial and judicial proceedings and in 2012 were hanged in secret. Ali Chbyshat and Khalid Mousavi were arrested in 2011 and were kept for seven months in solitary confinement by the Intelligence Service without access to lawyers and then convicted to death penalty and hanged in secret. Because of the severe repression, censorship, lack of freedom of the press and the judicial system's lack of transparency and lack of coverage for any of the non-Persian prisoners, there is no possible way to give exact figures of all the death sentences among non-Persian ethnic groups in Iran. Iran not only has the world's highest execution rates but the executions have mostly been carried out against ethnic groups such as Ahwazis, Kurds and Baluchis who are struggling to achieve their national and linguistic identity and self-determination rights. There are thousands of underage prisoners who have been executed in Iran. According to the International Covenants on Human Rights, the death penalty is forbidden for people who commit crimes while younger than eighteen years of age. "Waging war against God" is one of the leading charges used by the Iranian regime to justify the inhuman executions of ethnic groups in Iran. Since the 1980s, the clerical regime used it as a weapon to suppress many political and ideological opponents. Most executions of prisoners who were accused of "enmity against God" belong to non-Persian ethnic nationalities in Iran, mostly Ahwazi Arab, Baluch, and Kurdish activists. The regime defies international law by holding all the bodies of the executed prisoners. Hundreds of Ahwazi prisoners' bodies have been withheld by the Iranian authorities. Many human rights organisations called on the regime to hand over the bodies of the executed political prisoners to their anguished families. This is a part of the regime's collective punishment policy against the Ahwazi Arab people. Iran has refused to deliver the bodies of hundreds of Ahwazis executed since 2005 to date under the pretext that their families will hold funerals for them, which will serve as a catalyst for Ahwazi uprising. This reflects the racism of the Iranian regime against Ahwazi Arabs. Finally, one must question the purpose of the regime behind the high number of executions and the human tragedies. In a country where most of fraud and administrative and financial corruption are committed by regime officials, while the oppressed nations are living in extreme poverty, why is it that these officials have not been prosecuted or executed? It can be concluded that the executions of non-Persian prisoners have political and security aspects in a bid of the ruling regime in Iran to expand its domination and control over the occupied and oppressed nations of Ahwaz, Kurdistan, Baluchistan and other peoples in the country. When the Iranian regime learned that its agenda has been failed to put out the peaceful resistance of Ahwazi people, the Iranian authorities with the help of their deeply flawed criminal justice system began to prioritize the death penalty of Ahwazi prisoners, amid warnings from human rights organizations, such as Amnesty International. Since the Ahwazi uprising, the death sentences and executions are being imposed and carried out on Ahwazi prisoners even more extensively, after procedures that violate human rights standards. Iranian television stations like Press TV continue to broadcast self-incriminating testimonies of Ahwazi detainees even before the opening of a trial, undermining the fundamental rights of defendants to be considered innocent until proven guilty. Is it just Ahwazi political prisoners who must be executed for using their pens, the only weapons they raised in the struggle for the rights of the Ahwazi people? Why is it a crime in the Iranian state to write about the lack of basic rights to a decent existence for the Ahwazi people who live below the poverty line, while their land is teeming with natural resources such as oil, natural gas, mining stone and running water? All remain inaccessible to the people of Ahwaz, including the right to clean drinking water. Where is the justice when the Ahwaz region, the so-called heart of Iran's economy, is considered one of the poorest regions in Iran? >From 2003 to date, the climate in Ahwaz has dramatically deteriorated due to air pollution caused by Iran's industrial activities in Ahwaz. Ahwaz is one of the most polluted areas in Iran and the larger Middle East, and it is an area where there is a visible increase in the number of people dying from pollution-related diseases. One has only to visit the out-patient department in hospitals in the Ahwaz to find them filled with patients suffering from cancer and other pollution-related chronic lung diseases. If our political prisoners have established campaigns, it is only because they could not close their eyes and remain silent regarding the horrific sufferings of their people. The world is learning slowly that Ahwazi political prisoners are quickly sentenced to death after unjust show-trials where they are charged with "enmity against God", or that they post a risk to national security, or militant activities and secession. The vast majority of Iranians, the pro-Iranian Mullah regime who view themselves as human rights advocates who claim to be distraught over the rivers of blood flowing in Syria and other Arab nations are weeping crocodile tears if they're honest, having remained silent for decades on the plight of the Ahwazi Arab peoples and other brutally oppressed ethnic groups in Iran who are murderously subjugated and brutalised solely for claiming their lawful rights. Iran, by dominating on the wealth of this nation, has increasingly plundered it and as a result of it, the villages and towns of Al-Ahwaz were destroyed day by day. The chauvinist policies of Iranian governments have had to try to completely deny the existence of Ahwazis. In return, when Ahwazis protest at the ongoing oppression, they will be dealt with live fire or arrest and then execution. It seems that the execution sentence is Iran's last resort to liquidating Ahwazi prisoners. (source: Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization) PAKISTAN: SC seeks record of accused convicted by military courts The Supreme Court on Tuesday maintained its earlier stay order against death penalty of four criminals given by military courts and sought the whole record of the proceedings. The 2-member apex court bench comprising Justice Dost Muhammad and Justice Qazi Faez Isa heard the pleas filed by the 4 accused against their conviction by the military courts. Accused Ali Rehman and Taj Muhammad were convicted by a military court for financing terrorists, who attacked Army Public School Peshawar, Qari Muhamamd Zubair for attacking a mosque in Noshewara, and Imarn for killing army personnel and civilians in Bajour Agency. Their pleas against the military courts' verdicts were rejected by the Peshawar High Court (PHC) and they had moved the apex court. During course of proceedings, Col Jamsheed appeared before the court and stated that Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General Raheel Sharif had dismissed the mercy appeals of the convicts and their death warrants were issued after the signature of COAS. Attorney General Salman Aslam Butt submitted the record of the case. The bench objected on the record, saying it had sought the record of trial courts, which was missing. Later, the court sought the record and adjourned the case for an indefinite time. (source: Business Recorder) JAPAN----film review Death by Hanging The documentary-esque opening of Nagisa Oshima's Death by Hanging calmly establishes an execution chamber and its efficiency in such a way as to tempt the audience to accept, even admire, the dispassionate letter of the law. Shots gently travel down bare corridors and take in waiting cells and Buddhist altars, giving the chamber's spartan layout a facade of honor and respect. It's only when one blindfolded prisoner is led to the gallows trembling in fear that the detached mood wavers, and Oshima includes a thoroughly chilling shot that idly traces the path of the rope from the dangling noose up to the ceiling, then diagonally down to where the rest of the length has been pulled taut and tied off. Everything leading up to that shot could have made its way into a state-approved feature on the legality of execution, but the protracted gaze on the method of killing imparts such great, disturbing power to the noose that the full truth of the death penalty can no longer be viewed in abstract terms of justice. This moment of clarity leads immediately into the hanging of the condemned, a Korean-Japanese man named R (Do-yun Yu). Having set up the efficiency of capital punishment, the film loses its straightforward momentum when the prisoner doesn't die and is merely rendered unconscious. The staff around him are so shocked that they immediately begin to debate what to do next. Most favor simply putting R right back into the noose and finishing the job, but one officer notes that they cannot hang an unconscious man. "The prisoner's awareness of his own guilt is what gives execution its moral and ethical meaning," he says before hastily adding, "Though I'm no authority." With this fastidious attention to self-justification, the film pivots abruptly from a social-realist message movie to a grim satire. The prison staff works to "heal" the man so that he can be fit to execute, though they must contend not only with R's physical health, but his capacity to remember, and thus regret, his crimes. This leads to farcical reenactments of those violations by the prison staff, charades led by the prison's sniveling bureaucrat of an education officer (Fumio Watanabe), who attempts to jog R's memory like a kindly teacher trying to get a dim pupil to understand the most basic of concepts. The exercise gradually implicates the staff to the point that they're visited by what appears to be the ghost of a woman who confirms R's guilt, but viciously condemns the death penalty. The ghost's debate with the officers is the pinnacle of the film's dark farce, but the gentle empathy she feels for the prisoner also points toward the somber self-examination of the final act. Though the film focuses on capital punishment in general, its moral conflict also extends to R's ethnicity and how that affects his place in Japanese society. Early in the film, the staff act out R's childhood with racist stereotypes and a concocted narrative that suggests he would always grow up to be a savage. But their racism unwittingly implies that if R's youth set him up for failure, it could be the result of such condescending, dismissive treatment by Japanese authority and society as much, if not more so, than personal flaws. The ghost, who herself claims to be Korean, corroborates this, gently commiserating with the condemned for their shared torment. If Oshima sees the death penalty in general as wrong, his understanding of the disproportionality of it truly rages at Japanese hypocrisy, especially given the still-recent history of the nation's treatment of the peninsula during World War II. Near the end of the film, which is otherwise shot in neutral grays, R walks past a Japanese flag on the wall rendered in high contrast, framing it as a blazing, white void pockmarked by a black hole. It is an obliterative image, one that uses the symbol of a nation to consume it whole, and it summarizes the film's rage and disgust better than any speech. Image/Sound The film's low-contrast cinematography places emphasis on the atmospheric pallor of the execution chamber, as well as the story's moral torpor, and Criterion's restored transfer clearly differentiates between the many shades of gray. The intentional flatness of the images doesn't preclude healthy textures maintained by preserved grain; close-ups, which increasingly dominate the second half of the film, show great detail. The lossless mono track faithfully renders the audio, which consists largely of dialogue, but occasionally broadens to include more subtle additions, like the sound of a heartbeat as R fails to die as expected at the start of the film. Extras The Blu-ray comes with Nagisa Oshima's 1965 short documentary Diary of Yunbogi, a frank depiction of the Korean-Japanese tensions that are explored more abstractly in Death by Hanging. The disc also includes a half-hour interview with Tony Rayns, who discusses Oshima's career in general overview. Rayns's most valuable contributions consist of the ample social context he gives for the director's ever-changing style. Finally, there's a theatrical trailer, as well as a leaflet with a brief introduction written by the director in 1968, and an essay by Howard Hampton that places the film within the context of Oshima's radical '60s period and its Godardian mixture of genre deconstruction and politics. Overall Nagisa Oshima's satire on capital punishment and its racist application has lost none of its relevance, and its punkish fury is excellently served by Criterion's gorgeous Blu-ray. (source: Slant Magazine) BELARUS: Belarus sentences triple murderer to death Belarus on Tuesday sentenced to death a man convicted of killing 3 people, the day after the European Union (EU) announced it was lifting sanctions against the ex-Soviet country for an improved human rights record. It was the 3rd death penalty handed down in Belarus since November 2015. The 32-year-old man, whose name was not released, was sentenced by a court in Minsk which had found him guilty of 5 crimes including the 3 murders, announced Yulia Liaskova, spokeswoman for the Belarusian high court. These crimes were "committed with particular cruelty," she said. The 2 other recent death sentence cases in Belarus were in January when Gennadi Yakovitsky, 49, was convicted of killing his companion and in November, when Ivan Kulesh, 29, was found guilty of killing 3 saleswomen. The latest death sentence came after EU foreign ministers agreed Monday to lift nearly all sanctions on Belarus, including against strongman President Alexander Lukashenko, after improvements in the country's human rights record. EU foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini said that Belarus was "showing a positive trend which we want to encourage." At the same time the European Union is opposed to capital punishment and abolishing the death penalty is a pre-condition for a country becoming a member of the bloc. More than 400 people have been condemned to death in Belarus since the 1990s, according to estimates by human rights groups. (source: Agence France-Presse) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Feb 16 23:08:54 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 23:08:54 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C. Message-ID: Feb. 16 TEXAS----execution Texas Executes Man For 1990 Murder----Gustavo Garcia died by lethal injection on Tuesday for killing a store clerk during an armed robbery. Gustavo Garcia, 43, was executed in Texas on Tuesday for the 1990 murder of a liquor store clerk during an armed robbery. Garcia fatally shot Craig Turski, 43, with a shotgun as he and an accomplice, Christopher Vargas, robbed the Beverage Warehouse in Plano. Garcia, who was 18 at the time of the crime, has spent more than 1/2 of his life on death row. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected Garcia's clemency petition, the Associated Press reported. A U.S. district judge on Friday refused to halt Garcia's execution. His attorneys had argued that Garcia's execution should be stayed to provide time for new independent counsel to review his case and to determine if there were claims that his former attorneys failed to raise in previous proceedings. The U.S. Supreme Court has also previously rejected Garcia's appeals. On Dec. 9, 1990, Garcia ordered Turski to hand over money from the cash register at the Beverage Warehouse, while Vargas, who was 15 at the time, stole beer and transported it to their vehicle, according to court documents. After Turski handed over around $500, Garcia ordered him to get on his knees in a room next to the cash register, according to Garcia's written confession. After a customer walked into the store and saw Garcia, he said he "panicked" and shot Turski with a sawed-off shotgun. "The clerk started coming at me and threw a chair at me and then he ran outside," Garcia's confession said. "I loaded the shotgun and shot the clerk again outside the store. The clerk had jumped over the fence and was in some grass when I shot him the 2nd time." A month later, Garcia, Vargas and Garcia's girlfriend stopped at a gas station in Plano. Garcia and Vargas entered the station with the same .20 gauge shotgun Garcia used to kill Turski. The store clerk, Gregory Martin, told his girlfriend over the phone to call the police. Martin was taken to a back room and fatally shot at point blank range in the back of his head. The police found Vargas standing over Martin's body while Garcia was hiding in a freezer close to where the shotgun was lying. Garcia claimed that Vargas shot Martin but the identity of the shooter was never confirmed, court documents showed. As a minor, Vargas was ineligible for the death penalty, and was sentenced to life in prison. In 1998, Garcia and 6 other death row inmates attempted to escape the Huntsville prison on Thanksgiving night. While 1 inmate managed to flee, Garcia, along with the others were caught before they escaped the prison complex. Garcia's death sentence was overturned on appeal in 2000, due to testimony from psychologist Walter Quijano, who the Texas Tribune reported had testified "that Hispanics were more likely to pose a future danger to society." He was granted a new sentencing trial, but was sentenced to death again in 2001. "He was just a callous murderer," Kevin Turski, the victim's brother told The Dallas Morning News. "They took the money, and they shot him anyway." Garcia becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 534th overall since Texas resumed executions on December 7, 1982. Garcia becomes the 16th condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas since Greg Abbott became governor in Jan. 2015. Garcia becomes the 6th condemned ionmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1428th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. At least 9 other Texas inmates have executions scheduled in the coming months, including 3 in March. So far this year, 6 inmates have been put to death nationwide - 3 in Texas and 1 each in Florida, Alabama and Georgia. Last year, 28 executions took place in the U.S., 13 of them in Texas. (sources: BuzzFeedNews, Associated Press & Rick Halperin) ****************** Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----16 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----534 Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. # 17---------March 9------------------Coy Wesbrook----------535 18---------March 22-----------------Adam Ward-------------536 19---------March 30-----------------John Battaglia--------537 20---------April 6------------------Pablo Vasquez---------538 21---------April 27-----------------Robert Pruett---------539 22---------May 11-------------------Terry Edwards---------540 23---------June 2-------------------Charles Flores--------541 24---------July 14------------------Perry Williams--------542 (sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin) NORTH CAROLINA: Jury finds Smith guilty of 1st-degree murder in North Hills murder trial A Wake County jury on Tuesday found Travion Devonte Smith guilty of 1st degree murder in the 2013 bludgeoning death of Melissa Huggins-Jones. The jury took less than 2 hours to render a verdict that brought audible sights of relief from the family of Huggins-Jones. Jurors, having convicted Smith of 1st-degree murder, will return at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday to decide whether he gets the death penalty or something less. The jury tasked with deliberating Smith's fate heard 2 competing narratives on Tuesday as prosecutors and defense attorneys stitched together evidence from the past 2 weeks in closing arguments. Prosecutors argued that Smith, 23, was guilty of 1st-degree murder, that he was inside the North Hills apartment where Huggins-Jones was found bludgeoned to death on May 14, 2013, and struck her during a violent attack. Defense attorneys countered that prosecutors had not proved Smith was in the North Hills apartment and instead put the blame for her killing on Ronald Lee Anthony, who already has pleaded to 1st-degree murder in the case. Before sending the 6-man, 6-woman jury behind closed doors to begin their deliberations, Judge Paul Ridgeway laid out the possible verdicts they could reach. Among those verdicts are first-degree murder, which requires premeditation or malice, felony murder, which encompasses a killing that occurred as a burglary took place, or second-degree murder, which includes a reckless disregard for life. Prosecutors argued that Smith was guilty of both 1st-degree murder and felony murder, in part, under the theory that he was acting in concert with someone who committed the murder. "You can decide this case on acting in concert even if you believe the defendant never touched her," Assistant Wake County District Attorney Jason Waller said. "You've got to decide if there was a burglary...all he has to do is step into the apartment." The defense argued that the witness for the prosecution who put Smith inside the apartment - a jailhouse informant who shared a cell with Smith - suffered from a psychotic disorder that affected his credibility. "The question is 'Can you trust what he said?'" Defense attorney Jonathan Broun asked in his closing arguments. Smith faces the possibilty of capital punishment if he is found guilty of 1st-degree murder. He was arrested a little more than a week after Huggins-Jones was found dead in her bed by a construction worker. Mother's Day visit Melissa Huggins-Jones had been with her parents shortly before her death. They had been together for a post Mother's Day meal and parted ways with Huggins-Jones telling them that she planned to take a walk in the neighborhood. When Huggins-Jones moved to Raleigh, shortly before her death, she had left Tennessee to start anew after the breakup of her marriage. Her daughter Hannah, just 8 at the time, was with her. Her son planned to join them after finishing the school year in Tennessee. "Peaceful setting, urban location," Waller said. "When Melissa Huggins-Jones decided to move here back in 2013 that's what she was looking for - a peaceful setting. An urban location." About the same time Huggins-Jones was moving to Raleigh, Waller pointed out, Smith and Anthony were moving in together in Oxford. Prosecutors contend that Smith and Anthony were like brothers, they did everything together. The defense team countered that Anthony, who was older than Smith had a charisma that pulled people towards him. Defense attorneys described Anthony as a master manipulator who preyed upon a vulnerability they say Smith had. Anthony, Smith and Sarah Redden, who also is accused of murder in the case, were together on May 13 for much of the day. The 3 were at North Hills, where they went to an ice cream store and had a kerfuffle about whether they needed to list criminal histories on a job application. That visit led to an encounter at a Starbucks, where the ice cream store manager was confronted by Anthony, according to trial testimony. The trio continued their time together, breaking into cars in the shopping center parking lot and taking electronics and GPS equipment. They then went to a Bonefish Grill restaurant, where the waitress remembered them because of the odd assortment of pins, golf tees and other small items left behind on their table. Waller described the items as things they picked up in the car break-ins. After leaving the restaurant that night, Anthony bought gloves, according to testimony, and the trio set out for the North Hills apartment complex where Huggins-Jones lived with her daughter. Redden, who testified for prosecutors, said she acted as a lookout that night. The men had split away from her, telling her to remain in a breezeway. That's when prosecutors contend that Smith and Anthony scaled the wall of the apartment building where Huggins-Jones lived and crawled onto the balcony, where an unlocked door awaited them. Prosecutors contend that Smith and Anthony left behind foot prints and fabric prints on opposite ends of the balcony where their gloves left impressions on the railing. Redden testified that she saw Smith on the balcony at one point during the night and asked where Anthoy was. Smith, she testified, pointed to the inside of the apartment. One shoeprint on an outside air-conditioning unit, prosecutors argued, matched shoes that Smith had. A shoeprint found inside the home on the new carpet matched shoes that Anthony had. Forensic evidence Prosecutors argued that crime scene investigators did not find DNA evidence at the crime scene to implicate Smith or Anthony because they wore gloves. They argued that Smith struck at least 1 of the 18 blows that Huggins-Jones suffered, and reminded jurors that he recounted for an investigator on the day of his arrest, hearing a "horrifying scream" that reminded him of a horror movie. Redden alerted Smith when he was on the balcony that Raleigh police were in the area. They were crusing around after reports of break-ins. Once she caught up with Anthony and Smith on the ground level, Waller said, their gloves were gone and they had water bottles they had not had before. Waller contends they used the water bottles to wash blood off their hands. Broun argued that if Smith had been in the apartment where so much blood was shed that he would have been covered with blood and he was not. Redden reported seeing blood splaters on the bottom of his shirt and seeing Anthony remove his shirt and put on a different one. The trio eventually got a ride from a friend of Anthony's who drove them to a strip club to the north, where they were to return the car to their driver???s girlfriend. They all went to a Motel 6 afterward. Redden said Smith was quiet that night, not his typical goofy self. He was worried about his child, Redden said, and turned to Anthony inside the motel room and asked: "What the hell just happened?" Prosecutors and the defense team put different spins on the meaning of that question. Defense attorney Phoebe Dee told the jury in closing arguments, that everybody was in that room because of Anthony's ability to make people do what he wanted them to do. "Everyone in this case is involved because of him," Dee said. The jury began deliberating behind closed doors at 2:40 p.m. A Wake County jury has not sentenced anyone to death row since 2007. (source: newsobserver.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 17 09:18:48 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2016 09:18:48 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----VA., N.C., S.C., GA., FLA., ALA., LA. Message-ID: Feb. 17 VIRGINIA: Virgina, don't revive the electric chair Since the turn of the century, capital punishment in the United States has been on an accelerating downward spiral. Fewer states sentence people to death, fewer still carry out those sentences, and the relative handful of states that continue to execute people do so with diminishing frequency. At the same time, with vanishingly few exceptions, lethal injection has become the consensus method used for the dwindling number of executions - the only technique regarded as relatively humane, meaning absent obvious manifestations of the intentional infliction of pain. Yet as so many states move forward, Virginia is considering a step back. That's the direction the commonwealth would go if it enacts legislation forcing convicts to die by electric chair if lethal injection drugs cannot be found. The legislation, passed by Richmond's Republican-controlled House of Delegates and now before the Senate, arises from 2 factors: the scheduled execution of 1 of the state's 7 death row inmates, and the fact that drug companies have blocked the use of their products in lethal injections, leaving death penalty states scrambling. The bill's sponsor, Del. Jackson H. Miller (R-Manassas), used the horrific murders committed by Ricky Gray, who is scheduled to be executed next month, to argue for requiring use of the electric chair in the absence of lethal injection drugs. Mr. Gray was convicted of killing a Richmond musician, his wife and their 2 daughters, age 9 and 4, and also confessed to killing his own wife and 3 other members of a Richmond family. Mr. Gray's crimes were ghastly; their ghastliness does not negate or diminish the electric chair's cruelty. Of the 744 people executed in the United States since Jan. 1, 2001, just 9 of them (including 5 in Virginia) have died by electrocution, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. There's a reason the chair is no longer used by the vast majority of states: It's barbaric. A court in Georgia, a death penalty state, outlawed use of electrocution in 2001 as violating its state constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The court noted the chair inflicts "purposeless physical violence and needless mutilation," noting its "specter of excruciating pain and its certainty of cooked brains and blistered bodies." Since 2008, no state besides Virginia has used the electric chair. Virginia allows inmates to select the electric chair as an alternative to lethal injection. Yet if Mr. Gray elects to die by lethal injection, and the needed drugs are lacking, then what? 1 alternative is to wait until the drugs are procured. Executions are routinely delayed for any number of reasons; a delay in order to carry out the sentence humanely is hardly unreasonable. Another alternative is for Virginia to recognize the future and scrap capital punishment altogether. Use of the death penalty nationwide has fallen steadily for 15 years, to just 28 executions last year from 85 in 2000. In the same span, death sentences have plummeted to 49 last year from 223 in 2000. The trend is clear; Virginia should embrace it. (source: Editorial Board, Washington Post) NORTH CAROLINA: A Forsyth County judge ruled against prosecutors Tuesday who wanted school records for a Winston-Salem man accused of stabbing his girlfriend to death outside her house in 2014. Ferjus Bernard Moore, 54, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Cheryl Annise Bethea, 43, on Aug. 25, 2014. Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O'Neill said last year that Bethea was stabbed 39 times. Forsyth County prosecutors are pursuing the death penalty. According to Winston-Salem police, Bethea and Moore had been dating for about 3 years and had lived together at her house at 305 Upton St. The 2 had been arguing outside Bethea's house when, police said, Moore stabbed her. Bethea's daughter and grandson were inside the house at the time. According to a search warrant, Moore was found outside on top of Bethea. Police seized a knife at the scene. Assistant District Attorney Matt Breeding filed a motion last week requesting Moore's school records. Breeding and Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Martin are prosecuting the case. Breeding said in court Tuesday that prosecutors were asking for the records so they can better prepare for trial. He said Moore's attorneys, Mark Rabil and David Botchin, may offer evidence that Moore was mentally disabled during the sentencing phase of the trial or they may seek a defense of diminished capacity. "It's really an opportunity to explore issues that may come up in sentencing," Breeding said. Rabil said in court that the request is premature. He said he and Botchin are continuing to investigate the case. In a written objection, Rabil and Botchin said the records might include psychological testing reports, school counseling reports or nursing records, which are protected by various state and federal laws. They also said the request violates Moore's constitutional rights against self-incrimination. Breeding acknowledged that Rabil and Botchin have not given any notice of what their defense will be. He said prosecutors wanted to get a head start in trial preparations. Judge David Hall of Forsyth Superior Court, however, denied prosecutors' motion for the school records. Hall agreed with Rabil that it is premature but added that prosecutors could renew their motion at a later time when the issue becomes relevant. He also granted prosecutors' motions to request Moore's medical records from his stay at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center from Aug. 25, 2014, to Sept. 4, 2014. Moore was treated for cuts after the incident on Aug. 25. Hall also granted prosecutors' motions for records from Forsyth County EMS regarding its treatment of Moore. Moore is in the Forsyth County Jail with no bond allowed. No trial date has been set. (source: Winston-Salem Journal) *************** Death penalty review set for man accused of shooting Lake Wylie couple The man accused of fatally shooting a Lake Wylie couple will have his case heard before a federal committee later this month to determine if prosecutors should seek the death penalty in the case. According to federal court documents, filed Monday, a Capital Review Committee is scheduled to meet Feb. 29. The committee will take up the case against Malcolm Hartley. Hartley is charged with murder in the October 2014 killings of 61-year-old Debbie London and 63-year-old Douglas London. Federal prosecutors say Briana Johnson, 18 years old at the time of the shooting, drive Hartley to the London's home where he shot and killed the couple. The information was filed as part of an appeal from Hartley's attorney, Rob Heroy. The appeal asks for witness statements, grand jury testimony and reports documenting witness statements, along with a slew of other investigative reports, interviews and evidence. The document was an appeal of a Magistrate Judge David Keesler' order earlier this month that denied a previous attempt by the defense to obtain evidence. "[It] is necessary for the defendant to meaningfully present his case in mitigation to the Department of Justice (DOJ) in an attempt to persuade the government as to why the death penalty should not be authorized in this case," the appeal contends. The document also asks for information and evidence whether Doug and Debbie London were engaged in criminal activity near the time of their deaths. The appeal requests the materials "as quickly as possible" saying the Capital Committee hearing is scheduled for February 29. The DOJ considers the case for about 90 days. Jamell Cureton, the alleged leader of the United Blood Nation (UBN) gang, is accused of plotting the murder of the Londons from behind bars. The Londons were found shot to death in their Tioga Road home on October 23. A 51-page federal indictment says the couple was killed to keep the husband from testifying against 3 gang members who attempted to rob the Londons' mattress store in May 2014. Cureton was reportedly wounded by Doug London during the attempt. A total of 12 accused UBN gang members were indicted in the case. (source: WBTV news) ********** Jury to weigh life or death for man found guilty of killing North Hills mom A Wake County jury will reconvene on Wednesday to start deciding the sentence for a man who was found guilty Tuesday in the death of a North Hills mother. The jury took about an hour on Tuesday afternoon to find Travion Smith, 23, guilty of 1st-degree murder in the May 2013 death of Melissa Huggins-Jones, a mother of an 8-year-old child. Because this was a capital case, Smith could face the death penalty for killing Huggins-Jones in her North Hills apartment. During the penalty phase of the trial, jurors will hear arguments for why Smith should live or die. Smith is 1 of 3 people charged with 1st-degree murder in connection with the death of Huggins-Jones. Ronald Anthony and Sarah Redden were also charged in the case. Anthony pleaded guilty to 1st-degree murder and is serving a life sentence. Sarah Redden has admitted she was the get-away driver after the killing of Huggins-Jones. If Smith is sentenced to death, he will join 152 other offenders on death row in North Carolina right now. North Carolina's death row is located in Raleigh and currently houses 149 men and 3 women. North Carolina is 1 of 32 states with a death penalty, but because of legal challenges, no executions have been carried out in the state since 2006. The Restoring Proper Justice Act was signed into law by Gov. Pat McCrory this past summer. It removes some of the impediments to executions in the state, including dropping the requirement that a licensed physician be present during an execution. Doctors had been reluctant to participate because such an action violates their medical ethics. The revision allows other medical professionals, not just doctors, to oversee an execution. The new law also allows the state to exempt information about drugs used in lethal injections and the companies that manufacture them from public records laws. (source: WNCN news) SOUTH CAROLINA: Meeting to determine death penalty set for man accused of shooting couple A federal committee will meet later this month to discuss whether prosecutors should seek the death penalty in the case of the accused shooter of a Lake Wylie couple. The Capital Review Committee is scheduled to meet Feb. 29 regarding Malcolm Hartley, according to documents filed by his defense team Tuesday. Hartley is one of 12 accused United Blood Nation gang members indicted in late 2014. Several face charges directly connected to the murder of Doug and Debbie London. The information was contained in an appeal filed by Hartley's attorney. His defense team is asking the government to release certain discovery information before or not long after the Capital Review Committee meeting so it can be used to argue against the death penalty. "In this case, the defense is trying to get those kind of statements and any evidence that's favorable to them earlier so that they can use it in connection with their conference with the Department of Justice," said James Wyatt, a defense attorney and legal analyst. The new documents filed were an appeal of a magistrate judge's order that denied a previous attempt by the defense to obtain evidence. In the appeal, the defense seeks a wide range of evidence that would be in favor of Hartley, including whether he was "coerced" by fellow conspirators. It also seeks evidence harmful to the reputation of the Londons, including whether Doug London was ever arrested. Wyatt said the defense will cast the net wide for any evidence that can be used to protect Hartley from facing a death penalty case. "A normal case, you want to ask for a broad array of evidence. In a death penalty case, you want to make doubly sure you ask for that and more," Wyatt said. 7 of the 12 suspects in the indictment have already pleaded guilty. None have been sentenced. In the new notice, Hartley's defense team said the Capital Review Committee might not make a decision for "several months" after the meeting. (source: WSOC TV news) GEORGIA----impending execution Georgia parole board denies clemency to Travis Hittson The State Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied clemency to Travis Hittson, who is scheduled to be executed Wednesday for killing a fellow Navy sailor. The board's decision, announced Tuesday, rejected pleas for mercy from Hittson's legal team. In a clemency petition, the lawyers said Hittson is extremely remorseful for what he did, has had an exemplary prison record and was manipulated to commit the murder by a co-defendant who may one day be paroled. The murder occurred April 3, 1992, in Warner Robins. According to court records, Hittson's lead petty officer, Edward Vollmer, told Hittson to kill fellow sailor Conway Utterbeck on the pretense that Utterbeck was planning to kill them. After Hittson hit Utterbeck on the head with a baseball bat, Vollmer handed Hittson a handgun and told him to shoot Utterbeck. Hittson then fired a fatal shot into Utterbeck's forehead, and he and Vollmer cut up Utterbeck's body and buried buried the remains in different places. The clemency petition says Vollmer exercised "unnatural dominance and control" over Hittson and manipulated him into killing Utterbeck. Separately, Hittson's lawyers will appeal a state court judge's decision, denying a request to throw out Hittson's death sentence. But a Butts County judge denied that request and Hittson's lawyers are expected to appeal that decision to the Georgia Supreme Court. "Mr. Hittson was robbed of a fair and reliable sentencing trial when the prosecutor was permitted to sandbag the defense with the testimony of a state psychologist, Dr. Robert Storms, who revealed off-the-cuff but nevertheless callous statements allegedly made by Mr. Hittson about the victim, during a pre-trial evaluation," the petition said. During the trial, the trial judge had said he would not let Storms take the stand unless Hittson's lawyers presented psychiatric mitigation evidence during the sentencing phase of the trial, the petition said. Even though Hittson's defense team did not present such evidence, the judge let Storms testify anyway, the petition said. For this reason, Hittson's defense team "was utterly disarmed by the prosecution's tactic, abetted by the trial court's disregard of both governing law and its own assurances," the petition said. (source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution) FLORIDA: House Ready To Move On Death Penalty Changes Taking an approach backed by prosecutors and Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Florida House on Wednesday is slated to take up a bill that would revamp the state's death-penalty sentencing system. Lawmakers are hurrying to make changes after the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 12 ruled that the current system is unconstitutional because it gives too much power to judges, instead of juries, in sentencing defendants to death. The House and Senate agree on a key part of addressing the Supreme Court ruling - requiring that jurors be unanimous in deciding that at least 1 "aggravating" factor exists before a defendant can be eligible for the death penalty. But the two chambers are divided on a high-profile issue about whether jurors should be required to be unanimous in recommending to judges that death sentences be imposed. In the past, Florida has required only majority recommendations. The House, with support from prosecutors and Bondi, wants to move to a 9-3 vote, while the Senate wants to require a unanimous recommendation. The House is slated to take up its bill (HB 7101) during a floor session Wednesday afternoon, according to a calendar of bills approved Monday by the Rules and Calendar Committee. (source: northescambia.com) ALABAMA: Sleepy juror dismissed in John Clayton Owens capital murder trial; state rests case A juror had to be dismissed Tuesday afternoon in the capital murder trial of a Huntsville man accused of killing his elderly neighbor during a burglary in 2011. Madison County Circuit Judge Alison Austin suddenly halted proceedings in the trial of John Clayton Owens and ordered the public removed from the courtroom. After speaking briefly to the juror, Austin dismissed the woman. Austin, in telling the remaining jurors about the dismissal, pointed out that it is important for them all to stay alert and do what they need to do to decide the case. Observers in the courtroom last week noticed the dismissed juror appearing to doze during testimony. Owens, 32, faces the death penalty in the Aug. 26, 2011, strangling death of Doris Richardson, his 91-year-old neighbor on Bide-A-Wee Drive. 12 jurors and 2 alternates were chosen to hear the case. Jurors on Tuesday morning heard direct testimony from Huntsville Police Investigator Charlie Gray, who testified about Owens' interrogation after his arrest and phone calls Owens made from the county jail. They also heard audio of that questioning and those calls, in which Owens admitted burglarizing the elderly woman's house but denied killing her. In the phone calls, Owens' stepmother mentions his previous criminal history, which included burglary. Following the lunch break Tuesday, Circuit Court Judge Alison Austin told the jury that the evidence of his prior convictions could not be used to determine his guilt or innocence in the capital case. Testimony resumed after those jury instructions with defense lawyer Brian Clark cross-examining Gray. The 1st questions dealt with items found at the scene that were never analyzed for clues, including feces left behind in a toilet in Richardson's home. The waste was never analyzed to determine if it belonged to the victim or her killer. Gray also said that a shotgun found lying on Richardson's couch was never dusted for fingerprints. Neither was a second shotgun found leaning up against the wall nor a suitcase that had been pulled from a nearby closet. Clark asked the investigator about any measurements taken of marks found on Richardson's neck. Testimony from a state pathologist last week indicated the marks were consistent with someone squeezing the victim's neck during her slaying. Gray testified that, if measurements were taken, they would have been recorded by crime scene investigators. Clark turned his focus on Thomas Owens, John Owens' uncle. The defendant was living with his uncle next door to Richardson's 2206 Bide-A-Wee Drive home. Thomas Owens, who the defense team has targeted as a possible alternate suspect in the case, was also the person to report John Owens to investigators after he said he found Richardson's stolen property in his back yard and in his nephew's bedroom. Clark pointed out that Thomas Owens touched the evidence even after a police officer had told him not to. The empty jewelry boxes, coins and other stolen items turned up on the patio the day after the murder - and after crime scene investigators had already searched that area with Owens' permission. Gray testified that Thomas Owens and his cousin, Rodney Reyna, called investigators to the house after finding the evidence. He said the men told him they'd found the items laid out on John Owens' bed. Both men testified last week, however, that they found the stolen items between the bed and the wall after Reyna moved the mattress from the wall to unplug a radio that John Owens had left on. Gray told Clark that the trial is the 1st time either man had said anything about the radio. Testimony turned to items of evidence that investigators were looking for during a search of the Owens house, including clothing that could hold trace evidence from the crime. Clark asked about several pairs of gloves found during the search, including cloth gloves and latex gloves. Gray said none of the gloves, which Clark indicated could have been used during Richardson's strangulation, had been submitted to the lab to determine if the victim's DNA was on them. Clark questioned the investigator about Thomas Owens' alibi for the night of the slaying, on which he told police he was shooting pool at Steve's Lounge. Gray said investigators did not question anyone at the bar to determine if Owens was there that night. "Tommy wasn't a suspect," Gray said. "He was never a suspect, was he?" Clark said. "No sir, he was never a suspect," Gray responded. Gray indicated that Thomas Owens was not considered a suspect because he had called police after finding the stolen items. Clark brought up a man named James Jones, who alleges that he talked to Owens multiple times in the week before Richardson's murder about buying a gun from him. Though Jones is listed in court records as a witness in the case, he has not yet been called to the stand. Jones' allegations could potentially back up Owens' claims that he burglarized Richardson's home several days before her murder. The state rested its case around 2:30 p.m. The defense was anticipated to begin its presentation after a short break. (source: al.com) ******************** Man sentenced to death penalty, again Jessie Livell Phillips has now been sentenced to death twice. Marshall County Circuit Judge Tim Riley on Friday imposed the death sentence on Phillips after his convinction was upheld by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals in December. Part of the court's ruling required Riley to re-sentence Phillips. Phillips was convicted of killing his wife, Erica Phillips and her unborn child during a shooting at a car wash in Warrenton in 2009. Jessie and Erica were arguing in their vehicle when Phillips pulled out a gun and shot Erica in the head. A witness to the shooting called police. He was convicted and sentenced in 2012. "The judge re-imposed the death penalty today," District Attorney Steve Marshall told The Sand Mountain Reporter. "Part of the question the judge was dealing with was regarding a recent Supreme Court case that brought into question Alabama's system. "The same Supreme Court case shut down Florida's system, and Alabama's is similar. That was the question today. He decided to not rule ours unconstitutional." (source: The Arab Tribune) LOUISIANA: Struggling public defender's offices running head-on into Louisiana budget crisis Poor people accused of crimes in Lafayette, Acadia and Vermilion parishes who are dependent upon court-appointed lawyers can forget about speedy trials, and those already slow-moving death penalty cases will grind to a crawl. Both scenarios and more are probable if the tri-parish 15th Judicial District Public Defenders Office doesn't get an injection of cash soon, officials said Tuesday. Such are some of the consequences of broke public defenders offices, where indigent defendants' constitutional right to a lawyer has run head-on into Louisiana's budget crisis. Citing a lack of funds, the 15th District's chief public defender, G. Paul Marx, on Monday canceled the services of 26 criminal defense attorneys who had contracts with the office. Marx also laid off or accepted the resignations of 9 attorneys and 2 social workers who were full-time employees. Those who kept their jobs were hit with a 20 % salary cut. "How did this happen? We're going to have to look back at this for quite some time," Marx told the Louisiana Public Defender Board in a meeting Tuesday in Baton Rouge. "It's just a disaster." Funding for public defenders offices across the state has been cut due to Louisiana's budget crisis - shortfalls of up to $900 million through June 30 and $2 billion next year - and it hit Marx's 15th District office harder than most, though not all: The head of the state defender board said this week that Plaquemines Parish's program will shut down entirely. "The dilemma we find ourselves in is unprecedented. I would say we're in a crisis setting," said Keith Stutes, district attorney for the 15th Judicial District. Stutes said what's getting lost in the arguments over attorney pay and increased workloads is the plight of the defendants, who have the right to have their cases adjudicated. Now, he said, it looks like they'll sit in legal limbo until funding is found to pay for their defense. And when their attorneys do return, there will be such a bubble in the justice pipeline, it could take years to work itself out, Stutes said. In 2015 alone, the 15th Judicial District Public Defenders Office handled 12,264 new cases. Of those, 7,555 were still on the 15th District Court docket at beginning of January, according to figures provided by the local defenders office. Marx's cost-cutting move this week followed one he made in January when he announced his office would postpone representing nonjailed defendants accused of misdemeanor crimes. After this week's layoffs and contract cancellations, the local defenders office is left with 6 full-time attorneys, including Marx, and 11 Gideon's Promise Law School attorneys who do not charge the defenders office for their services. The remaining attorneys will concentrate on the most serious cases, and there will be at least one defender in Lafayette City Court. Some of the longtime defense attorneys who worked on contract scratched their heads Tuesday, lamented the problems and questioned aloud what the loss of longtime attorneys will mean. "There's something to be said about experienced lawyers and what they bring to the table for a defendant," said Valex Amos Jr., a criminal defense attorney for decades whose contract was canceled. Amos, who has represented clients in 13 capital cases, said defendants in the 15th District's 2 death penalty cases may have to be represented by attorneys with the New Orleans-based Capital Defense Project. Thomas Alonzo, who also had his contract canceled, said Tuesday his representation of a Vermilion Parish defendant accused in the 2014 first-degree killing of a sheriff's deputy was unclear. In that case, Quintylan Richard and his alleged accomplice face the death penalty. On Tuesday, both Amos and Alonzo continued to represent their clients at the Lafayette Parish Courthouse, even though they know they won't be paid. "I can't just walk away," Amos said. He conceded he doesn't know how long he'll continue to help out free of charge. Clare Svendson, who resigned from her defender job in Marx's office last week, said she has taken a job as a federal public defender in Lafayette. "I hopefully saved someone else from being let go," she said. Caitlin Graham kept her job in Marx's office. On Tuesday, she and Marx attended a rally at LSU before the state Public Defender Board met at the university's law school. She said her case load has doubled and her pay has dropped. She also said the 15th District defenders office could face lawsuits because of the situation. (source: The Advocate) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 17 09:19:51 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2016 09:19:51 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., KAN., NEV., WASH., USA Message-ID: Feb. 17 MISSOURI: Missouri attorney general candidate pushes terrorism bills A Missouri senator running for state attorney general pitched legislation Tuesday to change how the state defines and punishes acts of terrorism. 2 of Columbia Republican Sen. Kurt Schaefer's bills describe terrorism acts as "for the purpose of, or in a manner of, intimidating or coercing a civilian population, influencing the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or affecting the conduct of a government." "We really don't have a mechanism to deal with what is a reality now of public safety, which is a threat of terrorism in the state of Missouri," Schaefer told reporters after the committee hearing. One bill deals with those convicted of 1st-degree murder after committing an act of terrorism, as defined by the legislation. It would require judges and juries to consider if the murder was related to an act of terrorism when weighing whether to execute the killer. Schaefer said while convicted first-degree murderers who commit terrorist acts could face the death penalty under current law, a list of aggravating circumstances that judges and juries now must review during sentencing doesn't include an option for what he considers terrorism. The attorney general's office defends the state in death penalty appeals and sometimes prosecutes those cases. Another measure by Schaefer would define as a terrorist crime seriously injuring someone while trying to intimidate or coerce residents or government. The penalty would be life in prison without eligibility for parole. American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri lobbyist Sarah Rossi criticized how Schaefer's bills describe acts of terrorism. She worried the state's definition is not narrow enough compared with the federal government's. She said that might lead to, for example, altercations during protests being prosecuted as acts of terrorism. Schaefer also is pushing a measure to require the attorney general's office to oversee screenings of jail and prison volunteers for terroristic tendencies. When asked if he plans to use his bills during his campaign for attorney general, where he faces a potential GOP primary, Schaefer said the legislation is "good government." --- Terrorism bills are SBs 775, 891 and 939. Online: Senate: http://www.senate.mo.gov (source: Associated Press) KANSAS: Judge OKs 1st-of-its-kind jury questioning in Ottawa killings Attorneys are headed into unchartered territory. A mid-trial procedure allowed Tuesday in the Kyle Flack quadruple homicide case is without precedent, court officials said. Franklin County District Court Judge Eric W. Godderz granted a defense motion Tuesday that will allow a second voir dire jury questioning between the guilt and potential penalty phase to ask impaneled jurors about whether they can consider both capital punishment and life imprisonment as penalties. The procedure is said to be the first of its kind in the history of Kansas death penalty trial litigation, stirring concerns about how to conduct the process. The framework is expected to be decided during a 9 a.m. March 1 motions hearing in Franklin County District Court, 301 S. Main St., Ottawa. Flack, 30, has been in custody since May 8, 2013. He faces capital murder and other charges in connection with the spring 2013 quadruple homicide at 3197 Georgia Road, west of Ottawa. 3 adult bodies were found on the property. The 4th victim's body, an 18-month-old girl, was discovered in a suitcase in a creek near the Osage-Franklin County line. In Tuesday's hearing, Godderz called the case unique compared to other murders involving young children. "In lots of other cases, there may be reason why," he said. "In this case there is none or at least that's how it appears." The defense is concerned that once details of the case unfold, jurors will make up their minds about how Flack should be penalized. Godderz indicated the death of the 18-month-old has caused concern for prospective jurors - a factor he took into account when allowing the rare procedure. A 2nd round of juror questioning would try to confirm whether jurors could still consider all factors of the case before deciding his sentence. For that reason, Godderz said previously it wouldn't be a waste of time. Timothy Frieden, Flack's leading defense attorney, shed light on a few factors he might present in the penalty phase as mitigators including Flack's childhood, mental health evaluations and a previous adjustment to prison. Flack spent time in state prison after being convicted of attempted 2nd-degree murder in the May 2, 2005, shooting of Ottawa resident Steven Dale Free, who survived the attack but died in December 2011. If Flack is found guilty of the 2013 crimes, jurors will be instructed in the penalty phase to weigh the defense's mitigating factors with the prosecution's aggravating factors, such as prior convictions. Prosecution has repeatedly objected to the 2nd voir dire, stating the 2nd jury questioning would come at a delicate stage in the trial. Victor Braden, deputy Kansas attorney general, said he would be afraid to unintentionally sway jurors with his second set of questions if the 2nd voir dire were granted. However, if the request were not granted, a future appeal could raise the question whether enough leeway was given to the defense. "We're in unchartered territory," Braden said. A whittled-down pool of jurors are expected to appear in district court tomorrow to find out whether they will sit on the final panel. Opening statements from the prosecution are set to begin March 7. (source: Ottawa Herald) NEVADA: Man pleads guilty, faces death penalty in Vegas girl slaying A 23-year-old man has pleaded guilty to capital murder in a case that shocked Las Vegas for its brutality: the rape, torture, killing and mutilation of a 15-year-old girl abducted on her way home from school. Javier Righetti pleaded guilty Feb. 11 with no promise that he won't be put to death for the September 2011 slaying of Arbor View High School sophomore Alyssa Otremba, who had texted her mom that she was walking home. A jury next month will consider whether Righetti should be executed. Defense attorney Christy Craig says Righetti decided to spare everyone a long trial. Righetti admits kidnapping, sexually assaulting and stabbing Otremba dozens of times before burning her corpse in northwest Las Vegas. Prosecutors say Righetti told police he wanted to prove he was tough. (source: Associated Press) WASHINGTON: The votes are there: Legislature can end the death penalty Repeal of the death penalty in Washington state is a matter of when, not if. Consider the momentum toward repeal in just the last few years. Gov. Jay Inslee's moratorium shut down the death chamber, at least temporarily. The chorus calling for abolition was joined by the state's most esteemed living Republican, ex-Gov. Dan Evans, past prison directors and a growing coalition of retired judges. Just last year, 2 King County juries hearing "the worst of the worst" murder cases rejected the death penalty, effectively signaling its end in the state's biggest county. And then state prosecutors surprised everyone by asking the Legislature to put the issue up for a referendum. ---- Share your thoughts----Do you think the death penalty should be repealed in Washington state? Why or why not? Send a letter of no more than 200 words to letters at seattletimes.com along with your full name, address and telephone number for verification ---- Nationally, a series of horrendously botched executions slowed the death-penalty apparatus to a 25-year low. Just 28 death sentences were carried out last year. That makes 2015 the biggest year in death-penalty politics in recent history. So what happened when lawmakers went back to Olympia in January? Nothing. Bills with bipartisan support in the state House and Senate that would repeal capital punishment and replace it with a sentence of life without parole haven't even gotten a hearing. The referendum requested by the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys hasn't even been filed, let alone heard. State Rep. Maureen Walsh, a Walla Walla Republican who favors repeal, blames the short 60-day session - everyone is looking toward the fall election. "I think anything that had the perception of controversy or partisanship wouldn't survive well in this session," said Walsh. And then Senate Republicans spent weeks playing transgender bathroom police. A big obstacle to repeal is Senate Law and Justice Committee Chair Mike Padden, a conservative Republican from Spokane Valley who you can imagine wearing a 6-shooter on each hip. He told members of the committee he wouldn't give bills - even 1 requested by prosecutors - a hearing. Period. Without a route to repeal in the Senate, Speaker of the House Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, quashed a repeal bill. He apparently believes that a vote on the hot-button issue could imperil Democrats in swing districts, costing his party their razor-thin majority. Ironically, the repeal bills would probably pass. The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington's lobbyist, Shankar Narayan, said there are now 13 Republican votes for repeal in the House and 5 in the Senate. That's probably more than enough to join with Democrats and have Washington join 19 other states without a death penalty. "The votes are there," said Narayan. "The biggest obstacle is the fear of the politics from leadership." State Sen. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, introduced repeal bills for 7 straight sessions as a state representative and believes that repetition has paid off. "The House has gone through a thought process that forces people to go through private reflection on this issue," he said. "It's been an evolution." The extraordinary cost of the death penalty was a reason that the prosecutors wanted it put to a vote and has helped sway fiscal conservatives. A comprehensive Seattle University study put the cost at $1 million more per case than a life sentence. And that includes the cost of lifetime incarceration. "No matter where you are on the social spectrum, you have to say it???s extraordinarily expensive," said state Rep. Chad Magendanz, an Issaquah Republican who co-sponsored repeal legislation. "It's not a good return on investment if you're a prosecutor." In the 35 years since Washington reinstated the death penalty, prosecutors have sought capital punishment in 90 of the 268 eligible cases. Juries returned a death sentence 32 times. In cases in which appeals ran their course, the death sentence was reversed 23 times on appeal, which pencils out to an 80 % error rate. Walsh, Carlyle and others in the growing anti-death penalty caucus think that argument will help the Legislature finally act on the death penalty in 2017. That may be too late. The state Supreme Court has a case teed up next week that could be the vehicle for repeal. The appeal of Allen Gregory hits hard on the arguments that capital punishment is randomly applied in Washington and is supported by 56 retired judges, who joined an amicus brief. Given the activist, left-leaning streak of the current court, the prohibition community thinks the case could result in the end of the death sentence. But if that is a matter of if, not when, it should be decided outside the courtroom. Same-sex marriage was voted on by the Legislature, then the people and now it is settled, for good. The death penalty is a question for the Legislature. Lawmakers are ready to answer it. They should get the chance. (source: Jonathan Martin's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times----Seattle Times) USA: US supreme court: the cases - what happens next and who does it benefit? Several pending cases with potentially landscape-altering implications on issues such as abortion and voting rights will likely be heard by an 8-justice court. We look at how Antonin Scalia's death may affect the outcomes Death penalty Foster v Chatman: This case deals with a death penalty case in which a black man was convicted by an all-white jury after black jurors were systematically excluded by the prosecution. The oral argument suggested that the case may be sent back to the state courts to address a procedural question. If the court does decide on the merits, a deadlock would allow the conviction to stand, since the Georgia courts upheld it. However, given the extreme set of facts, Kennedy and Roberts would likely join the court's 4 liberals to rule that the defendant's 14th amendment rights were violated. Likely outcome: either returned on a technicality or liberal win (source: The Guardian) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 17 09:20:51 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2016 09:20:51 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 17 IRAN: Iran defends its capital punishment in Europe Iran's Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, his country's Iran's capital punishment law at the European parliament on Tuesday, saying Iran mostly executes drug smugglers. The remarks came in Brussels when lawmakers criticized the increasing number of death sentences in Iran. Zarif also blamed Europe for their "lack of support" to help Iran control the flow of drugs to European countries. "The European Union has accused Iran of human rights violations and banned the export of technical tools that would be used to combat the drug trade," Zarif told European lawmakers, according to BBC Persian. The number of executions in Iran has sharply increased in recent years. At least 687 people were put to death in 2013, compared to 99 people in 2004. Human rights activists worry that the nuclear deal with Iran and the country's increasing economic and trade relations with Europe may take the spotlight off its human rights record. In a report in late 2015 the UN General Assembly condemned the human rights situation in Iran. The report indicated that execution rates in Iran have rapidly increased and that 694 people were executed in Iran in 2015. This is the highest number of executions in the country since the Iran-Iraq War, Ahmed Shaheed, the special UN rapporteur for human rights in Iran, told Rudaw at that time. (source: rudaw.net) SAUDI ARABIA----executions Saudi executes 3 drug traffickers Saudi Arabia on Wednesday executed one of its citizens and 2 Yemenis convicted of drug trafficking, bringing to 63 the number of people it has put to death this year. Saudi national Daifallah al-Omrani was executed in the northern region of Tabuk after his conviction for smuggling amphetamines, the interior ministry said. In a separate case, Yemeni citizens Ahmed Mubarak and Abdul Salam al-Jamali were executed in the southwestern city of Jazan near their homeland, the ministry said. They were convicted of trying to smuggle hashish. Most people sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia are beheaded by a sword. The kingdom executed 47 people in a single day on January 2 for "terrorism". In 2015 Saudi Arabia executed 153 people, mostly for drug trafficking or murder, according to an AFP count. Amnesty International says the number of executions in Saudi Arabia last year was the highest for 2 decades. The kingdom practises a strict Islamic legal code under which murder, drug trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy are all punishable by death. Rights experts have raised concerns about the fairness of trials in Saudi Arabia, which says the death penalty is a deterrent to crime. (source: Agence France-Presse) BANGLADESH: Quasem's counsel ends arguments Counsel for war criminal Mir Quasem Ali today concluded arguments on an appeal filed with the Supreme Court by Quasem challenging his death penalty for wartime offences. During today's hearing, SM Shahjahan, a lawyer for Mir Quasem, told the Appellate Division that statements of the prosecution witnesses are not credible as their statements do not corroborate each other. When Quasem was on trial, the prosecution witnesses had given their statements to International Crimes Tribunal-2 on the charges brought against him. But most of them did not give the same statements to the investigation officer of the case, Shahjahan told the court. He also prayed to the court to acquit his client. After concluding today's hearing, the 5-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha fixed February 23 to hear legal aspects from the attorney general. After attorney general's argument conclusion, the defence counsel can give reply to the prosecution arguments, the court said. The SC started hearing the appeal on February 9. The International Crimes Tribunal-2 on November 2, 2014 sentenced Quasem to death after finding him guilty on 10 charges for abducting, confining and torturing people during the Liberation War. Around 4 weeks later, he filed an appeal with the SC, challenging the tribunal's verdict. Quasem, a member of Jamaat's central executive council, in his appeal cited 181 reasons for his acquittal on all the charges. (source: The Daily Star) ************* Bangladesh mulls death penalty for dowry-provoked suicide The government is amending the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1980 keeping provision for death sentence for provoking suicide. Currently, the law stipulates only jail terms for any dowry dealing, according to a local news agency. The Ministry of Women and Children Affairs has prepared a draft to amend the Dowry Prohibition Act prescribing more stringent punishment for the crime. The Dowry Prohibition Act of 1980 only provides for punishment for taking dowry and is silent on the issue of harassment. The draft law has a provision for sentence to death or life imprisonment if husband, in-laws or any other person leads a woman to commit suicide over dowry. The draft law also provides for life imprisonment for attempt to murder over dowry and sentence to life or a minimum of 12 years of imprisonment or both for causing any grievous injury. Life term or a minimum of 12 years of imprisonment has been fixed as punishment for dismemberment over dowry in the proposed amendment. The husband will require paying alimony as per the nature of the wounds inflicted on the wife, according to the draft law. Taking or demanding dowry will invite a minimum jail term of 1 year and maximum of 5 years and a minimum fine of Tk 50,000. For lodging any false complaint or case, the punishment will be 6-month imprisonment or a fine of Tk 50,000 or both. The draft law has also defined various kinds of harassment and crimes. The Ministry of Women and Children Affairs' Additional Secretary (Administration) Bikash Kishore Das told the news agency that the law was being amended considering all aspects. "The amendment proposes to increase punishment for dowry in the present context. The draft has been prepared by taking views of the stakeholders," he said. The draft law has also kept provision for formulating rules in accordance with the new Dowry Prohibition Act. (source: financialexpress-bd.com) PHILIPPINES: Bongbong Marcos backs death penalty for drug trafficking While Sen. Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. believes that there is no quick fix to the country's drug problems, he is supporting the death penalty for those involved in the illegal drug trade. Marcos pointed out on Tuesday that solving the country's drug problem has become complex, adding that it should be seen, not only as a police problem but as a societal problem as well. The vice presidential hopeful, who led the oath-taking of at least 1,000 members of the We Parents organization in Pasig City, said the different sectors of society, organized in groups like the "We Parents," should come together to help solve one of the country's biggest problems. The We Parents organization was formed in 2012 in Pasig City to help address some of the city's problems, such as livelihood. The organization is composed of members of parent-teachers associations, homeowners associations and even public utility drivers and operators associations that conduct various programs like skills training in partnership with the local government. "We need all sectors of society to come together, starting from the parents. [We should focus our efforts in] the values formation of the children and strengthening the Filipino family. I think the solution lies in a strong family that the child can depend on," Marcos said. During his speech at Barangay Maybunga's covered court, Marcos said that "92 % of barangays in Metro Manila have been affected by the illegal drug problem." "This is alarming not only because of the crime related to it but also because [drug dealers] want to prey on our children, who are our country's future... If they will prey on our children, it's like they're destroying our future," Marcos told residents of the city that was once in the limelight because of its "shabu tiangge." Marcos said the negative effects illegal drugs have brought to society have convinced him to support the death penalty for the traffickers. "Because of the scale of damage they inflict [to society], I think they deserve the death penalty," he said. (source: inquirer.net) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 17 13:37:27 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2016 13:37:27 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----VA., GA., FLA., OHIO, CALIF. Message-ID: Feb. 17 VIRGINIA: Anti-death penalty group claims Virginia is playing politics with execution The Virginia Death Penalty Coalition, which opposes the death penalty, has released a statement claiming the state Department of Corrections has the drugs it needs to perform the scheduled March 16 execution by lethal injection and that the department's claim that it lacks the drugs is being used to pressure legislators to bring back the electric chair. "Virginia would be just 1 of 2 states in the country that use the chair as their default method of execution. It would also grant unfettered authority to the DOC Director to determine how executions are carried out," said Michael E. Stone executive director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. The coalition is comprised of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, ACLU of Virginia and the Virginia Catholic Conference. Ricky Gray is sentenced to die March 16 for killing 2 young girls in Richmond in 2006. In all, he and his nephew are linked to the killings of 9 people, including the girls' parents. Corrections officials have said they have 2 lethal doses of the 1st drug in the deadly cocktail needed for execution. They have also said they do not have enough of the 1st-step drug for the execution. Last week, the House of Delegates passed legislation that would make the electric chair an option for future executions. If it passes the Senate and Gov. Terry McAuliffe signs it, Gray could be executed in the electric chair after July 1. Corrections officials obtained 3 vials of pentobarbital, the 1st drug in the state's 3-drug cocktail, from Texas last year to execute convicted murderer Alfredo Prieto. They used 1 vial to kill Prieto and say there are 2 unexpired vials left. But they also say they don't have the step-1 drugs they need to kill Gray. "The Department currently doesn't have the step-1 drugs necessary to carry out a death sentence by lethal injection. I can't comment further regarding lethal injection drugs due to potential litigation," Corrections spokeswoman Lisa Kinney said in an email. "The Department still has 3 vials of pentobarbital from Texas. They expire in April." When asked to clarify last week, Kinney said the Department of Corrections "absolutely does not have the lethal injection drugs necessary to carry out a death sentence by lethal injection." The state could amend its lethal injection protocol to accommodate its existing stock of drugs to carry out the execution, Stone said. Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said that in a well-administered system, there are often backup supplies of the execution drugs. (source: The Virginian-Pilot) GEORGIA----impending execution The Latest: Condemned prisoner appeals to Georgia high court Lawyers for a Georgia prisoner who is hours away from execution are appealing to the state Supreme Court after a judge rejected their client's appeal. The judge in Butts County on Tuesday rejected a legal challenge by 45-year-old Travis Hittson, a former Navy crewman who was convicted in the 1992 murder of a fellow sailor. Hittson's lawyers contend his constitutional rights were violated during sentencing when a judge allowed a state psychologist who had examined Hittson to recount damaging statements Hittson had made about Utterbeck. State lawyers say those arguments have previously been raised and rejected by the courts and are procedurally barred. Also on Tuesday, the state Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected a clemency petition from Hittson. Court documents show Hittson, who was stationed in Pensacola, Florida, went with Utterbeck and a 3rd sailor, Edward Vollmer, to Vollmer's parents' home in Warner Robins. Hittson and Vollmer went out drinking and killed Utterbeck upon returning home. Hittson's lawyers had argued his life should be spared because he's shown great remorse and because Vollmer manipulated him into killing Utterbeck. Vollmer reached a plea deal with prosecutors and is serving a life sentence for the killing. (source: Associated Press) FLORIDA: Lawmakers consider compromise fix to Florida death penalty sentencing A political compromise to repair Florida's broken death penalty sentencing system is in sight - and the magic number is 10. If this likely compromise is reached by both houses of the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott, all future death penalty cases in Florida will require at least 10 of 12 jurors to agree on a punishment of death for a defendant. If a jury has 3 holdouts, a defendant would get life in prison without parole. Among the 32 states that still use capital punishment, Alabama is the only other state with a 10-to-2 system. Florida allows a simple majority of 7 jurors to recommend death, but executions are on hold because the U.S. Supreme court has ruled the sentencing system unconstitutional. The 10-juror provision is in an amendment to the death penalty bill (HB 7101) awaiting full House debate Wednesday. The amendment sponsor, Rep. Charles McBurney, is a Jacksonville Republican and former state prosecutor, a sign that state attorneys are ready to accept the compromise. Prosecutors have lobbied for weeks for 9-3 jury recommendations in death cases, and a clear majority of senators favor a requirement for unanimity, a position backed by public defenders statewide and legal experts who are closely following the legislation. The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 12 struck down Florida's death penalty sentencing system because it gives juries too little weight. The court did not directly address the issue of jury unanimity, but that's part of the political debate because more lawsuits from death row inmates are likely if the Legislature doesn't address it. (source: Tampa Bay Times) OHIO: Court to hear arguments on new trial for Cleveland serial killer The Ohio Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments over a new trial for a Cleveland man who killed 11 women and hid the remains in and around his home. Attorneys for Anthony Sowell say he deserves a new trial because a judge wrongly closed a portion of jury selection and a hearing where attorneys argued about his police interrogation. His attorneys say the judge in the case improperly closed a July 2010 hearing in which lawyers argued over an hours-long video of Sowell's interview with police. The Supreme Court on Wednesday scheduled an April 5 hearing. Prosecutors say Sowell should get a new evidence suppression hearing, but not a new trial. The 56-year-old Sowell was convicted and sentenced to death in 2011. (source: Associated Press) CALIFORNIA: Who Gets the Death Penalty? When Bill Babbitt realized his PTSD-afflicted brother Manny had committed a crime he agonized over his decision -- should he call the police? Our short documentary Last Day of Freedom (currently nominated for an Academy Award) tells Bill's story as he stands by Manny, a war-ravaged Vietnam Veteran, through his arrest, trial and execution. Created from over 30,000 hand-drawn images, the film is a portrait of a man at the nexus of the most pressing social issues of our day -- inadequate Veterans' care and mental health access, deep-seated inequality and racism, and the reality of a broken criminal justice system. Bill's powerful narrative unfolds like a classical tragedy, revealing Manny's trial and execution for what it is -- one of the most egregious miscarriages of justice in the modern era of the death penalty. The animation illustrates Bill's remembrances and visualizes the inexorable process that brought Manny from his childhood home in Massachusetts to San Quentin prison, by way of Vietnam: Manny and Bill dig for clams on the Cape Cod seashore; Manny is hit by a car in adolescence and is never the same after; Manny signs up for the Marines at 17. "He couldn't pass the test," Bill says, "so they gave him the answers. He found himself at war." Returning from multiple tours in Vietnam (where he saw some of the worst fighting in the entire conflict at Khe Sanh), Manny begins the now familiar march of combat-traumatized Veterans towards homelessness. He suffers hallucinations of helicopters and bombings. He is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and institutionalized repeatedly. Without a viable support network, he lives on the streets before relocating across the country to live with Bill in Sacramento, a move that would ultimately prompt Bill to make his fateful decision. And though he questioned whether he was doing the right thing, Bill went to the authorities with his suspicions about what Manny had done. The police, who Bill trusted entirely, hailed him as hero and offered assurances that Manny would get the help he desperately needed. With Bill's assistance, Manny was arrested. He was charged with a capital offense and sentenced to death by an all-white jury. His lawyer was reportedly drunk throughout most of the trial. Finally, after a lengthy appeals process, he was executed on his 50th birthday -- leaving Bill to live with the double burden of the preventable horror of his brother's crime and the guilt of his execution. Bill's story is particularly heartbreaking but his situation is not extraordinary. The details of Manny Babbitt's life reflect the data about who gets the death penalty in America: Manny was Black. Bill describes his brothers' lawyer: "I asked the lawyer 'I don't see any Blacks being seated on the jury.' He said he did not trust -- he used the N word. I guess he figured he could use the nigger word and feel comfortable" According to the Death Penalty Information Center "the odds of receiving a death sentence are nearly four times higher if the defendant is Black." As such, since 1982 not a single year has gone by without a Black man being executed in the USA. When the same group of researchers calculated the influence of race on sentencing it found that "the capital sentencing statute has operated as though being Black was not merely a physical attribute, but as if it were one of the most important aggravating factors actually justifying the death penalty." Manny was a Veteran. "Manny traded his hooch in Vietnam for a cardboard box on the streets of Providence Rhode Island." Much has been made of the VA's many public failures; to these many grim statistics (47,000 homeless Veterans, nearly half having served in Vietnam like Manny, about 45 % black or Hispanic despite making up around 14 % of the total Veteran population), add the November 2015 report which estimated that there are "at least 300 veterans are on death row nationwide, representing about 10 % of the nation's death row population." Like many of these individuals... Manny suffered from TBI and PTSD. "Manny traded the war on the battlefield for the war in his head...my little brother was out there in limbo land, fighting these battles." The relationship between trauma and subsequent violence is well documented. This connection is particularly conspicuous on death row. Recent research indicates that "nearly all death row inmates suffer from brain damage due to illness or trauma, while a vast number have also experienced histories of severe physical and/or sexual abuse." Manny was poor. Almost without exception, the common denominator among death row inmates is poverty. The ACLU states that "economic disparity is the chief determining factor between those who live after being accused of a crime and those who are executed." 3 decades after Manny's trial, the death penalty is still disproportionately applied to minorities, the poor, and the mentally ill. This longstanding preference for punishment over prevention or rehabilitation when the most vulnerable among us are concerned underscores the link between the various forms of inequality we face today. We are proud to stand with Bill Babbitt when he says "I thought that justice would prevail and it did not. So here I am, here I am implacable, I'm gonna tell it." (source: Nomi Talisman; Artist + Filmmaker behind LAST DAY OF FREEDOM; Dee Hibbert-Jones; Artist and Filmmaker behind LAST DAY OF FREEDOM ----Huffington Post) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 17 13:38:12 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2016 13:38:12 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news---worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 17 NIGERIA: ECOWAS Court adjourns death row case against FG The Community Court of Justice (ECOWAS Court) on Wednesday adjourned till March 14 a case filed by Nnenna Obi, a prisoner on death row in Enugu, against the Federal Government. Obi had been on death row since 2005. The case, which was brought before the court in August 2015, was also filed on behalf of other death row prisoners, and challenged the provisions for the death penalty in Nigeria. Justice Chijioke Nwoke, who presided over the case, recalled that the case was fixed for hearing on January 19, 2015 but adjourned till February 17. Nwoke emphasised that the adjourned date would be the final opportunity to hear the application of the defendants. "The matter came up again January 19, 2016; the court adjourned for today and today, the case is reluctantly adjourned to March 14 for definite hearing. "We will give them one last opportunity to appear before the court and if they are not here by the adjourned date, we will hear their application and adjourn," he said. Obi in the suit stated that her conviction for murder by the High Court of Anambra allegedly violated her fundamental rights to life and dignity. She said that the violations were against the constitution and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. The plaintiff in the application asked the court to declare that the provision of the death penalty in Nigeria was inconsistent with the provisions of the 1993 ECOWAS Revised Treaty. She urged the court to declare that the death penalty was inconsistent with the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The plaintiff also urged the court to declare that the death penalty was inconsistent with other laws and treaty relating to the right to freedom from torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. She asked the court to declare that the death sentence for anyone convicted of murder or armed robbery under the constitution and the criminal code were violations of the rights of inmates as ECOWAS citizens. The application also sought an order to direct the government to reconsider her sentence and those of other death row inmates. (source: pmnewsnigeria.com) BELARUS: Statement by the Spokesperson on a new death sentence in Belarus A death sentence was handed down on 16 February 2016 to Sergei Khmelevsky by a Minsk Regional Court. Mr. Khmelevsky's legal right to appeal should be fully guaranteed. Mr. Khmelevsky was convicted of a serious crime and we extend our deepest sympathy to the family and friends of the victims. The EU opposes the use of death penalty, a cruel punishment, which fails to act as a deterrent. We call on Belarus, the only country in Europe still applying capital punishment, to join a global moratorium as a first step towards the abolition of death penalty. Commuting the sentences of persons sentenced to death and launching a public debate on the death penalty with Belarusian society would be an important move in this regard. (source: eeas.europa.eu) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 17 14:24:29 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2016 14:24:29 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., MO. Message-ID: Feb. 17 GEORGIA----impending execution Georgia High Court Rejects Appeal From Death Row Georgia's highest court has rejected an appeal from a prisoner who is hours away from being put to death and denied a stay of execution. In a brief, unanimous order Wednesday afternoon, the Georgia Supreme Court said Travis Hittson's request for the court to consider his appeal lacks merit under state law. A judge in Butts County on Tuesday rejected a legal challenge by the 45-year-old Hittson, a former Navy crewman who was convicted in the 1992 murder of a fellow sailor. Hittson's lawyers contend his constitutional rights were violated during sentencing when a judge allowed a state psychologist who had examined Hittson to recount damaging statements Hittson had made about Utterbeck. Also on Tuesday, the state Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected a clemency petition from Hittson. (source: Associated Press) MISSOURI: Senator Parson Speaks on Capital Punishment The Missouri Senate spent considerable time debating a measure this week that would abolish the death penalty in Missouri. It was the 1st discussion on the topic in recent years. Senator Mike Parson, R-Bolivar, strongly opposed the measure, citing support of the victims' families and loved-ones. Senate Bill 816, sponsored by Sen. Paul Wieland, R-Imperial, repeals the punishment of death for 1st degree murder. Additionally, anyone sentenced to death before Aug. 28, 2016, would be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. Senator Parson, a former sheriff, stressed the importance of remembering who the real victims are in 1st-degree murder cases. "When this topic is debated, folks want you to believe the killers on death row are the victims," said Sen. Parson. "When a crime so atrocious is committed it warrants the consideration of capital punishment, we can't forget about the victims' families, and the pain they've endured by a senseless act of violence," continued Sen. Parson. "I've seen crime scenes. I've witnessed unimaginable things. If a person is willing to violently take another's life, they should pay the price established in this state. They should not get a free pass to spend the rest of their natural life in the relative comfort of a prison, paid for by the taxpayers." "I've heard from very few people who are in favor of abolishing the death penalty in this state," said Sen. Parson. "As a pro-life advocate, I understand the sanctity of life. This is something different, though. These are brutal crimes where victims suffered. I will always stand on the side of victims and support the death penalty in Missouri. I appreciate the debate, but this issue comes down to a very personal sense of justice. For me, the choice is simple, the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for the worst crimes." Senator Parson spoke on this topic on the floor on the Missouri Senate. You can view his remarks by clicking on the following link http://www.senate.mo.gov/senator-mike-parson-opposes-repealing-the-death-penalty/ (source: Missouri Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 17 17:16:41 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2016 17:16:41 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., UTAH, USA Message-ID: Feb. 17 ALABAMA: DA seeks death penalty in home invasion death of elderly Cusseta man The 3 men accused of killing a Cusseta, AL man in his home last month made a court appearance on Wednesday. A district attorney will seek the death penalty as their cases were bound over to a grand jury in Lee County. Khaleef Marshall, Devonte Mike, both of Opelika, and Robert Wiggins, of Columbus, all 20 years old, are each charged with capital murder in the death of Curtis Rudd. Rudd was shot in his home on Lee Road 177 on Jan. 19. "I heard 2 shots and heard Benny tell me, 'Kay - they got me,'" recalled Rudd's wife, Kay. Wiggins was shot by Rudd during the home invasion, and was later at the hospital before being taken to jail and charged. Horrific and heartbreaking testimony from Kay Rudd as she takes the stand to testify in the prelim hearing of the 3 men accused of murdering her husband, Curtis "Benny" Rudd. Mrs. Rudd testified after her husband was shot she hugged him and told him to fight and hang on. She called 911, family and friends for help. She also testified she got a pillow and a blanket for him so her husband wouldn't get cold. The 3 suspects remain behind bars on no bond. Investigators say the 3 kicked in Rudd's door in an attempted home invasion and opened fire. (source: WTVM news) UTAH: Human trafficking death penalty bill moves forward Human traffickers might face Utah's death row if lawmakers pass a bill that will impose the death penalty in aggravated crimes. Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, introduced the bill to a legislative committee Feb. 2 by recounting the case of Shelby Andrews, who was brutally beaten to death by her stepmother and father. Andrews??? parents were unable to receive a death penalty because the law did not permit their crime to be punishable by death. "(The parents) could not receive the death penalty because the intent for murder wasn't there," Ray explained. "Their intent was for abuse." HB136 was written to protect children from human trafficking, but now HB136 protects every victim from aggravated crimes that come from human trafficking. This bill will impose the death penalty on human traffickers if they knowingly cause the death of another through aggravated robbery, rape or assault. Representatives from different public organizations spoke out against HB136. Kent Hart, a criminal defense attorney, spoke in behalf of the ACLU of Utah. Hart read a statement that said, "Death penalty is the gravest exercise of government power over its citizens. We are, therefore, opposed to HB136 (because it is) expensive, ineffective and arbitrarily applied." In the disclosed letter, the ACLU of Utah mentions, "The cost of the death penalty is about $1.6 million more per inmate, from trial to execution than it costs for (a life sentence) without parole." Hart said money spent on death penalty cases could be used to help other organizations that fight against human trafficking and to help aid victims who suffered from those crimes. Bountiful Police Chief Tom Ross supports the bill. Ross said human trafficking "is the most heinous of crimes." "This is the death of a child that has been tortured through abuse or sexual assault ... (This is) about punishing somebody that has committed the worst of crimes to those that are a most protected asset," Ross said. Virginia Ward, who works for an organization for women who are human trafficking victims, explained that there are no organizations that have state funding for victims of human trafficking. "If we are gonna say that the people who are affected by the outcome of this legislation are our most cherished asset, then we need to go ahead and support them now," Ward said. She spoke against Ross' statement. "It doesn't make sense that we are not giving those resources to the individuals that are currently affected," Ward said. "There are currently 200 women who are being trafficked today on (Salt Lake City's) State Street and North Temple ... None of those girls are working for themselves." Ward believes these victims need help through state funding rather than using the money for carrying out death penalties. Despite the opposition to the bill, the committee voted 6-3 to pass the bill, where it will advance to the full House to a list of bills for debate. (source: universe.byu.edu) USA: Jewish Leaders Take A Stand Against The Death Penalty In a petition initiated by Uri L'Tzedek, the Orthodox social justice movement, Jewish leaders across Jewish denominations expressed opposition to the use of the death penalty in America. As Jews, as citizens of a nation dedicated to liberty and justice, we believe that governments must protect the dignity and rights of every human being. The use of the death penalty, in America, fails to live up to this basic requirement. Opposition to the overuse of capital punishment is embedded deep in the Jewish religious psyche. The rabbis taught that a court that puts others to death too often is deeply problematic. How often? Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says, "Every seventy years." Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva said: "If we were in a court, no person would ever be executed," (Makkot 7a). While not categorically opposed to capital punishment, the rabbis saw the death penalty as so extreme a measure that they all but removed it from their system of justice. In contrast, our American system today lacks the highest safeguards to protect the lives of the innocent and uses capital punishment all too readily. We do not naively believe that everyone on death row is completely innocent of any crime. Yet, too often, the wrong person is convicted for crimes they did not commit. We all agree that a responsible government must have a strong, punitive justice system that maintains order and security. More harmful to our justice system than not catching the guilty, however, is punishing the innocent. Unfortunately, this happens too often. Owing to their socio-economic situation or lack of access to legal resources, wrongly convicted people often have no real opportunity to respond to an overwhelming legal system that makes the proof of innocence difficult. The consequences of this system are not only fundamentally unjust but also produce racially disparate outcomes. Additionally, it is the tax payers who are required to pay exorbitant amounts to maintain death rows. It is time to see the death penalty for what it is: not as justice gone awry, but a symptom of injustice as status quo. "You must rescue those taken off to death!"(Proverbs 24:11)! There are 6 primary reasons for wrongful convictions: 1. Eyewitness misidentification: Some of the reasons for why eyewitnesses identify the wrong person are not fixable, such as the fact that people are much worse at cross-racial identification, but there are many things that police can do when conducting line-ups that would decrease false identifications. 2. False confessions: A recent example of this is the case of the Central Park Five, in which 4 of the 5 then-teenagers confessed to raping and killing a woman in Central Park years ago, and recently were proved innocent through DNA testing. 3. Ineffective lawyering: Defense lawyers mess up, either because they just are not good lawyers or because they are so overburdened that it is impossible to do a thorough job on each case. 4. Police and prosecutorial misconduct: Examples of this include crime labs claiming that they had test results when no tests were actually performed, and prosecutors not providing exculpatory evidence. Unfortunately, punishment is rare. 5. Junk science: This applies both to methods that are not really science when empirically tested, and to legitimate science performed poorly. 6. Unreliable testimony: Witnesses, usually in jail, come forward claiming to have heard the suspect confess in order to get favorable treatment on their own cases. How many prisoners are truly innocent? Experts have offered varying percentages in the last decades: Samuel R. Gross and Barbara O'Brien estimated "at least 2.3 %"; Jon B. Gould and Richard A. Leo put it at 3 to 5 %; James S. Liebman and his team placed their estimate at 7 %; and the newest estimate, by John Roman and his team, places its estimate at 5 %, except for sexual assault, for which the wrongful conviction rate may be as high as 15 %. Jewish law strongly upholds the principle that the innocent should be spared undue punishment. When God reveals to Abraham his plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:17-33), Abraham challenges God: "Will you also destroy the righteous with the wicked?" When God offers to spare the cities if there are 50 righteous people, Abraham solicits a response for the value of innocent life; eventually, God decides that if there are even 10 righteous people, God will spare the cities. Abraham doesn't press further but one might presume that a city can't be destroyed if even one were innocent. Thus, from the time of Abraham, it was important that punishment should be reserved for the guilty, and against all odds to the contrary, the innocent should be spared. Today, there are those who are dedicated to ensuring that the innocent do not languish in jail. The National Registry of Exonerations, a joint project of the University of Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law, has now recorded 1,040 exonerations in less than a year of investigating data since 1989. The Registry highlights the need to scrutinize convictions - especially in the states with the most exonerations, such as Illinois and Texas - to ensure that they were honestly obtained and that the defendants had sufficient and competent defense. Additionally, the Innocence Project, founded by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld of Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in 1992, is a group that utilizes DNA testing and other state of the art technology to establish the innocence of falsely-imprisoned inmates. The staff of lawyers and Cardozo clinic students, and allies in many states, has thus far exonerated 301 prisoners, who had served an average of nearly 14 years (and 18 of whom had been on death row), using DNA evidence. There are more than 50 Innocence Projects in the United States, under the umbrella of the Innocence Network. They need our support. 1 case illustrates the great value of the Innocence Project for American society. In 1974, James Bain was convicted of raping a 9-year old boy in Florida. The primary evidence at the time revolved around the blood type of the semen on the victim's underwear. The jury believed the prosecution's claim that Bain's blood type (AB) was the same as that found on the scene, when in actuality the blood sample was blood group B. Once DNA evidence became available, Bain tried 5 times to get the Circuit Court to examine his case, but was rejected. Finally, after the Innocence Project became involved, DNA evidence was reexamined, confirming that Bain was not the rapist. James Bain was exonerated and released in December 2009, after serving 35 years for a crime he did not commit. While we need a justice system, but we also need a system of justice. We punish those who transgress the law, but ensure that the rights of the innocent are protected, that if a prisoner is found to be innocent, then that prisoner should be set free and given fair compensation. Former district attorney, Governor of California, and Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren was well aware of the often coercive methods by which law enforcement obtained confessions and convictions, and how scrutiny needed to be applied to ensure that only the guilty were convicted and incarcerated. As he said: "Life and liberty can be as much endangered from illegal methods used to convict those thought to be criminals as from the actual criminals themselves." This is nothing short of the championing of justice over inequity, and as a community, we must support their work. Jewish community leaders should call for an end to this cruel practice, but also for the beginning of a new paradigm of fair, equitable, and restorative justice. (source: Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz is the President & Dean of the Valley Beit Midrash, the Founder & President of Uri L'Tzedek, the Founder and CEO of The Shamayim V'Aretz Institute and the author of 9 books on Jewish ethics----jewishjournal.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 17 21:49:57 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2016 21:49:57 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GEORGIA Message-ID: Feb. 17 GEORGIA----execution Georgia executes ex-Navy sailor for 1992 murder of shipmate Georgia has executed former Navy sailor Travis Clinton Hittson for the gruesome 1992 murder of a fellow shipmate. Hittson, 45, was put to death by lethal injection at 8:14 p.m. He accepted a final prayer and recorded a final statement, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections. On his final day of life, Hittson met with 2 relatives, four friends and eight members of his legal team. Hittson was scheduled to die at 7 p.m. but, as is usually the case, there were delays while the state waited for all the courts to decide whether the execution should be stopped. The U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay of execution this evening, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled this afternoon that Hittson's request lacked merit, and on Tuesday the State Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected Hittson's plea that his sentence be commuted to life without parole. A Houston County jury condemned Hittson to die for the April 5, 1992, murder of Conway Utterbeck. According to court records, Hittson's lead petty officer, Edward Vollmer, told Hittson to kill Utterbeck, 20, on the pretense that Utterbeck was planning to kill them. All 4 men were sailors that spring aboard the USS Forrestal, an aircraft carrier based in Pensacola, Fla. On the weekend of the murder, Vollmer invited Hittson and Utterbeck to come with him to his parents' home in Georgia. Vollmer's parents were out of town. Hittson and Vollmer spent that Saturday night at area bars while Utterbeck stayed behind at Vollmer's parents' house. As they drove home from their night of drinking, Vollmer argued that shipmate Utterbeck was going to kill them both and they needed to "get him" first. Once at his parents' house, Vollmer put on a bullet-proof vest he had in his car and retrieved a handgun and a sawed-off shotgun for himself, according to court records. He gave Hittson an aluminum bat. Hittson hit Utterbeck in the head several times before dragging him to the kitchen where Vollmer waited with a .22-caliber handgun. Hittson shot Utterbeck in the head as he begged for his life. Hittson and Vollmer later dismembered Utterbeck???s body. They buried Utterbeck's torso in Houston County and took the remaining body parts to Pensacola. The 2 men tossed the body parts into several dumpsters after they had reported for duty the morning of April 6, 1992. Vollmer pleaded guilty to avoid trial and was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. He has already been denied parole three times - in 1999, last year and today - and the Parole Board has said it will review his case again in 2024. According to Hittson, who confessed to the crime but demanded a trial, the murder was Vollmer's idea. Hittson is the 2nd person Georgia has executed in 2 weeks. Brandon Astor Jones, 72, died by lethal injection in the wee hours of Feb. 3 for a 1979 Cobb County murder. There are at least 3 men who have run out of regular appeals and could see execution dates set soon. Hittson becomes the 2nd condemned inmate to be put to death in Georgia this year and the 62nd overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983. Only Texas (534), Oklahoma (112), Virginia (110, Florida (92) and Missouri (86) have carried out more executions since the death penalty was re-legalized in the USA on July 2, 1976. Hittson becomes the 7th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1429th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. (sources: Atlanta Journal-Constitution & Rick Halperin) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Feb 18 10:21:33 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2016 10:21:33 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., PENN., N.C., FLA., MISS., LA. Message-ID: Feb. 18 TEXAS: Scalia's Final Order Was To Let This Texas Man Die After 15 years of court battles, Gustavo Garcia became the 6th person put to death in 2016, for the murder of a liquor store clerk. And he's the subject of former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia???s final legal action. Just 3 days before his own death, Scalia denied Garcia's plea for a stay of execution. Garcia's final words on Tuesday night were: "To my family, to my mom, I love you. God bless you. Stay strong. I'm done." He was 18 years old when he fatally shot 2 store clerks in Plano, Texas: Craig Turski and Gregory Martin. Turski was shot in the abdomen during a liquor store robbery in December 1990. When he tried to run, Garcia shot him in the back of the head. The teenager was caught during a 2nd robbery attempt 1 month later. In January 1991, Garcia and accomplice Christopher Vargas entered the gas station where Gregory Martin worked. Martin was on the phone at the time and asked his girlfriend to call the police, fearing he was about to be robbed. Garcia moved Martin to a separate room and shot him point blank in the head. When police arrived at the scene, they found Garcia hiding near the firearm, which they linked to Turski's murder. Garcia was informed of his Miranda rights while he was in police custody, but he ultimately confessed to both murders verbally and in writing. He went to trial for killing Turski and was sentenced to capital punishment at the end of 1991. In a surprising twist 3 years later, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the conviction because the written confession was missing language required by Texas to make the statement valid. The document that Garcia signed and initialed didn't explicitly mention that he was "[knowingly], [intelligently], and [voluntarily]" waiving the right to remain silent during the interrogation process. Garcia was subsequently given a 2nd hearing and re-sentenced to death. Then in 2001, Garcia got another break. John Cornyn, Texas' former attorney general, ordered new sentencing hearings for Garcia and 5 other convicted murderers who were racially profiled in court. In all 6 cases, a psychologist argued that the defendants posed a threat to society because they were Hispanic. Cornyn believed that racial bias should not have played a role in the sentencing, and Garcia was given another chance at a lesser punishment. But he was sentenced to die again. Thereafter, Garcia fought the execution on the grounds that he received deficient counsel. He claimed his lawyer never objected to introducing the confessions in court, and that he was unable to read the confession because he is "legally blind." Scalia denied Garcia's final appeal for a stay of execution last Wednesday. The late justice's order was consistent with his unrelenting stance on capital punishment. Scalia was always a staunch supporter of executions, even in cases where there was strong evidence to suggest a person's innocence or reason to believe that a commonly used lethal injection cocktail causes the sensation of being burned alive. He was the 3rd person Texas has put to death in 2016. The state has executed more people than any other state in the country, and has already carried out 1/2 of the executions this year. (source: thinkprogress.org) CONNECTICUT: Convicted Cheshire Killer Komisarjevsky Heading to Court Seeking New Trial----A judge will hold a hearing on Joshua Komisarjevsky's attempt at a new trial focusing on undisclosed police calls in the 2007 triple murder. Convicted Cheshire killer Joshua Komisarjevsky will be back in a New Haven courtroom next week as he attempts to get a new trial for the 2007 home invasion murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and daughters Hayley and Michaela, according to the Hartford Courant. Komisarjevsky is claiming that the fact the some previously undisclosed Cheshire police dispatch tapes from the morning of the murders warrants a new trial. The Courant reports that a hearing has been scheduled for Feb. 23 and Superior Court Judge Jon Blue will listen to arguments on whether the recordings of phone calls between officers as the murders unfolded could have aided Komisarjevsky's defense. Komisarjevsky and Stephen Hayes were both convicted, in separate trials, with felony murder and sentenced to death for the 2007 killings of Hawke-Petit and Michaela, 11, and Hayley, 17. State lawmakers got rid of the death penalty in 2012, but made it so that inmates already on death row would be executed. The provision was added after the trials of Hayes and Komisarjevsky. However, the Connecticut State Supreme Court ruled last August that the death penalty violates the state's constitution and barred all executions. Hayes asked a judge in November to vacate his death sentence and to impose a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. (source: patch.com) PENNSYLVANIA: Frein Attorneys Want Evidence, Death Penalty Thrown Out Attorneys for accused cop killer Eric Frein are trying to get evidence against him thrown out and trying to get the death penalty off the table. Defense lawyers filed motions this week in Pike County. Frein's attorneys argue that state police violated his constitutional rights the night they interrogated him for 4 hours after he was captured. They are also asking for the death penalty to be tossed out while prosecutors still very much intend to push for a death sentence. Troopers rushed Eric Frein into the state police barracks in Blooming Grove in late October 2014. Frein was captured after a 48-day manhunt, accused of an attack on the very same barracks that left one trooper dead and another badly hurt. Now in court papers, Frein's attorneys argue that troopers violated his constitutional rights by interrogating Frein for hours, even after he said he didn't want to talk about the crime. "The question of whether or not any confessions obtained, statements obtained, were obtained within the guidelines of the Constitution," said Frein's attorney Michael Weinstein. Weinstein wants a judge to throw out the statements Frein made confessing to the sniper attack at the barracks. During that time, the defense says troopers called Frein, "Buddy," then skillfully and unlawfully extorted a confession. The defense also says Frein was denied his right to an attorney, after troopers refused to let a family-hired attorney see Frein the night of his capture. "It will have to be determined exactly who Mr. Swetz represented at the time," said Pike County District Attorney Ray Tonkin. Tonkin plans to file a response to the defense motions as both sides prepare for trial. Those motions include 1 in which the defense asks a judge to rule out the death penalty. "The governor's moratorium supports our position. There's a concern about the constitutionality of the death penalty," said Weinstein. "I am not aware of where the governor can indicate in a case that's pending trial that the death penalty is not an available option since it remains the law of Pennsylvania," said Tonkin. Before Frein can go to trial, these new arguments from the defense have to be resolved in Pike County Court. There is no word when a judge might make a ruling, but before that can happen, prosecutors will have a chance to respond. (source: WNEP news) ******************** A lawyer for the man charged in a deadly ambush outside a Pennsylvania State Police barracks wants statements he made during interrogation suppressed Attorney William Ruzzo is also challenging a prosecutor's decision to seek the death penalty against Eric Frein. Frein was captured near an abandoned airplane hangar after a 48-day manhunt following the September 2014 shooting that left Cpl. Bryon Dickson dead and Trooper Alex Douglass wounded. He has pleaded not guilty. In a motion filed in Pike County Court on Tuesday, Ruzzo says Frein's rights were violated during questioning because, among other things, he wasn't told a lawyer hired by his parents was waiting to see him. Ruzzo also filed a motion saying the death penalty is unconstitutional. (source: Associated Press) NORTH CAROLINA: Jury to decide if Travion Smith will be sent to death row The Wake County jury that convicted a man of beating and stabbing a Raleigh mother to death began hearing evidence Wednesday morning in the death penalty phase of Travion Smith's trial. That phase began at 9:30 a.m. Smith was accused, along with 2 other suspects, of the murder of 30-year-old Melissa Huggins-Jones, who was found by her 8-year old daughter beaten and stabbed to death inside their North Hills apartment in May 2013. He was convicted Tuesday after less than an hour of deliberations. The defense says it expects to wrap up its witnesses Thursday before the jury begins deliberating whether to send Smith to death row. Most of the witnesses have talked about how Smith and his siblings were severely neglected as children. The 1st and only witness called by the prosecution was Huggins-Jones' now 10-year-old daughter. However, because Hannah Jones is a minor, the judge ruled the courtroom camera would be turned off during her testimony. Hannah Jones sat in the witness chair and calmly told jurors about the night of May 13, 2013, at the apartment where she had just moved with her mother in North Hills. She told jurors she remembered hearing a scream in the middle of the night, but went back to sleep. She said she and her older brother miss their mother. Family and friends in the courtroom cried, but she maintained her composure. The defense's 1st witness was Smith's mother, Antoinette Smith. She talked about how Smith's father abused her when she was pregnant. "Do you think he punched you in the stomach for any particular reason?" Smith's attorney asked Antoinette Smith. "Cause he didn't want the baby from me, that's what I'm thinking," Antoinette Smith replied. "He didn't want that baby, but I had him anyway. You know, 'cause that's my baby boy." In her closing argument Tuesday, defense attorney Phoebe Dee told jurors there are some facts in the case that are not in dispute. She said Smith was with Ronald Anthony Jr. and Sarah Redden in the neighborhood breaking into cars on the night of the murder. She called Huggins-Jones' murder "brutal" and "senseless". She was "beaten to death over some stuff," said Dee. But she said Smith did not kill her and he and Redden "were just there." She described Smith as being someone who was heavily under the influence of Anthony, who she said has an outsized personality. She also admitted that Smith was not completely truthful with police during a 7-hour interrogation. "Did he tell the whole truth to the police? No," said Dee. In his closing, prosecutor Jason Waller told jurors Smith and Anthony climbed up to a second-floor balcony and got in to Huggins-Jones' apartment through a sliding door. Redden allegedly acted as lookout. Waller attacked the defense idea that Smith was under Anthony's influence. "Where is the evidence that Ronald Anthony made Travion Smith do anything," he asked. Waller also pointed out that Smith told others details about the case that only someone in the room would know. He said Smith was the 1st to hit Huggins-Jones to keep her from screaming. Smith did not testify in his murder trial and the defense did not put on evidence - instead asking Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway to dismiss the charges. The request was denied. Smith's decision not to take the witness stand in his defense came after the prosecution rested Friday morning following a state medical examiner's testimony about the wounds Melissa Huggins-Jones endured before her death. Medical Examiner Lauren Scott told the courtroom that it would have taken several minutes to an hour for Huggins-Jones to die, and that she would have been aware she was dying. Last September, Anthony pleaded guilty to 1st-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. The plea deal spared him the death penalty. Charges against Redden, who agreed to testify against Smith, remain. (source: ABC news) ************** Death penalty remains in play in Charlotte-area gang murder case Federal prosecutors in the gangland murders of Doug and Debbie London appear to have homed in on 3 main targets: those suspected of planning the killings and the man accused of carrying them out. 12 accused Charlotte-area members of United Blood Nation are charged in connection with the October 2014 shootings in York County, S.C. 7 have signed plea agreements. Prosecutors with the U.S. attorney's office in Charlotte announced this month that they will not seek the death penalty against 2 other gang members. That leaves 3 of the original defendants for whom prosecutors have not revealed their plans. They are: -- Jamell "Murda Mell" Cureton, described in court documents as ordering the hit on the Londons from the Mecklenburg County jail and then planning the killings through phone calls and letters. -- Randall Avery "Foe" Hankins, who prosecutors say ironed out key details during phone calls with Cureton. -- Malcolm "Bloody Silent" Hartley, who is accused of shooting Debbie London in the head when she answered the front door at her Lake Wylie home. He also wounded Doug London when he came to his wife's defense, then went back to finish him off as he wept over his wife's body, documents say. Citing the ongoing nature of the case, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office declined to comment Wednesday when asked if prosecutors had recommended death penalties for the three. But in a motion filed this week, Hartley's defense attorney, Rob Heroy of Charlotte, asked a federal judge to release more evidence involving his client so Heroy can prepare for an appearance before a Justice Department committee on Feb. 29 in Washington, D.C. Under federal procedures in potential capital cases, both the prosecutors and defense appear before so-called "death penalty" committees. Members, in turn, recommend whether the death penalty should be sought. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch will make the final decision. Attorneys familiar with the process say a defense attorney's appearance before the Justice Department committee is a clear indication that a local prosecutor, in this case U.S. Attorney Jill Rose or her staff, is seeking the death penalty. U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn will hear Heroy's arguments Monday. The attorney said Wednesday that he filed the motion "so that we will know everything there is to know, 1, to go to trial and, 2, to deal with the possible capital case." As part of his motion, Heroy seeks 12 categories of evidence, including "information ... regarding whether the victims of the murder were engaged in criminal activity at or near the time" of their deaths. Asked if he had any knowledge that the Londons were breaking the law in some way, Heroy declined to comment. He also declined to say whether attorneys for other defendants in the case will appear before the Justice Department committee. Neither Rick Winiker, Cureton's attorney in Charlotte, nor Jim Weidner, the Charlotte member of Hankins' defense team, responded to requests for interviews on Wednesday. The Londons were gunned down in their lakeside home to keep Doug London from testifying against Cureton and 2 other gang members who tried to rob the couple's Pineville mattress store in May 2014, documents say. Prosecutors charged 6 of the original defendants with crimes that carried a death sentence. 3 - David "Flames" Fudge, Rahkeem "Big Keem" McDonald and Briana "Breezy B" Johnson, who drove Hartley to the Londons' home, pleaded guilty last year and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. This month, prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty against Ahkeem "Little Keem" McDonald, the gang's original choice to carry out the killings. McDonald and Cureton are accused of the 2013 execution-style slaying of Kwamne Clyburn, a homeless teenager found in Pressley Road Park off South Tryon Street. The 5 defendants whose cases are still pending - Cureton, Hartley, Hankins, McDonald and Nana Adoma - are scheduled to appear before Cogburn on March 21. (source: charlotteobserver.com) FLORIDA----female may face death penalty Janiya Thomas's mother to be in court in Bradenton on charges she killed daughter, put her body in freezer Janiya Thomas' mother will appear in court at 8:30 a.m. Thursday to face charges she abused and killed the girl before putting her body in a freezer. Janiya Thomas' body was found Oct. 18 inside a padlocked chest freezer her mother, Keishanna Thomas, had delivered to a relative's home days earlier under the guise she was being evicted. Janiya was first reported missing Oct. 16 after Thomas refused to tell a judge anything about her whereabouts or well-being and was held in contempt of court. The news didn't go public until the next day. Thomas, 32, is charged with 1st-degree murder, abuse of a dead body and aggravated child abuse. If convicted. she will face the death penalty or life in prison. Assistant State Attorney Art Brown has not yet filed whether he intends to seek the death penalty. Thomas is scheduled to appear before Circuit Judge Susan Malucci for a case management hearing. A trial date has not been set. Investigators with the Manatee County Sheriff's Office Child Protective Investigative Division noticed Janiya, 11, missing Sept. 23 when they went to the family's Bradenton home to investigate an allegation Thomas abused her 12-year-old son. Only 3 of Thomas' 5 children had been present at the time, but she eventually took her 2-year-old son to investigators. Thomas refused to give them specifics about Janiya, claiming she was out of state with her father's relatives. Records reveal how little was done to locate Janiya by CPID investigators in the weeks that followed until she was officially reported missing. An internal affairs investigation of how the case was handled is still underway. Janiya's eldest sister told investigators she saw her mother tie Janiya's hands and feet one day and dunk her head in water. Afterward, a bathroom in which Janiya was often locked, was cleaned and open. Janiya was never seen again. Janiya's brother told investigators he last saw his sister in January or February last year. The FedEx box in which Janiya was found in the freezer had a label dated Jan. 7. Janiya was found after a relative became suspicious when she saw media reports Janiya had been reported missing, broke the lock, found her body inside and called the Manatee County Sheriff's Office. (source: bradenton.com) ******************* Higher bar set for death penalty Florida lawmakers have reached agreement on revamping the state's death-penalty process after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional last month. House Judiciary Chairman Charles McBurney, R-Jacksonville, successfully advanced an amendment on the House floor Wednesday that will require at least a 10-2 jury vote to recommend the death penalty. It would replace the simple majority vote in the prior law. McBurney said the 10-2 recommendation in the house bill (HB 7101) is a compromise with the Senate, which had endorsed a unanimous jury recommendation in its bill (SB 7068). "We've got to come to something that will work," McBurney said, shortly before the House adopted the measure in a voice vote. "This will work." The House vote should clear the way for resolving the uncertainty surrounding Florida's death penalty after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Jan. 12 that Florida's law was unconstitutional because it limited the jury's role in recommending the death penalty. The House is scheduled for a final vote on the bill today. Under the House bill and the Senate measure, juries will have to unanimously agree on at least one aggravating factor before recommending a death penalty for a defendant in at least a 10-2 vote. If the juries cannot unanimously agree on an aggravating factor, the jurors must recommend a life sentence without parole. Judges will be required to follow the jury's recommendation for life, eliminating the previous ability to override the jury and impose a death sentence. Judges will be able to reduce a death sentence to life if they believe it is warranted. Also under McBurney's compromise amendment, prosecutors will have to notify the defendants what aggravating factors they intend to prove in the death cases. Florida is only 1 of 3 states with the death penalty that does not require a unanimous jury recommendation. If the House bill is ultimately adopted, Florida would join Alabama with the 10-2 requirement. Delaware, which is also revising its death penalty law, is the other state without a unanimous jury recommendation. Rep. Joe Geller, D-Aventura, said he would likely vote against the bill but supported McBurney's amendment. "I think this amendment moves us in the right direction toward justice," he said. Rep. Jose Rodriguez, D-Miami, said the adoption of a 10-2 jury recommendation and the unanimous vote on aggravating factors will keep the state from being an "outlier" and could make the Florida's death penalty more legally sound. "It's forward-looking," Rodriguez said, although he added it "doesn't fix" all the potential flaws in the law. Rep. John Wood, R-Winter Haven, strongly objected to increasing the required jury vote on the death penalty recommendation, citing the emotional testimony he heard in the Judiciary Committee when the family members of murder victims testified. "There is evil in this world and I'm proud to be a Floridian who stands with those victims," Wood said. 1 of the issues the legislation leaves unresolved is the "retroactive" impact of the Supreme Court decision on Florida's 389 death row inmates. Legal experts have told lawmakers that inmates who had not completed their initial appeals may see their death penalties converted to life without parole sentences. Rep. Ross Spano, R-Dover, one of the sponsors of the House bill, said the retroactive impact of the ruling is something the courts will have to resolve. The Florida Supreme Court halted the scheduled Feb. 11 execution of Cary Michael Lambrix, who was convicted of killing 2 people in Glades County, while the court sorts through the legal arguments surrounding last month's U.S. Supreme Court decision. (source: Herald-Tribune) ***************** High court's death penalty ruling delays local murder trial A January U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down Florida's death penalty sentencing scheme has influenced the status of a murder trial in Citrus County. Crystal Michelle Brinson, 38, heard Wednesday her case would be continued 90 days until the Florida Legislature decides how to proceed with the death penalty. Brinson, of Brooksville, faces a June 2013 charge of 1st-degree murder for the 2012 death of 18-year-old DeAnna Lee Stires, also of Brooksville. Stires was reported missing on Jan. 1, 2013. Her body was found Jan. 8 in Levy County. In July 2013, prosecutor Pete Magrino filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty if Brinson was found guilty, according to court records. On Wednesday, Judge Richard "Ric" Howard asked Brinson's attorney, Terence Lenamon, and Magrino, if they considered the high-court's justices' Jan. 12 ruling in Hurst v. Florida having bearing on Brinson's possible sentencing in a capital felony trial. In an 8-1 decision, justices deemed Florida's sentencing procedure allowing judges and not jurors the right to impose the death penalty on convicted criminals as unconstitutional, saying it violated the U.S. Constitution's Sixth Amendment. "I want to stay ahead of the curb," Howard told Lenamon and Magrino. "Technically, there's no death penalty right now," Lenamon replied. Howard agreed, adding Brinson's case should wait until Florida lawmakers restructure the state statute for death-penalty sentencing. After concurrence from Lenamon and Magrino, Howard issued a 90-day continuance on Brinson's case, setting it for another status hearing on May 4. "Hopefully, the Legislature will come to a decision," Magrino said. In the same week justices ruled in Hurst, Florida legislatures introduced bills in both chambers to bring the state's statute up to constitutional muster. Deliberations continue however on whether the 12 jurors must be unanimous or reach a minimum vote count to impose the death penalty, based on sufficient aggravating circumstances. Brinson's boyfriend and co-defendant, Byron Lee Boutin, now 44, was convicted in August 2013 of 2nd-degree murder for Stires' death. He's serving a life sentence. (source: Citrus County Chronicle) MISSISSIPPI: Senate passes Execution Secrecy Bill In the future a Mississippi death row inmate's execution and all those involved in the process could be kept from the public. Senate Bill 2237, introduced by Republican Senator Joey Fillingane, passed Tuesday. Entitled the "Execution Secrecy Bill", the measure would protect the identities of the execution team, suppliers of the lethal injection drugs and others involved in the execution process. State Attorney General Jim Hood helped draft the legislation. He said in reaction to anti-death penalty advocates who have threatened and harassed the companies providing the lethal injections and even the executioner. "As long as it's the law in Mississippi I've got a duty to carry it out and if there's a method by which I can carry it out without people getting abused; the executioner, the pharmacy that provides the drugs, I think we owe them that protection. It's a state law," said Hood. Opponents of the Execution Secrecy legislation say the public would not be made aware of the execution process which could possibly be inhumane and not divulge where the drugs were from, how they are administered or their reactions. We were unable to reach Senator Fillingane and Prisoner Rights Advocates for comment on the execution secrecy bill. Similar bills have been passed in recent years in Arkansas and Georgia. (source: WDAM news) LOUISIANA----stay of impending execution Louisiana's high court issues stay in scheduled March execution of River Parishes serial killer The Louisiana Supreme Court issued a stay Wednesday in the scheduled March 14 execution of River Parishes serial killer Daniel Blank, who was convicted in 5 brutal slayings of well-to-do, older residents in the mid-1990s. A state district judge in Ascension Parish had signed an execution order in mid-January after rejecting Blank's post-conviction appeal arguments last year and upheld in his 1999 1st-degree murder conviction for the fatal beating of 72-year-old Lillian Philippe, of Gonzales. But Blank's defense attorneys had said that despite the judge's ruling, her execution order was premature and a waste of taxpayer money for several reasons: the layers of appeal still available to Blank at the state and federal level, the lack of drugs available to conduct the execution and a separate stay that a federal judge in Baton Rouge had previously issued for all executions in Louisiana at least until July. Pam Laborde, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Public Safety and Corrections, said the court notified her agency of the stay by telephone Wednesday. Valerie Willard, spokeswoman for the state's highest court, said the decision to grant the stay was unanimous. Blank's defense attorneys had asked the high court to order Judge Jessie LeBlanc of the 23rd Judicial District to withdraw her Jan. 14 execution warrant, 1 of his attorneys said Wednesday, but, at the urging of the state Attorney General's Office, the Supreme Court instead agreed to stay the execution itself. Chuck Long, the 23rd Judicial District attorney who prosecuted Blank, charged Blank's attorneys are simply delaying the process in hopes that the composition of the U.S. Supreme Court changes and the death penalty is found unconstitutional. Conservative stalwart and staunch death penalty supporter Justice Antonin Scalia died Saturday. "That's what their game is," Long said. He also charged Blank's innocence is no longer an issue after the Supreme Court previously upheld his conviction in the Philippe murder. The writs his attorneys are now seeking are discretionary, Long claimed. But Gary Clements, a Blank defense attorney with the Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana, said Blank has a legal right to post-conviction appeal through the state Supreme Court. He said he filed Blank's writ with that court Feb. 1 seeking to overturn LeBlanc's ruling denying Blanks's post-conviction appeal last year and is waiting on Long's response. Clements said he can't base his cases on dreams of changing political winds at the U.S. Supreme Court. "It's an interesting point of view, but I don't think it holds a lot of water," he said. Earlier this week, the state Department Public Safety and Corrections confirmed what Clements had said about the availability of drugs for the execution: the "Department does not currently have in its possession the drug(s) necessary to carry out the March 14, 2016, scheduled execution of Daniel Blank." But the department added the statement that it would continue to follow protocols that lay out the procedures done in the weeks leading up to a scheduled execution "until legal actions dictate otherwise." In its statement Monday, corrections officials distributed forms for media members to fill out if they wished to witness Blank's execution. Blank, 53, who is from St. James Parish but lived in Sorrento at the time of the slayings in the mid-1990s, was convicted in 4 other slayings beside Philippe's. Blank has 4 life sentence in those convictions after pleas and various appeals and only faces the death penalty in the Philippe case. He was never tried in a 6th slaying, which authorities say was the 1st he committed, that of Victor Rossi, 41, of St. Amant, on Oct. 27, 1996. Blank offered a 12-hour confession to authorities admitting to the murders and other armed robberies. Clements has argued Blank was highly susceptible to suggestion, though, especially after the hours of interrogation that preceded his confession. LeBlanc rejected that and the rest of Blank's appeals claims, which mostly focused on ineffective counsel at trial. Even with Blank's execution less than a month away and the Department of Public Safety and Corrections instituting procedures in advance of the execution, Clements expressed confidence on Tuesday that DOC officials would not conduct the execution due to its prematurity and the lack of drugs to actually perform it. "They can do all that, but it's semantics because they don't have any way to do anything," Clements said Tuesday. (source: The Advocate) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Feb 18 10:23:33 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2016 10:23:33 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, COLO., ORE., USA Message-ID: Feb. 18 OHIO: Jury selection begins in Eric Hendon's triple-murder trial; Hendon faces death penalty Jury selection began - for the 2nd time - in Eric Hendon's triple-murder trial Wednesday. Summit County Common Pleas Judge Amy Corrigall Jones dismissed the 1st jury last October when defense attorneys saw evidence they thought could potentially exonerate Hendon. In the 5 months since, defense attorneys, prosecutors and surviving victim Ronda Blankenship and her attorney have been battling over additional personal information defense attorneys have sought from Blankenship. Jones, however, was determined that the trial would go forward, despite several pending issues. "I'm not going to continue the trial," the judge said Tuesday during the final hearing before jury selection started. Hendon, 33, of Akron, is charged with aggravated murder in the New Year's Eve 2013 shooting deaths of a Barberton man and 2 teenage children in a home-invasion robbery for marijuana and cash. He faces the death penalty. Michael Hendon, 24, his younger brother, is a co-defendant and was convicted in August and sentenced to life in prison without parole. A pool of 149 potential jurors in Eric Hendon's trial answered jury questionnaires Wednesday that asked them about their backgrounds, knowledge of the case and thoughts on the death penalty. Defense attorneys and prosecutors will begin individual interviews with jurors Thursday, a process that is expected to last several weeks. A jury is expected to be seated by March 17, with the trial starting March 22. The trial could last up to a month. A major pending issue is whether Jones will grant a defense request to sanction prosecutors for not providing information and being uncooperative, allegations the prosecutors deny. The defense is asking Jones to not allow Blankenship, who was shot in the head and lost an eye after being stabbed in the face, to testify. If Blankenship is permitted to testify, the case hinges on how well she can remember the events of that night and whether any treatment she received, exposure to media reports or discussion with detectives might have skewed her recollection, said Brian Pierce, 1 of 2 defense attorneys for Eric Hendon. "It comes down to memory and her ability - with this horrible trauma - to be able to accurately and reliably identify someone," he said. Jones denied a request by defense attorneys Tuesday for the court to provide a neurologist to review Blankenship's medical records and determine if her injuries could have affected her memory. The judge, however, granted a defense request for an anesthesiologist to examine the potential impact of the drugs prescribed to Blankenship. The defense's witness list has 48 potential witnesses, which includes Blankenship, numerous police officers, a forensic computer expert and a memory-identification expert. Assistant prosecutors Teri Burnside and Dan Sallerson plan to call Blankenship, a doctor with the Summit County Medical Examiner's Office, police officers, paramedics and crime-lab technicians. Jones recently ordered Michael Hendon transferred from Mansfield Correctional Institution to the Summit County Jail. It is unclear whether he will be called as a witness. He has a pending appeal and could plead the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination if he takes the stand. Pierce said he and Don Malarcik, his co-counsel, won't decide until the trial is underway whether Eric Hendon should testify. Jones asked prosecutors and defense attorneys during Tuesday's hearing to discuss whether a plea could be reached, but this was unsuccessful. Pierce said Hendon wants a jury to decide his case. "He's not interested in an offer," Pierce said. (source: Akron Beacon Journal) COLORADO: Death penalty sought for inmate charged in fatal attack Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against an inmate accused of stabbing a correctional officer to death and trying to kill another. Crowley County District Attorney Jim Bullock announced Wednesday he will seek the death penalty against convicted child rapist Miguel Alonso Contreras-Perez in the death of Sgt. Mary Ricard at the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility on Sept. 24, 2012. Perez also is accused of stabbing Sgt. Lori Gann the same day. The Denver Post reports (http://goo.gl/WsRSXi ) Contreras-Perez has fired his state public defenders and is planning to represent himself. Ricard's daughter, Katie Smith, says she has asked Bullock many times not to seek the death penalty, which she does not agree with. Bullock says he can't comment on his decision because the judge has barred any statements about the case outside of court. (source: Associated Press) OREGON: Trial date nears for 3rd suspect in horrific Eugene murder case Nearly 2 years after a Lane County jury sent David Ray Taylor to Oregon's death row for the 2012 slaying of Eugene resident Celestino Gutierrez Jr., a trial date is nearing for another ???suspect in the case. Pretrial hearings began Wednesday in Lane County Circuit Court for Army veteran A.J. Scott Nelson of Portland, who faces a potential death sentence if he is found guilty of aggravated murder. Jury selection is scheduled to begin March 29. Nelson was just 22 when he allegedly helped Taylor, a Eugene resident who was 56 at the time, carry out a plan to kill Gutierrez in order to steal the victim's car for use in a bank robbery. A 3rd person charged in the case, then-18-year-old Mercedes Crabtree of Portland, is serving a lifetime prison sentence for her role in the plot. Nelson has spent the past 3 1/2 years in the Lane County Jail, in part because he didn't begin working with his current defense team until mid-2014 - after telling a judge that he didn't trust the original set of lawyers appointed to represent him. 1 pretrial issue to be worked out surrounds the Lane County Sheriff's Office's practice of audio-recording Nelson's telephone calls and social visits at the jail, and sharing those recordings with police. Defense attorney Laurie Bender on Wednesday argued that the jail's practice is illegal and that recording Nelson's conversations for potential investigative purposes without first obtaining a warrant amounts to "a suspicionless search." Bender asserted her client is one of a "select few" jail inmates subject to close scrutiny of their phone calls and visits. Bender asked Lane County Circuit Judge Debra Vogt to prohibit prosecutors from presenting any evidence at trial that investigators may have gleaned through their review of the recordings. Prosecutor David Schwartz, however, maintained that it is proper and legal for authorities to record inmate phone calls and visits. Sheriff's Lt. Steve French testified Wednesday that the jail records most inmate calls and visits "for the safety and security of the facility," and that inmates are well aware of that fact. Vogt is expected to make a number of rulings in the coming weeks, several in response to defense motions urging her to prohibit prosecutors from seeking the death penalty if Nelson is convicted of aggravated murder. Nelson's attorneys have asked Vogt to exclude the death penalty as a potential sentencing option because of injuries Nelson suffered in 2009 when his squad's armored vehicle was destroyed by a roadside bomb during a combat tour in Afghanistan. The lawyers also have argued in court documents that Vogt should declare the death penalty unconstitutional and bar it in their client's case because of "evolving standards of decency." Additionally, Nelson's lawyers want the judge to allow them to question prospective jurors 1 by 1 - outside the presence of others in the jury pool - regarding their views on capital punishment and race, in an attempt to identify any racial bias that may exist among the people who will decide the fate of Nelson, who is black. Evidence presented during Taylor's trial indicated Nelson played a central role in Gutierrez's murder and dismemberment. Crabtree, whose plea deal with prosecutors requires her to serve as a state witness against both Taylor and Nelson, testified at Taylor's trial that Nelson - at Taylor's direction - bound Gutierrez with electrical wire and a belt, pushed a crossbow bolt through 1 of the victim's ears and choked him. After mocking Nelson for failing to kill Gutierrez swiftly, Taylor wrapped a metal chain around Gutierrez's neck and pulled on it until the victim stopped breathing, Crabtree told the jury. Crabtree said Nelson and Taylor then dismembered Gutierrez's body in a bathtub in Taylor's home off Highway 99 in Eugene. Nelson went into a brief seizure during the process and came out of it confused about what he saw in the bathroom, Crabtree testified. (source: Register-Guard) USA: Fate of death penalty in hands of next justice In September and October, Justice Antonin Scalia told audiences at 2 different law schools it would not surprise him if the death penalty were ruled unconstitutional while he was still on the court. Scalia noted Justice Stephen Breyer's recent dissent in Glossip v. Gross, a case in which Breyer said the court should consider the issue of whether the Eighth Amendment requires an end to capital punishment in America. Scalia had previously identified himself as the 5th vote on a court divided 4 to 4 on the issue. He could not have known his sudden death a few months later might be the vehicle for that very eventuality. All of the Republican candidates can be expected to nominate a candidate for the Supreme Court who will follow Scalia's lead in upholding the constitutionality of capital punishment. Of the remaining presidential candidates, only Bernie Sanders opposes the death penalty and can be counted on to appoint a Supreme Court candidate who would become the 5th vote to abolish capital punishment. It is less clear how Hillary Clinton - a death penalty proponent - would expect her nominee to answer the question, because no one has bothered to ask her. If Clinton wins and nominates a candidate with a strong civil rights background, the death penalty will likely be abolished. However, if a victorious Clinton nominates a former prosecutor, like Loretta Lynch or Eric Holder, it would likely mean the U.S. continues its ignominious membership in a dwindling group of backward nations that continue to execute their own citizens. Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton has a 20-year history of enacting criminal justice policy that exploits the public's fear of crime and invariably results in a racially disparate impact on poor minorities. The Clintons' championing of the 1994 Crime Bill (which contributed to the mass incarceration of poor minorities) and the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (which raised procedural bars to claims of actual innocence) are both examples of the Clintons' pandering to the public's tough-on-crime sensibilities to achieve political ends. This has been their pattern since their days in Arkansas. Earlier this week, Clinton made headlines for barking like a dog while telling a folksy story about her husband's early campaigns in Arkansas. The barking incident was an unintended reminder of the Clintons' involvement in the 1992 execution of a 250-pound lobotomized man-child named Ricky Ray Rector. A 1993 New Yorker article by Marshall Frady, "Death in Arkansas," described how Rector repetitively performed a little shuffle dance, and alternatingly giggled to himself like a child or barked like a dog, as he waited in his cell to be executed on Arkansas' death row. Bill Clinton, who was embroiled in a sex scandal that threatened to derail his presidential campaign, had returned to Arkansas to personally preside over Rector's execution. Christopher Hitchens described Rector as "a lumpen failure of a man" who, after killing a police officer turned the gun on himself, destroying a good portion of his brain in the process. Rector survived the suicide attempt as a different person with the mental faculties of a small child. Frady also described the frantic efforts of one of Rector's lawyers to reach Clinton on the day of the execution. Jeff Rosenzweig had grown up with Clinton in Hot Springs, Ark., where his father had been Clinton's pediatrician. When he finally reached Clinton late in the afternoon, Rosenzweig explained the severity of Rector's mental deficits. Executing Rector, Rosenzweig told Clinton, would be the equivalent of executing a child. Rosenzweig knew it was an uphill battle given the political pressure Clinton was under, but he hoped his old friend "wouldn't want to be seen as merciless." Clinton wouldn't budge. The execution proceeded that evening after a one-hour delay, punctuated by Rector's loud groans, as prison officials struggled to find a usable vein. The medical team finally had to slash into his arm with a scalpel in order to find a vein capable of carrying the lethal chemicals into his massive body. Once the chemicals started to flow, it took Rector 19 minutes to die amid his intermittent gasps for air. Rector had been sacrificed on the altar of the Clintons' political ambitions. Hillary Clinton's key decision-making role in her husband's 1992 campaign is well-documented, yet no one has ever bothered to ask her about the killing of Rector. It's about time someone did, and long before she's in a position to nominate someone to fill Scalia's seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. (source: Nat Hentoff is a nationally renowned authority on the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights. Nick Hentoff is a criminal defense and civil liberties attorney in New York City----The Courier) ******************* The Human Toll of Antonin Scalia's Time on the Court----Blacks, Latinos, and poor whites suffered because of his draconian approach to criminal punishment. In the days since Antonin Scalia's death, he has been duly recognized as one of the most impactful justices in the Supreme Court???s history. A critical part of his troubling legacy has long been staring us in the face, although it finally started receiving the public scrutiny it deserves in recent years. As draconian punishments became the norm over the last 3 decades, the Supreme Court largely rubber-stamped these practices. Justice Scalia played a key role in this process, as his hardline stances on criminal punishment significantly contributed to mass incarceration, numerous executions, and systemic racial discrimination. Scalia was an outspoken supporter of harsh punishments and wanted the court to take an even more hands-off attitude toward so-called "tough on crime" laws. Not long after he made it onto the court in 1986, Scalia???s influence on these issues began to be felt. In McCleskey v. Kemp, one of the first cases he heard, anti-death penalty advocates brought compelling evidence of pervasive racial discrimination in Georgia's administration of capital punishment. A sophisticated statistical study demonstrated that sentencing was tied to the race of the victim and offender. All other factors being equal, blacks who killed whites were the likeliest to receive a death sentence. Justice Scalia was unfazed. During oral arguments, he derisively asked: "What if you do a statistical study that shows beyond question that people who are naturally shifty-eyed are to a disproportionate extent convicted in criminal cases, does that make the criminal process unlawful?" John Charles Boger, who represented the black death-row prisoner in McCleskey, responded by pointing to the obvious: "This is not some sort of statistical fluke or aberration. We have a century-old pattern in the state of Georgia of animosity [toward black-Americans]." Scalia and 4 other justices nonetheless chose to analyze discrimination out of its social context, including in cases from Southern states with a lengthy history of slavery, segregation, and lynchings. Scalia was in the majority as the court held that statistical proof of systemic discrimination in the death penalty is irrelevant. A defendant must instead prove intentional discrimination in his own case, an almost impossible standard without considering systemic patterns. Many experts consider McCleskey among the worst Supreme Court decisions of all-time. It largely closed the door to statistical evidence as a means of challenging systemic discrimination in criminal punishment. Scalia would also play a significant role as the Supreme Court licensed ruthless sentences leading America to world record incarceration levels. He wrote the operative part of the influential Harmelin decision, a 1991 plurality opinion holding that the Eighth Amendment ban on "cruel and unusual punishments" does not require that a prison sentence be "proportional" to the crime. The court thus upheld a life-sentence for cocaine possession. Scalia again was in the majority in Lockyer v. Andrade, a 2003 case upholding a 50-year-to-life sentence under California's 3-strikes-law for a man who shoplifted videotapes worth $153 because he had prior convictions for petty theft, burglary, and transporting marijuana. Erwin Chemerinsky, who zealously represented the prisoner, was in tears as the media asked him about his reaction to the court's inhumane decision. McCleskey, Harmelin, and Lockyer were all 5-4 decisions that could have been decided otherwise if Scalia had thought differently. Naturally, he was not a swing vote but a sure one for harsh justice. While the justices might not have been able to stop mass incarceration singlehandedly, they definitely could have limited it. Indeed, the court's belated decision in Brown v. Plata, has contributed to reducing California's incarceration rate. In this 2011 case, the court ordered California to reduce its dramatically overcrowded prison population because "depriv[ing] prisoners of basic sustenance, including adequate medical care, is incompatible with the concept of human dignity." In a vehement dissent, Scalia charged that this was "a judicial travesty" and that the majority was "wildly" overstepping its authority. Similarly, he fiercely dissented in other rare cases where the court decided to check ruthless punishments. If it had been up to Scalia, it would still be constitutional to execute mentally retarded people or teenagers, not to mention sentence teenagers to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for homicide or any other crime. This aspect of his legacy has been overshadowed by the common misconception that "at least Scalia was quite fair to criminal defendants." To his credit, he concluded in several procedural cases that juries, not judges, must decide if all facts leading to harsher punishment are proved beyond reasonable doubt. In various other cases, he found that police searches went too far. But these are exceptions. He regularly took an extremely narrow view of due process, such as when he argued that the Constitution does not create "a right to demand judicial consideration of newly discovered evidence of innocence." Scalia further suggested that executing an innocent person would not be unconstitutional per se. More than 1,300 prisoners were executed while Scalia was on the Supreme Court though he was persuaded that his colleagues created unjust procedural hurdles to executions by baselessly expanding the rights of death row prisoners. Had Scalia had his way, far more people would have been executed during his tenure and the court would have adopted an even more accommodating approach to mass incarceration. In his view, merciless punishments were just deserts for "evildoers." He scoffed when fellow justices advanced a more nuanced view of criminal behavior or occasionally suggested that draconian punishments were dehumanizing. He was certain that the court already cared too much about people who faced the death penalty or endless prison sentences. Justices who disagreed with him were judicial activists who refused to defer to elected branches of government. Of course, Scalia did not do so himself in multiple cases. Tellingly, he voted to strike down campaign finance legislation in Citizens United. He likewise voted twice, unsuccessfully, in favor of eviscerating the democratically enacted Affordable Care Act. Scalia still cultivated the image of an impartial judge whose decisions were not shaped by his personal values. He was the originalist, the defender of procedural rigor, and the anti-judicial activist. If so, he may have been the sole justice in history whose moral values did not play a major role in his judicial philosophy. Judges are only human. Scalia's writing sheds additional light on why he embraced merciless punishments. In a 2002 article, he insisted that God wants us to execute murderers. He nevertheless began his essay by claiming that his moral values have no bearing on how he rules in capital cases. A few paragraphs later, however, Scalia wrote "I could not take part in [the death penalty] process if I believed what was being done to be immoral," thereby contradicting his disclaimer. Besides being among the countries that execute the most prisoners alongside authoritarian regimes, America nearly has the highest incarceration rate worldwide. Blacks, Latinos, and poor whites are the main targets of draconian punishments, which are heavily shaped by race and class discrimination. This human toll is part of Antonin Scalia???s legacy. (source: Mugambi Jouet is a Thomas C. Grey Fellow at Stanford Law School----slate.com) *************** Tsarnaev attorneys ask to be replaced for appeals process----His team said the switch would provide the convicted terrorist with "high-quality, cost-effective representation." Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's attorneys have asked to be replaced as his "demanding" appeals process continues. In a motion filed Wednesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, his team said the switch would provide the convicted terrorist with "high-quality, cost-effective representation." Miriam Conrad, chief federal public defender in Massachusetts, and David Bruck, a death penalty expert and head of Washington and Lee University's death penalty clinic, have asked to be taken off the team after nearly 3 years as his legal counsel. Replacing them would be David Patton, executive director and attorney-in-chief of the Federal Defenders of New York, and Gail Johnson, an attorney with death penalty experience based in Colorado, where Tsarnaev is incarcerated at a federal supermax prison. Judy Clarke, the San Diego, California-based death penalty expert who led Tsarnaev's defense, would stay on temporarily to assist with the transition. Tsarnaev's attorneys cited guidelines advising that new counsel should be assigned in federal death penalty appeals. Appellate lawyers will bring a fresh perspective because they have different specialties than trial lawyers, they wrote. All of Tsarnaev???s attorneys - and Tsarnaev himself - agreed to the switch, they wrote. Tsarnaev was sentenced to death last year after a jury convicted him on all counts against him stemming from the bombings at the Boston Marathon in 2013. On Tuesday, they filed their notice of appeal of Tsarnaev's convictions and death sentence with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. His attorneys have argued that Tsarnaev could not get a fair trial in Massachusetts. (source: boston.com) ****************** Soft on crime turns out to be smart on crime: Column A new report from the University of Michigan's National Registry of Exonerations has proclaimed 2015 as a banner year for achieving justice in America. A total of 149 prisoners - including 58 convicted of homicide and 5 on death row - were released from custody based on exculpatory evidence or the recognition that the Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial had been violated. Apparently, they were the victims of a system more interested in arrest, prosecution and incarceration than in justice. The shame of wrongful conviction has captured the public's imagination. A ten-part Netflix documentary focusing on the plight of one Steven Avery from an allegedly overzealous prosecution quickly went viral. What's more, the issue of innocence made its way into the Feb. 4 New Hampshire Democratic presidential debate when Sen. Bernie Sanders argued for abolition of the death penalty based on his firm belief that "too many innocent people, including minorities, African Americans, have been executed when they were not guilty." Many of the hundreds who have been exonerated and released from prison in the past several decades were prosecuted during a period of high crime rates and unprecedented fear. At a time when a no-nonsense, "lock 'em up" criminal justice policy carried the day, the nation largely turned a blind eye to injustices. We were far more intent on ensuring public safety than protecting the rights of the accused. Meanwhile, a booming economy afforded close to a ten-fold expansion in state and federal prison populations. Times have changed. Crime rates are at a 50-year low, and, in part due to runaway correctional expenditures, a majority of states are struggling to balance their budgets. This dire financial situation has forced politicians to seek out cost-saving measures, and the low crime rate has allowed them to do so without much public opposition. The focus on innocence and exoneration actually reflects a much broader rethinking of our criminal justice policies in the context of low crime and limited resources. When crime rates were rising, the cops were handed a mandate to do whatever it took to arrest criminals. Now the police are being held accountable like never before. We are questioning their use of deadly force, and equipping them with body cameras to monitor their every move. Similarly, the 1990s panic over youth and gang violence had us characterizing juvenile offenders as "superpredators" who were beyond redemption. The popular slogan "adult time for adult crime" echoed a "get-tough" approach for punishing kids. Recently, however, the U.S. Supreme Court abolished mandatory life sentences for minors. And policy makers have recommitted to the original philosophy of juvenile justice, prioritizing the needs of young offenders rather than what punishment is deserved. The 1990s also saw the rapid spread of a penal policy patterned after a well-known baseball refrain - "3 strikes and you're out." This metaphorical approach to sentencing felons helped nearly bankrupt many states, especially California where "3 strikes" was most enthusiastically adopted. Thousands upon thousands of Americans were taken prisoner in the "War on Drugs" declared in the early 1970s when crime rates soared. Having surrendered this misguided campaign, the nation is now looking more toward treatment for addicts than punishment, and releasing nonviolent drug offenders from prison. POLICING THE USA Debates show differences between Dems, GOP on police Many, if not all, of the recent shifts in philosophy reflect the fact that we simply can't afford to keep millions of Americans locked behind bars. Mass incarceration may have contributed marginally to bringing down the crime rate, but it was hardly a cost-effective strategy. Rehabilitation, despite its limitations, is significantly cheaper and far more attractive to cost-conscious lawmakers and their constituents. For several decades, ever since Richard Nixon won the White House on a "law and order" platform, the predominant response to crime was decidedly punitive. Today's proposed criminal justice reforms - from deincarceration to exoneration - would have been condemned as soft on crime. Whether they will prove to be smart on crime, as reformers have promised, one thing is for sure: They are frugal, and frugality is definitely in fashion these days. (source: James Alan Fox, a member of the USA TODAY Board of Contributors, is the Lipman Professor of Criminology, Law and Public Policy at Northeastern University. Richard Moran is professor of sociology at Mount Holyoke College; Op-Ed----USA Today) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Feb 18 10:24:15 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2016 10:24:15 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 18 INDONESIA: Jessica's lawyers file pretrial motion Lawyers of Jessica Kumala Wongso filed a pretrial motion with the Central Jakarta District Court to challenge her suspect status in the murder case of Wayan Mirna Salihin, who died after drinking cyanide-laced coffee. Yudi Wibowo, one of the lawyers, said on Wednesday that having filed the motion, the team would face the 1st hearing on Feb. 23. Meanwhile, the Jakarta Police's general crime director, Krishna Murti, said that he had been informed about the pretrial. "Once we receive a notification letter about the pretrial, the Jakarta Police's legal team will immediately prepare for the hearing," Krishna said on Tuesday as quoted by kompas.com. Nonetheless, Krishna added that his team was optimistic that they could put Jessica behind bars as they had found 2 pieces of evidence that confirmed their allegations. Jessica, the sole suspect in the murder case, was charged under the Criminal Code for premeditated murder. The law carries the possibility of the death penalty, lifetime imprisonment, or a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The police suspect her of murdering Mirna, 27, who died after drinking the poisoned coffee at the Olivier restaurant in the Grand Indonesia shopping mall on Jan. 6. However, police have so far been tight-lipped on a motive behind the homicide. (source: thejakartapost.com) UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Doha court reviews expat's premeditated killing of compatriot A Doha Criminal Court has been reviewing the case of a Bangladeshi man accused of premeditated killing of his compatriot. Local Arabic daily Arrayah reported that the Public Prosecution accused the defendant of murdering his accommodation and work mate. The witness in the case, a police officer, told the court that he received a call about the killing of an Asian man at a workers' accommodation. When he went there, he found the body of the victim on his bed with severe injuries and covered in blood. He also found a sharp knife under the bed. Upon investigation and further search, the defendant was arrested. He told the investigators that he killed the victim after a heated verbal dispute, when the latter insulted and rebuked him harshly. After committing the murder, he fled the accommodation. At night, he slept at a mosque and in the morning, police found him and he was eventually arrested. The defendant justified the killing claiming that the victim used to beat and insult him in front of others at work at the Fish Market. Also, he used to constantly threaten to send him back home, which made the defendant furious, provoking him to kill the other person. A medical report submitted to the court on the condition of the defendant affirmed that he suffered from depression related to the murder, but he is fully accountable for his crime. The court has adjourned the case until the legal heirs of the victim express their wish whether they seek a death penalty for the defendant or accept blood money. (source: Gulf Times) IRAQ: Shocking surge in 2016 death sentences tops 90 as 'terror' trial closes The 40 death sentences handed down today in Iraq after a fundamentally flawed mass trial show a reckless disregard for justice and human life, said Amnesty International and brings the total sentenced in 2016 close to 100. Iraq's courts have imposed at least 52 death sentences since 1 January 2016. Today a further 40 individuals were sentenced to death as the verdict of a high-profile anti-terror trial is delivered in Baghdad. "For Iraqi courts to hand down 92 death sentences in just 6 weeks is a grim indicator of the current state of justice in the country," said James Lynch, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director. "The vast majority of the trials have been grossly unfair, with many of the defendants claiming to have been tortured into 'confessing' the crimes. These allegations must be urgently investigated and a re-trial that meets international fair trial standard should be ordered." Today's trial involved 47 individuals accused of involvement in the Speicher massacre, in which at least 1,700 military cadets from Speicher Military camp, near Tikrit, were brutally killed by militants from the armed group calling itself Islamic State (IS) in June 2014. Iraq's Federal Judicial Authority confirmed that 40 people were sentenced to death under the 2005 anti-terrorism law and 7 were released due to lack of evidence. More than 600 arrest warrants were issued by the Iraqi authorities in connection with the Speicher massacre. The Central Criminal Court of Iraq (CCCI) went on to announce that it would consolidate all cases relating to the Speicher crimes into one case - opening the door to mass trials. In July 2014, 24 men were sentenced to death by hanging under the 2005 Anti-Terrorism Law in connection with the massacre. "These mass, expedited trials raise serious questions about whether the Iraqi authorities really want to uncover the truth behind these abhorrent attacks, or whether they simply want to create the illusion that justice has been done. Once again we are seeing basic human rights trampled upon as the authorities circumvent fair trials in the name of national security," said James Lynch. Amnesty International is calling on the Iraqi authorities to halt the ratification of death sentences and immediately establish an official moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty. Before a death sentence can be carried out, the President of Iraq must ratify it. Former President Jalal Talabani refused to ratify any death sentences leading to a backlog of more than 600 cases. Last year, the new President Fuad Ma'sum came under significant pressure from MPs and the public to ratify death sentences, particularly following the Speicher massacre. A Special Committee was set up in the Presidency Office to manage the backlog. In July 2015 Amnesty International called on the Iraqi President to halt the ratification of death sentences that would pave the way for executions. Many of those sentenced to death have been subject to grossly unfair trials. (source: Amnesty International) PAKISTAN: Pakistan, with 324 executions in 2015, ranks third worldwide - report Pakistan hanged 324 people last year to rank 3rd worldwide in terms of executions, but the vast majority of those put to death had no links to militant groups or attacks, rights groups said in a report seen by Reuters. Pakistan lifted a moratorium on executions in late 2014 as a measure to deter militancy, after a Taliban gunmen attacked a school and killed 134 students and 19 adults. Of the 351 executions that followed, only 39, or about 1 in 10, involved people linked to a known militant group or guilty of crimes linked to militancy, Reprieve, an international human rights group, and Justice Project Pakistan said in a report. Pakistan now ranks after China and Iran, carrying out 324 hangings in 2015 alone, the report showed. Juveniles, mentally ill prisoners, and prisoners who had been tortured or had not received fair trials were among those executed, the report found in an analysis of media reports and data from courts, prisons and legal teams. "The numbers show that the Pakistan government's claims do not match reality," said Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at Reprieve. "Those going to the gallows are too often the poor and vulnerable," she said in a statement. "It is hard to see how hanging people like this will make Pakistan safer." A spokesman from Pakistan's interior ministry did not respond to requests for comment. The government initially said the unofficial moratorium was only being lifted in cases connected to militancy, but it was later broadened to cover all cases, the report said. The hangings have drawn condemnation from international partners but have been broadly popular at home. Government officials told Reuters last year that the policy had been helping to deter militant attacks. Militant, insurgent and sectarian attacks have fallen since 2014, though it is unclear whether the decline is linked to the change in execution policy, as it has also coincided with a military crackdown on militant strongholds. Last year, attacks in Pakistan by militant, insurgent and sectarian groups were down 48 % from 2014, an independent think-tank, the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, says. (source: Reuters) THAILAND: Koh Tao defence seeks 2nd appeal hearing extension The defence team for 2 Myanmar men facing the death penalty for the murder of 2 British tourists on Koh Tao will today file a 2nd application to push back an appeal against the sentence. Lawyers for the 2 Rakhine State natives convicted of murdering the backpackers in Thailand are assembling additional points to contest the forensic evidence that formed a crucial part of the prosecution case. Thai police handling of the case - from failing to secure the murder scene to testing of the DNA sample collection - was internationally decried, but on December 24 the court said the evidence against the Myanmar defendants proved their guilt beyond "reasonable doubt". Ko Zaw Linn and Ko Wai Phyo were sentenced to death. The defence team has appealed the sentence and in collaboration with Australian DNA expert Jane Taupin is questioning the prosecutors' claim that forensic samples lead to a 100 percent match with the defendants. The appeal hearing is slated for February 24, but the defence is petitioning to delay the court date. According to the Migrant Worker Rights Network, the team has pored over nearly 4000 pages of court records, and has assembled an extensive list of more than 100 appeal points focusing mainly on the DNA. The extra time will be used to coordinate with experts from Australia, Britain and Thailand, said network chair U Sein Htay. The court ordered an initial postponement on January 20, just 4 days before the appeal was to be heard. U Sein Htay said he is not sure the defence will get a 2nd temporary reprieve. "If the court does not approve the request, we will send our appeal report before the deadline on February 24," he said. He added that the 2nd request is being made in order to translate some of the court documents from Thai to English in order to bring them to forensic analysts for review. U Aung Myo Thant, a legal adviser at the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok, said an embassy team is also preparing to hand over analysis to the defence. "The Myanmar delegation team will also give suggestions to the defence team after finishing observations on the murder case documents," he said. The December death penalty verdict sparked outrage in Myanmar. Protests led by nationalist monks have been scheduled every Sunday, and even Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing weighed in, suggesting his Thai counterparts "take another look" at the case. During a visit to Yangon earlier this month, migrant rights expert Andy Hall, who has been advising the defence team, said the case against the pair is "not strong". "They should be released," he said. "That is not to say they are guilty or not guilty, but the case against them is not strong." (source: Myanmar Times) BANGLADESH: Defence ends argument in Mir Quasem case ---- Quasem has also spent a large amount of money abroad to make the war crimes trials controversial The counsels of condemned war criminal and influential Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir Quasem Ali yesterday concluded arguments on his appeal filed with the Supreme Court seeking acquittal. The 5-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha will hear from the attorney general on behalf of the state on February 23. Attorney General Mahbubey Alam yesterday told reporters that the trial proceedings might end by February 24. During yesterday's hearing, defence counsel SM Shahjahan argued that the statements of the prosecution witnesses in the case were not credible as the statements do not corroborate each other. Quasem, a commander of al-Badr force in Chittagong during the 1971 Liberation War, was awarded capital punishment by the International Crimes Tribunal 2 on November 3, 2014. As many as 24 prosecution witnesses testified against Quasem. The tribunal handed down the death penalty on 2 charges - for killing 7 people, including teenage freedom fighter Jasimuddin, after abduction. He was also awarded a total of 72-year imprisonment on the 8 other proven charges of abduction, conspiracy and planning. A top Jamaat financier, Quasem appealed against the judgement on November 30, 2014 seeking acquittal from the charges. The Appellate Division started hearing on his appeal on February 9. It is the 7th appeals case heard by the top court. "The defence has concluded their primary submission. We will place our arguments on February 23. They will perhaps reply on the legal grounds. We hope that the hearing will end by 23th or 24th. Then we will have to wait for the verdict," the attorney general told reporters after the hearing. Chief defence counsel Khandaker Mahbub Hossain, also BNP chairperson's adviser, alleged that his client had not been directly involved in any of the incidents and that the witnesses produced unreal depositions. He hoped that the court would acquit him from all the charges. On the other hand, Mahbubey said that the convict did not claim himself innocent as he had been the secretary general of Islami Chhatra Sangha during the war. The Jamaat leader, now 64, joined Islami Chhatra Sangha, then student wing of Jamaat, in 1967 while studying at Chittagong Collegiate School. He later became its Chittagong city unit general secretary. He played an important role in forming al-Badr Bahini. He had set up makeshift torture camps at different places in the port city including Daleem Hotel in Andorkilla, where pro-liberation people were handed down punishment. Other allegations against him include involvement in mass killings in Asadnagar and Panchlaish areas. Quasem in collaboration with the Pakistani occupation forces opened several torture cells in the city including Dost Mohammad Panjabi building and Salma Manjil where M Omar-ul-Islam and Lutfar Rahman Faruk among others were tortured following abduction. According to the government, Quasem has also spent a large amount of money abroad to make the war crimes trials controversial. (source: dhakatribune.com) MALAYSIA: More Malaysians want end to mandatory death penalty, online poll shows Over 1/2 of Malaysians surveyed in an online poll want the government to scrap the mandatory death sentence that leaves judges with no discretion to hand down lighter punishments. Conducted by Barisan Nasional (BN) component Gerakan, the online poll results showed 838 online respondents were in favour of abolishing the mandatory death sentence while 685 respondents disagreed with judges being given the discretion to decide sentences, the party's Youth wing leader Chai Ko Thing told a news conference today. "As you can see from the results of votes garnered, the ratio is those who agreed are 55 % and those who disagreed is 45 5," the Gerakan Youth Legal Bureau chief said. The survey results were collected from 1,523 anonymous Internet users over a 3-week period from January 22 and February 15 through Gerakan's online poll site bettermalaysiapoll.org. The survey posed just 1 question: "In your opinion, should Malaysia abolish the mandatory death penalty?" and the results were based on the number of "Yes" or "No" clicks obtained. According to Chai, the mandatory death penalty in Malaysia applies to various crimes such as murder, firearm possession, kidnapping with ransom, waging war against the King and drug offences. However, he said the government has currently shown its intention to remove the mandatory death penalty for drug-related offences, a move he said is backed by public sentiments based on the poll results. He said Gerakan had, in 2013, initiated a petition titled "No to death penalty", adding however the scrapping of mandatory death sentences may be a good starting point and middle path. "So the party's stand on this issue is we are going for total abolishment of death sentence, but as a start from the result of this poll - it seems to be divided, maybe to remove mandatory, then we work towards total abolishment of death sentence," he said. (source: themalaymailonline.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Feb 18 16:44:18 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2016 16:44:18 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., ALA., CALIF. Message-ID: Feb. 18 FLORIDA----female death sentence overturned Death Sentence Tossed for Florida Mom of 'Baby Lollipops' A Florida mother condemned to die for the beating death of her young son known as "Baby Lollipops" deserves a new trial because of inflammatory and improper statements made by prosecutors during closing arguments, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday. The justices tossed out the 2011 murder conviction and death sentence for Ana Maria Cardona, 54, marking the second time the court has reversed her case. Cardona's original 1992 conviction and death sentence was overturned because prosecutors failed to disclose key evidence to the defense. This time, the court found that Miami-Dade prosecutors crossed the line in closing arguments during the second trial, repeatedly attempting to stir up juror emotions and sympathy for the 3-year-old victim, Lazaro Figueroa. Testimony showed the boy had been severely beaten and suffered from chronic neglect, weighing only 18 pounds when his body was found in some bushes in Miami Beach in 1990. Police dubbed the boy "Baby Lollipops" because he was wearing a T-shirt with a lollipop image when he was found. The Supreme Court, in a 28-page decision, said the trial judge erred in allowing prosecutors to repeatedly use the phrase "justice for Lazaro" in closing arguments to the jury. Prosecutors were also wrong, the justices added, in describing the defense case as "diversionary" and calling Cardona herself a "drama expert" who belonged on Spanish-language telenovela program. Cardona's lawyers objected 58 times but Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Reemberto Diaz overruled nearly all of them. "As we have stated for decades, we expect and require prosecutors, as representatives of the state, to refrain from engaging in inflammatory and abusive arguments, to maintain their objectivity, and to behave in a professional manner," the justices wrote in a 6-1 opinion. "All of these arguments used by the prosecutor in this case were clearly improper." Justice Ricky Polston dissented but did not issue an opinion. Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said prosecutors will try Cardona on murder and other charges a 3rd time in a case that his riveted South Florida for decades. "The cruelty involved in young Lazaro Figueroa's murder deserves our fundamental commitment," Rundle said in a statement. According to testimony at both previous trials, Lazaro's badly beaten and scarred body was found by utility workers in Miami Beach on Nov. 2, 1990. Police did not immediately know the boy's identity and decided to call him "Baby Lollipops" as they distributed fliers door-to-door and held frequent news conferences. Eventually, the investigation led Miami Beach detectives in December to Cardona, who had moved with her other 2 children and her companion to a motel in Osceola County. She initially claimed, police said, that the boy had fallen and hit his head on a tile floor while jumping on a bed. She also claimed her companion, Olivia Gonzalez, had left the boy in front of the Miami Beach home. 2 juries rejected the defense case, finding Cardona guilty of killing her son and of regularly abusing the child. The jury in the 2nd trial recommended the death penalty by a minimal 7-5 vote, which the judge then imposed. Under a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Florida judges will no longer have final say in imposing capital punishment. A bill currently proposed in the state Legislature would switch that authority solely to juries and would require a minimum 10-2 vote to impose death. (source: ABC news) ALABAMA: Prosecutors Seek Death Penalty for Murder of Elderly Man Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for 3 men charged with killing an 85-year old man during a home invasion in Cusseta. A Lee County judge found probable cause to charge all 3 defendants - Robert Jamal Wiggins, Khaleef Javante Marshall and Devonte Travon Mike - with capital murder during a hearing Wednesday. The 3 defendants are charged with the slaying of Bennie Rudd, who was killed by intruders at his home Jan. 19. Rudd's wife told police that armed men wearing ski masks forced open their front door and immediately began shooting at them. The judge sent the case to a grand jury. (source: alabamanews.net) CALIFORNIA: DA to Seek Death Penalty in Mysterious Triple-Killing Case----Carlo Mercado, 30, has pleaded not guilty to killing brothers Salvatore and Gianni Belvedere and Ilona Flint in December 2013 Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against a San Diego man accused in the mysterious slayings of 3 victims that began with a shooting on Christmas Eve 2013 in the parking lot of Westfield Mission Valley mall. Carlo Mercado, 30, appeared in court Thursday and pleaded not guilty in the killings of brothers Salvatore "Sal" Belvedere, 22, and Gianni Belvedere, 24, and Gianni's fianc???e, Ilona Flint, 22. Mercado, staring straight ahead, appeared somber and was soft-spoken in court, only replying "yes" and "yes sir" when a judge spoke to him. He's slated to appear in court once again on Mar. 17 for a status conference. Deputy District Attorney Brian Erickson said the District Attorney's office will seek the death penalty in this case, which has been many twists and turns over the past 2 years. Erickson said it does not appear there was any connection whatsoever between Mercado and the victims, and said the slayings appear random, or perhaps the result of a "road rage" incident. He said it does not appear the killings were a hit, as has been speculated with this case in the past. "There are no facts that would support anything that indicates that this was some sort of professional hit," he added. Still, the motive for the triple killings remains shrouded in mystery. Triple Homicide Suspect Found Mentally Competent "It appears to be a chance, road rage-type incident where Mr. Mercado shot 1 of the victims and then came back and shot the other 2," Erickson explained. "It appears to be a random act that was taken upon these people, for no reason whatsoever." Erickson said that, because this is a death penalty case, Mercado's trial may take longer to get moving. He said a trial date has not yet been set, but said his goal is to get the case tried within this year. Mercado's defense attorney, Gary Gibson, said he is disappointed with the DA's decision to pursue the death penalty in this case given his client's history of mental health concerns. Gibson said Mercado is a "deeply damaged individual with significant mental health issues." Up until this case, Gibsons said Mercado had lived a "blameless life" and had been mentally healthy. Erickson argued that Mercado's mental health issues are directly linked to this case and include depression "based on his situation." Mercado's attorney said this case will be difficult to prove for prosecutors at trial. "I think that they're struggling for a motive in this case. There is no connection between the victims in this case, no connection between Mr. Mercado and the victims," Gibson said. "It appears the homicides occurred at 2 completely separate times - possibly in 2 separate places - so I think that it's going to be difficult to put all of the pieces of this case together." On Dec. 24, 2013, Flint and Sal were found critically shot inside their car parked outside a Macy's department store at Westfield Mission Valley mall in San Diego's Mission Valley area. Flint, who called 911 to report the shooting and their location, died at the scene. Sal was hospitalized and died a few days later. Flint's fiance and Sal's brother, Gianni, went missing around the same time of the Christmas Eve killings. On Jan. 17, 2014, police found Gianni's badly decomposed body stuffed into the trunk of his own car parked at a shopping center in Riverside, California, more than 100 miles away from San Diego. He, too, had been shot to death. For 6 months, police reported no breaks in the baffling triple homicide case. On June 20, 2014, the San Diego Police Department confirmed officers had arrested Mercado as the suspect in the 3 slayings. Mercado pleaded not guilty to 3 counts of 1st-degree murder. Also in early September 2014, search warrants obtained by NBC 7 revealed the exhaustive investigation into the triple homicide case, but no clear motive for the killings. In December 2014 the families of the 3 victims filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Westfield, LLC, accusing the Mission Valley mall of negligence in the deaths of Flint and the Belvedere brothers, claiming the mall failed to provide sufficient lighting and monitoring security cameras in the area to keep patrons safe. That lawsuit also listed Mercado as a defendant, accusing him of malice and oppression in the killings. On Nov. 3, 2014, a San Diego judge ruled Mercado was not competent to stand trial in the triple killings, and ordered he be treated at Patton State Hospital for 3 years until he was found competent to assist in his own defense. That ruling came after reports submitted by 2 psychiatrists and 1 psychologist diagnosed Mercado as schizophrenic, psychotic and suffering from catatonic depression, Mercado's attorney said at the time. In September 2015, Mercado was returned to San Diego Central Jail after evaluators from Patton State Hospital found him competent to stand trial. The defense then requested a competency trial for Mercado. On Dec. 14, 2015, a judge ruled Mercado was competent to stand trial. (source: nbcsandiego.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Feb 18 16:45:07 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2016 16:45:07 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 18 PAKISTAN: Christian couple sentenced to death for sending 'blasphemous' texts to an Islamic cleric in Pakistan say they were tortured into confessing to the crime A disabled Christian man and his wife sentenced to death in Pakistan for blasphemy have claimed they were tortured into confessing. Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar, from Gojra, east Pakistan, were found guilty of sending a text message which 'blasphemed' against the Prophet Mohammed to their local imam in 2013. Mr Emmanuel, who is paralysed from the waist down, claims the only reason he confessed to the crime was because he could not stand watching his wife be tortured by police. 'There is no man who can stand to see his wife being tortured by police, so to save my wife, I confessed,' Mr Emmanuel said in an appeal for bail lodged this week. The couple were arrested in July 2013 after their local imam, Maulvi Mohammed Hussain, claimed Mr Emmanuel had used his wife's phone to sent him a text insulting the Prophet Mohammed. The couple, who have 4 children, denies ever sending the text, saying the phone had been stolen from them months before the message was supposed to have been sent. "There was no evidence that the text messages came from a phone owned by the couple," Farukh Saif, an official of World Vision in Progress giving legal aid to the couple, told Christians in Pakistan. In the first place they had lost the phone some months before July 2013 and secondly there was no SIM card in their names. The only evidence police produced was a bill for a SIM card from a shop owner which is unheard of.' Mr Emmanuel and Ms Kausar were initially sentenced to death for blasphemy, but as with nearly all such convictions, it is most likely they will spend the rest of their lives in jail. Pakistan's blasphemy laws are notoriously harsh, and accusations of blasphemy against Islam is taken very seriously in the country. Being found guilty of desecrating the Koran or blaspheming against the Prophet Mohammed is punishable by death or life imprisonment. The laws have long been criticised both in Pakistan and internationally as they are often used to settle personal grudges and accusations are made with little to no evidence. They have lodged an appeal at Lahore High Court on the grounds of Mr Emmanuel's deteriorating condition, claiming lack of treatment in jail has left him with bedsores and life-threatening ill health. Pakistan's blasphemy laws are notoriously harsh, and accusations of blasphemy against Islam is taken very seriously in the country. Being found guilty of desecrating the Koran or blaspheming against the Prophet Mohammed is punishable by death or life imprisonment. The laws have long been criticised both in Pakistan and internationally as they are often used to settle personal grudges and accusations are made with little to no evidence. Last month, the head of a powerful religious body in the country said he is willing to review Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws, to decide if they are Islamic. Pakistan's religious and political elites almost universally keep clear of debating blasphemy laws in a country where criticism of Islam is a highly sensitive subject. Even rumours of blasphemy have sparked rampaging mobs and deadly riots. But Muhammad Khan Sherani, chairman of a body that advises the government on the compatibility of laws with Islam, told Reuters he was willing to reopen the debate and see whether sentences as harsh as the death penalty were fair. "The government of Pakistan should officially, at the government level, refer the law on committing blasphemy to the Council of Islamic Ideology. There is a lot of difference of opinion among the clergy on this issue," Sherani said in an interview at his office close to Pakistan's parliament. "Then the council can seriously consider things and give its recommendation of whether it needs to stay the same or if it needs to be hardened or if it needs to be softened," Sherani, said. (source: Daily Mail) BURUNDI: Burundi's defense minister requests reintroduction of death penalty Burundian Defense Minister Emmanuel Ntahomvukiye has requested the reintroduction of the death penalty to sanction authors of the May 13, 2015 failed coup plot, the government official said Thursday in a parliamentary session. Defense and War Veterans Minister Emmanuel Ntahomvukiye was speaking in a session at the parliamentary house in Kigobe along with 2 of his colleagues - Security Minister Alain Guillaume Bunyoni and External Relations and International Cooperation Minister Alain Aime Nyamitwe. They had been summoned to answer MPs' questions and to debate on Burundi's political crisis that broke in April 2015 as well as possible solutions. "The death penalty should be reintroduced especially to sanction people who attempted to overthrow institutions on May 13, 2015,"Ntahomvukiye told the Parliament. Burundi abolished the death penalty in the penal code promulgated on April 29, 2009. Ntahomvukiye acknowledged that there are 3 rebel groups that are propagating trouble in some areas of the east African nation including the Republican Forces of Burundi (FOREBU), the Restoration of a Rule of Law (Red-Tabara) and the National Liberation Forces (FNL) led by Nzabampema. For his part, Bunyoni told MPs that with the beginning of the country's political crisis in April 2015, more than 90 % of arms seized from troublemakers came from other countries, with the majority from Rwanda. The Burundian government and the ruling party, the National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD) have been accusing Rwanda of "destabilizing" Burundi. Burundi's crisis broke out in April 2015 following the announcement by Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza that he would be seeking a 3rd term. His candidature, which was opposed by the opposition and civil society groups, resulted into a wave of protests, violence and even a failed coup on May 13, 2015. Over 400 persons are reported to have been killed since then. (source: Xinhua news) IRAQ: Iraq sentences 40 members of ISIS to death for role in Speicher massacre Iraq has sentenced 40 members of Islamic State (ISIS) in its captivity to death on Thursday. They were charged with mass-murdering hundreds of Iraqi cadets at Camp Speicher in Tikrit back in June 2014. According to Reuters many of these suspects were arrested by Iraqi authorities after they pushed ISIS from Tikrit in early 2015. Previously 24 were convicted and executed last year. There are a total of 600 individuals suspected of having a hand in that atrocity. Amnesty International has condemned this trial alleging that it was "fundamentally flawed" and constituted "a reckless disregard for justice and human life." The Speicher massacre ranks among the most bloody and notorious of the crimes against humanity ISIS has carried out to date. On that occasion ISIS lined up 1,700 the mostly Shiite members of the Iraqi military and systematically murdered them. Burying many in mass graves and dumping others in the Tigris River. (source: rudaw.net) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Feb 19 10:57:05 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2016 10:57:05 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., S.C., FLA., ALA., MISS. Message-ID: Feb. 19 TEXAS----new execution date Rolando Ruiz has been given an execution date for July 27; it should be considered serious. ****************** Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----16 Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----534 Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. # 17---------March 9------------------Coy Wesbrook----------535 18---------March 22-----------------Adam Ward-------------536 19---------March 30-----------------John Battaglia--------537 20---------April 6------------------Pablo Vasquez---------538 21---------April 27-----------------Robert Pruett---------539 22---------May 11-------------------Terry Edwards---------540 23---------June 2-------------------Charles Flores--------541 24---------July 14------------------Perry Williams--------542 25---------July 27------------------Rolando Ruiz----------543 (sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin) NEW HAMPSHIRE: Extend the death penalty, don't suspend it Late last month, the Senate Judiciary Committee took under consideration Senate Bill 463, which would suspend the New Hampshire death penalty until such time as methods exist to ensure that the penalty would never be imposed on an innocent person. I opposed the bill at the time along with several police groups and associations. Though the bill is only two sentences long, it is flawed in many ways. First of all, former Chief Justice John Broderick claimed that the bill would not prevent prosecutions from going forward, but merely the imposition of the death penalty. Unfortunately, the bill language is very clear that the provisions of RSA 630: 1, relative to capital murder are suspended. How could someone be prosecuted under a suspended statute? That makes no sense. Furthermore, the question of who will determine what methods will exist to ensure perfection are unexplained and undefined. Who will determine when success has been attained in finding flawless methods leading to a conviction? How will they do it? Will it be the executive branch through the attorney general? Will it be a court after a finding of perfection? Will it be the House or Senate judiciary committees or the full Legislature? No one knows. Nothing in the bill explains how, when, and where the determinations will be made. The sponsors figure they increased the chance of passage by grandfathering in Michael Addison, who is currently on death row. The 2nd sentence of the bill says that it would not apply to anyone convicted prior to its effective date. The problem with that is that the states that have taken up the repeal or suspension of the death penalty have all held that it is incompatible with repeal to then proceed with executions under prior law. In the case of State v. Santiago, the Connecticut Supreme Court last year said "no state or nation has executed someone after a prospective only repeal of the death penalty." Thus, the potential is clear for Addison to challenge his execution if the death penalty is otherwise suspended for everyone else in the future. Our death penalty statute is very limited to situations such as killing of law enforcement, prison guards, etc. and was drafted in 1974 by Warren Rudman as Attorney General and me, as legal counsel to the governor, to meet new constitutional standards at the time. But now, rather than repeal or suspension, we should face the current reality of terrorism and mass murders by protecting our citizens through careful limited expansion of the death penalty. Former House Majority Leader Jack Flanagan (R-Brookline) will offer an amendment today at a hearing on HB 1552 to extend the definition of capital crimes to cover terrorism, defined as killing 4 or more people in a less than 12-hour period, as well as death by weapons of mass destruction. Rep. Flanagan's amendment does not require that the death penalty be imposed, but it helps to ensure that if there were a horrendous event in New Hampshire, that the penalty would be available as a tool of prosecution. If the federal courts struck down a prosecution because of violations of constitutional rights, then at least the state avenue would be open based on evidence obtained by state law enforcement. The bill would also serve as notice to would-be terrorists that if caught alive, they would be subject to the ultimate price that a government can impose after due process of law as permitted by Part I, Article 15, of our state constitution. Last October, in a campaign event here, Hillary Clinton said that she would not abolish the death penalty but preserve it for "certain egregious cases." I am sure she would agree that weapons of mass destruction or terrorist acts would qualify because the federal government already makes those crimes subject to the death penalty in the United States Code. Back in 1974, the kinds of worldwide events occurring now were never contemplated. Rep. Flanagan's approach is better than that of Senate Bill 463 given our current reality of mass killings and terrorism. (source: Opinion; Chuck Douglas is a former Superior and Supreme Court Justice----Union Leader) SOUTH CAROLINA: SC bill would conceal lethal injection drug suppliers South Carolina lawmakers are looking for a compromise in a bill that would render information about lethal injection drugs a secret, a change that may enable the state to resume executions. The state uses a 3 drug protocol: pentobarbital, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride. The corrections agency does not have the first 2 drugs and has not been able to acquire them. Officials believe S.553, which would conceal details of the drug procurement process, would make it easier for the state to acquire execution drugs. But on Thursday a Senate committee held up the legislation without debating it, citing a need address the differences with the parties involved. Mandy Medlock, executive director of Justice 360, which opposes the bill, said the committee's lack of approval on Thursday, if only temporary, was a positive step. She was less hopeful about the prospect of finding common ground. "We're interested in what everybody has to say, but it's a very black and white issue. Either it's a secret or it's not," said Medlock. After S.C. Department of Corrections Director Bryan Stirling became the agency director in the fall of 2013, he was told the execution drugs had recently expired and that no companies would sell them to the agency. The department is required to carry out the sentence of the court and has no position on the death penalty. Stirling said opponents have been "very successful" at obtaining information through open records laws and other legal means about the companies that supply the drugs. Activists then contact the companies on the issue, resulting in manufacturers refusing to sell specific drugs to corrections departments across the country. S. 553 would help South Carolina officials respond. "This would give us something that we can go to the companies and say, 'Here is your protection. They will not target you,'" Stirling said in an interview Thursday. "It's basically expanding the execution team, and saying the people that supply the drugs would be protected, also, along with the current execution team." If the bill does not pass, the agency chief said, "We'll do everything we can to seek these drugs, but we're running into road block after roadblock." Laura Hudson, executive director of the S.C. Crime Victims' Council, was dismayed by Thursday's lack of progress on S.553. "A crime victim would never want the wrong person accused, much less put to death. But the longer you delay it, (invokes) that old statement of 'justice delayed is justice denied,'" she said. "You have to wait years and years and years and years before someone is finally put to death. The opposition (to S.553) is just another delay to not do the death penalty. We have the death penalty in this state. Exercise it." Medlock said the extra week or so would allow lawmakers' constituents to engage in the debate. "The fact that it has been delayed gives us more time to let the public know that this is going on," she said. "The public can contact the senators to let them know how they feel about it. ... Some people might be in favor of the bill, but I think in general, folks are against the idea of the government keeping secrets form us." The organization argues that keeping lethal injection drugs secret would result in a greater risk of botched executions, and that information needed for any investigation would be hidden. Additionally, it says S.553 would give special secret status to drug companies, stifling scrutiny and public debate. Justice 360 represents death row inmates and advocates for specific reforms aimed at addressing systemic flaws in the capital punishment process. The death penalty in South Carolina: -- No inmates were added and four were removed from South Carolina's death row, with no executions, in 2015. -- At the end of 2015, there were 44 men and no women awaiting execution. -- The last execution in South Carolina was in 2011 when Jeffrey Motts dropped his appeals. He had strangled his cellmate while serving life sentences for murdering 2 relatives. -- Current death row inmates by race: 59 % black, 39 % white, 2 % Hispanic. [source: Death Penalty Resource and Defense Center] (source: blufftontoday.com) FLORIDA: House Approves Ten-Juror Death Penalty The Florida House is moving forward with a new capital sentencing scheme after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the existing system just over a month ago. But even with last minute changes, lawmakers are hesitant to completely embrace unanimity. Under current Florida law, juries in capital cases are supposed to issue an advisory sentence. Rep. Ross Spano (R-Dover) explains it's the next step the Supreme Court took issue with in Hurst v. Florida. "If the judge sentences the defendant to death the judge must make written findings as to which aggravating circumstances he or she finds that enhance the penalty," Spano says. "It is this issue allowing the judge to find the elements of a crime that enhance the penalty to capital punishment that the court found unconstitutional in Hurst." Shortly after that ruling, the gears of state began turning in Florida's capital. The state Supreme Court is weighing what the case means for existing death row inmates, and the Legislature is developing a new sentencing system for capital cases. The key sticking point between the chambers is unanimity. Both agree on unanimity in assigning guilt. Both agree on unanimity in finding aggravating factors in the penalty phase. But where they disagree is the final step - recommendation of the death penalty. The House doesn't believe unanimity should be necessary. "The jury may recommend a sentence of death or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole," Spano explains. "However, to recommend a sentence of death they must do so after weighing mitigating circumstances, and a minimum of 9 jurors must concur in the recommendation. If fewer than nine jurors concur a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole will be the jury's recommendation to the court." And in service of that argument, Spano and others turn to cases like Ted Bundy. The recommendation of death there was 10-2. Meanwhile, supporters of sticking with unanimity throughout the process point out the higher requirement often means juries just end up deliberating longer. And in Bundy's case, even if the jury didn't make it to 12 votes, he'd still be spending life in prison. But Rep. Daryl Rouson (D-St. Petersburg) says there's another reason for raising the bar on capital punishment. "Florida leads the nation in death row exonerations - leads the nation," Rouson says. "Wouldn't you think it would be an appropriate step to require unanimity at all levels so that persons are certain and not divided on the issue of the death penalty." Wednesday, the House budged - but not by much. Rep. Charles McBurney (R-Jacksonville) offered an amendment moving from 9 votes to 10 before recommending the death penalty. "The amendment changes the jury sentencing recommendation from 9-3 to 10-2," McBurney says. "The jury would still have to find unanimously that the aggravating factor exists, but it would require at least 10 jurors to give a recommendation of death." "Likewise if less than 10 jurors determine the defendant should be sentenced to death," he goes on, "the jury's recommendation to the court will be a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole." Rep. Joe Geller (D-Aventura) summed up how many supporters of unanimity feel. "Chances are when this comes up for debate on the full bill tomorrow, I'm probably going to be voting down," Geller says. "But on this amendment I would urge everyone - whatever side of the aisle, and whatever side of this debate you???re on - to support representative McBurney's amendment." Thursday the House took up and approved the measure with McBurney's changes attached. It now heads to the Senate. (source: WFSU news) ********************* Melendez: The death penalty risks innocent lives - I know There is a real and human cost every time Florida's death penalty makes mistakes. I know. I was sentenced to death in Florida for a murder I didn't commit. In a 9-3 vote, the jury in my case recommended death, and that???s the sentence the judge gave me. By luck, critical new evidence emerged - in the form of a taped confession from the real killer - proving my innocence after 16 years on death row. God only knows how many others did not have my good fortune and were executed in spite of their innocence. As one of the lucky ones, I was released from prison and able to start a new life after my nightmare on death row. I'm thankful to be alive, but remain deeply troubled by the flaws in Florida's death penalty that almost killed me, many of which remain unaddressed. The U.S. Supreme Court decision last month striking down Florida's death penalty law as unconstitutional brought much needed attention to these flaws. Now it's up to Florida to respond. Without a working death penalty in the state, lawmakers in Tallahassee are scrambling to pass a revised law. The House has proposed a bill that would do the bare minimum to address the problems raised by the Supreme Court ruling. The Senate, however, has taken a more thoughtful approach in offering broader reforms to Florida's death penalty, including the requirement of a unanimous jury recommendation to sentence someone to death. Florida desperately needs to take the latter approach, and my case helps demonstrate why. The jury in my case was not unanimous in its decision to recommend a death sentence; it voted 9-3. Coincidently, the House proposal in response to the Supreme Court ruling would merely require that same low bar - a 9-3 jury vote - to sentence someone to death. Cases like mine illustrate how this proposal raises the risk of mistakes. In contrast to Florida, most states require a unanimous jury recommendation to sentence someone to death. Along with Delaware and Alabama, Florida remains an outlier by allowing death sentences even in cases when not all the jurors support it. This aspect of Florida's death penalty opens the door to costly legal challenges. Even more worrisome is Florida's track record of wrongfully sentencing people to death. Serious errors have been too common in Florida's use of the death penalty. Florida leads the nation in the number of people wrongfully sentenced to death and later exonerated - 26 - a clear and convincing sign that the current death penalty law is broken. A perverse aspect of Florida's laws is that they require a unanimous jury verdict for a conviction in all crimes, even a misdemeanor, but do not require unanimity when sentencing someone to death. How does that make any sense? Extra safeguards are most needed when a life is on the line. Taking the life of a person is the gravest of all acts that our government can do. It is unique in its finality and irrevocability. Once executed, a person can never be released from the grave. Given this reality and Florida's shameful record of convicting and sentencing innocent people to death, lawmakers should pass a bill that provides the greatest possible protection against executing the innocent. They can do this by requiring jury unanimity in order to impose a sentence of death. Such a law is constitutionally and morally compelled. Although a unanimous jury requirement will not completely guard against the execution of the innocent, it is an important step in the right direction. (source: Commentary; Juan Melendez now lives in Albuquerque. He is one of 156 individuals nationwide, and 26 in Florida, to be wrongfully sentenced to death and later exonerated. He was convicted in 1984 for the murder of Delbert Baker, owner of an Auburndale cosmetology school. Melendez's case is detailed in "Juan Melendez 6446," a 2009 documentary produced for the Civil Rights Commission of Puerto Rico--The Ledger) *************************** onfusion over death penalty muddies Pinellas man's plea deal Prosecutors want to seek the death penalty in the case of Carlos Benito Jones, accused of killing three people and committing an armed robbery in 2011. But after the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 12 struck down Florida's procedure for sending convicts to death row, Jones' attorneys asked Pinellas Circuit Judge Philip Federico if their client could plead guilty in exchange for life in prison. "I'm at a loss to understand how anything other than life would be the maximum penalty right now in this case," Federico said in court Jan. 28 over the objections of the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office. "There is no death penalty." The case has now come to a halt after a stay was issued from the 2nd District Court of Appeal as it reviews a petition from prosecutors to restrain Federico from presiding over the case. "We just have an opinion and the judge has one," said Chief Assistant State Attorney Bruce Bartlett. "We have to have an appellate court see who's going in the right direction." It is the latest example of how judges in Tampa Bay are interpreting the Supreme Court's Hurst vs. Florida decision, which ruled it is unconstitutional for juries to play only an advisory role while judges make the ultimate decision in death penalty cases. Jones' case began in 2011, when he and his brother, Isidro Santiago Jones, were arrested on charges of killing 3 people in Clearwater and robbing a man at gunpoint in Dunedin. He is facing a 1st-degree murder charge in the shooting death of 34-year-old Zorana Lebedic, who was killed as she biked home from a Scientology class in downtown Clearwater in 2011. Isidro's trial is also pending. According to court records, a public defender asked Federico Jan. 13 if he could set a plea and sentencing hearing for Jones, 29, in light of the Hurst decision. "I'm inclined to accept what the defense is offering under all of the circumstances," the judge said. Assistant State Attorney Douglas R. Ellis objected, stating in court that Hurst did not find the death penalty itself unconstitutional, and that the Legislature was expected to revise the statute soon. This week, passage of a new law was a step closer after lawmakers determined that at least 10 of 12 jurors must agree to impose a death sentence. Ellis filed a motion to recuse Federico, stating that the judge was interjecting himself in plea negotiations, records state. Federico denied the motion. But it wasn't over for the state. Prosecutors filed an emergency petition with the appeals court, which ordered Feb. 5 that the case could not move forward until their petition was reviewed. "The state is being forced to stand by while the trial court allows a capital defendant to receive a life sentence," the petition reads. The Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender's Office has since responded, contending that Federico was only announcing the current state of the law. "The purpose of a motion for disqualification is not to allow a party to move from judge to judge until finding one to agree with the party's desired position," Assistant Public Defender Sara B. Mollo wrote to the court. Federico is the latest judge in Tampa Bay in the spotlight for making comments in court on the Hurst decision. In January, Pinellas Circuit Judge Michael Andrews rejected prosecutors' notice to seek the death penalty in the case of a Pinellas Park father accused of killing his infant daughter because the death penalty did not exist in Florida. Last week, he rescinded his order, but concluded the death penalty could be sought only if new sentencing guidelines were in place before the start of the trial, scheduled for Feb. 29. In Hillsborough, Circuit Judge Samantha Ward ruled this month that there "currently exists no statutory authority in Florida under which the State can seek the death penalty." (source: Tampa Bay Times) ALABAMA: Lawmakers propose 'innocence' panel to review Alabama felony cases A member of the Alabama Senate wants to create an Innocence Inquiry Commission to review felony convictions. Sen. Dick Brewbaker, R-Montgomery, says the state needs an extra layer of review to boost the public's confidence in the death penalty. "For states that have active death penalty statutes, you need to make absolutely sure the process has integrity, and that you're not executing people that are innocent," Brewbaker said. Brewbaker filed a bill in the Senate this week that would create an eight-member board within the court system that would hear cases of inmates who claim they're actually innocent of the crimes of which they were convicted. If the board concludes the inmate is innocent, they'd send the case back to the courts with a request for review by a judge. Brewbaker said the board is needed because in the appeals process, courts are often focused on procedural issues. He said the board would have to be convinced of "actual innocence," not reasonable doubt or procedural issues, in order to send a case back to the courts. The commission could hear any felony case, not just capital cases. But Brewbaker, a death penalty supporter, said he decided to pursue a commission after learning that other death penalty states have them. "We've had some very high-profile exonerations lately, which ought to give anybody pause, and make us wonder if the system is as good as we think it is," Brewbaker said. According to the National Registry of Exonerations at the University of Michigan, four felony inmates in Alabama were exonerated in 2015. One of those, Anthony Ray Hinton, was on death row. Janette Grantham, director of the victims' rights group Victims of Crime and Leniency, said she and her colleagues are reviewing the bill line by line. She said the group didn't oppose the core purpose of the bill - to make sure people in prison are in fact guilty. "Victims don't want someone who is not guilty to go to prison," she said. "But we haven't looked thoroughly at the whole bill yet." The bill already has 8 co-sponsors in the 35-member Senate, including President Pro Tempore Del Marsh, R-Anniston. "I talked with Sen. Brewbaker on that," Marsh said. "He explained there have been situations where there have been people on death row who, if you look strictly at procedural elements, they do not get a hearing, but he thinks there's evidence in some cases that warrant another hearing." How the bill would play in the House is unclear. Speaker Mike Hubbard said Thursday that he hadn't heard about the bill. Thursday was the 7th day of the 30-day legislative session. Lawmakers typically meet 2 to 3 days a week, which means the bill would likely have until May to pass both houses. (source: The Anniston Star) ********************* Motion to bar death penalty denied, capital murder trial set for May Lauderdale County Circuit Judge Mike Jones has denied for the 2nd time a motion to bar the death penalty from the upcoming capital murder trial of Mark Montgomery. After a 30-minute hearing Thursday, Jones denied the motion filed by the defense team of Vicki Willard and Jean Darby. The defense team based the motion on a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in regards to a Florida death penalty case. Montgomery, 39, 5306 Lauderdale 10, Florence, is charged in connection with the March 17, 2014, shooting deaths of 2 women near Cloverdale. The trial is scheduled for the week of May 16. Lauderdale County District Attorney Chris Connolly has said he plans to seek the death penalty if Montgomery is convicted of capital murder. Willard said in Florida, like Alabama, after a guilty verdict in a capital murder case the jury makes a recommendation to the judge about the sentence. The judge can override the jury's recommendation. "The U.S. Supreme Court has declared this unconstitutional, and since the Alabama statute is similar to the Florida statute, the death penalty should be barred from consideration in this case," Willard told Jones. Connolly said Alabama's death penalty has been reviewed and upheld before by the U.S. Supreme Court. "The capital law in Florida had been upheld many times also. The U.S. Supreme Court said the law needed to be changed," Willard added. Jones said when the Florida case was before the U.S. Supreme Court, "there was an Alabama case there as well that could have been reviewed by the judges, but they chose not to," Jones said. "That to me says the U.S. Supreme Court viewed the Alabama and the Florida statutes as different. That is my ruling as well, so the motion is denied." Montgomery was indicted in December 2014. He is accused of killing Clo Ann Taylor Stoner and Joanna Strickland Butler. The 2 women and a dog were killed inside the house of Montgomery???s brother at 5398 Lauderdale 10, about a half mile east of Alabama 157. Deputies said Stoner, 57, of Casey Lane, Florence, and Butler, 40, who had previously lived in Thompson's Station, Tennessee, were found inside the residence's living room. Montgomery also is accused of shooting the dog that was in a kennel in the house. The preliminary autopsy indicated the women were shot multiple times in the head, authorities said. During an arraignment hearing in January, Montgomery pleaded not guilty and not guilty by mental defect to 2 counts of capital murder and 1 count of aggravated animal cruelty. (source: Times Daily) MISSISSIPPI: 2 charged with capital murder in Bruce shooting A Calhoun County couple is facing the death penalty in connection with a fatal shooting in Bruce. Calhoun County sheriff Greg Pollan said capital murder charges were field against JaShon Coleman, 21, of Derma, and Breanna Westmoreland, 17, of Banner. If convicted of capital murder, the only sentencing options are death or life in prison without parole. An officer on patrol spotted a car in the parking lot of the Bruce Bait Shop on Highway 32 West around 12:30 a.m. Friday. When the officer looked inside the car, he found James Pratt, 31, of Weir, who had been shot multiple times. Pratt was pronounced dead at the scene. The investigation lead authorities to Coleman, who worked with Pratt at the Haworth seating plant in Bruce. The factory is located less than a half-mile from the bait shop. "From what we had learned, the 2 men were in the vehicle and Coleman tried to rob Pratt," said Pollan. "The victim resisted and was shot and killed. "Coleman then got out and got into the car driven by his girlfriend, Westmoreland." Coleman is charged with capital murder, armed robbery and possession of a stolen firearm. Westmoreland is charged with capital murder and strong-arm robbery. Pollan said official consulted with District Attorney Ben Creekmore's office in the decision to charge Westmoreland as an adult. The weapon believed to have been used in the killing was recovered. This is the 2nd capital murder in 2 months in Calhoun County, population 15,000. In mid-December, Vintrell Bobo, 21, and Rocdriques Denton, 24, both of Calhoun City, were arrested by the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and Calhoun County Sheriff's Department and charged with capital murder. The men were allegedly involved in a home invasion at 9-B Private Road 2001 in Pittsboro that left 24-year-old Kenneth Patterson Jr., of Pittsboro, dead. According to officials, Bobo was injured during an exchange of gunfire. (source: Digital Journal) ********************** Court denies review of Charles Ray Crawford's rape conviction The Mississippi Supreme Court will not review the ruling in an appeal of a rape conviction for Charles Ray Crawford. Crawford, 50, argues he received poor legal representation during his trial in 1994. He says his attorney failed to challenge jury instructions and failed to object to inadmissible testimony and prejudicial prosecutorial comments. Crawford is on death row for the 1992 slaying of Kristy Ray in the Chalybeate community in Tippah County. In his arguments to have the rape conviction dismissed, he says prosecutors used the conviction when seeking the death penalty in Ray's death. The Mississippi Supreme Court denied his appeal in August and on Thursday, on a 5 to 4 vote, opted not to rehear the appeal. (source: WTVA news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Feb 19 10:58:39 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2016 10:58:39 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----UTAH, NEV., CALIF. Message-ID: Feb. 19 UTAH: Lawmaker proposes doing away with death penalty A Utah lawmaker is hoping to put an end to the death penalty. Sen. Stephen Urquhart, R-St. George, is sponsoring HB189, which would prohibit the death penalty for trials held after May 10, 2016. It would not change any current cases. Urquhart said the bill was inspired by conversations with a friend. "Government doesn't do a lot of things tremendously well. I don't think it does anything perfectly. So it's odd that we arrogate to ourselves the godlike power of life and death," he said. "I get that people can be for a theoretically functional death penalty. We don't have that," Urquhart said, noting that it "takes decades to carry out a sentence" and costs $1.6 million more than incarceration. Senate Minority Leader Gene Davis, D-Salt Lake City, said he believes the issue is worth discussing. "It's an issue that's always, always being debated in the public, especially when we have an execution in the state of Utah," he said. Senate President Wayne Niederhauser, R-Sandy, said he's undecided on the issue, but Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, said he wouldn't vote to do away with the death penalty. "The issue you really have to balance is there may be a majority of people who have not had their lives impacted by a murder. The few times I've had the chance to visit with ... families of people who have been murdered, let me tell you, they have a really strong feeling," Hillyard said. "I would hope that it's used very, very sparingly and very carefully," he added. Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said he tries to use the death penalty sparingly. "That's something that I struggle with, and you should struggle with anytime you're going to impose the death penalty on somebody," Gill said. "I think there's a lot of stuff that we need to look at. Whether it's an effective tool that we have, and what its real value is to us as prosecutors," he added. The prosecutors have not yet spoken and taken a stance, Gill said. House Speaker Greg Hughes, R-Draper, said while he opposes the death penalty, now may not be the time for legislation on the issue. "I have quietly not been a proponent of the death penalty for quite a while," Hughes said. "It comes back to my conservative skepticism of government and its processes and the fear they could get it wrong, that giving your government the power to execute its citizenry is more than I'm comfortable with." The speaker said he has tried not to make his opposition to the death penalty "a banner issue." He was not optimistic about the bill's chances. "I think the debate about capital punishment will continue. Whether it's time now, I don't know that it's time right now," Hughes said. "I don't know what that bill will do, but it would be a heavy lift. It's an issue that will continue to be discussed." (source: Deseret News) NEVADA: rosecutors to seek death penalty in slaying of couple Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty against a man charged in the execution-style slaying of 2 people. In court papers filed this week, prosecutors pointed to previous felony convictions of Marcial Manuel Casarez, who authorities said shot and killed Jamel Colbert and Shelby Robinson in November after drug and prostitution deals gone awry. Casarez, who has several convictions in Nevada and California, pleaded guilty in federal court in 2010 to being a felon in possession of a firearm. Casarez, 36, has pleaded not guilty to murder with use of a deadly weapon, 1st-degree kidnapping, robbery with use of a deadly weapon and conspiracy to commit robbery in connection with the slayings. Prosecutors have said they likely will not seek the death penalty against his co-defendant, 24-year-old Sergio Davila, who faces the same charges. Casarez, who also goes by "Crook," had made drug deals with Colbert, 32, before the killings and was going to sell him $200 worth of methamphetamine. Colbert gave Robinson a black revolver and sent her to Casarez's apartment in the 2100 block of Sunrise Avenue, near 21st Street, according to police. "'Crook' became upset" when he found the gun in Robinson's purse and thought she was going to rob him, police said. Rifle in hand, Casarez led Colbert and Robinson outside at gunpoint, forced them into a tan-colored 2005 Hyundai Elantra and ordered another man to drive to a nearby alley. Casarez shot Robinson "at least 10 times" in the backseat, turned the rifle on Colbert in the passenger seat and fired multiple rounds through the window, police said. (source: Las Vegas Review-Journal) CALIFORNIA: San Francisco court upholds death penalty in Santa Clara County triple murder case The California Supreme Court in San Francisco Thursday unanimously upheld the death penalty of a Santa Clara County motorcycle club member who killed 3 people whom he knew through the club in 1986 and 1987. James Francis O'Malley was convicted of the 3 murders and sentenced to death after a 5-month trial in Santa Clara County Superior Court in 1991. O'Malley was a member of the Hayward-based Freedom Riders motorcycle club and president of its San Jose branch at the time of the murders, according to the court. The 1st victim was Sharley Ann German, who was fatally shot in her San Jose home in 1986. She was the wife of club member Geary German, who paid O'Malley to kill her so that he could collect the proceeds of her insurance policy, according to trial evidence. The other victims were Herbert Parr of San Jose, a would-be Freedom Rider whom O'Malley and another club member killed to obtain his motorcycle, and Michael Robertson of Mountain View, an associate whom O'Malley suspected of being a police informer. They were murdered in 1987. The high court, in an opinion written by Justice Leondra Kruger, rejected appeal claims in which O'Malley argued that the 3 murder charges should have been tried in separate trials and that there were errors in jury selection and evidentiary rulings. O'Malley's direct appeal to the state Supreme Court was the 1st step in the death penalty appeal process in California. He can now take his claims to the federal courts through a habeas corpus petition. Executions in California have been on hold since 2006 because of federal and state court lawsuits challenging execution procedures. The administration of Gov. Jerry Brown is currently developing a new procedure that would replace a 3-drug protocol with a 1-drug protocol for lethal injection executions. (source: KRON news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Feb 19 10:59:26 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2016 10:59:26 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 19 PHILIPPINES: Pacquiao deletes post about gays being 'put to death', repeats bible verse on interview Boxer and Philippine congressman, Manny Pacquiao is in a middle of a massive scandal following statements saying that allowing same-sex marriage 'makes us worse than animals'. Although he has already issued an apology for the ignorant comparison, Pacquiao was still defending his stance on same-sex relations by quoting bible verses on social media. One of these posts have since been deleted, with the Senatorial candidate quoting Leviticus 20:13 saying that homosexuals are 'to be put to death'. Nothing really stays erased online, and unfortunately for the Filipino politician, even multiple mainstream media outlets in the Philippines have highlighted the deleted Instagram post. The verses Pacquiao quoted states the following: "If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads." The boxer was in the same exact controversy in 2012, shortly after he became a bible preacher. An appearance in Los Angeles was cancelled because of it, but Pacquiao has vehemently denied quoting the very same Leviticus verse. "I didn't say that, that's a lie," Pacquiao said back in 2012. "I don't know that quote from Leviticus because I haven't read the Book of Leviticus yet." Once Pacquiao quoted the same exact verse in 2016, it seems like his camp tried to do some damage control. Unfortunately for them, not only did the erased instagram post still get highlighted on numerous outlets, Pacquiao repeated the same line on an interview that they obviously can't delete. Speaking to DZMM after his initial apology, Pacquiao tried to explain that he wasn't "condemning" being homosexual, just the act of having sexual relations and getting married. "Yes, it is detestable in God's eyes," Pacquiao said in Filipino. "If we just read the bible. I'll give you a few verses. If we believe God, if we believe the bible -- Leviticus 20:13, Leviticus 18:22, and 1st Corinthians 6:9." "I don't believe that all LGBT are going to hell, what I'm saying is it's 'the act' (of having sexual relations with the same sex)," Pacquiao said when asked to elaborate. "They can be together without doing anything, without doing the disgusting act in front of God." "Who am I to judge? I am also a sinner like all the ordinary people, but I'm telling the truth," he said. "We should follow what is written on the bible if we really believe God." The Senatorial candidate also went on to say that he would support the death penalty, as it is "biblical". (source: bloodyelbow.com) IRAQ: ISIS execute a 15-year-old boy by beheading after he is caught listening to western music in Iraq ---- Ayham Hussein caught listening to music at father's market store in Mosul A teenage boy has been beheaded by ISIS for simply listening to Western music. Ayham Hussein, 15, was arrested by militants after allegedly being caught enjoying pop tunes on a portable CD player in the group's Iraqi capital Mosul. He was dragged before a Islamist kangaroo court which sentenced him death in a public execution. A spokesman for the Nineveh media centre told ARA News: 'Ayham Hussein was captured by the jihadis while listening to pop music at the grocery store of his father in the Nabi Younis marketplace in western Mosul.' His body was reportedly handed over to his family on Tuesday. The execution, believed to be the first for listening to music in the city, has sparked outrage among locals. The source added: 'There was no formal decision by the sharia court that bans listening to western music.' ISIS has imposed its own sickening brand of medieval justice across swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria, executing prisoners for so-called 'crimes' such as blasphemy and being homosexual. In a statement two years ago, the terror group also banned 'music and songs in cars, at parties, in shops and in public, as well as photographs of people in shop windows.' It added: 'Songs and music are forbidden in Islam as they prevent one from the remembrance of God and the Koran and are a temptation and corruption of the heart.' Earlier this week, it beheaded a captive in the Syrian stronghold of Raqqa with a 3-foot sword. (source: Daily Mail) THAILAND: Court approves delay for Koh Tao appeal A Thai court yesterday agreed to delay an appeal hearing for 2 Myanmar men sentenced to death for the murder of 2 British tourists. The hearing has been pushed back to March 24 at the defence team's request. It is the 2nd time the defence has applied for and received an extension to give them more time to prepare their case. U Sein Htay, chair of the Migrant Worker Rights Network, which has been assisting the defence team, said he did not think any further extensions would be needed. "The appeal will be finished before the 2nd extension deadline," he said He said the 2nd deferral was requested so that the team would have more time to translate some of the court documents from Thai into English so they can be reviewed by Western forensic analysts. The case largely rests on hotly contested DNA evidence, which the Thai court ruled on December 24 proved the Myanmar defendants guilty beyond reasonable doubt. The defence has pored over nearly 4000 pages of court records and assembled more than 100 points to dispute. "The extra time to prepare is allowing us to put together the strongest appeal that we can. We are trying our best for these 2 men," said U Sein Htay. The defence team is collaborating with Australian DNA expert Jane Taupin to question the prosecutors' claim that forensic samples led to a 100 % match with the defendants. Rakhine natives Ko Zaw Linn and Ko Wai Phyo were convicted and given the death penalty for the murders of 2 British backpackers on the Thai holiday island Koh Tao. (source: Myanmar Times) SOUTH KOREA: S. Korea Top Court OKs Soldier's Death Penalty Over Rampage South Korea's top court on Friday upheld a death penalty for a soldier convicted of killing five comrades in shooting and grenade attacks in a front-line army unit in 2014. The verdict by the Supreme Court is final and cannot be appealed, a court official said, requesting anonymity because of department rules. The Defense Ministry said it confirmed the court's ruling. The conscript, only identified by his surname Yim, had told investigators after his arrest that he assaulted fellow soldiers because he felt insulted by drawings they made of him. He had fled into the forest near the border with North Korea but was captured after a failed suicide attempt. South Korean courts occasionally issue death sentences but the country has not executed anyone since December 1997. Yim has become the 61st person in South Korea on a death row, according to records from the Justice Ministry and the Defense Ministry. South Korea requires all able-bodied men to serve in the military for about 2 years in the face of a threat from North Korea. Shooting rampages by bullied soldiers in South Korean army barracks are not unusual. In 2005, another soldier went on a similar rampage and killed 8 colleagues in anger at superiors who he said verbally abused him. He too was sentenced to death. Such rampages raised serious questions about the discipline and readiness of South Korea's military, which faces North Korean troops across the world's most heavily fortified border. Confrontations between the rivals deepened recently following the North's nuclear test and long-range rocket launch. (source: Associated Press) INDONESIA: Alleged Masterminds in Activist's Killing Could Face Death 35 suspects appeared in an East Java court Thursday to face charges related to the killing of a farmer and an attack on another farmer, both of whom were anti-sand mining activists. 2 of the suspects are local officials who allegedly masterminded the separate attacks. The pair could face the death penalty, if convicted. The hearing into the murder of Salim Kancil, 52, and Tosan, 51, who survived a separate attack on the same day last September, took place at Surabaya District Court. The farmers were activists who led protests against an illegal sand-mining operation in Lumajang, a regency about 150 kilometers (93 miles) southeast of Surabaya. Both were from the village of Selok Awar-Awar in Pasirian, a sub-district of Lumanjang. The alleged masterminds of the attacks, Hariyono and Madasir (alias Abdul Holek), face multiple counts. Hariyono was village leader of Selok Awar-Awar and Madasir was chairman of the Community Institution of the Village Forest. Prosecutor M. Naimullah charged both men with formulating a murder plan, causing violence resulting in death, aggravated assault, and taking someone's life. Hariyono also faces charges related to illegal mining and money laundering, which carry a penalty of 20 years in prison. Another 33 defendants appeared in two different courtrooms. Charges against them vary, depending on their alleged roles, but carry maximum penalties of 5 to 7 years. Electrocuted, beaten, stabbed During the indictment Naimullah alleged that the defendants committed torture and premeditated murder, and these acts were carefully planned by Hariyono and Madasir because Salim wanted to protest sand mining by Hariyono. Madasir threatened to kill Salim and Tosan if the sand mining operation were shut down, the prosecutor alleged. Salim and Tosan reported the threats to the Lumajang and Pasirian police. Not long afterward, at least a dozen men attacked Tosan at his home on Sept. 26, running him over with a motorcycle. Thinking he was dead, the attackers left him in the middle of the road. They then went to Salim's house, where he was beaten. Then they took him to the village hall, where he was allegedly electrocuted, beaten again and stabbed to death. Salim's body was left on the street, face down with his hands tied behind his back, according to the indictment. "They (the defendants) have undergone detention since 3 months ago. It is still an indictment," said Ade Erwiyanto, Haryono's defense attorney, adding, "There will be direct evidence by calling witnesses." Another prosecutor, Dodi Emil Gazali told the court that Hariyono began mining the sand in Watu Pecak, an area on the coast, without a permit on the pretext of developing coastal tourism. Haryono sold the sand for Rp 270,000 (U.S. $200) per truck, and sold an average of 150 truckloads per day, which equaled more than Rp 40 million (U.S. $30,000), Dodi said. Chief Judge Jihad Alkharuddin adjourned the trial till next Thursday, when witness testimony is set to begin. Some of the witnesses, who fear for their lives, have been placed into an Indonesian witness and victim protection program. 'No response' As the hearing took place, outside the courthouse dozens of activists from a conservation group staged a demonstration highlighting the detrimental effects of illegal sand mining in Lumajang. Salim had voiced concerns about the process to local authorities and lawmakers but to no avail, said Ony Mahardika, director of the East Java Forum for the Environment (WALHI) group. An investigation by WALHI determined that hundreds of people were involved in the illegal mining, he said. "Salim also sent a letter to the parliament leaders and to the district head of Lumajang to oppose the mining. But there was no response. He was instead intimidated and threatened with violence," Ony said. (source: Benar News) IRAN: 5 Ahwazi Arab Men in Danger of Execution The fate of 5 Ahwazi Arab men has been predetermined by Farhad Afsharnia, the head of Judiciary in the Khuzestan province of Iran, prior to a trial or verdict. Afsharnia tells Iranian official sources, including Mehr News and IRNA, that he predicts the prisoners will be hanged to death in public. However, Afsharnia admits they have not been issued sentences for the alleged crime of killing Iranian security agents by gunfire. According to Afsharnia, the men were arrested at a checkpoint in a vilage in the city of Hamidyeh (Khuzestan province). Ahwazi human rights groups have identified the prisoners as Gheys Abidavi, Hamoud Abidavi, Mohammad Halafi, Mehdi Moarabi and Mehdi Siahi. According to Ahwaz Human Rights Organization, the men were subjected to brutal torture and were forced to give confessions which Iranian authorities aired on Press TV. Iran state news agencies list the alleged crimes the men have been accused of as moharebeh, corruption on earth, and active membership in a terrorist group. Iranian intelligence agents claim that on April 2 2015, the 5 Ahwazi Arab men shot bullets at a tent containing Iranian security guards inside, resulting in the death of 3 of them. Iran Human Rights is fundamentally opposed to the death penalty and condemns sentencing the 5 Ahwazi Arab men to death. IHR calls for the case of these men to be investigated in a fair and open trial, with the presence of their lawyers and indepedendent media. "These 5 men along with other individuals who are faced with security charges have not received a fair trial and their scheduled executions by Iranian authorities are meant to spread fear in the society. We ask the international community, especially European governments, to place pressure on Iranian authorities in order to stop these executions and also help improve the human rights situation, primarly in Iran's ethnic regions," says Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, spokesperson for Iran Human Rights. (source: Iran Human Rights) **************** Moharebeh Executions in 2015 Article 183 of the Islamic Penal Code defines moharebeh as the use of "weapons to cause terror and fear or to breach public security and freedom." In practice, many defendants in moharebeh cases are deprived of access to an attorney. Testimony from hundreds of former defendants in Iran???s system of Revolutionary Courts, where moharebeh cases are prosecuted, confirms that guilt and sentencing in such cases is typically determined by Iran's Ministry of Intelligence before the trials even start. In previous years, political prisoners known for peaceful activism have been executed on charges of moharebeh. The 21 cases reported last year represent a relative increase over previous years. Although the Iranian judiciary rarely shares the unvarnished details of these cases with the public, it is clear that several members of political parties based in Iran's Kurdish region were among those executed for moharebeh in 2015. (source: Iran Human Rights Documentation Center) MALAYSIA: Man charged with Syabu trafficking A 44-year-old local was charged in the High Court here Thursday with trafficking 71.03gm of syabu. Ibrahim Tabarak pleaded not guilty before Judge Ravinthran N. Paramaguru to committing the offence at 5.10pm on Sept 1, 2015 at the ferry terminal in Labuan. He was charged under Section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act, which carries the death penalty on conviction. The court set May 9-13 for trial in Labuan and March 30 for case management. Deputy Public Prosecutor Wan Farrah Farriza Wan Ghazali prosecuted while Ibrahim was represented by counsel Ram Singh, Timothy Daut and YS Lo. Meanwhile, in the Magistrate's Court, 4 people were jailed for committing various drug-related offences. Akmad Syah, who pleaded guilty before Magistrate Cindy Mc Juce Balitus to having 1.7gm of syabu on Jan 11, was jailed 17 months. Nisbah Abu Jain was jailed 6 months for having 0.04gm of syabu on Dec 4, last year at Sinsuran, here. Ridzuan Abdul and Sherah Salleh, who admitted to taking drugs on Jan 11, were jailed 5 months and 4 months respectively. Inspector Isfandiar Jasdi prosecuted. (source: Daily Express) *************** 35-Year-old Labuan Man Caught With More Than 350 Gm Of Syabu A 35- year-old local man here is likely to face the death penalty for involvement in trafficking 353.27 gm of syabu with a street value of RM38,500. The man was nabbed by a police anti-narcotics team who raided the suspect's house at Rancha-Rancha after a public tip-off around 11.30 pm on Feb 16. "There was a scuffle between our anti-narcotics personnel and the suspect, who sustained some injuries. He was caught with a package containing 7 plastic packets of the drug," Labuan police chief Supt Adzhar Othman told reporters Friday. He said the man who also tested positive for methamphetamine and amphetamine was being remanded under Section 117 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which allows for detention of a suspect for more than 24 hours to enable police to complete their investigation. "Under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act, drug traffickers caught with synthetic narcotics weighing more than 50 grams faces the mandatory death sentence if convicted," Adzhar said. (source: Bernama) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Feb 20 08:01:57 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2016 08:01:57 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., VA., N.C., GA., FLA., ALA., MISS., LA., OHIO, KY. Message-ID: Feb. 20 PENNSYLVANIA: Frein's Attorney: 'No death penalty, police violated my client's rights' Attorneys for accused cop killer Eric Frein are trying to get evidence against him thrown out and the death penalty off the table. Defense lawyers filed motions this week in Pike County Court. Frein is charged with 1st degree murder for the death of Pennsylvania State Trooper Byron Dickson. Police said Frein killed Dickson and seriously injured Trooper Alex Douglass on Sept. 12, 2014 when he opened fire outside of the Blooming Grove state police barracks. Frein's attorneys argue Pennsylvania State Police violated his constitutional rights the night they interrogated him for 4 hours after he was captured in Oct. 2014. They are also asking for the death penalty to be tossed out, while prosecutors still very much intend to push for a death sentence. Before Frein can go to trial, these new arguments from the defense have to be resolved in Pike County Court. (source: WBNG news) VIRGINIA: The electric chair ensures a quick and painless death Regarding the Feb. 17 editorial "Back to barbarism": I witnessed an electric chair execution at the Virginia State Penitentiary in Richmond on Aug. 30, 1989. Watching a man die was a grim experience, but, mercifully, the condemned inmate didn't suffer, as death was instantaneous. The editorial implied that execution by electrocution has been used to intentionally inflict pain for the sake of cruelty. That suggestion is as preposterous as it is untrue. The electric chair was adopted in an effort to ensure a quick and painless death for condemned inmates. It seemed awfully quick to me when I saw it. Lethal injection, the preferred method for conducting executions, is impractical in Virginia because, thanks to death penalty opponents, the chemicals required are no longer available. If the commonwealth now wants to use its electric chair, at least that method kills nearly instantly. Discussing the intentional taking of a human life by execution is repellent, but when one considers the crimes of Timothy McVeigh or Ted Bundy or, in this case, Ricky Gray, who murdered at least 8 people, 2 of whom were children, most Americans continue to support capital punishment regardless of the method. Scott Wallace, Leesburg (source: Letter to the Editor, Washington Post) NORTH CAROLINA: 9 jurors selected in Hustle Mart 3 trial After 7 days of jury selection, prosecutors and defense attorneys have agreed on 9 jurors for the Hustle Mart 3 triple homicide trial. Antwan Andre Anthony, 33, is accused of robbing, kidnapping and murdering Mokbel Mohamed Almujanahi, 16, Nabil Nasser Saeed Al'mogannahi, 26, and Gaber Alawi, 24, on April 1, 2012, as they were closing the convenience store on N.C. 121 north of Farmville. He is going on trial for 3 counts of 1st-degree murder, 3 counts of 1st-degree kidnapping and robbery with a dangerous weapon. If he is found guilty of 1st-degree murder, Pitt County District Attorney Kimberly Robb will seek the death penalty against him. (source: Daily Reflector) GEORGIA: Curb on some death penalty cases motivates Catholics at Capitol In a basement room of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Atlanta, advocates gathered for prayer and a legislative briefing Feb. 4 to begin Catholic Day at the Capitol. More than 50 people participated in this year's program to meet with lawmakers who represent them in the Georgia General Assembly and to learn more about issues affecting the common good and legislation significant to the local Catholic dioceses. The Georgia Catholic Conference organizes the annual event, which promotes faith in action. The conference represents the Catholic bishops of the Archdiocese of Atlanta and the Diocese of Savannah in the legislative arena. Various ministry leaders joined conference director Frank Mulcahy to present updates on legislation already in the pipeline and bills yet to be introduced. "We would like for you to talk with legislators about what you are passionate about," said Kat Doyle, director of Justice and Peace Ministries for the archdiocese. Doyle reminded participants that there are hundreds of bills before legislators at any given time, and often they don't have time to read all of them. On a previous Catholic Day at the Capitol, 1 couple spoke to their legislator to encourage support of a fetal pain bill. While she supported pro-life bills, the lawmaker had not heard from any constituents about the fetal pain legislation. "She was not aware of the bill and this couple asked her to vote for it," said Doyle. "She voted 'yes.' That's how important 1 or 2 people can be in the legislative process. This is your opportunity to be heard." During the briefing, participants received forms to communicate with their representatives in the event a face-to-face meeting was impossible. Doyle urged the advocates to continue communicating with elected officials beyond the session. "This is 1 day. Our faith calls us to live this every day," she said. Doyle also reminded the group that because the church does not take a position on every bill, it's important for the faithful to research issues and look at proposals through the lens of Catholic social teaching. Fueled by coffee and doughnuts, the Catholic Day participants split into several groups to walk one block to the Capitol. Later, they visited the Senate gallery to watch the session, stopped for a photo with Bishop David P. Talley and Gov. Nathan Deal, and had conversations with their respective representatives. Sen. Mike Dugan of Carrollton, who attends Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, welcomed Bishop Talley officially and introduced him to the Senate. "Why are we insistent on being the worst?" For Mississippi native Ann Basile, it was her 1st trip to the state Capitol. Basile is particularly interested in issues surrounding abolition of the death penalty, and in religious liberty. She is a parishioner of St. John Neumann Church in Lilburn. "I work with the prison ministry there. I'm totally against capital punishment," emphasized Basile. The parish prison ministry started last year. Basile credits the Holy Spirit and the pastor, Father Sunny Punnakuziyil, for helping her to answer the call. "Is someone speaking for me?" she recalled thinking. Basile plans to attend vigils on execution dates at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson being organized by the archdiocese's prison ministry. A retired nurse, Basile chatted with some of the more than 1,300 nurses at the Capitol that day for the legislative advocacy event of the Georgia Nurses Association. Bill Moon, parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Atlanta, is also passionate about advocating against the death penalty. In capital punishment sentencing, the U.S. Supreme Court has determined that executing a person with intellectual disabilities or mental retardation is unconstitutional, but left to the states how to determine when that standard is met. Georgia is the only state that uses the most difficult standard of proof of "beyond a reasonable doubt" in order to meet the legal standard of intellectual disability. "What we're aiming for is preponderance of evidence," said Moon. "I think that it's doable." Moon said if inmate Warren Hill, executed in January 2015, had lived in any other state, he would not have been put to death. Hill's attorneys had argued that his sentence be changed to life in prison due to lifelong evaluations of his intellectual disability. Hill received the sacraments of the Catholic Church while on death row. Of the 31 states that impose the death penalty, 22 use the standard of "preponderance of the evidence" to determine intellectual disability. Others use a "clear and convincing evidence" standard. "Why are we insistent on being the worst?" asked Moon as he stood outside the Senate gallery. "This really is big for me. Baby steps are all we want," said Moon of moving toward abolition of capital punishment. "We should not be executing these people," said Maggie Rousseau, director of the archdiocesan Disabilities Ministry. When thinking of this issue, Rousseau reflects on the phrase her late uncle often used of "compassionate justice." Legislation this session on the intellectual disability standard is anticipated but had not been introduced as of Feb. 16. The Georgia Catholic Conference is also monitoring and working for other pieces of legislation, including House Bill 768, which authorizes creation of separate ABLE (Achieving Better Life Experience) accounts for people with disabilities to live independently. The Georgia Senate has approved Senate Bill 308, known as the Alternatives to Abortion Bill. Supported by the Georgia Catholic Conference, the legislation would award grants to nonprofit organizations that provide pregnancy support services. The bill passed the Senate Feb. 11 and will move to the House for debate. Michael Strollo, 19, attends the University of North Georgia and joined other young friends for Catholic Day. "One of the biggest issues the state of Georgia is facing is religious liberty," said Strollo, dressed in suit and bowtie for the visit. A parishioner at Good Shepherd Church in Cumming, Strollo said perhaps people his age don't realize they can make a difference. "For them, it's not interesting," Strollo said. "I love working in government affairs ... to be as young as I am and make a change in the process." (source: georgiabulletin.org) FLORIDA: My Daughter's Killer Should Not Get the Death Penalty----Darlene Farah's daughter was murdered in Florida in 2013; It's wrong to make my family suffer through a lengthy legal process When my 20-year-old daughter Shelby was murdered in 2013, I didn't think things could get any worse. I loved my daughter more than anything in the world. She was a fighter and tenacious, but full of compassion and always helping the less fortunate. She turned down an invitation to try out as a cheerleader for the Jacksonville Jaguars 2 years in a row. She chose instead to mentor young girls as a volunteer cheerleading coach, and she helped start a scholarship fund for 2 children after their father died. That's the kind of person Shelby was. My family and I were absolutely devastated when a senseless shooting during a robbery at a store in Jacksonville, Fla., took her from us. There is nothing we can do to bring Shelby back - how I wish there was. The best my family can do now is celebrate her life, honor her memory and begin the lengthy healing process. Unfortunately, despite my requests, the state of Florida is planning to seek the death penalty in my daughter's case, which is set for trial in May. I do not want my family to go through the years of trials and appeals that come with death-penalty cases. My daughter's case exemplifies the problems with America's death penalty. Most counties in the U.S. rarely seek it. A handful of prosecutors in only 2% of counties are responsible for the majority of death sentences nationwide. Unfortunately, my family lives in one of these outlier counties - Duval County, Florida - in which prosecutors seek the death penalty at a much higher rate than others. Officials' desire for the death penalty in my daughter's case seems so strong that they are ignoring the wishes of my family in their pursuit of it. My daughter would not have wanted the death penalty for the person who killed her. That's not the type of person she was. In the midst of tragedy, she would have wanted the killing and the pain to stop. The person who killed Shelby needs to face the consequences for what he did and be held accountable. But more killing in no way honors my daughter's memory or provides solace to my family. Instead, the death penalty would inflict additional pain on us. Death-penalty cases are incredibly complex and drawn-out. It's been 2 1/2 years since my daughter's murder, and the trial hasn't even started. Since the U.S. Supreme Court recently found part of Florida's death penalty unconstitutional, district attorneys across the state have asked for delays in pending death-penalty cases due to the uncertainty surrounding Florida's current law. In the meantime, the lives of families like mine are put on hold - we can't start to heal and move beyond the legal process, which never seems to end. Since my daughter's murder, I have begged and pleaded with the prosecutors to take the death penalty off the table, accept a plea deal and end this painful process for my family. At every step of the process, our wishes have been ignored. The prosecutors tell us that they know what's best in my daughter's case. For the well-being of my family, I have to keep fighting the death penalty in my daughter's case. But I'm tired and increasingly discouraged by how destructive our criminal-justice system can be on murder-victims' families. My children and I are the ones who will have to endure decades of trials and appeals if the person who murdered my daughter is sentenced to death. I have seen my family torn apart since my daughter's murder, and the idea of having to face the lengthy legal process associated with a death-penalty case is unbearable. We have endured enough pain and tragedy already. (source: Darlene Farah, TIME Magazine) ***************** Public defender: Take death penalty off table for Rhodes----Letter sent to State Attorney regarding man accused of killing Shelby Farah The Public Defender wants State Attorney Angela Corey to reconsider seeking the death penalty in the case of James Rhodes. Rhodes is charged with robbery and murder in the shooting death of Metro PCS clerk Shelby Farah. Matt Shirk has sent a letter to Corey, imploring her to reconsider seeking the death penalty for Rhodes, citing the desire of Farah's mother, Darlene Farah, to let Rhodes plead guilty and be sentenced to life in prison. Corey did that in the case of Jared Harrell, the man convicted of killing 7-year-old Somer Thompson, after Somer's mother made the same request. Corey's office issued a statement Friday, responding to Shirk's letter: This case is set for a hearing on Feb. 24 to address the various motions filed by the defendant regarding the death penalty. The State is still seeking the death penalty in this case and will file a formal response addressing these motions. Due to this being a pending matter, it would be inappropriate to comment further. Shirk said in his letter that it would cost the state of Florida $24 million to continue appeals, if Rhodes is sentenced to death. Shirk also raised the point that Rhodes has mental health issues and said that the recent Hurst ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court will leave questions hanging about the constitutionality of Florida???s death penalty law, no matter what rewrite the Legislature passes. Cellphone store clerk killed in robbery James Rhodes is charged with 1st-degree murder in the killing of 20-year-old Shelby Farah during a robbery of a Brentwood cellphone store. Police said that after several hours of questioning, Rhodes confessed. Police said Farah was found dead after officers responded to a report of an armed robbery at the store on Main Street near 21st Street. Police said Rhodes pointed a gun at Shelby Farah and demanded money. They said she cooperated and after she handed him the last bit of money, he fired 4 rounds, killing her. (source: news4jax.com) ***************** Deltona murder suspect Luis Toledo withdraws request for speedy trial In a surprising development, defense attorneys for Luis Toledo on Friday withdrew his demand for a speedy trial. That likely means a new death penalty process will be in place by the time the Deltona man accused of killing his wife and her children goes to trial. Also unusual, Circuit Judge Raul Zambrano said Toledo refused to attend Friday's hearing at the Volusia County Courthouse. The judge said he had to order that Toledo be brought to the courthouse, though Toledo apparently ultimately cooperated. "I came voluntarily," Toledo said in a deep voice as one of his attorneys placed a hand on his left shoulder. "Thank you very much that avoids anybody getting hurt, including yourself," Zambrano said. The judge said he had ordered that Toledo be "extricated" from his cell, if necessary. Toledo, 33, is charged with 2nd-degree murder in the killing of his wife, the 28-year-old Yessenia Suarez, and 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in the deaths of her children, Thalia, 9, and Michael, 8. The mother and children were reported missing Oct. 23, 2013, from their home at 317 Covent Gardens Place in Deltona. Their bodies have not been found. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Toledo's attorneys' last week filed a demand for a speedy trial. But on Friday with Zambrano ready to set a trial date, Toledo's attorneys withdrew the request. Zambrano questioned Toledo on whether he understood the decision he was making. "Yes, sir," Toledo answered in a deep voice several times to questions. The judge said he had been ready to set a trial date. ???I already have all the logistics prepared to have a trial," Zambrano said. "I would have scheduled it this morning. You understand that?" Toledo, in his customary orange jail jumpsuit and shackles, said it was his choice. "Yes, sir. It was my decision to withdraw it," Toledo said. Toledo had been scheduled to go to trial in January until the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida's death penalty process. At that point, prosecutors asked that the trial be delayed as the state Legislature worked on a new death penalty process. Zambrano agreed and delayed the trial. The state House of Representatives on Thursday passed HB 7101 which overhauls the process so that jurors must unanimously agree on an aggravating circumstance in support of the death penalty. Jurors must then vote on whether to recommend death. If 10 vote for death, the judge could impose death or a life sentence without parole. If less than 10 vote for death, the judge must sentence the person to life. The Senate version differed in that it required a unanimous jury recommendation for death, but senators have agreed to compromise to 10-2, although they have not officially voted on it yet. Toledo attorney Jeff Deen said after the hearing that he thinks Gov. Rick Scott will sign the bill into law, and it will take effect immediately. Deen said also the initial request for a speedy trial was not a strategic move to have Toledo go to trial before a new death penalty procedure is in place. "It has nothing to do with trying to beat anything," Deen said. "It has everything to do with we represent someone who is on trial for his life and we are trying to do what's in his best interest to make sure that his rights are preserved." (source: Daytona Beach News-Journal) ***************** FL Raising Bar For Death Penalty But May Remain An Outlier The House has approved changes to the state's sentencing system requiring at least 10 jurors agree before recommending the death penalty. But the Senate's proposal requires unanimity. After an initial bid of just 9 jurors to recommend capital punishment, House lawmakers amended the requirement to 10 in an effort to find a compromise with the Senate. But Mark Schlakman from the Florida State University Center for the Advancement of Human Rights says the state Supreme Court has been calling for unanimity since 2005. "So more than 10 years the legislature has been on notice that the Florida Supreme Court was strongly in support of unanimous jury recommendations of death," Schlakman says. While the chambers are at odds on the question of a penalty recommendation, both agree the jury should reach unanimous agreement on factual elements known as aggravating factors. (source: WFSU news) ALABAMA: Can Alabamians afford the specter of 16 or more scheduled executions in a row? A March 25, 2014 article from the Associated Press quotes Alabama Assistant Attorney General Clay Crenshaw saying that 16 death row inmates "have exhausted [all] appeals and are awaiting execution." Today, the exact number among the 185 inmates on Alabama's death row whose last remaining hope is clemency is unknown. However, even following the execution of Christopher Brooks on January 21, the number of inmates "out of court," with no further avenues of appeal, is at least 16, and it may be higher. This means that anytime it wants, the AG's office can, following the 2 year moratorium on executions that officially ended with Mr. Brooks, ask the courts to schedule 16 or more executions in a row. The question is: Whatever personal beliefs Alabamians hold on the morality of the death penalty, is the scheduled killing of 16 or more people - one right after the other - a risk worth subjecting Alabama's fragile economy to? Consider the steady drumbeat of publicized death and denunciations from around the United States and the world that would result, with the possibility, each time, of a gruesome botch, like the infamous Oklahoma execution of Clayton Lockett on April 29, 2014. Generating an avalanche of negative press abroad, reporters witnessing Lockett's execution said he "writhed, groaned, and convulsed" taking 43 minutes to die. Imagine 16 or more potential Lockett-like executions lined up - like ducks in a row - in Alabama. Picture the accompanying emotional baggage with each detail about the condemned, the crimes of which they were convicted, and the nitty gritty of each of their executions painstakingly picked through by the press . . . . How much negative publicity would Alabama see as a result? How much condemnation from foreign countries who abhor the death penalty would it reap - countries whose investment dollars Alabama's slowly rebuilding economy depends upon? A June 2014 article by Michael Tomberlin titled, "Alabama, Birmingham benefit from growing levels of foreign direct investment," noted that "[the 5 top source countries of companies investing in Birmingham as a percent of jobs are Germany (14 %), Japan (12.9) Canada (11), Spain (8.8) and France (7.7)." Furthermore, "[t]he 5 leading source countries companies investing in Alabama as a % of the jobs are Germany (16.2 %), Japan (13.5), Republic of Korea (9.6), England (8.6) and Canada (7.5)." That means just a little less than 2 years ago, at least 41.5 % of foreign investment in Birmingham came from foreign countries that long ago abolished the death penalty and, at least 32.3 % of foreign investment in all of Alabama, likewise, came from abolitionist countries. In addition to the already well-documented costs of capital punishment then - to Alabamians' morals, the judicial system and taxes (see the Equal Justice Initiative's website for detailed studies and support on all these) - can Alabama really risk ramping executions up when doing so will offend, even alienate, so many potential foreign investors - not to mention the Pope? The University of Alabama's Center for Business and Economic Research is already predicting slow growth for Alabama's economy in 2016, and so, even if folks don't care so much about what foreigners think of Alabama's refusal to, as the New York Times Editorial Board put it on January 16, "join the rest of the civilized world and end the death penalty," don't Alabamians at least want those foreign dollars? Isn't it great that foreign companies like Mercedes-Benz and Airbus have chosen to invest in Alabama? Wouldn't it be awful if the state's rekindled lust for executions drove them, and foreign companies like them, away? We already know Europeans hate the death penalty by their refusal to ship lethal injection drugs to the US and, just recently, after Saudi Arabia held mass executions, it was reported on January 15 by Eve Hartley of the Huffington Post that, "the brutal Saudi justice system [had] strain[ed] relations between" Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom. Putting aside all the very many good reasons already advanced to end the death penalty, isn't the most obvious in Alabamians' wallets? Is there really so much green in there already that accelerating - instead of taking immediate steps now to end the death penalty - is worth it? (source: Stephen Cooper, a former D.C. public defender and worked as an Assistant Federal Defender in Montgomery, Alabama between 2012 and 2015, where he represented death row inmates----al.com) **************** Jury recommends life without parole for John Owens, convicted of capital murder Friday afternoon, a Madison County jury made its recommendation for John Clayton Owens to serve life in prison without parole. This comes a day after they found him guilty of capital murder in the death of Doris Richardson, 91. This is a recommendation, and Judge Alison Austin will sentence Owens on April 20. She could opt for the death penalty, which is what prosecutors pushed for. The jury voted 10 to 2 for life without parole. The state argued there were three aggravators in the case, explaining why the jury should have recommended death for Owens: 1.He committed the murder during a burglary 2.He committed it while on probation 3.The crime was heinous, atrocious, and cruel, compared to other murders The jury agreed on the 1st and 2nd points, but disagreed on the 3rd. The mitigating evidence presented during the penalty phase, mainly about Owens' life, outweighed the aggravating factors. Madison County Assistant District Attorney Tim Gann had argued Richardson's death was terrifying. He told jurors she was home alone, in bed apparently working on a crossword puzzle, when Owens entered her home. Gann and Assistant DA Bill Starnes both focused on the fact that the 91-year-old Richardson was strangled to death. She suffered a broken bone in the neck, the tissue around her throat was crushed and she had heavy brusing on her arms. Gann said that showed she tried to fight off her much larger assailant. The penalty phase included hours of testimony regarding Owens very troubled childhood, his family's history and his use of drugs. Owens' life was the main subject of testimony in the penalty phase of his trial. Owens family members and friends testified, and a defense-hired psychologist, Dr. Marianne Rosenzweig offered a lengthy report about her findings. She performed an evaluation of Owens and spent 12 hours interviewing him and 50 hours interviewing family members and friends. Owens' life has been difficult, Dr. Rosenzweig testified. There were multiple reports of abuse, with allegations against his father, mother and stepfather. His father was described as a crackhead and kleptomaniac who once stole a 5-gallon bucket of rocks because it was there. His mother let Owens and his brother smoke pot when he was around 8 as a reward for doing chores. One DHR report confirmed abuse when Owens was about 13. DHR said the boys were old enough to call 911 if there were continued problems. His brother testified they never had enough food growing up, and were fed cat food sandwiches at one point. Gregg Owens said he wouldn't be alive without his brother's protection. He said they began stealing as children to get money for food. There were multiple reports of Owens stealing and using drugs, but no violence. He had been in special education, but was found to have an above-average IQ. He was described by relatives and family friends as helpful and gentle and a gifted artist. He was especially kind to a brain-damaged girl who he stuck up for at a school dance. He remains her only friend, her mother said. In 2011 after a breakup, Owens became withdrawn, began smoking a lot of spice, synthetic marijuana which can be mind-altering. Rosenzweig told jurors that Richardson's death scene, with a pillow over her face, suggested awareness of guilt by her killer. She said thieves caught stealing are often so startled they overreact. When high, the outcomes are even worse. John Owens' mother also took the stand Friday. Richardson was strangled in her Bide-a-wee Drive home in Huntsville in August 2011. (source: WHNT news) ****************** Suspect could face death penalty after "brutal murder"----James Matthew Hill, 33, was found blindfolded, bound and stabbed in his home on Walding Street Thursday afternoon. Police have arrested 20-year-old David Montel Cunningham and charged him with capital murder. The suspect in the stabbing death of an Enterprise man could face the death penalty if convicted of murder, 12th Circuit District Attorney Tom Anderson said during a news conference on Friday. David Montel Cunningham, 20, was arrested Thursday night and charged with capital murder for the stabbing death of James Matthew Hill, 33, of Enterprise. The 2 men were thought to be roommates, but it is unclear how long they had lived together, Enterprise Police Chief T.D. Jones said. Hill's body was found in his duplex home on the 100 block of Walding Street, off East Lee Street. He had been blindfolded, bound and stabbed multiple times in the head, neck and shoulders, Jones said. A knife has been recovered, but it has yet to be determined if it is the murder weapon, Jones said. "It was a very brutal murder," he said. Anderson said he felt strongly that he would pursue the death penalty in the case, but that he has not formally filed the paperwork to do so. "It was one of the worst things I've seen," he said. Police learned of the suspected murder from the Coffee County Sheriff's Office, which had received a tip, Jones said. On another tip from the Sheriff's Office, police arrested Cunningham Thursday afternoon in the northern part of the county. The Sheriff's Office had learned Cunningham had plans to flee and would be arriving at a store called Country Corner around 4 p.m. When Cunningham arrived at the store around 4:10 p.m., he was arrested and did not resist. At the time of his arrest, law enforcement officials found a piece of property belonging to Hill in Cunningham's possession. Law enforcement denied to reveal what the property was, citing the ongoing investigation as reason. "I think that any time you find another person's property on a deceased individual, you can reasonably infer that at least 1 of the motives is pecuniary gain," Anderson said during the news conference. Cunningham was denied bond in a preliminary hearing with Coffee County District Judge Chris Kaminski on Friday morning. Another preliminary hearing is set for March 11, Anderson said. District Attorney Anderson said Cunningham had never been convicted of a crime, but that he was out on bond at the time of the offense for possession of a controlled substance. Court records showed Cunningham was out on bail for a pending felony unlawful possession of a controlled substance charge in Coffee County from 2013. Records show police charged Cunningham in November 2013 with the unlawful possession of a prescription medication called hydrocodone while at Enterprise High School. Hill's neighbor, Lola Faye Ross, said Cunningham had been living with Hill for some time, but she was not sure how long. Ross said she had not heard any signs of a fight and was only alerted to a problem when law enforcement vehicles arrived. "I thought, 'Well, something has happened next door,'" she said. "They couldn't get in (the door.) They had to break in somehow to get in, and then they took the yellow tape and taped around." As Ross was hanging clothes on her clothesline, she addressed the law enforcement officials. "Y'all look mighty sad," she said to them. "Are they dead?" 1 of the detectives nodded, Ross said. "But there was only 1 dead," she said. "And the other's in jail." Ross said she cared for both of the men, and that Hill sometimes helped her when he could. "(Hill) was fine," she said. "He was a good friend, and we got along just fine. But he had a lot of health problems ... They delivered medicine here just about every week. He had so many different things wrong with him." (source: Dothan Eagle) ******************** Calhoun County judicial candidates speak to packed house Candidates for 2 Circuit Court judgeship openings discussed their qualifications and aspirations for the bench during an open forum Thursday night at the Anniston City Meeting Center. Anniston attorney Bill Broome, the forum coordinator, welcomed about 70 people, in a room big enough for 100, praising the effort and drive of the candidates. "The circuit judges we are electing for Place 3 and Place 5 are really for the citizens of Calhoun County," Broome said. "The individuals that will hold those offices hold life or death decisions and monetary decisions. We are very fortunate in the county to have four very dedicated, intelligent, knowledgeable folks that want to be circuit judges." Broome moderated the event, asking candidates questions submitted by Calhoun-Cleburne County Bar Association members and by audience members. "90 % of the questions I asked tonight were audience submitted," he said after the forum. The March 1 primary will likely decide who wins each open seat as neither place has a Democratic candidate. Place 3 After a brief explanation of legal background and family life, Debra Jones and Carey Kirby, both 51 and from White Plains, answered questions specific to Place 3, the seat Jones currently holds. Place 3 hears civil and criminal jury cases. In a response to a question about the death penalty, Jones stressed that a good judge follows the law, and therefore she is in favor of the death penalty. "It is the law and you have to follow the law," she said. "If you're going to sit in judgment of a death penalty case, you better be qualified to try one of those cases," Jones said, referring to the qualifications necessary for an attorney to take on a case where the death penalty is an option. Kirby, who also said he felt a good judge must follow the law, was not in favor of the death penalty. He also said he has never been an attorney in a death penalty case. "As a criminal defense attorney, I'm not for it," he said. "That doesn't mean if a jury recommends the death penalty that I would overturn it, though." When asked why he was running for the seat, Kirby said there were a few decisions made by Jones that were "contrary to law." "I used that to base my decision on running for this position," he said. In response, Jones said not everyone is worthy of probation. "I apply the law as I see fit and I make no apologies for that," she said. "You need a judge who is tough on crime and not afraid to send someone to prison." (source: Anniston Star) MISSISSIPPI: Future law protects death row executioners Information about the execution of death row inmates in Mississippi could be kept secret. Senate Bill 2237 entitled "Execution Secrecy Bill" passed the Senate Tuesday. Attorney Gen. Jim Hood approached Senator Joey Fillingane to write the bill in hopes to protect those involved in the execution process from the harassment of protesters and death penalty opponents. "This Bill attempts to prevent harassing and intimidating innocent people who are merely carrying out their duties as part of their employment in the state of Mississippi," Fillingane said. The bill states: "The identities of all members of the execution team, the supplier or suppliers of lethal injection drugs, and the identities of those witnesses as provided for in Section 99-19-55 (2) shall at all times remain confidential, and the information is exempt from disclosure under the provisions of the Mississippi Public Records Act of 1983." Fillingane said the bill is more about protecting the suppliers than the inmates. "These are not nice people, these are people that have been convicted by a jury of their peers and sentenced to the death penalty and we are executing that judgment," Fillingane said. "It will be affected in a way that is efficient, and obviously there are no qualms as to the efficacy of the drugs that are being used." Opponents of the bill say there are qualms, and that information about the drugs and the training of the staff should be available to the public. "I think it's a red herring just to be frank," said Charles Irvin, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi. "Let's put safety and security to the forefront because people will focus on that instead of focus on the fact that really the bill is designed to take away transparency from the drug companies who are supplying the drugs." Irvin said inmates also have a right to protection. "Public records should not be removed from this process because how else can we find out how the execution takes place and what steps are being taken to carry out a successful execution and ensure that its important with the 8th amendment," Irvin said. Similar legislation has been passed in Oklahoma, Georgia and Arkansas. (source: WDAM news) LOUISIANA: State Supreme Court reinstates death penalty on Angola 5 inmate convicted in 1999 slaying of correctional officer The death sentence of 1 of the 5 Louisiana State Penitentiary lifers found guilty of murdering a prison guard during a botched 1999 escape was reinstated Friday by the state's highest court. A retired New Orleans judge had ordered a new sentencing hearing for Angola 5 member David Brown in late 2014, ruling that prosecutors withheld a confession by another of the accused killers until after Brown, of Algiers, went on trial in 2011 in the slaying of Capt. David Knapps. But the Louisiana Supreme Court decided Friday that because the statement is "neither favorable nor material" to Brown, the failure to disclose it was not prejudicial to him. Chief Justice Bernette Johnson dissented, saying retired Criminal District Court Judge Jerome Winsberg made the right call and that her confidence in the outcome of the penalty phase of Brown's 1st-degree murder trial has been undermined. "The state concedes that it withheld the statement of inmate Richard Domingue, which supports ... Brown's defense theory that he was less culpable in the killing of the correctional officer," Johnson wrote. According to Domingue's statement, inmate Barry Edge confided in him that he and inmate Jeffrey Cameron Clark hatched the plan to kill Knapps, she noted. "Domingue's statement could have been used by the defendant to persuade the jury that since he was not directly involved in the decision to kill Knapps, he should be sentenced to life imprisonment rather than given the death penalty," the chief justice added. Brown's attorneys argue the failure to turn over the statement violated the U.S. Supreme Court's decades-old ruling in Brady v. Maryland that requires the state to disclose evidence favorable to a defendant. Prosecutors contend the statement was not material and would not have changed the verdict. David Brown's attorney, William Sothern, said in a statement Friday evening: "The prosecutors suppressed incredibly significant evidence at David Brown's death penalty trial. The trial court correctly determined that he was entitled to a new trial because of that most serious prosecutorial misconduct. We will continue to pursue every possible avenue for appeal to obtain a fair trial for him where his constitutional rights are respected and where the jury gets to hear all of the evidence." The jury that convicted and condemned Brown heard a recording of Brown telling investigators he dragged Knapps into an employee restroom and held him there while a co-defendant hit him with a mallet. DNA tests found that Knapps' blood was on Brown's hands, shoelace and clothes, trial testimony indicated. Brown and Clark were convicted in the killing of Knapps, 49, and condemned to die. Brown already was serving a life term for 2nd-degree murder in a 1992 killing in Jefferson Parish. Edge and inmate Robert Carley were found guilty in Knapps' slaying and given life sentences. Inmate David Mathis pleaded guilty to 1st-degree murder and received a life sentence. (source: The Advocate) OHIO----new execution date Execution date set for man convicted in '04 Toledo murder The Ohio Supreme Court, in a 5-2 vote, today set a date for the execution of James P. Frazier, convicted in the 2004 murder of a woman with disabilities in a robbery for money to refuel a crack cocaine party. That execution, however, won't occur until Oct. 17, 2019, as the line for lethal injection gurney in Ohio continues to back up as the state struggles to find the drugs it would prefer to use. The 1st execution in that line is set for January once Gov. John Kasich's current moratorium on the death penalty expires. Frazier is on death row at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution. He was convicted of killing Mary Stevenson in the Northgate Apartments in North Toledo where Frazier was attending the party. Ms. Stevenson had cerebral palsy. Frazier strangled her and slit her throat before making away with her purse. "Every court that has examined defendant's claims has upheld his murder conviction and his death sentence," reads the motion from Lucas County Prosecutor Julia Bates' office urging the state Supreme Court to set an execution date. "Defendant has now completed all state and federal litigation," it wrote. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear his latest appeal on June 22, 2015. Ohio Supreme Court Justices Paul Pfeifer and William O'Neill dissented in setting a date. They questioned why the court continues to set execution dates when there's no sign yet one will be carried out. "At this time, the state is incapable of properly executing the 25 people for whom execution dates have previously been set," Justice Pfeifer wrote. "It serves no rational purpose for this court to continue to set execution dates while significant logistical obstacles remain in place and more legal challenges are likely." Justice O'Neill joined in his dissent. Frazier faces lethal injection at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. The state is tentatively set to resume carrying out executions on Jan. 12, 2017 with that of Ronald Phillips, of Summit County. Ohio last executed an inmate in January, 2014 when it used for a single time the combo of the sedative midazolam and morphine derivative hydromorphone. The inmate, Dennis McGuire, died, but witnesses described him first as making choking sounds and struggling against his restraints for 26 minutes after the drugs began to flow. The state soon abandoned its use of that drug combo and said it would revert to using either pentobarbital or sodium thiopental as single drugs. But the domestic and European makers of those drugs refuse to make them available to governments for use in executions. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction has been unable so far to convince the federal government to allow it import the drugs for that purpose. (source: Toledo Blade) ************** Execution date set despite Ohio not having lethal drugs The Ohio Supreme Court on Friday set an execution date for a condemned killer over the objection of 2 justices who question establishing dates when the state doesn't have any lethal drugs. The court ruled 5-2 to schedule James Frazier's execution for Oct. 17, 2019. He was sentenced to death for the 2004 slaying of a woman in a Toledo apartment building where both lived. The decision means Ohio now has 25 death row inmates with firm execution dates beginning early next year at a time when the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction still can't find drugs to put them to death with. It would have been 26, but one inmate recently had his execution delayed. Ohio last executed a prisoner in January 2014, when Dennis McGuire gasped and snorted over 26 minutes during the administration of a never-tried 2-drug combo the state later abandoned. The prisons agency changed its policies to allow for single doses of 2 alternative drugs, neither of which is available in the United States after their manufacturers put them off-limits for executions. The state has unsuccessfully tried to find compounded or specially mixed versions. A prisons system spokeswoman declined comment. Last year, Gov. John Kasich, a Republican running for president, ruled out looking for alternative methods, such as the firing squad or hanging. In a dissent to Friday's ruling, Justice Paul Pfeifer said the state is currently incapable of properly executing the 25 inmates with already scheduled dates. "It serves no rational purpose for this court to continue to set execution dates while significant logistical obstacles remain in place and more legal challenges are likely," Pfeifer said. In a brief interview Friday, he told The Associated Press he would dissent in setting any future execution dates for the same reason. Pfeifer, a Republican, helped write the state's current capital punishment law as a state senator in 1981 but has since disavowed it and said Ohio should abolish the death penalty in favor of life without parole. However, he periodically upholds death sentences as a matter of law. Justice William O'Neill, a Democrat who regularly dissents in capital punishment cases, joined in Pfeifer's opinion. Authorities say Frazier, 75, entered the apartment of 49-year-old Mary Stevenson on March 2, 2004, strangled her, cut her throat and fled with 2 of her purses. Frazier's attorney declined to comment because of his involvement in an ongoing lawsuit challenging lethal injection in Ohio. (source: Associated Press) KENTUCKY: Montgomery seeking death penalty for Crozier The man facing 4 indictments stemming from the events occurring over the same October night - leaving 1 man dead and 3 others injured - learned officially this week that prosecutors will seek the death penalty against him. Bret D. Crozier, 35, of Somerset, appeared before Pulaski Circuit Judge Jeffrey Burdette Thursday to be arraigned for the newest charges against him. 1 indictment involves 2 counts of 1st-degree assault, 2 counts of 1st-degree robbery and 1 count of 1st-degree burglary in connection to the Oct. 24 shootings of 23-year-old Samuei Slores and 24-year-old Diego Martinez at their home on Sycamore Trail in Somerset. That incident occurred around 11 p.m. with both victims being airlifted to the University of Kentucky Medical Center. A 2nd indictment stems from the shooting of 44-year-old Ronnie Taylor in the early morning hours of Oct. 25 at a Dahl Road location in Shopville. Charges include 1 count of 1st-degree assault and 2 counts of 1st-degree wanton endangerment. Both cases will likely be consolidated with 2 previous indictments charging Crozier with the Oct. 24 fatal shooting of 76-year-old Albert Hail at his Oak Hill Road home and an attempt to elude authorities once Crozier was located around 1:30 a.m. on Oct. 25. Crozier was indicted for murder, 1st-degree burglary and kidnapping an adult and minor whom authorities say were forced to accompany him to Hail's residence. The final indictment was actually the first one that the grand jury returned - stemming from a high-speed pursuit westbound on KY 80 which ended when Crozier crashed his car on Pumphouse Road. Crozier, who had been accompanied by a 17-year-old female and eight-month-old baby, was charged with 2 counts of 1st-degree wanton Endangerment, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, 1st-degree fleeing or evading police, tampering with physical evidence, and operation of a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Among the 4 indictments - which will likely be consolidated - were no less than 14 counts of persistent felony offender. Though he had already indicated he would seek the death penalty once Crozier had been charged with murder, Commonwealth's Attorney Eddy Montgomery gave formal notice to Judge Burdette during Thursday's hearing. The defense seemed prepared for the notice with Sandra Brown - a Lexington-based attorney with the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy's capital trial branch - making her 1st appearance representing Crozier. Brown replaces local public defender Kenton Lanham and entered not guilty pleas on Crozier's behalf in all 4 cases. Crozier remains lodged at the Pulaski County Detention Center without bond. His next hearing is scheduled for March 17, when Judge Burdette is expected to set a trial date. (source: The Richmond Register) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Feb 20 08:02:41 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2016 08:02:41 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide----PAKIS., IRAN, IRAQ, INDON. Message-ID: Feb. 20 PAKISTAN: To The Gallows Pakistan hanged 324 people last year to rank third worldwide in terms of executions, but the vast majority of those put to death had no links to militant groups or attacks according to human rights groups. The general sentiment is that criminals, dangerous murderers deserve to die. If they don't, they get to live an easy life in jail, and are a further source of crime as well as a drain on the state's resources. This is very strong argument, but the problem is that while we are deterring these "dons" who make prisons their operative base, we are also sending many a poor man to the gallows who is often there because of a lack of access to a lawyer, a confession extracted from torture, and a corrupt legal system. While our legal system remains ineffective and protective of the criminal (say Mumtaz Qadri and his like), are we really okay with killing criminals, who might not be innocent? Human life on the whole, has such little value in our society, that this is not even a passing concern. The hordes of people executed, who are not terrorists, and maybe, just maybe even innocent, are shrugged away as collateral damage - and often by people who would protest the collateral damage of the US drone program (while applauding Zarb-e-Azab as unequivocal success - without collateral damage). The knot of ethics must be unravelled, and the legal system, the judges, the lawyers and their penchant for bribes and political decisions must be stemmed. If we are choosing to kill people, we have to be unequivocally sure that they are criminals. It is debateable whether threat of the death penalty can deter extremism. Most of these righteous militants are ready for death as a consequence of their jihad, will state punishment really deter them? The military operation was our only bet, and is our only bet, until minds that support religious extremism can change. How does the state, and military, ensure that the legal process was unflawed and the accused had proper legal representation? The concept of human rights applies to all citizens of Pakistan - it is not suspended when one person is accused of a crime. The "greater good" argument suggests that we should not stop hanging 99 criminals to save 1 innocent. Our religion, our constitution and most standards of ethics would suggest otherwise. (source: Editorial, The Nation) IRAN: The Supreme Court Confirms The Death Sentence Of A Juvenile Offender The death sentence of Himan Ouraminejad who was charged with murder as a juvenile, has been confirmed in the Supreme Court and is waiting for the permission of head of judiciary to be executed. According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran (HRANA), Himan Ouraminejad is charged with the murder of another juvenile in a fight in Sanandaj. Himan Ouraminejad is born in 1994 and by the time that he committed the crime in 2010, he was under 18. According to article 91 of the Islamic Penal Code, when the individual is under 18 or do not understand the nature of the crime, or the growth of their brain could be questioned, the death retribution will not be applied. According to an informed source, the forensic has just asked him few questions and the actual scientific tests were not carried out about Himan Ouraminejad. The death sentence of this juvenile offenders will be executed after the permission of the head of judiciary and the refusal of consent by the victim's family. Himan Ouraminejad is currently being kept in Sanandaj prison. ************** 2 Death Row Sunni Prisoners' Trial Session Postponed The trial session of Farzad Shahnazari and Teymour Naderizadeh which was supposed to be held in the Revolutionary Court on Saturday 13 February was postponed because of absence of judge Salvati. The 2 Sunni prisoners have already been sentenced to death by judge Moghiseh but due to abolition of the sentence by the Supreme Court the case was referred to Branch 15 for retrial. According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), the Supreme Court cancelled the execution of Farzad Shahnazari and Teymour Naderizadeh in November 2015 and the case was sent to branch 15 for judicial proceedings. These 2 were sentenced to execution in 2013 by branch 28 of the Revolutionary Court presided by judge Moghiseh. Teymour Naderizadeh and Farzad Shahnazari were detained in June 2010 by the security forces and were about 20 months in solitary confinement in Sanandaj, Zanjan and Evin prisons and then were transferred to Rajai Shahr prison in Karaj. Teymour Naderizadeh was arrested in Sanandaj and Farzad Shahnazari in the north of Iran. Both prisoners are kept in hall 10 of ward 4 in Rajai Shahr prison where mainly the death row Sunni prisoners are being kept. Erfan Naderizadeh son of Teymour was sentenced on similar charges to 8 years imprisonment and is currently held in ward 7 of Rajai Shahr prison. Despite many difficulties and repeated requests, Rajai Shahr prison authorities denied their transfer request to the same ward. (source for both: Human Rights Activists News Agency ********* Commute the Death Sentence of Amanj Veisee ttp://www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved/take-action-now/iran-commute-the-death-sentence-of-amanj-veisee-ua-3916 (source: Amnesty International) IRAQ: Amnesty criticizes Iraq over death sentences Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] criticized the state of justice in Iraq on Thursday after a court in that country sentenced 40 men to death. The Baghdad court found the men guilty of being Sunni jihadists and allied militants that carried out a massacre of 1,700 military cadets from the Speicher Military camp by the Islamic State in June 2014. The men are sentenced to death by hanging under Iraq's anti-terrorism law that states that anyone who "perpetrates, incites, plans, finances or assists acts of terrorism will be sentenced to death". The 40 death sentences brings the total sentenced to death in 2016 to 92 death sentences in 6 weeks. The advocacy organization called on Iraqi authorities to halt the ratification of death sentences and to establish a moratorium on executions. AI's Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director said that, "[t]he vast majority of the trials have been grossly unfair, with many of the defendants claiming to have been tortured into 'confessing' the crimes. These allegations must be urgently investigated and a re-trial that meets international fair trial standard should be ordered." The use of the death penalty remains controversial worldwide. In 2014 UN officials called on the government of Iraq to impose a moratorium on the death penalty in response to a significant rise in executions since the country restored capital punishment in 2005. Last month AI reported on the many juvenile offenders on death row in Iran. The report stated that 73 executions of juvenile offenders took place between 2005 and 2015 and that 160 juvenile offenders are currently on death row. Last year AI said that use of the death penalty in Pakistan was undergoing a "disturbing and dangerous" escalation after the execution of 2 men convicted of non-terrorism offenses. (source: jurist.org) INDONESIA: The Bali 9 And The Capital Punishment In Indonesia Is the death penalty fair? Is it humane? Does it deter crime? The answers to these questions vary depending on who answers them. Those who are against the death penalty usually argue that such punishment fails to rehabilitate and discourage crime. They also believe that prison keeps dangerous criminals away from society just as well as having them executed. On the other hand, those who support the death penalty believe that it is the ultimate weapon against increasing crime rates, since it is human nature to fear of death. It has been reported that there are around 100 convicts currently on death row in Indonesia. At least 60 of them were sentenced for drug offenses, which at the moment is dominated by foreigners. Recently, the processes related to the execution of two (2) Australians, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, who were both sentenced to death by firing squad for drug trafficking, have raised protests from people and the government of Australia. Domestically, many Indonesians have different opinions on whether or not the government should continue to implement the death penalty. It seems that the controversial stories of the death penalty always attract the public's attention. INDONESIAN LAW ON DEATH PENALTY In Indonesia, the death penalty can be applied to various criminal offenses. There are fourteen (14) different laws with the death penalty as a discretionary punishment. Such major offenses include: (i) production, transit, import and possession of drugs (Law No. 35 of 2009 on Narcotics); (ii) premeditated murder (Art. 340 of Penal Code of Indonesia); (iii) corruption under 'certain circumstances' (Law No. 31 of 1999 on Corruption); (iv) acts of terrorism (Law No. 15 of 2003 on Combating Criminal Acts of Terrorism); and (v) gross violations of human rights, including genocide and crimes against humanity (Law No. 26 of 2000 on Human Rights Courts). The reports indicate that in practice the death penalty is mainly imposed on the commission of drug trafficking, murder and terrorist acts. Drugs offenses have accounted for most death sentences since 1998. The Constitution of Indonesia ("Constitution") provides that every person has the right to live and to defend his/her life and existence; however the right to live and other human rights granted under the Constitution are not absolute. Article 28 (J) of the Constitution stipulates that every person has the duty to respect the human rights of others in the orderly life of the community, nation and state. As the consequence, for the sole purposes of guaranteeing the recognition and respect of the rights and freedom of others, the law may restrict the individual human rights. The law can set aside such rights if the interest to be protected is particularly important or serious. In light of the above, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Indonesia, in its Decision No. 2-3/PUU-V/2007 on Judicial Review of Law No. 22 of 1997 on Narcotics dated 23 October 2007 ("Decision No. 2-3/2007") and Decision No. 15/PUU-X/2012 on Judicial Review of Indonesian Penal Code dated 10 July 2012, interpreted that the inherent right to life is not absolute. Therefore, according to the Constitutional Court, the state is entitled to restrict the right to life in order to protect the rights and freedoms of others, including through the application of the death penalty. Also, the Constitutional Court based its ruling on Article 6 (2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1976 ("ICCPR"), and the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988 ("Convention 1988") which has been ratified by Law No. 7 of 1997. The Constitutional Court argued that the death penalty may still be imposed for the most serious crimes. FUTURE TREND The phrase 'the most serious crimes' as stated in Article 6 (2) of ICCPR is open to interpretation. In 2006, the United Nations ("UN") rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions further narrowed the interpretation of the 'most serious crimes' by defining them as 'cases where it can be shown that there was an intention to kill, which resulted in the loss of life'. The abolitionists are of the view that sentencing people to death denies them the right to life as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, and execution is the ultimate, irrevocable punishment since the risk of executing an innocent person can never be eliminated. In the spirit of universality, Article 6 of ICCPR sets direction towards abolition of the death penalty by establishing state obligations to progressively restrict its use only for the most serious crimes. There is a clear international trend away from the death penalty. According to the UN, more than 150 countries have abolished the death penalty from their laws. In an effort to abolish death penalty throughout the world, the General Assembly of the UN has adopted resolutions for a moratorium on the death penalty. It calls for states which maintain the death penalty to establish a moratorium on the use of the death penalty with a view to abolishing it, and in the meantime, to restrict the number of offenses with the death penalty. It also calls for the states which have abolished the death penalty not to reintroduce it. However, like all General Assembly resolutions, it is not binding on any state. Despite this global trend, some countries continue to apply the death penalty on the basis that it deters crime and should be applied to a broad range of criminal acts, even when there is no intention to kill or actual loss of life. As a comparison, in the neighboring countries of Indonesia such as Singapore and Malaysia, the death penalty is mandatory for drug trafficking and the manufacturing of drugs, genocide involving the killing of any person, and other capital offenses under the Singaporean Penal Code. However, the courts are now given more discretion on whether to impose the death penalty. In Malaysia, the death penalty is mandatory for drug trafficking, acts of terrorism, and other capital offenses under the Malaysian Penal Code. In the last 10 years, Indonesia has executed 10 people for drug offenses. Compared to Singapore and Malaysia, this number can be viewed as slightly conservative. Singapore has executed more than 80 people for drug offenses. Meanwhile, Malaysia has executed more than 50 people for similar offenses. Therefore, the 'seriousness' of a crime may vary according to national culture, religion, tradition and political context. While the imposition of the death penalty is a legal move, the decision on whether or not to carry it out, particularly in Indonesia, is a political one. Under the new administration, President Joko Widodo, there was a hope at the beginning that the new administration will afford more respect human rights and there were signs that Indonesia would abolish the death penalty for all crimes. In fact, quite the opposite has occurred. President Joko Widodo has proven to be a staunch supporter of the death penalty, overseeing the execution of 6 drug traffickers on January 2015 and making several public statements that he will not grant clemency to any of the other drug traffickers currently on death row. The number of countries that put an end to the death penalty since the late 1980s increased nearly three-fold, from 35 to 99. These notes confirm Indonesia as one of the few countries moving in the opposite direction. (source: mondaq.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Feb 21 08:54:40 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2016 08:54:40 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., GA., MISS., OHIO Message-ID: Feb. 21 TEXAS: Recommendations for candidates vying for the state's 2 unknown top courts Republicans have several contested races for the state's top 2 courts on the March 1 Brazos County ballot. Texans like to elect their judges, even though they don't know the incumbents, the challengers or the courts they seek. Too often, judges are selected in the November elections simply because they run, now, as Republicans or, in the past, as Democrats. It is a poor way to select judges, but appointive systems have as many faults. 2 things would make the selection of judges better: doing away with straight-party voting in the general election and, well, voters who bother to be informed about the candidates for whom they vote. Neither is likely to happen anytime soon. Let's take a brief look at the state judicial structure. At the local level, criminal and civil cases are tried in district courts or county courts-at-law. In Brazos County, our 3 district and 2 at-law courts are general jurisdiction, hearing both civil and criminal matters. In larger cities, district courts frequently specialize in criminal, civil or family matters. With the exception of death-penalty verdicts, decisions at the local level may be appealed to 1 of the state's 14 intermediate courts of appeal. In Brazos County, cases that are appealed go to the 3 member 10th Court of Appeals in Waco. The courts of appeal have to accept every case appealed to them, criminal or civil. >From those courts, cases may be appealed to 1 of the state's 2 supreme courts. The 9-member Supreme Court of Texas handles only civil and juvenile matters. The other top court, the 9-member Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, hears criminal cases appealed from the intermediate courts. Both the Court of Criminal Appeals and the Supreme Court are discretionary courts, choosing which cases to accept - with 1 major exception. All death-penalty cases are automatically appealed from the district court level straight to the Court of Criminal Appeals. At present, all nine Supreme Court justices, as they are called, and 8 of the 9 Court of Criminal Appeals judges, as they are called, are Republicans. The lone Democrat on the court is Judge Lawrence Meyers, a fine jurist who has been elected to the top court several times as a Republican. Last year, though, he switched to the Democratic Party to run for a place on the Supreme Court. He lost and now is finishing his 6-year term on the Court of Criminal Appeals and is running for re-election as a Democrat. No other Democrats are running for the top 2 courts. Here is a look at the contested judicial races on the Republican Primary ballot in Brazos County: Supreme Court of Texas Place 3 Justice Debra Lehrmann vs. Justice Michael Massengale -- Lehrmann was judge of the 360th District Court when, in mid 2010, Gov. Rick Perry appointed her to fill out the remaining 6 months of Justice Harriet O'Neill's term when O'Neill stepped down. Lehrmann was elected to a full 6-year term in November 2010. Lehrmann's background before taking the Tarrant County bench was primarily in family law. Massengale clerked in Houston for a judge on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for 2 years and then joined the prestigious firm of Baker, Botts, eventually becoming a partner. Perhaps his biggest case was representing the directors of Pennzoil in a suit filed by the company's shareholders. After a 3-week trial, he won and the shareholders received nothing. 6 1/2 years ago, Gov. Perry named him to a vacancy on the 1st Court of Appeals, 1 of 2 appellate courts located in Houston. He has been elected to that post twice since then. Massengale is critical of Lehrmann, noting she had no appellate experience before being named to the Supreme Court, although, of course, she has gained plenty of such experience in the past 5 years on the court. He said she is the most frequent dissenter on the Supreme Court, often on the state's tort reform statute. He said Lehrmann often is results-driven, deciding cases on the way she thinks the law should be rather than on the law as written. Lehrmann did not meet with the Editorial Board. Massengale is a highly intelligent, engaging appellate justice. His criticism of Justice Lehrmann may be correct, but we expect our judges and justices to rule on the law as they understand it. Judges frequently can read the same case and apply the same facts and come up with differing opinions. That is why we have 9 justices on the Texas Supreme Court and 9 judges on the Court of Criminal Appeals. Massengale would make a fine Supreme Court justice, but doesn't make the case he would be better than Justice Lehrmann. The Eagle recommends a vote to re-elect Justice Debra Lehrmann to Place 3 on the Supreme Court of Texas. Place 5 Judge Rick Green vs. Justice Paul Green -- Justice Paul Green was elected to the Supreme Court in 2004 and re-elected in 2010. Prior to that, he was a justice on the 4th Court of Appeals in San Antonio. Rick Green is a former member of the Texas House of Representatives who was defeated after 2 terms. He has no judicial experience, losing to Justice Lehrmann in 2010. Neither candidate met with The Editorial Board, but Paul Green's experience on the Supreme Court gives him a significant edge. The Eagle recommends a vote for Justice Paul Green for re-election to the Supreme Court of Texas. Place 9 Justice Eva Guzman vs. Joe Pool -- The daughter of immigrants, Guzman was appointed by Gov. Perry in 2009 when Justice Scott Brister resigned. She was elected to a full 6-year term in 2010. Prior to being appointed to the court, she was a justice on the 14th Court of Appeals in Houston and, before that was a family court judge. She is the 1st Hispanic woman to hold all 3 positions. She was named Latina Judge of the Year by the Hispanic National Bar Association and 2009 Judge of the Year by the Mexican American Bar Association of Texas. Pool says Guzman is not a true conservative who is out-of-step with the beliefs of the majority of Texas. He described himself as a "Christian Constitutional Conservative." On his website site, he pledges to rule "in accordance with the Constitution and his conscience." He ran for the Supreme Court in 2012 in a 3-person race, coming in 3rd. Guzman has been an outstanding jurist in Texas for a number of years and has served all Texans well. It is Pool who is out of touch with his fellow Texans. The Eagle recommends a vote to keep Justice Eva Guzman on the Supreme Court of Texas. Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 2 Judge Mary Lou Keel vs. Judge Chris Oldner vs. Judge Ray Wheless -- Judge Keel has served as a Houston felony court judge for 21 years and has tried 20 capital murder cases. Prior to that, she was an assistant Harris County district attorney, handling 279 criminal appeals, including 5 death-penalty cases. She has been board certified in criminal law since 1990. Oldner has been board certified in criminal law for 14 years. He spent seven years as a prosecutor before serving as a Collin County court-at-law judge for 3 1/2 years. Gov. Perry appointed him to the 416th District Court Bench in McKinney in 2003. He has run unopposed since then. He said he is the candidate in the race who has argued a death penalty case before a jury. He said he has never had a felony decision in his court reversed. "We do it right the 1st time." He made the news last year when he presided over the grand jury that handed up an indictment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for securities fraud. Oldner recused himself from the case after the indictment was handed up, but Paxton's attorneys accused the judge of improprieties and said the indictment should be thrown out. A man not associated publicly with the case filed a judicial ethics complaint against Judge Oldner, and the matter is in the hands of the state's judicial ethics commission. Oldner denies any wrongdoing, saying he has nothing to gain by Paxton's indictment. He said, "It's just another example of how dark-money special interest groups seek to bully and intimidate ethical, conservative judges who strictly follow the law." Wheless is board certified in civil trial law and personal injury trial law, specializations that seemingly would make him more suited for the Supreme Court. He calls himself the conservative candidate in the race. Wheless was named to a Collin County court-at-law bench in 2000 and, in 2009, was appointed to a district court bench by Gov. Perry. He has run unopposed since then. Before being named to the bench, Wheless was active in a variety of Collin County Republican Party activities. He did not meet with the Editorial Board. Oldner seemingly did nothing wrong in the Paxton indictment -- remember, it is Texas Attorney General Paxton who is under indictment, not the judge -- and he brings a wealth of experience to the race. Keel, however, has experience that far surpasses Oldner's and that experience would serve Texans well on the Court of Criminal Appeals. The Eagle recommends a vote for Judge Mary Lou Keel for election to Place 2 on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in the Republican Primary. The winner of that primary race will face the now-Democrat Judge Lawrence Meyers in the fall. Place 5 Judge Sid Harle vs. Steve Smith vs. Scott Walker vs. Brent Webster -- The 4 are vying to replace Judge Cheryl Johnson, an outstanding jurist who is retiring after 18 years on the court. Harle is running at the urging of Judge Johnson. He has been judge of San Antonio's 226th District Court for 27 years and has run unopposed for the past 20 years. He is a former prosecutor and former defense attorney who appealed a death penalty case to the Court of Criminal Appeals. He said he has tried more capital cases than any other judge in Texas. While running for the Court of Criminal Appeals, Harle said he has maintained his busy court schedule, using no visiting judges. Harle was the judge who recommended that the state convene a court of inquiry that led to the exoneration of Michael Morton, who was wrongly convicted and served almost 25 years in prison for murdering his wife. Smith is not our Judge Steve Smith, who serves on the 361st District Court bench. This Steve Smith is a former justice of the Texas Supreme Court who filled the final 2 years of now-Gov. Greg Abbott's term. He was defeated in his bid for election to a full term in 2004 after Gov. Perry opposed him. He ran again in 2006 and again lost in parts thanks to Perry's opposition. He now says the 2 top courts should be merged, an idea that has been floated frequently but probably is not a workable idea as the Court of Criminal Appeals already is 1 of the busiest appeals courts in the nation. Smith says Harle is too moderate. Webster has never been elected to office before. He is a defense attorney in Williamson County. He points to his anti-abortion stance, which has little to do with the court he seeks. He also says he is strong on Second-Amendment rights. The 4th candidate, Scott Walker, is a criminal defense attorney in Texas who has chosen not to campaign. Only Harle met with the Editorial Board, but he is an impressive candidate with an impressive record. The Eagle recommends a vote for Judge Sid Harle for election to Place 5 on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Place 6 Judge Michael E. Keasler vs. Richard Davis -- We have been impressed with Judge Keasler every time we have interviewed him. He has been on the court for 17 years, providing reasoned, steady jurisprudence. Keasler is 73 and when he turns 75, state law says he can serve only 2 more years. Thus, he would have to retire 4 years into his 6-years term. The court has 3 new members, though, and Keasler said it is important that judges who have served longer remain to help the new judges settle in to their new roles. "We provide institutional memory," Keasler said. Davis is a Marble Falls attorney who did not meet with the Editorial Board. He is critical of Keasler's inability to serve a full 6-year term. Although he never has been a judge, Davis served as a prosecutor in Sherman and Ector counties. Texas would be lucky to have Keasler serve even 4 more years. His experience is too valuable to reject. The Eagle recommends a vote for Judge Michael E. Keasler for re-election to Place 6 on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. (source: Editorial Board, The Eagle) NEW HAMPSHIRE: House, Senate take different approaches on death penalty issue The House and Senate are looking at 2 different approaches to the state's death penalty statute. The Senate will vote on Senate Bill 463 when it returns from vacation the 1st week of March. The bill, sponsored by Republicans and Democrats, would suspend capital punishment "until methods exist to ensure that the death penalty cannot be imposed on an innocent person." Phrased like that the moratorium would be in place for a long time. The House took a different tack. Last week, it had a public hearing on House Bill 1552, which would expand the death penalty for anyone committing a terrorist act and for murdering someone exercising their civil rights under the state constitution. "We should join the 9 other states that have a state law calling for capital punishment for terror-caused deaths," said the bill's prime sponsor, Rep. Jack Flanagan, R-Brookline. And he said, just like the federal government, the state should treat the murder of someone exercising their civil rights such as voting, going to court or acting as a juror as a capital crime. New Hampshire last expanded the death penalty in 2011 after the murder of Kimberly Cates and the maiming of her daughter, Jamie, in a thrill killing during a home invasion in Mont Vernon. A little more than 2 years later the push was on to repeal the death penalty after the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence for Michael Addison who murdered Manchester police officer Michael Briggs. The court reaffirmed its decision last year. 2 years ago, a bill repealing the death penalty passed the House but died in the Senate on a 12-12 vote. This year, rather than trying to repeal the law, several lawmakers attempted to suspend it. 1 of the bill sponsors, Sen. Gary Daniels, R-Milford, voted against repealing the death penalty when he was in the House in 2014. The prime sponsor is Sen. Kevin Avard, R-Nashua. The 2 Senate Democrats sponsoring the bill, Bette Lasky of Nashua and Molly Kelly of Keene, both have supported repeal. During the public hearing earlier this year, the religious community, former prosecutors, police officers and the former Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court John Broderick supported the moratorium. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 3-1 to recommend the bill pass the Senate, which it has a good chance to do. (source: Garry Rayno, unionleader.com) GEORGIA: Parole hearing, execution provided insights to Houston County DA Houston County District Attorney George Hartwig spoke against clemency for Houston County killer Travis Hittson and witnessed his execution Wednesday night. Both experiences were firsts for Hartwig, who has been a prosecutor in Houston County for 15 years, including 5 as the district attorney. He's also seeking the death penalty in 2 pending cases, 1 of which will mark the 1st such case he will try. Hartwig sat down with The Telegraph last week to talk about his experiences before the state Board of Pardons and Paroles and at the execution. Hittson, 45, was executed by lethal injection at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison near Jackson for the murder and dismemberment of fellow sailor Conway Utterbeck in 1992. Co-defendant Ed Vollmer, Hittson's petty officer, is serving a life sentence and won't be eligible for parole consideration until 2024. "I can tell you that I took no joy in it -- in going and watching that occur," Hartwig said of Hittson's execution. "It is not at all a situation where prison officials or prosecutors or the law enforcement folks sit around and revel in it or take any joy. "There's no high-fiving going on, if you will. It's a very solemn and somber thing, as it should be. It's extremely serious. It is the ultimate carrying out of justice in our society. It is the ultimate punishment that somebody can receive." Hartwig said he wanted to address the parole board to give voice to the victim. "One of the points I made with the parole board was the fact that Edward Vollmer, the codefendant, didn't get a death sentence; the fact that he got life; (and) that should not inure to the benefit of Travis Hittson, who a jury did recommend death on and who a judge did impose a death sentence. "And frankly, the facts of the case were that it was Travis Hittson that hit Mr. Utterbeck several times with an aluminum baseball bat in the head. It was Travis Hittson who pointed the gun at Mr. Utterbeck as he begged and pleaded for his life and frankly shot him in the forehead and executed him." Hartwig also told the board that there was more than 1 execution to consider. "The execution that I wanted them to think about for a few moments and to have in their minds as they made their decision was the execution of Mr. Utterbeck, and that execution was carried out without any appeal, without any clemency hearing, without any habeas corpus, without any rights whatsoever, without anybody being in his corner. ... And that execution was in fact carried out by Mr. Hittson." In months before the execution, Hartwig said he had several telephone conversations with Utterbeck's mother, who wanted closure and addressed the parole board over a speaker phone during parole board hearing. "Without her actually using the word death or kill or execute, I think it was pretty clear to the entire board and it certainly was to me that she wanted the sentence upheld, she wanted the sentence carried out ...," Hartwig said. The board also pushed back Vollmer's next eligibility date to be considered for parole by 8 years, based information revealed behind closed doors during the clemency hearing. Vollmer, who was denied parole last year, would otherwise have been eligible for parole consideration in 2020. "I don't think he should ever be released from prison," Hartwig said. "He should spend the rest of his life there." Hittson's attorneys painted Vollmer as the real mastermind or instigator of the killing, but both Hittson and Vollmer deserved the death sentence, Hartwig said. ? "It would have been appropriate for both of them to get a death sentence in this case given the vicious, heinous, senseless nature of the crime." Hartwig and Greg Winters, an assistant district attorney for Houston County, sat in the front row of the viewing room for the execution. Hittson's mother was somewhere behind them. Hittson was lying on a gurney, his arms outstretched, with tubes in his arms that went through 2 holes in a back wall, where the lethal injection was administered out of view of witnesses. A sheet covered him up to his chest. The viewing room was still. There was complete silence. Hittson accepted a final prayer and recorded a final statement. The injection isn't visible to viewers. But Hittson's chest stopped moving, Hartwig said. Hittson was declared dead and curtains on the side of the viewing glass in the execution room were closed. Those in the viewing room, about 20, filed out of the room solemnly. "It was something I felt was important," Hartwig said. "If I as a prosecutor am going to make the decision and seek the death penalty on somebody, I want to know everything I can know about it. "I want to know how the process works. I want to know how it's carried out. I want to be fully informed about that -- about what the results and the consequences are of the decisions I make." PENDING HOUSTON CASES Hartwig is seeking the death penalty against Homer Ridley III, who is accused of drowning his next-door neighbor in a bathtub more than 20 years ago. Ridley is serving a life sentence for an unrelated 1988 rape in Warner Robins. In May, a Houston County grand jury indicted Ridley, 46, on 1 count of malice murder and 2 counts of felony murder in the slaying of 20-year-old Summer Gleaton in her Terry Street home in Warner Robins in 1994. Hartwig also is seeking the death penalty for Michael Montreal Gooden, 23, the accused shooter in the killing of Monnie Joseph Brabham IV, 32, of Macon, as he pumped gas at a Booth Road station in Warner Robins in early 2014. Gooden was indicted on charges of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, armed robbery and violation of the street gang terrorism and prevention act, along with other alleged members of an Atlanta gang. Brabham was not part of a gang, police said. Hartwig declined comment on the pending cases. But he said the decision that resulted in a Warner Robins man coming off death row after more than 37 years was appropriate. Houston County Chief Judge George F. Nunn resentenced Roger Collins to life on Aug. 26 after an evaluation found that Collins met the diagnostic criteria for mental retardation. Although the U.S. Supreme Court banned the execution of mentally retarded people in 2002, how determinations of mental capacity are made were left up to each state. Collins' case languished for years. Collins was 18 in 1977 when he was convicted and sentenced to death for bludgeoning 17-year-old Deloris Luster with a car bumper jack after he and another man raped her at knifepoint. Codefendant William Durham, who was dating Collins' mother at the time, was sentenced to life for the 1977 crime. A 3rd man, Johnny Styles, who waited in a car after the rape while Luster was killed, was granted immunity in exchange for his testimony. (source: macon.com) MISSISSIPPI: Couple charged with capital murder in Miss. man's death 2 suspects are being held on a $1 million bond, after being charged with capital murder in the February 18 death of a Bruce, Miss. businessman. In a news release, Warren Strain, spokesman for the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, says JaShon Coleman, 21, of Derma and 19-year-old Breanna Westmoreland of Banner were arrested following a joint investigation by the agency and the Calhoun County Sheriff's Department. The victim has been identified as James Pratt. WTVA reported that Pratt was the owner of Bruce Bait Shop. The news release did not name the circumstances of the alleged crime which officials say happened near 2:00 a.m. at a gasoline station on Highway 32. Multiple media outlets have reported that Coleman and Westmoreland are a couple. The Daily Journal reports that Coleman was a former co-worker of Pratt's at the Haworth seating plant in Bruce. The Calhoun County Sheriff told the paper that Pratt was inside a vehicle with Coleman, when the latter demanded money. "Coleman then got out and got into the car driven by his girlfriend, Westmoreland," Greg Pollen said. Both are in custody at the Calhoun County Jail. If convicted, they could face the death penalty. (source: Clarion-Ledger) OHIO: Huggins-Jones jurors to continue death penalty deliberations Jurors spent the past week hearing arguments over whether to impose the death penalty on the man accused in the murder of a former Cleveland resident. However, the 6-man, 6-woman set of jurors spent the afternoon Friday in deliberations on the possible death penalty for Travion Devonte Smith of North Carolina. They made no decision then, so the jury will return this week for more discussion among themselves. Smith is 1 of 3 defendants in the homicide of Melissa Huggins-Jones, who had just moved to the Raleigh area, and he was found guilty of 1st-degree murder last week. 1 other defendant - Ronald Lee Anthony - pleaded guilty in the 2013 death of Huggins-Jones to avoid the death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole. A 3rd defendant, Sara Redden, awaits trial. She did testify for the prosecution in the Smith proceedings. The defense presented witnesses this past week who spoke of Smith's troubled childhood. Smith has not taken the stand in the case. Prosecutors brought up witnesses to Smith's defiance to questioning by law enforcement. The state also presented Huggins-Jones daughter, who was 8-years-old at the time she found her mother dead in their apartment. Her testimony was not allowed to be shown on streaming video as others have been. Huggins-Jones' daughter found her mom lying on her bed in a pool of blood, and ran down the street to where construction crews were located. One of those workers returned to the apartment to find the victim, who court records said died from at least 18 blows to the head, neck and torso with some apparently made using a sharp instrument. The young girl was living with her mother following Huggins-Jones' divorce. A second child remained in Cleveland with his father to complete school. According to Wake County (N.C.) Superior Court proceedings, Redden said that she was outside the apartment serving as a lookout while Smith and Anthony were inside. Even so, she has also been charged with 1st-degree murder. The Wake County District Attorney's office said that there was no deal between the state and Redden for her testimony. Smith was incarcerated in Wake County in 2015 on a parole violation, according to his probation and parole officer Mark Schellhorn. It was reported that he was charged in the Huggins-Jones murder while in jail on that violation. The defense was the 1st to present its case in the sentencing hearing that began on Wednesday. The state followed, and ended its evidence presentation early Friday afternoon. The jury will resume deliberations in the sentencing phase on Monday around 9:30 a.m. in Superior Court. Smith faces either the death penalty or life in prison without parole. (source: Cleveland Daily Banner) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Feb 21 08:56:01 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2016 08:56:01 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TENN., OKLA., MONT., CALIF., USA Message-ID: Feb. 21 TENNESSEE: Exhibit showcasing artwork based on life and death behind bars stops in Chattanooga If you go -- What: Diane Marek Visiting Artist Series featuring Amy Elkins -- When: Daily through March 23 -- Where: Cress Gallery, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, 752 Vine St. -- Hours: 9:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m., Monday-Friday; 1-4 p.m., Saturday-Sunday -- Admission: Free -- Phone: 423-425-4600 -- Artist website: amyelkins.com -- Gallery website: cressgallery.org The title of Los Angeles-based artist Amy Elkins' "Black is the Day, Black is the Night" is a pretty forthright description of its emotional timbre. The multimedia exhibit is comprised of real and composite images, drawings, letters and other memorabilia based on the photographer's 5-year correspondence with inmates serving out lifetime or death row sentences in complete isolation. Of the 7 men with whom she corresponded between 2009 and 2014, 2 have been executed and 2 were released. Through her own research and their written exchanges, Elkins says her eyes were opened, not just to the inner workings of the American penal system and its application of capital punishment, but also to how inmates' perceptions of reality and their personalities were altered by their confinement. "Black is the Day, Black is the Night" is an attempt to depict the transformative nature of incarceration for men she only knew through their words and mugshots. "I really became intrigued about this aspect of being completely removed from society but also just waiting slowly for your death," she says. "It's basically like a long-distance portrait that's constructed in the only way I was able. "With each person, it was a painstaking amount of researching I had to do to create as much of a complete picture as I could. Even in that, I'm falling short because I can never really make a complete, realistic view of their lives." In many cases, "Black is the Day, Black is the Night" display portraits of the inmates or composite photographs of places they remembered that have been artificially degrading using an algorithm based on the inmates' period of incarceration to reflect their fraying grip on reality. Elkins is the latest featured artist in the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga's Diane Marek Visiting Artist Series. Through March 23, "Black is the Day, Black is the Night" will be on display at the Cress Gallery. It is exhibited alongside another one of Elkins' projects, "Parting Words," a "visual archive" of more than 500 inmates who have been executed in Texas in the 40 years since the state's death penalty was reinstated. Instead of photographs, their mugshots are rendered using excerpts of their last written statements. Elkins' work has been featured by numerous outlets, including Wired magazine and Huffington Post. In 2014, "Parting Words" was the recipient of the prestigious international Aperture Portfolio Prize, which "identif[ies] trends in contemporary photography and highlight[s] artists whose work deserves greater recognition." A self-described obsessive, Elkins says she tends to deep-dive into whatever subject her artwork is centered upon. In the case of "Black is the Day" and "Parting Words," that occasionally meant experiencing moments of empathy that left her feeling "kind of hopeless or helpless," but she says she's pleased that the completed exhibits invite a discussion of topics many consider to be taboo. "It was an enriching experience," Elkins says. "It just really opened up my sense of awareness about my own surroundings, my relationships with others, my own sense of freedom and how much a lot of us take for granted. It made me feel more appreciative for my life. "I just really like this idea that you're presenting information from a very personal space and letting people have the room to have their own thoughts about the subject. Most people I know don't talk about these subjects on their own. But if you bring it up, it creates a strong, varying, emotional reaction from people." (source: timesfreepress.com) OKLAHOMA: It's Debatable: Lethal injections stir questionable This week, Arnold Loewy and Charles Moster debate Oklahom's style of lethal injection as a form of execution. Moster is a former litigation attorney in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush presidential administrations who currently has offices in Lubbock and Amarillo. and Arnold is the George Killiam Professor of Law at Texas Tech University School of Law. Arnold: 2 reasons for injections problem In recent years in some states, it has become more difficult to ensure that person subject to execution can be executed painlessly. The question for debate is whether we should care. I believe that we should. To begin with, while the constitutional cruelty of intentionally inflicting death is a hotly debated topic among Supreme Court Justices, all agree that the intentional infliction of gratuitous pain is not permissible. Thus such medieval tortures as burning at the stake, hanging, drawing and quartering or disembowelment while living are clearly forbidden. But what if the state knows or should know there is a substantial risk that a condemned man will feel excruciating pain just prior to his demise, like the chemical equivalent of being burned at the stake, and yet be so paralyzed by one of his drugs that he cannot even cry out in pain. It is at least arguable that Oklahoma's capital punishment procedure could do that. Yet a closely divided Supreme Court sustained Oklahoma's procedure, principally because it thought that the risk of receiving such pain was not that great. So how did we get to this situation? For years, Oklahoma employed a three-drug cocktail which seemed to cause a painless death. Then one of the drugs, thiopental, became unavailable because its manufacturer refused to allow it to be used for the killing of human beings (although ironically it could still be used for the euthanizing of animals). Thereafter, Oklahoma substituted pentobarbitol for thiopental, and that seemed to work fine. But then that too became unavailable (although remarkably it is still available in Texas and other states). So, it substituted a drug called midazolam, and then the problems began. The problem began when Oklahoma attempted to execute a man named Clayton Lockett. After being supposedly rendered insensate with 100 milligrams, Lockett was administered an exceedingly painful (if conscious) paralytic agent. Unfortunately the paralytic agent caused him to awake and he screamed that the drugs were not working. The state then stopped further administration. Fortunately Lockett died from the effects of midazolam 10 minutes later. This, and a similar case from Arizona, have convinced some (including 4 Supreme Court Justices) that this means of execution is cruel and unusual. So, how did we get to this state where we can euthanize animals painlessly, but Oklahoma cannot execute human beings without risk of extraordinary pain? There are basically two reasons. First drug companies have made it difficult to obtain drugs that are used for execution (though it is not clear to me why Texas can obtain a safe drug and Oklahoma cannot). Second, either by law or because of the Hippocratic oath, doctors are not permitted to participate in executions. I have 2 suggestions to ameliorate this problem. First if the government is free to kill people (which for purposes of this debate, I assume they are), it ought to be free to compel drugs, such as thiopental or pentobarbital to be sold to the state by their manufactures (although such a law might require federal intervention). After all, if Texas can get pentobarbital why can't Oklahoma? 2nd, doctors should be able to aid in the administration of the drug (or at least be on hand to make sure that nothing goes wrong). If they are on hand at the time of death, this no more contributes to the death than the doctor who administers morphine to a dying patient to make her death less painful. If neither of these alternatives are feasible and Oklahoma insists on retaining capital punishment, then I would suggest, along with Chief Judge Kozinsky of the 9th Federal Circuit (and a proponent of capital punishment), that we at least give a condemned Oklahoman the option of painless death by firing squad. Charles: Lethal injections should still be an option As previously discussed in an earlier segment of It's Debatable, the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Today's debate does not center upon capital punishment as a whole, but rather whether or not lethal injection as a specific form of capital punishment is constitutional and right. Within the context of capital punishment, the Supreme Court has outlined in its ruling in Baze v. Rees that prisoners can challenge a method of execution where they establish that the method "presents a risk that is sure or very likely to cause serious illness and needless suffering, and gives rise to sufficiently imminent dangers." The prisoners should also demonstrate there is a feasible and readily implemented alternative method that significantly reduces the substantial risk of pain. Today, lethal injection is the most common form of execution in the United States. Last year, the Supreme Court took on the question of whether or not lethal injection was constitutional in accordance with the Eighth Amendment. In Glossip v. Gross, the court ruled in a 5-4 decision in favor of keeping lethal injection as an option for those inmates condemned to the death penalty. The prisoners who brought on the action in court argued that midazolam, the 1st of 3 drugs given during the administration of the lethal injection, does not adequately protect the inmates from pain. Once the 1st injection is administered, the next injection is usually a paralytic agent which paralyzes the inmate and stops all respiratory function. Finally, the 3rd injection induces cardiac arrest. The court ultimately found that the inmates did not establish a less painful alternative to lethal injection. I agree with the Supreme Court in their recent decision, and support lethal injection as an available option for carrying out the death penalty. Crucially, lethal injection, as with all of the other recognized methods of execution, should be administered only after a thorough opportunity for the accused to prove his innocence. I support the death penalty as an option for the crimes that merit such a final administration of justice. While lethal injection is potentially painful to its subjects, it should still be an option. The Eighth Amendment does not ensure a completely painless punishment, nor does the Eight Amendment require it. Given that the death penalty in general is administered only in those instances where the worst crimes against humanity have been committed, if the prisoners suffer in the process of justice, then so be it. The purpose of the death penalty as a means for society to respond to criminal acts is not only an act of punishment, but that of retributive justice. Retributive justice is a concept that states that those who have committed the worst crimes deserve to suffer a proportionate punishment. I agree with this philosophy, again, only for those who truly deserve it because of the danger they pose to society. The victims of the death row inmates surely suffered, as their families undoubtedly have as well. If, in the course of administering justice, the condemned suffer pain and discomfort, this is a just recompense for their crimes. So long as our punishments fit within the parameters of the Eight Amendment of the Constitution - such as the Supreme Court has found with lethal injections - then they should continue to be administered. Arnold: Inability to get drug raises questions Let's begin with a point of agreement. If capital punishment is constitutional, I agree that lethal injection is a permissible way to carry it out. Thus, lethal injection in Texas, which apparently is painless (save for the needle entering the condemned's veins), is not problematic. But Texas uses pentobarbitol, which, so far as we know, renders the condemned insensate. Consequently, there is a very small risk that the condemned will suffer anything other than a painless death which is what his sentence says he should receive. Oklahoma apparently has not figured out how to get pentobarbitol. I have a couple of suggestions. Perhaps it could pay Texas for some (since Texas seems able to get it). Alternatively, perhaps Oklahoma could pay Texas to execute a death row inmate by painless lethal injection. What concerns me is that after the Supreme Court???s decision in Glossip, Oklahoma need not even try to ameliorate the problem. The risk of pain, while substantial, isn't substantial enough to require Oklahoma to do anything about it. Going even further, Mr. Moster appears to advocate the propriety of inflicting pain for its own sake: "If in the course of administering justice the condemned suffer pain and discomfort, this is just recompense for their crimes." If he is saying with the Supreme Court that the risk of pain is not constitutionally intolerable then I would respectfully disagree so long as there were other alternatives such as buying the painless drug from Texas. But, if he is saying that gratuitous infliction of pain is OK because of the pain he caused his victims, then I strongly disagree. If we posit a defendant whose cruelty included say burying his victim alive, it would not follow that we could do the same thing to him. Though many, including me, may have a part of himself who likes that idea, the Constitution, for good reasons, prohibits it. Thus, the intentional infliction of cruelty, however deserved in a particular case, is not something that the state is free to do. The question is when is the risk tolerable. I substantially agree with the Supreme Court's analysis although I would not require that the risk be sure or very likely to inflict needless suffering. Rather, I would hold that so long as the condemned can show that there is a substantial risk of unnecessary pain, and there is a less painful method available, that should preclude employment of the riskier method. Frankly, I have trouble believing that Oklahoma cannot get a drug that kills people painlessly. How on earth is it that we can kill animals painlessly, but not humans? Obviously one answer is the unwillingness of drug companies to supply such drugs because of their opposition to capital punishment. When I first considered this question I did not think that there was a good argument against lethal injection other than general opposition to capital punishment (which I do have). But the more I studied this question, the clearer it became that in some states killing a person, deemed by the state to be no longer fit to live is not as humane as killing an animal that is no longer fit to live. This is not something that a civilized society should have to accept, especially since it is so easy to fix. Charles: Lethal injections best choice available Each U.S. state has a variety of different execution methods on the books, from electrocution to the firing squad. Without question the most painless and humane is lethal injection. This is not a debate about the death penalty, but rather one type of execution method. Because it is not a debate about the death penalty, really it is a discussion about the merits of the method, and how it measures against other established methods. Within the context of this specific discussion, lethal injection is clearly the best choice available to carry out this important state function of execution while avoiding the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Lethal injection itself is a nebulous term that has included a variety of chemicals over the years. The philosophy of the process is to provide the end result - the end of the convicted criminal's life - as painlessly as possible. Lethal injection attempts to be humane while also being efficient. This has caused some complications as states have tried to meet the demands for humane process with less than preferred concoctions. This is made worse as sedative manufacturers are harassed into no longer making the preferred drug, which worsens the shortage. Thus the argument regarding the composition of the lethal cocktail is one that is not only fabricated by those opposed to the death penalty, it is in fact caused by the very same people. Oklahoma was using midazolam when the Supreme Court heard the arguments in Glossip. A 500 milligram dosage of midazolam would induce a coma, and at that dosage would, by itself, cause death through respiratory arrest within an hour. Further, the state has safeguards in place during the execution process which is meant to minimize discomfort. Some of these safeguards include a primary and back-up IV, monitoring the inmate's consciousness, and training and preparation of the execution team. Keep in mind that Glossip, one of the parties who brought his case forward before the Supreme Court, was convicted of hiring another man to kill his boss - the killer entered the room where Glossip's boss was sleeping and beat him to death with a baseball bat. Should we attempt to make Glossip's departure from this earth as humane as possible? Yes. However, society should not be held to a standard of providing people like Glossip a guaranteed painless experience. Society must be able to protect itself, first and foremost - through the death penalty if need be. Having accepted the constitutionality of the death penalty the question becomes how it should be carried out. What is a more humane choice? Clearly some risk of pain is inherent in any method of execution - the Constitution does not require a pain-free death for death row inmates. If it did, the death penalty would be unconstitutional altogether. Given the choices these inmates made, lethal injection is the best choice available. (source; Lubbock Avalanche-Journal) MONTANA: Death penalty is troubling to evangnelicals This past fall, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) adopted a new position on capital punishment, which points out troubling flaws in its application. The NAE had supported the death penalty for more than 40 years, but it now recognizes that there are also legitimate theological reasons for opposing it. As the Montana district superintendent of the Assemblies of God - a member denomination of the NAE - I applaud the NAE for taking this new position. It reflects a growing shift among evangelical Christians on this important issue - a shift I've witnessed in my own life. I used to be a staunch supporter of capital punishment. In fact, a little over 5 years ago I submitted testimony urging the Montana Legislature to maintain the death penalty. A fellow Christian challenged me to find support for my position in Scripture, which prompted me to prayerfully study those biblical passages relevant to the death penalty. I discovered that the biblical case for the death penalty is much weaker than I had thought. Often proponents of the death penalty cite passages such as Exodus 21:12-25 and Leviticus 24:13-21, which specify the death penalty for certain crimes. Inevitably, however, death penalty proponents rely on selective readings of these passages to justify their position. These passages call for the death penalty for a broad range of offenses beyond just murder - for example, blasphemy and cursing one's parents. Another Old Testament passage, Exodus 31:14, lists death as the punishment for not keeping the Sabbath. I have yet to meet someone who supports the death penalty but is willing to apply the rest of those verses equally. Such selective use of Scripture is hardly persuasive. In the New Testament, specifically Matthew 5, Jesus lets us know that we are now held to a higher law. We are to love our enemies, forgive them, and recognize the possibility of redemption in everyone. If we apply the teachings of Jesus, we acknowledge that sin must have consequences, but that the purpose of these consequences is to correct and restore, not kill. I have difficulty squaring Christ's message with a punishment that takes the life of those made in God???s image and can cut short the process of redemption, especially when the condemned are already incarcerated and no longer a threat to society. In addition to these scriptural considerations, it is important that injustices in the current application of the death penalty also inform our thinking on the issue. I am deeply troubled by "the alarming frequency of post-conviction exonerations," as the NAE's new resolution on capital punishment puts it. Every few weeks or months, we hear of another innocent individual released from death row. A recent study estimated that 4 % of those sentenced to death are innocent. For those who value life, it is unconscionable that our government continues to pursue a policy that puts innocent life at such grave risk. The death penalty's high cost also should concern us. Studies around the country consistently find that the death penalty costs states more than life in prison without parole, often millions of dollars more, because of the complex legal process in capital cases. States spend all this money despite the lack of evidence that the death penalty has any effect in deterring crime. Given this reality, it's hard to think of a better example of misplaced priorities than the death penalty. As a case in point, Nebraska recently spent close to $55,000 trying to illegally obtain lethal injection drugs from India that it never received. The state may never recover this money. When there are so many needs in society, it makes little sense for governments to throw away money in often futile attempts to execute those already in prison. I hope that Montana will not exhibit such poor judgment, but instead will end its death penalty and focus on more important priorities. As a Christian, I for one will continue to advocate for policies that promote life and redemption, not death. (source: The Rev. Alan Warneke, who lives in Billings, is the Montana district superintendent for the Assemblies of God Church----The Billings Gazette) CALIFORNIA: California eyes 1-drug executions amid debate Californians face a watershed year as they prepare to decide whether to resume executions that stopped a decade ago or end them entirely. While advocates jockey to put both choices before voters this fall, officials overseeing the 746 condemned inmates on the nation's largest death row are pushing ahead with plans to use a single lethal drug to meet legal requirements amid a nationwide shortage of execution drugs. Supporters said at a public hearing on Friday that crime victims have waited too long for justice as the state dragged its heels in adopting a new method of execution. "The family members of the victims are dying before the murderers," said Michele Hanisee, vice president of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys of Los Angeles County. "Meanwhile, ironically, the state of California moves ahead with an assisted suicide law that would allow doctors to prescribe the same drugs for suicide that death penalty opponents will call inhumane when used for executions." Opponents said at the hearing that the state risks botching death sentences if it moves too quickly in making the change. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation will consider nearly 2-dozen comments from the hearing and written comments from about 12,000 people as it develops its final regulations. Any changes would require a new round of public comments. The state is proposing to let corrections officials choose from four types of powerful barbiturates to execute prisoners, depending on which drug is available. The single injection would replace the series of three drugs used in 2006 to execute 76-year-old Clarence Ray Allen for ordering a triple murder. 2 of the 4 drugs have never before been used in executions, and it's not clear whether the state has enough safeguards in place to obtain safe, effective drugs, said Ana Zamora, criminal justice policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. "Some of these executions using drugs obtained from questionable sources have resulted in gruesome, botched executions" in other states, she warned. The corrections department also failed to properly consider that ending executions entirely could save state and local governments $150 million a year, she said, referring to an estimate involving 1 of the pending ballot measures. A recent Field Poll showed an almost even split among voters on the death penalty, with 48 % wanting to speed up the legal process leading to executions and 47 % seeking to replace executions with life sentences without the possibility of parole. "This could be the year when it comes to a head in the public vote on a very interesting pair of initiatives," Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo said. "I don't think anyone can forecast how it will turn out." In 2012, voters rejected ending the death penalty by 4 % points, but DiCamillo said frustration with the seemingly endless delays and mounting expenses are driving more people to favor doing away with it entirely. The proposed single-drug injection process is the latest attempt to resume executions after a federal judge halted executions in 2006 and ordered prison officials to improve execution procedures. 5 years later, a Marin County judge rejected the state's newly developed 3-drug lethal injection regulations. 8 states already have used a single drug for executions and there is no reason the courts shouldn't quickly approve California's new regulations once the procedure is adopted, said Michael Rushford, president of the Sacramento-based Criminal Justice Legal Foundation. The group sued to force California to adopt the method suggested by state and federal judges in ongoing cases, and Rushford predicted executions could resume this year if the rules are finalized soon. Death penalty opponents said they will keep challenging the regulations. The ACLU is suing to obtain at least 79,000 corrections department documents related to lethal injections that it says are needed to show if safeguards are in place to prevent the state from using backdoor ways to obtain execution drugs that manufacturers say were not intended for that purpose. Department of corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton said the documents the department used to develop the proposed regulations are already available to the public. The department plans to create the drugs in its own or other compounding pharmacies. Much of the testimony on Friday opposed the death penalty no matter how it is carried out. "It is likely in the future that if we do the grisly, horrible thing of starting to execute people, that we will find out after someone has been executed that they were innocent," Sacramento attorney Norman Hile said. He said he represents an innocent man who is awaiting execution on death row. (source: Associated Press) USA: Notorious prison gang targets New Mexico corrections officials The reigning leader of the prison gang Syndicato de Nuevo Mexico is serving a life sentence for killing another inmate in a dispute over a bottle of vitamins. Court records show "hits" on fellow inmates are nothing new for the home-grown SNM, but Anthony "Pup" Ray Baca and 2 other convicted murderers in the gang hierarchy decided to up the ante beginning in 2013, a federal indictment alleges. They are accused of hatching a plot to kill New Mexico Corrections Secretary Gregg Marcantel and a top corrections department intelligence chief. The alleged conspiracy turned deadly serious last March when the FBI got word that the 2 officials' lives were in danger. To carry out the hit, the SNM trio of inmates allegedly planned to rely on a fellow gang member who was back on the streets after serving federal prison time on a firearms charge, according to records obtained by the Journal. Neither Marcantel nor Dwayne Santiestevan, who oversees corrections' Security Threat Intelligence Unit, would comment about the alleged plot, referring questions to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Albuquerque. A spokeswoman there declined to answer questions about the alleged plot. Baca, 52, Roy Paul Martinez, 43, Robert Martinez, 51, and Christopher Garcia - all indicted on charges of conspiring to murder Marcantel - have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Garcia, 40, isn't charged in the conspiracy to kill Santiestevan. Defense attorneys say they plan to "vigorously litigate" the case, but complain that the government hasn't yet produced much pretrial discovery. Documents obtained by the Journal show that the information received last year by the FBI spurred a multiagency criminal investigation that has upended the notorious gang that formed in the aftermath of the deadly New Mexico state penitentiary riot in 1980. Some 25 people alleged to be SNM gang members were indicted on federal racketeering charges last December, accused of committing violent acts to achieve the objectives of their enterprise. Of those, 19 are charged with death penalty-eligible offenses. Another 10 people, including suspected SNM associates and allies, have been indicted on federal narcotics and weapons charges after undercover investigators made an estimated 50 drug buys and firearms purchases, also intercepting wire communications, according to a 41-page FBI search warrant affidavit. The investigation also turned up new SNM gang links to more than 20 homicides in New Mexico. Some are cold cases that have gone unsolved for years and are now under renewed investigation. Never before has there been such a sweeping, concerted federally led effort to disrupt what's been described as New Mexico's largest and most violent prison gang, say law enforcement officials. "Although the SNM Gang has historically been on law enforcement radar, the current investigation began in early 2015 when leaders of the SNM Gang called for the murder of two-high ranking administrators," states the FBI affidavit. SNM was described in the affidavit as a violent gang "with a history of murderous activities," assaults on police officers, reprisals against rivals, countersurveillance against law enforcement, and ongoing and repeated criminal activity and firearms possession. SNM members committed such acts "for the purpose of gaining entrance to and maintaining and increasing position" in the gang, the indictment alleges. In an email response to Journal questions, Corrections Secretary Marcantel said the federal attention "in this case sets an important foundation for inmate accountability within our prisons." "Given our recidivism and the reality that almost everyone sentenced to prison will eventually return to our neighborhoods, what happens in prison matters to our neighborhoods. That is exactly why the value of our collaboration with the FBI and (the U.S. Attorney's Office) in this case can't be underestimated." Who runs the prisons? SNM in recent years has been featured in 2 hard-hitting reality television shows in which gang members have boasted that they run the state's prisons - rather than the corrections officers or administrators. "Hey, when I get out, I'm joining ISIS. I'm representing ISIS in here," inmate Jerry Montoya laughingly told a television crew filming the A&E TV series "Behind Bars: Rookie Year," which aired last fall about rookie New Mexico correction officers' 1st year on the job. With a prior murder conviction, Montoya told the film crew he was being housed in a high-security area "strictly with my gang. We're all here for each other." Montoya's defense attorney last year sought to keep his televised remarks from a jury that was to decide whether he was guilty in another murder: the killing of SNM gang member Javier Molina in March 2014. The defense argued his statements were edited and taken out of context. Molina and co-defendant Jerry Armenta were charged with stabbing Molina more than 40 times around his heart at the Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility outside Las Cruces. A week before trial last November, the state charges were dismissed in anticipation of Montoya and Armenta being indicted in the federal racketeering case. They - and 5 additional alleged SNM gang members - are now facing federal conspiracy and murder charges related to Molina's death. The A&E show quoted one rookie corrections officer as saying, "The No. 1 most important part about prison gangs is 'mess with them and God only knows what will happen.'" He added that he hoped someday to get promoted to the prison intelligence unit run by Santiestevan, where the work might not be so dangerous. "I know a lot of these guys, they have the ability to reach out and touch somebody," he told the television crew. "They have the ability to go after my family when I'm not there." Scrutiny not effective The FBI says SNM has had as many as 500 members since the early 1980s. Currently, about 109, excluding the federal defendants, are among the 7,300 incarcerated in New Mexico prisons. But SNM's grip extends beyond prison walls. Continued allegiance and contact with the gang is required even after SNM members are released from prison, according to a 2011 FBI report. As evidence: Nearly 1/2 of the people the FBI sought to search for evidence last December were out on the streets, some on parole or probation. Four were out on bond facing other criminal charges. One familiar SNM face who was indicted - 3-time convicted killer Gerald "Stix" Archuleta - is now grayer than when he made headlines in 2009 after allegedly offering $20,000 to anyone who would kill then-Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White. White had used Armenta as a poster boy to push for a tougher three-strikes law in New Mexico. Armenta was not charged in that alleged threat. But years after leaving New Mexico in 2011 and resettling in Tennessee, where he served a 1-year parole, Archuleta's alleged ties to SNM have resurfaced. The federal racketeering indictment alleges that Archuleta was among 3 SNM members who conspired to severely beat 56-year-old inmate Julian Romero last year at the Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility. Romero was attacked within five hours of SNM gang members being let out of a 16-month prison lockdown instituted after Molina's murder. The federal charge against Archuleta, once the ranking leader of SNM, contends the conspiracy to harm Romero was 12 years in the making. Also charged in the conspiracy is Baca, aka "Pup," who back in 1989 claimed self-defense in the fatal stabbing of inmate Luis Valasquez days after he took Valasquez's vitamins, court records state. According to the FBI affidavit, the recent investigation "has yielded evidence of SNM gang members participating in more than 2 dozen homicides, numerous attempted murders and aggravated assaults, as well as armed robbery, drug trafficking and other felony crimes that are being investigated ... ." For instance, the affidavit revealed that law enforcement officials now believe they have solved the 15-year-old murder of 2 Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility inmates who were strangled within hours of each other. Their deaths in 2001 were investigated by State Police, but no charges were ever filed. Another SNM gang member is now a suspect in a 2012 homicide in Socorro County in which the victim was shot multiple times and placed inside a vehicle that was then set on fire, the affidavit stated. "Despite being imprisoned and closely scrutinized by prison officials, SMN gang leaders still manage to convey their orders to gang members and associates throughout the prison system and outside the prison system through a variety of means, including contraband cell phones, secret notes called 'kites' or 'welas,' coded letters and messages conveyed by complicit visitors," states the search warrant affidavit. The affidavit sought, in part, a federal magistrate's permission to take photos of suspects' bodies for evidence of tattoos that would establish membership in the SNM gang. (source: Albuquerque Journal) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Feb 21 08:56:44 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2016 08:56:44 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 21 INDIA: Supreme Court to hear contempt plea against Kanhaiya Kumar, SAR Gilani tomorrow The plea alleged that by terming the execution as "judicial killing", Kumar and others have committed contempt of the court which had delivered the verdict. The Supreme Court has agreed to a plea on Monday seeking contempt action against jailed JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, former DU lecturer SAR Gilani and few others on the ground that they allegedly termed the execution of Afzal Guru as "judicial killing". A bench of Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justices R Banumathi and UU Lalit fixed the contempt plea for hearing on Monday when the plea alleged that by terming the execution as "judicial killing", Kumar and others have committed contempt of the court which had delivered the verdict. The plea, filed by lawyer Vineet Dhanda, refers to the apex court verdict, pronounced on August 4, 2005 in the case, by which Guru was handed down death penalty for being part of the conspiracy in the attack on Parliament. "The so-called cultural event's pamphlets spoke about the judicial killing of Afzal Guru. The main topic of the 'cultural event' organised was judicial killing of Afzal Guru which outright tantamount to criminal contempt as the respondents are calling the judges of the apex court as killers who have been projected to have committed judicial killing of Afzal Guru," the plea said. "Afzal and Yakub Memon were no martyrs as projected by the group of students of JNU. The Supreme Court has already passed a detailed judgement in both cases after giving due consideration as per law after going through the evidence," it further said. Pamphlets were allegedly distributed during the "so- called" cultural event held at JNU on February 9 that termed death sentence to Guru and Maqbool Bhatt as "judicial killing", the plea said. The students, who organised the event, also used social media platforms and "tarnished" the image of Supreme Court, it alleged. Besides Kanhaiya and Gilani, the plea has sought contempt action against Umar Khalid, Lenin Kumar, Anirban Bhattacharya, Shehla Rashid Shora and Ali Javed. (source: dnaindia.com) VATICAN CITY: Pope calls for worldwide abolition of death penalty Pope Francis on Sunday called for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty, saying the commandment "You shall not kill" was absolute and equally valid for the guilty as for the innocent. Using some of his strongest words ever against capital punishment, he also called on Catholic politicians worldwide to make "a courageous and exemplary gesture" by seeking a moratorium on executions during the Church's current Holy Year, which ends in November. "I appeal to the consciences of those who govern to reach an international consensus to abolish the death penalty," he told tens of thousands of people in St. Peter's Square. "The commandment "You shall not kill," has absolute value and applies to both the innocent and the guilty," he told the crowd. The 1.2 billion-member Catholic Church allowed the death penalty in extreme cases for centuries, but the position began to change under the late Pope John Paul, who died in 2005. The pope added that there was now "a growing opposition to the death penalty even for the legitimate defense of society" because modern means existed to "efficiently repress crime without definitively denying the person who committed it the possibility of rehabilitating themselves." Francis made the comments to throw his weight behind an international conference against the death penalty starting Monday in Rome and organized by the Sant'Egidio Community, a worldwide Catholic peace and justice group. Francis, who has visited a number of jails since his election as pope nearly 3 years ago - the latest in Mexico last week - also called for better prison conditions. "All Christians and men of good will are called on to work not only for the abolition of the death penalty, but also to improve prison conditions so that they respect the human dignity of people who have been deprived of their freedom," he said. In the past, the pope also denounced life imprisonment, calling it "a hidden death penalty" and saying that more should be done to try to rehabilitate even the most hardened of criminals. (source: Reuters) ************* Pope tells Catholic politicians: Stop death penalty executions Catholic politicians should not authorize any death penalty executions this year, Pope Francis said Sunday, as he renewed the Vatican's support for a worldwide end to capital punishment. "Even criminals retain the inviolable right to life, a gift from God. I appeal to the consciences of rulers so that we may arrive at a global consensus for the abolishment of the death penalty," Francis said during his Sunday Angelus message. "And I propose to those [rulers] who are Catholic to commit a courageous and exemplary act: do not execute anyone in this Holy Year of Mercy," the pontiff added. Francis was referring to the Jubilee, an ongoing Catholic festival offering the faithful a general pardon for their sins. The pope has scheduled it to run from December 8, 2015 to November 20, 2016, and has dedicated it to the Christian ideal of mercy. (source: Europe Online Magazine) IRAN: Photos: Meet the teenage girls on Iran's death row Mahsa's story begins like any other teenager's story: She fell in love. The 17-year-old Iranian hoped to marry the boy, but her father opposed the marriage. One day she got into an argument with her father over the romance, got angry, and killed him with a kitchen knife. Now, Mahsa's brothers are requesting the death penalty for her. In Iran, the death penalty can be applied to minors, and in 2014, a United Nations report estimated that at least 160 juvenile offenders were on death row in the country. Today Mahsa is one of them, held in a detention center in Zibashahr, near Tehran, with other minors awaiting capital punishment. Mahsa's portrait was taken by Sadegh Souri, a 30-year-old Iranian photographer who spent 4 years researching women and girls in his home country. With rare access to the Zibashahr prison, Souri's photos tells the stories of several young women between the ages of 12 and 18, convicted of crimes including armed robbery and drug trafficking. "My main goal in this project was to understand how young girls could end up in jail in the first place," the prizewinning photographer tells Quartz. "I spent time talking to them, they were nice and kind." According to a Jan. 25 report by Amnesty International, 73 juvenile offenders were executed in Iran between 2005 and 2015. see:http://qz.com/615376/iran-women/ (source: qz.com) OMAN: 'Highest punishment for drug trafficking is death sentence' The highest punishment for anyone attempting to smuggle narcotic or psychotropic drugs into the sultanate is death penalty, according to the ROP. "Article 43 of the amended law states that drug abusers can receive up to 3 years imprisonment, a maximum fine of RO3,000 or death sentence," Col Abdulrahim bin Qasim al Farsi, Director General for Combating Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances in ROP, said. He added, "Under Article 66, the court can order an expatriate convicted of drug related crimes, to be deported, besides cancellation of visa and employment in Oman." Col Farsi said, "According to Article 64, any person concealing information on or access to the drugs' consignment from concerned authorities will be jailed between 6 months and 3 years and imposed a fine of minimum RO100 but not more than RO1,000." As per amendments to the Law of Combating Drugs and Psychotropic Substances promulgated by Royal Decree 34/2015, drug abusers can avoid prosecution if they seek treatment at a rehabilitation centre, provided they are not caught red-handed and no criminal suit is already filed against them. Rehabilitation can either be sought by the addict or on the request of spouse or kin. Col Farsi has also advised those getting medicines from abroad to keep prescription with them at all times to avoid legal consequences. The ROP is also planning to conduct awareness campaigns against drug abuse across the sultanate. It will be also be organising de-addiction programmes. (source: muscatdaily.com) PAKISTAN: ATC awards death sentence to narcotics smuggler Anti Narcotics court Saturday awarded death sentence to narcotics smuggler and his co accused was awarded life imprisonment. The hearing was held in the court of Chaudhry Anwar Ahmed Khan here. In his verdict Muhammad Shabbir was awarded death penalty and his co accused Muhammad Shafi was sentenced to life imprisonment while both the accused would have to pay Rs 2,00,000 fine each. Anti Narcotics Force ANF had arrested and recovered 660 kg charas from their possession. (source: The News) ***************** Criminal injustice In 2015, Pakistan executed at least 324 people. Only 2 more countries - China and Iran - executed more people over the past year, with Saudi Arabia following Pakistan closely to complete an ignoble quartet. The moratorium on capital punishment, in place in Pakistan between 2008 and 2014, was lifted after the Peshawar Army Public School (APS) massacre as the entire nation was whipped up in anger. The government of Nawaz Sharif had been trying to lift the moratorium ever since it came to power in 2013 but lacked the political will to either stand up to the pressures of the international community or risk the riposte of the terrorists. However, in the aftermath of the APS attack, it was relatively easy for the government to reinstate capital punishment, initially only for convicted militants and then later spreading its scope to include all convicted criminals. Lest anyone mistake this upturn in executions as a sign of Pakistan's anti-terrorist resolve, it should be pointed out that only 39 (10 %) of those executed had ties to a militant organisation. It is obvious that the justification of combating terrorism was a mere smokescreen, and that the sitting government's eagerness to restart executions was part of its regressive "tough on crime" image, which ignores ground realities and frequent miscarriages of justice in favour of gruesome spectacle. Unfortunately, the public's (arguably manufactured) bloodlust is still unrelenting, and this shameful revelation has been welcomed by many as evidence that the country is headed in the right direction. Opposing the death penalty is possible on 2 grounds: the ethical and the practical. Since there is little stomach for the former school of thought in these quarters, it is useful to expand on the latter. It is baffling how the same police and courts of the country that are condemned ad nauseam for being corrupt, incompetent and heartless are suddenly entrusted to handle matters of life and death with full due diligence. It can be logically concluded, even without looking at the facts, that wrongful convictions would be a norm rather than exception, thereby making it likely that many innocent individuals can be (and are) wrongfully executed. But then if one looks at the details of people on death row, it is evident that the list is full of the most vulnerable people of our society: the extremely poor, the mentally ill, people convicted while still being juveniles, religious minorities - in other words people with no hope of gaining access to adequate counsel. The rich and the influential gain advantage of the lopsided Qisas laws and easily pay their way out of trouble. All in all, it is hard to see how reinstating capital punishment has made Pakistan a safer place, as the deterrence principle has also been quantitatively proved to be fallacious. There are no 2 ways about - there is no place for the death penalty in Pakistan without compromising on the principles of justice. (source: Editorial, Daily Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 22 10:22:33 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2016 10:22:33 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, VA., N.C., FLA. Message-ID: Feb. 22 TEXAS: Criminal intent protections should extend to mentally ill There are approximately 350,000 inmates with a mental illness, yet only around 35,000 mentally ill patients in psychiatric hospitals. Mentally ill inmates account for anywhere from 5-10 % of death row inmates. Persecuting those with mental illness is reprehensible, especially considering we protect other groups who cannot fully understand their actions. In the 2005 court case Roper v. Simmons, the Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional for juveniles, stating that scientific and sociological research shows that juveniles lack maturity and a sense of responsibility when compared to adults. This juvenile underdevelopment diminishes their "mens rea," or criminal intent. Thus, they should not receive such severe punishment. Since that case, protections for juveniles have expanded, specifically in regard to life without parole. First, the court eliminated life without parole sentences for all except homicide cases. Then, it eliminated all life without parole sentences. Now, it has ordered retroactive review of previous life without parole sentences to determine their legitimacy. Considering the psychological research (moral sentiments notwithstanding), these are positive steps forward. Keeping a child in prison for the rest of their life is nonsensical. Psychology professor Jessica Church-Lang discusses the psychological illegitimacy of such punishments. "Both psychology and neuroscience research are showing us that the person and the brain change," Church-Lang said. "So no, I'm not convinced you should be judged throughout life for behaviors performed at one age." So, the precedent of recognizing that certain persons have incomplete neurodevelopment and thus diminished criminal intent has been established. However, we still prosecute many that may not be able to neurologically control their actions - 56 % of state prisoners have some sort of mental health problem. Sociology professor William Kelly recognizes a problematic trend in these cases. Such individuals may not be completely capable of understanding their actions. If this is true, "mens rea" should provisionally protect them from prosecution. "Who with a mental health problem might be able or might not be able to form the requisite intent?" Kelly asked. "There's no movement in the direction of trying to take 'mens rea' seriously." Juveniles cannot legally have full criminal intent due to their not fully developed brains. Those with neurodevelopmental disorders that inhibit their intentionality lack these protections. We should be protecting these groups in the same way that we now protect juveniles. Now, I am not advising that we let every criminal who may have such problems run free, but we should reform the system to help them with their problems. We should clinically diagnose and psychiatrically help the mentally ill. We should treat people who need help as people who need help. But instead of doing these things, we keep 10 times as many mentally ill persons in prison than in hospitals. We execute the mentally ill when they do not fully understand the gravity of their actions. When people are sick, we do not give them help; we give them an orange jumpsuit and a final meal. (source: David Bordelon is a philosophy sophomore from Houston; The (Univ. Texas) Daily Texan) ********************* 12 Texas death row inmates were undocumented Bernardo Tercero was a 20-year-old laborer in the United States illegally when he murdered a Houston high school teacher while robbing a dry cleaner. Though he'd been arrested twice before and thrown out of the country, he kept coming back. 2 months before gunning down a Dallas police officer, Juan Lizcano was arrested for driving drunk. He, too, was in the country illegally. Federal immigration officials apparently were not told of his arrest. And Juan Carlos Alvarez lived in the country illegally for almost 10 years before participating in 2 drive-by shootings in Houston that left 4 people dead. Just 4 months earlier, an immigration judge had decided to let him stay in the country. Of the 251 men and women on Texas death row, 12 committed their crimes while in the country illegally, according to an analysis of data obtained by The Texas Tribune. Their crimes span almost 3 decades and 5 presidential administrations - 2 Democrats and 3 Republicans - and their victims include old and young, children, husbands, wives and parents. Whether federal immigration officials attempted to remove these 12 men - or knew of their existence - is difficult to discern. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials declined to release immigration records for 9 of the 12 inmates, citing a concern for their privacy. It did agree to release records for Tercero, Lizcano and Alvarez. Reviews of trial transcripts, court records and other documents tell a dozen stories of smaller crimes and missed connections ultimately leading to 18 deaths on Texas soil at the hands of men able to enter the country easily, and stay with little challenge to their presence. Here, distilled from multiple sources, are the cases: Bernardo Tercero VICTIM: Roger Berger, teacher DATE: March 31, 1997 "Please don't die. Please don't die," Melinda Winn Berger pleaded with her husband as he lay on the floor of Park Avenue Cleaners in Houston with a bullet in his head. It was supposed to have been a quick stop before dinner. While his wife stayed in the car, Robert Berger, a 38-year-old English teacher at Reagan High School, ran in with their 3-year-old daughter, Jordan. It was almost closing time. Bernardo Tercero, brandishing a gun, and an accomplice entered the store and demanded money.The store manager would later testify that Tercero grabbed Berger by the arm and pushed him back, shooting the teacher in the back of the head when he tried to get away. Tercero and his accomplice fled with the money from the cash drawers. Melinda Berger rushed inside and found her husband mortally wounded. Robert Berger died in the hospital the next day. Eventually caught, Tercero argued that the shooting wasn't premeditated, saying he and Berger were struggling when "the gun went off." Tercero, then 20, was a Nicaraguan national who had been arrested twice on theft charges in Harris County in 1994 and 1995, and was caught trying to slip across the border illegally in 1996.It appears he returned voluntarily to Mexico at least once. Otherwise, nothing in his immigration records indicates if federal agencies knew about his theft arrests, or made an effort to remove him from the country. Juan Lizcano VICTIM: Brian Jackson, police officer DATE: November 13, 2005 Brian Jackson, a 5-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department, was almost done with his shift when he and other officers responded to a domestic disturbance call at the home of Marta Cruz. Her ex-boyfriend showed up at her house drunk and fired a shot into the ceiling. Juan Lizcano accused Cruz of cheating on him and said the next bullet was intended for her. When police arrived, Lizcano ran, down an alleyway and shot at the officers. The 2 wound up face to face when Lizcano rounded a corner, and Jackson fired 3 times. Lizcano fired once and Jackson died. Other officers converging on the scene arrested Lizcano. It wasn't his 1st run-in with police. Lizcano, a then 28-year-old Mexican national, had been arrested for a DWI just 2 months before. There's no indication he ever came in contact with federal immigration officials, who released records showing that they had no information on when Lizcano entered the country illegally. Juan Carlos Alvarez VICTIMS: Michael Aguirre, Adrian Aguirre, brothers DATES: June 6, 1998 and June 17, 1998 On June 6, 1998, 21-year-old Juan Carlos Alvarez, a member of the Southwest Cholos, opened fire with an assault rifle on a group of people gathered outside an apartment complex in west Houston. 2 brothers, Michael Aguirre, 16, and his brother Adrian, 20, were killed, and 6 others injured. Alvarez, who records show had planned the drive-by shooting suspected that some of his targets were members of a rival gang, La Primera. Later that month, Alvarez killed 2 more young men at an apartment complex in southwest Houston, shooting them at close range in the back and face with a shotgun. Testimony later revealed that none of the 4 victims were members of the rival gang. Immigration officials knew Alvarez, a Mexican national. He had entered the country illegally through Brownsville in 1989. He was served with a notice to appear in court, but it's unclear when exactly that was handed down. He was found not removable from the country and granted relief by an immigration judge on February 5, 1998. But by that time, Alvarez already had a long record. He was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in February, received deferred adjudication, and was charged again in May 1996. That's when immigration officials placed a hold on Alvarez only to lift it 3 months later, county records show. 2 years later, he was charged with engaging in organized crime for conspiring to commit murder, aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Those cases appear to have been dismissed when he was charged and convicted of capital murder for the shootings. Immigration officials issued another hold on Alvarez in June 1998 after the 2 shootings. Walter Sorto VICTIMS: Roxana Capulin and Maria Rangel, restaurant workers DATE: May 31, 2002 Roxana Capulin and Maria Rangel were supposed to close up for the night after working the late shift at El Mirador restaurant in Houston. But 30 minutes after she called to say she was headed home, Jesus Capulin's wife hadn't shown up. No one answered when he called El Mirador. Alarmed, Jesus Capulin drove the to restaurant in search of his wife, and ran into Maria Rangel's husband doing the same thing. The men broke into the locked building but found no one inside. The 2 women were found dead the next morning in Capulin's Dodge Durango, which was abandoned a few miles south of the restaurant. Capulin, a 24-year-old mother of 2, had duct tape over her eyes and mouth; Rangel, a 38-year-old mother of 2, had duct tape over her eyes and mouth, and her wrists were bound with the tape. Each had been raped and shot in the head. Walter Sorto, an El Salvador native who had lived in the country illegally since 1996, was behind the attack. Though he initially went to police as a witness and blamed his 2 accomplices, the 24-year-old laborer later implicated himself. It wasn't Sorto's 1st run-in with police. In June 1999, he had been convicted of carrying a weapon and sentenced to 10 days in Harris County jail. Later that year, he was convicted of misdemeanor theft and sentenced to 3 days in jail. In late 2000, he was granted deferred adjudication for 10 years for the aggravated robbery of a man in Harris County. Citing Sorto's privacy, immigration officials declined to release records that would show whether they were told of his previous arrests and convictions, or had ever attempted to remove him from the country. County records show immigration officials placed a detainer on Sorto in August 2002 a few days after he first contacted police as a witness to the killings. Ramiro Ibarra VICTIM: Maria de la Paz Zuniga, teenager DATE: March 6, 1987 Originally from Mexico, the Zuniga family was living in Waco in March 1987 when Francisco Zuniga headed home to pick up his 16-year-old sister to go shopping. He found Maria de la Paz Zuniga's bruised, bloody and partially undressed body. Maria Zuniga's face appeared to have been beaten, and her throat and shoulders were wrapped in yellow wire. Her dress was pulled over her waist and her underwear appeared to have been ripped off. A medical examiner would later confirm she died of ligature strangulation caused by the yellow wire. Witnesses put Ramiro Ibarra, a 32-year old former neighbor, at the scene. DNA samples from Ibarra matched the blood found under Maria's fingernails and semen left in her body and on her underwear. Police also found similar yellow wire in Ibarra's car. Ibarra, a Mexican national living in the country illegally, had previously been convicted for unlawfully carrying a weapon and received probation for driving while intoxicated. He had also been arrested in December 1988 for a misdemeanor theft. Citing Ibarra's privacy, immigration officials declined to release records that would show whether they were told of his previous arrests and convictions, or had ever attempted to remove him from the country. Carlos Manuel Ayestas VICTIM: Santiaga Paneque, elderly woman DATE: September 5, 1995 When Elim Paneque returned to his Houston home shortly after noon to have lunch, he found it ransacked and his 67-year-old mother, Santiaga Paneque, dead. The killer was 26-year-old Carlos Manuel Ayestas, a Honduran national, with a long record. In 1990, he'd been caught in California twice for possessing heroin and cocaine he planned to sell and was put on probation. A year later he was convicted of burglary, and sentenced to two years in jail for the burglary charge and three more for violating probation on the narcotics charge. It is unclear when he was released. Ayestas apparently traveled back and forth from Honduras several times, and after 1994 re-entered the country illegally. He wound up in Houston where he was arrested for misdemeanor theft in July 1995 and spent 10 days at the Harris County jail. Two months later, police found Santiaga Paneque lying face down in a pool of her own blood and vomit. Her eyes, neck and ankles were bound by silver duct tape while her wrists were bound with an electrical cord from an alarm clock. Ayestas' fingerprints were found on a roll of duct tape left on a bathroom counter, and on the tape removed from Paneque's ankles. Citing Ayestas' privacy, immigration officials declined to release records that would show whether they were told of his previous arrests and convictions, or had ever attempted to remove him from the country. County records show immigration officials placed a hold on Ayestas 2 years after the murder after he was convicted. Edgardo Cubas VICTIM: Esmeralda Alvarado, teenager DATE: January 18, 2002 Esmeralda Alvarado left her boyfriend's house in Houston's East End around 9:30 p.m. and headed towards a nearby convenience store to use the pay phone. That's where 22-year-old Edgardo Cubas and a male accomplice caught sight of the 15-year-old high school sophomore and forced her into their truck. The men would later claim they meant only to rob Alvarado, but when they realized she had no money, they took turns raping her in the back of their truck and Cubas forced her to perform oral sex on him. They drove to a secluded road where Cubas pulled Alvarado out of the vehicle and fatally shot her in the head before driving off. A county employee found her partially clad body 4 days later. Cubas, an Honduran national who entered the country illegally, confessed to Alvarado's murder and a series of other offenses - aggravated robberies, shootings, sexual assaults and murders - committed between 2001 and 2002. Citing Cubas' privacy, immigration officials declined to release records that would show whether they ever had contact with Cubas, or were aware of his presence in the country. County records show immigration officials placed a detainer on Cubas in August 2002 after he was arrested and charged for Alvarado's murder. Hector Medina VICTIMS: Javier and Diana Medina, children DATE: March 4, 2007 3 years. 8 months. Those were the ages of Hector Medina's 2 children, Javier and Diana, were when he shot them with a .25 caliber pistol. Irving police responding to a call of shots fired found 27-year-old El Salvador native Hector Medina lying in his front yard with a self-inflicted neck wound. Inside, they found Diana dead in a wooden crib. Javier, who had been shot in the head and neck, was brain dead at the time. Medina's legal team argued that the murders were fueled by the infidelity of his girlfriend, the children's mother. It took a Dallas County jury about 6 minutes to convict Medina of capital murder. Citing Medina's privacy, immigration officials declined to release records that would show whether they ever had contact with Medina, or were aware of his presence in the country. Victor Saldano VICTIM: Paul Ray King, computer salesman DATE: November 25, 1995 It was completely random. Paul Ray King, a 46-year-old computer salesman,was in the parking lot of a Plano grocery store when Victor Saldano and an accomplice forced King into their car at gunpoint. They drove to a secluded road near Tickey Creek where Saldano stopped the car and forced King into the woods. Saldano, a 23-year-old Argentine national living in the country illegally, would later tell a jailer he shot King 4 times, then got closer to fire once more into King's head to ensure he was dead. He stole King's wallet and watch, drove the car back into town and abandoned it on the side of the highway. Citing Saldano's privacy, immigration officials declined to release records that would show whether they ever had contact with him, or were aware of his presence in the country. Gilmar Guevara VICTIMS: Tae Youk and Gerardo Yaxon, convenience store clerks DATE: June 2, 2000 "Shoot, shoot, shoot" Gilmar Guevara's accomplices urged as they robbed a Houston convenience store. 2 attendants, Tae Youk, 50, and Gerardo Yaxon, 21, were working the late shift when an armed Guevara and 2 other men entered the store just after midnight. Guevara said they were there to burglarize the store. When one of the store attendants hit him, Guevara started shooting, killing both men. Youk was a former pastor who had worked at the convenience store for only a few months to help support his family. Yaxon was working to send money back to family in Guatemala and save up enough to return. Guevara, 30 years old at the time and originally from El Salvador, was living in the country illegally and had a long criminal history. In 1994, he was granted deferred adjudication for a misdemeanor theft charge in Harris County. Months later, he was charged with unlawfully carrying a weapon. In December 1994, he was sentenced to 20 days in jail for the unlawful use of a criminal instrument. That same month, he was charged with the unauthorized use of a vehicle. In 1995, he was charged with auto theft, and federal immigration officials issued a detainer for Guevara, meaning he presumably would be turned over to them for deportation after completing his 9-month sentence in the Harris County Jail. Whether he was removed from the country is unknown. Citing Guevara's' privacy, immigration officials declined to release records that would show whether they deported Guevara, or knew of his previous arrests and convictions. Obel Cruz-Garcia VICTIM: Angelo Garcia Jr., child DATE: September 30, 1992 During a late night home invasion, 2 men wearing ski masks broke into a south Houston apartment where Angelo Garcia Jr. lived with his mother and her boyfriend. Obel Cruz-Garcia was among the men who proceeded to sexually assault Garcia's mother and tie, gag and beat her boyfriend. They took the 6-year-old boy with them when they left. Cruz-Garcia and his accomplices stabbed the boy and weighted down his body before dropping him into a Baytown lake. Angelo Garcia's murder wasn't the 1st time Cruz-Garcia had come in contact with police. He had been previously charged with unlawfully carrying a weapon in 1990 when he was sentenced to 30 days in jail. In 1991, he was charged with possession of crack cocaine. Evidence gathered later would show that the boy's parents were part of Cruz-Garcia's cocaine-trafficking operation. Cruz-Garcia, originally from the Dominican Republic, was charged with Angelo Garcia's death in 2008 but wasn't convicted until 2013. Citing Cruz-Garcia's privacy, immigration officials declined to release records that would show whether they were told of his previous arrests and convictions, or had ever attempted to remove him from the country. County records show immigration officials placed a detainer on Cruz-Garcia in 2010 - 2 years after he was charged with capital murder. Felix Rocha VICTIM: Rafael Fuentes, security guard DATE: November 26, 1994 On the night he was murdered, Rafael Fuentes was working as a security guard at a Houston nightclub. Felix Rocha and an accomplice approached Fuentes and tried to take the gun from his holster. The security guard resisted, and the men struggled over Rocha's gun before a shot went off. Witnesses placed Rocha and his accomplice at the scene. Rocha - who had been involved in a physical confrontation with Fuentes shortly before the murder - later confessed. Rocha, a Mexican national living in the country illegally, had been previously charged with aggravated robbery in 1993, but the charges were dismissed. In 1995, he was charged with possession of marijuana and served four days in jail. Later that year, he was charged for assault. Citing Rocha's privacy, immigration officials declined to release records that would show whether they were told of his previous arrests and convictions, or had ever attempted to remove him from the country. County records show immigration officials placed a detainer on Rocha in November 1997 after he was charged with capital murder; that hold was lifted the day he was placed on death row. (source: Texas Tribune) VIRGINIA: What happens if state is unable to execute Ricky Gray? The last time the commonwealth of Virginia was unable to carry out a death sentence appears to have been more than 6 decades ago and was due, in the words of a prison official, to "an act of God." On June 27, 1952, a bolt of lightning hit the power line to the former Virginia State Penitentiary on Spring Street in Richmond. The strike damaged the electric chair 3 days before the scheduled execution of Albert M. Jackson Jr. for rape. Authorities were unable to obtain the materials necessary for repairs, delaying Jackson's execution until Aug. 25 of that year. The situation remains unclear, but recent statements by the Department of Corrections suggest it may be unable to carry out an execution scheduled March 16 - not because of divine intervention, but due to a shortage of a drug needed to execute Ricky Javon Gray should he opt to die by injection rather than in the electric chair. Critics are dubious about the department's claims. Gray, 38, and accomplice Ray Dandridge killed at least 9 people. 7 were killed in Richmond in a 2006 rampage, among them were 4 members of the Harvey family who were murdered in their Woodland Heights home in South Richmond. Dandridge was sentenced to life, and Gray to death, for the capital murders of the Harvey daughters, Ruby, 4, and Stella, 9. Since 1995, Virginia death-row inmates have had a choice to die by electrocution or injection. A bill now before the General Assembly would allow the Department of Corrections to select the method if the inmate's choice is unavailable. Gray must choose by 15 days prior to the execution date. If he refuses to select a method, state law - passed when lethal injection drugs were readily available - makes lethal injection the default method. Last year, the Department of Corrections obtained 3 vials of pentobarbital from Texas and used 1 to execute Alfredo Prieto, who was implicated in the deaths of nine people in 2 states. Conceding the department has 2 vials left, prison officials insist, without further explanation, that they do not have enough to execute Gray. The apparent contradiction has aroused suspicions among anti-capital punishment activists and others who point out that the department can change its execution protocol so that 2 vials of pentobarbital suffice if the current protocol requires more than 1 vial for back up. In a news release last week, the Virginia Death Penalty Coalition said, "The DOC director has the authority to amend the lethal injection protocol to accommodate the existing stock of drugs in its possession to carry out executions." Asked to respond, a spokeswoman for the department wrote in an email, "The director does have the authority to amend the protocol, yes." Michael Stone, executive director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, complained that the department's claim it lacks the drugs necessary to execute Gray has been used in the General Assembly to push proposed legislation that would make the electric chair the default method. The Department of Corrections said it has not taken a position on the bill. A corrections spokesman said last week that no one in the department could remember the last time it was unable to carry out an execution order. Asked how and when a new execution date would be set for Gray if it becomes apparent the March 16 execution cannot not be carried out, Michael Kelly, a spokesman for the Virginia Attorney General's Office, said, "If a situation like that were to occur, we would certainly discuss it with our clients, but I can't comment or speculate on what legal advice might be provided." Jackson, the man whose execution was delayed in 1952, was a 24-year-old African-American sentenced to death for raping a white woman in Charlottesville. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that, two days before his execution, Jackson's lawyers, Spottswood Robinson III and Samuel W. Tucker, unsuccessfully sought a restraining order from a federal judge. They argued that since 1908, when the electric chair was installed in the penitentiary, some 50 African-Americans had been executed for rape, but no whites had. Before 1908, executions were carried out by hangings at various locations across the state. Virginia officials countered in the 1952 Jackson case that the same racial-bias argument had been unsuccessfully raised 2 years earlier in the Martinsville 7 case - 7 black men were executed for the rape of a white woman. The current United States Courthouse on East Broad Street is now named in part for Spotts-wood Robinson. (source: Richmond Times-Dispatch) NORTH CAROLINA: Closing arguments to begin in Travion Smith death penalty phase----Jury to decide on Travion Smith murder sentence Closing arguments are scheduled to begin Monday in the death penalty phase of Travion Smith. Last week, Smith was convicted of beating and stabbing of 30-year-old Melissa Huggins-Jones, who was found by her 8-year-old daughter beaten and stabbed to death inside their North Hills apartment in May 2013. The same jury that convicted Smith of murder will decide whether he should get life in prison or the death penalty. The defense has called several members of Smith's family to testify about his abusive childhood, trying to get the jury to spare his life. Meanwhile, the prosecution only called the victim's now 10-year-old daughter as their witness. The courtroom camera was ordered to be turned off during the testimony. But Hannah Jones talked about finding her mom dead in their apartment. Smith was accused of the murder along with Ronald Anthony and Sarah Redden. Last September, Anthony pleaded guilty to 1st-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. The plea deal spared him the death penalty. Charges against Redden, who agreed to testify against Smith, remain. (source: WTVD news) FLORIDA: 6 of area's 18 murderers on death row may receive penalty review 18 men convicted of committing murders in Okaloosa, Santa Rosa or Walton counties presently sit on death row. Each of their sentences could in some form or fashion be impacted by a U.S. Supreme Court decision in a case that actually sprung from a trial held in Florida's First Judicial Circuit. Even if none are touched by the decision, the way that circuit courts across the state decide whether the death penalty is warranted appears likely to change forever. In a January decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a trial court relied too heavily on the presiding judge in the sentencing of Timothy Hurst, who received the death penalty in 2000 for the 1998 murder of co-worker Cynthia Harrison. The homicide occurred during a robbery at a Popeye's restaurant in Pensacola. "Hurst had the maximum authorized punishment he could receive increased by a judge's own fact-finding," the high court said in rendering its de-cision. The Supreme Court holds that it should be left to the jury, not the judge, to decide whether a defendant should die for his or her crimes. The federal court's ruling has spawned action within Florida's judicial and legislative branches of government. Legislative action On the legislative side, Florida lawmakers are negotiating changes to the way death penalty hearings are decided. The hearings follow a conviction in a criminal case - almost exclusively 1st degree murder - and are almost a trial themselves. Florida is the only state in the country that allows a 12-person jury to recommend, by a simple majority vote, whether or not a person convicted in a capital case should die. The judge, who must rely heavily upon the jury recommendation, then imposes or rejects the penalty. Lawmakers this year are taking action to give jurors more control. While most states mandate a jury must unanimously vote for death before the penalty can be meted out, a compromise reached Wednesday would say in Florida that a 10-2 majority of jurors suffices. "Today we will pass legislation to preserve the Florida death penalty and modernize the death penalty," state Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach, said just prior to a Thursday floor vote to pass the measure. The 10-2 measure was a compromise negotiated between the state's House and Senate. While the House pressed for a 9-3 jury vote to be the required standard, senators favored the vote be unanimous, as is the case in all states other than Alabama and Delaware. Alabama requires a 10-2 vote. Delaware calls for jurors to unanimously agree on whether the defendant is eligible for the death penalty, but their sentencing recommendation can be split. Compromise is 'progress' Bruce Miller, the elected Public Defender for Florida's First Judicial Circuit, said he favors the state requiring juries to vote unanimously to impose the death penalty. He called the 10-2 compromise "progress" but added that Florida will remain on questionable legal ground by rejecting the requirement of unanimity. "You see a lot of references to Florida as an outlier state," he said. "10-2 will still leave us in that stature and leave us open to challenges." Another legislative tweak in death penalty case procedure will add a requirement that a jury be unanimous in deciding which "aggravators" justify imposing the death sentence, according to Bill Eddins, state attorney for the First Judicial Circuit. All 12 jurors will be required to say, for instance, that a particular crime was "heinous, atrocious or cruel" enough to warrant death, or perhaps that it was pre-meditated in "cold and calculated" fashion, Eddins said. Judicial reaction Florida's Supreme Court is being asked to decide, in lieu of the Hurst v. Florida ruling, whether defendants in hundreds of death penalty cases across the state will have to be resentenced. Miller said he suspects at least those who were sentenced after 2002 will be reheard. "Virtually all of the defense arguments in death penalty cases since 2002 have used the argument the Supreme Court ruled on in Hurst," he said. "I think you can count on those coming back to court for a new penalty phase." 6 of the 18 from this region on death row were convicted after 2002. Those are: --Barry Davis, sentenced Aug. 31, 2015, in Walton County for killing John Hughes and Heidi Rhodes. Jury voted 9-3 and 10-2 to recommend death. --Steven Cozzie, sentenced Aug. 31, 2013, in Walton County for killing Courtney Wilkes. Jury voted 12-0 to recommend death. --Robert Hobart, sentenced Dec. 3, 2012, in Santa Rosa County for killing Robert Hamm and Tracie Tolbert. Jury voted 7-5 to recommend death. --Thomas McCoy, sentenced Nov. 19, 2010, in Walton County for killing Curtis Brown. Jury voted 11-1 to recommend death. --Michael Hernandez, sentenced March 23, 2007, in Santa Rosa County for killing Ruth Everett. The jury voted 11-1 to recommend death. --Jesse Guardado, sentenced Oct. 13, 2005, in Walton County for killing Jackie Malone. Jury voted 12-0 for the death penalty. Eddins said the Florida Supreme Court entertained arguments just a few weeks ago that will bear directly on cases still moving through the laby-rinth of appeals any death penalty case results in. 'Harmless error' a view of contention The question the Supreme Court must answer in the cases is whether or not the procedure by which the defendants were sentenced can be viewed as "harmless error," Eddins said. Would, in other words, a standard different than the one used to reach the death recommendation have resulted in the same finding. The Hernandez case won't be among those under consideration in this Supreme Court ruling. Eddins said Hernandez has exhausted all of his appeals. Davis, having been so recently sentenced, has not yet had his initial appeal heard, Eddins said, so the Supreme Court will not only be reviewing his case for "harmless error" due to the federal ruling, but also any other errors made during the actual trial. Miller, the public defender, finds it hard to believe the death penalty sentences in cases resolved after 2002 will be allowed to stand. \"I don't think you can call it harmless error in a death penalty case," he said. Is high court ruling retroactive? Florida's Supreme Court is also weighing arguments about whether the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling is retroactive, Eddins said. The decision in that case could impact regional death sentences stretching back as far as June 28, 1982, when Bruce Pace was sentenced to die in Santa Rosa County for the killing of Floyd Covington. Jurors recommended 7-5 that Pace be put to death. Others sentenced to death prior to 2002 include: --Jeffery Hutchinson, sentenced Feb. 7, 2001, in Okaloosa County for killing four people. He waived his right to jury consideration and was sentenced to death by Circuit Judge Robert Barron. --Norman Grim, sentenced to die Dec. 22, 2000, in Santa Rosa County for killing Cynthia Campbell. A jury recommended death by a 12-0 vote. --Jeremiah Rodgers sentenced to death Nov. 22 2000, in Santa Rosa County for killing Jennifer Robinson. Jury voted 9-3 for the death penalty. --Jonathan Lawrence, sentenced Aug. 16, 2000, in Santa Rosa County for killing Jennifer Robinson. Jury voted 11-1 for death. --Lamar Brooks, sentenced Sept. 29, 1998, in Okaloosa County for killing Rachel Carlson and her infant daughter. Jury voted 10-2 in favor of death. --Edward Zakrzewski, sentenced April 19, 1996, in Okaloosa County for killing Sylvia and Edward Zakrzewski. Jury voted 7-5 to impose the death penalty. --Gary Whitton, sentenced Sept. 10, 1992, in Walton County for killing James Mauldin. Jury voted 12-0 for the death penalty. --Ernest Suggs, sentenced July 15, 1992, in Walton County for the murder of Pauline Casey. Jury voted 7-5 to impose the death penalty. --Gary Lawrence, sentenced Feb. 21, 1991, in Walton County for the murder of Michael Finken. Jury voted 9-3 in favor of death. --Daniel Peterka, sentenced April 25, 1990, for killing John Russell. Jury recommended death by 8-4 vote. --Frank Walls, sentenced Aug. 24, 1988, in Okaloosa County for killing Edward Alger and Ann Peterson. Jury recommended the death penalty by 7-5 vote. --Bruce Pace, sentenced June 28, 1982, in Santa Rosa County for killing Floyd Covington. Jury voted 7-5 in favor of death. Eddins said it remains unclear which way the Florida Supreme Court will ultimately rule on the death penalty cases, but he's confident his office has the resources available to handle whatever comes. "As the state attorney for the First Judicial Circuit, I intend to prosecute any and all cases that have to be retried to the fullest extent of the law," he said. (source: nwfdailynews.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 22 10:23:56 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2016 10:23:56 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----UTAH, USA Message-ID: Feb. 22 UTAH: Flagged Bill - SB 189 - Death Penalty Amendments - Sen. Steve Urquhart In a day and age where a number of states are moving away from capital punishment, Utah seems to be embracing it. In 2015, the Legislature passed HB 11 - Death Penalty Procedure Amendments. Sponsored by Representative Paul Ray (Republican - Clearfield), the measure allows for the firing squad to be used if the substances necessary for lethal injection cannot be obtained in time. During the present legislative session, another pro-death penalty bill is being considered: HB 136 - Human Trafficking Amendments. Also sponsored by Ray, the bill allows for the death penalty to be an option in the event that a homicide that occurs while an individual is engaged in human trafficking. While the majority of the legislature seems all too eager to expand the death penalty, 1 lawmaker wants the state to abolish the practice going forward - but is the bill dead on arrival? 1 lawmaker is taking a different approach. Senator Steve Urquhart (Republican - St. George) wants to repeal capital punishment in Utah altogether. Introduced in the Senate on Thursday, SB 189 - Death Penalty Amendments eliminates the death penalty as a form of punishment in future cases. If the bill passes, beginning May 10, 2016, an offense of aggravated murder committed before May 10, 2016, and for which the death penalty has not been sought, may not be charged as a capital offense. Offenses committed on or after May 10, 2016 may also not be brought forth as a capital felony. Those currently on death row, however, would still have the punishment carried out. One of the main incentives to Urquhart has pointed to is the financial benefit of doing away with the death penalty. A study completed in 2012 by the Legislative Fiscal Analyst's Office found that it costs approximately $1.7 million more for a capital murder case, as opposed to a sentence of life in prison. SB 189 is attempting to do something that should have happened long ago. As society continues to move forward, we should leave capital punishment in the past where it belongs. The fact that this archaic and highly immoral practice continues should be a grand embarrassment to all. There is no evidence to suggest it acts as a deterrent to would-be killers and the number of innocent people wrongly executed is reason enough for a moratorium. That being said, SB 189 likely won't succeed. With the recent votes in favor of expanding the death penalty, it appears that the will of the body is simply not there yet. (source: utahpoliticalcapitol.com) USA: 'Dead Man Walking' nun: My argument with Scalia----Sister Helen Prejean, a Sister of St. Joseph, ministers to prisoners on death row. She is the author of "Dead Man Walking." The views expressed are her own. I'm praying for Justice Antonin Scalia, that his passage into eternity was peaceful. I respect his sincerity, even though on the subject of the death penalty, he was my nemesis. As I was writing "The Death of Innocents," I happened to run into him in an airport, and I said teasingly that I was "taking him on" in my book. And he, personable as he was, jabbed his finger in the air and said, "And I'll be right back at ya!" In "Innocents," I wrote about 2 men I believe were innocent: Joseph O'Dell and Dobie Gillis Williams, whose executions Scalia summarily authorized without an apparent qualm, acknowledging that his role on the Supreme Court made him part of the "machinery of death." Scalia's experience of the "meaning" of capital punishment, as he described it in one of his dissenting opinions, couldn't have been more different from my own. In the marble confines of the court, he argued interpretation of Constitutional texts, while I, in state killing chambers, accompanied real human beings -- 6 of them -- to their deaths as a direct result of Scalia's interpretations. In grasping the "meaning" of state killings, I had one advantage over Scalia. I was there, close up to the anguish and terror of the condemned and their grieving mothers. Scalia, in the cerebral confines of the Court, never touched a tear-stained cheek, never stood present at the grave as families buried their loved ones killed by the state. One thing the justice and I did have in common, however, was this: he stumped around the country to persuade citizens of the rightness of his "originalist" approach to the Constitution; I stumped around the country (still do) to persuade citizens to abolish the death penalty, laying out my arguments through stories of personal experience, beliefs of my Catholic faith and logical, fact-infused arguments, including Constitutional analysis. After all, as citizens, are we not the ultimate proprietors of the Constitution and its meaning for our lives? Are not its protections of life and liberty far too precious to blindly be turned over to legal "experts," every bit as prone to prejudice and blind spots as the rest of us? I have profoundly disagreed with Scalia on two fronts: jurisprudence and religious faith. As for his jurisprudence, I do not think that the only correct way to interpret the Constitution is to interpret its words (text) as, supposedly, our 18th century framers understood them. Given what we now know about the fluid nature of text and context in linguistics, that's an impossible task. Even more impossible is to confine ourselves to the practice of punishment as they practiced it, which, to most modern eyes, was harsh in the extreme. In 1999, I accompanied Dobie Gillis Williams into the killing chamber of Louisiana three times before my native state finally killed him. An African American with a very low IQ, Dobie was sentenced by an all-white jury to die for supposedly killing a white woman. I say supposedly because even though the appeals courts upheld Dobie's guilt, I am convinced of his innocence. I tell Dobie's story in"The Death of Innocents," taking readers through our broken system of justice that masks truth and gets poor men like Dobie executed. 3 years after Dobie's death came a Supreme Court decision that, had it come earlier, might well have saved his life, a decision in which Scalia fiercely dissented. In Atkins v Virginia (2002), the court ruled 6-3 that executing people with mental disabilities -- that is with an IQ of 70 and below -- violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on "cruel and unusual punishments." In his dissent, Scalia used as his moral criterion an 18th century dictionary's definition of "idiot" as "such a person who cannot account or number twenty pence, nor can tell who was his father or mother, nor how old he is." According to Scalia's perception of the Constitution as not living but dead, that archaic definition should have guided the court's decision and not any modern understanding of diminished mental capacity. Dobie, who had an IQ of 65 but knew exactly who his mama was, would have failed Scalia's "idiot" test. My 2nd argument with Scalia was the way he interpreted Catholic teaching about the death penalty. Church opposition to government executions has developed considerably in recent years, which to Scalia was anathema. He interpreted his Catholic faith as he interpreted the Constitution, staking his position in unchangeable tradition, upheld by Saints Augustine in the 5th century and Thomas Aquinas in the 12th. These stalwart teachers, he maintained -- unlike Catholic American bishops so easily swayed by "modern trends," as he saw it -- upheld the righteousness of government-imposed executions as God's will, justified in the same way as the killing of a rabid dog or the amputation of a gangrenous limb. Thus, Scalia could not brook American bishops' increasing opposition to the death penalty, nor the opposition of Popes John Paul II and Francis -- especially Pope Francis, who must have disturbed the justice considerably in his bold appeal before Congress for global abolition of the death penalty. At a conference in Chicago in 2002, Scalia's statements about Christian faith vis a vis the death penalty stunned me. Statements such as these: -- "It seems to me that the more Christian a country is, the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. Abolition has taken its firmest hold in post-Christian Europe and has least support in the church-going United States." -- He interpreted St. Paul's words, "The powers that be are ordained of God," to mean: "Government derives its moral authority from God. It is the minister of God with powers to revenge, to execute wrath, including wrath by the sword, which is unmistakably a reference to the death penalty. ...These passages from Romans represent the consensus of Western thought until quite recent times ... regarding the powers of the state. That consensus has been upset by the emergence of democracy." Democracy, indeed. Do our elected leaders derive the authority to govern from the people or by direct divine infusion? That's theocracy, not democracy. Where was Jesus in the Justice's stance of faith? Where is his moral challenge to rise above seeking "an eye for an eye," to pray for and forgive our enemies? In Chicago, Scalia justified his interpretation of scripture by making a distinction: individual Christians must follow Jesus' call to forgive, but not the state. In this distorted reading, state governments as God's ministers have God's blessing to inflict wrath on evildoers and those they deem "enemy." It seems Scalia was as adept at drawing bright lines in the practice of his faith as he was in his jurisprudence. Now the bright line of death has been drawn across his life. I pray that he finds eternal rest. I also hope and pray that the 9th new justice will be a person, who not only has an excellent legal mind, but also a compassionate and fair-minded spirit, in close touch with the struggles and aspirations of ordinary people -- especially the most vulnerable among us for whom "equal justice under law" is a cruel chimera if not an outright lie. (source: Helen Prejean, CNN) ****************** Return of the gas chamber----A shortage of lethal injection drugs drives some states to think the unthinkable As Arizona death row inmate Joseph Wood gasped and gulped for air, prison officials kept pumping more drugs into his system. It took 15 injections and almost 2 hours for him to die. The botched execution followed other court-ordered deaths in Ohio and Oklahoma in 2014 that were supposed to be pain-free and humane but ended up horribly bungled. States are having problems because it's increasingly difficult to get effective, reliable, government-approved drugs for executions. As a result, lethal injections have become messy testing grounds for experimental drug cocktails. And now states are scrambling to find other options - including gas chambers and even firing squads, recently reinstated (though not yet utilized) in Utah. Ohio's recent decision to postpone executions until at least 2017 highlights the dilemma that states face. "There are basically 4 choices states can make at this point," said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit clearinghouse on death penalty issues. "One is stop and figure it out. 2 is look for other drugs. 3 is to change the method of execution. 4 is to get rid of the death penalty. And there have been proposals in virtually all of the states to do one or more of those." The pressure on the 31 death-penalty states is growing because drug suppliers are increasingly pulling out of the death business, making it more difficult to find alternatives to the primary drug used for lethal injections: sodium thiopental, a barbiturate no longer manufactured in the United States. In the absence of locally sold barbiturates, some states have looked overseas to purchase the drug. But in 2011, the European Union imposed a ban on the use of European-manufactured drugs in American executions. This forced some state governments to turn to local compounding pharmacies - which create drugs from basic ingredients - and untested barbiturates for executions. But even though several state governments promised compounders their identities would stay secret, few of the pharmacies were willing to risk being identified and stigmatized. The supply problem highlights a long-standing issue with the medicalization of lethal injection drugs: the lack of scientific evidence of their effectiveness. While sodium thiopental is an effective anesthetic, it is often used in combination with 2 other drugs - 1 that speeds up the heart until it stops and another that paralyzes the rest of the body's muscles. Yet how the combination of drugs work together has never been tested or sanctioned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The dosage of drugs used for the death penalty is also arbitrary, according to Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University in New York City. And since medical professionals and pharmaceutical companies refuse to be associated with the process, there are no controlled trials, analysis or peer-reviewed literature to guide how much of a drug prison officials need to administer to death row inmates. And if the drugs are contaminated by tiny particles - as drugs manufactured by compounding pharmacies often are - they can burn and scrape the insides of veins like sandpaper, instead of having an anesthetic effect. Some states like Maryland, Illinois and Connecticut have responded to the growing controversy by abandoning capital punishment, but most death-penalty states are sticking with it, perhaps because polls show that public support for the death penalty hasn't wavered much in recent years: 6 in 10 Americans still favor it. "The death penalty is something of an American institution," said Michael Benza, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. "It's hard for politicians to ignore when a large part of the population supports it." To some capital punishment supporters, older methods such as hanging, electrocution and the firing squad are still viable options - even though those methods had been dropped because they were less humane than injection. But hanging is still a legal method of execution in Delaware, New Hampshire and Washington, and could potentially be used as a backup if those states give up on lethal injections. Utah's reinstatement of the firing squad last March, 11 years after abandoning it, means that the Beehive State has its backup method back in place. And the electric chair remains an alternative option to lethal injections in Alabama, Tennessee and 6 other states. Even as states lay the groundwork for alternatives though, lethal injection remains the preferred choice in all 31 death penalty states. To switch to a different method, state governments would need to certify that reliable injection drugs were not available before using their backup method, according to Benza. "The real problem with the other methods is the way they look. They are not as aesthetically nice as lethal injections," Benza said. But states are free to choose any alternative execution method as long as it complies with the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishment," according to Denno, of Fordham University in New York. In Oklahoma, a suggestion from an old friend of a state legislator led to a new law designating nitrogen gas as a viable method of execution, set to take effect this month. Oklahoma hasn't yet established a protocol to use the gas in executions, and it's possible that the state would utilize a gas mask or a small tent instead of a room-sized chamber, but its similarity to methods the Nazis used in the mass extermination of Jews and other minorities is already stirring passionate opposition and likely legal challenges. Some have likened it to the use of cyanide gas in California's San Quentin state prison, where nearly 200 prisoners were executed before the method was abandoned in 1994 due to similar parallels being drawn to Nazi gas chambers used during the Holocaust. Some lawmakers in death penalty states have become so fed up with all the legal and ethical challenges that in 14 states they've introduced bills to abolish capital punishment entirely. But these repeal efforts have a history of falling short. In May, the Nebraska legislature voted to abolish the state's death penalty, but Governor Pete Ricketts later vetoed it and the proposed ban is now scheduled for a statewide referendum in November 2016. Opponents of the death penalty are planning to keep pushing, and say the problems with execution drugs are only strengthening their case. The botched executions and lawsuits that follow are increasing public awareness of the issue. And the scrutiny will only keep increasing as people realize the uncertainty that surrounds use of lethal injection drugs, according to Ray Krone, a director at Witness to Innocence, which is an organization that provides a support network to and empowers exonerated death row survivors. Krone has personally lived through the experience of being wrongfully accused for murder and waited on death row for 3 years. "It's a failed policy," he said. The fight is likely to drag on for years, because most states are not in any hurry to resume executions. In fact, most of the 31 states that have capital punishment have not executed any criminals for at least 8 years. "There is no rush amongst most states to do anything because the death penalty is not being actively pursued by most states in the country," said Dunham of the Death Penalty Information Center. A few death penalty states, though, are pushing hard. Texas, Missouri and Florida are responsible for 80 % of executions over the last 2 years, and plan to keep going. Other states that have been searching intensely for drugs that can be used in lethal injections include Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia and Ohio. Arizona has already gotten into trouble with the federal government in its search for execution drugs. 2 of the state's 3 proposed cocktails require sodium thiopental. Since it's no longer available in the U.S. or through Europe, Arizona tried to illegally import some from India, but the drug was seized by the Food and Drug Administration at the Phoenix airport. The 3rd proposed drug cocktail relies on midazolam, the controversial sedative used in Joseph Wood's botched execution. That is the drug that inspired U.S. District Court Judge Neil Wake to put a hold on lethal injections. It has also led to a lawsuit against the state in the wake of Wood's execution. Worried that Arizona might use midazolam for other death row inmates without disclosing the information, attorneys are fighting for a more transparent procedure. No more executions can be scheduled in Arizona until the litigation is resolved. But after that? "Nobody knows the solution," Benza said. "And that is the problem." (source: scienceline.org) ************* We never really learnt the lesson of To Kill a Mockingbird----After more than 50 years and millions of classroom lessons, some of the book's central lessons about racism still go unheard. "A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up," Atticus Finch, the lawyer in To Kill a Mockingbird, tells the jury in his closing arguments. Finch has just convincingly argued to acquit a black man, Tom Robinson, who was falsely accused of raping a white woman in a small Alabama town. Finch demonstrates for the jury that Robinson could not have committed the crime. But the jury of 12 white men vote to convict him, anyway. The book's author, Harper Lee, died on February 19, aged 89, leaving behind a massive legacy. To Kill a Mockingbird has sold more than 40 million copies since it was published in 1960. But after more than 50 years and millions of classroom lessons, some of its central lessons still, at least at times, go unheard. Research suggests the same racial prejudices that led to Robinson's conviction are thriving, if in more subtle ways, in courtrooms today. Numerous studies show that black defendants are more likely to be convicted of crimes than white defendants, and that people found guilty of murdering white victims are significantly more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murder blacks. In one study at Cornell, researchers found that defendants with more stereotypically black features - a broad nose, thick lips and darker skin - were more likely to receive a death sentence in crimes against a white victim. These differential results have a lot to do with a lack of diversity on judicial benches and juries, which tend to be disproportionately white, male and older, as the jury in To Kill a Mockingbird was. Although racial discrimination in jury selection is illegal, it has a long history in the US. Research has long suggested the selection process is biased against minorities, women, the young, the poor, and those with particularly high or low education levels. An 1880 decision by the US Supreme Court prohibited judges and lawyers from striking or selecting jurors solely because of their race - although it allowed exclusions for other factors, such as age or education. However, the decision also decreed that juries did not have to be racially diverse or representative of the broader population. It rung in a long tradition in which attorneys excluded minorities from juries, but came up with other reasons for doing so beyond race. When a jury is selected today, the judge will first strike jurors he or she deems incapable of being partial. Then lawyers for both the prosecution and defence can ask that a certain number of jurors be removed, a practice called peremptory challenges. As Adam Benforado describes in his book, Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice, peremptory challenges were meant to give lawyers the freedom to detect and eliminate subtle, pre-existing biases against their clients that might influence the outcome of the case. Instead, the practice is often used to introduce more bias into the system. A 2011 study that looked at 173 death penalty cases in North Carolina found that peremptory challenges were used to remove blacks from juries at twice the rate of whites. In Houston County, Alabama, 80 % of the African Americans qualified for jury service were removed from juries between 2005 and 2009 using peremptory strikes. Although the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that attorneys need to be able to offer a race-neutral reason for barring a juror, in practice, it's been easy for attorneys to come up with a laundry list of reasons to exclude people, like not making sufficient eye contact, working in the same kind of industry as the defendant, or having a family member who has been accused of a similar crime, according to Benforado. Judges are not well-equipped to decide which of these reasons might actually be based on race, and which are not. As Benforado points out, people often use race-neutral terms to justify racist actions or beliefs outside of the courtroom, as well. The result, Benforado argues, is that the justice system has yet to deal with the core problem of discrimination in the courtroom. This same practice might have been at work in To Kill a Mockingbird. As Scout, the little girl who is the book's main character, sits in the courtroom, watching her father argue in favour of Robinson, she describes the all-white jury. The 12 jurors were from out of town, "sunburned" and "lanky". They all seemed to be farmers, Scout says in the book, "but this was natural: townsfolk rarely sat on juries, they were either struck or excused". (source: Commentary, Ana Swanson; Sydney Morning Herald) ***************** Bryan Stevenson urges America to heal racial tension by facing its mistakes Bryan Stevenson remembers a German telling him that his country is no longer comfortable with executions, with imposing the death penalty as punishment for crime. "It would be unconscionable for us," he remembers the scholar saying. And certainly not imaginable today that a disproportionate number of Jews would ever be executed there again, the man told Stevenson. When he returned to Alabama, Stevenson thought of the thousands of African-Americans who died before and after slavery and as victims of homegrown racial terrorism. But America still had made no meaningful commitment to seeing that its mistakes were not repeated, Stevenson thought. "You can't go anywhere in Germany without seeing reminders of the people's commitment not to repeat the Holocaust," Stevenson told an audience Sunday morning at Christ Episcopal Church in Charlotte. "We don't do that here. We do the opposite." Stevenson, 56, is founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit in Montgomery, Ala., that provides legal services to the indigent and prisoners who may have been wrongly convicted of crimes, as well as others who may have been denied a fair trial. As of February 2015, Stevenson and his colleagues had saved 115 men from the death penalty. His work on behalf of 2 convicted 14-year-olds led to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2012 barring life-without-parole sentences for killers under 18 - a ruling that changed the law in North Carolina and other states. Fighting against excessive and unfair sentencing has been a major focus for the New York University School of Law professor. In 2014, Stevenson published some of his experiences in the best-seller "Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption." He was in Charlotte as a speaker for Christ Episcopal's long-running Faith Forum to talk about healing a broken world. Stevenson urged the audience of several hundred people to "find the courage to get past the discomfort" of facing past mistakes and those that linger. Bigotry, hate and social injustice are difficult topics, but confronting those evils is necessary for healing and reconciliation, he told the group. "There is something better than what we have experienced," he said. "We have to get to a space where we are not bound by this history. That means we have to talk about it." Stevenson shared personal stories of men and women whose lives have been ravaged by racial bias in the criminal justice system and in other parts of society. "It breaks your heart to have to deal with this, but it will break your heart even more when your children and your grandchildren and their great-grandchildren are as separated and burdened by this legacy as we are," Stevenson said. (source: charlotteobserver.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 22 10:24:44 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2016 10:24:44 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 22 GLOBAL: Catholic faith? leads way on death penalty Today in Rome, the Sant'Egidio Community, a worldwide Catholic peace and justice organization of which I've been an active member for many years, will conduct an international conference in opposition to the death penalty. It is certain to reignite debate on the death penalty - probably even in the U.S. presidential election. When I was U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, the Sant'Egidio Church was in the forefront of many of the world most contentious moral debates, from the war in Bosnia, genocide in Rwanda, to the Population Control Conference in Beijing. Because of the United States' leading role in the world, I was required to play a leading role in each of those debates, both at the Vatican and on location in those respective countries - sometimes even in opposition to my own government's position. Yesterday, Pope Francis spoke out clearly against the death penalty, adding his voice to the church's decades-old opposition. Francis called for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty, noting that "You shall not kill" was absolute and equally valid for the guilty as it is for the innocent. He also called on Catholic politicians worldwide to make a "courageous and exemplary gesture" by seeking a moratorium on executions during the church's current holy year. He made the strongest appeal yet to the conscience of those who govern to end the death penalty. I am not surprised by the pope's strong statement in defense of all human life. His position is not Democratic or Republican, but authentically Catholic and consistent with the teaching of Jesus Christ. Americans like to think of themselves as independent political thinkers, but I've always been comfortable in following my own father's advice when needing to make a tough decision, "Ray, ask yourself, what would Jesus do?" We are all entitled to our political opinion, but Catholics are not entitled to their own interpretation of the teachings of our Catholic faith. When Pope John Paul II issued a comprehensive statement on the death penalty, I was with him at the Vatican. He was asked for an example of how capital punishment is justified. He responded, "I can't think of one." I understood exactly what he meant. All life is sacred. It has absolutely nothing to do about what is politically popular, but what is true. Let the debate begin. (source: Raymond L. Flynn is the former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican and former mayor of Boston----Boston Herald) IRAN: Appeals acquits 3 drugs death row suspects - Iranian's death penalty overturned The Criminal Court of Appeals chaired by Judge Najib Al-Mulla overturned the verdict of First Instance Court that sentenced 3 suspects accused of smuggling 40 kgs of hashish into Kuwait to death by hanging. The court discharged and acquitted them. The prosecution officer claimed the suspects smuggled the substance from a neighboring country via the sea for trading purpose. He also forwarded a report to the Attorney General who authorized the officer to arrest them after the search procedures. The officer alongside Coast Guard officers then proceeded to search the container in which the illicit item was concealed, and referred the suspects for investigation before the judiciary sentenced them to death. Representing the defendants, Lawyer Sultan Al-Mendel challenged the lower court's decision and maintained the officer had acted contrary to the provision of law, which rendered the warrant obtained from the Public Prosecution null and void. He noted the procedures implemented lacked seriousness which cases of such magnitude deserve. He observed the investigators did not bother to invite any of the Coast Guard officers involved in the inspection to testify. Iranian acquitted: The Court of Appeals overturned the verdict of a lower court which imposed the death penalty on an Iranian accused of smuggling drugs into the country. Case files indicate the Public Prosecution charged the Iranian, together with other suspects, of smuggling drugs into the country through the sea. They were also accused of bringing goods illegally into the country as they did not obtain proper documentation from the concerned authorities in Kuwait. According to the arresting officer, the accused smuggled 33 kgs of hashish through the sea with intention to deliver it to an unidentified person in Kuwait. The accused remained in a Kuwaiti jail until the Criminal Court sentenced them to death. Attorney Muhammad Hamza represented one of the accused in court. He questioned the arrest and search procedures which, he said, were carried out illegally. The Court of Appeals agreed with the lawyer so his client and the other defendants were acquitted. (source: arabtimesonline.com) MALAYSIA: Mum vows to fight on for son facing the gallows Death-row inmate Shahrul Izani Suparman, 32, is on tenterhooks, not knowing when he will face the gallows. But his mother, Sapenah Nawawi, 58, has not given up hope of trying to get the various parties to commute the death sentence. She has been sending pleas to the pardons board, the Attorney-General, the King and even the Sultan of Selangor's imam. "Knowing your son will die is agonising, but not knowing when is torturous," she said, adding that a date for the death sentence has yet to be fixed. Sapenah said she had asked the prison authorities but has yet to receive any answer. In 2003, Shahrul Izani, then 19, was arrested during a routine roadblock after being found in possession of 622gm of cannabis. In December 2009, he was convicted by the Shah Alam High Court for drug trafficking, an offence that carries the mandatory death penalty. His eldest brother Soffhian Soffree, 36, said Shahrul was an avid reader and always kept tabs on news of other prisoners who got pardoned. "Every time we visited Shahrul, he would ask the same question: 'Did they reply?'," he said, adding that the lack of answers left the family constantly on edge. Having exhausted his appeals before the Court of Appeal and Federal Court, Shahrul's only chance to escape the noose is by way of a pardon. The family has approached Amnesty International Malaysia for aid to campaign for Shahrul Izani's cause. Amnesty International is collecting signatures to appeal to the Selangor state pardons board, urging it to commute the death sentence. Amnesty executive director Shamini Darshni said Malaysia was 1 of 58 countries to still practise the death sentence and questioned its effectiveness as a deterrent against drug trafficking. According to 2014 statistics, 70% of the 992 people on death row in Malaysia were convicted for drug trafficking. (source: The Star) JORDAN: 3 sentenced to death for killing officers The State Security Court (SSC) on Sunday sentenced 3 men to the death penalty for murdering 2 police officers and a gendarme lieutenant in 2 separate cases in Irbid and Maan. The shooting in Irbid took place earlier in December 2015, involving 5 men who shot and killed Captain Jamal Darawsheh and Corporal Usama Jarawreh near the Samma intersection to the west of Irbid while in their patrol vehicle. 1 of the defendants was the brother of a man from the village who was killed in a police shootout in October last year, when police were trying to arrest him for alleged vandalism of an Islamic cemetery. The 2nd defendant was given life in prison for orchestrating the attack and transporting the weapon, while the 3rd defendant received 15 years in prison for providing the weapon while knowing it was going to be used against police officers, a judicial source told The Jordan Times. Meanwhile in the Maan case, the SSC sentenced 2 men to death and a third suspect to life in prison, for murdering Second Lieutenant Nart Nafesh in Maan in August 2014. The SSC charge sheet said 4 of the 5 defendants in the case sought to avenge the death of a relative during the unrest in the governorate and decided to target any police officer in the city. In the same case, the court sentenced a 3rd suspect to life in prison, declared a 4th not guilty for lack of evidence and referred a minor to a juvenile court, a judicial source told The Jordan Times. (source: The Jordan Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 22 17:09:53 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2016 17:09:53 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., S.C., FLA., NEV, . USA, US MIL. Message-ID: Feb. 22 TEXAS: Former death row inmate seeks $2 million in state compensation Former death row inmate Alfred Dewayne Brown filed a request Monday for almost $2 million dollars in state compensation saying he spent more than 12 years behind bars because he was wrongfully convicted. State senator Rodney Ellis and lawyers for Brown said the 33-year-old is eligible for a lump sum of $973,589 plus an annuity in that amount to be paid annually for the rest of his life. Brown was freed from prison last year, and his case has been dismissed but no official has said he is "actually innocent." See a timeline of the case in the gallery above. However under the Tim Cole Act, a state law providing compensation for the wrongfully convicted, Brown fits the definition of "exonerated," according to his lawyers. "No 'magic words' are required anymore," said Neal Manne, one of Brown's attorneys. "The magic is in the fact that you're released." In a red and white plaid button down shirt and jeans, Brown said little Monday except that he is working in construction and enjoying spending days with his family. "I'm good," he said. "Just staying around family." Brown spent 12 years and 62 days in jail, including a decade on death row after being convicted of capital murder in the fatal shooting of officer Charles Clark and clerk, Alfredia Jones during the robbery of a check-cashing store in 2003. The dismissal still rankles Houston police officers who have said, through their union officials, they continue to believe Brown was part of a gang of 3 men involved in the check cashing store robbery turned double murder. Clerk Alfredia Jones was killed in the shooting. Brown was released from jail June 8 after a police detective came forward with telephone records in the case that could have aided Brown's defense. The records might have bolstered Brown's alibi that he spent the day at his girlfriend's home. The state's highest court reversed the conviction and sent the case back to Houston. Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson decided last year that there was not enough credible evidence in the case for a re-trial and dismissed the charges, freeing Brown. That course of events is enough to show that he is presumed innocent, his lawyers said. The state comptroller will be in charge of distributing the money and other benefits, including free healthcare and free college tuition. (source: Houston Chronicle) NORTH CAROLINA: Jury recommends life in prison for Travion Smith for murder of Raleigh mom After hearing closing arguments Monday in the death penalty phase of the Travion Smith murder trial, the jury has recommended life in prison. A Wake County jury hasn't recommended the death penalty since 2007. Last week, Smith was convicted of beating and stabbing of 30-year-old Melissa Huggins-Jones, who was found dead by her 8-year-old daughter inside their North Hills apartment in May 2013. Smith and another man climbed up to a 2nd-floor balcony to get into her apartment after breaking into cars in the neighborhood to steal small valuables. In her closing arguments, prosecutor Melani Shekita told jurors Huggins-Jones was killed for just an iPhone. During the trial, the defense called several members of Smith's family to testify about his abusive childhood, trying to get the jury to spare his life. But in her closing, Shekita attacked that evidence. "Travion didn't live behind a white picket fence and have the perfect life - nobody does," offered Shekita as she pointed out that Smith has siblings who did succeed despite the difficult childhood. Shekita said Smith did suffer from ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, and depression - for which he was prescribed medication. But over the objection of the defense, she argued many middle school students suffer from similar conditions but don't kill people. "They're trying to blame his mother and his father," said Shekita. In his closing, prosecutor Jason Waller said Smith deserved the death penalty for the brutality of the crime. He said he and his accomplice stabbed Huggins-Jones 18 times in her bed - even stabbing her in the face. He said it took her a while to die as she bled out. "She went to bed with her daughter down the hall and these guys came in and did this! Why? For an iPhone," said Waller. In her rebuttal, defense attorney Phoebe Dee asked jurors not dismiss how hard Smith's childhood was. She said when his father learned his mother was pregnant, he beat her and punched her in the stomach in an attempt to cause a miscarriage. She called his upbringing incredibly difficult at the hands of 2 parents who didn't want him. Defense attorney Jonathan Broun asked for a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole - calling that harsh and severe enough for the crime. Broun told jurors the death penalty should be reserved for "the worst of the worst and "that's just not Travion." Last September, Smith's accomplice Ronald Anthony pleaded guilty to 1st-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. The plea deal spared him the death penalty. Charges against Sarah Redden, who allegedly acted as lookout and who agreed to testify against Smith, remain. (source: ABC news) SOUTH CAROLINA: Senate Panel to Consider Lethal Injection Secrecy Bill A bill that would veil lethal injections in secrecy has risen from the dead. The proposed law, sponsored by 4 Republican senators, would protect the identities of companies that sell lethal injection drugs to the state Department of Corrections, and exempt those purchases from state procurement laws and pharmacy board regulation. It would also protect the identities of the execution team, and of any pharmacists involved in mixing lethal injection drugs. It's a reflection of just how hard it's become for states to buy drugs for lethal injection. Last year, Corrections director Bryan Stirling told senators South Carolina had run out of drugs with which to kill people - and said the state hadn't been able to buy more. Many companies have quit selling drug for executions, and the American Pharmacists Association has called on its members not to provide such drugs. The bill, S.553, could help the state get those drugs - or not. There's still no guarantee that any company would be willing to sell South Carolina any of the drugs allowed for lethal injections, even without the fear of being identified publicly. And states aren't sharing information, possibly out of fear their sources will dry up. Opponents say the bill isn't needed. "There are no executions on hold because of this [lack of lethal injection drugs]," says Mandy Medlock, executive director of Justice 360, saying it'll be several years before the appeals process runs out for anyone on death row in South Carolina. "There's nothing urgent." Her group also opposes the secrecy provisions of the bill, saying it could shield botched executions from public scrutiny. In recent years, several executions in other states have been drawn out and apparently painful, particularly as states experiment with alternatives to the lethal injection drugs that have become so hard to get. "If the government is going to exercise the awesome power of taking the life of one of its citizens, it must do so with transparency and accountability," Justice 360 writes. But Sen. Mike Fair, one of the bill's sponsors, says opponents are just trying to delay the bill because they oppose the death penalty. This bill, he says, is about allowing the Department of Corrections to do its job. "If you want to end capital punishment, let's do it with a bill or let's do it with an amendment to our constitution or at least a referendum and let the people decide," Fair says. "This is not the way to go about it." Last spring the Senate Corrections and Penology Committee, which Fair chairs, split 7-7 on the bill. That meant the bill didn't advance out of committee to the Senate floor - but the tie vote didn't kill the bill, either. Then, Dylann Roof killed 9 people at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston - including Sen. Clementa Pinckney, who was also a member of the Corrections and Penology Committee. Fair says it didn't feel right to be talking about the death penalty after Pinckney was killed - and he didn't want to "give the appearance of trying to be opportunistic." So the bill was put on the back burner until this year. The committee membership has shifted since Pinckney's killing and the new session; it's unclear whether the bill will come up against another tie vote. The committee has 6 Democrats and 8 Republicans. Fair said last week he'd heard a compromise was in the works. But people on both sides of the discussion told Free Times they sat down together Thursday morning following a committee meeting, having been told there was a proposed compromise, only to find that neither side had such a compromise. The meeting lasted no more than 30 seconds. Laura Hudson, executive director of the South Carolina Crime Victims' Council, wants the bill passed quickly. "We don't want people who are manufacturing the drugs to be harassed by people," Hudson says. "We have the death penalty in this state. We delay it enough making sure we have the right person," she said, explaining that no victim would ever want the wrong person executed, but that the appeals process is long enough. The committee could vote on the bill this week. (source: Free Times) FLORIDA: Inmate in death penalty ruling seeks life in prison A death row inmate whose case led to the U.S. Supreme Court rejecting Florida's death-penalty sentencing system is arguing that he should be sentenced to life in prison. An attorney for Timothy Lee Hurst filed a motion Friday in the Florida Supreme Court asking that it send the case to a lower court for imposition of a life sentence. A challenge by Hurst led the U.S. Supreme Court last month to issue an 8-1 ruling that found Florida's death-penalty sentencing system unconstitutional. The ruling said juries -- not judges-- should be responsible for imposing the death penalty and that Florida's system of giving power to judges violated Hurst's Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury. State lawmakers are rushing to approve changes in the death-penalty system to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court decision, which also has spurred a debate about how the ruling should apply to inmates who were sentenced under the law that was struck down. Hurst was sentenced to death for the 1998 killing of fast-food worker Cynthia Harrison in Pensacola. Harrison, an assistant manager at a Popeye's Fried Chicken restaurant where Hurst worked, was bound, gagged and stabbed more than 60 times. Her body was found in a freezer. The motion filed Friday does not take issue with Hurst's guilt but says he should be sentenced to life in prison because he has "fundamentally been denied his Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial" in sentencing. (source: news4jax.com) NEVADA: Convictions, death sentence upheld for Las Vegas killer The Nevada Supreme Court has upheld the murder convictions and death sentence of Gregory Hover, who was found guilty by a Las Vegas jury in 2013 of killing 2 people during a crime spree that also involved a rape and robbery. In a 6-1 unpublished decision, the court rejected numerous challenges brought by Hover either as being unwarranted or because any mistakes were deemed to be harmless error. "Hover contends that the cumulative effect of errors warrants reversal of his convictions and sentences," the court majority said in upholding the jury's verdict and sentence. "However, a defendant is not entitled to a perfect trial, merely a fair one." Justice Michael Cherry dissented, arguing that several of the errors at Hover's trial affected his right to a fair trial. During Hover's penalty hearing in Clark County District Court in May of 2013, prosecutors described Hover as a racist who took pleasure in the suffering of his Hispanic victims. Defense lawyers said Hover had endured abuse as a child in Oklahoma but lived a normal life as a husband and father in Las Vegas before turning violent. Hover was employed as a process server when he kidnapped 21-year-old Prisma Contreras from a parking lot on East Tropicana Avenue. He proceeded to rape, stab and strangle her. The young mother's body was found in a burned-out car south of Boulder City on Jan. 15, 2010. Hover also was convicted of fatally shooting 64-year-old Julio Romero during a robbery on Jan. 25, 2010. (source: Las Vegas Review-Journal) USA: The Speaker for the Dead: Antonin Scalia and the Truth For a long time now, I've been waiting with diligent patience to write 3 articles: 1 on the passing of former President George W. Bush, 1 on the passing of former Vice President Dick Cheney and 1 on the passing of now-former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The novelist Orson Scott Card developed, in his writings, an idea for someone known as the Speaker for the Dead. A Speaker does not spit-polish and shine the departed at the graveside, doesn't eulogize inflated greatness or create a polite fiction to please and soothe. The Speaker tells the unvarnished truth about the one going into the ground: the good, the bad and the ugly. Today, I stand as Justice Scalia's Speaker for the Dead. First, the good: Justice Scalia dedicated his life to public service and scholarship in the law. He met his wife, Maureen McCarthy, on a blind date in 1960 and died with his wedding ring still on his finger. The couple raised five sons and four daughters together. Among his boon companions was Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who knew him from their shared days on the DC Circuit. The two made a long-standing ritual of sharing family dinner every New Year's Eve. If Justice Scalia was not loved by most, he was surely loved by many. The bad and the ugly, unfortunately, require more time in the telling. Whatever Justice Scalia may have been to his family and friends, he was to the nation a wrecking ball. One may try to deny that he was a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, an unabashed authoritarian and in the end a simple, shabby ward-heeling Republican lackey. The black-letter truths about the man, buried in his decisions for the majority and the minority, as well as his oft-quoted public comments, tell the true tale. It is abundantly clear that Mr. Scalia approached his duties with a broad sense of entitlement, exclusion and venom. The man had a lot of hate in his heart, and it poured out onto the pages of his decisions in vigorous abundance. Justice Scalia, by way of his argument in Bush v. Gore to stop the vote counting in Florida, was instrumental in giving us George W. Bush, which gave us Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, September 11, the ongoing Afghanistan War, WMD lies, the Iraq war with millions dead and maimed and displaced, the horror of ISIS, torture as accepted policy, surveillance as a fact of life, the assassination of constitutional law, absolute corporate rule, the disaster of Hurricane Katrina and the demolition of the US economy. Why? Because of his interpretation of the "questionable legality" of counting all the votes cast. Teachers from now until judgment day will speak of Bush v. Gore in the way they speak of Dred Scott and Brown v. Board as pivot points in history, moments that changed the world. Scalia's was not a positive moment, and bodies are still hitting the floor because of it. Justice Scalia ruled in favor of Citizens United because, he claimed, the framers of the US Constitution would welcome the power and influence of modern billion-dollar multinational corporations, despite the fact that Jefferson and the others regularly railed against corporate power with militant vehemence. Hell, the Boston Tea Party was a protest against corporate hegemony. Don't tell that to Tony. "Most of the Founders' resentment towards corporations was directed at the state-granted monopoly privileges that individually chartered corporations enjoyed," he wrote in his concurrence. "Modern corporations do not have such privileges." Yeah, right. Tell that to the tax man. Justice Scalia ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby's desire to discriminate against basically whoever they want because they think Jesus is whispering in their ear. In his dissenting opinion against same-sex marriage, he railed against the "civil consequences" of people who love each other consecrating their union. When Anthony Graves, a Black man, was spared the death chamber by court exoneration in Texas, Scalia argued in dissent that Graves should still be executed because established proof of innocence should not upend a standing court decision, even if that decision is decisively proven wrong. Justice Scalia ruled against a petition to drop a sodomy law directly aimed at the LGBTQ community, claiming the people in favor of the law were "protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive." Justice Scalia's disdain for anyone not heterosexual has been well documented. "Of course it is our moral heritage that one should not hate any human being or class of human beings," Scalia wrote in 1996. "But I had thought that one could consider certain conduct reprehensible - murder, for example, or polygamy, or cruelty to animals - and could exhibit even 'animus' toward such conduct. Surely that is the only sort of 'animus' at issue here: moral disapproval of homosexual conduct." Murderers, serial infidelity, dog killers, cat stranglers ... homosexuals. All "reprehensible" in the same pile. Justice Scalia was an equal opportunity despiser. Last, but not least, the ugly: The passing of Justice Scalia after a Texas quail hunt with a pillow over his flapped face has perfectly deranged the 2016 GOP presidential race, the GOP majority in Congress and politics in general. The conspiracy theories are flying faster than barn swallows with a beakful of meth. OBAMA DID IT. Anything to turn a buck. Right, Alex Jones? If you didn't exist, God would have to invent you just so people could have something to think about while taking a dump. Push, splash, wipe, flush, and so much for that. You just have to love the instantaneous GOP reaction to Scalia's passing. Obama can't appoint a new justice in his last year in office - that's unprecedented! (Justice Kennedy, nominated by Ronald Reagan, was voted to the bench in 1988, Reagan's last year in office). Obama can't make an interim Supreme Court appointment - that's unprecedented! (The venerable Justice Brennan was an interim appointment back when the Senate enjoyed the presence of Joe McCarthy). History Fail, precedent Fail, in Technicolor. Republicans in Congress are twisting themselves into strange rhetorical knots trying to argue against President Obama's ability and duty to nominate Scalia's successor. The issue came up in 2008, George W. Bush's last year in office. At that time, Sen. Chuck Grassley said, "The reality is that the Senate has never stopped confirming judicial nominees during the last few months of a president's term." Now, he's against it. Sen. Lamar Alexander said back then, "Just because it's a presidential election year is no excuse for us to take a vacation. And we're here. We're ready to go to work." Sen. John Cornyn said back then, "Now is the perfect time because, of course, we're in a presidential election year and no one yet knows who the next president will be. What a unique opportunity to establish that regardless of the next president's party, the nominees will be treated fairly and on the basis of their qualifications, and not on the basis of ancient political squabbles." Now, he's against it, too. The GOP candidates are falling all over themselves in a mad rush to keep the guy in the round room from nominating someone supremely qualified to screw up their plans to make being gay or a woman essentially illegal, to put a pistol in every pot, to shoot every undocumented immigrant on sight, to declare corporations the sole ruling entities in the nation, and to rain bombs and fire down upon the rest of the world for a tidy fee. Scalia's open seat is what the 2016 election will henceforth be about: abortion, Planned Parenthood, LGBTQ rights, war and how far hate itself can go before it goes too far. Justice Scalia, who was Reagan's dying breath, hurt people. We will be 10 generations getting out from under his legacy. His impact beggars quantification, but cannot be denied. The man took a hammer and chisel to the best aspects of our civil society and did sore damage for decades. He thought he was funny. In the end, he was the joke. Speaking of jokes, there is an old yarn about a man who would go to the newsstand every morning, buy a newspaper, scan the front page, growl, and then throw the paper away in disgust. One day, the paperboy who ran the stand ginned up enough courage to ask the man what it was he was looking for. "The obituaries," the man replied. "But sir," said the boy, "the obituaries are on page 30." The man looked the boy square in the eye and said, "When the bastard I'm looking for dies, he'll be on the front page." ... and there he is. I can officially check one off my list. As for George and Dick, well ... I contemplate Bob Dylan: "I'll watch while you're lowered down to your death bed, and I'll stand o'er your grave 'til I'm sure that you're dead." Amen. (source: Op-Ed; William Rivers Pitt, Truthout) US MILITARY: Oscar-nominated film spotlights death-row veterans, combat PTSD A film that raises questions about veterans' mental health care, capital punishment and justice for troubled troops is on the short list for an Oscar on Feb. 28. The 30-minute documentary "Last Day of Freedom" tells the story of former Marine Manuel Babbitt through the eyes of his brother Bill. Babbitt was executed in California in 1999 after being convicted of beating an elderly woman to death in Sacramento in 1980. Babbitt - "Manny" to family and friends - had suffered a head injury as a child, and despite having learning disabilities and dropping out of school in 7th grade at age 17, was recruited by the Marine Corps. He went to Vietnam and later developed a host of mental health issues, including schizophrenia, severe post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse. "They was able to discern his physical wounds and was able to patch them up, but they never got around to patching that wound in his head," Bill says in the film. Through a melange of film footage and animation using more than 30,000 drawings and sketches, filmmakers Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman follow Manny Babbitt's life from childhood to grave, focusing on his struggles but also on the system they believe failed him. "One of the things we really wanted to uncover is the complexities of the death penalty and of veterans' care," said Hibbert-Jones, an associate professor of art at the University of California-Santa Cruz. "The fact that someone would go to war and serve their country and then be failed by that country is a complete travesty." The movie is among 5 vying for the Academy Award for best short documentary. Going into the competition, it already has a bevy of accolades, including the best short film award at the International Documentary Association, as well as the jury and best filmmaker awards from the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. Hibbert-Jones said the 6-year project began as an effort to understand the impact of gang violence and PTSD on youth. "But as we listened to Bill's story, it was so powerful ... it really speaks to the issues of the judicial system, who goes to war for us, race and politics," she said. The exact number of combat veterans facing capital punishment in the United States is unknown. An extrapolation from several states released last November estimates that 275 to 300 of the country's 3,057 inmates on death row are veterans. Manny Babbitt is emblematic of many of these cases, Hibbert-Jones said. "Sadly, Manny's is not an unusual case," she said. Babbitt joined the Marine Corps under a program that admitted service members with IQs or physical standards lower than the accepted norm. He was struck in the head and hand by shrapnel at Khe Sanh, Vietnam, and returned to combat a week after he was wounded. When he got home, he began displaying symptoms of PTSD, including flashbacks and nightmares, according to Bill. He began abusing drugs and alcohol, and turned to crime, robbing gas stations and breaking into homes. He was caught, convicted and sentenced to prison but served most of his time in a mental hospital. After he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, he was let out. He went to live with Bill and his family, and during that time, he broke into the home of Leah Schendel, 78, and beat her to death. In the film, Bill talks about figuring out Manny participated in the crime and choosing to turn him in. "I was so grateful for these cops, you know? They were going to make it right, somehow," Bill Babbitt says. "I told my family it was going to be alright." After Manny was convicted and efforts to appeal the case failed, he was executed on his 50th birthday. In the year before his death, the Marine Corps awarded him his Purple Heart in prison. Hibbert-Jones, a native of England, and Talisman, an Israeli veteran, that they have lifelong feelings against the death penalty, viewing it as cruel and unusual punishment. But Hibbert-Jones said in cases involving the mentally ill, the punishment seems even more egregious. "We have been showing this film at universities, and people say, 'This was years ago. This doesn't happen today.' But that's not true. These issues have not gone away," she said. Nearly 40 years after Babbitt was discharged, the Defense Department does not know how many troops have been discharged with combat-related mental health disorders, according to the Government Accountability Office. According to a report published in 2015, the Army, Marine Corps and Navy do not accurately label the reasons for discharges ineligible for disability pay, making it impossible to know how many service members in the past decade have been kicked out for misbehavior that may be related to PTSD or other combat-related disorders. A Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation in 2013 by The Gazette of Colorado Springs found that the Army continues to discharge troops who have combat-related mental issues for misconduct and poor behavior without examining the connection between the 2. The report also found that Army psychologists face pressure to clear troops for discharge from superiors who want to thin the ranks. Hibbert-Jones said she would like to win in order to shine a spotlight on the plight of veterans' mental health and capital punishment. "One of our hopes for the film is it will reach audiences that might not otherwise be aware of these issues," Hibbert-Jones said. "Last Day of Freedom" is currently available on Netflix. (source: Military Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 22 17:11:27 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2016 17:11:27 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 22 LATVIA: Almost 40 % of Latvians call for the re-introduction of the death penalty According to a recent survey by Latvian research company, SKDS, slightly over 1/3 of Latvian residents believe that the country should re-introduce the death penalty. The survey took place in January 2016, with 36.6 % of recipients calling for the re-instatement of the death penalty. Meanwhile, 47.3 % had an opposite opinion on this matter and believe that the death penalty should not be re-introduced in Latvia. 16.1 % of those surveyed did not have a point of view. The death penalty was abolished in Latvia in 1991, when it gained independence from the Soviet Union. (source: The Baltic Times) PAKISTAN: SC maintains Abid Hussain's death penalty The Supreme Court (SC) on Monday maintained the conviction of Abid Hussain over killing of an innocent citizen and and dismissed his appeal. The 2-member bench comprising Justice Mushir Alam and Justice Manzoor Ahmed Malik heard the case filed by Abid Hussain against his death penalty. Justice Mnnzoor Malik remarked that lower courts and all other courts had dismissed all the petitions against his death sentence. The President had also dismissed his mercy appeal, he added. Advocate Sohail Dar told the court that his client was in prison for more than 22 years. Abid Hussain was awarded death penalty over killing of Muhamamd Fayyaz. (source: Business Recorder) UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: UAE tries Sudanese for bomb plot against foreigners A Sudanese man is being tried in the United Arab Emirates for allegedly plotting a bomb attack in Abu Dhabi aimed at killing foreigners, a local newspaper reported Monday. The National daily said that the unnamed 29-year-old defendant faces charges related to plotting to "commit acts of terror in the capital". "He scouted and inspected locations to execute his plan of planting explosives to kill foreigners in the country," the newspaper said on its website quoting court documents. It also quoted the prosecution as saying the defendant had posted on Facebook and Twitter material aimed at promoting and recruiting members for the Islamic State group. The man who appeared before an Abu Dhabi court is being tried under the UAE's anti-terror law. If convicted, he could face execution, life imprisonment and or fines of up to 100 million dirhams ($27.2 million), the paper said. The defendant has denied the charges against him. He has also asked for a court appointed lawyer saying he could not afford the legal fees, the newspaper added. The case was adjourned to March 14. UAE authorities have enacted tougher anti-terror legislation, including harsher jail terms and even introducing the death penalty for crimes linked to religious hatred and extremist groups. In July, the UAE executed an Emirati woman for the jihadist-inspired 2014 murder of an American school teacher in an Abu Dhabi shopping mall. Her husband is accused of seeking to carry out attacks on targets including Abu Dhabi's Formula 1 circuit and has reportedly claimed to be the local leader of IS. He is currently on trial. (source: Gulf Times) MALAYSIA: Come give a death-row inmate a little cheer----Amnesty International Malaysia is urging Malaysians to celebrate 32nd birthday of inmate facing the gallows to give him a little comfort as Pardons Board hears his case. Amnesty International Malaysia is planning to bring a death row inmate some joy by getting Malaysians to celebrate his 32nd birthday next month. Shahrul Izani Suparman was handed down the death sentence in 2009, 6 years after he was arrested when a stash of cannabis was discovered hidden in a motorcycle he had borrowed. For 13 years, Shahrul Izani had maintained he did not know the drugs were stashed in the basket of the motorcycle and is currently awaiting his clemency application to be heard before the state Pardons Board. AI Malaysia Executive Director Shamini Darshni, in a statement, explained the aim of the campaign was to give the young man hope, which was currently in "short supply." "For a man who is forced to listen to a fellow death row inmate struggle to breathe his last when hanging from the rope, we hope that this action would bring him some small comfort." She hoped that by celebrating Shahrul Izani's birthday, by sending him greeting cards, the initiative would become a platform that would bring people together as a sign of solidarity and send a strong signal to the authorities that the death penalty had no place in today's society. Shamini is also hoping the birthday greetings would give encouragement to Shahrul Izani and his family and show them that he was not forgotten and there were still those who would continue to stand with him. "On another level, AI Malaysia also hopes that this campaign will drive home the point that the death penalty solves no crime, nor will it deter drugs from entering the market or prevent other crimes from happening." Those wanting to participate in the campaign may purchase a birthday card and write a message for Shahrul Izani. Completed birthday cards should be posted to AI Malaysia at D-2-33A, 8 Avenue, Jalan Sungai Jernih 8/1, Section 8, 46050 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia, which will act as a collection centre. E-cards with a message to Shahrul Izani should be sent to aimalaysia at aimalaysia.org. Additionally, AI Malaysia is also encouraging people to download a photo tag of a specialised birthday greeting to Shahrul Izani from aimalaysia.org. Once this photo tag is downloaded, the public will be encouraged to take a selfie or a wefie with the photo tag and post it on any or all of the social media platforms with the hashtag #ShahrulIzani. There is also an online petition that Malaysians can sign to urge the Selangor Clemency Board to commute Shahrul Izani's death sentence to life imprisonment as he could be executed at any time. (source: Free Malaysia Today) INDONESIA: Rock band urges House to create pro-death-penalty-law for corruptors Legendary Indonesian rock band Slank has called on the House of Representatives to create a law that imposes the death penalty on people who have committed corruption. During their short musical performance at the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) headquarters, on Monday, lead vocalist Akhadi Wira Satriaji, who is popularly known as Kaka, and drummer Bimbim voiced their support for the antigraft body to the audience. "Instead of proposing amendments to the 2002 KPK Law, it's better for House members to produce a law that stipulates a death penalty for corrupt officials," said Bimbim. He made the statement before the veteran rock band performed one of its popular songs, entitled "Koruptor Dor". Earlier, Kaka said Slank's performance at the KPK headquarters was done in support of the antigraft body. "We are performing today to assert that Slank is anticorruption and supports the KPK," said the band's vocalist before he sang a song entitled "Seperti Para Koruptor", the 1st of 5 songs the band played. The 3 others songs were "Halal", "Hey Bung", a song that captures Indonesia's situation during the authoritarian New Order era, and "Ku Tak Bisa". Before the band's musical performance, a representative of the KPK employees association (WP KPK), who identified himself only as Faisal, conveyed all KPK employees' rejection of the planned amendments of the KPK law. The WP KPK urged President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to withdraw the draft KPK Law revisions already submitted by the government to the House, Faisal read from an association statement. It also urged the House to stop the discussion on the revisions. In the statement, the WP KPK voiced its support for the KPK leaders who had strongly rejected the plan. The House started discussions over the revisions earlier this month despite a public outcry. Many parties have feared that such a move will weaken the KPK, an antigraft institution that has largely won the public trust. The revisions of the KPK Law are listed as one of the priority bills in the 2016 National Legislation Program (Prolegnas). The House has 40 priority bills on the Prolegnas 2016, which must be finished this year. Several lawmakers, many of them from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), Jokowi's supporting party, which is also the main driver of the revisions, have denied suspicions that they intend to weaken the KPK. The proposed KPK Law revisions consists of 4 amendment points that have been strongly criticized by the public. The 4 amendments would mandate the establishment of an oversight council to monitor the antigraft body's performance, give the KPK the authority to issue investigation termination warrants in corruption cases, require the KPK to obtain permits to conduct wiretaps and remove the KPK's ability to recruit its own investigators. (source: The Jakarta Post) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Feb 23 09:37:46 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2016 09:37:46 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.C., FLA., ALA., MISS., OHIO, MO., CALIF., USA Message-ID: Feb. 23 NORTH CAROLINA----female may face death penalty Greensboro woman charged with murder of toddler appears in court A woman accused of killing her 15-month-old daughter was told Monday in Guilford County District Court that she could face the death penalty. Cherelle Marie Rhoden, 25, of 3809 Overland Heights is charged with 1st-degree murder of a child younger than 2 years old and intentional child abuse causing serious bodily injury in the death of ZeNobya Latrice Rhoden, who died on May 8, 2015. Rhoden is also an absconder from probation and parole, according to the N.C. Department of Correction's website. She was on probation for a May 2014 conviction in Guilford County for willful or wanton injury to real property and 2nd-degree trespass. In court on Monday, District Court Judge Angela Foster told Rhoden that she was facing life in prison without parole or the death penalty on the murder charge. (source: Fox news) FLORIDA: Jacksonville mother takes fight against death penalty to Tallahassee A Jacksonville mother is in Tallahassee Tuesday to continue her fight against the death penalty. Darlene Farah wants the man accused of killing her daughter, Shelby, to not die. Darlene Farah walked into the State Attorney's Office Thursday afternoon with her son Caleb, their victim's advocate and her attorney. She had 1 thing on her mind. "I want to focus on the healing process. I'm tired," Farah said. James Rhodes, 24, is accused of killing Shelby at a Metro PCS store where she worked in 2013. Darlene Farah will meet with lawmakers and advocate for legislation requiring a unanimous jury verdict in death penalty cases. Darlene Farah has been asking the State Attorney's Office to let her daughter's alleged killer serve a life term. The request has been refused. "He's been ready to plea out 2 life sentences and 20 years it would be over with," Darlene Farah said. The State Attorney's Office sent a statement that reads in part, "The State is still seeking the death penalty in this case. Due to this being a pending matter, it would be inappropriate to comment further." The State Attorney's Office also said the case is set for a hearing on Wednesday to address the various motions filed by the defense. (source: actionnewsjax.com) ALABAMA: Bill would create commission to examine felony convictions A Senate committee plans a hearing Wednesday on a bill that could establish a new commission to investigate felony convictions in certain cases, and impose a year-long moratorium on capital punishment in Alabama. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Dick Brewbaker, R-Montgomery, would create an Innocence Inquiry Commission within the state court system. The commission could review cases where there was "some credible, verifiable evidence of innocence" that was not present at trial or during sentencing hearings. If the commission finds sufficient evidence of innocence in a case, Alabama's Chief Justice would convene a 3-judge panel in the judicial circuit where the conviction took place to hear the evidence. The panel could vacate some or all of the charges against the accused on a unanimous vote. Though the bill is not specific to death penalty cases, Brewbaker said last week it aimed to ensure fairness in the capital punishment process. "I'm in favor of the death penalty," he said. "I think for people who absolutely refuse to live at peace with their neighbors, the death penalty is the only appropriate remedy. That said, the death penalty process needs to have all the integrity you can give it to make sure you don't execute people who are innocent." Alabama has put 57 people to death since executions resumed in the state in 1983. But capital punishment in Alabama faces legal challenges, and, recently, shortages of supplies of the drugs used for executions. The state went nearly 2 1/2 years without an execution before Christopher Brooks was put to death on Jan. 21 for the 1992 rape, murder, and robbery of Jo Deann Campbell. The bill, if passed, would bring a halt to executions in the state until June 1, 2017. Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma, who has pushed for an overall moratorium on capital punishment, said Monday he would prefer that extended to a 3-year stoppage, but said he would support the bill if it came to a vote. "What Sen. Brewbaker is doing is a step toward fairness and justice," he said. "I think it needs to go a lot of further, but it's a step toward fairness and justice." But Janette Grantham, executive director of VOCAL, a crime victims' rights group, opposed the moratorium. Grantham said Monday it would affect all the pending executions set by the state. "I think the other issues can be worked out," she said. "The moratorium affects all of them. There's quite a few them where there's no doubt they're guilty. It's not fair keeping victims waiting 30 years for a little piece of justice." The commission would not have to review cases brought to it. Generally, at least 5 of the 8 members would need to vote to review a case to allow it to go to the panel. If the defendant pleaded guilty, all eight members would have to vote to move the case forward. The commission's proceedings and deliberations would not be open to the public. Brewbaker said the commission would consider new evidence, not raise procedural questions, as happens in the post-conviction appeals process known as Rule 32. "It is not a not guilty commission," he said. "It's an innocence commission. You can't raise a Rule 32 issue and think this commission is going to let you off." Texas and North Carolina created similar commissions, Brewbaker said. North Carolina's found evidence that led to the 2014 release of Henry McCollum and Leon Brown, 2 half-brothers convicted in 1984 of the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl. The commission discovered DNA evidence from a cigarette butt at the crime scene linking the murder to another man, according to the Raleigh News & Observer. But Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-death penalty group based in Washington, said Monday these commissions "do not come close to exonerating everyone who's innocent." "When you have eyewitnesses coerced into giving false identifications, or informants who lie to gain favor for themselves, it is often extraordinarily difficult for an innocent person to do anything more than establish doubt about their reliability," he said. "People who have been wrongly convicted as a result of that type of evidence are frequently left out in the cold by the high procedural hurdles these commissions sometimes establish. And they often find it extraordinarily difficult to prove their innocence in the state and federal courts." Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh, R-Anniston, has signed on as co-sponsor, as have Democrats Rodger Smitherman of Birmingham and Vivian Davis Figures of Mobile. (source: Montgomery Advertiser) MISSISSIPPI: Man freed from Mississippi death row: 'Racism is still around' After 23 years in prison and 5 years on Mississippi's death row for murder, Gary Griffin is a free man.But he admitted he is not innocent. Gary Griffin and his lawyer, Ken Rose, senior staff attorney for the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, spoke Monday as part of the "Race, Innocence and the End of the Death Penalty' lecture series. "Today, racism is still around," Griffin said in an interview. "We see that with police shootings, gerrymandering, red lining of housing, so it seemed like we were worse off in 2016 than we was in 1985. We haven't made any progress." Griffin said students are vital to the change he said society needs to see. "It was the student movements of the '50s, the '60s and '70s that brought about change," he said. "And we gonna need you guys to bring about change this time." Griffin said he wanted others to become passionate about social change after hearing his lecture. "I speak to inspire others to stand up, to reevaluate their values and their opinions of what they see in front of them," he said. Political science professor Frank Baumgartner said this lecture series has a theme of injustice in crime and punishment. The series is hosted by Baumgartner's class of the same name and the political science department. "The entire series is about the issues related to innocence, racial disparities in the criminal justice system, the death penalty in particular and whether the death penalty is really something that is worth it," he said. Baumgartner said the lecture was important to his class, but he said that was not the only reason he hosted it. "I think that the people that come in with these personal stories can convey to the students in a way that I could never do," he said. Baumgartner said he respects different opinions on capital punishment. "I am personally opposed to it in the absolute because I do not believe in killing. However, I understand that other people differ on that," he said. "I think what we can agree on is whether the system is worth the administrative problems, and I think that's where we can reach common grounds on the facts and evidence." Rose said the lecture was about more than the death penalty. "It's about prison (and) mass incarceration," Rose said in an interview. "It's about the death penalty. It's about the focus of society on incarceration over education, over childhood welfare, over other things we could be spending our resources on that would have a greater impact on the health and welfare of many of our population." Griffin said he was well aware he could not undo the wrongs he has done. "If I can't help anybody, then I am surely not going to hurt them," he said. (source: The Daily Tar Heel) OHIO: Opponents Hopeful Pope's Calls to End Death Penalty Resonate in Ohio----Executions are on hold in Ohio until 2017 as prison officials search for the necessary lethal injection drugs. Death penalty opponents are hopeful the pope's calls to stop the use of capital punishment worldwide will resonate in Ohio, where executions have been highly criticized. After a 2007 assessment found Ohio fell short in 93 % of standards for a fair and accurate state death penalty system, an Ohio Supreme Court task force put forth recommendations for improvement. Abraham Bonowitz, spokesperson for Ohioans to Stop Executions, explains that since then, more Ohioans support the alternative of life in prison without parole. And because Pope Francis is a moral leader for the world, says Bonowitz, his calls should be heard. "We've got many, many Catholics here and many Catholics in leadership, in the legislature for example," he says. "And what we have to realize is that all of the mainstream Christian faiths and other religions as well call for ending the death penalty." Ohio has a moratorium on executions until at least 2017, as prison officials attempt to secure the drugs needed for lethal injection. Of more than 140 death-row inmates in Ohio, 25 have a set execution date starting early next year. Controversy grew over the death penalty in Ohio in 2014, when Dennis McGuire appeared to choke and struggle for 10 minutes during lethal injection. The state contends he did not suffer distress, and has said it plans to increase dosages in the future. Andrea Koverman, program manager with the Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center in Cincinnati, says the incident opened many people's eyes. "More and more people are questioning the practice, not only from moral principles but because of its ineffectiveness and the expense of it all," says Koverman. "And people are realizing it has not been an effective deterrent." Recent research from the University of North Carolina found significant racial, gender, and geographic disparities in the 53 executions performed in Ohio since the state resumed capital punishment in the 1970s. Bonowitz contends an alternative punishment is needed in order to ensure a fair system. "It's one thing to believe in the concept of the death penalty, but if you look at it and understand how the system fails us - it's not fair, it's not equitably applied," says Bonowitz. "The more you know about the death penalty, the less you like it." According to Ohioans to Stop Executions, 9 death row inmates have been exonerated, spending a combined 190 years on death row before release. (source: publicnewsservice.org) MISSOURI: Worst of the Worst Deserve the Ultimate Penalty This week marks the 2-year anniversary since little Hailey Owens was kidnapped outside her home and then raped and murdered at a home in Springfield. That crime is a reminder of what unimaginable cruelty and evil some people in our society are capable of. Unfortunately, cases like Hailey's play out all over the country all too often. As we look back at Hailey's case and so many other heinous crimes that have been committed against our neighbors and fellow citizens, it is an appropriate time to revisit the issue of the death penalty and its use as a necessary and fair punishment. The death penalty is 1 of the most hotly debated and emotionally charged issues this country has faced over the last half-century. This debate usually takes the form of hypothetical arguments and a long list of what-ifs. The problem with these debates over the death penalty is that they miss the most important point: the victims. There have been 1,427 executions since 1976 and a conservative estimate of the victims of those murderers exceeds 2,000. That's 2,000 people who will never spend another moment with their children, will never know their grandchildren, and will never have another chance to hold their spouse in their arms. They were violently ripped from this world while their families were left to cope with the horrible crime committed against their loved one. At the same time, their murderers spent decades eating 3 square meals a day, receiving free healthcare, and reading and writing their days away. Is that fair? Is that justice? Is it justice for a victim's family to never receive closure? Is it fair for a criminal, guilty of the most heinous acts one can commit, to live out their days while the victim's life is literally taken and their families' lives are figuratively taken? Last week, the Missouri Senate debated a bill, Senate Bill 816, which would repeal Missouri's death penalty. Proponents of the bill started out by arguing that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent and cited studies to try to back it up. But, they failed to recognize a few important points. Given that 1 in 6 of the people sentenced to death in the last 35 years have actually been executed, no studies properly looked at whether the fact so few are actually executed reduces the deterrent effect. Furthermore, the death penalty is a 100 % effective deterrent when actually carried out. That criminal will never take another life. That may sound tough but what should we tell the family of Boris Naumoff of California. His killer, Robert Massie, previously murdered a mother of 2 during a follow-home robbery. Hours before execution, a stay was issued so Massie could testify against his accomplice. Massie's sentence was commuted to life when the Supreme Court halted executions in 1972. Receiving an undeserved 2nd chance, Massie was paroled and 8 months later robbed and murdered Naumoff. Proponents then argued that public opinion is shifting and that Americans are turning against the death penalty. Their claims are just flat-out wrong. Even with an energetic public campaign and the media and pundits aiding efforts, an October 2011 Gallup poll showed that 61 % of Americans still support the death penalty, while a 2003 Zogby poll found that over 66 % of Missourians supported the death penalty. In a country as divided as ours, 60 % support of the death penalty is about as solid as it gets. We can have a worthwhile conversation about how the death penalty is applied or whether it is an effective deterrent, but this is not what opponents of the death penalty are seeking. They want a wholesale repeal and ban that ignores the nature and motivation of these terrible crimes and that ignores what these criminals did to their victims and what is still happening to their families. To put this issue in perspective, it's estimated that there are over 14,000 murders a year, while only 28 convicted murderers were executed last year. This proves that the death penalty is truly for the worst of the worst. The people of Missouri and the 29th District have continually voiced their strong support of the death penalty and I took that voice to the Senate floor last week as I spoke out against SB 816 and, along with my colleagues, ensured that it will not become law this year. We owe it to Hailey Owens and the thousands of victims and their families to stand our ground. As always, I welcome your ideas, questions and concerns about Missouri government. You may contact me at the State Capitol as follows: (573) 751-1480, david.sater at senate.mo.gov or by writing to Sen. David Sater, Missouri State Capitol, Room 419, Jefferson City, MO 65101. (source: Column; Sen. David Sater, R-Cassville----Missouri Times) CALIFORNIA: Death penalty still on the table for Noonkester A Cottonwood man who is possibly facing the death penalty for the deaths of his ex-wife and her father reaffirmed his innocence Monday in Tehama County Superior Court. Tehama County District Attorney Gregg Cohen told a Superior Court judge Monday afternoon that his office is still weighing whether to seek the death penalty against double-murder defendant John Wayne Noonkester, 32. Cohen said his office is continuing to review the issue and talking with the family of the victims before finally determining how to proceed. Noonkester, who reentered his not guilty plea during a brief appearance in court, is not scheduled to return until May 16. Superior Court Judge C. Todd Bottke said he will set a trial date for Noonkester at that time unless a resolution is reached in the case. Redding defense attorney Joe Gazzigli said after court he hopes a resolution can be reached, saying it's his wish the DA's office doesn't seek the death penalty against his client. But if it does, Gazzigli said, he would have no other choice than to take the case to trial. "It's (the death penalty) still on the table," Gazzigli said. Noonkester, who was ordered last month to stand trial on 2 counts of 1st-degree murder and other charges, is accused of murdering his ex-wife, Kimberlee Thomas, 29, and her father, Keith Thomas, 53, during a July 3 shooting rampage outside the Little Country Store in Lake California. Tehama County Sheriff's Detective Eric Patterson testified at Noonkester's preliminary hearing last month that Noonkester fired at least 10 rounds, shooting Kimberlee Thomas twice, including once while she was lying on the ground. Her father, who was Noonkester's 1st victim, was also shot as he was lying on the ground, including one shot to the head. Sheriff's deputies have said the shooting erupted outside the store after Kimberlee Thomas called 911 to report that her ex-husband and the father of their 2 young children had punched her father. Although a possible motive behind the shooting was not raised at the preliminary hearing, electronic court records show that Noonkester had been involved in a dispute with his ex-wife over the custody of their 2 children after she had filed for divorce earlier that year. In addition to murder, Noonkester is charged with attempted murder in the wounding of bystander Anthony Maitias Baugher, then 25, of Cottonwood. Noonkester is being held in Tehama County Jail without bail. (source: Record Searchlight) *************** Local murder prompts death penalty verdict Nearly 5 years after a Moreno Valley man was shot dead during a home invasion robbery, a Riverside jury decided that a 40-year-old resident of that city should be executed for his role in the slaying. Romaine Ulyses Martin is scheduled to be sentenced April 22 in Riverside Superior Court for the 2011 gang-related murder of Jerry Mitchell Jr. in the victim's Carnation Lane condominium. Co-defendant Deontray Robinson is scheduled to return to court Tuesday, Feb. 23, to set a date for him to face a new penalty phase of his trial after his previous jury deadlocked Nov. 13 on whether he should be executed or imprisoned for life without the possibility of parole. (source: Press-Enterprise) USA: Inconsistent executions make death penalty unjust I've read the stories. The horrific tales of helpless, innocent people - many of them women and children - tortured and killed by sociopaths in manners inconceivable to any decent human mind. As a society, we often attempt to understand these killers' psychology, their impetus for mortal violence. But more often than not, we are left in a quandary submitting to the notion that such brutality is beyond the grasp of our moral understandings. What is not beyond our collective reasoning is the acknowledgment that these killers deserve the same fate as their victims - a death sentence. It is not my opinion that this reflexive desire for definitive retribution demonstrates any moral shortcomings. People who commit crimes deserve a befitting punishment for their crimes, and we, as a community of people, are responsible for delivering these punishments in the interest of protecting a moral harmony that upholds our communities. Moreover, most of us understand that punishments cannot be delivered indiscreetly, and that there needs to be a proportionality to our method: A killer of innocent children is more aptly punished by death than 3 months in jail. The dilemma we face in our country is not our innate idea of proportional punishment. It is the fact that our historically flawed and immensely complicated society, including our judicial system, makes it impossible to deliver death to those who deserve it in a consistently just manner. Though it might be a matter of regional zeitgeists, how can we justify the disturbingly lopsided reality that roughly 2 % of all counties in America are accountable for the majority of all executions? Can we justify it by pointing to the dictum that punishing brutal crimes like murder with death acts as the most effective and formidable deterrence? And therefore, should we naturally expect these regions with a high propensity to execute to also have the lowest rates of murders? The reality is quite the opposite. Since 1976, the South overwhelmingly leads the rest of the country in number of executions with 1,147 (Texas and Oklahoma alone are responsible for 639). The murder rate in the South was 5.5 per 100,000 persons in 2014, the highest in the entire country. In contrast, the Northeast had the lowest number of executions in the country with 4 per 100,000 persons, yet had the lowest murder rate with 3.3. So as a matter of ultimate deterrence, the statistics fail to support what seems apparently intuitive. The question that might remain in some people's minds is, "What if we were able to prove a murderer's guilt beyond the most reasonable doubts?" What if we fine-tune the standards of our criminal justice system and the way we prosecute? Will we then be able to bring the death penalty with indisputable confidence to murderers? Once again, this aspiration is not consistent with reality. Since 1973, 150 people on death row have been exonerated with evidence of their innocence. This is not a small number, and to think that it is would be devaluing innocent life. And this 150 merely represents the cases that were actually given the chance to be re-evaluated and have light shone on the missteps of sloppy defending and corrupt prosecuting. Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative portrayed several such cases through tense and heart-wrenching accounts in his book, "Just Mercy." Stevenson's imperative work highlights the pathology in the criminal justice system, namely, but not exclusive to the South, where trials play out like a lock and key situation - hastily convict a man to pacify the public, often with racial motives - secure the lock and throw away the key. It's truly a "buried alive" type of scenario. Race and lower socioeconomic status are egregiously intertwined with the death penalty. To suggest otherwise is blatant ignorance of the facts. Multiple studies show that race of the accused and the victim play a prominent role in determination of the death penalty. In a study reviewing influence of race and the death penalty, 96 percent revealed a pattern. The suggestion that the death penalty is unviable in this country is not an admission that our society is incapable of weighing and acknowledging crimes that ought to be punished by death. It is our proven history of judicial fallibility and deliberate unfairness with administering these punishments that render the death penalty not only unviable, but also cruel and unusual. (source: Commentary; Matthew Man is a Rutgers College Class of 2003 alumnus----The Daily Targum) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Feb 23 09:38:30 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2016 09:38:30 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 23 GLOBAL: The death penalty saves lives - the pope is wrong to call for a ban The pope wants a worldwide ban on the death penalty and it is not hard to think of countries where the range of offences that attract it is frighteningly large. The frequency of its application is just as worrying but to state that it can never be justified is wrong. I have never defended the use or availability of capital punishment on the grounds of retribution and would echo his holiness's own phraseology in saying that no matter how serious the crime, it is wrong if its purpose is merely an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Using it as a deterrent is, however, a very different matter for it saves innocent lives. Pope Francis claims that the death penalty is "an offence against the inviolability of life and the dignity of the person" but what about the life and dignity of a victim who would not be a victim if the death penalty were in force? For if capital punishment deters - and I will shortly be looking at the evidence for the assertion that it does - then effectively there is a choice of lives to be made: those of the guilty or those of the innocent. We cannot pretend that choice is not there. The state's duty in these circumstances is an extension of the individual's right to self-defence. If we believe our lives or those of others are at genuine risk then we can use whatever force is necessary to mount a credible defence including, in extremis, killing. Thus, if the state has reason to believe that its citizens' lives are threatened it must defend them. To ignore the deterrent effect is to condemn innocent people to death and a state that does that is morally responsible for those deaths. Is that really what the pope is advocating? Therefore the crux of the argument is: is it really a deterrent? In the 5 years immediately following the abolition of the death penalty in Britain the government still collected statistics based on the distinction between capital and non-capital murder precisely in order to assess the effect of abolition and the effect was startling. The capital murder rate had risen almost 125%. It is worth pausing just to absorb that. There was also a substantial rise in the number of times firearms were taken on robberies. On the strength of those figures it is possible to make a compelling moral case for the availability of a death penalty. Capital punishment can be rarely used and still be a deterrent as long as it is available and used occasionally. This argument, however, applies to Britain where the categories of murder attracting the death penalty were latterly narrowly defined and intended to reflect premeditation. No penalty can deter spontaneous anger or jealousy or judgment impaired by drink or drugs. Whether or not the penalty is actually a deterrent will vary from country to country. Pope Francis contends there are no circumstances that ever justify the death penalty. They clearly sometimes do. Of course there are other arguments against the death penalty, not least that of the fallibility of human justice and the irreversibility of the penalty where justice has failed, but his holiness was not making a practical case against judicial execution: he was relying on principle and asserting the principle to be unchallengeable. It is not. (source: Opinion, Ann Widdecombe; The Guardian) MALAYSIA: 6 in Lahad Datu intrusion case plead guilty 6 accused in the Lahad Datu intrusion case pleaded guilty at the High Court in Kota Kinabalu today to a charge of being a member of a terrorist group. They are Philippine nationals Atik Hussin Abu Bakar, 45; Lin Mad Salleh, 50; Holland Kalbi, 50; Basad H Manuel, 41; Ismail Yasin, 76; and Virgilio Nemar Patulada alias Mohammad Alam Patulada, 52. The charge under Section 130KA of the Penal Code provides for life imprisonment and a fine. However, justice Stephen Chung reserved sentencing as 4 of the accused - Atik Hussin, Manuel, Ismail and Patulada would be entering their defence for a charge of waging war against the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, which carries the death penalty. During mitigation, their counsel N Sivananthan said that some of his clients were duped by the leader of the armed intruders into coming to Kampung Tanduo in Lahad Datu three years ago. Mitigating for Atik Hussin, Lin and Holland, Sivananthan said they were promised a job in the state and even a Malaysian identity card. "The moment they realised what the group was really up to at Kampung Tanduo, they attempted to run away. "The reason they are entering a guilty plea now after the prosecution trial is because they had accepted the fact that they had come to Sabah with the (terrorist) group," he said. Sivananthan said Manuel was promised an office job in Sabah, but was tasked to collecting water and preparing meals for other members of the group who had intruded into Kampung Tanduo. The counsel also said that Manuel had stated that whenever he went to collect water from a well in the village, he was constantly guarded by men with firearms to ensure that he did not try to escape. Sivananthan said Ismail and Patulada did not expect the armed group to get involved in a skirmish that eventually claimed the lives of many, including 9 security personnel. He said Ismail escaped from Kampung Tanduo after hearing gunfire and paddled a boat towards the Malaysian-Philippine border, while Patulada stated that he was shot at by the other intruders. "They all have families and are sole breadwinners and came to Sabah with the hope of making better lives for themselves and their families because it does not make sense that they leave their families to come here to be in a war where they can lose their lives and deprive their families of their sole breadwinners. 'Kiram played a cruel trick on them' "Datu Agbimuddin Kiram (leader of the intruders) played a cruel trick on these unsuspecting individuals (accused) by enticing them to Sabah," he said. Deputy public prosecutor Mohd Dusuki Mokhtar said mitigation would not deter the sentence to be meted out due to the fact that the sentence had to be based on public interest. "We argue that the armed intrusion led by Datu Agbimuddin is an encroachment and a direct challenge to the sovereignty and security of Malaysia ... a lenient sentence would undermine and compromise the sovereignty of Malaysia as an independent nation," he said. Mohd Dusuki said the court should also take into account that the skirmishes that happened had resulted in the deaths of 9 members of the security forces, who were brutally attacked and killed, while some were badly injured. "An act of terrorism is a transnational phenomenon with global effects and has become a challenge to the community of civilised nations. "This is the 1st case where Malaysia, as an independent nation, had been intruded by foreigners involved in terrorism and, on that basis, this honourable court should impose a maximum sentence as it will set a benchmark of precedence on all subsequent cases, if any," he said. Mohd Dusuki also observed that in any mitigation, the matter of family hardship and other usual problems of living would be raised and he suggested that the correct approach in meting out a sentence was to strike a balance between the interest of the public and that of the accused. 5 accused, including 3 local men, are expected to enter a guilty plea tomorrow. A Filipino and a Malaysian are charged with being members of a terrorist group. Another Filipino and a Malaysian face life imprisonment or imprisonment not exceeding 30 years or a fine on an amended charge of soliciting or giving support to a terrorist group. Another Malaysian faces imprisonment of up to 30 years and a fine on an amended charge of soliciting a terrorist group by providing financial aid. Yesterday, 10 of 16 Filipino accused wanted to plead guilty on charges that do not carry the capital punishment (death), but 2, who are charged with being members of a terrorist group, changed their minds today and will enter their defence. The defence trial, which was fixed for 3 weeks beginning yesterday (Feb 22) at the Sabah Prisons Department, will proceed after the guilty plea and mitigation of all 8 Filipinos and 3 Malaysians have been recorded. (source: malaysiakini.com) PAKISTAN: Fundamental rights: Justice system 'punishes only the unprivileged' The state has embarked upon executing hordes of prisoners, speakers at a panel discussion said on Monday. The discussion was titled Terror on Death Row. Justice Project Pakistan had arranged the session in collaboration with the Forman Journalism Society at the Forman Christian College University (FCCU). Analyst Ejaz Haider and JPP executive director Sarah Belal were the panellists. The session was moderated by Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) Assistant Professor Uzair Kayani. The panellists said that following the December 2014 attack on Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar, the government had vowed to crack down on terrorism through a number of controversial measures. These were opposed in parliament and by some members of civil society. They said that rather than challenging the inherent cruelty of capital punishment, it seemed that the state had embarked upon executing hordes of prisoners. In 2014, the JPP had released a report titled Torture on Death Row. The panellists said the report had brought to the fore statistics related to terrorism charges and how they related to terrorism as broadly understood. The report indicated that out of 818 cases, 256 were found to have no links to terrorism ... the convicts were charged for other crimes under the Pakistan Penal Code and were tried at anti-terrorism courts. Of the remaining 562, 112 had committed crimes that could be defined as terrorism as "understood broadly", they said. Belal began with a history of the laws in place that she said were often used arbitrarily. These included the Anti-terrorism Act, 1997, and the Protection of Pakistan Ordinance, 2014. She said, "The situation was held to have gotten worse since the massacre of the school children in December 2014 in Peshawar. The definition of terrorism in both these pieces of legislation is overtly broad and can be stretched to include the most ordinary crime." She cited the case of Zafar Iqbal who she said was a client of the JPP. The lifting of the moratorium on death penalty had further weakened the criminal justice system in the country, she said. The participants alleged that extra-judicial methods, including torture, were regularly used to extract confessions from prisoners at the anti-terrorism courts. Other challenges to the right to fair trial such as denial of bail to the defendant were also mentioned. Belal said that the criminal justice system was structured towards punishing the unprivileged only. "If you have capital, you will not get capital punishment," she said. Haider said that there was inherent tension during times of war between the moral principle of not killing nonchalantly and the necessity to kill. He said that the existence of anti-terrorism courts was not an issue, only the abuse of these courts was. (source: Express Tribune) TAIWAN: Nearly 85 % don't trust Taiwan's judges, prosecutors According to the figures of a poll released on Monday, an overwhelming majority of Taiwanese citizens do not trust the judges and prosecutors of their legal system, with distrust rising year on year. A whopping 84.6 % of respondents rated judges and prosecutors as untrustworthy and unfair, rising from 76.5 % in a poll conducted for 2014. The dissatisfaction was connected with the way respondents perceived fairness in how judges handled cases. Another 76.5 % of respondents also expressed parallel dissatisfaction with the fairness of state prosecutors. The bad ratings were somewhat mitigated by the fact that 86.2 % of respondents said they felt safe in and around their home neighborhoods. Ratings for law enforcement also reached an all time high, with 72.9 % indicating they were satisfied with efforts to maintain public safety. A total of 43.9 % cent rated public safety to be "good." Not all areas of crime prevention received favourable ratings, however. Respondents were deeply dissatisfied with measures to prevent government corruption (78.7 %). The poll was conducted by the Crime Research Center of National Chung Cheng University in Chiayi, which asked 1,715 respondents (aged 20 and older) during the period of Jan. 25 to Feb. 2 to rate their impression of the local legal system for 2015. The margin of error was calculated at 2.2 %. The director of the centre, Yang Shih-lung, believed that several rulings in high-profile cases, including the Ting Hsin food safety and public housing projects scandals might have revealed divergences with public opinion. Yang recommended that regulations be implemented to dismiss judges that transgress their duties in order to raise the quality of the judicial system. Failure to respond on these issues could further erode the public's trust in the judicial system, he reasoned. Heavy Support for Death Penalty The survey also showed continuing support for capital punishment, with 83 % of respondents opposed to repealing the death penalty. Similarly conservative viewpoints on drug users and drug-related crime were prevalent, with 57.3 % of respondents believing that drug addicts should not be viewed as patients. Another 78 % believed that the government needed to institute penal reforms. The research centre recommended that government agencies commit more resources in order to use Big Data to combat drug abuse and trafficking while improving prevention programs. (source: asiaone.com) ZIMBABWE: MNANGAGWA DEPLORES DEATH PENALTY Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa says Zimbabwe is making progress in minimising cases that attract death sentences. In his address at the 9th edition of the International Congress of Ministers of Justice, which opened today in Rome, Italy, Cde Mnangagwa said while efforts are being made to do away with death penalty, Zimbabweans voted in favour of the capital punishment in the new constitution. Cde Mnangagwa said Zimbabwe values human life and has managed to uphold human sanctity by exclusion of women and children from death penalty. The Vice President, who survived death penalty due to his young age when he was sentenced in 1965 by the Rhodesian government, said he understands how those sentenced to death feel despite the seriousness of crimes committed. He added that only God has the right to take away life. Concerns have been raised at this conference that some people can be wrongfully convicted and once they are sentenced to death, one cannot get back his or her life hence the need to abolish the capital punishment. The community of Saint Egidio, who are the organisers of this conference,,are of the opinion that the imposition of death penalty by states is in violation of the right to life and only lowers the state to the level of the perpetrator. (source: Zimbabwe Daily) PHILIPPINES: Escudero rejects re-imposition of death penalty Vice presidential hopeful Senator Francis Escudero expressed Tuesday his strong disapproval over the revival of death penalty. "It is easy to say, 'I will kill all the criminals.' What if your sibling, spouse, parent, or child is accused of being a criminal? Or what if it is true? Let's say, a true criminal, doesn't he have the chance to change, to correct his mistake?" the senator said in a statement. "As long as there is life, there is hope and chance to correct the wrongdoing," he added. In 1987, the Philippines was the first country in Asia to abolish death penalty but it was however re-imposed in 1992 during the Ramos administration because of heinous crimes, from murder to rape and drug-related offenses. In 1999, then president and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada lifted the ban on executions and in 2006, the Philippines completely abolished the capital punishment for all crimes, with the enactment of An Act Prohibiting the Imposition of Death Penalty in the Philippines, or Republic Act 9364. Escudero said the death penalty failed to recognize that guilty people have the potential to change, denying them the opportunity to rejoin society. He added that such punishment "was discriminatory and used disproportionately against the poor who cannot afford good legal representation." "I believe no man was born wicked. He just becomes wicked because of the environment. And if he becomes wicked, the Lord is giving him the chance to change and rehabilitate. How much more a human is?" Escudero siad. "Punish him if he needs to be punished; teach him the right lesson if needed. It is however not in the man???s hand to slay his fellowman and end his chance to change and to straighten whatever offense or mistake he had done." Escudero likewise said the death penalty would not work in the country because its justice system is "rife with discrimination, corruption, and abuse." Besides, he said the country had long shifted from punitive to restorative justice, allowing offenders to recognize their mistakes, make amends for their wrongdoing, and avoid further involvement in criminal activities. (source: Sun Star) IRAN: Death sentence of young Kurdish man becomes definite The Iranian judiciary has finalized the death sentence that had been handed dwon to a young Kurdish man who was under the age of 18 at the time of attributed crime. The country's Supreme Court upheld the death sentence issued for a young man by the name of Heyman Uraminezhad. This young man is currently held in Sanandaj Central Prison waiting for his sentence to be carried out. Heyman is currently 21 years old and was convicted on premeditated murder by the Sanandaj Prime Court. Iran under the rule of the clerical regime is one of the leading executioners of juvenile offenders, Amnesty International said Monday. In a new report, Amnesty International said last month that it had documented the execution of at least 73 juveniles in Iran from 2005 to 2015 and that 160 juvenile offenders are languishing on the country's death row. According to the Amnesty International, the report was based on information received from death-penalty opponents and human rights defenders in Iran, as well as from lawyers and relatives of juveniles convicted of capital crimes in Iran. Now that Iran is emerging from an era of international sanctions and is seeking broader acceptance, Ms. Auerbach said, rights groups are hoping that the Iranian authorities "realize they have to act in accordance with international human rights standards." There have been over 2,300 executions in Iran since Hassan Rouhani has been in office, more than in any similar period in the past 25 years. The victims include political dissidents like Gholamreza Khosravi, an activist of Iran's principal opposition, the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK) who was hanged solely for providing financial assistance to a satellite television station supporting the opposition. On April 20, 2014 Rouhani described these executions as "God's commandments" and "laws of the parliament that belongs to the people." (source: NCRI) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Feb 23 14:51:31 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2016 14:51:31 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., FLA., OHIO, NEB., CALIF. Message-ID: Feb. 23 PENNSYLVANIA: Castille erred in reviewing death-penalty case The decision to seek the death penalty is one of the most profound responsibilities entrusted to any district attorney. Seeking a punishment that ends the life of a human being, even when that person is accused of having committed murder, is a solemn and sobering decision that cannot be taken lightly. In the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, when I led it, the decision to seek a death-penalty sentence was the result of an intensive process, but the final decision was mine alone. In an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case, Williams v. Pennsylvania, a former district attorney argues that his decision to seek capital punishment was an administrative act that did not bias his later adjudication of the case while on the state Supreme Court. My experience suggests otherwise. Williams v. Pennsylvania will be heard on Monday, in 1 of the 1st cases to be argued without the presence of Justice Antonin Scalia. The case addresses the refusal of Ronald Castille, the former chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, to recuse himself from appellate review of the case of Terrance Williams, a death-row prisoner. Before he was elected to the state Supreme Court, Castille was the district attorney of Philadelphia, and in that capacity he sought a death sentence against Williams, which he authorized in a handwritten note. Castille led the city's District Attorney's Office during the trial, capital sentencing, post-trial, and direct appeal proceedings in Williams' case. When he ran for election to the state Supreme Court, The Inquirer reported that Castille proclaimed that he "sent 45 people to death row." Among them was Williams. However, in 2012, a state court found that the District Attorney's Office under Castille's leadership committed prosecutorial misconduct in Williams' case, illegally withholding important mitigating evidence from Williams' defense lawyer. A new sentencing hearing was ordered. When the current district attorney of Philadelphia appealed the decision, it went to the state Supreme Court, where Castille had become chief justice. Williams' attorneys requested that the chief justice recuse himself, or put the question of his recusal to the full court. Castille refused to do either and remained on the bench in consideration of the case, despite the fact that it involved an accusation of misconduct against his former office and the reversal of a death sentence he personally authorized as district attorney. Many former prosecutors, former judges, legal ethicists, and others share my concern about this case. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Castille argue that the decision to seek the death penalty against Williams was purely ministerial, that Castille had no knowledge of the facts of the case, and that therefore he could review the death sentence with no preconceived feelings or opinions about the case. Pennsylvania and Castille also argue that Castille's supervisory role over the prosecutor who committed misconduct in Williams' case did not affect his ability to be fair when judging the case. My experiences as the Los Angeles County district attorney for 8 years and as chief deputy district attorney for 4 years make it clear to me that these arguments hold no water. I believe that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for Castille to fairly review the lower court's decision that a prosecutor he supervised committed misconduct. A district attorney is responsible for the professional conduct of his or her deputies. Misconduct of 1 deputy reflects on the integrity of the office as a whole, and accusations of misconduct implicate problems with leadership. The lower court's finding in Williams' case that a deputy committed misconduct indicated failings in Castille's leadership that I do not believe he would be able to review and consider impartially. A judge must always "hold the balance" in our legal system in order for the public to retain its confidence and trust in the courts. The U.S. Supreme Court should send Williams' case back for consideration by a court that does not include Castille. (source: Gil Garcetti served 32 years in the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, including 12 years as the district attorney ---- philly.com) FLORIDA: Juries must be unanimous on death sentences Florida's death penalty sentencing law is on track to get significantly better. Just not good enough. When the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 12 struck down Florida's capital sentencing system because it gives juries too little weight, the Legislature was forced to amend the law in order for executions to resume in the state. Although the court's ruling in Hurst v. Florida didn't address the issue, bills in the House and Senate both seek to change the number of jurors required to agree on a death sentence. It's a long overdue overhaul. Florida is 1 of just 3 states, along with Alabama and Delaware, that do not require a jury be unanimous on recommending the death penalty. However, Florida stands alone in allowing a simple majority of jurors (7) to issue a death sentence (Alabama requires a supermajority of jurors (10); Delaware calls for jurors to unanimously agree on whether the defendant is eligible for the death penalty, but their sentencing recommendation can be split). Florida's unique position is both constitutionally and morally suspect, as it leaves so much room for doubt when handing down the ultimate penalty. Indeed, the Florida Supreme Court has cited legal precedent and the state's "outlier status" in urging the Legislature to re-examine the state's capital sentencing statute, so as to bring Florida "closer to the mainstream of capital sentencing states in regard to jury findings." Hurst added urgency to that move. A bill in the Florida Senate would change the law to require jurors be unanimous in both finding a defendant eligible for the death penalty and in recommending the sentence be imposed. The original version of a similar bill filed in the House diverged from the Senate measure on the key issue of unanimity by requiring a supermajority of nine jurors to recommend a death sentence. Tuesday, however, the House bill was amended to bump that supermajority up to 10 jurors, putting Florida's law on par with Alabama's. Some legal and political observers believe that is setting the stage for a compromise between the 2 chambers, and that the Senate bill eventually will abandon jury unanimity and adopt the House supermajority of 10. Although that's an improvement to the current system, it still allows sentencing to proceed despite substantial doubt. There must be the highest level of certainty attainable when sentencing a convict to death, for a mistake cannot be undone if an innocent person is executed. To be sure, adopting unanimity would lead to fewer death sentences. A study by the Harvard Law School found that requiring jury unanimity in Florida, Alabama, and Delaware would have caused a death sentences over the last 5 years to drop from 117 to 26. The goal, however, should not be to put as many convicts on death row as possible. It should be to mete out "eye for an eye" justice to those most deserving of it - while ensuring the innocent are not wrongly convicted. To that end, the results of a recent Tampa Bay Times review of more than 450 death penalty cases dating back decades found that prisoners who were sentenced to death based on non-unanimous jury recommendations were far more likely to have their cases overturned on direct appeal, or to be ultimately acquitted. The newspaper noted that Florida leads the nation in death row exonerations. That statistic alone demands a thorough review of the state's judicial system. The Legislature, however, can install a powerful check against miscarriages of justice by requiring jury unanimity on death sentences, just as 29 other states have. (source: Editorial Board, Panama City News-Herald) ************** Judge: Death sentence still in play A Brevard judge said the death penalty remains in play for Anthony Welch and denied the convicted killer's motion to be sentenced to life in prison. A man who used a souvenir samurai sword to stab and hack his 2 neighbors to death before going on a date, will be back in court this morning seeking a life sentence for his crimes. Anthony Welch was 22 years old when he murdered Suntree couple Rufus and Kyoko Johnson, his former next-door neighbors. According to reports, Welch tied up the couple -- both in their 60s -- tried to extort money, tortured and killed them. Welch pleaded guilty in 2005 to the double murder and was sentenced to death. But the Florida Supreme Court reversed the sentence in 2008 citing an error by his trial judge made during jury selection in the penalty phase. Welch has been waiting for a re-sentencing trial ever since. But just last month the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Florida's death penalty is unconstitutional. The court said it was a violation of the sixth amendment to have the judge and not a jury determine the "aggravating circumstances" or facts that lead to a sentence of death. This morning, Welch's attorney -- Chief Assistant Public Defender Michael Pirolo -- will ask the court to sentence Welch to the only sentence on the table right now: life in prison. Last week, Judge James Earp made a similar ruling in the state's case against William Woodward but the state promptly appealed his ruling with the 5th District Court of Appeals. (source: Florida Today) ************* Lingering questions should end death penalty in Florida----Senate temporarily postpones medical marijuana expansion bill Legislation that the Florida House of Representatives approved last week cures what the U.S. Supreme Court specifically found wrong with Florida's death penalty, but Rick Scott shouldn't plan on signing any more death warrants soon, if ever. 6 large questions linger. Will the Supreme Court uphold it? The court did not say, in "Hurst v. Florida," whether a jury could recommend death by less than a unanimous vote. The House bill would allow it with only 10 votes out of 12. What will it cost? Probably a lot less than Florida has been spending, provided there are fewer death sentences. No one knows. What happens to the 389 people on death row? That's for the state Supreme Court to say. Washington passed the buck to Tallahassee to decide whether abridging Timothy Hurst's right to trial by jury was, as the state contends, "harmless error." If the Florida court finds that his and other sentences must be overturned, it's no sure thing that the new trial process could be applied retroactively. Is it what the voters want? That's the big question: The answer seems to be no. Then why do it? Because legislators care a lot more about the death penalty than the public does. Unless a new poll is far-out wrong, there has been an upheaval in public opinion on the issue of the death penalty for murder. In a survey of 879 Florida voters conducted Feb. 3-4, only 35 % favored execution over 3 alternatives. More than 1/2 preferred life without parole, especially if the killers were made to work in prison and pay restitution to victims' families. There was even some support - 9 % - for parole after 40 years, which Florida does not allow. Significantly, more than three of every 4 voters said they would still vote for a candidate of their party with whom they agreed on other issues even if they differed over the death penalty. Republicans were more in favor of executions than Democrats or independents were, but still by less than a majority. Only 2 % of all voters said the death penalty is the issue that matters most to them. These findings are in a survey by Public Policy Polling, of Charlotte, North Carolina. It was commissioned by the Florida Center for Capital Representation at the Florida International University School of Law. The FIU center organized the appeal on behalf of Timothy Hurst, a killer from Pensacola, that evoked the 8-1 decision holding Florida's trial process unconstitutional. Florida has had the judge rather than the jury decide whether aggravating factors call for death instead of a life sentence. During oral argument, Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked in effect whether the court should also require a unanimous jury recommendation for death. But the majority opinion, which she wrote, didn't address that issue. Only Alabama and Delaware (whose death penalty is in disuse) allow 10-2 death recommendations. Nearly half the 296 death sentence appeals decided by the Florida Supreme Court from 2000 through 2012 involved jury recommendations of 9-3, 8-4, or 7-5. (Hurst's also was 7-5) Moreover, a jury's vote for life would now be binding on the judge, who could still overrule a death recommendation. With Justice Antonin Scalia???s seat vacant on a court where 2 other justices are on record against the death penalty under all circumstances, Florida will be challenging the odds if the final bill allows 10-2 death recommendations. The version awaiting debate in the Senate requires unanimity: the choice of 73 % of the respondents in that poll. The Senate would be prudent to insist on it. It's regrettable that Florida isn't taking the "Hurst" decision as an opportunity to join the 19 states without the death penalty. 6 - Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey and New York - have repealed it just since 2007. Most legislators, I suspect, realize that the death penalty costs much more to carry out than imprisonment for life, that it's still imposed arbitrarily, that it's prone to executing the innocent, that it has no deterrent value, and that it isn't necessary to protect society. But they still vote for it. When the Supreme Court overturned capital punishment nationwide in 1972, there were 91 people awaiting execution in Florida. They were resentenced to life without parole under a law the Legislature had passed earlier that year in anticipation of such a ruling. Subsequently, 3 were completely exonerated and released from prison. There have been 22 more death row exonerations since then, including a prisoner who died of cancer before DNA testing established his innocence. The 1972 resentencing law is still on the books and could be used to spare Florida the enormous expense and uncertain legal prospects of trying to hold new sentencing hearings for nearly 400 people. It would apply even if the Legislature failed to rewrite what the Supreme Court found unconstitutional. But the lawmakers are under heavy pressure from prosecutors, for whom the death penalty is an effective tool to extract plea bargains and turn co-defendants into state witnesses. That function is one of the reasons why the death penalty is still as random as being struck by lightning, as Justice Potter Stewart put it in 1972 and Justice Stephen Breyer reiterated last year. And, yes, there's a caveat to those poll numbers that seem to say the public doesn't care about what legislators do with the death penalty. The questions posed to those 879 Florida voters weren't loaded. A campaign attack ad would be. Remember Willie Horton? At least there were 20 House members - all Democrats - willing to take that risk this time. When the Legislature re-enacted capital punishment in 1972, only 3 of the 160 legislators dared to vote no. (source: Martin Dyckman is a retired associate editor of the newspaper formerly known as the St. Petersburg Times. He lives in suburban Asheville, North Carolina----floridapolitics.com) OHIO: Death-row experience interweaves lives of priest, man he helped free When Father Neil Kokoothe first met Joseph D'Ambrosio on Ohio's death row in December 1998, he intended to describe the funeral of the condemned man's mother. D'Ambrosio would not listen, however. Another inmate had told him the priest had been a lawyer before ordination. Now, D'Ambrosio pleaded for help with his case. "It's God's providence," D'Ambrosio, a lifelong Catholic, said recently of Father Kokoothe's unexpected entrance into his life. A 3-judge panel had convicted D'Ambrosio of murder in 1989 after a trial that lasted less than 3 days. No forensic evidence linked him to the crime and D'Ambrosio insisted he had not killed teenager Anthony Klann. Father Kokoothe hesitated to help. "My ministry on death row was never about getting involved in their cases," he said. "I simply wanted to companion some men who had been sentenced to death." He told D'Ambrosio he did not have time to read thousands of pages of transcripts and appellate work. Father Kokoothe was stunned when the convict informed him that his capital case filled a single volume. The priest read it, spotting problems in the only witness account that placed D'Ambrosio at the crime scene. Father Kokoothe knew, for example, that it was impossible for the victim to scream for mercy with gaping stab wounds in his trachea. Not only was the priest a lawyer, but he also had worked as a registered nurse for 15 years. Father Kokoothe visited D'Ambrosio a few weeks later. He promised to investigate -- but only if the prisoner swore he had nothing to do with the murder. Then he added another condition. "He looked me dead in the eye and said, 'One little deceit and I'm through with you!'" D'Ambrosio recalled. Father Kokoothe said that some people ignore his background as an attorney and a nurse. They assume he believes anyone claiming to be innocent. "I think just the opposite is the case," he said. "I want empirical proof that this is true." For his part, D'Ambrosio longed to clear his name. "He knew that a new trial and new evidence would win his freedom," Father Kokoothe said in an interview for Catholic News Service. In his ensuing research, the priest learned that Klann, the only witness in a rape trial, had been slain before he could testify. The accused rapist was the same man who fingered D'Ambrosio for Klann's murder. Father Kokoothe also discovered that the prosecution had withheld crucial evidence from D'Ambrosio's public defender. The priest enlisted the aid of journalists who eventually publicized D'Ambrosio's story. Still, the years rolled by. Then another death-row inmate exhausted his appeals and he asked his spiritual adviser, a minister, to help D'Ambrosio instead. The pastor contacted a prestigious law firm and it agreed to work pro bono on D'Ambrosio's case. Meanwhile, Father Kokoothe continued to support D'Ambrosio. The men are close in age, with both in their mid-50s, but the priest developed a paternal attitude toward the prisoner. Prior to a retrial, a judge ordered that D'Ambrosio be released on house arrest. Father Kokoothe worried it would be cruel to give D'Ambrosio a taste of freedom, however limited. If the case went against the defendant, he might return to death row within months. Father Kokoothe advised him to stay in the county jail. D'Ambrosio rejected the suggestion. "1 minute of freedom is worth it," he said. "I was living in a 6-foot-by-9-foot cell for 22 years!" D'Ambrosio moved into a friend's apartment, leaving it only for medical appointments and meetings with his lawyers. Then, during a pre-trial hearing, the prosecution revealed that it still had not shared all physical evidence with D'Ambrosio's defense team. A federal judge soon ordered D'Ambrosio's release, and she ruled that his conviction and sentence be expunged. He was exonerated Jan. 23, 2012. Prosecutors appealed her decision. In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case. David Mills, a court-appointed attorney who ultimately ensured that D'Ambrosio was released and not retried, acknowledged Father Kokoothe's pivotal role years earlier. "He essentially started everything in terms of overturning Joe's conviction," Mills said of the priest. "By meeting with Joe and really listening, he got the ball rolling." As a free man, D'Ambrosio no longer needed an advocate, but his life had been on hold for 2 decades. By that time, Father Kokoothe was pastor of St. Clarence Parish in North Olmsted. Many parishioners had corresponded with D'Ambrosio when he was in prison; some attended his court proceedings. Nobody objected when the parish hired the self-described jack-of-all-trades as a maintenance man. Congregations of various religious denominations as well as groups opposed to capital punishment often invited D'Ambrosio and Father Kokoothe to relate their experience. When the two finally spoke at St. Clarence, parishioners packed the church. They presented D'Ambrosio with a watch engraved with the date of the Supreme Court decision that allowed him to get on with life. "It's one of my most cherished things," D'Ambrosio said. "I've never felt more unconditional love than I have in this parish. This is my family." In recent years, D'Ambrosio and Father Kokoothe addressed federal public defenders in Arizona and Idaho, the National Defense Investigators Association convention in San Diego and an anti-death penalty organization in London. In this Year of Mercy, they will make several presentations. Although he sometimes speaks alone, D'Ambrosio said they work best as a team. "It's a brother-type relationship," D'Ambrosio said. An incident last year illustrated this. "Death row is not a good experience," Father Kokoothe said. "If it were me, there would come a time when I wanted to put it behind me, totally, and just move on." He asked D'Ambrosio when he wanted to stop speaking about his ordeal. Almost executed for a crime he did not commit, D'Ambrosio did not need to reflect before answering. "Not until the death penalty is done," he said. (source: Catholic News Service) NEBRASKA: Nebraska death penalty foes to launch statewide campaign Nebraska death penalty opponents are launching a statewide campaign with a new name. The group Retain a Just Nebraska will announce the next phase of its campaign Wednesday at the Capitol. The organization previously operated under the name Nebraskans for Public Safety. Retain a Just Nebraska will ask voters to reject a proposal that would keep the death penalty legal in Nebraska. Lawmakers abolished capital punishment in May, but death penalty supporters responded with a petition drive that suspended the new law until voters decide the issue in the November general election. Nebraska currently has 10 men on death row. Gov. Pete Ricketts has said the state will not pursue any executions until voters decide whether to keep the death penalty. (source: KETV news) CALIFORNIA: Weird Secrecy Surrounds Questionable Orange County Death-Penalty Case Having recently arrived from the gloomy, sun-starved section of San Quentin State Prison, Kenneth Clair wore a smile when he emerged inside Orange County's Central Courthouse. The inmate last visited the place when Ronald Reagan occupied the White House, the Soviet Union existed, nobody outside of Arkansas had heard of the Clintons and only a tiny portion of Americans owned cellphones. But his elation wasn't because he was avoiding the ultimate penal-code fate for 28 years or because a federal court last year overturned his death-penalty punishment after a special circumstances murder conviction. He was happy to see family members and supporters attending a hearing in Superior Court Judge Thomas M. Goethals' courtroom. Clair's upbeat sentiment masked a brutal life story. Neglected as an infant in his native Louisiana, violently abused as a youngster, sent as a 17-year-old petty thief to the nation's most horrific adult penitentiary, where the daily norm included forcible sexual assaults, he'd hoped to start a new life by moving to California in 1983. Within a year, however, authorities charged the then-25-year-old homeless man with the attempted rape, robbery and murder of a Santa Ana babysitter at an alleged white supremacist's house. Though no physical evidence tied the dark-skinned African-American to the crime scene, and an eyewitness who saw the intruder at close range insisted the killer had been Caucasian, prosecutors succeeded in sending him to death row. Never mind, too, that multiple other witnesses recanted anti-Clair statements, saying law-enforcement officials offered hidden incentives to utter pro-government testimony, according to court records reviewed by the Weekly. Also that police failed to seriously probe a possible connection to the rape of another nearby woman in the weeks before the killing. And that forensic scientists concluded the murderer's clothes would have been soaked in blood, but a woman who saw Clair shortly after the crime observed nothing unusual about his appearance. And that officials supposedly lost crime-scene evidence when defense lawyers asked to study it. And that upon learning of the behind-the-scenes hanky-panky, several jurors declared they would have voted not guilty had they been fully enlightened. In a sworn declaration, one member of the citizens' panel labeled herself disgusted she'd been hoodwinked by the Orange County district attorney's office (OCDA). Fast forward to Feb. 19, when a sheriff's deputy pushed a wheelchair carrying the knee-injured Clair into Goethals' courtroom. Prison has taken its toll; he looks a decade older than his age, 56. A relative overcome with emotion asked if she could sit next to the handcuffed defendant at the defense table, but a bailiff shook his head no. For weeks, the judge understandably believed the hearing would require the mere technicality of resentencing Clair to a term of life in prison without the possibility for parole (LWOP). But this case just can't escape controversy. In an unusually secretive ruling in March 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that Clair's trial attorney in 1987 provided "profoundly deficient" representation. The 3-judge panel then removed the death penalty, issued a protective order on involved lawyers and published an opinion devoid of key factual references that hindered readers' ability to tie the ruling to Clair. The matter slowly returned to Orange County, where it landed in Goethals' court for either a penalty-phase retrial or a rubberstamp LWOP determination. What the hell was happening? The judge said, "It's difficult to imagine what's going on here." The answer wasn't forthcoming, at least for the public. Scott Simmons, a high-ranking OCDA homicide prosecutor, and Clair's San Francisco-based appellate lawyer, John Grele, told Goethals they couldn't speak freely about the case in open court. For 17 minutes, they huddled in chambers. When they finished, the judge announced he'd learned "a little" more about the situation, but he didn't offer specifics. What we did discover is there's an impasse. Simmons had hoped Grele would readily accept a non-contested downward departure from death to LWOP. But that outcome robs the penniless Clair of publicly provided legal counsel afforded to death-row inmates as he battles pending suspicious law-enforcement actions against him. Instead, to Simmons' irritation, Grele announced he wants Goethals to remove the special circumstances finding so his client would receive a term no worse than 25 years to life, which could mean he's already eligible for parole. "This is more complicated than it initially appeared," observed the judge. Lurking as a backdrop to the dispute is a huge, unsolved mystery. OCDA officials asserted for years that DNA recovered from the murdered babysitter, Linda Faye Rodgers, belonged to Clair, who, they claimed, attempted to rape her, too. But in 2008 and with the defendant having served 21 years on death row at that point, their version of reality crumbled. Advances in forensic science made a startling discovery: The DNA doesn't actually belong to Clair. Fair-minded observers have gasped at the twist, but District Attorney Tony Rackauckas and his surrogates, Simmons and his homicide unit boss, Dan Wagner, stubbornly claim the news is irrelevant. Though the Ninth Circuit asserted there's a possibility Clair could be factually innocent, the local prosecutors say they remain positive of his guilt. To support that stance, they point chiefly to an informant's surreptitious recording of the defendant repeatedly proclaiming his innocence but also asking a person not to cooperate with police detectives investigating Rodgers' death. Simmons knows the identity of the male tied to the DNA recovered from the victim's vagina, but he refuses to reveal it, explaining the individual was too young at the time of the killing to be guilty. He also blocked Grele's request to inspect the name under a protective order so that he could investigate if one of the person's older, DNA-sharing male relatives is the killer. To justify that concealment, the deputy DA declared privacy concerns supersede Clair's due-process rights, a position he took even when a state execution loomed. The 1st issue Goethals plans to tackle is whether he has jurisdiction to grant the defense motion to strike the special circumstances verdict if he eventually determines that's the correct course. "I don't want to engage in a meaningless exercise," he said. Stating accuracy is more important than speed in the current scenario, the judge will study in-depth briefs from both sides. To ponder the next step in this bizarre case, he ordered the parties to return on March 18. At the hearing's conclusion, Clair's relatives couldn't hide decades' worth of emotional scars as they slowly walked down a courthouse hallway with 3 reporters in tow. They appreciated that C.J. Ford - an Orange County private investigator and expert in the case - accompanied them. In their minds, the OCDA cheated to steal an innocent, underprivileged man's freedom, and they weren't comfortable when Goethals conducted the powwow with the lawyers outside of their presence. They even lectured the court-appointed Grele, claiming he'd callously kept them in dark about his strategy for the session. "After everything that has happened, I don't trust any of them," said Johnnie Mae Stokes, Clair's sister, who was on the verge of tears. She paused, distraught about her sibling's plight. "Why should I?" (source: Orange County Weekly) From rhalperi at smu.edu Tue Feb 23 14:52:17 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Tue, 23 Feb 2016 14:52:17 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 23 PHILIPPINES: Chiz opposes death penalty Vice presidential aspirant Senator Francis "Chiz" Escudero yesterday reiterated his belief that law offenders deserve 2nd chances, echoing Pope Francis' position for the need to abolish the death penalty across the globe. "Habang may buhay, may pag-asa at may pagkakataong iwasto ang pagkakamali," Escudero said. Proposals to revive the capital punishment are being floated for offenders of drug trafficking and other heinous crimes at the height of the May 2016 election campaign. Escudero said that while such policy is easy to propose, there is no guarantee such move would deter offenders from committing heinous crimes. "It's easy to say I will kill all criminals. What if it's your sibling, your spouse, parent or child who would be accused of being a criminal? What if it's true? If he is convicted as a criminal, does it mean he has no chance of changing? That he cannot correct his mistakes?" Escudero pointed out. "I believe no one is born evil. One becomes a bad or commits crime due to the environment he is in. And if he becomes bad, you see even God gives 2nd chances, shouldn't people do the same?" Escudero added. The senator's statement came at a time when Pope Francis urged Catholic leaders around the world to suspend death sentences for a year to mark the Holy Year of Mercy, while insisting that the commandment "You shall not kill" was absolute and equally valid for the guilty as for the innocent. Since 1998, Escudero has been a staunch advocate of the repeal of the death penalty since he first became a lawmaker, until the capital punishment was finally abolished in 2006 during his 3rd and final term as representative of the 1st district of Sorsogon in Congress. (source: tempo.com.ph) PAKISTAN----executions Sahiwal: 2 death row prisoners hanged 2 death row convicts were sent to the gallows in the Central Jail Sahiwal on early Tuesday morning while execution of another death row prisoner was postponed, Dunya News reported. The dead bodies of the prisoners were handed over to their heirs. According to details, death row prisoner Faiz was executed for killing a man named Barkat in 1992. Death row prisoner Ramzan was hanged for murdering 3 women in 2004. Meanwhile, the execution of death row prisoner Ghulam Murtaza was postponed after the 2 rival parties reached a settlement. (source: Dunya News) DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC of CONGO: DR Congo court sentences journalist's killer to death A court in the Democratic Republic of Congo sentenced a man to death for murdering a journalist, but acquitted 4 other defendants in the case, the lawyer for the victim's family said Tuesday. The penalty was handed down by the High Court in the northeastern town Boende late Monday after Eoma Pendeli Musa was found "guilty of the murder of Soleil Balanga", Elvis Boto told AFP by telephone. Balanga, 45, worked for a community radio station, Monkoto Soso Eleli ("The Cock Crows" in Lingala) in Monkoto, a town of about 5,000 people that sits in the nation's northwest. Musa slit Balanga's throat on April 15, 2015, accusing the journalist of broadcasting news that his father Jean-Pierre Soma Pendeli Domaro was to be replaced in his hospital supervisor's post. Judicial authorities arrested 5 people after the murder and put them on trial. Boto said he was "disappointed by this verdict", which acquitted Musa's father and a former doctor at the hospital, Charles Tete Ndjeka, along with 2 others. According to the lawyer, Pendeli Domaro and Ndjeka were "morally responsible for the murder". "We plan to appeal," Boto added. Press freedom group OLPA, a Congolese non-governmental organisation, welcomed Musa's conviction. "This is a strong signal to anybody who threatens the life of a journalist and who is tempted to believe that they will enjoy impunity," OLPA executive secretary Joseph Alain Kabongo told AFP. In April last year, international watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) denounced Balanga's murder and stated that deadly attacks on journalists in the DRC were rarely investigated. In 2013 and 2014, "60 journalists were beaten or threatened" in the vast central African country, according to RSF. The DRC stood in 150th place out of 180 in the global press freedom ratings released by RSF for 2015. (source: thepeninsulaqatar.com) BANGLADESH: War criminal Mir Quasem's appeal hearing to end today The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court yesterday heard the prosecution arguments in the appeals case of condemned Jamaat leader Mir Quasem Ali. A 5-member panel headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha adjourned the hearing until today after Attorney General Mahbubey Alam placed his arguments against Quasem, who had been a commander of notorious al-Badr force in the Chittagong during the Liberation War. At one stage of the hearing, the court expressed dissatisfaction over the prosecution and the investigators of the International Crimes Tribunal for their "incompetence" as they had failed to bring witnesses against some charges brought against the war criminal. The court said that they were shocked at the performance of the tribunal's prosecution team and the investigators. "Huge amount of money is being spent, but their responsibilities are not reflected in their performance," it said. The court also asked the prosecution to end their arguments by today. The defence earlier claimed that his client had not been directly involved in any of the incidents and that the witnesses produced unreal depositions. Top Jamaat-e-Islami financier Quasem, now 64, was awarded capital punishment by the tribunal on November 3, 2014. As many as 24 prosecution witnesses testified against Quasem. The tribunal handed down the death penalty on 2 charges - for killing 7 people, including teenage freedom fighter Jasimuddin, after abduction. He was also awarded a total of 72-year imprisonment on the 8 other proven charges of abduction, conspiracy and planning. The Appellate Division started hearing on his appeal on February 9. It is the 7th appeals case heard by the top court. Quasem joined Islami Chhatra Sangha, then student wing of Jamaat, in 1967 while studying at Chittagong Collegiate School. He later became its Chittagong city unit general secretary. He played an important role in forming al-Badr Bahini. He had set up makeshift torture camps at different places in the port city. According to the government, Quasem has also spent a large amount of money abroad to make the war crimes trials controversial. (source: dhakatribune.com) ************** War crimes: Prosecution, investigators' performance irks SC The Supreme Court today expressed dissatisfaction over prosecution and investigators dealing with the war crimes cases for their 'incompetence'. Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha came up with the remark when a 5-member bench of the Appellate Division led by him was hearing an appeal filed by war crimes accused Mir Quasem Ali challenging his death penalty. The bench gave the observation after receiving records and documents of International Crimes Tribunal-2, saying that the prosecution could not produce witnesses in some charges brought against Quasem. During the hearing, the chief justice said they are shocked at the performance of the prosecution and the investigators for their incompetence in dealing the war crimes cases. Huge amount of money are being spent, but their responsibilities are not reflected in their performance, the CJ observed. Attorney General Mahbubey Alalm today placed arguments before the court on Quasem's appeal. The International Crimes Tribunal-2 on November 2, 2014 sentenced Quasem to death after finding him guilty on 10 charges of abducting, confining and torturing people during the Liberation War. Around 4 weeks later, he filed an appeal with the SC challenging the tribunal's verdict. Quasem, a member of Jamaat's Central Executive Council, in his appeal cited 181 reasons for his acquittal on all the charges. (source: The Daily Star) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 24 10:43:16 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2016 10:43:16 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., GA., FLA., OHIO Message-ID: Feb. 24 TEXAS: Pope tells Austin bishop not to 'give up fight' against death penalty During his trip to the U.S.-Mexico border last week, Pope Francis told Austin bishops to "not lose heart or give up the fight" against the death penalty, auxiliary Bishop Daniel Garcia said Tuesday. Garcia was one of several people with the diocese who traveled to the border city of Ju1rez to see the pope on Feb. 17 at the end of his 6-day tour through Mexico. The diocese's delegation shared details of its trip in a press conference Tuesday. On Sunday, Francis issued a call to all world leaders to put up a moratorium on the death penalty until November. Garcia said the pope brought up the issue with him last week when he told Francis he lived in Texas. "His comment to me was very direct," Garcia said. "He said, 'Do not lose heart or give up the fight in fighting against the death penalty. Do not lose heart, do not lose hope. I know it's difficult, it's an uphill challenge, but we have to continue to bring people hope.'" "He was very much encouraging. He wasn't angry when he said it, he wasn't trying to create turmoil," Garcia added. "He was just saying that as pastors, as shepherds, we have to be the voice of the people - oftentimes for the voices that are not heard." Garcia said he didn't say much to the pope. "I just basically listened," he said, laughing. Pope Francis visited a prison in Juarez and spent time with the inmates while he was there. Another person affiliated with the Diocese of Austin - Gerardo Ramos, the director of music at St. William Church in Round Rock, who grew up in Juarez - traveled to border for the papal visit as well. He sang in the choir during the Mass that Francis celebrated and had the chance to perform a solo. Performing during the Mass was "a moment of peace," Ramos said. "When I started singing, it was this moment of joy," he said. "It's something that's very indescribable." Jorge Nunez, case manager for the Austin Diocese's Office of Canonical Tribunal Services, also traveled to Ju???rez to see the pope and said he was touched to hear Francis address the city's history of drug violence during Mass. "It really hit home for me because I have family in Mexico who were severely affected by the violence there," Nunez said. (source: Austin American-Statesman) NORTH CAROLINA: NC Shift from Death Penalty? Life Sentence in Wake County Murder He was convicted of murdering a Raleigh mother of 2 in her apartment, but Travion Smith will not face the death penalty. A Wake County jury on Monday instead opted for the convicted killer to spend life in prison without the possibility of parole. It marks the 6th time in a row that the Wake County prosecutor's office pursued the death penalty in a capital murder case, only to have the jury return a life sentence, prompting the district attorney to speak publicly on the future of the death penalty in North Carolina, said Gretchen Engel, executive director of the Center for Death Penalty Litigation. "She spoke of the need to maybe reconsider and take another look at what are we doing? What's the best allocation of resources? How do we keep the public safe and discharge our obligation to punish crimes? And maybe the death penalty is not part of that mix," Engel said. Currently, 152 offenders are on North Carolina's death row, but there hasn't been an execution in the state since 2006. No new death sentences were handed down last year in the Tar Heel State. In addition to a demonstrated statewide shift away from the use of the death penalty, Pope Francis said on Tuesday that the death penalty is "against God's plan" and called for an end to the punishment worldwide. Supporters of the death penalty have said it is needed for the harshest of crimes. Engel said it's also important to note that a life-in-prison sentence represents a harsh punishment for Smith. "There are very strict rules in prison and none of us would trade our liberty for that punishment," she said. "This is not a holiday camp, this is a very serious punishment. As is appropriate, what happened to Melissa Huggins Jones is horrifying." Engel said the Smith case is another indication that the public is telling law enforcement and the courts that life in prison without parole is sufficiently harsh, and justice and public safety don't require the death penalty. (source: publicnewsservice.org) GEORGIA: Co-defendant faces death penalty for 2007 College Park teen stabbings A 2nd man will face the death penalty if convicted for his role in the 2007 stabbing deaths of 2 College Park teenagers, officials said. 2 cousins, 13-year-old Chrisondra Sierra Kimble and 15-year-old Delarlonva "Del" Mattox Jr., were brutally stabbed to death after walking to a neighborhood store to buy snacks, Fulton County District Attorney Paul L. Howard, Jr. said. Family members reported the teens missing April 5, 2007, after the pair never returned home. After searching, Kimble's mother found the teens' naked bodies the next day in a wooded area behind Bethune Elementary School in Fulton County, Howard said. Investigators later arrested Jermy Moody and William Felts in connection with the murders. A jury for Felts was selected Feb. 8, Howard said. He is charged with 2 counts of murder, 2 counts of felony murder, 2 counts of aggravated assault with intent to rob, 2 counts of kidnapping with bodily injury and 1 count of rape. If convicted, the state has announced its intent to request the death penalty, Howard said. Co-defendent Jeremy Moody in 2013 pleaded guilty to multiple counts of murder, aggravated assault, kidnapping with injury and aggravated assault with the intent to rob and rape in connection with the slayings. 6 charges - 2 each for murder, felony murder and kidnapping - carry maximum penalties of death by lethal injection and the jury for Moody found for death in each of the murder charges. (source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution) FLORIDA: Victim's mother urges State Attorney Angela Corey to take death penalty off the table There's a new push from the public defender's office to take the death penalty off the table in the case of James Xavier Rhodes, 24. It's an idea the victim's mother, Darlene Farah, supports as well. "I feel like the public defender's office is more compassionate about the situation than the state attorney's office. I feel like they care more about what we're going through," Farah said. A judge is scheduled to take up several death penalty issues related to the case at a hearing Wednesday afternoon. Last week, public defender Matt Shirk sent a letter to State Attorney Angel Corey asking her office to reconsider seeking the death penalty for Rhodes. For the past 18 months, Shirk says Rhodes has been willing to plead guilty to all charges related to Shelby's death. In return, he'd get 2 consecutive life sentences without parole for first degree murder and armed robbery, plus an additional 20 years in prison for aggravated assault and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. "The state is not helping. I'm trying to get the family back together, trying to get control of my life back. I feel like they have control of my life," Farah said. Shirk said Rhodes would also waive his right to appeal his case in the future. Police say Rhodes shot and killed Shelby Farah, 20, during a robbery at the Metro PSC store on North Main Street where she worked in 2013. Police say Rhodes shot the victim after she handed him the cash he asked for. Shirk lists several reasons why the SAO should consider the deal, including the fact that this is what Darlene Farah, Shelby's mother, wants out of the case. Her death has been hard on the entire Farah family, including her younger sister who is getting ready to graduate from high school. "She just mentioned to me the other day she wished Shelby was here to help her pick out her prom dress," Farah said. Farah says she wants some measure of closure. She's worried about decades worth of litigation if prosecutors are able to secure a death penalty recommendation. Shirk writes, "I believe that with every motion, petition or appeal filed on Mr. Rhodes' behalf, she will relive the pain and loss she has felt since losing Shelby." Shirk also points out the uncertainty surrounding Florida's death penalty. The legislature is currently rewriting the death penalty law after the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that the current method is unconstitutional. Shirk writes, "Assuming the legislature is able to pass legislation prior to Mr. Rhodes' trial, Mr. Rhodes' case will be one of the 1st death penalty trials in Florida under new sentencing procedures. As such, if your office secures a death verdict, there will be years of litigation centering around whether Florida's new sentencing scheme passes constitutional muster." Farah believes the money it would take to send Rhodes to death row could be better used elsewhere. According to the Florida Department of Corrections, it takes $18,000 a year to house an inmate in a Florida prison. By the times Rhodes is 75-years-old, it would cost the state roughly $900,000 to keep him alive. According to a 2014 investigation by the Florida-Times Union, it would cost much more to send him to death row, which costs about $3 million per person. Shirk isn't against the death penalty, but says he doesn't believe this case fits the bill. "Personally, I believe the death penalty is a useful tool. We just don't administer it properly in this country. We've had 26 people just here in the state of Florida that have been exonerated from death row as innocent," Shirk said. The state attorney's office has aggressively prosecuted death penalty cases since Angela Corey was sworn into office in January 2009. Corey represents the Fourth Judicial Circuit covering Duval, Clay and Nassau Counties. Records show her office has sent more people to death row than another other prosecutor in the state since the start of 2009. First Coast News requested an interview with Corey to explain her stance. A spokesperson sent us the following statement: "The State is still seeking the death penalty in this case. The State is in the process of filing a formal response regarding the death penalty motions filed by the Defendant. Assistant State Attorney Bernie de la Rionda will address the various motions in the appropriate venue, the courtroom. The hearing is set for Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. Due to this being a pending matter, it would be inappropriate to comment further." Rhodes is scheduled to go to trial in May. (source: First Coast News) *************** Reviving the death penalty ---- Florida needs to keep the death penalty, so the Legislature is wisely working on a fix in response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that called the state???s system unconstitutional. The Florida Senate should go along with a reasonable House measure that would revive the state's death penalty. Just prior to the opening of the Legislature in January, the U.S. Supreme Court threw the state's capital punishment system into jeopardy by faulting Florida for relying too much on judges in deciding death sentences. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, "The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death." Although the high court did not mention it, other legal experts criticized the state for not requiring a unanimous vote for death sentences. The state also does not require jurors to detail what aggravating factors they found to justify a recommendation of death. Legislation adopted by the state House last week won't satisfy death penalty critics who wanted a comprehensive overhaul, but it does seem to address the concerns the court expressed in its Hurst v. Florida decision. It requires juries to unanimously agree on at least 1 aggravating factor before the death penalty can be imposed. This should eliminate any doubt about the jury's rationale. It also requires at least 10 of 12 jurors to agree on a death penalty sentence. The guilty verdict itself still must be unanimous. Florida has been 1 of only 2 states that requires a simple majority jury vote for a death penalty recommendation, which a judge can impose or reject under current law. The Florida Supreme Court has urged lawmakers in the past to consider unanimity for death recommendations. Some critics won't be pleased with only a 10-2 requirement, which Alabama also uses. But Attorney General Pam Bondi reminds us the death penalty vote for serial killer Ted Bundy - a monstrous example of why the death penalty is necessary - was only 10-2. The death penalty vote for Aileen Wuornos, another serial killer, was 10-2. Death penalty votes for other vicious murderers, including Oscar Ray Bolin, have not been unanimous. The 10-2 provision ensures the penalty reflects the overwhelming sentiment of the jury, but guards against a lone holdout subverting its decision. The death penalty is a tough issue, and we respect those who oppose it. But we believe there are vicious individuals whose crimes are so vile that no other penalty is sufficient. Members of the Senate should see, as House Speaker Steve Crisafulli says, the House legislation goes beyond what the U.S. Supreme Court said was needed, and the "reforms will allow us to keep the death penalty in our toolbox to punish our most violent criminals." We believe most citizens would agree, even if reluctantly, that Florida needs to keep the death penalty in its criminal justice toolbox. (source: Editorial, tbo.com) ********* No death penalty overturn for man who killed Melbourne couple A death row prisoner who stabbed and beat a Melbourne couple to death failed to get his death penalty overturned, despite lawyers trying to use a recent Supreme Court decision to throw out the sentence. Kyoko Johnson was killed on her 66th birthday, beaten and stabbed to death along with her husband Rufus after refusing to give $5,000 to a former neighbor's kid. That neighbor was Anthony Welch, 22, at the time. Now at age 37, he's still trying to escape the death sentence. "If we're going to continue this case, it's just to give the state a chance to kill one of its citizens," said defense attorney Mike Pirolo. "That is fundamentally wrong; it's unjust; immoral." Welch is eligible for a new sentence because of a procedural error in the original case. Defense attorneys told Judge Charles Crawford today a Supreme Court ruling that says the state's death penalty is not applied properly makes it unconstitutional. That means, they say, that Welch's sentence must be changed from death to life. The judge didn't buy it. "The death penalty has not been ruled unconstitutional," said judge Charles Crawford. Instead, he ruled, the Legislature merely needs to change the way in which juries recommend death or life to a deciding judge. So Welch will come back for a new sentencing afterward. And prosecutors plan to let no one forget that Welch singled out the victims because they had been kind to him in the past, then stole their TV and went out on a date after the slaughter. "The death penalty is the appropriate sentence and that's why we're continuing to seek it. He deserved it," said prosecutor Tom Brown. "He absolutely deserved it." Welch could be back in the courtroom as early as April for what could be another death sentence, once the legislature revises the law. Prosecutors said Welch used the victims' telephone after their murders, to call his girlfriend and arrange where the 2 would go. (source: WESH news) OHIO: Ohio's former prisons chief: 'The death penalty isn't worth fixing' Terry J. Collins was director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction from 2006 to 2010 and worked in the prison system for nearly 33 years. He is currently a member of Ohioans to Stop Executions. It's been 6 years since I retired after more than 3 decades at the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. I held various positions including warden, regional director, assistant director and then director. Included in my responsibilities was the participation in the execution of 33 men from 2001 to 2010. With each execution I asked myself: Did the extensive process of appeals ensure we got it right? I often wondered if we made a mistake. My curiosity arose because I had walked people out of prison after years of incarceration who turned out to be innocent. Our judicial and corrections system is among the finest in the world and the envy of nations. We provide the best attorneys, judges, and corrections personnel anywhere. I know, and have worked closely with many of them. Yet we continue to be one of the few industrialized nations to carry out the death penalty even when we know mistakes happen. Innocent People on death row Every year, more innocent prisoners walk off death rows in the U.S. -- 156 since 1972. These troubling trends tell us this is no anomaly. Ohio has executed 53 and exonerated nine men. I think about these statistics and am troubled by Ohio's track record. Why? Because I'll always remember Gary Beeman, Ohio's 1st death row exoneree, who walked out of prison to a new trial and freedom. Turns out Gary didn't commit the crime that sent him to death row. My concerns are not limited to the possibility of killing an innocent person. The death penalty is expensive, inefficient and takes far too long. I believe it only prolongs the pain and healing process for victims' families. As one who values fairness and equality as the bedrock of our legal system, I do not accept the argument that we only execute the worst of the worst. The offenders in our prisons I encountered who committed unimaginable crimes were usually not on death row. The vast majority of those on death row were convicted under Ohio's felony murder rule, for killing someone in process of another crime such as robbery or kidnapping. Failed Public Policy A recently released study examined Ohio's 53 executions. This study found that the race of the victim and the county where the crime took place matter more than the severity of the crime. I think these disparities are important points of discussion regarding the use of the death penalty in Ohio. I am not alone among corrections professionals who consider the death penalty a failed public policy. My predecessor, former ODRC Director Dr. Reginald Wilkinson, also opposes executions. We've joined with other former corrections officials across our great nation asking legislators to end the death penalty. After being quoted in my local paper in Chillicothe about my concerns with capital punishment, I received calls from former colleagues thanking me for saying out loud what they could not. My concerns about the death penalty led me to join Public Safety Officials on the Death Penalty. Public Safety Officials on the Death Penalty is an independent group of law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and corrections officials. We're ready to discuss concerns we share about the death penalty in this country so that policymakers may explore alternatives. Some of us oppose the death penalty while others support it under certain circumstances. We all recognize problems with the current death penalty, particularly that it diverts needed resources from policing and community safety. A Better Alternative I am pleased to stand with former Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro, another member of Public Safety Officials on the Death Penalty. He helped write Ohio's death penalty law as a legislator and saw 18 executions as Ohio's chief prosecutor. Jim and I join a majority of Ohioans who believe the current sentencing alternative of life without parole keeps Ohio communities safe. The sentence of life without parole is effectively severe and holds offenders accountable. Over 540 inmates are currently in custody of the Department of Correction with sentences of life without parole. It is time for state officials to have serious and thoughtful conversations about whether Ohio's death penalty remains necessary. A recent task force appointed by the Ohio Supreme Court made 56 recommendations to fix problems with the fairness and accuracy of Ohio's system. My experience tells me the death penalty isn't worth fixing. Our justice system will be more fair and effective without the death penalty. (source: WCPO news) ************ Man accused in slayings says no serial-killer comparison A judge has granted a motion by defense attorneys that prevents prosecutors from comparing an Ohio man who faces a capital murder trial for killing three women with notorious Cleveland serial killer Anthony Sowell. Michael Madison's trial is scheduled to begin April 4 in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. Defense attorney David Grant said last week that he made the request, which a judge granted last week, anticipating that prosecutors might make the comparison, which he called "irrelevant and prejudicial." "We don't want that language used in front of a jury," Grant said. A spokesman for the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office did not respond to a request for comment about the judge's ruling. Sowell was sentenced to death in August 2011 for killing 11 women in a case that captured the world's attention. An appeal of his conviction is pending. Madison, 38, faces the death penalty if convicted. He was arrested and charged with aggravated murder in July 2013 after the bodies of three women were found wrapped in garbage bags in East Cleveland. Madison also is charged with aggravated rape, kidnapping and abuse of a corpse. Madison's defense team is awaiting a ruling from the Ohio Supreme Court about whether prosecutors can use information gleaned from a recent psychiatric evaluation of Madison at trial. The court in December denied defense attorneys' efforts to stop the evaluation that prosecutors sought. The Cuyahoga County medical examiner concluded that 2 of the women Madison is accused of killing - Shirellda Terry, 18, and Angela Deskins, 38 - were strangled and Shetisha Sheeley, 28, died of "homicidal violence by unspecified means." Madison was classified a sex offender in 2002 after being sentenced to 4 years in prison for attempted rape. (source: Associated Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 24 10:45:06 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2016 10:45:06 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 24 BOTSWANA: Ditshwanelo hosts Death Penalty dialogue The Botswana Centre for Human Rights hosted a two (2) day dialogue on Access to Justice and the Death Penalty in Botswana, from February 9-10, 2016. The dialogue was facilitated by Justice Lovemore Paul Chikopa, Judge of the Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal. Participants included Attorneys Kgosi Ngakaagae and Martin Dingake, University of Botswana Law Students, Botswana Council of Non-Governmental Organisations (BOCONGO) and the media. The purpose of the dialogue was to promote informed public debate on the death penalty, specifically, on the right to dignity in 21st century Botswana. This was a civil society contribution towards the implementation of Botswana's 2013 UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) commitment, to 'hold dialogue about the death penalty'. Some of the key issues raised during the dialogue were: --This year is 2016 African Year of Human Rights, with Particular Focus on the Rights of Women. There needs to be clear State commitment to the implementation of human rights in Botswana; --The Death Penalty is part of our inherited colonial legislation, following 85 years as a British Protectorate (1885-1966); It is 50 years since independence; --It is time to reflect on where we have come from over the past 50 years, where we are presently and where we would like to be in 50 years' time; The criminal justice system is not insulated sufficiently to prevent miscarriages of justice. It was noted that there is no perfect legal system anywhere in the world; --'Access to justice' should be guaranteed for both the rich and the poor. Currently the poor lack true access to justice; --Pro Deo attorneys are under-resourced and therefore unable to adequately represent indigent clients who are charged with capital offences which may lead to the death sentence; There should be effective representation for those who could be sentenced to death; --There is a need to involve the Judiciary when holding dialogues and conversations about the death penalty; --There is a need to focus on the rehabilitation aspect of the criminal justice system within a restorative justice. This is in contrast with focus only on punishment, within a retributive justice system; --Alternative sentences to the death penalty need to be thoroughly explored; --The deterrent factor of the death penalty ought to be verifiable. Currently it does not appear to prevent murder (not a deterrent); --There is need to locate, analyse and understand death penalty discussions within a broad socio-political and economic context; --In determining the moral blameworthiness of the accused persons, their personal upbringing and influential factors which shaped their person should be considered by the court; --Sentencing should have the dual purpose of punishment and addressing the cause of the offence; --Where applicable in law, the death penalty should not always apply, but should be limited to certain circumstances - for most serious crimes such as murder; --There is need for the Judiciary to be exposed to the realities of the death penalty; --There are no known procedures or transparency concerning the clemency process; and --There is need for more information about what the penalty of death actually entails. DITSHWANELO was encouraged to engage in more public awareness raising activities with different stakeholders about the death penalty in Botswana. We would like to thank our sponsors, The British High Commission, and friends of DITSHWANELO for participating in the dialogue. We appreciate all the support. Ditshwanelo Gaborone (source: Letter to the Editor, mmegi.bw) ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwe Considers Scrapping Death Penalty Zimbabwe's vice president, who once faced the death penalty, says the country will consider scrapping capital punishment. Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is also the justice minister, called it "a flagrant violation of the right to life and dignity." Mnangagwa was sentenced to death during Zimbabwe's colonial era, only avoiding it because he was too young at the time. The state-run Herald newspaper said Mnangagwa was speaking at an international meeting of justice ministers in Rome. Last month, a group of death row inmates approached Zimbabwe's Constitutional Court bid to have their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. The country of 13 million has nearly 100 death row inmates. Zimbabwe's constitution says the death penalty only applies to males aged between 21 and 70 convicted of "murder committed in aggravating circumstances." (source: Associated Press) AUSTRALILA: Barrister Julian McMahon speaks in Canberra on the death penalty Australian drug trafficker Van Tuong Nguyen was in a Singapore cell facing the end of his life, one of his lawyers, Julian McMahon, offered him some solace in words written by Sir Thomas More as he awaited his own execution almost 500 years earlier. Mr McMahon, a Melbourne barrister who was a national finalist in the 2016 Australian of the Year awards for his human rights work, is due to speak on Wednesday night at the Saint Thomas More Forum in Canberra. While representing Van Nguyen, who was hanged in Singapore in 2005, Mr McMahon referred back to the case of Sir Thomas, the Lord Chancellor of England, beheaded in 1535 after standing firm in his Catholic faith and refusing to swear that the Crown had supremacy over the Church. "In the last year of Van Nguyen's life, he had become much more interested in his Catholic faith so I had actually given him copies of a few pages written by Thomas More while More was in his cell awaiting his execution," Mr McMahon said. "And those few pages of reflection on how to think about your imminent death, how to think about the people who were about to kill you - they were very gentle and wise words." Mr McMahon said there was still much to learn from the case of More, who was made a saint by the Catholic church in 1935. "He's a fascinating character to study on the question of conscience and the right to silence and the clashes between truth, the power of the state and, in that instance, the failure of the rule of law," he said. Mr McMahon has been working on death penalty cases for 13 years and is the president of Reprieve Australia, which is dedicated to ending executions around the world. He represented Bali 9 members Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, both convicted of drug smuggling, and was within earshot as they were gunned down by a firing squad in a field on an Indonesian island in April last year. Mr McMahon said the final meeting with his clients facing the death penalty was never easy. "Firstly, it's very difficult but, secondly, we lawyers are there as professional assistants and that fact makes it easier for us to be detached and support the client and family," he said. "In the last visit of the Chan and Sukumaran families with their son and brother, although it was extraordinarily difficult, there was both signs of profound familial love and support. "Everybody knew when they separated at that moment, when they were peeled apart, Myuran and Andrew, still had to cope with the next 10 hours and in order to help them cope, everybody understood that each person there had to be strong." He said the number of countries who had the death penalty had steadily fallen since World War II, with fewer than 30 now carrying out executions. "Some of these countries are slowly improving. For instance, Singapore used to execute an enormous number of people, now it executes very few, so that's a positive change," he said. "Other countries like Pakistan and Iran and Saudi Arabia are rapidly going backwards and descending into large-scale executions. And it's like any other cancer across the world - sexual abuse of children or women, destruction of the environment, slavery, which is a rampant problem in today's world - each generation has to fight these things or they re-appear as cancers. "We should speak the truth to [these countries] and we should demand better from them and that includes our close allies, ranging from America to China right through to countries in the Middle East which show such little regard for human life." Mr McMahon said the death penalty "brutalises all involved". "It debases the society which kills, that consciously plans to kill someone rendered helpless," he said. "It perpetuates violence and a disrespect for life, it removes all hope of remorse and rehabilitation. These days it's always political. "It's just a delusion to call 'killing' justice when jail is enough punishment. We should never punish more than is necessary." Mr McMahon said it was impossible for him to sit back and do nothing, even when taking on cases that appeared hopeless. "Lots of people maintain an interest in issues which need an active engagement and at times it's easy and at times it's hard,'' he said. "It's just part of my professional life. I had a very privileged education and I'd rather do something useful with it than play computer games." (source: The Canberra Times) BANGLADESH: Supreme Court irked with war crimes tribunal's investigators, prosecutors The Supreme Court has expressed its displeasure with the work of the investigators and prosecutors of the International Crimes Tribunal in the 1971 war crimes cases. The top appeals court's annoyance was made known during the appeal hearing of death-row convict Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir Quasem Ali on Tuesday, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told reporters. State counsel Alam, who expects to finish his arguments on Wednesday, said the court observed that the investigators and the prosecutors were not doing their job properly in Mir Quasem's case and other cases. The court felt that they were not correctly investigating and prosecuting even though enough money was being spent on them, he said. "The court was of the opinion that this (Mir Quasem's) case could have been investigated and prosecuted more efficiently," he added. The Appellate Division had earlier disapproved of the work of the tribunal's investigation agency and so had the war crimes tribunal. Apart from the courts, the attorney general had himself questioned the skills of the prosecutors and negligence in the investigation on Jamaat-e-Islami Nayeb-e-Amir Delwar Hossain Sayedee. The government-appointed prosecutors run the cases at the ICT. After the tribunal delivers a verdict, the defendants appeal at the Supreme Court. The attorney general then joins the prosecutors to represent the State. The tribunal gave Mir Quasem, a known top financier of the Jamaat, the death penalty on Nov 2, 2014 for crimes against humanity committed during the 1971 Liberation War. He filed an appeal seeking acquittal on Nov 30 that year. The hearing started earlier this month. Mir Quasem is said to have been the 3rd man in vigilante militia Al-Badr's command structure during the war. Replying to a question, Attorney General Alam, however, told reporters on Tuesday that 'inefficiency of the investigation agency and prosecutors' will not affect the appeal verdict. The 5-strong Appellate Division bench led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha is hearing Mir Quasem's appeal. This is the 7th war crimes case set to be resolved by the top appeals court. ************************ 3 killers of RU professor Mohammad Yunus get death sentence reduced to life term following retrial The death sentence handed down to two militants of banned outfit Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) for the murder of Rajshahi University professor Mohammad Yunus has been reduced to life imprisonment. Rajshahi Speedy Trial Tribunal judge Golam Ahmed Khalilul announced the verdict on Wednesday following a retrial. Their sentences have been reduced to life imprisonment from death penalty. They have also been fined Tk 5,000, inability to pay which will lead to another year in prison, State counsel Entajul Haque Babu said. Yunus, a professor of economics at Rajshahi University, was hacked to death with sharp weapons while he was on his morning walk in Binodpur on Dec 24, 2004. The 2 men, Safiullah and Shahidullah, were present in court on Wednesday. They were handed the death penalty by a speedy tribunal at Rajshahi in 2010 but the convicts appealed for a stay on the verdict, pleading for another trial. Shahidullah aka Mahbub is son-in-law to Rafiqul Islam, elder brother to top JMB leader Siddikur Rahman better known as Bangla Bhai who was executed in 2007. He hails from Naogaon and Safiullah aka Tarek is from Satkhira. Professor Yunus was president of Bangabandhu Parishad at Rajshahi University. Police's Criminal Investigation Department charged 8 JMB militants in 2007. The professor's murder was ordered by Shaykh Abdur Rahman, who headed the JMB, Safiullah said in a testimony after his arrest on Apt 13, 2006. Shahidullah was later arrested in Bogra. In 2009, the case was transferred to a speedy trial tribunal. The following year, Judge Md Monjurul Basid acquitted 6 and handed down maximum penalty for the 2 men. Shaykh Abdur Rahman wanted the professor dead, said the earlier verdict. The case did not have an eyewitness but the testimonies provided by the 2 men proved their involvement. (source: source for both: bdnews24.com) ************ Verdict in Mir Quasem's appeal against death sentence Mar 8 The Supreme Court has fixed March 8 to deliver verdict in an appeal filed by death row convict Mir Quasem Ali, a senior leader of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party. The 5-member panel of judges headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha came up with the decision as hearing into the appeal petition concluded Wednesday, court officials said. Quasem, also a financier of the party, was awarded death penalty for crimes committed during Bangladesh's 1971 war of liberation from Pakistan. International Crimes Tribunal, a specialised war crimes court set up in 2010, handed down the penalty on November 2, 2014. The defendant filed the appeal petition with Supreme Court challenging the verdict later in the year. The court began hearing into the petition on February 7, 2016. Quasem, 64, was one of the founders of the al-Badr force commissioned by the Pakistani military to thwart the voices of unarmed civilians during the war. The group aided the Pakistan military responsible for atrocities on unarmed civilians. 10 out of 14 allegations against Quasem was proved beyond doubt. He was awarded death sentence for abduction, killing and dumping bodies of several people in Karnaphuli River in south-eastern district of Chittagong. He was also handed down 72 years of imprisonment for other crimes he had committed during the war. Quasem, a director of private Diganta Media Corporation that owns a newspaper and a television (now defunct), was arrested on June 17 2013. He was indicted in war crimes on September 2013 and his trial ended on May 4 2014. According to the investigators, Mir Quasem Ali was elected president of Chittagong Government College unit of Islami Chhatra Shangha, the student wing of the then Jamaat-e-Islami, in 1970. He was the president of Chittagong City unit of the organisation between March 25 and November 6 of 1971. He was made the general secretary of the East Pakistan Chhatra Shangha that helped the Pakistan army to unleash indiscriminate attacks. The organization re-emerged in 1977 as Islami Chhatra Shibir with Quasem as its founding president. He was made director of Rabeta Al Isami, a foreign founded organization in Bangladesh, in 1980, and become member of the Jamaat-e-Islami's policy-making Surah in 1985. He is the founder of Diganta Media Corporation that owns pro-Jamaat newspaper Naya Diganta and now defunct Diganta Television. Quasem supervised a number of torture cells in the port city of Chittagong to punish freedom loving people during the 9-month war that left an estimated 3 million people killed, more than 200,000 women raped and numerous homesteads torched in the then Eastern wing of Pakistan. Jamaat-e-Islami party opposed Bangladesh's liberation. (source: newsnextbd.com) MALAYSIA: Amnesty wants moratorium on death penalty----Amnesty International Malaysia executive director Shamini Darshni says Putrajaya should consider imposing a moratorium for those on death row while deliberating on plans to abolish the death penalty. Human rights group Amnesty International Malaysia, in welcoming Putrajaya's plan to push for the abolishing of death penalty, has urged for a moratorium for those currently on death row. Its executive director Shamini Darshni said the announcements by Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali and de facto Law Minister Nancy Shukri in November, were positive and most welcome. Apandi had said he plans to propose to the Cabinet that the mandatory death penalty be scrapped while Nancy said Putrajaya plans to table a bill in March next year to abolish the mandatory death penalty in drug-related offences. "But what is missing is that in the mean time, since the announcement was made, there is no moratorium, so people are still being sentenced to death by the courts. "We are urging the Malaysian government to seriously impose a moratorium on the use of death penalty as well as execution," she said, when presenting The Amnesty International Report (AIR) 2015/16 - The State of the World's Human Rights in Petaling Jaya today. She said Malaysia imposed death penalty for murder, drug-trafficking, the use of firearms as well as kidnapping in certain circumstances. Last November, Nancy had said the plan to abolish the mandatory death penalty in drug-related offences would allow judges to use their discretion to choose between sentencing a person to jail and the gallows in non-criminal cases, such as drug-related offences. Apandi in an interview with The Malaysian Insider had said he would propose to the Cabinet that the mandatory death penalty be scrapped. Meanwhile, on the report which was released today, Shamini said there were 6 areas of concern in Malaysia's human rights record - freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and association, arbitrary arrests and detentions, police and security forces, refugees and migrants on death penalty. "Last year, we saw how repressive and outdated legislation were being used to clamp down on basic rights. "In the first few months of 2016, we are seeing the same pattern persist, much to the detriment of basic freedoms,: Shamini said. Earlier, Amnesty International released a report on the State of the World's Human Rights where it said Malaysia has "intensified" its crackdown on freedom of expression and other civil and political rights last year. The report for 2015/2016 said this was evidence from the use of the Sedition Act to silence government critics. (source: themalaysianinsider.com) GLOBAL: Pope's reasoning wrong on death penalty ban Pope Francis is wrong in asserting the death penalty always violates the Bible's command not to murder, Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore says. In a Feb. 21 blog post, Moore responded to the pope's call the same day for a worldwide ban on capital punishment. The president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) took issue with the reasoning used by the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in his abolitionist appeal. Pope Francis referred to the 10 Commandments in telling tens of thousands of people in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, "The commandment 'You shall not kill' has absolute value and applies to both the innocent and the guilty." He appealed to "the consciences of those who govern to reach an international consensus to abolish the death penalty," according to Reuters News Service. The Bible, however, distinguishes between the innocent and guilty, Moore wrote in his post. The pope's argument is not just practical but an across-the-board application to every use of capital punishment, Moore said. "On that, I believe he is wrong. We may disagree, with good arguments on both sides, about the death penalty. But as we do so, we must not lose the distinction the Bible makes between the innocent and the guilty," he wrote. "The gospel shows us forgiveness for the guilty through the sin-absorbing atonement of Christ, not through the state's refusal to carry out temporal justice." The Mosaic Law the pope appeals to in calling for the death penalty's abolition actually "draws a distinction between murder and lawful execution by the state," Moore said. Also, capital punishment approved by God predates the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Mosaic Law, Moore wrote. "In the covenant with Noah [in Gen. 9], God forbade murder and simultaneously made provision for the death penalty in some instances. Humanity, created in the image of God, is of such value that to murder is to bear the most awful consequences imaginable, the forfeiture of one's own life." Moore also cited the Catholic Church's centuries-long defense of "just war" theory in at least some circumstances. "If one believes the state can order the military to kill opposing combatants in war, one does not, by definition, believe that every instance of the state killing is a violation of the commandment not to murder," he said. Biblical support for the state's use of capital punishment continues in the New Testament, Moore said. The apostle Paul refers to the Roman government "bearing the sword" in Romans 13, shortly after he urges Christians not to take vengeance, he wrote. "Some have argued (unconvincingly, in my view) that this 'bearing the sword' is police power, not [the] death penalty," Moore said. "But police power, if armed with lethal arms, always carries at least the possibility of the death of the evildoer. If that is always and everywhere murder, then it deserves the full sanction of God's moral judgment." Paul does not offer any divine sanction, however, he said. The understanding that the Bible draws a distinction between murder and the death penalty "does not settle the question of whether we ought to have capital punishment," Moore acknowledged. "There are, in many places, serious problems with the application of capital punishment." These include "racial and economic disparities" in the use of the death penalty in many locations, disparities that exist in other aspects of criminal justice, he said. "Christians can debate whether a state should declare a moratorium on capital punishment while reforming unjust sentencing practices," Moore wrote. "Christians can debate whether the death penalty is effective as a deterrent or whether the death penalty is meaningful at all in a world in which legal systems delay for years the application of the penalty. These are prudential debates about how best to order our political systems, not debates about whether every act of state killing is murder and thus immoral and unjust." Moore said he agrees with the pope regarding "the value of human life" and his opposition to the "culture of death." "He is also right about the church's responsibility to prisoners, to remember those who are jailed, to minister to them, and to work against policies that violate human dignity or harden criminals in their criminality," Moore wrote. The pope issued his call for a ban on capital punishment the day before a Catholic-sponsored international conference opposing the death penalty began in Rome. (source: Tom Strode is the Washington bureau chief for Baptist Press, news service of the Southern Baptist Convention----Baptist Press) JAPAN: Pachinko parlor arsonist loses appeal against death sentence The nation's top court has upheld the death sentence of a man convicted of arson in which 5 people died. The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Sunao Takami's appeal against a lower court ruling in the 2009 case, in which he poured gasoline on the floor of an Osaka pachinko parlor and set it alight. The sentence is now set to be finalized. The presiding judge, Toshimitsu Yamasaki, said the 48-year-old Takami carries an "extremely grave liability for committing a premeditated, indiscriminate murder that targeted a pachinko parlor on a Sunday, when it was expected to draw a large crowd." The top court's 5-justice No. 3 Petty Bench said the death penalty is justified for Takami, despite certain circumstances being in his favor. These include the fact that he surrendered to authorities on the day following the attack. According to rulings by the Osaka district and high courts, Takami set the gaming parlor in Osaka's Konohana Ward on fire on July 5, 2009, killing 5 people and injuring 10 others. Takami's defense counsel argued that execution by hanging is a cruel punishment that runs counter to the Constitution. The country's supreme law forbids cruel punishments and torture by public officials. But the top court's petty bench dismissed this argument, noting that the Supreme Court has in the past upheld the constitutionality of capital punishment. In a 1955 ruling on execution by hanging, the top court declared that it was constitutional and is not considered a cruel punishment for most serious crimes. In handing down the ruling on Takami's case in October 2011, the Osaka District Court's presiding judge, Makoto Wada, noted that there is "controversy" over whether death by hanging is the best way to punish a person, but he added that "the death penalty system in the first place entails that a person pay for his or her crime with death. Agony and cruelty to some extent are inevitable." Meanwhile, the Supreme Court played down the defense counsel's assertion that Takami was delusional at the time of the attack and in a state of diminished capacity, saying that while such a state of mind does affect the motives of someone accused, it cannot be considered a major factor in this case. It was the 1st time lay judges participated in a decision regarding the constitutionality of capital punishment. The Osaka High Court upheld the lower court's ruling in July 2013. (source: The Japan Times) PAKISTAN: APS convicts' appeals case referred to CJP A 3-member Supreme Court bench on Tuesday referred the petitions of convicted terrorists against death penalty awarded by military courts to the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) for the formation of a larger bench. The bench headed by Justice Mian Saqib Nisar heard the petitions of terrorists Taj Muhamamd and Ali Rehman involved in Army Public Army (APS) attack, Qari Zubair involved in Noshewara mosque bomb blast and Muhamamd Imran in a terrorist incident in Bajur Agency against their conviction by army courts. During the course of proceedings, the Attorney General for Pakistan informed the court that the hearing of a similar case was continuing in the larger bench. The bench asked whether legal questions were same in both the cases and the AGP replied in the affirmative. Later the apex court referred the matter to the CJP for the formation of a larger bench. (source: Samaa.tv) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 24 15:37:28 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2016 15:37:28 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., MISS., NEB., ARIZ., USA Message-ID: Feb. 24 FLORIDA: Florida leads in death penalty exonerations Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court pushed Florida a step closer into the future by forcing it to part with an antiquated way of convicting people of capital crimes. It ruled that the state's system for allowing judges to overrule jurors in deciding whether to mete out the death penalty was unconstitutional. While state law allows juries in capital cases to recommend a death sentence or life in prison without parole, judges are allowed to toss out jury recommendations. In Florida, judges have disregarded jury recommendations some 300 times since 1972 - the year capital punishment was reinstated. [my note----the death penalty was reinstated on July 2, 1976] Florida is the only state besides Alabama that allows this. What's more is that the high court's ruling has sent lawmakers scrambling to revamp a key part of the law that governs how the death penalty is imposed. Instead of requiring only a simple majority of jurors to vote to sentence someone to die, legislators are now considering a 10-2 vote. But even if that happens, Florida will still be part of an anachronistic trio. Florida, along with Delaware and Alabama, are the only states that don't require a unanimous jury vote for a death sentence. While the Supreme Court's decision may mean that some death sentences could be reconsidered, or that it may become tougher for people to be sentenced to death, it still doesn't touch the real problem with the state's death penalty - that problem being that too many people wind up being wrongfully convicted by many of those same jurors because their lawyers didn't represent them well or for a host of other reasons. "That doesn't solve Florida's problem of innocent people going to death row," Mark Elliott, director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, told me. "The death penalty still discriminates against people who can't afford a lawyer ... "The number 1 thing that people on death row have in common is at the time of their arrest, they didn't have good legal representation." Inadequate legal defense, combined with other issues, such as witness misidentification, perjury and official misconduct, continues to be a factor in wrongful convictions. According to information from the website of the Innocence Project of Florida, of the 57 people exonerated in Florida since 1989 after being convicted of violent crimes, bad lawyering played a role in 11 of those cases. Then there's this: Of the 156 people freed from death row since 1976, 26 were in Florida - which makes it the top state when it comes to exonerations. And this: "In awarding damages in civil cases, jurors have to be unanimous," Elliott said. "They all have to agree ... "But when it comes to the death penalty, they don't all have to agree. So basically, we have the lowest bar for the ultimate penalty." That's not right. While it's good that the recent court ruling has caused the state to change how it determines who receives a life sentence and who winds up on death row, it does virtually nothing to deal with the systemic problems that continue to make Florida tops when it comes to exonerations. It does nothing to ensure that poor defendants receive the kind of legal representation that they deserve when they are being tried for a crime that could send them to prison for the rest of their lives or to ultimately be executed by lethal injection. In short, it does nothing to deal with the fact that many people are in prison or on death row who never should have been there in the first place. No matter whether a judge or a jury gets to decide. (source: Opinion, Tonyaa Weathersbee; The Florida Times-Union) MISSISSIPPI: Man indicted in mysterious Mississippi burning death of Jessica Chambers For 14 months, a town of 500 in northwest Mississippi grappled with the mysterious burning death of one of its daughters, Jessica Chambers, a 19-year-old who left her mother's house in pajama pants, reportedly to clean her car. She never returned. When police found her later the night of December 6, 2014, not far from her mother's Courtland home, her car was on fire and Chambers had burns over 98% of her body. She said something to a firefighter -- authorities wouldn't say what -- before she was rushed to a hospital, where she died the next day. Courtland and Panola County residents didn't get all their answers Wednesday, but they learned that a man being held in Louisiana in connection with another homicide victim was indicted this week in Chambers' death. Quinton Tellis, 27, faces a capital murder charge in her slaying, said John Champion, district attorney for Mississippi's 17th Circuit Court. The charge is capital murder because her death occurred during the commission of another crime, 3rd-degree arson, he said. Champion added he was "very, very confident" that there would be no additional charges or suspects. "We do feel like, at this point, that he acted alone in this case," he said. Capital murder opens the door for a death penalty case, but Champion said he isn't sure whether he will pursue it. That decision will come "down the road" after he consults with the Chambers family, Champion said. Longtime mystery Until Wednesday, investigators had released few details about how the former high school cheerleader and her car ended up severely burned in a wooded area near Courtland. That could be because authorities had ascertained so little about her death until late last year. Champion explained how police interviewed about 150 people, and each agreed to cooperate, he said. That's odd in a case such as this, according to the prosecutor. On 4 occasions, Champion said he thought the case had been solved, but he was wrong. Investigators received no information from their street sources, he said, and though authorities chased leads as far-flung as Tennessee, Iowa and eastern Mississippi, nothing panned out until they started taking a close look at cell phone and other data evidence. Tellis had been a suspect early during the investigation, the prosecutor said, but he did not become investigators' focus until the fall. "Things started to match up for us, and that's when we began to take a second look at Mr. Tellis," Champion said, adding that forensic evidence will be integral to driving the prosecution. Jessica's father, Ben Chambers, a mechanic with the Panola County Sheriff's Office, said he'd been in close contact with investigators throughout the investigation, and he'd witnessed their long nights, skipped vacations and the rings under their eyes. "I've seen it day in and day out. The hard work they've done never stopped," he told reporters, a cap bearing the sheriff's office's logo atop his head. "They said some day it would come, and it did. They would not give up, and I take my hat off to them." The teen's mother, Lisa Chambers, did not speak at length but said she was satisfied an arrest had been made and was proud of the work investigators had done. Asked if he had a message for Tellis, Ben Chambers said, "Whatever the law allows, whatever Mr. Champion does to him, that's what I hope happens to him." Already in prison Tellis is being held in the Ouachita Parish Correctional Facility in Monroe, Louisiana, almost a 4-hour drive from Jessica Chambers' hometown. He once lived in Courtland, and that's where, Champion said, he and Chambers became friends. He didn't elaborate. Tellis moved from Mississippi to Louisiana in the summer of 2015, the prosecutor said. Tellis was arrested in August on 3 counts of unauthorized use of an access card, connected to a homicide victim, whom The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson identified as a 34-year-old University of Louisiana-Monroe student from Taiwan. According to a probable cause affidavit in that case, Tellis used a bank debit card belonging to the missing woman on April 7, the day before the newspaper reports her body was found, and then again on August 18 and 19, withdrawing $500 both times. Authorities procured "photo evidence" and interviewed Tellis on August 20, at which point, "he admitted to using the Chase Bank debit card on the three listed transactions and stated that he was the individual seen in the ATM photos," the affidavit said. It appears the suspect may be a newlywed. A wedding registry found online shows that Quentin Tellis was scheduled to wed Chakita Tellis in Monroe on August 8, the day the student's body was found. Following the probe into the debit card, police executed a search warrant at Tellis' Monroe home and discovered a 1/4-pound of marijuana in his bedroom, packaged for sale. The suspect "stated he sold marijuana for profit. Tellis was arrested and booked" on an additional charge of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, according to the affidavit. 'Relay race' Panola County officials will file a governor's warrant to have Tellis transferred to Mississippi, Champion said. That could take anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks to arrive on the Louisiana governor's desk. Tellis has an early May court date in Louisiana, and his charges there will need to be adjudicated before he is transferred to Mississippi. Champion doesn't "anticipate us having him back here anytime soon," he said. "We're in a relay race," the prosecutor said, "and this is hurdle No. 1. We're nowhere near the end." Tellis is a gang member with a rap sheet and has served time previously, the prosecutor said, but his gang affiliation does not appear to have anything to do with Chambers' killing. Nor do drugs appear to be a factor in her death, Champion said. One of the few publicly disclosed developments before Wednesday came late last year when authorities told CNN affiliate WREG-TV that the FBI had rounded up 17 suspected members of three street gangs. However, Panola County Sheriff Dennis Darby told the station none of those arrested was linked to Chambers' death, but the investigation into her killing had illuminated the gang problems in his county. Mississippi Department of Corrections records indicate Tellis was convicted of fleeing police in 2010 and sentenced to 5 years in prison. He was later convicted of residential burglary in December 2011 and again in February 2012. He received 5 years and 8 years, respectively, on those convictions. He was incarcerated in June 2011, according to court records. Tellis was released from a Mississippi correctional facility on October 2014 after serving time for the burglaries, Champion said. That's 2 months before Chambers was killed. 'She just seemed normal' On December 6, 2014, Chambers was seen at a gas station about 2 miles from her mother's house. Her hair was in a bun, and she was wearing camouflage pajama pants. She put $14 worth of gas in the car and called her mother, saying she would be home right after she cleaned her car, her older sister, Amanda Prince, told CNN. A store surveillance video shows Chambers prepaying for gas. She walks to the store's front door when something or someone catches her attention. She waves and walks off camera briefly, comes back into the camera's view and enters the store as 3 men chat by the doorway. She spends about a minute at the counter before going back outside and pumping gas. The gas station owner who helped her said nothing seemed out of the ordinary. "She seemed normal," Ali Alsanai told WREG in 2014. "She didn't seem like something was going wrong, you know? She just seemed normal. She just pumped some gas, we had a talk and she left." Champion said Wednesday he did not believe Chambers' visit to the gas station had anything to do with her death. She was found later that Saturday night on a rural road near Courtland, her car on fire. She was not on fire when emergency responders arrived, but she had burns across 98% of her body. Chambers approached one of the firefighters and spoke, Champion said at the time. Authorities didn't disclose what Chambers said, but Champion told reporters, "It has certainly given us a lead we're following up on." Chambers died the next day at a hospital. (source: CNN) NEBRASKA: Nebraska death penalty foes outline case for keeping repeal Nebraska voters can expect to hear a lot about capital punishment before the November election. Death penalty opponents on Wednesday launched the next phase of their campaign to urge voters to keep the death penalty off the books. Lawmakers abolished the death penalty in May, but a statewide petition drive suspended that action until voters decide. The newly named anti-death penalty group, Retain a Just Nebraska, includes lawmakers, faith leaders and family members of murder victims. The group previously operated under the name Nebraskans for Public Safety. Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln said many voters mistakenly assume that restoring the death penalty will allow executions right away, when in reality the state is unlikely to execute anyone again. "It remains a broken system. It remains a system that remains unsustainable," said Coash, a Republican who helped lead the repeal effort in the Legislature. "This campaign is about getting that message out." The campaign will include traditional outreach to voters, including a YouTube ad posted online Wednesday, and personal interactions between religious leaders and their congregations, Retain a Just Nebraska spokesman Dan Parsons said. Greg Schleppenbach, executive director of the Nebraska Catholic Conference, said leaders in his church remain "fully committed to using all of the resources" at their disposal to persuade the public to vote against the ballot measure. Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, a group that led the petition drive, previously announced plans to campaign for a "yes" vote to overturn the ban. (source: Associated Press) ARIZONA: Ariz. to death row inmates: Executions shouldn't go viral The state of Arizona shot back at its death row inmates who challenged the state's use of paralytics in executions and are arguing that people have a constitutional right to see what's actually going on when someone is executed, Buzzfeed News reported Wednesday. The state's method includes a three-drug protocol that is supposed to sedate and paralyze the person before killing them. Death row inmates and a coalition of First Amendment organizations are arguing that the paralytic agent only prevents people from seeing the pain the inmates may experience and effectively undermines the purpose of witnesses. "The press, the prisoners and the people of Arizona have a right to know whether Arizona's execution process subjects prisoners to intense physical pain, and the use of a paralytic agent is just as effective in preventing the disclosure of that fact as if the execution occurred without any public witness at all." Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich's office said last week that the First Amendment does not protect the right of the inmate to "die in what they speculate will be pain and distress, as long as people can watch." "The First Amendment does not protect the right to create a spectacle and go viral," the statement said. The state said inmates were trying to create "a spectacle with the objective of swaying public opinion and ultimately abolishing the death penalty." Attorney David Weinzweig, who wrote the response for the state, said the department has been "forced" to change the drug protocols it uses in response to opponents of the death penalty. The response said people "wage guerilla warfare" to stop the state from "acquiring court-approved chemicals." Arizona was forced to stop using its 2-drug protocol after the killing of an inmate in 2014 took nearly 2 hours. (source: thehill.com) USA: Conservatives Ensure The Death Penalty's Inevitable End As the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) approaches, it is important to be reminded of what conservatism really is. More than anything, it is about commonsense pragmatism and an uncompromising adherence to our core principles, including valuing life and promoting fiscal responsibility and limited government. Increasingly, capital punishment has been viewed through these principles since Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty launched at CPAC in 2013. Since then, it's been remarkable to observe how the death penalty conversation has shifted. Last year, the State of Nebraska's unicameral legislature repealed its death penalty, and Republicans proudly led the charge. When Republican Senator Colby Coash was asked why he supported repealing Nebraska's death penalty, he explained, "People sent me [to the legislature] to find and root out government waste," and capital punishment certainly fits the bill. It is a program marred by dysfunction. It risks innocent lives, costs far more than life without the chance of release, fails to deter crime, and can harm murder victims' families by prolonging the legal process. Given these facts, it's no surprise why the Cornhusker State's legislature realized that Nebraska was better off without the death penalty. Nebraska's repeal wasn't the only capital punishment domino to fall. 2015 was also a landmark year for America's declining death penalty in other ways. Executions, death sentences, and support for capital punishment all reached or neared historic lows. In a stunning reversal, Texas, which was once a hotbed of executions, only sentenced 3 peopleto death in 2015. These trends illustrate how capital punishment is slowly going out of business. States are learning that capital punishment is just too costly and dangerous to administer. However, while the death penalty steeply declined in 2015, its risks remained apparent. It was discovered that 6 individuals were wrongly sentenced to die, and each of them spent an average of 19 years on death row before their names were cleared. Regardless of the death penalty's gradual descent into disuse at a national level, some states are still actively sentencing and executing individuals, but conservatives aren't standing by idly. Local conservative groups working to end the death penalty have formed in numerous states, including Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington, with other groups forming. The past few years have also been marked by a growing number of Republican legislators introducing or co-sponsoring repeal legislation in Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. If this wasn't enough proof that the landscape has changed, Americans need only to listen to what many conservative icons are saying about the death penalty. Colonel Oliver North, Jay Sekulow, Dr. Ron Paul, Richard Viguerie, and many others have all been outspoken advocates of repealing the death penalty. They've determined that capital punishment just isn't' worth the trouble, and they simply cannot trust the government with the death penalty. As Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty returns to CPAC for the 4th year in a row, it does so not as an outlier within the conservative movement. More and more conservatives are questioning whether it really makes sense to give a fallible government the power that comes with the death penalty. This growing conservative opposition suggests that this broken government program may not last much longer. (source: Opinion; Marc Hyden is the National Advocacy Coordinator with Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty.. He previously worked for the National Rifle Association (NRA) as a Campaign Field Representative in the State of Florida----The Daily Caller) From rhalperi at smu.edu Wed Feb 24 15:38:15 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2016 15:38:15 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 24 TANZANIA: 9 ivory poachers accused of shooting hero British helicopter pilot out of the sky as he tried to save elephants in Tanzania appear in court charged with murder and may face death penalty if guilty; Niles Gunga, 28, is charged with murder in Bariadi District Court, Tanzania Roger Gower was fatally shot down by an AK47 while taking part in a helicopter operation to catch a gang in a game reserve next to Serengeti National Park. Niles Gunga, 28, is alleged to have fired a bullet through the bottom of the pilot's helicopter on Friday, January 29, bringing the aircraft crashing down. Gunga appeared alongside 8 others who had also been accused of murder. He denied the charges along with co-defendants Shija Mjika, 38, Dotto Pangali, 42, Moses Mandago, 28, Iddi Abdullah, 50, Dotto Huya, 44, Mwigulu Kanga, 40, Mapolu Gabida, 50 and Mange Buluma, 47. Prosecutors say that the men were an experienced poaching gang, with known insiders such as Iddi Abdullah, who had worked for the Ngorongoro Conservation Authority as a Wildlife official. They were also charged with possessing $15,000 (10,765 pounds) worth of ivory. Gunga is also is accused of making a career out of killing elephants, and working with other poachers to sell to bigger gangs. If the men are found guilty, they could face the death penalty. Tanzanian authorities are still investigating the killing, but the case could be heard in the country's highest court. Senior State Attorney Yamiko Mlekano said: 'We are still looking for DNA evidence and ballistic evidence as well. Plus other pieces of evidence that I'm not ready to disclose. But once we are finished, we will prosecute the case in the high court. 'The case will not be difficult. We are confident that we will get a conviction.' However, the atmosphere was tense in the courtroom, with prosecutors asking not to be filmed or photographed to protect their identity from the gangs, who make millions from poaching. 15 armed soldiers were also standing guard outside the magistrates court as proceedings began - another sign of how seriously Tanzania takes the threat of those allegedly involved in poaching gangs. Outside the court, community leader Masunga Liyabuyenze expressed his frustration with poachers. He said: 'The community cares about the animals. Other people come in and kill them, but most people care. 'I feel bad, as a human being, about someone being killed. Here in Tanzania we value a person's life. So when I heard of someone being killed, I felt sad.' On the day of Mr Gower's death, the Friedkin Conservation Fund - the organisation the trained accountant was working for - had found two dead elephants, and had sent him out in a helicopter. The organisation's director Pratik Patel, who was working on the same anti-poaching operation, said: 'He saw a third dead elephant which had only very recently been killed and flew back to investigate, which was when a man appeared and shot straight at the helicopter.' The shot went up through the floor, going through Mr Gower's leg, shoulder and eye before exiting through the roof. But before the helicopter crashed into the ground, Mr Gower managed to save his colleague, South African spotter Nick Bester, who was able to jump to safety after the Brit manoeuvred out of the way of a tree. The 9 men face a number of other charges, including committing economic crimes - poaching - and possessing weapons. A woman was charged with working as one of their accomplices. The cases were sent to a higher court, where the men will enter their pleas. (source: The Daily Mail) INDONESIA: Amnesty call for moratorium in death penalty in Indonesia The international human rights organization Amnesty International calls for death penalty moratorium in Indonesia with long term goal of abolishing death penalty. "Amnesty International asks the Indonesian Government for moratorium in death penalty and to review the court verdicts of death penalty," Deputy Director for Southeast Asian Campaign of Amnesty International Josef Benedict said when launching global human rights annual report here on Wednesday. Benedict quoted the Amnesty International report as saying that in 2015, the Indonesian government executed 14 death prisoners on death row and more is to follow this year. He said death penalty places the life of prisoners on death row in risk and put their families in distress, fear and heavy pressure. Benedict also called for an end to whipping punishment, which he described as inhumane, cruel, insulting to human dignity, adopted in Aceh. He said in 2015, around 108 people, who were found guilty of gambling, alcohol drinking and adultery, were punished with whipping under sharia law in Aceh. In October 2015, Qanun Jinayat, was enacted in Aceh a punishment for committing homosexuality and adultery respectively with whipping 100 times and 30 times. "Qanun Jinayat in Aceh is against human rights and we call on the central government to annul the law," Benedict said. Earlier Pope Fransiskus called for death penalty moratorium ahead of an international conference of "A World Without the Death Penalty" began in Rome last Monday. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon also denounced death penalty saying "death penalty has no place in this 21st century." (source: Antara News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Feb 25 12:03:44 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2016 12:03:44 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.H., FLA., ALA., OHIO., MO. Message-ID: Feb. 25 NEW HAMPSHIRE: Suspend the death penalty I write, as the brother of a murder victim, in support of SB 463, which would suspend the death penalty in New Hampshire until "such time as methods exist to ensure that the death penalty cannot be imposed on an innocent person." While New Hampshire has a criminal justice system that is more effective and fair than those in many other states, no justice system is currently immune from wrongfully convicting and then executing an innocent person in a capital murder case. Such a terrible event would deeply weaken the credibility of our justice system. Losing a loved one as the result of a brutal crime is a heart-rending experience that alters one's life forever. But executing the person convicted of the murder and subsequently learning that the person was innocent would greatly compound the anguish and pain of the victim's family. New Hampshire should follow the lead of other states in acknowledging our present inability to be certain that the death penalty is not incorrectly imposed. If we do so, those who kill people will still face a lifetime of imprisonment, but we will avoid the possibility of making a tragic and horrible mistake that can never be undone. JOHN TOBIN Concord (source: Letter to the Editor, Concord Monitor) FLORIDA: Don't tweak the death penalty, end it Editor: Now that the Florida state execution machine has been put on hold because of the unconstitutionality of courtroom judges overruling jury sentences in capital cases, the time is ripe to consider abolishing the death penalty altogether. Instead of tweaking the procedure by which this extreme penalty is imposed, why not use this temporary moratorium as an opportunity to get rid of it, as 18 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have already done? Ours is the only western nation that executes its own citizens. Sadly, our rate of executions puts us among the world's top executing nations - China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq - which are hardly regimes to be admired. As of Oct. 15, 2015, there were 2,959 prisoners awaiting execution. The fact that 156 condemned prisoners have been exonerated and released from U.S. prisons in recent years suggests that a lot of wrongful prosecutions and convictions are occurring in U.S. courts. Here in Florida, 26 death row prisoners have thus far been exonerated since the death penalty was restored in 1973. That makes Florida 1st in the number of exonerees of any state. Unfortunately, Florida is also 2nd in the number of new death sentences imposed and of prisoners awaiting execution. With about 400 currently on Florida's death row, it seems highly possible that some of these prisoners might also have been erroneously condemned. Wouldn't just 1 such fatal injustice be too many? We are fortunate to live in one of the world's officially designated "compassionate" cities. Under the Compassionate St. Augustine program, small groups are now meeting to discuss ways to make our criminal justice system more evenhanded. Now is a perfect time to learn more about the flawed death penalty system and move toward effective alternatives to an extreme punishment that serves no deterrent purpose and cheapens the value of human life. L.R. Tokarz St. Augustine (source: Letter to the Editor, St. Augustine Record) ************** Accused killer could still face death penalty----Defense has asked state attorney to take death penalty off table The man accused of shooting and killing a cellphone store manager in 2013 could still face the death penalty if convicted of murder when he heads to trial. James Rhodes appeared in court Wednesday as attorneys on both sides argued motions that would take the death penalty off the table in the slaying of 20-year-old Shelby Farah. Rhodes' attorneys said they are seeking a plea deal that would keep him in prison for the rest of his life. It's a deal the victim's mother wants prosecutors to take. But the State Attorney's Office has not accepted it. State lawmakers are coming up with a new death penalty plan after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling invalidated Florida's death penalty law. Rhodes' attorney argued Wednesday that because of that decision in January, which ruled that Florida's method of sentencing people to death was unconstitutional, that the death penalty in this case should not be an option. The state argued that even though the Supreme Court asked for the death penalty to be looked at, it was constitutional. The judge also heard arguments from the state and defense about a potential plea for Rhodes. His attorney said he is willing to plead guilty to murder and get 2 consecutive life sentences plus 20 years in state prison. There wouldn't be a trial, he could not appeal and the death penalty would not be an option. Prosecutors said they have no objection to a plea, but want the death penalty to be an option for a jury during sentencing. Darlene Farrah, the victim's mother, wants the state to accept Rhodes' plea. After the hearing, Farrah stuck by her call for the state to stop seeking the death penalty for her daughter's accused killer. "I'm not feeling sorry for him. It takes everything out of me when I go in the courtroom and look at him it really does," Farrah said. "He was old enough to know wrong from right when he did it. He needs to suffer the consequences. I mean, he took away an innocent life, but I don't think the consequence should be death." Rhodes' next hearing is set for 9 a.m. March 21. The legislative session will be over by then and the state will likely have a new death penalty law by then. If there's no plea bargain, Rhodes' trial is scheduled to start in May. Farah wrote an opinion piece for Time magazine on the subject, titled "My Daughter's Killer Should Not Get the Death Penalty." Rhodes is charged with 1st-degree murder in the killing of Shelby Farah during a robbery of a Brentwood cellphone store. Police said that after several hours of questioning, Rhodes confessed. Police said Farah was found dead after officers responded to a report of an armed robbery at the store on Main Street near 21st Street. Police said Rhodes pointed a gun at the 20-year-old and demanded money. They said she cooperated and after she handed him the last bit of money, he fired 4 rounds, killing her. **************** Tensions spill out as lawyers and victim's mother seek to avoid death sentence for James Rhodes Darlene Farah has an empty feeling every time she leaves the Duval County Courthouse. That feeling returned again Wednesday after she sat through another hearing for James Xavier Rhodes, 24, the man accused of murdering her daughter, 20-year-old phone store manager Shelby Farah. "I just feel empty and spent every time I leave here," Farah said. "And by the time I've pulled myself back together, it's time for another hearing." But Farah's empty feeling also included a sense of frustration and anger at the prosecutors in the case, and Farah told the Times-Union she will continue to speak out about her unhappiness. Farah wants prosecutors to allow Rhodes to plead guilty and be sentenced to life without parole. The State Attorney's Office is seeking to put him on death row over Farah's stringent objections. Defense attorneys are asking Circuit Judge Tatiana Salvador to allow the plea, with Assistant Public Defender Debra Billard arguing that Florida has no legal death-penalty law right now because of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Assistant State Attorney Bernie de la Rionda disagreed and said if Rhodes pleaded guilty the state would still seek to put him on death row. De la Rionda argued that the U.S. Supreme Court only found the state's procedures unconstitutional, not the death penalty itself. Salvador issued no rulings Wednesday, but Farah's frustration appeared to reach a boiling point during the hearing and it led her to confront de la Rionda, Assistant State Attorney Matthew Polimeni and spokeswoman Jackelyn Barnard afterward. Farah and the prosecutors spent a half-hour in a hallway outside the courthouse having something between an argument and a discussion. Prosecutors declined to comment after it broke up, but Farah said she was angry over how de la Rionda explained her opposition to executing Rhodes during the just concluded hearing. De la Rionda told Salvador that Farah didn't want Rhodes put on death row because she didn't want to endure years of appeals. Farah said that was true, but not the only reason she was opposed to the death penalty. "He didn't say anything about how I thought the state helped make him who he is," Farah said. "They bear some of the blame for what happened." Defense lawyers have said Rhodes was born to parents addicted to drugs and alcohol, abandoned at a young age and then physically and sexually abused while a ward of the state. Public Defender Matt Shirk also argued in a letter to Corey last week that Rhodes should be allowed to plead to life in prison to spare Farah and her family any more pain. The letter also said the agreement would save the costs and time of a death-penalty trial and subsequent appeals. Shirk also asked that Corey consider this similar to waiving the death penalty and accepting a plea for Jarred Harrell, who killed and sexually assaulted 7-year-old Somer Thompson in 2009. Her mother consented to 6 life sentences for Harrell. Corey has not responded to the letter, but during Wednesday's hearing de la Rionda argued that the state could not defer to the victim's family when prosecutors believe that a crime justifies a death sentence. "While Ms. Farah has suffered immensely, and we respect her wishes, we cannot let victims' families decide whether we should seek the death penalty," de la Rionda said. The families of victims in cases like this are allowed to give a statement to the jury when they're considering whether to impose death, but the families usually only speak about what it's been like losing their loved one and don't tell the jurors what they'd like to see happen. Usually that's to the benefit of the defense, since most family members want the death penalty, but it's the opposite in this case. During Wednesday's hearing de la Rionda indicated that the prosecution would not allow Farah to tell jurors she preferred life. Billard said that if Farah did, the jury would almost certainly vote against death. Farah smiled when asked about that afterward. "When have you ever known me not to say what I feel," she said. Rhodes is charged with killing Sheplay Farah while robbing the Metro PCS store on North Main Street in Jacksonville. According to police reports, Rhodes pulled a gun and shot her in the head after she gave him several hundred dollars. The killing was captured on surveillance video. Billard said there was no reason to seek death and the entire case could be resolved Wednesday if Salvador would just allow Rhodes to plead guilty and be sentenced to life. "It's so troubling that the state attorney won't take her wishes seriously," Billard said of State Attorney Angela Corey. "Ms. Corey claims she's focused on victims, and that's admirable, but there we have a victim's family who has been asking for this for 18 months." But Salvador expressed doubt about issuing any rulings due to the uncertainty of the death penalty in Florida. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Jan. 12 that Florida's death-penalty procedures are unconstitutional because the final decision on whether someone is sentenced to life or death is made by a judge instead of a jury. The Florida Legislature is now attempting to pass new procedures and appear likely to pass something in the next few days that requires at least 10 jurors to vote in favor of the death penalty in order for a defendant to receive such a sentence. "If the Legislature comes up with new scheme, we then have to address how it applies to Mr. Rhodes," Salvador said. "If they fail to pass something, then we can deal with whether we can go forward with this case." The next pretrial in the case will be March 21, which will be after the Florida Legislature adjourns for the year. (source for both: news4jax.com) ALABAMA: Change: Alabama Innocence Inquiry Commission would now review only death row cases An Alabama legislative bill aimed at creating a commission to review the innocence claims of felons, was changed in committee Wednesday to only include the review of death row inmates' cases. The bill would also set a moratorium on executions in Alabama until June 2017 as the new panel is put in place. The Alabama Senate Judiciary Committee committee approved the new version before it was sent for a full vote before the senate. Meanwhile, Alabama's Attorney General and the sponsor of the bill argued over what the bill would do in statements issued Wednesday. State Sen. Dick Brewbaker, R-Pike Road, stated in an email to AL.com that the substitute bill narrowed the scope from all felonies to only death penalty cases, tightened up the immunity language, and added another lawyer to the proposed Alabama Innocence Inquiry Commission. The commission would fall within the Administrative Office of Courts. The bill also establishes a procedure for a person convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to petition for a hearing before the commission "in order to present credible, verifiable evidence of innocence that has not previously been presented at trial or considered at a hearing granted through post-conviction relief (in court)." The bill states it would "authorize the commission to hear the evidence and, at its discretion, refer the case back to the court of original jurisdiction for additional judicial review." "The bill is necessary to insure the integrity of our death penalty statute," Brewbaker stated in his email. "Given the fact that Alabama has had several high profile exonerations lately, it seems appropriate to make doubly sure of a person's guilt before we execute them." Among the exonerations in the past year has been Anthony Ray Hinton, who spent nearly 3 decades on Alabama's death row before new testing on the gun in the case was inconclusive. Hinton was released in April. Hinton's attorney, Bryan Stevenson founder and executive director of the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative, had called for the formation of conviction integrity units in Alabama to deal with claims of innocence after Hinton's release. "The bill is necessary to insure the integrity of our death penalty statute" - Republican State Sen. Dick Brewbaker A public hearing was held on the bill before the Alabama Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. The committee voted 10-0 to approve the substitute bill and forwarded it to a full vote of the senate. One of the opponents of the commission is Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange. Strange, in a statement issued Wednesday, called the legislation flawed and that it would effectively delay justice for crime victims while making it more difficult to carry out executions in Alabama. "Senate Bill 237, if passed into law, would only serve to hinder the delivery of justice in capital murder cases," Strange stated. "In a system where death row inmates already wait for decades before their sentences are carried out, SB 237 (the bill) would only create further delays by encouraging the filing of frivolous, last-minute challenges." "Senate Bill 237 is unnecessary as death row inmates already have access to a process to establish innocence under the Rules of Criminal Procedure. Furthermore, the bill would supplant the role of the current judicial system by creating a 'fourth layer of appeals' outside of the review already provided by the circuit courts, Court of Criminal Appeals, and the Alabama Supreme Court," Strange stated. The bill also takes the final determination of guilt or innocence away from juries and courts and gives it to a commission of appointed officials and a super-judicial three-judge panel, Strange stated. The decision of the commission and the 3-judge panel would be unchecked, with no provision for appellate review of their findings, he stated. Strange urged senators to join him and the victims of violent crime in "standing on the side of justice and oppose this bill." Brewbaker responded to Strange's statements. "If the current process is as sound as he says, why do we continue to see people exonerated after decades in prison?," Brewbaker stated in his email. "Further, by the time the bill comes to the Senate floor the moratorium will only apply to cases where there is credible new evidence that a jury has not heard, a very small minority of capital cases." "The Commission is set up to render quickly without enriching a bunch of lawyers and stringing out the process," Brewbaker wrote. "His (Strange's) assertion that it would significantly lengthen the process is incorrect. The rhetoric about "standing on the side of Justice" sounds more like a sound bite than a serious discussion about a very serious issue." (source: al.com) ************** Death penalty moratorium bill moves toward Alabama Senate Some death penalty cases would get an extra review, and executions put on hold until mid-2017, under a bill approved by an Alabama Senate committee Wednesday. In a unanimous vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill to create an Innocence Inquiry Commission to review capital murder convictions when new evidence of a convict's innocence emerges. The bill would also halt executions in Alabama until June 1, 2017. The committee's vote moves the bill to the full Senate for consideration. "If we're going to take this on ourselves, to execute someone, if we're going to take away their ability to accept Christ and all the other things that go with being alive, we have an obligation to be absolutely sure the people we're executing are guilty," said Sen. Dick Brewbaker, R-Montgomery, the bill's sponsor. Brewbaker, a death penalty advocate, said a review of death penalty cases is needed to shore up the public's confidence in the death penalty. He cites recent exonerations of felons in Alabama, and notes that some other death penalty states, such as North Carolina, have review panels in place. Brewbaker's bill would create an eight-member panel that could review death penalty cases looking only at claims of innocence, returning those cases to the original court if they believe the evidence of innocence is strong. The bill originally covered all felony cases; an amended version approved by the committee Wednesday would allow review only of capital crimes. There are 184 people on Alabama's death row. The longest-running case dates back to 1979. Inmates typically challenge the fairness of their trial or the constitutionality of lethal injection in appeals courts. Brewbaker has said he's concerned about innocence claims that don't get heard by the court. At least one death row inmate - William Kuenzel, convicted the 1980s murder of a Sylacauga convenience store clerk - has argued that a missed filing deadline kept his claim of innocence from being heard by a court. Kuenzel's lawyers have asked the Alabama Supreme Court to grant him a new trial. State prosecutors said the bill would add time and expense to an already lengthy death penalty process. "Just look at North Carolina," said Thomas Govan, a lawyer for the Alabama Attorney General's office. "Most of the petitions that have been filed are 200, 300, 400 pages." He said a death penalty moratorium would delay executions even of inmate's who've confessed to their crimes. "There's simply no reason for an outright moratorium on the death penalty," he said. Victims of Crime and Leniency, a victim's advocacy group that was still undecided about the bill last week, has also come out against Brewbaker's measure. "Victims do not want an innocent person executed," Grantham said. "We just want the appeals nightmare to end." Stephen Stetson, a lawyer for the group Alabama Arise, said the innocence panel was need as a "recognition of human frailty" in the justice system. "This in an instance when we want to be 100 percent sure," Stetson said. At least one Democrat on the committee, Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma, has called for a death penalty moratorium before. Republicans on the committee said they supported capital punishment, but still supported sending the bill to the full Senate for debate. "I have some concerns about the long-term ramifications of the bill," said Sen. Phil Williams, R-Rainbow City. "I don't think it will pass." Still, he said, the matter was important enough to go to the full Senate. Brewbaker said he was open to further amendments, but he also told committee members it was important to have another layer of review in place. "We need to make sure the process is as good as we think it is," he said. (source: The Anniston Star) OHIO: Death penalty trial begins for Brunswick man accused in mother's killing Jury selection began this week in the death penalty trial of a Brunswick man accused of killing his mother. James D. Tench, 30, is accused of beating his 55-year-old mother Mary Tench to death in November 2013 after she confronted him about his debts and about the fact that he used her credit card to buy concert tickets, court records say. James Tench is charged with three counts of aggravated murder, 2 counts of murder, aggravated robbery, kidnapping and tampering with evidence. Jury selection began Monday in Medina County Common Pleas Court and is expected to end Tuesday or Wednesday, Medina County Prosecutor Dean Holman said. The remainder of the trial is expected to last at least 2 weeks. Mary Tench was found dead Nov. 12, 2013 inside her car on Carquest Drive in Brunswick. Medina County Coroner Neil Grabenstetter said she died from several blunt trauma injuries to her head and neck. The impact fractured her skull. James Tench pleaded guilty in 2014 to robbing a Strongsville restaurant and is currently serving a five-year prison sentence at the Richland Correctional Institution. Judge Joyce Kimbler has yet to rule on whether the state can introduce evidence that James Tench stole money from his mother before she died. Kimbler will also rule on whether the Strongsville robbery is admissible, Holman said. The state also intends to present evidence that James Tench attacked his mother after she confronted him about using her credit card to buy concert tickets, and that he assaulted his former fianc???e when she broke off their engagement, court records say. "Evidence that Tench violently attacked people when confronted with adverse information is relevant to Tench's motive and intent," prosecutors wrote in the motion. Each aggravated murder count carries the potential sentences of death, life in prison without parole, or life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 or 25 years. If James Tench is convicted on all counts, prosecutors will decide which aggravated murder or murder charge will carry the sentence, Holman said previously. (source: cleveland.com) MISSOURI: Death penalty under review in Missouri legislator Republican Sen. Paul Wieland from Imperial introduced Senate Bill 816 which aims to repeal the death penalty in Missouri. SB 816 would completely repeal the death penalty in Missouri for those convicted of 1st degree murder as well as for anyone who has been sentenced to death before August 28, 2016.This is the 1st time in years that the Republican led state debated a capital punishment bill. A bipartisan lawmakers group argued the case of capital punishment Monday with colleagues. The group plans to end capital punishment completely in the state. According to the Associated Press, Missouri has executed 18 killers in a span of over 2 years. The Republican senator has received grass root support from Missouri Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty. Wieland, a practicing Catholic, is anti-abortion and opposes capital punishment. "I'm a pro-life Catholic and I believe that if you're going to be pro-life, you should be pro-life on both ends of the spectrum," Wieland said. Sen. Kurt Schaefer, former prosecutor of Attorney General Jay Nixon, has argued in defense of keeping the death penalty. Schaefer learned from personal experience how prosecutors face tough standards when sentencing a criminal on death row. "The idea that somehow the victim in this whole thing is the defendant, who, after this whole process was found guilty is outrageous." Schaefer said. Many have argued capital punishment as "Cruel and unusual punishment" which is against the constitution. Pre-law student Katie Brown examines both sides on the penalization. "From an ethical and financial standpoint, the revocation of the death penalty in Missouri is appropriate and even necessary, especially when considering the costs associated with it. From the ethical standpoint, our Constitution recognizes the deliberate taking of another life as murder and has declared that illegal," Brown said. "In some ways the death penalty is exactly the type of thing the Constitution aims to control, prohibit, not encourage. I may not agree with the revocation personally, but from a legal standpoint can understand its purpose and proposal." As of now, the bill has not received enough support to take more action on it any further. However, Wieland believes it is a victory the bill was even up for debate. (source: Northwest Missourian) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Feb 25 12:04:39 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2016 12:04:39 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----COLO., UTAH, ARIZ., NEV., CALIF., WASH., USA Message-ID: Feb. 25 COLORADO: Suspected Park County shooter opposed death penalty as "idiotic hypocrisy"----Martin T. Wirth was an Occupy Denver leader and former Green Party candidate for the Colorado legislature Martin T. Wirth, the suspected shooter of three Park County deputies Wednesday, said as a Green Party candidate in 2014 that he opposed the death penalty as "idiotic hypocrisy," supported gun ownership and TABOR and railed against government's use of eminent domain. "Killing people to show that killing people is wrong is a piece of idiotic hypocrisy. It turns our justice system into a circus sideshow without addressing the causes behind violence in the least bit," Wirth wrote in the 2014 Denver Post Voter Guide during his unsuccessful run against state Sen. Kevin Grantham. "Abolition would rid us of the sideshow and save our justice system a little bit of money," Wirth wrote. 1 deputy was killed and 2 wounded in the Wednesday shooting. The suspected shooter also is dead. Authorities identified Wirth as the gunman. A prominent force in the Occupy Denver movement, Wirth also railed against corporate welfare, big banks, the Democratic and Republican parties and government use of eminent domain. On the death penalty, Wirth also wrote: "Interest in this question suggests fear towards addressing the root causes of violence in our society. Poverty is a form of violence that leads to malnutrition, homelessness, and hopelessness. The destruction of our sense of community, and treating people like disposable commodities opens the gate to deeply anti-social and violent thinking. This is itself the result of unconscionable thinking within the ranks of our political class. Our governments on all levels are using violence as a method of early resort. Governmental violence is often applied to force unwilling people to comply with regimes that never earned their informed consent." Wirth also addressed gun ownership, though the voter guide didn't specifically asked about the Second Amendment. "I see no need to take firearms away from people but I respect the rights of certain institutions and private companies to bar weapons from their places of business and their sanctuaries," he wrote. (source: Denver Post) UTAH: Republican Lawmakers In Utah Just Voted To Repeal The Death Penalty Nearly 1 year after Utah reauthorized the use of firing squads to execute death row inmates, Republicans lawmakers there are now trying to end the death penalty altogether. On Tuesday night, a Republican-led Senate committee passed a bill to take capital punishment off the table for people convicted for homicide. The Utah Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement, and Criminal Justice Committee passed S.B. 189, which was sponsored by Sen. Stephen Urquhart (R), by a vote of 5-2. 3 Republicans and 2 Democrats supported the bill. According to Urquhart, who previously voted in favor of reinstating the firing squad, death penalty cases are riddled with errors, and wrongful convictions happen all of the time. The appeals process also comes with a high price tag for the state. "Government shouldn't be in the business of killing. It's not our place. It's wrong for us to assume that because we aren't infallible," he told the Associated Press. Sen. Mark Madsen (R) shared that sentiment. "If I knew they were guilty, I have no moral compunction whatsoever pulling the trigger, pulling the switch, whatever it is, but I don't have that level of confidence in government," he said, noting that deadly errors cannot be reversed. The 2 Republicans who voted against the bill believe capital punishment is just punishment for murder. They also say it should stay on the table out of consideration for victims' loved ones. Urquhart doesn't expect the bill to pass in the Republican-led Senate. If it does, there's no guarantee that Gov. Gary Herbert will sign it into law. Last October, in response to a judiciary committee hearing about repealing the death penalty, he said the punishment should be an option "for the most heinous of crimes." But the recent committee vote is another sign that support for the death penalty is dying out. The practice was banned in Nebraska last year, and many states have put it on hold. National support for the death penalty has plummeted, with opponents citing faith, high costs, and the unreliable evidence used to convict people. That evidence has resulted in wrongful convictions and the executions of innocent people. (source: thinkprogress.org) ARIZONA: Death row inmates: Executions shouldn't go viral The state of Arizona shot back at its death row inmates who challenged the state's use of paralytics in executions and are arguing that people have a constitutional right to see what's actually going on when someone is executed, Buzzfeed News reported Wednesday. The state's method includes a 3-drug protocol that is supposed to sedate and paralyze the person before killing them. Death row inmates and a coalition of First Amendment organizations are arguing that the paralytic agent only prevents people from seeing the pain the inmates may experience and effectively undermines the purpose of witnesses. "The press, the prisoners and the people of Arizona have a right to know whether Arizona's execution process subjects prisoners to intense physical pain, and the use of a paralytic agent is just as effective in preventing the disclosure of that fact as if the execution occurred without any public witness at all." Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich's office said last week that the First Amendment does not protect the right of the inmate to "die in what they speculate will be pain and distress, as long as people can watch." "The First Amendment does not protect the right to create a spectacle and go viral," the statement said. He said inmates were trying to create "a spectacle with the objective of swaying public opinion and ultimately abolishing the death penalty." Attorney David Weinzweig, who wrote the response for the state, said the department has been "forced" to change the drug protocols it uses in response to opponents of the death penalty. The response said people "wage guerilla warfare" to stop the state from "acquiring court-approved chemicals." Arizona was forced to stop using its 2-drug protocol after the killing of an inmate in 2014 took nearly 2 hours. (source: thehill.com) NEVADA: Suspect: No memory of 2 women's shooting deaths at Strip parking lot An ex-convict facing murder charges in a car-to-car shooting that killed 2 California women and critically wounded a man near the Las Vegas Strip told police he was drunk and high on marijuana and doesn't remember what happened, according to an arrest report made public Wednesday. Omar Jamal Talley, 30, also told detectives he didn't shoot anyone, and a gun he was seen brandishing after a fistfight with the male victim in a casino parking garage was a BB gun, according to the report. He didn't tell police where the gun was. Talley told a judge Wednesday he needs time to hire a lawyer to represent him on felony murder, attempted murder and weapon charges in the early Friday shooting. Justice of the Peace Joseph Sciscento rescheduled his arraignment for March 2. The lawyer Talley named didn't immediately respond to messages. Talley, who was arrested Saturday, told police he recalled being at the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood, and said he joined a fight in the parking lot to help the man who was losing. He said he was drunk at the time and had smoked marijuana, and didn't recall leaving the parking garage. "He walked up to the driver's side of the Hyundai ... produced a handgun and pointed it at the driver but did not shoot at that time," the arrest report said, citing surveillance video that police said showed the 3 victims in a Hyundai sedan and Talley driving a Toyota Camry. "The Hyundai sped away. Talley returned to the Camry and ... sped off chasing the Hyundai," the report states. Police were called moments later to a report of shots fired on Harmon Avenue, a short distance west of Las Vegas Boulevard and the parking garage. The driver, Melissa Yvette Mendoza, 27, and passenger Jennifer Margarita Chicas, 27, both of the San Francisco Bay Area, each died of gunshots to the chest, according to police and coroner reports. Passenger Jerraud Jackson, 29, was wounded in the lower torso and was recovering after surgery at University Medical Center in Las Vegas, a hospital spokeswoman said. Talley was being held without bail at the Clark County jail in Las Vegas. He faces 2 murder charges, along with attempted murder and firing a weapon counts. Prosecutor Peter Thunell said Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson will decide in coming weeks whether Tally will face the death penalty. Thunell won felony pandering of a child and child abuse convictions against Talley in 2010. He said evidence at that trial showed Talley has a background as a pimp. The jury in that case acquitted Talley of kidnapping. Records show that Talley was sentenced to 3 1/2 to 10 years in Nevada state prison. He was paroled last year. (source: Las Vegas Sun) CALIFORNIA: Death penalty verdict returned in bakery murder A Superior Court jury is recommending the death penalty for a man convicted of raping a woman and strangling her at a Fontana bakery. The panel returned its verdict against Gilbert Sanchez on Wednesday. Sanchez, who lived just a few blocks from the bakery, was accused of breaking into the bakery one night in 2001 and killing Sylvia Galindo. The 30-year-old employee at Maria's Panaderia was working alone. The investigation went 'cold' for 5-years until a DNA match linked Sanchez to the murder. At the time, Sanchez was serving prison time in another case when he was charged. Sanchez faces sentencing May 27th. (source: Inland News Today) WASHINGTON: Case could end death penalty in Washington Washington state's relationship with the death penalty over the past few decades has been so tenuous that even mass killers, serial killers and a cop killer have escaped it. Only 5 people have been executed in the past 35 years. Gov. Jay Inslee, a one-time supporter of capital punishment, has said no executions will take place while he's in office. And the state prosecutors association has called for a referendum on whether to bother keeping it on the books. Now, the state's high court, which came within 1 vote of striking down the death penalty a decade ago, is re-examining it. Dozens of former Washington judges have taken the unusual step of urging the court to find it unconstitutional this time - including former Justice Faith Ireland, who sided with the narrow majority in upholding capital punishment back in 2006. Arguments are scheduled today in the case of Allen Eugene Gregory, who was convicted of raping, robbing and killing Geneine Harshfield, a 43-year-old cocktail waitress who lived near his grandmother, in 1996. His lawyers are challenging his conviction and sentence, including procedural issues and statements made by a prosecutor during the trial. But they also insist that the death penalty is arbitrarily applied and that it is not applied proportionally, as the state Constitution requires. Certain counties - especially Pierce, where Gregory was convicted - have been aggressive about seeking execution, while others have said a death-penalty case would quickly bankrupt them, making the location of the crime a key factor in whether someone might be sentenced to death. "Mr. Gregory is by no stretch of the imagination 1 of the worst offenders," attorneys Neil Fox and Lila Silverstein wrote. "Indeed, Washington's worst are serving life sentences. Meanwhile, Allen Gregory is on death row for killing a single victim when he was only 24 years old and he has committed no other violent felonies." The Washington Supreme Court has heard - and rejected - such arguments before. In 2006, the court issued a 5-4 decision upholding the death penalty for Dayva Cross, who argued that since the state's worst serial killer, Gary Ridgway, avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty to 48 aggravated murder counts and agreeing to help investigators locate the remains of his victims, it would be unfair to execute him. Robert Yates, another serial killer, was sentenced to life in prison, as were the perpetrators of Washington's worst mass killing, the 1983 Wah Mee restaurant massacre in Seattle, which left 13 people dead. Juries in King County recently declined to issue death sentences for Christopher Monfort, who killed a Seattle police officer, or Joseph McEnroe, who killed 6 members of his ex-girlfriend's family, including children, on Christmas Eve 2007. Cross, who killed his wife and her 2 daughters, is 1 of 9 people on Washington's death row. The majority in his case ruled that outliers such as Ridgway don't render the law unconstitutional. But the court's makeup now might be more hostile to capital punishment. Four of the justices remain from 2006, 3 of whom were in the minority: Charles Johnson, Barbara Madsen and Susan Owens. One of the newer justices, Charles Wiggins, has expressed concerns over indications blacks are statistically more likely to be sentenced to death in Washington than whites, while another, Sheryl Gordon McCloud, represented defendants who had been sentenced to death - and criticized the way the death penalty is applied - during her previous career as an appellate lawyer. In its brief, the Pierce County Prosecutor's Office urged the court to uphold the punishment, which is allowed by the federal government and 32 states. It argued the court has repeatedly upheld capital punishment, that those rulings should stand, and that Gregory shouldn't be allowed to make his constitutional arguments because he did not properly preserve those issues for appeal. "Since death penalty abolitionists are unable to convince large numbers of Washingtonians to abolish the death penalty, defendant turns to this court in hopes that he can convince 5 of the court???s members that abolishing the death penalty is reflective of current public opinion," deputy prosecutor Kathleen Proctor wrote. "Essentially, defendant asks this court to become a legislative entity and to override the desire of the people of this state to have the death penalty as an available sanction for certain homicides." In joining 55 other ex-judges who signed a brief filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington urging an end to capital punishment, Ireland, who served a single term on the Supreme Court, was particularly concerned about geographical disparities in death sentences - an issue that the majority held was not squarely before the court in 2006. "We can't call the death penalty anything but arbitrary when it depends on whether you kill someone in a rich county or one that can't afford such a trial," she wrote in an email to The Associated Press. "That could be fixed in my opinion by having death penalty prosecutions and defenses funded at the state level." (source: Yakima Herald) ***************** State Supreme Court could overhaul death penalty A Washington Supreme Court could overhaul the death penalty in our state. For KIRO 7 News at 6 p.m., Essex Porter is following the case of a death row inmate whose case the court will hear Thursday. Depending on the ruling in the inmate's case, the death penalty in Washington could change. The Washington ACLU is urging the court to abolish to the death penalty altogether. In 2014, Gov. Jay Inslee announced he was suspending the use of the death penalty in Washington state, in a move that he hoped would enable officials to "join a growing national conversation about capital punishment." But Inslee's moratorium means that if a death-penalty case comes to his desk, he will issue a reprieve, which would allow inmates to stay in prison rather than face execution. Individuals on death row are still subject to execution if one of Inslee's successors lifts the moratorium. 2 methods of execution are legal in Washington: lethal injection and hanging. Since 1904, 78 persons have been executed in Washington, none of whom was a woman. (source: KIRO news) ********** Dozens of judges ask Washington high court to ban death penalty Washington state's relationship with the death penalty over the past few decades has been so tenuous that even mass killers, serial killers and a cop killer have escaped it. Only 5 people have been executed in the past 35 years. Gov. Jay Inslee, a 1-time supporter of capital punishment, has said no executions will take place while he's in office. And the state prosecutors association has called for a referendum on whether to bother keeping it on the books. Now, the state's high court, which came within 1 vote of striking down the death penalty a decade ago, is re-examining it. Dozens of former Washington judges have taken the unusual step of urging the court to find it unconstitutional this time - including former Justice Faith Ireland, who sided with the narrow majority in upholding capital punishment back in 2006. Arguments are scheduled for Thursday in the case of Allen Eugene Gregory, who was convicted of raping, robbing and killing Geneine Harshfield, a 43-year-old cocktail waitress who lived near his grandmother, in 1996. His lawyers are challenging his conviction and sentence, including procedural issues and statements made by a prosecutor during the trial. But they also insist that the death penalty is arbitrarily applied and that it is not applied proportionally, as the state Constitution requires. Certain counties - especially Pierce, where Gregory was convicted - have been aggressive about seeking execution, while others have said a death-penalty case would quickly bankrupt them, making the location of the crime a key factor in whether someone might be sentenced to death. "Mr. Gregory is by no stretch of the imagination one of the worst offenders," attorneys Neil Fox and Lila Silverstein wrote. "Indeed, Washington's worst are serving life sentences. Meanwhile, Allen Gregory is on death row for killing a single victim when he was only 24 years old and he has committed no other violent felonies." The Washington Supreme Court has heard - and rejected - such arguments before. In 2006, the court issued a 5-4 decision upholding the death penalty for Dayva Cross, who argued that since the state's worst serial killer, Gary Ridgway, avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty to 48 aggravated murder counts and agreeing to help investigators locate the remains of his victims, it would be unfair to execute him. Robert Yates, another serial killer, was sentenced to life in prison, as were the perpetrators of Washington's worst mass killing, the 1983 Wah Mee restaurant massacre in Seattle, which left 13 people dead. Juries in King County recently declined to issue death sentences for Christopher Monfort, who killed a Seattle police officer, or Joseph McEnroe, who killed six members of his ex-girlfriends family, including children, on Christmas Eve 2007. Cross, who killed his wife and her 2 daughters, is 1 of 9 people on Washington's death row. The majority in his case ruled that outliers such as Ridgway don't render the law unconstitutional. But the court's make-up now might be more hostile to capital punishment. Four of the justices remain from 2006, three of whom were in the minority: Charles Johnson, Barbara Madsen and Susan Owens. One of the newer justices, Charles Wiggins, has expressed concerns over indications blacks are statistically more likely to be sentenced to death in Washington than whites, while another, Sheryl Gordon McCloud, represented defendants who had been sentenced to death - and criticized the way the death penalty is applied - during her previous career as an appellate lawyer. In its brief, the Pierce County Prosecutor's Office urged the court to uphold the punishment, which is allowed by the federal government and 32 states. It argued the court has repeatedly upheld capital punishment, that those rulings should stand, and that Gregory shouldn't be allowed to make his constitutional arguments because he did not properly preserve those issues for appeal. "Since death penalty abolitionists are unable to convince large numbers of Washingtonians to abolish the death penalty, defendant turns to this court in hopes that he can convince five of the court's members that abolishing the death penalty is reflective of current public opinion," deputy prosecutor Kathleen Proctor wrote. "Essentially, defendant asks this court to become a legislative entity and to override the desire of the people of this state to have the death penalty as an available sanction for certain homicides." In joining 55 other ex-judges who signed a brief filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington urging an end to capital punishment, Ireland, who served a single term on the Supreme Court, was particularly concerned about geographical disparities in death sentences - an issue that the majority held was not squarely before the court in 2006. "We can't call the death penalty anything but arbitrary when it depends on whether you kill someone in a rich county or one that can't afford such a trial," she wrote in an email to The Associated Press. "That could be fixed in my opinion by having death penalty prosecutions and defenses funded at the state level." (source: KOMO news) USA: see: http://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optinv=001C5QOjSvqJgyoQKAfKFRVu7GZjQLbHxhMattecZIbC tlj5J9KXBgyXoPytsO5I1pzHF8w9Q0I3OkJs18Rdal57_yLXYUrrfpA7jDcf4rkFZn7ktJKWcnBJtkldE-e96tvesXy-xYVX9Wy31V9G1rgw%3D%3D&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ncadp&utm_content=2+-+you+can+optin+and+receive+these+emails+b&utm_campaign=EXECA&source= EXECA (source: NCADP) ***************************** On the Road to Abolition: Capital Punishment and Its Uncertain Future in the United States Capital punishment in this country has a long and storied history. In the early years, the colonies regularly executed criminal offenders for a variety of crimes, including arson, piracy, and sodomy. These executions were often public in nature. As our country continued to grow and progress, executions continued but became much rarer in practice. The rarity with which executions were imposed perhaps ironically created a constitutional problem. Because being sentenced to death was like being "struck by lightning," imposition of capital punishment was arbitrary and capricious, which amounted to it being unconstitutional. As a result of this and other concerns, in 1972, the US Supreme Court struck down the death penalty as it was being applied in the states. Despite this difficulty, many states clung to the extreme punishment, and, just 4 years later, the Court upheld Georgia's new and revised capital punishment statute, which set the standard for the additional thirty-seven states that reinvested in the death penalty. Since 1976, the number of states embracing capital punishment has generally hovered around thirty-eight. In recent years, though, several states have explicitly or effectively walked away from the punishment. Since 2004, seven states have abolished the death penalty either through statute or case law: New York (2004), New Jersey (2007), New Mexico (2009), Illinois (2011), Connecticut (2013), Maryland (2013), and Nebraska (2015). This amounts to a change from 76% to 62% of states supporting capital punishment. This shift is significant for a couple of reasons. First, it suggests that much of the public is changing its views on the issue of capital punishment. This is probably a reaction to the realization that well over 1,500 Americans have been wrongfully convicted in this country. It is also likely a result of greater understanding that imposing capital punishment on an individual is vastly more expensive than feeding, housing, and medicating an inmate for the rest of his life. For example, a recent study put the costs associated with an aggravated 1st-degree murder case in which the death penalty was sought at north of $3 million in the state of Washington, whereas the costs associated with an aggravated 1st-degree murder case in which the death penalty was not sought was around $2 million in the state. The 2nd and related reason that the shift in support for capital punishment is significant is that it raises questions about the constitutionality of the punishment. As early as 1958, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on "cruel and unusual punishments" "must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." (Actually, this statement in support of the Court's decision did not have precedential effect, but the Court has repeatedly adopted it as binding law in its subsequent opinions.) This approach to the Eighth Amendment indicates that our interpretation of it may change with time as society evolves. This is despite the fact that U.S. Supreme Court Justices, as well as legal practitioners and scholars, still debate more broadly whether we should take an originalist or living constitutionalist approach to interpreting the Bill of Rights. But this evolving understanding of the Eighth Amendment means that a practice that was once considered constitutional may later become unconstitutional even if the Court does not overrule its prior opinion on the matter. In Atkins v. Virginia, for example, the Court determined that it is unconstitutional to execute intellectually disabled persons even though the Court had - just 13 years earlier - concluded that this practice was not unconstitutional. Similarly, in Roper v. Simmons, the Court determined that it is unconstitutional to execute juvenile offenders even though the Court had previously concluded that this practice was not unconstitutional. Importantly, the Court reached these contrary conclusions in the later cases of Atkins and Roper without overruling the prior decisions. Instead, the Court concluded that the facts had changed over time - and society's values had changed???forcing a new, updated meaning of the Eighth Amendment. With this living, evolving understanding of the Eighth Amendment, there is room for even the death penalty to become unconstitutional over time. In determining whether a punishment practice has become unconstitutional as society has evolved, the Court has looked primarily at whether various jurisdictions have adopted or rejected the practice. This, the Court has explained, is the "clearest and most reliable objective evidence of contemporary values." The Court has also occasionally examined whether the punishment is actually imposed in practice and whether professional groups or the international community oppose the practice. In Atkins, it took 16 states withdrawing support from the practice of executing intellectually disabled individuals for the practice to move from constitutional to unconstitutional within a period of thirteen years. These 16 states were added to the 3 jurisdictions already prohibiting the practice, as well as to the 14 states rejecting capital punishment altogether. The Atkins Court also stressed that it is not so much the number of states withdrawing their support for the practice that matters, but it is "the consistency of the direction of change" that is important. In comparison, while just 7 states have withdrawn support for capital punishment altogether, the consistency of the direction of change within a short period of time has been remarkable on this issue. No non-death penalty state has adopted capital punishment since 1995. This trend is even more impressive when compared to Roper. In that case, it took just 6 states to newly abandon the practice for the Court to find it unconstitutional. These 6 states were added to the twelve states that already prohibited juvenile offender executions, as well as the 12 states that had rejected the death penalty altogether. The Roper Court did rely on additional considerations, however. The Court was also concerned about factors such as the infrequency which with the practice was employed and juveniles' general lack of maturity, underdeveloped sense of responsibility, and lesser culpability than adults. Still, when comparing the shift in states' rejection of executing juvenile offenders with the recent shift in states rejecting capital punishment altogether, the latter is more overwhelming. While a change in just 6 states' laws pushed the Court to find unconstitutionality in Roper, we have recently had seven states abandon the death penalty in its entirety. That puts us at 19 states rejecting capital punishment. In Atkins, that same number of states - 19 - specifically rejected executing intellectually disabled offenders, and in Roper, just 18 states specifically rejected the practice of executing juvenile offenders. Employing this method of state-counting, which the Court has emphasized, provides the "clearest and most reliable objective evidence of contemporary values," it seems that we have reached the territory of possible unconstitutionality of capital punishment. There remains the issue that capital punishment, unlike the practices of executing intellectually disabled persons or juvenile offenders, is specifically mentioned in the Bill of Rights. How could a punishment contemplated by the Constitution be unconstitutional? First, although the Constitution mentions capital punishment, it does not specifically indicate its constitutionality. It suggests that, if capital punishment is to be employed, there are limits on its use - specifically that "[n]o person shall be held to answer for a capital ... crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury" (except in particular circumstances); that no one shall "be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life"; and that no person shall "be deprived of life ... without due process of law." Perhaps more importantly, because the Court has explicitly adopted an evolving meaning interpretation of the Eighth Amendment, a punishment that was once constitutional can become unconstitutional over time. This is what happened in Atkins and Roper, and this evolving approach does not provide exceptions for punishments mentioned in the Bill of Rights. There are a number of reasons why one might argue that capital punishment is unconstitutional. Indeed, the petitioner in Walter v. Pennsylvania suggested that the rarity with which the punishment is employed, and the fact that its imposition is laced with racial bias, means that capital punishment should be found unconstitutional. Perhaps the best argument for unconstitutionality here, though, is based upon the number of states that have rejected the practice. Just as many states have rejected the death penalty as rejected executing intellectually disabled offenders and executing juvenile offenders - numbers that convinced the Court to find these practices unconstitutional. If the trend of abolition continues as it has over the past decade, the death penalty should be something that cannot withstand constitutional challenge. As the Court indicated in Atkins, the direction and consistency of rejecting the punishment will be overwhelming. (source: Meghan J. Ryan is an Associate Professor at Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law. She teaches, writes and researches at the intersection of Criminal Law and Procedure, Torts, and Law and Science. Suggested citation: Meghan J. Ryan, On the Road to Abolition: Capital Punishment and Its Uncertain Future in the United States, JURIST - Academic Commentary, Feb. 24, 2016, http://jurist.org/forum/2016/02/meghan-ryan-capital-punishment.php-----The Jurist) *************** Hang 'em High, or Not At All Capital punishment rarely shows its face anymore. In 1972 the U.S. Supreme Court abolished the death penalty, only to reverse its decision four years later in Gregg v. Georgia 1976, on the condition that states which legalize it comply with the 8th Amendment ban on "cruel and unusual punishment". Since then, states have abandoned such primitive forms of execution as hanging, firing squad, and the electric chair, and have instead taken to the new and enlightened method of lethal injection. Today less than half of all U.S. states have outlawed capital punishment. Though many republican audiences still coo when a governor announces his number of kills, the death penalty's federal permission has become a non issue in the states where it is illegal. Casual opponents of the death penalty, however, find themselves chomping at the bit when forced to evaluate their stance. "Better to err on the side of not taking life. The teaching of the Catholic Church, to which I belong, seems right to me: The state has the legitimate authority to execute criminals, but it should refrain if it has other means of protecting people from them," said Ramesh Ponnuru in a 2014 article for Bloombergview. "Still," he went on, "when I hear about an especially gruesome crime, like the one the Oklahoma killer committed, I can't help rooting for the death penalty." Ignoring the implications of basing the government's "legitimate authority" on what may or may not be Church doctrine, I shift your attention to the 2nd part of that quote, to those "especially" horrible criminals who elicit that special craving for revenge. The Oklahoma killer to whom Ponnuru was referring was a man named Clayton Lockett, who shot and buried alive a witness to his robbery. Lockett's story made headlines in 2014 after his botched execution. The hours leading up to Lockett's death are detailed in an article by Jeffrey St. Clair: Lockett was supposed to be executed along with Charles Warner in a 2 night political show by Governor Mary Warner who, incidentally, "is usually adorned by a necklace with a dangling golden cross." Lockett was tasered out of his cell in the middle of the night after stabbing himself in the wrist with a homemade shank. After 10 hours shackled in a holding cell, he was brought by the prison warden to the execution chamber where the phlebotomist, most likely licensed through online courses, spent about an hour trying to find a vein. The phlebotomist stuck the needle in under Lockett's groin, and put a blanket over it (to keep everything tasteful for the witnesses behind the walls, one supposes). The drug that was supposed to knock him out failed, and Locket woke up screaming while the other 2 drugs meant to kill him were being pumped into his groin. The execution was canceled, and Lockett slowly died over the course of the next half hour. This publication of this gruesome display didn't do much for Governor Fallin's career, but mercilessness as Governor has been and often still is a form of currency in gubernatorial and even presidential races. In the 1992 presidential race, Bill Clinton made this clear when he refused clemency to Ricky Ray Rector, a man so mentally empty that as the guards came to take him away he told them he would save his last slice of pecan pie for later. In his 1st 2-year term as governor, Clinton commuted the sentences of 70 inmates. In 1980, he lost his bid for reelection to an opponent who accused him of being soft on crime. Following his successful reelection in 1983, Clinton 9 (having learned his lesson) commuted a grand total of 7 sentences over his next 4 terms. The idea that this champion Democrat used the execution of a mentally retarded black man as political capital is not easily swallowed by today's progressives, but it is nonetheless typical of the cynicism and general scumbaggery that characterizes Bill Clinton and his breed of politician. In states south of the Mason Dixon, and west of the Mississippi, this kind of trading in lives of the condemned is neither rare nor surprising. Most people have forgotten about last American frontiersman and ever-so-brief star of the 2016 presidential campaign Rick Perry, but he forges ahead ever stalwart. In 2012, in the midst of another failing presidential campaign, then governor-of-Texas Perry was handed an opportunity to flash his supreme record on execution when in a debate he was asked whether or not he worried some of those killed may have been innocent. When moderator Brian Williams cited the 234 inmates executed under his watch, the crowd went wild, and Perry's eyes began to glitter as he put on his serious face. Support for the death penalty has become an easy way for candidates to grandstand during debates, and to make their opponents look weak or even depraved. Michael Dukakis never quite recovered from his uncomfortably lifeless response to Bernard Shaw's question whether he would support the death penalty if his wife was raped and murdered. Still, no was the right answer. Most people know, or have heard of, the hugely disproportionate number of African Americans sentenced to death. Most people know, or have heard of, the many innocent people released from death row, some too late. Most people have an idea of how nightmarish the criminal justice system can be. But over 40 years relatively little has changed. Not too long ago, people like Rick Perry bonded over public hangings. They brought blankets and had family picnics. Ancient Rome had it even better. Today, all that we usually get are news reports, to which many people - if not most - respond with the same "rooting for the death penalty". It is time either to entirely outlaw the death penalty or to reinvigorate it. If we're going to root for torturing criminals to death, let's make it a public torturing, in Aztec style, and find out just how cruel and unusual we all can be. (source: Ryan Mernin, McGill International Review) ******************* Stuntwoman Turned Filmmaker Patty Dillon Takes on Execution From the Executioner's Perspective in There Will Be No Stay A journey of compassion and consequence, through a process shrouded in secrecy, two executioner's lives intersect on a path to discovering freedom from their own personal prisons. After a few years of performing stunt work on television shows like Dawson's Creek, One Tree Hill, and Eastbound and Down, Patty Dillon had a sudden drive to get behind the camera. In 2010, she jumped on the opportunity to move back to Omaha to learn from producer/director Dana Altman, Robert Altman's grandson, who taught her the fundamentals of movie making. Execution through the eyes of the executioner... As a first-time documentary filmmaker, Dillon had the deep desire to explore a topic never before tackled on film. She conceived the idea in 2008, on a call with Dr. Ronald Morton, a friend who would later become her debut film's executive producer. They were talking about how it's common practice for executioners to sanitize the condemned's arm before administering lethal injection. The irony of this practice inspired Patty to write a 13-part series about various facets of execution, called Dichotomy of Death. While researching the first episode, "To Kill the Killer," she began to see an obscure, untold story, and telling the story became somewhat of an obsession. "With executioners still wearing hoods in Florida, these men were literally shrouded in secrecy and hiding out," she says. "They were next to impossible to track down, and the only ones I could find had taken their own lives. I assumed there were others out there suffering in silence and I had to find them." Dillon decided to drop the series and pursue "To Kill the Killer" as a full-length documentary film, There Will Be No Stay. As writer/director and producer of There Will Be No Stay, Dillon was completely out of her element, and she wanted it that way. One of the first hurdles in getting the film made was choosing a crew who was experienced enough to provide the kind of support she needed to shoot and produce a successful first film. With Jeremy Osbern on board as cinematographer, and Nick Fackler, whom she had worked with in the past, as her editor, she was ready to move forward. Making a movie that exposes the devastating effects of state-sanctioned homicide was no easy feat. First off, there was the seemingly impossible task of finding an executioner, let alone one who would talk on camera -- a process that took just under a year of poring over records, calling, emailing, calling again. She set out in search of just one executioner who would let her in, and found 2 men whose paths had crossed in their unusual line of work. "The biggest challenge was finding my cast," she says. "Ultimately what I wanted to do was form an execution team -- warden, chaplain, and executioner. Then I thought it would be really powerful to have a victim's family member involved." After a lot of knocking on doors, Dillon secured interviews with 2 former South Carolina executioners, a former Georgia prison warden, and a former Texas prison chaplain. "Going into the film, my agenda was really to educate myself, but the further I got into it, it became about telling the story of the execution team," says Dillon of the human element of her film. "I'd have conversations that went on for hours sometimes with the executioners, where I'd shut that filmmaker part of me down and just listen to them talk. I found myself becoming part of their recovery and wanting to help them heal. It was really quite dark at times and there were more than a few nights where I cried myself to sleep." >From concept to cameras rolling, There Will Be No Stay took 4 years to get off the ground, and on Oct 15, 2012, Dillon and her team went into production. With commitments from investors who were excited about the film's unique approach, but no great sum of money to carry out the full project, Patty and her co-producer Chevy Kozisek piecemealed the budget, scraping by enough to keep the cameras rolling. Day 1 of shooting involved filming exterior shots at the execution of Eric Roberts at South Dakota State Penitentiary, with protestors in full effect. Then exterior shots at an execution in Huntsville, Texas. Polarity is an ever-present theme in the film, and Dillon does an impressive job of navigating a complex topic -- essentially by presenting a bird's eye view while letting the audience connect the dots. "Activism in itself can be very violent, a form of opposition, and that's something I wanted to capture, too -- the range of human emotions around the topic and the contrast between the pro-death penalty supporters, the anti-activists, and the families of the condemned," she says. Another major hurdle was getting footage of a death chamber. Even death chambers that were out of use were carefully guarded, which pushed Dillon to be even more headstrong in her quest. She came close to getting access into a death chamber in Arizona, and another in Nebraska, going so far as to meet with Senator Ernie Chambers, but delays and red tape pushed her goal further and further away. Dillon denied an invitation to witness a live execution because, she says, "I didn't want to exploit the final moments of a man's life. Without having any relationship with the condemned or the family, it would have been disrespectful." Finally, her crew was granted permission to roll cameras on a death chamber in Oklahoma, less than 36 hours after an execution took place -- the very same spot that would become the center of a hot controversy only weeks later. The state came under fire after the botched execution of Clayton Lockett leaked out, a situation where it took the inmate 4 hours to die as a result of experimental lethal injection drugs. CNN was clamoring for footage; they couldn't get inside, so Death Row Stories narrator Susan Sarandon suggested they call Dillon. Her footage later appeared on an episode of called "Botched," along with an interview of Dillon talking about her experience. Dillon had previously contacted Sarandon in hopes that she might agree to narrate the film, but after she delivered a rough cut, Sarandon sent her an email encouraging her to do the narration herself. She felt that Dillon's connection to the executioners was integral to the story, and that the film would be missing something with a 3rd-party voice. During her journey, there were things that Dillon felt were especially hypocritical, things that needed to be made public: "A former warden I interviewed talked about the shock he felt during his first execution when he heard the condemned's nose break after a mask was put on him. And because the condemned is clutching the chair so hard, the tie-down team is forced to break the condemned's fingers in order to remove the body. When I found out the cause of death is listed as homicide, I was just in awe of the insanity. Also, people think it's cheaper to execute inmates than to incarcerate them for life, but the truth is it costs millions of dollars for every execution." There Will Be No Stay was completed for just under $200,000, after a seven-year mission to fund, film, and edit. Dillon debuted the film at Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula, Montana, where it earned award nominations for Best Feature Length Documentary and Audience Choice. At Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose, the film was nominated for Best Feature Documentary and Audience Choice. At the Omaha Film Festival, it earned a nomination for Audience Choice. Though the subject matter was ominous, responses to the film were highly supportive. After turning down a few distributors who came knocking, Dillon said yes to FilmBuff, a New York-based independent distributor with a reputation for supporting creative and edgy underdogs. Under contract with FilmBuff, There Wlll Be No Stay was released on January 19th on Video on Demand and is now available through iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, VUDU, and Xbox. For Dillon, the rewards of her risky endeavor came in many small but sweet victories, like when she showed it to her executive producer for the first time: "I paced around the house while he watched it," she says. "He's not an excitable guy, but I breathed a sigh of relief when he finally said, 'It's good. We made a movie!" For their own personal reasons, the two executioners have yet to see the film. Says Dillon, "They've passionately repeated that they trust what I've done with their story. There's no pressure; they'll watch it when they're ready." Not one to sit on her hands, Dillon's got a few projects in development now. First in the pipeline is grooming her autobiographical series Character Shoes for episodic television -- a dark comedy that takes the audience into her evenings as an undercover stripper named "Isabelle." Imagine The Office meets Orange is the New Black, but the office is a strip club. "I spent many nights in a dark corner of the club with a glass of wine, either researching current execution events on my phone or taking notes on the colorful story lines evolving in front of my face -- for the better part of a year, I was writing about either strippers or killers," says Dillon. "If I had a conference call for the film, I would take off my stilettos and put on my flip-flops, ask the valet to bring my truck around, and take the call in my front seat." She's also in the early stages of an edgy documentary that follows adults who were born "sexually ambiguous," a situation where the parents were forced to chose their child's gender within a month of birth. The film takes a hard look at the grown children and the gender identity issues they are now facing. As a writer and director, Dillon is extremely gifted at being at the right place at the right time, and letting the truth wiggle out through her cast. Looking back on her debut venture, she acknowledges that making There Will Be No Stay helped her become more human in a way, and solidified her ability to bring a vision to life through the art of film. "At the beginning I felt awake, like I needed to show what we are capable of doing to another human being when we forget the collective consciousness, that one decision has an unbelievable ripple effect. What my viewer thinks of the death penalty is none of my business, but I found myself asking, 'Why are we killing people to teach people that killing people is wrong?' It's insanity. Isn't it the most premeditated murder of all? Pure insanity. I wanted to find out if people knew what really goes on during the carrying out our death sentences, if it would make a difference. Ultimately, I just felt this tremendous responsibility to do the executioners' stories justice... if I've done that, then as far as I'm concerned, the film is successful." If you'd like more information on the There Will Be No Stay, Dillon can be reached at FallGirlProductions at gmail.com. (source: Lindsey Kesel, Huffington Post) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Feb 25 12:05:24 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2016 12:05:24 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 25 ZIMBABWE: Mnangagwa correct on inhumaneness of death penalty It was interesting to hear Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa addressing the indaba of Legal Affairs ministers in Rome, Italy, as he spoke of efforts being made to abolish capital punishment in Zimbabwe. For starters, capital punishment is the sentencing of a convict to death by a competent legal court. In other words, death sentence is legalised murder. Such a law has no room in the modern world. It has to be done away with completely. Unlike South Africa and other progressive states, Zimbabwe still has the death penalty in its Constitution. What it serves, no one knows, except Zanu PF, which campaigned vigorously for its inclusion in Constitutional Amendment (No. 20) Act 2013. Among crimes where the death penalty applies is treason, sabotage, banditry and murder with intent. However, debate is centred on the usefulness of the death penalty. Questions also concern why Zimbabwe chose to keep it in the Constitution applying it selectively, with women spared together with certain male age groups. This means a woman cannot be hanged no matter what crime she commits in Zimbabwe. The fact that Mnangagwa, himself, an escapee of the death penalty through an age technicality at the courts of the white minority former government, opposes capital punishment, shows he understands the pain of facing the death penalty. Not only is it unjust, but shows the evil side of human beings. It does not even deter would-be offenders of similar crimes. We still wonder what capital punishment serves. The answer is nothing except to terminate life. If there has to be any amendment to our Constitution, it must be the abolition of capital punishment. It is a Stone Age law, backward and unreasonable. It belongs to the archives or scrapyard of jurisprudence. Supporting the application of the death sentence is like supporting slavery and the slave trade in the 21st century. The hangman's noose is not different from the biblical cross. It reminds us of the talk that not all laws are just and the death penalty is one of the unjust and inhumane sentences in our laws. The inclusion of the death penalty was never supported by democratic and progressive elements of Zimbabwean society except Zanu PF. What use they wanted it for no sane person knows. Such backward laws are usually used by dictators to instil fear into their subjects and not for reform or punishment. However, as the world moves on, Zimbabwe must also move on. Lots of people in our jails have been on death row for years and its commutation for life behind bars might become the smiling side of our laws. (source: NewsDay) SAUDI ARABIA: Prosecutor wants death penalty for 28 espionage suspects----Business analyst, security serviceman among Iran spy ring in Saudi Arabia A government prosecutor called for the death penalty for 28 suspects -- 27 Saudis and 1 Afghan -- and for severe jail terms for the remaining 4, 3 Saudis and 1 Iranian. A business analyst and a security serviceman are among the 32 people put on trial in Saudi Arabia this week for spying for Iran. The 32 suspects are accused of high treason against the kingdom by collaborating with Iranian intelligence. The security serviceman worked for a sector tasked with the security and safety of pilgrims, the court in the capital Riyadh heard as the last eight suspects, all Saudi nationals, went on trial on Tuesday, Saudi daily Okaz reported. The serviceman asked the judges to name a lawyer to defend him, explaining that he did not have the financial resources to hire an attorney. However, a judge told him that he would have to pay the state back in case it was found out that he was financially able to hire a lawyer, he changed his mind and said he would have his own lawyer, Okaz said. Another suspect who pleaded to be bailed out was told that he needed the approval of the interior minister and that he should fill in an application. (source: Gulf News) LIBERIA: Kakata Court Sentences Killers to Death by Hanging and 50-Year Imprisonment The 13th Judicial circuit court in Kakata has sentenced 2 murderers to a 50-year sentence and death by hanging. The convicts, 54-year-old Garpue Gayeezon and 55-year-old Arthur Wakai, were sentenced last week after a panel of jurors brought down the unanimous guilty verdict. Gayeezon and Wakai were convicted of felony murder in the 1st degree for killing Peter Gaye, a resident of Doe-Gboteh Town, Margibi County on July 29th, 2015. According to the prosecution, Wakai ordered Gayeezon to kill Gaye for a compensation of about US$110. Wakai had accused the deceased of being in a romantic affair with his wife. "He refused to back off despite complaining about him to the elders of the town," Wakai had told the prosecution. The prosecution showed that 3 shots from a single barrel gun had killed Gaye. Although the defendants pleaded not guilty to their indictment before the court, the prosecution provided 2 state witnesses, the single barrel gun and the 3 shots that were used for the commission of the crime. 2 state witnesses testified that Gayeezon and Wakai confessed to the elders of the clan and in their voluntary statements to the police. Margibi County public defender Klon Nyangbe waived further arguments into the matter before the unanimous guilty verdict. In 2008, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf signed into law an act reinstating the death penalty in Liberia. International organizations such as the United Nations Economic and Social Council and the International Bar Association both condemned Liberia's restoration of capital punishment and pointed out that it violated Liberia's international obligation as a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights' Second Optional Protocol aimed at abolishing the death penalty. (source: bushchicken.com) IRAN: Entire male population of village in Iran executed for drug trafficking The entire male population of a village in Iran has been executed for its alleged role in drug trafficking, according to an Iranian cabinet minister. Shahindokht Molaverdi, a vice-president of Iran responsable for Women and Family Affairs, said in an interview to the Mehr news agency that she fears violence could worsen in the unnamed village in the Sistan and Baluchestan province: "The children of the executed criminals are also already drug traffickers. They want to avenge the deaths of their fathers. At the same time they are feeding their families with money from the drugs trade and the people of this village can not be protected." Sistan and Baluchestan province shares thousands of kilometres of land borderwith neighbouring Pakistan and Afghanistan and is a key smuggling point for opium and other narcotics. Largely underdeveloped and poor, a large part of the local population relies on the drugs trade for income. In recent years the area has become a base for Sunni, mainly Salafist extremist groups originating in Pakistan. Both drug traffickers and Sunni extremists have been main targets of a strict crackdown led by the Iranian government. The exact number of men executed in the province has not been published, but Sistan and Baluchestan figures among the Iranian provinces that applies capital punishment most often. "If we do not act against these people, crime will return," said Molaverdi. "Society is responsible for the families of those executed. Although the family support programme was neglected for several years, it has now been relaunched as part of the sixth national development plan." Iran is among the countries that carries out the death penalty most frequently, and many of those sentenced to death are done so for drug-related crimes. The country's national assembly recently launched a bill that would see drug offences punished by life imprisonment rather than death. (source: albawaba.com) ************** Torture and executions continue in Iran: Amnesty International The authorities in Iran have "severely curtailed the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly, arresting and imprisoning journalists, human rights defenders, trade unionists and others who voiced dissent, on vague and overly broad charges," Amnesty International said in its annual report on violations of human rights in Iran. "Torture and other ill-treatment of detainees remained common and was committed with impunity; prison conditions were harsh. Unfair trials continued, in some cases resulting in death sentences." "Women and members of ethnic and religious minorities faced pervasive discrimination in law and in practice. The authorities carried out cruel punishments, including blinding, amputation and floggings. Courts imposed death sentences for a range of crimes; many prisoners, including at least four juvenile offenders, were executed." Detainees and sentenced prisoners were denied adequate medical care; in some cases, the authorities withheld prescribed medications to punish prisoners, or failed to comply with medical doctors??? recommendations that prisoners should be hospitalized for treatment. The authorities also frequently subjected detainees and prisoners to prolonged solitary confinement amounting to torture or other ill-treatment. "Prisoners were kept in severely overcrowded and insanitary conditions with inadequate food and exposed to extreme temperatures. This included prisoners in Dizel Abad Prison in Kermanshah, Adel Abad Prison in Shiraz, Gharchak Prison in Varamin, and Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad. According to some former detainees, in Tabriz Central Prison, some 700 to 800 prisoners were held in 3 poorly ventilated, insanitary cells with access to only 10 toilets." "Courts continued to impose, and the authorities continued to carry out, punishments that violate the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment. These were sometimes carried out in public and included flogging, blinding and amputations. On 3 March the authorities in Karaj deliberately blinded a man in his left eye after a court sentenced him to "retribution-in-kind" (qesas) for throwing acid into the face of another man. He also faced blinding of his right eye." The report by Amnesty said: "The authorities continued to use the death penalty extensively, and carried out numerous executions, including of juvenile offenders. Some executions were conducted in public." (source: NCR-Iran) INDIA: Grave Doubts About Afzal Guru's Involvement In 2001 Parliament Attack: P Chidambaram Even as 6 university students are facing a sedition charge for allegedly raising slogans in favor of Afzal Guru, Congress Party leader P. Chidambaram has told The Economic Times that there were "grave doubts about the extent of his involvement" in the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament. "I think it is possible to hold an honest opinion that the Afzal Guru case was perhaps not correctly decided," Chidambaram, who served as the Home Minister and then the Finance Minister in the United Progressive Alliance government, told ET. "But being in government you cannot say the court has decided the case wrongly because it was the government that prosecuted him. But an independent person can hold an opinion that the case was not decided correctly," he said. Afzal Guru was secretly hanged and buried in Tihar Jail in Delhi by the Congress Party-led government on Feb 9, 2013. His conviction and execution has been a subject of controversy because there are those who believe his role in the attack did not merit the death penalty, while others argue that he was given a fair trial by the Indian judiciary. The Congress Party-led government was criticized for pulling Afzal Guru out of the death-row queue and executing him out of turn, without even informing his family. The Congress Party was accused of trying to appear tough on terrorism in the run up to the national election. Recently, six students from Jawharlal Nehru University, who allegedly organized an event to mark the 3rd anniversary of Afzal Guru's execution, and raised "anti-national slogans," have been charged with sedition by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government. "There were grave doubts about his involvement in the conspiracy behind the attack on Parliament, and even if he was involved, there were grave doubts about the extent of his involvement. He could have been imprisoned for life without parole for rest of his natural life," Chidambaram told ET. (source: Huffington Post) ************* Death penalty should be given for sedition: Togadia Bareilly: "Delhi police should enter the JNU campus and arrest people like Umar Khalid, who raised anti-national slogans and indulged in seditious activates. In such cases, death penalty should be given to the accused," said working president, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Praveen Togadia, while addressing a convention on 'social harmony' here on Wednesday. He said, "Modi government should bring a bill for the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya the way former Union home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel did for renovating the Somnath temple in Gujarat." He said Hindus across the world should unite, leaving aside caste bias, and Uniform Civil Code should be applied across the country. Expressing concern over rising population in the country, he said government should strictly enforce the two child norm and those who fail to abide by it should be deprived of government benefits. Slamming the state government for its appeasement policy and anti-Hindu stand, he said, "Akhilesh Yadav is chief minister of UP because Hindus are in majority. Had it not been so, some Nihal Ahmad would have been the CM," said Togadia. Addressing a symposium on social harmony organized by VHP at Shahabad tehsil in Rampur on Tuesday, Togadia said if Hindus of Rampur, Moradabad and Meerut fail to unite, they would meet the same fate which their counterparts in Kashmir faced 25 years back. Even a strong force of 11 lakh jawans of Indian army could not protect the Hindus in Kashmir. "Those raising Pakistani flag in Kashmir should be put behind the bars," he said. (source: The Times of India) INDONESIA: Lawyer for former Australian university student accused of murdering friend by spiking her coffee with cyanide argues there's no 'concrete' evidence against her----Wayan Mirna Salihin died after drinking cyanide-spiked coffee in Jakarta A former Australian university student who has been accused of lacing a friend's ice coffee with cyanide should be released immediately, her lawyers say. Jessica Kumala Wongso, 27, has been charged with the premeditated murder of her friend, Wayan Mirna Salihin, who died in Olivier restaurant in Central Jakarta, Indonesia, on January 6. If found guilty, she could face the death penalty. In a pretrial hearing at Central Jakarta Court on Tuesday, Wongso's lawyers argued there was a lack of evidence to link her to the crime and her continued detention was a 'gross violation' of human rights. '[Police] cannot prove the concrete actions of my client, which means they have made a gross human rights violation by detaining her without strong evidence,' Wongso's lawyer Hidayat Bustam said. 'There has been an abuse of power, with police forgetting Indonesia is a country based on law, not power.' Hidayat alleged police had conducted a search of Wongso's home without the required legal documentation and had on one occasion subjected his client to almost 12 hours of interrogation. He denied his client had anything to do with poisoning Mirna's coffee and questioned why the pair's friend Hani and a staff member at the cafe, who had also tasted the coffee, had not died as well. The prosecution team defended the handling of the investigation on Wednesday, saying police had ample authority to charge her. Prosecution lawyers admitted police did not have a permit when they searched Wondgso's home, but Jakarta Police lawyer Adj. Sr. Comr. Aminullah said the 'urgency' of the investigation meant it was necessary, the Jakarta Post reported. Mr Aminullah said in light of this, police had not violated procedures. A decision on Wongso's suspect status will be made by the court by March 2. Wongso and Ms Salihin reportedly studied together at Billy Blue College of Design in Sydney and Swinburne University of Technology. Ms Salihin died on January 6 at a Jakarta hospital after suffering convulsions moments after she sipped an iced coffee ordered by her friend. Police said Ms Wongso arrived at the cafe around an hour before her two friends and ordered three drinks, including the Vietnamese iced coffee that is believed to have killed Ms Salihin. Testing by a police laboratory found a deadly dose of cyanide in Ms Salihin's body. Wongso has maintained her innocence since her former study partner's death, telling reporters that she 'does not know where the cyanide came from'. (source: Daily Mail) BANGLADESH: Pilkhana Carnage Case ---- Now wait for HC verdict; Proceedings in country's biggest ever criminal case to end by May The High Court is likely to finish hearing the death reference and appeals in BDR carnage case in May this year, as it has already completed majority of their proceedings in the last 190 working days. On completion of the hearings, the court will fix a date for delivering verdict on the biggest ever criminal case in the country's history in terms of the number of accused and convicts. After the verdict, it may take some time for writing and releasing the full verdict and then both the state and defence may move appeals before the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, if they want to. "The apex court will then hear and dispose of the appeals and it may take 3 more years to deliver the final judgment of the case even if the proceedings are run on priority basis," said defence counsel Aminul Islam. The death reference and the appeals were filed with the HC months after a Dhaka court announced its verdict on November 5, 2013, nearly 5 years after the mutiny at the Pilkhana BDR headquarters. The trial court awarded death penalty to 150 soldiers of the erstwhile Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) and 2 civilians, and sentenced 161 others to life imprisonment for their roles and involvement in the carnage. It also handed down rigorous imprisonment, ranging from three to 10 years, to 256 people, mostly BDR soldiers. The court acquitted 277 accused. A total of 846 people, 823 of them BDR personnel, were on trial. 74 people, including 57 senior and mid-ranking army officials, were massacred in the BDR mutiny on February 25-26 in 2009 at the Pilkhana headquarters of the paramilitary force that has been renamed Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB). Until February 18 this year, both the state and defence counsels have placed arguments on factual points of the appeals of 118 death-row inmates out of total 152 of the case before the HC. After placing arguments on factual points of the appeals of the rest death-row inmates, the counsels would make arguments on factual points of the appeals of other convicts who were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment and different terms of imprisonments, Deputy Attorney General AKM Zahid Sarwar Kazal and defence counsel Aminul Islam told The Daily Star on February 18. The High Court would hear legal points after the counsels finished placing arguments on the factual points, they said, adding that the hearing proceedings might be completed in May this year. Aminul Islam said after the High Court announces the judgment, it might take time for writing and releasing the full verdict and then both the state and defence might move appeals before the Appellate Division, challenging the HC verdict. Earlier, the state counsels presented first information report, charge sheet, confessional statements of 538 convicted accused, statements on the seizure list, statements of 654 prosecution witnesses and 29 defence witnesses of the case before the HC. The special HC bench comprising Justice Md Shawkat Hossain, Justice Md Abu Zafor Siddique, and Justice Nazrul Islam Talukder on January 18 last year started hearing death reference and 255 appeals in the case, paving the way for completing its adjudication. The 33-hour mutiny broke out after the then BDR chief Maj Gen Shakil Ahmed started a Darbar (Grand Conference) at the Darbar Hall in Pilkhana in the morning of February 25, 2009. The mutineers looted the armoury and rampaged through the Pilkhana headquarters. Within hours, they killed most of the superior officers in and around the Darbar hall. They tortured and bayoneted their superiors before killing them, and then dumped the bodies in sewers and mass graves to destroy evidence. The mutineers also tortured the family members of their superiors and looted their houses. They also ransacked officers' quarters and set fire to vehicles. Earlier, 17,306 BDR jawans faced trial in 11 special BDR courts and 60 summery trial courts of BDR commanding officers for the mutiny. At least 78 accused jawans died under mysterious circumstances after the mutiny. Many of them reportedly died of heart attack in police custody while a few others committed suicide. (source: The Daily Star) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Feb 25 17:19:37 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2016 17:19:37 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----PENN., VA., FLA., MISS., OHIO, KY., CALIF., USA Message-ID: Feb. 25 PENNSYLVANIA: A Perfect Storm: Judicial Bias, Prosecutorial Misconduct, and a Death Sentence Next Monday, the Supreme Court will consider whether the constitution is violated if the chief judge on the highest court of the state refuses to disqualify himself in a death penalty appeal where he was the chief prosecutor who authorized the defendant's death sentence, obtained the death sentence through his office's misconduct, and campaigned for the judgeship by showcasing how many people he put on death row, including the defendant. To be sure, some judges play fast and loose with the rules of ethics, especially rules relating to bias and unfairness, and occasionally judges are disciplined for their misconduct. But it is unusual to find a case in which a judge's bias is so clear, even if the judge in question is so tone deaf that he believes he can be fair. However, believing in one's own fairness is not the test. As the Supreme Court has explained in other cases, the test is objective: whether under the circumstances the average judge is likely to be neutral. In addition, however, constitutional Due Process requires from a judge not just the absence of actual bias but the absence of even the appearance of bias. As the Supreme Court famously observed: "Justice must satisfy the appearance of justice." In the case before the Supreme Court , Pennsylvania v. Williams, defendant Terrence Williams and a co-defendant were convicted in Philadelphia in 1984 of beating the victim to death with a tire iron and then burning his body. Williams was 18 and had several previous convictions for violent crimes, including 3rd degree murder and robbery. As is required by law, Philadelphia's elected District Attorney, Ronald Castille, authorized his staff to seek the death penalty against the defendant. The trial prosecutor argued to the sentencing jury that Williams killed the victim "for no other reason but that a kind man offered him a ride home." Given the defendant's violent history, the jury agreed with the prosecutor's plea, and sentenced Williams to death. But the prosecutor did not tell the jury the truth. In a post-conviction hearing many years later, the defendant discovered evidence in the prosecutor's files that showed that the sentencing jury was given an incomplete and distorted picture of the killing. The victim was not nearly as sympathetic as the trial prosecutor argued. In fact, as several documents discovered from the prosecutor's files revealed, the victim was a pedophile who had engaged in many homosexual encounters with young boys, including the defendant when he was 13 years old. According to the defendant, the sexual pressure imposed on him by the victim was a critical circumstance in the killing. But the sentencing jury never learned these facts. Why? Because for 30 years the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office suppressed information that would have been relevant on the jury's penalty decision. The prosecutor suppressed a statement from the victim's widow that her husband engaged in sexual encounters with young boys; suppressed a statement from the pastor at the local church that the victim engaged in sexual encounters with parishioners at his church; suppressed evidence that the prosecution gave benefits to the co-defendant in return for his testimony; and failed to correct this witness's false testimony at the trial. Based on this serial misconduct by the prosecution, the hearing court vacated the death sentence. The court described the prosecutor's conduct as playing "fast and loose with the truth," engaging in a "pattern of misconduct," "disregarded her ethical obligations," and "took unfair measures to win." The prosecution appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Williams filed a motion asking Chief Judge Castille to recuse himself from the appeal, and if he denied the motion, to refer the motion to the entire court. Recall that in 1993, District Attorney Castille campaigned for election to become a Judge on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. He stressed his record as Philadelphia District Attorney championing the death penalty. He proclaimed that he "put 45 people on death row," one of whom was the defendant. The media sensationalized his campaign oratory, hailing him as a "tough as nails scourge of criminals," repeatedly quoting Castille "bragging that he sent 45 people to death row," and that he "wears that statistic as a badge." Castille was elected and assumed his position in January 1994. Now, in response to the defendant's motion to recuse him, he issued a terse 1 sentence order: "The Motion for Recusal is DENIED, as is the request for referral to full Court." The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed the hearing court and reinstated the death sentence. Chief Judge Castille joined in the Court's unanimous reversal and lifting the stay of execution. He did not write the opinion for the 6-member court, but he did write a concurring opinion that can only be described as a tirade in which he attacks the hearing judge for bias and incompetence, and the conduct of the defense lawyers as unlawful and unethical. According to Judge Castille, the hearing court's ruling on the defendant's "blatantly frivolous motion" was "extraordinary and unauthorized," "ignored the law," "misapprehended discovery rules," and "most troubling, lost sight of [the trial judge's] role as a neutral judicial officer." He alleged, incredibly, that the hearing judge "seized the files of the Commonwealth and the police for no legitimate reason," "independently reviewed the materials," and then allowed these materials to be used at the hearing. Chief Judge Castille's attack on the defendant's lawyers - the Federal Community Defenders Office - was uniquely vicious. He charged them with "gaming the system," " representing clients throughout Pennsylvania illegitimately," "pursuing an obstructionist death-penalty agenda," "anointing themselves as a statewide de facto capital defenders office," employing "tactics" that included "multiple attempts to delay and obstruct cases and unsettle and undermine Pennsylvania law," and turning legal proceedings into a "circus where [these lawyers] are the ringmasters, with their parrots and puppets as a sideshow." Given this astonishing attack against the hearing judge and the defense lawyers, it is no wonder that Judge Castille refused to disqualify himself from reviewing his own conduct as District Attorney who supervised the defendant's prosecution and death sentence. It appears Judge Castille wanted the opportunity to vilify those individuals whom he believed were trying to undermine his own past work. His opinion merely reinforces the view that he could not be fair and impartial, and that the defendant's constitutional right under Due Process and the Eighth Amendment was violated by his refusal to remove himself from the proceedings. Indeed, Judge Castille's ideological bias is even more audaciously displayed in that part of his opinion that disparages lawyers who take capital punishment cases and in which he demeans the noble principle, restated many times by the Supreme Court, that "death is different," because, Judge Castille asserts, it causes "mischief" to the legal system. Under all the circumstances, Judge Castille could not realistically pretend he could be neutral when he was adjudicating his own conduct and the conduct of others he supervised. He could not pretend that there is no appearance of unfairness in his conduct. Would the general public really believe that he could be fair when, as District Attorney, he authorized the defendant's death sentence, supervised a prosecution permeated by misconduct by his own staff, and campaigned for his judgeship on having sent 45 persons to death row, including the defendant? Regardless of whether he subjectively believed he could be fair - an assertion of a state of mind that can never be conclusively refuted - there is no doubt that under an objective test he could never be perceived as neutral. His refusal to disqualify himself, as the Supreme Court almost certainly will conclude, violated Due Process and the Eighth Amendment. But the result also reinforces that this is not the end of the case. There remains one final issue, and a big one. Judge Castille was part of a panel of six judges that heard the appeal and decided in favor of the prosecution, but his vote was not decisive. In other words, even though there may be a biased judge on a panel of judges, as there clearly was here, if his tainted vote is not controlling, has the defendant sufficiently shown that he was harmed by the judge's refusal to recuse himself? The lower courts are split on this question. Does bias on the part of one member of a multi-judge tribunal taint the entire proceeding? Can one reasonably contend that a tribunal is impartial when one member is biased? Moreover, there is no way of knowing how the tainted judge may have influenced the other judges. And needless to say, Chief Judge Castille, as the presiding judge of the state supreme court, has special responsibilities of supervising deliberations, assigning opinions to the other judges, and generally administering the processes of the court. This question is tricky. And without Justice Scalia, a 4-4 split on the Supreme Court is possible. And if that is the result, then under the Supreme Court's rules the decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court would be affirmed - and Terrence Williams will be executed. (source: Bennett L. Gershman, Professor of Law; Pace----Huffington Post) VIRGINIA: Gov. Terry McAuliffe says Virginia faces "somewhat of a crisis" over a lack of lethal-injection drugs for a scheduled execution next month. State officials are searching for the drugs for the March 16 execution of convicted killer Ricky Gray, 1 of Virginia's7 remaining death row inmates. The Democratic governor said Wednesday on Washington's WTOP-FM that it was "too soon" to say whether Gray's execution would be delayed. The state has 2 vials of pentobarbital it received from Texas last year. McAuliffe indicated the state needs to test 1 vial and have another as a backup before it can proceed with an execution. The General Assembly is currently considering a bill to allow the state to use the electric chair as an alternative to legal-injection drugs. Gray was convicted of the murders of Bryan Harvey, 49; Kathryn, 39; and their daughters, Stella, 9, and Ruby, 4 at their Richmond home on New Year's Day 2006. (source: Richmond Times-Dispatch) FLORIDA: Death penalty fix clears key Senate panel, with 6 defections The Senate Appropriations Committee agreed with the House Thursday that in future capital cases, a defendant cannot be sentenced to death unless at least 10 or 12 jurors agree to recommend that punishment. The 10-2 provision makes Florida's death sentencing system the same as 1 other state, Alabama. It was added to a bill (SB 7068) that makes other changes to bring Florida in compliance with last month's U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down the state's sentencing system as a violation of the right to trial by jury. Voting no were Republican Sens. Thad Altman of Melbourne, Anitere Flores of Miami and Don Gaetz of Niceville and Democrats Arthenia Joyner of Tampa, Gwen Margolis of Miami and Bill Montford of Tallahassee. Altman, who opposed capital punishment, said: "I do not believe that we need to diminish our position constitutionally, based on what the House would like." Gaetz said he voted no because he supports the current Florida law, under which a 12-member jury can recommend death by a simple majority of 7-5. Florida prosecutors support the 10-2 compromise but public defenders oppose it, arguing that Florida should follow most other states and require that juries be unanimous in recommending a death sentence. Public Defender Rex Dimmig of Polk County predicted Florida's "outlier" status as a 10-2 sentencing state would trigger a flood of new lawsuits by death row inmates. A 3rd state, Delaware, allows a jury recommendation of death by a simple majority, but that state has suspended use of the death penalty pending a full legal review. Executions in Florida have been on hold following the Jan. 12 decision in the case of Hurst vs. Florida. After that ruling, the Florida Supreme Court indefinitely postponed the execution of death row inmate Michael Lambrix, and will hear arguments next Tuesday in the case of Mark Asay, whose execution is scheduled for March 17. (source: Tampa Bay Times) *************** Death penalty 'compromise' headed to Senate floor Florida lawmakers are poised to resolve a fundamental flaw with the state's death-penalty sentencing system, as a Senate measure heads to the floor for a vote as early as next week. The House already approved its version of the proposal addressing a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down Florida's capital-sentencing process as unconstitutional. On Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee amended a Senate version to align it with the House's plan, which would require at least 10 jurors to recommend the death penalty for the sentence to be imposed. The move Thursday receded from the Senate's original position, which would have required unanimous jury recommendations for death. The committee's 12-6 approval of the measure (SB 7068) virtually guaranteed that lawmakers will send a bill to Gov. Rick Scott before the end of the legislative session March. 11. The Jan. 12 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, in a case known as Hurst v. Florida, did not specifically address unanimous jury recommendations to judges about imposing the death penalty, a process that happens after jurors determine whether aggravating factors exist. But the issue of unanimity -- or 10-2 or 9-3 recommendations -- became a flashpoint for lawmakers in debate over the legislation. The ruling dealt with the sentencing phase of death-penalty cases after defendants are found guilty, and it focused on what are known as aggravating circumstances that must be determined before defendants can be sentenced to death. A 2002 U.S. Supreme court ruling, in a case known as Ring v. Arizona, requires that determinations of such aggravating circumstances must be made by juries, not judges. Effectively putting death sentences in Florida on hold, the 8-1 decision found that the state's system of giving judges -- and not juries -- the power to impose death sentences is an unconstitutional violation of defendants' Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury. The plan overwhelmingly approved by the House last week, and agreed to by the Senate committee on Thursday, would require jurors to unanimously find that at least 1 aggravating factor exists before a defendant can be eligible for a death sentence. At least 10 jurors would have to recommend death for the sentence to be imposed. Of the 31 states with the death penalty, Florida is 1 of only 3 that do not require unanimous jury recommendations for death to be imposed. The other 2 -- Alabama and Delaware -- require at least 10 jurors to recommend death, while Florida requires a simple majority. Nearly all death penalty experts -- with the exception of state attorneys -- recommended that requiring unanimous jury recommendations would inoculate Florida from future court decisions regarding the constitutionality of the death penalty. But prosecutors, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, argued that unanimous recommendations would allow single jurors to "hijack" the process. During debate on the measure Thursday, critics of the plan questioned why the Senate was backing down from unanimity, required for all other jury verdicts in Florida. "Why don't we expect unanimity when a life is at stake, when in fact we expect unanimity in other matters before the court?" Senate Minority Leader Arthenia Joyner, a Tampa lawyer, asked. "I know that ultimately we'll probably end up back before the Supreme Court on this issue, because the way I see it, the trend is toward unanimous jury verdicts." Senate Criminal Justice Chairman Greg Evers, the bill's sponsor, said the 10-2 recommendation was a compromise with the House. "We knew that we had to have a bill. We knew that it had to pass this session," Evers, R-Baker, said. "We had to reach that middle ground. That's the reason we came up with the 10-2." But Sen. Thad Altman, a Rockledge Republican who has repeatedly sponsored proposals that would require unanimous jury recommendations in death-penalty cases, questioned the strategy. The House would be unlikely to stick to a non-unanimous proposal if that meant leaving the state without a death-penalty sentencing system, Altman predicted. "I do not believe we need to diminish our position, constitutionally, based on what the House would like," he said. While lawmakers address the statute, the Florida Supreme Court is weighing the impact of the Hurst decision on a number of death penalty cases. The Florida court indefinitely postponed the execution of Cary Michael Lambrix, scheduled for earlier this month, and will hear arguments Wednesday in the case of Mark James Asay, scheduled to die on March 17. Lawyers for Asay and other death row inmates contend that the Hurst decision should be retroactive and apply to all of the 390 inmates sentenced to die for their crimes. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling did not say whether it should apply retroactively, and Bondi's lawyers instead have identified 43 cases that would qualify for reconsideration as a result of the Hurst decision. Myriad factors -- timing, aggravators involved in determining whether defendants were eligible for the death penalty and the jury instructions -- have to be considered when evaluating whether Hurst applies, Bondi said. "It has to be on a case-by-case basis," she said recently. (source: news4jax.com) ********** Legislature's death penalty "fix" is flawed The Florida Senate has the chance to repair the state's death penalty statutes in a way that won't invite years of litigation. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court declared Florida's death penalty procedures unconstitutional. Until the Legislature acts, the state's prosecutors have no legal avenue for pursuing death penalty cases. House Bill 7101 is a good beginning toward fixing what's broken. But unless amended in the Senate, the bill may not go far enough to meet the requirements of the Sixth Amendment, which provides for trial by jury. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote on behalf of the majority in Hurst v. Florida: "The Sixth Amendment requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death. A jury's mere recommendation is not enough." In Florida, capital cases entail a "penalty phase" after a defendant is found guilty of 1st-degree murder. Under the old law, Florida juries could recommend the death penalty by a simple majority vote, leaving the judge to make the final sentencing decision. Jurors could consider aggravating circumstances, facts that made the murder more heinous and thus justified the death penalty. They also could consider mitigating circumstances, facts about the defendant's life, for example, that would argue against imposing capital punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the "jury recommendation" model of sentencing because Florida law left open the possibility that the facts that swayed jurors to recommend death may not match the facts the judge considered before imposing a sentence. The court said in effect that juries, not judges, should have the last word on the facts that affect sentencing a defendant to death. To repair Florida law, the House passed a bill that would require a minimum jury vote of 10-2 to recommend death, along with unanimous (12-0) agreement on at least 1 aggravating factor. But as the bill is now written, the act of weighing mitigating versus aggravating circumstances goes back to the judge. And these considerations are not objective math problems. It's not as if jurors can assign a point value to being abandoned by parents and abused in foster care, or points that measure the depravity of murdering a disabled person. Weighing mitigating versus aggravating factors is a subjective, human question. It's plausible that jurors could agree that an aggravating factor exists, but then disagree as to whether mitigating factors outweighed the aggravating ones. When the law tells them they need merely vote on their final sentencing recommendation, rather than deliberate, it stunts the jury's role. Studies have shown that jurors spend much more time on an issue - and probe more deeply - if they're required to be unanimous. Simply casting a vote, on the other hand, often prevents jurors from changing each other's minds. While the movie "12 Angry Men" is fictional, the difficulty it portrays in the consensus-building process is not. Juror #3, played by Henry Fonda, starts out as the only juror who believes the defendant is innocent. By the end of the movie, with lots of argument, discoveries and discussions in between, the jury unanimously acquits the defendant. It's the stuff in between that matters - the human elements of outrage and compassion that can't be boiled down into a formulaic equation. Ted Bundy and Eileen Wournos were executed after split jury votes. We will never know what would have happened in those cases if the jurors had been required to deliberate. The majority voters may well have convinced the minority voters of their opinions, if the law had required them to do so. It might have taken a longer; it might have been a little harder. But it would have ultimately been their decision, and not the decision of a judge. The simple fix is for the Senate to amend the House bill to require not only unanimity on a single aggravating factor, but also unanimity in the weighing of all the facts. Such an amendment would match Justice Sotomayor's language in Hurst, in both letter and spirit. (source: Julie Delegal, a University of Florida alumna, is a contributor for Folio Weekly, Jacksonville's alternative weekly, and writes for the family business, Delegal Law Offices. She lives in Jacksonville, Florida----floridapolitics.com) MISSISSIPPI: Wrongfully convicted: Life after death row A simple jog around her Mississippi neighborhood quickly spiraled into a case of capital murder. "In 1989, I was accused of killing my son," said Sabrina Porter, an exonerated death row survivor, in a phone interview. "When I went jogging that night, I left him in the house by himself when he went to sleep. When I got back, he wasn't breathing." Distressed, Porter said she began performing CPR. "When you're scared and you're panicked, you don't know what to do," she said. "I didn't apply CPR right. I applied adult CPR." At the age of 18, Porter was wrongfully convicted of killing her 9-month-old son, Walter. "My case, they just did what they wanted to do," Porter said. "I didn't have anyone in my court to help me. I was young, black, uneducated, and I'm from the south - it's more or less a race thing." During her 6 1/2 years in prison, Porter spent 2 years and 9 months on death row. She was innocent. "You don't suffer just because you're in jail," she said. "You continue to suffer. They ruined my life. They took that from me." Today, she is just 1 of 2 women in the U.S. to be freed from death row. "I want people to really look at what's going on - they're killing people," she said. "Then they find out, 'Oh, that person was innocent, my bad,' but, it's too late, you already killed them. They're taking people's lives. Destroying families." Through an honors colloquium course titled "Wrongful Convictions," taught by Ashley Wellman, UCM assistant professor of criminal justice, Porter will come to campus to speak about her experiences in and out of prison. "What a better way to learn about wrongful convictions than to hear from someone who has experienced the entire process," Wellman said. "She had this horrific experience where her child died, was blamed for his death, was sentenced to death for it, and then now is a free woman, raising her family in the same town where she was convicted. Mind-blowing." Whether or not people support the death penalty, Wellman said she encourages everyone to hear Porter's story because she finds her experience to be unique as it exposes people to human error and the long-lasting effects of the criminal justice system. "(Sabrina) has a passion to change the face of sentencing in our country, of investigations in our country, the way suspects are treated, and she's part of the Witness to Innocence Project, so she's an advocate for ending the death penalty in the United States," Wellman said. "She just wants to share her story so that other people don't have to go through what she went through." Porter will share her story beginning at 6:15 p.m. Wednesday, March 2, in Hendricks Hall. A question-and-answer session will follow her presentation. The event is free and open to the public. "It can be draining at times because you have to put yourself back in that situation," Porter said. "The date that you were sentenced to death. I have to pray about it before I do it. Once I tell my story, I have to get away in order to come down from that. It's hard to do that when you're just pouring yourself to everybody, and everybody is staring and looking at you. I do it because I know it can help somebody." (source: digitalburg.com) OHIO: Ohio former prison officials join anti-death penalty group 2 former Ohio prison bosses who watched dozens of men executed have joined a national group which is "strongly concerned about the fairness and efficacy of the death penalty in America." Terry Collins and Reginald Wilkinson, both former directors of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, are part Public Safety Officials on the Death Penalty. The Washington, D.C.,-based group is a coalition of law enforcement, prosecutors and prison officials. Not all members of the coalition are opposed to capital punishment, but all share the conclusion that the system is "ineffective, expensive and makes mistakes." Collins, who oversaw 33 executions as deparment director from 2006 to 2010, has been a vocal opponent of capital punishment since retiring from his state job. He recently said in a published report, "the death penalty isn't worth fixing." He is a member of Ohioans Against Executions. Wilkinson was head of the state prison system from 1991 to 2006; he began witnessing executions when the state resumed capital punishment in 1999. (source: Columbus Dispatch) KENTUCKY----2, including female, to face death penalty Death penalty sought in teen's 2015 murder Prosecutors have decided to seek the death penalty for 2 defendants accused of kidnapping a 19-year-old last summer before shooting and leaving her for dead in a wooded ravine. Todd Byrd, 46, and Monica Mudd, 23, were arrested days after Meagan Hassler's body was found June 23 just across the Jefferson County line. Both are charged with complicity murder and complicity kidnapping resulting in death. State law allows the prosecution to seek the death penalty by citing aggravating circumstances. One such circumstance is kidnapping that precedes a killing, wrote Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Ryane Conroy in court documents filed last week in Jefferson Circuit Court. The defendants appeared Thursday morning in court, where Byrd's attorney Mark Rice said because of the capital case status, he will seek a 2nd attorney to help him defend Byrd. Mudd's public defender John Mack said he, too, will be adding another attorney to the case in light of the prosecution's decision. Rice has filed a motion for the defendants to be tried separately, but a ruling on that matter is on hold until more evidence is entered into the court file. The parties are next due in court in June. The day before Hassler's body was found, Mudd gave a statement to LMPD detectives in which she said she and Byrd abducted the teen from a home in southwestern Louisville because they believed she had stolen jewelry and drugs, court records show. Mudd stripped Hassler of her clothes to search for the the allegedly stolen drugs, she told police. Byrd then drove to the wooded hills just across the Jefferson and Bullitt county line, where Mudd alleges Byrd shot the teen, whose hands were bound and eyes and mouth covered with duct tape. (source: Courier-Journal) CALIFORNIA: Jury recommends death penalty for convicted killer A San Bernardino jury recommended death today for a man convicted of raping and murdering 30-year-old Sylvia Galindo at a Fontana bakery in 2001. The recommendation came after jurors convicted Gilbert Sanchez, 54, of Montebello, in Nov. 2015. A judge will make the final decision on sentencing Sanchez at an upcoming hearing scheduled May 27 at the San Bernardino Justice Center. (source: highlandnews.net) USA: The Death Penalty Doesn't Violate the 10 Commandments The Ten Commandments don't prohibit killing, and the often-cited "thou shalt not kill" is a translation error. So when the Pope said on Sunday that "the commandment 'thou shalt not kill,' has absolute value," he was citing a mistranslation. In fact, the original wording in the Ten Commandments refers only to illegal killing, and takes no stand on the merits of legally sanctioned killing such as the death penalty. This is why most modern translations prefer "do not murder" instead of the misleading "do not kill." But that more modern wording is also not quite right. The commandment includes every variety of illegal killing: manslaughter, for instance, along with murder. "Do not murder" is too narrow, just as "do not kill" is too broad. Equally, the Ten Commandments - contrary to the popular conception - are not even a legal code. They are a morality code that takes the form of a list of laws. The laws themselves are codified elsewhere. The point of the Ten Commandments is that these laws have moral implications beyond their legal implications. For example, Numbers 35 explores different kinds of killing in great detail, even delving into such surprisingly modern nuances as hate crimes and assault with a deadly weapon. The same passage delineates 3 categories of killing, and 1 of those categories is "legal killing." One kind of legal killing in the Bible is the death penalty - which is required in certain circumstances. Another is some killing during wartime. More generally, to understand the legality of killing according the Bible, the right place to look is Numbers 35 and other similar texts. The purpose of the Ten Commandments is to stress that these laws about killing are matters of morality. Even if you don't think you'll get caught, for instance, or even if you are willing to pay the penalty, you should not engage in illegal killing, or in the other actions like stealing that are listed in the Ten Commandments. (But the death penalty is okay.) The Ten Commandments are unlike anything in modern legal codes, which are simply a set of consequences for various actions. For example, according to Section 2113 of Title 18 of the US Codes ("18 USC 2113"), if you take something that belongs to a bank and is worth up to $1,000, you can be fined or imprisoned for not more than 1 year; take something that's worth more than $1,000 and the jail term can be as long as 10 years. This is what is popularly called the law against bank robbing. But the law doesn't take a position on whether it's moral or immoral to rob a bank. It just tells you what might happen if you do. This is where the Ten Commandments come in. They insist that human actions can be categorized not just as "legal" versus "illegal" but, more importantly, also as "moral" versus "immoral." So the Pope is right that the Bible sees killing as a matter of morality. But it is his interpretation that ascribes immorality to the death penalty. Though the Pope's position is consistent with established Catholic doctrine, and in keeping with many other mainstream Christian and Jewish traditions, it actually reverses the Bible's position. The original text of the Ten Commandments does not address capital punishment, and Numbers 35 even demands it. (source: Dr. Joel Hoffman is author most recently of The Bible Doesn't Say That: 40 Biblical Mistranslations, Misconceptions, and Other Misunderstandings, which explores what the Bible meant before the last 2,000 years of interpretation. He can be reached through his website at www.lashon.net----Huffington Post) From rhalperi at smu.edu Thu Feb 25 17:20:20 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2016 17:20:20 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 25 PAKISTAN----executions Pakistan hangs 4 in 2 days 4 murder convicts were hanged in Pakistan in 2 days. 3 prisoners were hanged in 2 jails on February 23. In Toba, Mumtaz Ahmad of Bhakkar was hanged for killing Noor Muhammad Khaira in Chak 264/GB Rajana some 24 years ago. In Sahiwal, 2 murder convicts were hanged in Central Jail early in the morning while execution of another was postponed. The dead bodies of the prisoners were handed over to the heirs. Faiz was executed for killing a man named Barkat in 1992 while Ramzan had murdered 3 women in 2004. On February 24, another death row convict was executed in the Central Jail of Mainwali. According to details, Naimat Gul was convicted of killing a man over marriage dispute in 1993. The mercy plea of Gul had been rejected by the government authorities. The dead body of the convict was handed to his legal heirs. (source: altervista.org) SAUDI ARABIA----execution Kidnapper executed in Saudi Arabia A Saudi who kidnapped and tried to rape his employer was put to death on Tuesday in the kingdom's 64th execution of the year. Mufrih bin Ahmed Khamis worked as the victim???s driver, the interior ministry said in a statement. A court found that he consumed alcohol before abducting her and her baby, "taking advantage of the fact that he drove her to the school where she worked," it said. "He beat her, handcuffed her and placed tape over her mouth. He then drove her to an isolated location and tried to rape her." After stealing her money and telephone, Khamis abandoned the woman and child, the ministry added. After his trial and conviction, Khamis was executed in the southwestern city of Abha. Most people sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia are beheaded with a sword. The kingdom executed 47 people in a single day on January 2 on "terrorism" charges. In 2015, Saudi Arabia executed 153 people, mostly for drug trafficking or murder, according to an AFP count. Amnesty International says the number of executions in Saudi Arabia last year was the highest for 2 decades. However, the tally was far behind those of China and Iran. The kingdom has a strict Islamic legal code under which murder, drug trafficking, armed robbery, rape and apostasy are all punishable by death. It is the only country in the world that bans women from driving, forcing them to rely on male relatives or hired drivers. (source: vanguardngr.com) ***************** Prosecution wants death penalty for 20 Saudis over spying for Iran A Saudi government prosecutor called for the death penalty for 20 Saudi suspects, and 1 Afghan, and for severe jail terms for the remaining 4, 3 Saudis and 1 Iranian. A business analyst and a security serviceman are among the 32 people put on trial in Saudi Arabia this week for spying for Iran. (source: alarabiya.net) SINGAPORE: Suspect to be charged over death of 53-year-old man at Teck Whye Lan----Police found the man lying motionless at a temple and he was pronounced dead by paramedics at the scene. A suspect will be charged with murder, following the death of a 53-year-old man in Chua Chu Kang Lian Sing Keng temple, the Singapore Police Force said in a press release on Thursday (Feb 25). Channel NewsAsia understands that on Feb 14, a worker who unlocked the gates of the temple in the morning discovered the victim, Mr Tan Poh Huat, who had sustained a head injury. Police said they received a call at about 6.59am requesting for assistance at the temple and upon arrival, found the man victim lying motionless. He was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics at about 7.09am. Following "protracted investigations" by officers from the Criminal Investigation Department, a 47-year-old Singaporean man was identified as the suspect and arrested on Wednesday, according to the press release. He will be charged in court on Friday, and faces the death penalty if convicted of murder. (source: channelnewsasia.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Feb 26 08:09:07 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2016 08:09:07 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., NEB., NEV., WASH., USA Message-ID: Feb. 26 FLORIDA: >From death row: the hope for freedom as a local inmate reaches out Cary Michael Lambrix dreams of nature. He can practically see the Pacific Ocean, a sun setting in the background. Before long, Lambrix is sleeping under a starry sky before waking to the smell of an early-morning campfire. Churning water and burning timber then morph to confining walls and a ticking clock. In reality, Lambrix has been inmate 482053 for the past almost 32 years in Florida State Prison, about 30 miles north of Gainesville. "But the dreams do get your head out of this place," Lambrix wrote in a letter to the Alligator. He was sentenced to die Feb. 11 after a judge found him guilty of a double homicide. Exactly 1 month before his scheduled execution, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Florida's death penalty unconstitutional. As the state Legislature scrambles to make reforms, the 55-year-old now lives one day at a time. "Don't look forward and don't look past," he wrote. -- Lambrix was born into a jagged childhood on March 29, 1960. In a hospital in San Francisco, his 24-year-old mother gave birth to the 4th of 7 children. He remembers hiding as his mother and father argued until eventually getting a divorce. "Then mom was gone, and I remained alone with the father I feared, especially when he was drunk - and it seemed he was always drunk," Lambrix wrote on his blog, Death Row Journals, on Feb. 17, 2009. At the age of 10, Lambrix lost his older sister - his protector - when she ran away. When he turned 16, drugs and alcohol began to fill the void, and they did so for years. "With nothing to hold me back, I lived in bars and lounges, selling drugs and consuming the profits," he wrote on his blog. -- It started with dinner. On Feb. 5, 1983, Lambrix and his roommate, Frances Smith, invited a couple to eat in a LaBelle, Florida, trailer after meeting them at a bar. Aleisha Bryant, 19, waited in the trailer for 20 minutes after Lambrix asked her friend, Clarence Moore, 35, to step outside, according to a case report. Lambrix then beckoned for Bryant. Less than 45 minutes later, Lambrix returned, wielding a tire iron and wearing a bloody shirt, according to the report. Bryant had been strangled, and Moore had suffered a fatal blow to the head. Lambrix told Smith, who then helped bury the bodies, according to the report. They threw his shirt and weapon in a nearby stream. About a year later, police charged Smith for an unrelated incident, and she told them about killing the couple, according to the report. Lambrix was already in jail for passing fraudulent checks, and after his 1st trial ended in a hung jury, the 2nd trial convicted him of murder, he wrote. Later that night, he braided a sheet, hung it from the cell bars and weighed his options before falling asleep. When he awoke, the sheet still dangled from the bars. "Sometimes I still regret not following through. But I'm over it," he wrote. Though he still maintains innocence, Lambrix wrote he thinks about Bryant and Moore's families, along with his desire to be forgiven. In his book, "To Live and Die on Death Row," Lambrix recounted his version of the Saturday 2 people lost their lives. He wrote that Moore strangled and killed Bryant, so he picked up the tire iron and killed Moore in self-defense. "No, I don't 'think' I'm innocent - I know that I am innocent of any crime of murder and anyone capable of objective review of the evidence will agree," he wrote in the letter. -- What do Ted Bundy and Michael Lambrix have in common? They both have pleasant faces, eloquent vocabularies and plausible stores, said George Dekle, who helped put serial killer Bundy in jail. However, neither is innocent, he said. "It's a whole lot easier to establish someone's innocence on a website than it is in a courtroom," said Dekle, a criminal prosecutor for nearly 30 years. Lambrix could not have acted in self defense, he said, because 1 hit from a tire iron would have left Moore unconscious rather than dead. Amid the accusations, Lambrix remains hopeful as the Florida Legislature rewrites the state's death penalty laws. He dreams of freedom, the open road and the ocean. "You live in that moment and do what it takes to get your head out of this place the best you can," he wrote. (source: The (Univ. Fla.) Independent Florida Alligator) ************** tate Senate panel signs off on possible fix to death penalty The Florida Senate is moving ahead with a compromise bill to overhaul the state's death penalty law. A Senate committee voted today to approve a death penalty bill that would require at least 10 out of 12 jurors to recommend execution in order for it to be carried out. The Senate originally wanted to require that all 12 jurors agree to a death sentence. But senators agreed to switch to 10 jurors as part of a compromise with the House. The bill (SB 7068) heads to the full Senate next. The House has already passed its version. Some senators said they were opposed to the jury change and predicted Florida's death penalty law could come under scrutiny again. The Legislature is rewriting the death penalty law after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that the current method is unconstitutional. (source: Associated Press) NEBRASKA: (Neb.-Anti-Death Penalty Group Launches First Ads Nebraska voters can expect to hear a lot about capital punishment between now and the November election. The new anti-death penalty group, Retain a Just Nebraska - an anti-death penalty group that includes lawmakers, faith leaders and family members or murder victims - launched the next phase of its campaign yesterday with commercials urging voters to keep the punishment off the books. Lawmakers abolished the death penalty last May, but a statewide petition drive suspended that action and put it on the ballot for the voters decide the issue. Group spokesman Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln says many voters are operating under the mistaken assumption that restoring the punishment will allow executions right away, when in reality the state is unlikely to execute anyone again. Death penalty supporters plan a similar campaign in favor of keeping the punishment, which is supported by Governor Pete Ricketts and state Attorney General Doug Peterson. (source: chadrad.com) NEVADA: Court upholds death penalty in double slaying The Nevada Supreme Court today denied a petition for a new trial and to overturn the death sentence for double-killer Michael Rippo. Rippo in 1992 strangled Denise Lizzi, 25, and Laurie Jacobsen, 27, in an apartment and stuffed their bodies in a closet, according to court records. He later returned to the apartment and cut the throats of the 2 women, according to the records. At the time of the killings, Rippo was on parole for beating and raping a woman, according to the court records. (source: Associated Press) WASHINGTON: Death penalty in hands of Supreme Court justices----State Supreme Court justices heard arguments Thursday that the death penalty is racially biased and arbitary and should be ruled unconstitutional, but one mother says it's not that simple. Lee Peden knew it would take years to see her daughter's killer executed, but after waiting nearly 20 years, she now fears it will never happen. Attorneys are using Peden's daughter's case to attempt to get the death penalty ruled unconstitutional in Washington. "It would be an awful miscarriage of justice," said Peden. In July of 1996, Peden's daughter, Geneie Harshfield, was raped, stabbed and killed. A jury convicted Allen Gregory and sentenced him to death for Peden's murder. After the Supreme Court rejected the death penalty, another jury sentenced him to death in 2012. Gregory's case was before the state???s Supreme Court again Thursday. Attorneys for the ACLU of Washington and dozens of former judges argued the death penalty is racially biased and arbitrary depending where the crime is committed in the state. ACLU attorney Jeffrey Robinson argued Gregory was more likely to get the death penalty because the crime happened in Pierce County, where prosecutors are seeking the death penalty more often than in other counties. Robinson also said race plays an unfair role in the death penalty system. "If you're African American, you're somewhere between 3 and 4 1/2 times more likely to get the death penalty than if you're white," said ACLU attorney Jeffrey Robinson. "It's intolerable." Robinson also brought up the nation's history of lynchings during his argument. "I'm asking you to think about the strange fruit hanging from poplar trees," said Robinson, "because for many people in this country, that image still resonates with the death penalty in America." Gregory's original prosecutor, John Nebb, argued jurors in Gregory's case had the option of giving him mercy while deliberating. Kathleen Proctor also argued the death penalty is constitutional. She said prosecutors, jurors and the governor all have the option to rule out the death penalty. Proctor also said the overwhelming majority of those put to death in Washington state have been white. Peden said race did not play a role in her wanting her daughter's killer executed. "I don't care if he was purple," said Peden. "It's what he did." She fears if the death penalty is overturned, Gregory might end up getting released from prison. "They'll say, 'Well he's there for life.' Sure, but what happens 20 years from now?" asked Peden. (source: KING news) USA: Lawyers in Vermont case to talk legality of death penalty Federal prosecutors and defense attorneys representing a Vermont man facing a second federal death penalty trial for the 2000 killing of a Rutland supermarket worker are going to be talking about the constitutionality of the death penalty. The judge hearing the case against Donald Fell has agreed to hear arguments about the constitutionality of the death penalty this summer. During a hearing Friday in Burlington, attorneys are going to be telling Judge Geoffrey Crawford about some of the witnesses they plan to call at that upcoming hearing. The 35-year-old Fell is facing his 2nd trial in connection with the killing of Terry King. Fell was convicted in 2005 and sentenced to death, but his conviction was overturned because of juror misconduct. His 2nd trial is scheduled for early next year. (source: Associated Press) *********************** History of capital punishment in the United States A look at the history of capital punishment in the United States -- 1775 - At the onset of the American Revolution, all 13 colonies use the death penalty. -- 1787- U.S. Constitution adopted. The Fifth Amendment is also adopted, with a provision that seems to allow for the death penalty. "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." -- April 30, 1790 - The 1st U.S. Congress establishes the federal death penalty and what crimes would get the death penalty. -- June 25,1790 - 1st person is executed under U.S. federal death penalty. -- 1833-1835 - Public hangings, which often attracted huge crowds and a circus-like atmosphere, are attacked as "cruel and unusual." States begin to switch to private hangings in 1833. -- January-February 1843 - Rev. George Cheever and abolitionist John O'Sullivan debate in New York on the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent for potential criminals. -- 1845 - 1st national death penalty abolition society, The American Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment, is founded. -- 1846 - Michigan becomes the 1st state to abolish capital punishment, except in cases of treason. -- 1852 - Rhode Island becomes the 1st state to outlaw the death penalty for all crimes, including treason. -- July 9, 1868 - The 14th Amendment is ratified and is later used to challenge the death penalty, most famously in Furman v. Georgia. -- Aug. 6, 1890 - The state of New York carries out the 1st execution by electric chair, using assistance from Thomas Edison's engineers. The process takes 2 surges of electricity to kill William Kemmler, but electrocution is still thought of more humane and efficient than previous methods. -- 1895-1917 - 9 states - Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oregon, Arizona, Missouri and Tennessee - abolish capital punishment during the 2nd Great Reform Era. -- May 2, 1910 - Court cases establishes precedents on "cruel and unusual punishment," Weems v. United States makes a ruling that affects the debate on the death penalty. The three precedents set are: 1. Cruel and unusual punishment is defined by the changing norms and standards of society and therefore is not based on historical interpretations. 2. Courts may decide whether a punishment is unnecessarily cruel with regard to physical pain. 3. Courts may decide whether a punishment is unnecessarily cruel with regard to psychological pain." -- Feb. 8, 1924 - Carson City, Nev., carries out the 1st execution by gas in the United States. Gee Jon, a Chinese gang member, was convicted of murder. Lethal gas is considered more humane than electrocution. -- Aug. 14, 1936 - Rainey Bethea becomes the last person to be publicly executed in the United States. Bethea is hanged for raping and murdering an elderly woman in Kentucky. -- Jan. 13, 1953 - Julius and Ethel Rosenberg become the 1st American civilians executed for espionage. The 2 are accused of stealing nuclear research and handing it over to the KGB. -- 1957- 1972 - Several states abolish the death penalty. -- June 29, 1972 -Supreme Court rules in Furman v. Georgia that the death penalty, as it was then administered, violates the Fourth and Eight amendments. -- Nov. 21, 1974 - National Conference of Catholic Bishops opposes death penalty. -- July 2, 1976 - In Gregg v. Georgia, the Supreme Court reaffirms the constitutionality of capital punishment for aggravated murder. -- Jan. 17, 1977 - 1st person is executed in U.S. in 10 years. Gary Gilmore is executed by a firing squad in Utah at his own request. -- June 29, 1977 - Supreme Court rules death penalty excessive for rape. -- Dec. 7, 1982 - Texas performs 1st lethal injection. --June 26, 1986 - Supreme Court rules execution of insane people unconstitutional. -- June 29, 1988 - Supreme Court rules execution of people under 16 unconstitutional. -- 1994 - The 1994 crime bill creates 60 new federal crimes that could get the death penalty imposed. -- Jan. 25, 1996 - Last execution by hanging is carried out in Delaware on Bill Bailey, a convicted double-murderer. -- March 3, 1999 - Last execution by gas chamber, when Walter LeGrand is executed in Arizona. A German national, his case causes controversy as the German government protests the decision. LeGrand chooses the gas chamber, instead of lethal injection, as a way to protest the decision. -- Jan. 31, 2000 - Illinois Gov. George Ryan declares a moratorium on administering the death penalty in the state after exonerations showed there were errors in imposing capital punishment. -- June 11, 2001 - Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, is the 1st federal prisoner to be executed in 38 years. -- June 20, 2002 - Execution of mentally retarded offenders ruled unconstitutional. -- June 24, 2004 - New York state rules death penalty unconstitutional. -- March 1, 2005 - Supreme Court rules execution of people under 18 unconstitutional. -- Dec. 18, 2007 - UN General Assembly passes resolution calling for moratorium on the death penalty. -- March 18, 2009 - New Mexico repeals death penalty. -- June 18, 2010 - Ronnie Lee Gardner, a convicted killer, is executed in Utah by a firing squad, the last execution by this manner. Gardner's lawyer said he chose this manner so it would be more humane than lethal injection. -- April 25, 2012 - Connecticut repeals death penalty. -- May 2, 2013 - Maryland becomes the 18th state to repeal capital punishment. -- May 22, 2014 - Tennessee starts allowing executions by electric chair again. Because of shortages in the drugs needed for lethal injections, Tennessee passes a law that allows the state to execute people via electrocution. -- Feb. 13, 2015 - Pennsylvania governor imposes moratorium on death penalty. -- March 23, 2015 - Utah brings back firing squad for executions. -- May 27, 2015 - Nebraska abolishes death penalty Jan. 12, 2016 - The Supreme Court rules Florida's death penalty, which doesn't allow juries to decide if capital punishment is warranted, is unconstitutional. [source: Advocate research] (source: Victoria Advocate) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Feb 26 08:09:52 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2016 08:09:52 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 26 IRAN----execution A prisoner hanged, 3 dozen death verdicts issued in run-up to elections The Iranian regime's henchmen in the main prison of the northern city of Gorgan secretly hanged a 52-year-old man who had been arrested on drug-related charges. The Iranian regime's judiciary has recently confirmed death sentences for at least 40 prisoners that are being held in Gezel-Hessar Prison in Karaj, north-west of Tehran. Most of the prisoners had asked for their cases to be reviewed but their death sentence were confirmed within 1-2 days and they were informed of the final verdicts on Sunday. In the run-up to the sham elections in Iran, Iran's clerical regime has intensified issuing death sentences, handing down long prison terms and carrying out cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments in public. Amnesty International said its yearly report on violations of human rights in Iran: "The authorities continued to use the death penalty extensively, and carried out numerous executions, including of juvenile offenders. Some executions were conducted in public." "Torture and other ill-treatment of detainees remained common and was committed with impunity; prison conditions were harsh. Unfair trials continued, in some cases resulting in death sentences." "Women and members of ethnic and religious minorities faced pervasive discrimination in law and in practice. The authorities carried out cruel punishments, including blinding, amputation and floggings. Courts imposed death sentences for a range of crimes; many prisoners, including at least 4 juvenile offenders, were executed." "Courts continued to impose, and the authorities continued to carry out, punishments that violate the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment. These were sometimes carried out in public and included flogging, blinding and amputations. On 3 March the authorities in Karaj deliberately blinded a man in his left eye after a court sentenced him to 'retribution-in-kind' (qesas) for throwing acid into the face of another man. He also faced blinding of his right eye." (source: NCR-Iran) SINGAPORE: Coffeeshop assistant charged for Hougang murder----Khor Tzoong Meng faces the death penalty if convicted. A 50-year-old Coffeeshop assistant, Khor Tzoong Meng, was charged with murder on Friday (Feb 26). On Thursday morning, 38-year-old Ang Kim Keat was found injured at Blk 23, Hougang Avenue 3. Mr Ang was pronounced dead at Tan Tock Seng Hospital at 3.28am. Khor was arrested in relation to the case at Ang Mo Kio Avenue 1 later on Thursday. Lawyers Josephus Tan and Tan Jin Song are representing Khor pro bono. Khor, the youngest of four siblings, has been remanded for a week to assist in further investigations. His case will be mentioned again on Mar 4. He faces the death penalty for the offence of Murder under Section 302(1) of the Penal Code, Chapter 224. (source: channelnewsasia.com) INDIA: Chidambaram, Afzal and the Congress party's deplorable duplicity on death penalty Congress party's hypocrisy on issues of nationalism, communalism and caste are not new. Throughout its history since Independence, it has been opportunistic. The party has dabbled in soft Hindutva when it saw it being useful, or taken to disgraceful minority-pandering when required. Rahul Gandhi's theatrics at JNU and University of Hyderabad recently are good examples of how the party goes on a moral grandstanding overdrive when it finds it convenient. P Chidamabaram's recent interview with Economic Times however takes the cake. After being one of the most influential ministers for 10 years under the UPA regime, a Home Minister directly dealing with death penalty cases for a considerable period, and then keeping mum while his government, with an apparent eye on the 2014 elections, hanged Afzal Guru in near-secrecy, the former Union Minister now has the audacity to say, "There were grave doubts about his involvement (in the conspiracy behind the attack on Parliament) and even if he was involved, there were grave doubts about the extent of his involvement. He could have been imprisoned for life without parole for rest of his natural life." "I think it is possible to hold an honest opinion that the Afzal Guru case was perhaps not correctly decided," he told ET, adding, "But being in government you cannot say the court has decided the case wrongly because it was the government that prosecuted him. But an independent person can hold an opinion that the case was not decided correctly." Chidambaram has never had it too tough in public discourse. Journalists don???t take him head on, and when he was a minister, he was feared. The fallout of that has been that he, along with the Congress party, gets away with such blatant political manipulation. And if there was anyone who knew this best, it was Afzal Guru himself. In 2008, in an interview to IANS, he said, "I don't think the (UPA) government can ever reach a decision. The Congress party has 2 mouths and is playing a double game. I really wish LK Advani becomes India's next prime minister as he is the only one who can take a decision and hang me. At least my pain and daily suffering would ease then." Afzal however was wrong on 2 counts. LK Advani never stood a chance at Prime Ministership, and the Congress was cunning enough to eventually take the political decision of hanging him, just ahead of 2014 elections. They can take decisions, but it just has to be a purely political one, devoid of any humanity. And Chidambaram's interview is an example of such decisions, and is problematic at many levels. One, why did he not make his doubts publicly known, wasn't the life of a possibly innocent man worth it? At the very least, he could have made it public that a life sentence was more appropriate? Two, why can't you question the court when you are in government? Isn't that just an excuse for political convenience? Does he not disagree with the SC verdict on section 377? Three, will he then agree that his politics over Afzal is marginally different, if not far worse, from that of the BJP's? BJP believes and says that Afzal was guilty, and wanted to hang him. He did not believe so, and yet he allowed for him to be hanged in muted silence. That he could not go against the wishes of the party can only be a lie, or mean that he is spineless. What is the problem with this hypocrisy you ask? It's that the Congress party continues to perpetuate the injustices while not ceding space to a more genuine liberal politics. When you shout from the rooftops supporting Afzal is guilty and then go and hang him, then you are helping perpetuate the myth that a more sensitive India which shuns the death penalty is not possible. When asked about the fact that it was his own government that executed Afzal, he told ET, "That is true, but I was not the home minister then...I can't say what I would have done. It is only when you sitting on that seat you take that decision." True. When you are not in the hot seat, you can say anything you want. (source: Opinion, Ramanathan S.; thenewsminute.com) BAHAMAS: Sister Of Murdered Sailor Says She Forgives Killers A sibling of murdered American sailor Kyle Bruner told a judge yesterday that she would not hold the actions of her brother's killers against The Bahamas. Christina Cataldo made the statement during the sentencing hearing of Craig Johnson, 22, Anton Bastian, 21, Marcellus Williams, 23, and 30-year-old Jamaal Dorfevil for their role in the events that led to Bruner's fatal shooting on May 13, 2013. Cataldo, who was moved to tears, gave a victim impact statement to Justice Indra Charles through video conference where she described her deceased sibling as "my rock." "We were very close and my brother cannot speak anymore," Ms Cataldo said. "He was a very genuine, kind and caring person. He'd help anybody in need. If they would have just asked him for some money he would have given it to them." "My brother worked in The Bahamas and he loved The Bahamas. I've been coming to The Bahamas and this hasn't changed the feeling that I have for The Bahamas. "I forgive the people who killed my brother because I understand and I feel really bad for them. I hope they get the help that they need," Bruner's sister said. "I'm not one to hold grudges for anyone and I'm forgiving you for myself," she concluded. In November, a jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts for Johnson, Bastian and Williams for Bruner's murder. The 3 men were further convicted with 30-year-old Jamaal Dorfevil on 2 counts of armed robbery as they were alleged to have accosted 2 women while armed with a firearm, robbing one of $150 cash and her $3,000 handbag and the other of cash, a handbag and an iPhone. A 5th accused, 21-year-old Leo Bethel, had all charges discontinued against him by way of a nolle prosequi within moments of Justice Charles concluding her summation of the evidence. All 4 convicts denied having any involvement in the armed robbery and the killing of Bruner, who was shot in the neck as he tried to help 2 women who were being mugged by 2 armed men. They testified that they were at home on the early morning in question and had been lied on and assaulted by the police, who produced videotaped interviews of Johnson, Williams and Dorfevil taking officers through the crime scene. The jury heard evidence from Sean William Cannon, a first mate aboard the Liberty Chipper sailboat, who witnessed the shooting and later identified Johnson during an identification parade. The Crown also submitted the police statement of another witness, Delano Smith, which implicated the remaining accused men concerning the crimes. Ambrose Armbrister, trial prosecutor, has asked the court to impose the discretionary death penalty for Johnson, Bastian and Williams when the verdict was announced. Dr John Dillard, a licensed psychiatrist with the Public Hospitals Authority testified yesterday that although the trio had used marijuana prior to their incarceration, he found no evidence or record of mental illness. The matter was further adjourned to March 8 for continuation. Bethel, Johnson, Bastian, Dorfevil and Williams were defended by attorneys Ian Cargill, Nathan Smith, Roberto Reckley, Sonia Timothy and Walton Bain respectively. (source: tribune242.com) NIGERIA: Supreme Court Of Nigeria Affirms Death Penalty Judgement On Reverend King The Supreme Court of Nigeria has ruled that the General Overseer of the Christian Praying Assembly, Rev. Chukwuemeka Ezeugo, a.k.a Reverend King must die by hanging for murder after dismissing his appeal for lack of merit. Justice Sylvester Nguta read the lead judgement of the 5-man panel at the Supreme Court in Abuja earlier today. Rev. King was charged to court by the Lagos State Government on September 26th, 2006 on a six-count charge of attempted murder and murder of one of his members including Ann Uzoh on August 2nd, 2006. Specifically, The Lagos State Government said that the convict poured gasoline (petrol) on the deceased and five other persons and that Uzoh died on August 2, 2006; 11 days after the act was perpetrated against her. Rev. King pleaded not guilty to the allegation but was sentenced to death by the then Justice Joseph Oyewoleof Lagos State High Court, Ikeja, on January 11, 2007, for the murder of one of his church members, Ann Uzoh. Ezeugo was convicted and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for the attempted murder and death by hanging for the offence of murder. Justice Oyewole is now a judge of Appeal Court sitting in the Calabar division. Dissatisfied, Ezeugo challenged the verdict before the Court of Appeal in Lagos, but the appeal was thrown out. "I at this moment, I rule that the prosecution effectively discharged the burden of proof on it. This appeal is devoid of any basis and accordingly fails. "The judgment of the High Court is hereby affirmed, and the conviction imposed on the appellant, (which is death by hanging) is also affirmed," Justice Fatimo Akinbami who read the judgement held. The 2 other members of the panel of Justices, Amina Augie and Ibrahim Saulawa, concurred with the lead judgement. Ezeugo, still dissatisfied, turned to the Supreme Court, asking for the judgment to be upturned. However, the Supreme Court justices showed no mercy on Rev. King during today's judgement. (source: Sahara Reporters) SOMALIA: A Somali Military Court Sentences 6 Al Shabaab Members A military court in Somali capital, Mogadishu has sentenced 6 alleged Al shabaab members, five in jail and one to death penalty on Thursday. Abdirisack Mohamed Barrow has been sentenced to death penalty after he was found guilty of attaching a bomb to the slain Somali female journalist Hindiye Hajji Mohamed. Mohamed Shute the chairman of Somali military tribunal said 3 of the defendants were sentenced to life in prison, while the 2 others have given to 5 year-jail term. The court said the Al shabaab operatives were involved the murder of Hindiya Hajji, a female journalist working for the state-run media who was killed in a bomb fitted into her car in Mogadishu. (source: allafrica.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Feb 26 17:06:30 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2016 17:06:30 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., ALA., LA., KY., UTAH, CALIF., USA Message-ID: Feb. 26 FLORIDA: Death penalty changes may affect Palmetto murder case It was a Monday night in September at a Palmetto convenience store called Snappy's Mart, when Devin Chandler allegedly walked into the store, grabbed a few items, and then fatally shooting the 2 men behind the counter. The 2 cashiers were brothers, 23-year-old Khasem Yousef and 17-year-old Manatee High student, Faares Yousef. Robert Gonzales owns the auto body shop next door. He knew the Yousef brothers, and says the man behind the killings deserves to die. "He should get the death penalty," Gonzales said. "He broke the law." But the death penalty may not be an option, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Florida's death penalty sentencing system unconstitutional, because it leaves too much power in the hands of a judge and not enough in the hands of a jury. In court Wednesday, Chandler's lawyer submitted a motion arguing that the state should not be allowed to seek the death penalty in this case, but the judge referenced a 1977 Supreme Court case, suggesting that the death penalty may still be on the table. ACLU attorney Adam Tebrugge has dealt with many death penalty cases. He sides with Chandler's lawyer, saying unconstitutional means unconstitutional. "There is only one lawful sentence that could be imposed if he were to plead guilty," said Tebrugge, "and that sentence is life imprisonment without possibility of parole." Tebrugge says that's the fastest and fairest solution in this case. "The state attorney ought to agree to sentence Mr. Chandler to a life sentence and be done with the case and save the tax payer millions of dollars," said Tebrugge. "And dragging this case out for decades when there's a possible resolution on the table right here and now that will end it in a just and fair manner." (source: WWSB news) ALABAMA: Death penalty case moved to September for man charged with stabbing elderly church volunteers A Huntsville man charged with killing 2 elderly brothers in a Huntsville church food bank in May 2013 had his trial date moved back from April to September during a hearing Friday morning. Richard Burgin, 52, is charged with fatally stabbing Anthony Jackson, 76, and Terry Jackson, 69, inside the food pantry at West Huntsville United Methodist Church. The brothers were church volunteers who helped distribute food and did cleanup work at the pantry. Terry cared for Anthony, who had cerebral palsy. The state is seeking the death penalty for Burgin. Burgin was arrested several months after the killings. He was in custody at Draper Correctional Facility when a state DNA database matched his DNA to DNA found on a cup near the crime scene, according to the Huntsville Police Department. Burgin's attorneys Chad Morgan and Larry Marsili said this morning that neither side is to blame for the case being continued. Morgan said they are still awaiting DNA results and fingerprint analysis related to the crime scene. Madison County Assistant District Attorney Randy Dill is prosecuting the case with Assistant District Jay Town. The case is being heard by Madison County Circuit Judge Karen Hall. (source: WHNT news) LOUISIANA: Plea spares Louisiana cop's killer a death sentence The St. Landry Parish district attorney says he's agreed to not pursue the death penalty against a man who agreed to plead guilty in the death of a police officer and another person. Police said Harrison Lee Riley Jr. shot Sunset police officer Henry Nelson with Nelson's own weapon last August. Nelson had been called to try to calm a domestic disturbance. Riley also fatally stabbed 40-year-old Shameka Johnson and was charged with trying to kill his wife, Courtney Jolivette Riley, and Johnson's sister, Shurlay Johnson. KATC-TV reports (http://bit.ly/1R7YTFU ) Riley has pleaded guilty to 2 counts of 1st-degree murder and 2 of attempted 1st-degree murder. District Attorney Earl Taylor said in a Thursday news release he agreed to accept the plea, and a mandatory life prison sentence, after consulting with victims' families. (source: Associated Press) KENTUCKY----female to face death penalty Death penalty sought in Hassler murder Prosecutors are now seeking the death penalty against 2 people charged with kidnapping and killing a teenager from Southwest Louisville. 46-year-old Todd Byrd and 23-year-old Monica Mudd are charged with murdering 19-year-old Meagan Hassler last summer. Police said the pair believed Hassler had stolen jewelry and drugs from them. Investigators said Mudd stripped the teen naked, then took her to a wooded area near the Bullitt-Jefferson County line and shot her. Byrd's attorney has filed a motion for the suspects to be tried separately but the judge hasn't made a decision. (source: WHAS news) UTAH: SB189: Senate to consider bill that would end death penalty A bill that would add Utah to the list of 19 states that have ended the death penalty for convicted murderers in Utah is waiting for debate in the Utah Senate. SB189 passed s committee vote 5-2 earlier this week and now waits for the entire Senate's consideration and vote. SB189 would eliminate the punishment for 1st-degree felony homicide. If passed, the bill would take effect May 10, 2016. However, the bill would not change any capital cases currently being prosecuted or keep Utah from carrying out the punishment of any nine people currently on death row. Bill sponsor Sen. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, said there are countless reasons for Utah to end its use of capital punishment. He said the high costs, its failure to prevent crime, and the possibility of wrongly convicting and punishing a person are all purposes behind his sponsoring of the bill. Urquhart also believes capital punishment inflicts too much suffering on the families of inmates and victims waiting for the executions to occur. 3 of the 9 death-row inmates in Utah have been waiting for nearly 30 years for their execution and trial to be finalized. In his presentation to the committee, Urquhart said, "To have those families have expectations that someone is going to be put to death and it takes such a long time... I think that's abusive." If the bill passes, Utah would become one of 19 other states that have determined the death penalty to be an ineffective, irreversible punishment. While Urquhart said, "Government shouldn't be in the business of killing," it's only been 1 year since he and a majority of Utah legislation voted to reauthorize the use of firing squads to execute the death row inmates. At the time, state legislature determined firing squads to be much cheaper, quicker and more accessible than the previous method of lethal injections. Only 2 members of the 7-person judiciary committee voted against advancing the bill to the senate for debate. Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, and Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, said they believe death is a fitting punishment for some crimes. Republican Sen. Daniel Thatcher, R-West Valley City, said he voted to move the bill forward Tuesday because it's an important discussion for lawmakers to have. But he said he's not sure if he'll support the bill when it comes before the full Senate for a vote. "There are cases - the most extreme, the most gruesome, the most horrific cases - that I believe there should be a more significant punishment," he said. David Shapiro, an attorney who has worked with capital case defendants, spoke in favor of the bill, agreeing with Urquhart's reasoning. "I know that in Arizona, much like in Utah, the average person spends a generation on death row," Shapiro said. However, Shapiro added a personal perspective when he shared that his parents were murdered in homicide-arson in their Arizona home. The criminal was caught and charged with capital murder, but four years later, the case is not even close to a completed trial. Shapiro said waiting for such a long trial and for the punishment, "is a grueling, impossible position for a victim to be in." If the bill were to become a law, the crime of aggravated murder would be punishable by life without the possibility of parole or 25 years to life in prison. Shapiro said he believes those sentences would be appropriately harsh for his parents' alleged murderer. "That to me honors my parents' memory," Shapiro said. (source: The Daily Universe) *************** Why 1 Utah Republican changed his mind on the death penalty - and is leading the effort to abolish it As recently as a year ago, Utah state Sen. Steve Urquhart (R) was supportive of the death penalty. He even voted along with most of his Republican colleagues last year to reauthorize the firing squad, and beyond that he didn't really think about it much. But over a recent dinner conversation with a fellow conservative friend, Urquhart changed his mind. The death penalty is inefficient, costly and wrong, he now says. This legislative session, Urquhart is leading the charge to repeal Utah's death penalty, which is only used for aggravated murder. "It's wrong for government to be in business in killing its own citizens," Urquhart told The Fix. "That cheapens life." His bill passed out of a Senate committee 5 to 2 this week, but he faces an uphill battle to get it approved in the Republican-controlled House and Senate, and it's unclear whether Utah's Republican governor, Gary Herbert, will sign it. Still, the fact that Republican leaders such as Urquhart are even considering abolishing the death penalty suggests there's room in the United States for the right to meet the left on one of the country???s most contentious of issues. And it's not just Utah. In May, Nebraska became the 19th state and the first Republican-controlled state in more than 40 years to repeal the death penalty (the state's unicameral legislature is technically nonpartisan, but is GOP-controlled for all intents and purposes). The fight there is not over. Death penalty supporters in Nebraska, led by Gov. Pete Ricketts (R), succeeded in getting enough signatures to suspend the repeal law. The state's voters will ultimately decide what to do in November. Despite that, Marc Hyden with Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty, a group launched in 2013 to advocate for abolishing capital punishment, thinks what's happening in Utah and Nebraska is a sign that the United States is on the precipice of a movement to do away with the death penalty. Lawmakers in Kentucky, Kansas, Montana and New Hampshire are reevaluating whether to keep the death penalty on the books this year, he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if a few states dump the death penalty" in the next few years, Hyden said. To get a better sense of how the death penalty debate is playing out one Republican state legislature, The Fix spoke more in-depth with Urquhart: Courtesy Sen. Urquhart Courtesy Sen. Urquhart THE FIX: How long have you been working on this repeal? URQUHART: About 5 months. THE FIX: Why are you focusing on this now? URQUHART: I had a dinner conversation with a friend about capital punishment. We picked up the conversation a few times and in subsequent days and weeks, and it really made me think. And he won the argument. THE FIX: Your bill to repeal it has been described, even by you, as a long shot. URQUHART: I think that we're going to pass it; I really do. I believe I have the votes to pass it out of the Senate, and I'm making tremendous headway talking with House members, too. What I'm saying to people is, I start out by saying, 'You're in favor the the death penalty, aren't you?' And they say yes. So then I tell them that I understand that but I'd like to talk about the difference between the death penalty in reality and the death penalty in theory. I ask them how many people on death row can you name, and everyone can name a few people, and then I ask them how many of the victims can they name, and they can't name the victims. I said that's indicative of what happens. It takes years and sometimes decades between the sentence and carrying out the sentence. Those folks become famous, and the families are victimized by lots of appeals, and they just have scars that can never heal. There's just not finality on it. And we do it at a great cost, $1.6 million for every prisoner we execute. And then, for the clincher, I ask my conservative friends what they think government does extremely well. And then I ask them what they think government does perfectly. And they usually say, 'It doesn't do anything perfectly.' And then I ask, 'Yet we're going to give ourselves the godlike power over life and death?' And by that point, they say they're going to think about and they'd like to talk more, and then they're coming back a day or 2 later telling me they're going to vote for a repeal. THE FIX: How do you square your vote to reauthorize the firing squad in Utah with your views on the death penalty today? URQUHART: If that bill came up today, I'd vote the same way. Because as long as we have capital punishment, we need to do it in the most effective way, and the firing squad is effective. THE FIX: Beyond the practical arguments against the death penalty, is there any religious or moral compass guiding your change of heart? URQUHART: Originally no, but increasingly yes. I'm thinking that it's wrong for government to be in business in killing its own citizens. That cheapens life. (source: Washington Post) CALIFORNIA: San Bernardino County jurors have recommended the death penalty for a man convicted of the rape and murder of a woman at a bakery in Fontana more than a decade ago The district attorney's office said Thursday that a jury recommended the death sentence for 54-year-old Gilbert Sanchez of Montebello. Jurors convicted Sanchez in November of the 2001 rape and murder of 30-year-old Sylvia Galindo at a bakery in Fontana. A sentencing hearing for Sanchez has been scheduled for May 27. (source: Associated Press) USA: Unacceptable racial bias persists in capital punishment Almost 40 years since the Supreme Court relegitimized the death penalty; almost 30 since they said it's OK that it's racist. Sometime soon in the 31 states that have not abolished the death penalty, leaders at the highest levels of state government, men and women - mostly men and mostly white - will hold private, closed-door meetings, in which they will discuss the most secretive, most cost-effective, most media-friendly way to go about killing 1, or more, of its citizens. Study after study shows that, more likely than not, this majority-white group of deathly decision-makers will be planning the killing of a man or a woman, though usually they're a man, and usually they're a black man. These macabre meetings focused on sharpening the states' machinery of death have been going on ever since the 1976 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Gregg v. Georgia. Gregg relegitimized and restarted the wheel of state-sanctioned death - a wheel that stopped spinning 4 years earlier, in 1972, when in Furman v. Georgia, the high court declared Georgia's death penalty statute - and by implication the death penalty statutes of 40 other states - unconstitutional; the court held in Furman that the way the states were allowing juries and judges to decide who lives and who dies violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. But just four years later, after the Gregg decision sanctioned the states' newly rewritten death penalty statutes, the wheel of death started spinning again. And ever since, overwhelmingly, the condemned strapped to that wheel - or gurney, quite literally - have been poor persons of color; most often their legal representation has been atrocious. Read famed capital defense attorney and Yale law professor, Stephen B. Bright's disturbing article, "Counsel for the Poor: The Death Sentence Not for the Worst Crime but for the Worst Lawyer," if you have any doubt about that. Even more repugnant though, study after study shows that the poor, probably black, death row inmate will have landed on death row because he killed someone white. The most famous of these studies, the "Baldus" study, an extremely well-respected empirical study published in 1983, showed that even after taking into consideration 39 nonracial variables, defendants charged with killing white victims were 4.3 times more likely to receive a death sentence than defendants charged with killing blacks. The study also concluded, as quoted by Justice Lewis Powell's decision in McCleskey v. Kemp, that "black defendants were 1.1 times as likely to receive a death sentence as other defendants." That has to be unconstitutional, doesn't it? It's an Equal Protection Clause violation, right? Part of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Equal Protection Clause, which took effect in 1868, after the Civil War, provides that no state shall deny to any person, including a person of color, "the equal protection of the laws." If, as the Baldus study convincingly showed, a defendant is more likely to get the death penalty solely because the victim was white instead of black, that would be a per se violation of the Equal Protection Clause, right? Wrong. In a decision that New York University School of Law professor and celebrated Supreme Court advocate Anthony G. Amsterdam called "the Dred Scott decision of our time," the court held that because defendant McCleskey, a black man, could not specifically prove "purposeful discrimination" had a discriminatory effect on him in his trial - the Baldus study his lawyers presented to show that the death penalty was racist, and whose findings the court notably did not dispute - were irrelevant. McCleskey was executed in 1991. Beforehand he said, "I pray that one day this country, supposedly a civilized society, will abolish barbaric acts such as the death penalty." 24 years have passed since McCleskey's last words, but still the majority-white death councils convene and still, even 24 years later, even with a black president in the White House, their top quarry remains the poorest, darkest, worst-represented defendants. When will it end? When will African-Americans, white Americans and Americans of all colors demand that each and every politician they elect take action, and take action now, to put a stop to it? (source: Op-Ed; Stephen Cooper is former D.C. and federal public defender----The Daily Californian) From rhalperi at smu.edu Fri Feb 26 17:07:11 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2016 17:07:11 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 26 SINGAPORE: 47-year-old Singaporean charged with Teck Whye temple murde----The victim was found dead at Chin Long Kong Chinese Temple along Teck Whye Lane on Feb 14. Loh Suan Lit, 47, was on Friday (Feb 26) charged with the murder of Mr Tan Poh Huat, who was 53. The victim was found dead at Chin Long Kong Chinese Temple at No 2 Teck Whye Lane on Feb 14. Channel NewsAsia understands that a worker who unlocked the gates of the temple in the morning discovered the victim, who had sustained a head injury. Tan was said to have been murdered between 2.30am and 3.30am. Loh was identified as the suspect and arrested over a week later, on Wednesday, said the police. Loh has been remanded for a week for police to complete investigations, with permission to bring him out for investigations and with a view to recover stolen goods.. His case will be mentioned again on Mar. 4. He faces the death penalty for the offence of Murder under Section 302(1) of the Penal Code, Chapter 224. (source: channelnewsasia.com) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Feb 27 15:15:44 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2016 15:15:44 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., VA., N.C., FLA., LA., ARK. Message-ID: Feb. 27 TEXAS: Suspect in guard's death appears in court----Billy Joel Tracy asks judge for the return of hot pot, noodles A Texas inmate facing the death penalty in connection with the brutal beating death of a Telford Unit guard last year was in a Bowie County courtroom for a pretrial hearing Friday afternoon. Billy Joel Tracy, 38, is accused of pummelling correctional officer Timothy Davison, 48, to death with a metal tray-slot bar July 15 during a routine transport between a recreational day room and a cell in administrative segregation at the Barry Telford Unit in New Boston, Texas. Last month Bowie County District Attorney Jerry Rochelle announced the state is seeking the death penalty for Tracy. During that hearing, Tracy asked 102nd District Judge Bobby Lockhart about getting some packages of Ramen noodles and a "hot pot" returned to him that were confiscated along with all of his other personal belongings from his cell in Telford. The conversation again turned to Tracy's property at Friday's hearing. When Lockhart asked him about the items at Friday's hearing, Tracy said they were "stolen." Tracy said he has received some property back, but not all. Mount Pleasant lawyer Mac Cobb, Tracy's lead defense attorney, said he has made inquiries concerning Tracy's personals, specifically a typewriter. Two Texas Department of Criminal Justice correctional officers stood on either side of Tracy, each with a hand on the inmate's biceps, during the hearing. Tracy stood in a crisp white jumpsuit with "ad seg" printed in red capital letters on his back. "One item of concern, there was a typewriter taken from his quarters at the prison," Cobb said. "Up until today, as far as the defense and Mr. Tracy are concerned, it was a mystery as to what happened to it. I understand it is in DPS (Department of Public Safety) custody being analyzed. The OIG (Office of Inspector General) hasn't provided a report yet. We may want to have our expert examine it." Assistant District Attorney Kelley Crisp said she and others from her office as well as the defense are planning a visit to Telford to photograph and video the crime scene. "This is going to disrupt the operations of the prison substantially, so we're (the state and defense) going together," Crisp said. "We're going to need an order to bring in outside cameras and video equipment." The lawyers also discussed the state's ongoing effort to provide the defense with copies of or access to all evidence in the case. Crisp said her office is working with prison officials to acquire Tracy's medical and psychological records, as well as documents, autopsy photos and other materials to give to Cobb and Texarkana lawyer Jeff Harrelson, who is sitting second chair for the defense. Tracy is being held at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas, approximately four hours from Texarkana. The distance makes it difficult for Cobb, Harrelson, the defense's investigator and mitigation expert to consult with Tracy. Crisp asked Lockhart if it would be possible for the court to pen an order directing TDCJ to move Tracy to the Coffield Unit in Tennessee Colony, Texas, which is slightly closer to Texarkana and Mount Pleasant. Rochelle said his office is concerned about the security of TDCJ staff. "I still would defer to the decision making of TDCJ. They know best how to house this individual," Rochelle said. "But if they have the ability to house him where the defense has requested, the state has no objection." Tracy has a long history of violence both in and out of prison. Tracy's prison history began in 1995 when he was just 18 and sentenced to a 3-year term for retaliation in Tarrant County. Three years later, in 1998, Tracy was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, plus 20 years for burglary, aggravated assault and assault on a public servant in Rockwall County. In 2005, Tracy received an additional 45-year term for stabbing a guard with a homemade weapon at a TDCJ unit in Amarillo. Tracy was sentenced to 10 years in 2009 for attacking a guard at a TDCJ unit in Abilene. Tracy's violent behavior toward prison staff led to his placement in administrative segregation where he is allowed out of his cell for an hour each day for recreation. Davison, who had less than a year of experience with TDCJ, was walking Tracy back to his cell in administrative segregation when Tracy allegedly managed to free one of his cuffed hands, grab Davison's tray-slot bar and use it like a baseball bat to beat him. Tray-slot bars are used to manipulate the rectangular opening in a cell door at mealtime at Telford and 1 other Texas prison unit, according to prison sources. Lockhart scheduled the case for another pretrial hearing April 1. If convicted of capital murder, Tracy faces life without the possibility of parole or the death penalty. (source: Texarkana Gazette) PENNSYLVANIA: Death penalty: State-sanctioned murder Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court's Gregg v. Georgia ruling, 1,429 persons have been executed. Although African-Americans constitute only 13 % of America's population, they constitute 35 % of those sentenced to death and killed, totaling 494. By the way, of those 1,429 persons, 327 involved Blacks who had been convicted of murdering whites or whites who had been convicted of murdering Blacks. And guess what? Only 31 of the white defendants were executed, while 296 of the Blacks were. And strong evidence indicates that not all of those Blacks had committed those murders. That and several other reasons are why I call the death penalty "state-sanctioned murder." Those who support the death penalty argue that it's a deterrent, that it's reasonable retribution, that certain killers deserve it, that it's religiously mandated, that it's the law, that it has procedural safeguards, and that it's founded on the fair notion of "an eye for an eye." Here are the reasons I reject all of that. If it's based on deterrence, why is it that the South, which has the highest murder rate in the country, also has the most death penalty executions at 80 %, while the Northeast has the lowest murder rate but only one percent of the executions? And why do nearly 90 % of past and current presidents of the country's leading criminal law academic societies agree that it's not a deterrent. If it's reasonable retribution, why do many, if not most, of the proponents constantly scream for revenge? Furthermore, aren't we- i.e., the civilized members of society- better than the sociopathic killers who kill to get their way? And isn't the notion of killing killers to show that killing is wrong rather hypocritical? If certain killers deserve it, why don't all of those "certain" killers get it? Consider this: a person could commit a single capital-type murder in one of the 31 states that has the death penalty and he or she would be executed. But another person (or that same person) could commit 10 capital-type murders in 1 of the 19 states that does not have the death penalty and he or she could not be executed. If it's religiously mandated (at least by the three faiths with the most adherents), how does a proponent justify the destruction of what God, Allah, Jehovah, etc. created? In other words, since we as humans can only procreate- and not create- how can the killing of the Creator's creation be justified, especially in light of the fact that such killing is not the result of the sort of on-the-spot deadly self-defense that is necessary in response to an imminent threat? And because the death penalty is not the result of such immediate self-defense, isn't an execution sinful for believers and unethical or immoral for non-believers? If it's the law, wasn't slavery and Jim Crow the law? And wasn't the execution of kids the law until 2005 when the U.S. Supreme Court finally outlawed it? Moreover, wasn't the execution of 22 persons since 1976 for crimes they committed as children the law? If there are procedural safeguards, why is it that since 1973, a total of 156 factually innocent persons (including six in Pennsylvania) were arrested, charged, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death with those sentences upheld many times on appeal? Why was it necessary for zealous and persistent defense attorneys- over the strenuous and repeated objections of the prosecutors- to fight nonstop to finally persuade some judges to reverse those sentences shortly before the scheduled executions? And during those attempts to persuade those judges, innocent men and women had spent decades in the living hell known as death row. What if those defense lawyers had not been so zealous? What if they had not been so persistent? By the way, do the proponents deny the racism and the classism of capital punishment? If so, how do they explain the fact that 98 % of the chief District Attorneys in death penalty states are white and only 1 % Black? And why is it that while the poor constitute more than 15 % of the country's population, they are about 90 % of the death row population? Finally, if it's founded on the fair notion of "an eye for an eye," which means we kill killers, then why don't we rob robbers or kidnap kidnappers? Even better, why don't we rape rapists? Yeah, that's it. In the very same way our tax dollars are used to pay a state employee to kill a convicted killer through lethal injection, why don't we hire and pay a state employee to rape a convicted rapist through sexual penetration? Savage, you say? Barbaric, you say? Uncivilized, you say? Exactly, I say- just as savage and as barbaric and as uncivilized as the death penalty. Oh, I almost failed to mention why I call capital punishment "state sanctioned murder." Well, a governor approves it, so it's state action. And murder is defined as a premeditated (i.e., planned) and unjustified (i.e., done in the absence of an imminent threat to life or limb) killing, especially when a deadly weapon (i.e., lethal injection or electric chair or gas chamber or hangman's noose or firing squad) is used. Since the public is not legally permitted to murder, neither should the state governments be permitted to do so. The words from David Walker's Appeal, written in 1829, and the words of Christopher James Perry Sr., founder of the Tribune in 1884, are the inspiration for my "Freedom???s Journal" columns. In order to honor that pivotal nationalist abolitionist and that pioneering newspaper giant, as well as to inspire today's Tribune readers, each column ends with Walker and Perry's combined quote- along with my inserted voice- as follows: I ask all Blacks "to procure a copy of this ... (weekly column) for it is designed ... particularly for them" so they can "make progress ... against (racist) injustice." .(source: Commentary; Michael Coard; His "Radio Courtroom" show can be heard on WURD-900 AM----Philadelphia Tribune) VIRGINIA----stay of impending execution Ricky Gray's execution put on hold until Supreme Court weighs in An order filed in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday put the March 16 execution on hold until the Supreme Court could decide whether to intervene. Gray was sentenced to death in connection with the 2006 New Year's Day quadruple murders of the Harvey family in Richmond. In December, he petitioned to have his death penalty case reviewed by all 15 federal appeals court judges in Richmond. He remains housed on death row at Sussex I State Prison. Along with the legal maneuvering are concerns Virginia does not currently have all the drugs needed for a lethal injection. The Department of Corrections says it does not have the 1st drug needed, which can be Midazolam or Pentobarbital or Thiopental Sodium. Gray does have the option to select electrocution instead. He was set to be executed at Greensville Correctional Center. At least 6 citizens who are not Department of Correction employees must be present during an execution, with the method of death chosen by the inmate. Alfredo R. Prieto was the last inmate put to death in Virginia, on Oct. 1, 2015. During that time, state officials had to acquire the lethal injection drugs from Texas. Jason Clark, the Director of Public Information with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, stated there are no plans to provide lethal injection drugs to Virginia. Clark pointed out that in 2013 the Virginia Department of Corrections gave his agency pentobarbital to use as a backup drug in an execution. His agency was approached in 2015 by Virginia officials and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice reciprocated, giving them three vials of pentobarbital. According to the most recent reports from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a death row inmate waits an average of 137 months between sentencing and execution. Since 1977, Virginia has had 110 executions. 79 of those were done by lethal injection, 31 by electrocution. Under state law, the inmate must request electrocution, and can do so up until 15 days before the execution date. Gray's death sentence was specifically for the murders of Stella and Ruby Harvey, daughters of Bryan and Kathryn Harvey, who were also killed with the help of Ray Dandridge. A week later, Percyell Tucker, his wife Mary and their daughter, Ashley Baskerville, who was an accomplice in the Harveys' murder, were also killed. Dandridge is serving a life sentence. (source: NBC news) NORTH CAROLINA: Prosecutors seek death penalty for man charged with witness' murder A Wallace man will be tried for his life in the November 2014 slaying of a state's key witness in Duplin County. The state's case against 37-year-old Nashid Porter will be pursued capitally following a Rule 24 hearing in Duplin County Superior Court on Thursday, according to District Attorney Ernie Lee, of North Carolina's Fourth Judicial District, which includes Duplin, Onslow, Jones and Sampson counties. The Duplin County case was declared capital in the 1st-degree murder of 27-year-old Obediah Hester IV, in that there is least 1 potential aggregating circumstance exists in the case pursuant to state law, Lee added. Along with the 1st-degree murder charge, Porter faces additional charges of possession of a firearm by a felon and discharging a weapon into occupied property causing serious bodily injury in Duplin County Superior Court, according to court records. Hester was found dead near an abandoned trailer on Wards Road in Wallace on Nov. 14, 2014, just 2 months before he was set to take the stand as a state's witness in Porter's 1st-degree murder trial in the July 2012 fatal shooting of 32-year-old Brian Theodus Grant in Wilmington. Porter was out on pre-trial release at the time of Hester's death, and was arrested by U.S. Marshals days later on a charge of 1st-degree murder. Prosecutors say Hester was a key witness for the state in Grant's murder. Hester was shot 11 times, but the ultimate cause of his death was ruled to be from a blow to the head by a cinder block, according to Duplin County investigators. But before he was shot, Hester provided videotaped testimony in the Grant case, which prosecutors are seeking to introduce as evidence during Porter's 1st-degree murder trial in the July 2012 killing on May 31. The 2012 case has since been moved from New Hanover County to Pender County, after a judge granted a defense motion to change venue. The May trial date is the 3rd trial date scheduled in the case, which has been delayed several times since Hester's death. Porter has rejected a plea deal in both 1st-degree murder cases. In that deal, the State required Porter to plead guilty to both murder cases in exchange for 2 life sentences without the possibility of parole, according to Assistant District Attorney Connie Jordan, a prosecutor for the 2012 murder case. Porter is scheduled for a March hearing in Wilmington, where a judge will hear any outstanding motions in preparation for the trial in Pender County Superior Court at the end of May, according to Samantha Dooies, assistant to District Attorney Ben David. The judge will also address some representation issues with Porter's attorney, Chief Public Defender Jennifer Harjo. Harjo is the 2nd attorney to represent Porter in the 2012 murder case. Porter is currently being held at the New Hanover County Jail without bond. (source: Port City Daily) FLORIDA: Unanimous juries in death sentences Florida's death penalty sentencing law is on track to get significantly better. Just not good enough. When the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 12 struck down Florida's capital sentencing system because it gives juries too little weight, the Legislature was forced to amend the law in order for executions to resume in the state. Although the court's ruling in Hurst v. Florida didn???t address the issue, bills in the House and Senate both seek to change the number of jurors required to agree on a death sentence. It's a long overdue overhaul. Florida is 1 of just 3 states, along with Alabama and Delaware, that do not require a jury be unanimous on recommending the death penalty. However, Florida stands alone in allowing a simple majority of jurors (seven) to issue a death sentence. Florida's unique position is both constitutionally and morally suspect, as it leaves so much room for doubt when handing down the ultimate penalty. Indeed, the Florida Supreme Court has cited legal precedent and the state's "outlier status" in urging the Legislature to re-examine the state's capital sentencing statute. Hurst added urgency to that move. A bill in the Florida Senate would change the law to require jurors be unanimous in both finding a defendant eligible for the death penalty and in recommending the sentence be imposed. The original version of a similar bill filed in the House diverged from the Senate measure on the key issue of unanimity by requiring a supermajority of 9 jurors to recommend a death sentence. Tuesday, however, the House bill was amended to bump that supermajority up to 10 jurors, putting Florida's law on par with Alabama's. Some legal and political observers believe that is setting the stage for a compromise between the 2 chambers, and that the Senate bill eventually will abandon jury unanimity and adopt the House supermajority of 10. Although that???s an improvement to the current system, it still allows sentencing to proceed despite doubt. There must be the highest level of certainty attainable when sentencing a convict to death, for a mistake cannot be undone if an innocent person is executed. To be sure, adopting unanimity would lead to fewer death sentences. A study by the Harvard Law School found that requiring jury unanimity in Florida, Alabama and Delaware would have caused death sentences over the last 5 years to drop from 117 to 26 - a decrease of 77 %. Florida alone would have imposed 70 % fewer death verdicts. The goal, however, should not be to put as many convicts on death row as possible. It should be to ensure the innocent are not wrongly convicted. To that end, the results of a recent Tampa Bay Times review of more than 450 death penalty cases dating back decades are chilling. The Times found that prisoners who were sentenced to death based on non-unanimous jury recommendations were far more likely to have their cases overturned on direct appeal, or to be ultimately acquitted. Of the 20 people who have been exonerated and for whom sentencing information is available, 15 were sent to death row by a divided jury. Florida leads the nation in death row exonerations since 1976. That statistic alone demands a thorough review of the state's judicial system. The Legislature, however, can install a powerful check against miscarriages of justice by requiring jury unanimity on death sentences, just as 29 other states have. (source: Editorial, Ocala Star Banner) ******************** Lawmakers move ahead with death penalty bill The Florida Senate is moving ahead with a compromise bill to overhaul the state's death penalty law. A Senate committee voted Thursday to approve a death penalty bill that would require at least 10 out of 12 jurors to recommend execution in order for it to be carried out. The Senate originally wanted to require that all 12 jurors agree to a death sentence. But senators agreed to switch to 10 jurors as part of a compromise with the House. The bill (SB 7068) heads to the full Senate next. The House has already passed its version. Some senators said they were opposed to the jury change and predicted Florida's death penalty law could come under scrutiny again. The Legislature is rewriting the death penalty law after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that the current method is unconstitutional. (source: Associated Press) LOUISIANA: Death sentence in killing of Blanchard minister overturned for 2nd time For the 2nd time, a death sentence meted out in the killing of a Blanchard minister has been overturned by the Louisiana Supreme Court. In a brief released Friday, the court affirmed the 2012 conviction of Robert Glen Coleman in the 2003 killing of Julian L. Brandon, Jr. but overturned the resulting death sentence because Caddo prosecutors failed to timely notify the defense during the penalty phase of the trial of their intent to use evidence of other crimes committed by Coleman. " ... the state purposefully misled the defendant concerning the evidence it intended to present at the penalty phase and gave defense counsel numerous assurances that its penalty phase evidence evidence and testimony would mimic what it presented at defendant's 1st trial," the court opined in its brief. Coleman was first tried, convicted and sentenced to death in 2005. His girlfriend Brandy Holmes also was tried, convicted and sentenced to death for her part in the brutal killing of 70-year-old Brandon in his Blanchard home on New Year's Day. Brandon's 68-year-old wife, Alice, also was gravely injured but survived. Her injuries left her severely debilitated until her death in 2008. Coleman's conviction was overturned in 2007 after the court found trial error because prosecutors discriminated against prospective jurors based on race. At issue is evidence implicating Coleman in the death of Shreveport resident Terrance Blaze in January 2003 sometime near the killing of Brandon. Coleman was never charged in the case involving Blaze. During the penalty phase of Coleman's 2nd trial in the Brandon killing, prosecutors suggested in their opening statement that Blaze "was shot in the back of the head" by Coleman. The court found that while prosecutors had given sufficient pre-trial notice of their intent to prove Coleman's involvement in the crime, they had not fairly notified the defense of their intent to say Coleman was in fact the killer. In concurring with the court's decision, Justice Jeanette Knoll separately wrote to "emphasize how critical it is for the State to be forthright and prompt when giving notice of its intent to use 'other crimes' evidence during the guilt phase of a capital trial." "Given the grave and final nature of capital punishment and the precious resources the people of this State dedicate to ensuring justice is done in these most serious cases, the State's unreasonable delay in giving notice concerning such as crucial piece of evidence is indefensible," Knoll wrote. "This practice tends to inject gamesmanship into the proceedings which we will not tolerate." In dissent, Justice John L. Weimer argued that because the defense did not raise an objection to the prosecution's statement during the penalty phase, Coleman did not have a claim on appeal. The court remanded the case back to district court for a new sentencing hearing. Holmes, whose sentence was affirmed by the court and has lost subsequent appeals, remains 1 of 2 women on Louisiana's death row. (source: Shreveport Times) ARKANSAS: Jail phone recordings subpoenaed in murder case A subpoena has been issued by an attorney for 1 of 3 codefendants in the Don and LaDonna Rice Rice murder case. An attorney for 20-year-old Mikayla Mynk has subpoenaed recorded phone calls her codefendant, 24-year-old Gassville resident Nicholas Ian Roos made from a Baxter County jail phone. The subpoena compels Securus Technologies, the company that provides phone service for inmates, to turn over "Baxter County Detention Center Facility inmate phone calls and recordings made by inmate Nicholas Roos," to Mynk's defense team or bring them to court on March 17. Roos, Mynk, and their codefendant, 23-year-old Mountain Home resident Zack Grayham all face 2 counts of capital murder and several other felony charges in connections with the death of the Midway couple, the fires that burned their home and truck as well as theft and burglary charges. All 3 have entered not guilty pleas. Baxter County Prosecuting Attorney David Ethredge announced earlier that the state will be seeking the death penalty for all 3 defendants in the alleged capital murders of Midway husband and wife Donald, 75, and Ladonna Rice, 71, who died Nov 7. Defendants found guilty of capital murder face only 2 potential penalties in Arkansas, death or life in prison without parole. The couple's home was burned and authorities later found their truck burned at a different location. Their bodies were discovered in the rubble of their burnt home. During the most recent hearing regarding the murder case, Baxter County Circuit Court Judge Gordon Webb announced the affidavits in the case will remain sealed. The affidavits contain the information investigators compiled to charge the 3 defendants and also describe the items seized by authorities during the execution of a search warrant related to the case. Attorneys for Roos earlier filed a motion "to enter an order prohibiting the state, or any of its agents, latent or patent, from attempting to elicit information, evidence or statements from defendant by double-celling or other means." The motion asks the court to prevent the state from using "agents" to gather information from Roos through covert or overt means. Double-celling is when authorities place a 2nd prisoner in a cell with another prisoner. On December 30, Baxter County Circuit Court Judge Gordon Webb granted the motion filed on behalf of Roos. What impact the granting of that motion may or may not have on the ability of Mynk's attorneys to compel the disclosure of any phone calls or recordings of phone calls made by Roos remains to be seen. (source: Baxter Bulletin) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Feb 27 15:16:58 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2016 15:16:58 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., OKLA., MINN., WYO., UTAH, IDAHO, CALIF., USA Message-ID: Feb. 27 MISSOURI: Death penalty challenge heard in Adriaunna Horton murder A judge heard testimony Friday on defense motions challenging the constitutionality of the state's death penalty and seeking dismissal of the prosecution's notice of intent to seek the measure in the upcoming trial of Bobby Bourne Jr. Bourne, 36, is charged with the 2013 kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Adriaunna Horton, of Golden City, with a trial currently set for July. Thomas Jacquinot, a capital murder case attorney with the state public defender's office, filed the motions regarding the state's intent to seek the death penalty in Bourne's case to lay the groundwork for a possible appeal on constitutional grounds should his client be convicted at trial and condemned to die. Circuit Judge James Journey had indicated at a hearing in October that he does not believe he has the authority as trial judge to be overturning what higher courts have determined is the law but agreed to hear testimony and arguments on the issue. At the end of Friday's hearing, he told attorneys that they could expect his ruling on the motions soon. Jacquinot called Wanda Foglia, a professor of law and criminal justice studies at Rowan University in New Jersey, as the lone witness to testify at the hearing. An investigator with the Capital Jury Project, a 14-state study funded by the National Science Foundation, she presented seven critical findings of the project that surveyed 1,198 people who served as jurors in both the guilt and punishment phases of capital murder trials. The study's critical findings were: -- About 1/2 the jurors acknowledged having made decisions on punishment of defendants during the guilt phase and before hearing any testimony or evidence in the punishment phase. -- Jury selection fails to remove "automatic" death penalty jurors, or those who feel it is "the only acceptable punishment" for the type of murder case they are hearing. More than half the jurors considered it the only acceptable punishment for defendants with prior murder convictions, for premeditated murders and for murders with multiple victims. -- Capital jurors displayed significant rates of failure to understand jury instructions. -- Significant numbers of jurors hold erroneous beliefs regarding the death penalty being mandatory in certain cases. In Missouri, 48.3 % of the jurors surveyed believed it was mandatory if the defendant's conduct was proved to be "heinous, vile or depraved," and 29.3 % believed it was required if the defendant could be shown to pose a future danger to others. The Supreme Court has ruled that there are no mandatory requirements of the death penalty. -- There is a failure among capital jurors to understand that the primary responsibility for sentencing rests with them. -- A strong influence of race on the process. Defendants are more likely to receive the death penalty if the victim is white and chances are highest when the victim is white and the defendant is black. -- Jurors tend not to believe that a sentence of life without parole, the only other sentence possible in capital murder cases in Missouri, actually means life without parole. Foglia said that in Missouri cases, 46 % of jurors were deciding in favor of the death penalty in the guilt phase of the trial. Jurors who took premature stances were more likely to believe the defendant was guilty, to think the death penalty was the only acceptable punishment and to have inappropriate discussions of their penalty inclinations during deliberations in the guilt phase. She said the jury qualification process itself in capital murder cases creates a bias unfavorable to defendants in that it makes jurors more likely to think the defendant is guilty and deserves the death penalty. She said 11.3 % of the jurors surveyed nationwide acknowledged that the process made them more likely to convict the defendant. Yet another problem lies in jury instructions, she said. "Over and over again, we are finding that jurors are not understanding how they are to handle mitigating and aggravating circumstances (presented in the punishment phase)," Foglia told the court. Nationwide, 44.6 % of jurors did not realize they could consider any mitigating circumstances and 66.5 % thought jurors had to reach unanimous agreement on any mitigating evidence. She said 49.2 % erroneously believed mitigating factors had to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt while 29.9 % did not know that aggravating evidence did have to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Kevin Zoellner, the assistant attorney general prosecuting the case, cross-examined Foglia regarding the impact of project interviewers' own views of the death penalty on the results they obtained as well as the effect of the length of time after the trial on jurors' ability to recall the instructions they received or what they were told was the law. Both sides agreed that in the Bourne case, race is not a potential factor. Impact An expert witness for accused child murderer Bobby Bourne Jr. told the case's trial judge Friday that 14 studies show that on the average the process of juror qualification in death penalty cases increases the chances of conviction by 44 %. (source: The Joplin Globe) OKLAHOMA: Death penalty: Will it stay or will it go? The stayed execution of an Oklahoma man spurred a larger discussion in the U.S. Supreme Court about tinkering with the death penalty, according to an assistant federal public defender who spoke at Enid Noon AMBUCS Friday. Richard Glossip was scheduled to be executed in 2015, but was not due to several issues. Glossip is on Oklahoma's death row for his alleged role in the murder of Barry Van Treese in 1997. "There is no question there was another person who beat the hotel owner (Treese) to death," said Patti Ghezzi, assistant federal public offender. She said another man pleaded guilty to killing Treese and in return for naming Glossip, the man got life without parole while Glossip got the death penalty. Ghezzi was one of the many people who filed an action in federal court that challenged the constitutionality of the lethal injection protocol in Oklahoma. "We argued in the Supreme Court and they ruled 5-4 against clients but they launched a full review into the death penalty," she said. "We thought the case was about the method of execution, but in retrospect, it was almost as if the argument was between members of the court," Ghezzi said, a Cherokee native. The case called for a full briefing on whether the time came to abolish the death penalty, she said. The death penalty has a long history, with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in one case, Furman v. Georgia, in 1972, that individuals required a consistency in the application of the death penalty. Nearly 40 year later, many states were forced to redo statutes on the death penalty. At that time, Ghezzi said Oklahoma had to go back to the drawing board. The state modeled its death penalty after the one used in Texas, she said. Since 1976, Texas has executed 534 people, making it No. 1 in the nation for executions. Oklahoma is runner-up, Ghezzi said, with 112 executions. In the case pertaining to Glossip, Ghezzi said, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer called the death penalty cruel and unusual punishment. Glossip's case had several issues, she said, including lack of reliability, death penalty has been wrongfully imposed, egregiousness versus other factors and constitutional difficulties. Breyer cited 4 death penalty cases in which people were wrongfully executed, she said. Another factor is the lengthy delay of an execution. "Only 73 people were sentenced to death in 2014," Ghezzi said. "7 states carried out an execution in 1999 and 98 executions were carried out. 19 states have abolished the death penalty and 9 of those occurred after Furman v. Georgia. 11 states have not executed any one for more than 8 years." Today, Oklahoma has 50 people on death row. Ghezzi said the counter argument is that the death penalty should be left up to states. "It should be left up to the people who elect the legislators who can make that decision," she said. Former Justice Antonin Scalia argued that the Constitution explicitly included capital punishment. "I used the word tinker because that was what was said, 'I will no longer tinker with the machinery of death,'" Ghezzi said, quoting a former justice. "I think the Glossip case has people thinking and I think that's always a good thing." Without a successor for Scalia, whom Ghezzi said she doubts will get appointed before President Barack Obama leaves office, the issue is in a delicate balance. "It all depends on who gets appointed," she said, and then she quoted a Mark Anderson comic. "Chances are that it's a 50-50 total crapshoot but it could go either way." Calling it quite an experience arguing before the Supreme Court, the Cherokee native said it's something she doesn't really ever want to go through again. (source: Enid News) MINNESOTA: BSM student jurors decide no death penalty for Jesus In a mock trial that simulated the legal system in Texas, student jurors at Benilde-St. Margaret's High School in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, chose overwhelmingly to spare Jesus Christ from the death penalty. "It was a pretty good day for Jesus, overall," prosecuting attorney Mark Osler concluded at the end of "Jesus on Death Row: The Trial of Jesus and American Capital Punishment" Feb. 25. Osler, author of a book of the same title, is a law professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis and has conducted similar simulated trials in 11 states, but never before at a high school. Just as in a regular trial, members of the junior class at the suburban Minneapolis school who acted as jurors received instructions in the law from a judge - in this case an actual judge, Minnesota Supreme Court Justice David Lillehaug. They heard opening arguments, listened as "witnesses" testified and were cross-examined, and heard attorneys' closing arguments, with Osler as the prosecutor and Hank Shea, a veteran attorney who also teaches at St. Thomas Law School, as defense counsel. BSM alum Annie Rondoni-Tavernier also served as counsel for the defense. Staging the program at BSM was the idea of religion teacher Claire Shea, Hank's daughter. "We study morality in our religion classes," she said, "so it's so important to get situations in front of students where they have to apply morality. "Students are going to face moral questions in real life, tough questions, so this is a good model to get them to deal with those kinds of questions." Osler explained that, for the purposes of the program, the first part of the Texas death penalty law was being skipped; in that portion of the proceedings, Jesus was found guilty of blasphemy, a capital offense, and of aggravating factors. The 2nd part of the law in Texas - the state with by far the highest number of executions both within the past 5 year and over the last 40 - requires juries to determine, 1st, if there is a probability that, if not executed, the defendant would be a continuing threat to society, and 2nd, if the death sentence is still warranted despite any mitigating circumstances. Minnesota does not have the death penalty. Passages from the gospels were used to elicit testimony about Jesus' extraordinary power (walking on water), his ability to draw masses of people and for violence to be committed on his behalf (when Peter cut off the ear of the high priest's servant). Jesus' words were turned against him, and testimony elicited to show that him a threat to the economy and society by calling disciples away from their jobs and families. Questioned by the defense, witnesses - Simon Peter and his wife, a centurion, and the woman Jesus saved from stoning - told of Jesus' history of love, healing, forgiveness and his respect for Roman law ("Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's"). Divided into traditional jury groups of 12, students deliberated then were asked for their verdicts. Nearly 2/3 of the 16 groups dismissed the death penalty for Jesus outright, deciding he did not pose a continuing threat to society. Most other "juries" said he did pose a continuing threat, but they either decided there were mitigating circumstances that precluded Jesus' execution or the jurors failed to reach the mandatory unanimous decision to apply the death penalty. Of the 16, only one group of student jurors voted that the death penalty was warranted for Jesus. Benilde-St. Margaret's principal Susan Skinner called the trial a wonderful educational opportunity to approach faith from a different perspective. "It's an opportunity for our students to think critically and make the connection between the intellectual and the heart of faith," she said. From a faith formation perspective, Claire Shea said it is sometimes easy to forget Jesus was a person with human emotions. "As a religion teacher, when we talk about the need to know Jesus, we can more easily find that relationship and that connection when we see him as human," she said. "I hope to inspire that more." (source: thecatholicspirit.com) WYOMING: WSP inmate charged with attempted murder of prison guard A Wyoming State Penitentiary inmate was charged Thursday with the attempted murder of a prison guard stemming from a stabbing that allegedly occurred in September. Khristopher Crandall, 28, faces felony charges of attempted 1st-degree murder, aggravated assault and battery and interference with a police officer for the alleged Sept. 18 attack on Sgt. Mark Viau. Crandall's attempted murder charge carries a maximum penalty of death, or life in prison. His other charges are punishable by up to 10 years in prison. According to a Carbon County Sheriff's Office affidavit, Deputy Tom Lakia was notified at 10:05 a.m. Sept. 18 that there had been an assault on a staff member at the prison. The affidavit stated Viau was stabbed "at least" 10 to 15 times, but the stab vest he was wearing absorbed the blows. Corrections Officer Zachary Bronum arrived and assisted Viau in trying to restrain and disarm Crandall. Viau told police that Crandall had been handcuffed behind his back so that Viau could inspect his cell, 204, in the E unit of Pod 1. Crandall was at the rear cell when Viau lifted the mattress and allegedly discovered a shank, the affidavit stated. Crandall allegedly "made a move as if to reach for it" and Viau pinned him to the bed. Crandall then allegedly reached around his back and began to use another shank he had apparently hidden to stab Viau while still in handcuffs. At the Memorial Hospital of Carbon County, Viau had a 2- to 3-inch scratch under his left pectoral and a 1-inch scratch on his right elbow. Viau delivered "at least 2 closed fist blows to Crandall's face," who "fell to the floor, dropping the shank," the affidavit stated. Viau said he feared for his life during the encounter. He also told police he had found inmate-created "hooch" 2 or 3 times previously on Crandall. Viau was cleared by medical staff and returned to work a day later. The shanks were allegedly 11 and 3/4 inches and 9 inches in length. Crandall refused to speak with police, but injuries were observed around his left eye, the affidavit stated. According to the affidavit, video shows Crandall being escorted from his cell in a restraint chair to various areas of the facility to receive a medical check and get moved to another cell after the confrontation. While being checked by medical staff, Crandall allegedly said he targeted Viau because he was the "only one who (expletive) with me." Crandall also, while under constant watch, allegedly said "administration is (expletive) with me, so this is what they get." Calls to the WSP and Department of Corrections for more information were not returned. (source: Rawlins Daily Times) UTAH: Bill to repeal death penalty in Utah passes Senate committee A bill to repeal the death penalty in Utah has taken its first step by clearing a judiciary committee and moving to the full Senate. Sponsored by Sen. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, SB 189 would remove the punishment for 1st-degree felony aggravated murder within the state beginning May 10, 2016. Only crimes in which the death penalty has been handed down as a judgment prior to that date would move forward to execution. Capital cases currently being prosecuted would not be affected. There are currently 9 inmates on death row in Utah. The bill passed the Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee in a 5-2 vote Tuesday with a favorable recommendation. According to the Associated Press, Urquhart said his bill may be a long shot in conservative Utah, yet he hopes arguments about the cost related to the death penalty, among other concerns, helps garner support for repealing it. "The reality is we don't have a death penalty, we're just spending an awful amount of money so that these people can become famous and thumb their noses at the families of the victims," Urquhart said after introducing the legislation earlier this month, according to Fox 13 News. According to fiscal notes related to the bill, it costs the state up to $1.6 million annually for each individual inmate on death row. With 9 inmates facing capital punishment, the overall cost to the state goes up to around $14.4 million a year. The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah supports the measure. "Life in prison is a far better alternative to the death penalty," the ACLU of Utah stated on its website. "It is a severe sentence that both keeps us safe and protects against wrongful executions. It is a swift sentence which is often preferred by victims' families over the years of mandatory appeals associated with death sentences." Objections to the death penalty have also included concerns over botched executions and wrongful convictions. "Government shouldn't be in the business of killing," Urquhart said, according to the Associated Press. "It's not our place. It's wrong for us to assume that because we aren't infallible." Republican Sen. Mark Madsen supports the legislation for the same reason. He was among the committee members who voted to push the bill forward. "If I knew they were guilty, I would have no moral compunction whatsoever pulling the trigger, pulling the switch, whatever it is, but I don't have that level of confidence in government," he said, according to the Associated Press. "It's an irreversible error." 2 Republicans voting against the measure said they think Utah needs to keep the option out of respect of the family members of victims and as an added measure of justice against horrific crimes. Other supporters of the death penalty include Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, who sponsored legislation last year that made the firing squad a viable alternative to lethal injection if the drugs needed are not available. "Sometimes capital punishment is more than a deterrent, it's justice," Ray told Fox 13 News. "And sometimes for a family to have closure, that's the type of justice we need." This year Ray is sponsoring legislation that would add human trafficking to the list offenses punishable by death should the victim involved die. Whether or not Urquhart's bill survives the Senate floor remains to be seen. Last October, during his monthly news conference on KUED, Gov. Gary Herbert said he supported the death penalty. He also said he believes the majority of Utahns support the death penalty as well. However, the governor said his own support of capital punishment has certain parameters. "It should be extremely rare and be done for the most heinous of crimes," Herbert said. "Secondly, the process should be in fact, streamlined," the governor said. "It is not right to have someone on death row for 20, 25, 30 years. Justice delayed is justice denied." 3 of the 9 death-row inmates in Utah have been there for 30 years. Utah is currently 1 of 31 states where the death penalty remains on the books. (source: St. George News) IDAHO: Prosecutor: Extension on Death Penalty Decision for Jacob Marshall Likely Last A judge has granted an extension for County Prosecutor Grant Loebs to decide whether to seek the death penalty against Jacob Lyn Marshall. "The defense attorneys and the state both agreed and the judge signed the order this morning," Loebs said Friday of the month-long extension. Marshall, 20, of Twin Falls is charged with 6 felonies including murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the July 25 slaying of Kent Storrer. Marshall and Jerry Burton Kimball, 22, are accused of murdering Storrer after meeting up with him to test-drive a car his son-in-law was selling. The deadline whether to seek the death penalty was due Monday but is now scheduled for March 31. "I think this will probably be the last (extension)," Loebs said. Marshall waived his right to a speedy trial in October the same time his defense attorney asked for an initial extension on the deadline. The new date was set for Dec. 31, but as the end of the year neared, the deadline was pushed back a 2nd time to Feb. 29. Earlier in the week, defense lawyers provided Loebs with a long report containing hundreds of pages of supplemental reports. It???s now up to Loebs to use that and the information he gathers on his own to make a final decision. "I have a huge volume of information to sift through," Loebs said earlier this week. The prosecutor has been meeting with the victim's family throughout this process, and he'll meet with them more before making a decision, he said. He'll also consult psychiatric and other experts. Kimball, who also faces 6 felonies including a 1st-degree murder count, is not facing the death penalty. Kimball was described by prosecutors as a willing accomplice, but prosecutors say it was Marshall who fired the AR-15 rifle that killed Storrer and wounded Storrer's son-in-law Jasper Qualls. But Kimball and his lawyers are waiting for the death-penalty decision in Marshall's case before proceeding with their case, Loebs said last month. If the prosecutor does seek the death penalty, Marshall will be entitled to 2 defense attorneys who both meet specific qualifications for defending death-penalty cases. Twin Falls County Chief Public Defender Marilyn Paul, who is Marshall's attorney, meets those qualifications. If a jury convicts a defendant in a death-penalty case, it essentially becomes a 2-part trial, with a conviction phase and a penalty phase, Loebs said. During the penalty portion of the trial, the same jury that convicted a defendant would have to make 2 decisions. First, they must decide if there was an aggravating factor - this could be a murder of multiple people, a murder committed in a cruel way or a murder committed with utter disregard for life, among other things. If the jury finds there is no aggravating factor, the possibility of the death penalty is thrown out. But if the jury decides there is an aggravating factor, they would then hear mitigating evidence, such as the defendant's mental health at the time of the crime and other background information that may have influenced the crime. Once that evidence is presented, the jury would have to decide if the aggravating factor outweighs the mitigating factors. If the jury decided it did outweigh the mitigating factors, then the defendant would be placed on death row. "All of that has to happen before you get the death penalty," Loebs said. "Then there's an automatic appeal." The type of delay granted by Judge Richard Bevan on Friday is normal in these types of cases, Loebs said last month. "The courts are usually pretty good about allowing that, because this is a big decision." (source: magicvalley.com) CALIFORNIA: Jury recommends death for man convicted of bakery murder San Bernardino County jurors have recommended the death penalty for a man convicted of the rape and murder of a woman at a bakery in Fontana more than a decade ago. The district attorney's office said Thursday that a jury recommended the death sentence for 54-year-old Gilbert Sanchez of Montebello. Jurors convicted Sanchez in November of the 2001 rape and murder of 30-year-old Sylvia Galindo at a bakery in Fontana. A sentencing hearing for Sanchez has been scheduled for May 27. (source: Associated Press) ************** Still no plea from Vallejo teenager accused of fatal Fairfield mall attack A Vallejo teenager accused of 2 violent robberies, 1 of them proving to be fatal, was back in court Friday where his defense counsel indicated he will challenge an enhancement to a murder charge that could make his client eligible for the death penalty if convicted. William David King appeared a 2nd time in Solano County Superior Court since his Feb. 3 arrest on suspicion of using a baseball bat to rob a 63-year-old Suisun City woman and a hammer to assault and rob a 37-year-old Vallejo woman the day prior. Cheryl Ann Sherwood, who was allegedly struck multiple times by a baseball bat-wielding King in the Solano Town Center shopping mall parking lot, died from injuries sustained in the attack Feb. 5. Solano County prosecutors followed up by filing charges of premeditated attempted murder and robbery carrying enhancements for the infliction of great bodily injury and the use of a hammer in connection with the Vallejo attack. King, 19, is additionally charged with murder with special circumstances alleging a murder was committed during the course of a robbery and lying in wait. The special circumstance allegations could make him eligible for the death penalty. It is the lying in wait allegation that Vallejo criminal defense attorney Dan Russo said he would challenge in a legal filing. "We're still trying to figure it out," Russo said Friday. As Russo explained, King has no prior criminal record. "None of this makes sense," he said. King has yet to enter a plea to the charges and was ordered back to court March 14 to complete the arraignment. On Feb. 2, Christine Joens had just exited a Tennessee Street bank in Vallejo when she was struck multiple times in the head with a hammer. The following morning Sherwood was assaulted with a baseball bat in Fairfield before being robbed. King was arrested by Vallejo police that afternoon following a traffic stop. Sherwood's purse was allegedly recovered during the traffic stop, according to police. Vallejo police indicate King confessed to at least 1 of the alleged robberies. Hundreds showed up in support of Sherwood on week ago in Fairfield during a celebration of her life. She was a longtime oncology nurse for Kaiser Permanente. Sherwood was remembered as a compassionate woman who went to great lengths to care for patients, strangers and animals. King remains in Solano County Jail without bail. His case has been assigned to the Fairfield courtroom of Judge Peter B. Foor. (source: Fairfield Daily Republic) ****************** Other countries have seen death penalty's problems Re "Is it time to put an end to the death penalty in California?" (Feb. 8): I am opposed to the death penalty. At a moral level, it is wrong for the state to kill a person held in its custody. In the name of the people, the state cannot condemn killing by killing itself. Instead, the state can demonstrate that killing is wrong by punishing a convicted killer with life in prison without the possibility of parole, which California has used in over 3,000 situations without anyone ever being released. Beyond the moral dimension, the death penalty system is deeply flawed. It is riddled with errors. Over 150 innocent people have been condemned to death due to mistakes by the police, prosecutors, expert witnesses, defense lawyers, judges and juries. People of color are sentenced to death out of proportion to their share of the population due to prejudice and racism in our society. Poor people cannot afford adequate defense lawyers, investigators and expert witnesses. Independent studies have shown that the death penalty doesn't deter crimes; states with the death penalty have higher crime rates than states without it. Also, the death penalty system costs millions of dollars more than life without parole due to expensive trial procedures, lengthy appeals and higher prison security costs. The death penalty is a dysfunctional system. That's why the vast number of countries around the world have ended it. Once it's abolished, we will no longer risk executing innocent people and can devote the $150 million in annual savings toward crime prevention, education, literacy, housing, employment and other programs that have a proven record of reducing crime and helping create a better and safer society. Stephen F. Rohde, Los Angeles (source: Letter to the Editor, Daily Breeze) ****************** Which California counties hand down the most death sentences? It's been a decade since California last executed a murderer. In the years since, more than 190 California criminals have been sentenced to death. The sentences have not been uniformly distributed. Some counties have stopped or mostly stopped sending murderers to death row at San Quentin State Prison. Others still condemn prisoners with relative frequency. It's unclear whether these criminals will ever be executed. California halted executions in 2006 following a court order related to whether the state's drug protocol constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. State officials have worked to resolve that question. Late last year, they unveiled a new lethal injection method that for the 1st time in state history calls for the use of only 1 drug to execute inmates. See death sentences by county across California. sacbee.com/datatracker Proponents for competing ballot initiatives - one that would speed up the process for executions, and one that would abolish the death penalty - are collecting signatures for the November ballot. Since the state's last execution in January 2006, more than 50 death row inmates have died from natural causes, suicide or other causes. About 750 inmates remain on death row. The state Department of Justice does not publish murder convictions by county. So The Sacramento Bee did its analysis by comparing arrests for willful homicides from 2005-2014 to death sentences meted out from 2006-2015. The comparison isn't perfect: Criminal cases can lag arrests by more than a year; not all arrests lead to charges; and not all criminals arrested for willful homicide are eligible for the death penalty. Among large communities, Riverside County emerged as the outlier in the analysis, condemning murderers to death row at more than 5 times the statewide rate during the last 10 years. About 6 % of murder arrests in Riverside County resulted in a sentence of death during that time. By comparison, about 1.1 % of murder arrests statewide resulted in a sentence of death over that same period. Orange County condemned murderers to death row at more than twice the statewide rate. Together, Orange and Riverside counties account for 14 % of the state's population but 34 % of criminals condemned to death in the last decade. On the other end of the spectrum, Fresno County saw 555 murder arrests in the last decade, and 1 murderer condemned to death. None of the roughly 350 murder arrests in San Francisco in that period resulted in a sentence of death. (source: Fresno Bee) USA: Death penalty itself to go on trial in VT The Federal Death Penalty Act will go on trial this summer in Vermont as lawyers involved in the long-running kidnapping and murder case of Donald Fell plan to square off about whether capital punishment is constitutional. The 2-week proceeding would mark the 2nd time in the almost 16-year case that defense lawyers have targeted the federal death penalty as unconstitutional. Fell, 35, is charged with abducting North Clarendon grandmother Terri King, 53, as she arrived to work in Rutland in November 2000, then beating her to death in upstate New York as she prayed for her life. The 1st time around, a trial-court judge in Burlington ruled the death penalty was unconstitutional. But an appeals court reversed the decision. In an order this month, U.S. District Judge Geoffrey Crawford said there was "strong disagreement" in "judicial and scholarly" circles about the legality of the death penalty. At a 90-minute hearing Friday in federal court in Burlington, Crawford said the proceeding regarding the death penalty most likely will take place in July, and he would allocate up to 2 weeks for arguments from defense lawyers and government prosecutors. Each side will call witnesses to testify about the law's constitutionality. Fell's lawyers filed motions in November opposing the death penalty for several reasons, saying the law is unreliable, arbitrary and adds "unconscionably long" delays in cases. They also said capital punishment violates the Constitution's Fifth Amendment and 10th Amendment. Vermont has no death penalty, but Fell is charged under federal law. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2005, but the verdict was overturned due to juror misconduct. Defense lawyers have challenged the death penalty many times without a finding that it is unconstitutional. In 2002, Judge William K. Sessions III, then presiding over the Fell case, heard arguments from lawyers during a 1-day hearing about whether to throw out the death penalty. A month later, Sessions declared the Federal Death Penalty Act unconstitutional. The appeal that followed took nearly 2 years before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Sessions' ruling and allowed the Fell trial to go forward with the death penalty back on the table. Federal prosecutor Bruce Hegyi said Friday that a 2-week hearing on the Federal Death Penalty Act would be nearly unprecedented. King's family members have remained vocal about their support of Fell's being put to death if he is convicted again. Outside court Friday, relatives said they believe the judge will find the death penalty constitutional. The authorities say Fell and an accomplice kidnapped King in Rutland in November 2000, stole her car and drove her to New York before chasing her through a field and killing her, prosecutors have said. Fell and accomplice Robert Lee were fleeing the double killing of Fell's mother, Debra, and her companion Charles Conway in a Rutland apartment, the government alleges. No charges were filed in state or federal court related to those slayings. Fell has pleaded not guilty. Lee later killed himself in prison. Fell was convicted in 2005 of killing King and was sentenced to death, but the conviction was overturned last year when Sessions ruled that "egregious" juror misconduct warranted a retrial. Fell is jailed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York. If everything stays on schedule, Fell's new trial would start in February 2017. (source: Burlington Free Press) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sat Feb 27 15:17:46 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2016 15:17:46 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 27 SYRIA: ISIS militants have stoned to death 2 teenage girls who were accused of committing adultery 2 teenage girls accused of committing adultery have been stoned to death by Islamic State militants in Syria. Hasna, 17, and Madiha, 16, died after the assault in Deir ez-Zor city, eastern Syria. The 2 men they were with, identified by the Sharia Court as Abu Zubair al-Idlbi and Maher Hameed, escaped with 50 lashes in a public flogging. The Islamic State-led Sharia Court released a statement claiming the girls were seized in a house "with 2 strangers" - an act strictly forbidden under Islamic State's twisted interpretation of Islam. "The victims were accused of committing adultery with 2 older men, identified by the Sharia Court as Abu Zubair al-Idlbi and Maher Hameed," the source reported. Local media activist Ahmed Ramadan told ARA News: "The execution took place in the Hamidiya district of Deir ez-Zor on Tuesday afternoon, where hundreds of people gathered to witness the stoning of the 2 young girls. The decision of the Sharia Court raised the anger of Deir ez-Zor's residents, who considered it unfair to kill the two girls by stoning and merely flog the men and set them free." A fortnight ago, 4 women were raped by Islamic State fighters and then stoned to death after being accused of "committing adultery." The victims were arrested even though Islamic State militants were said to have caught them being abused during a raid in the city of Mosul. They were brought before a Sharia court that ordered them to be publicly executed without giving any details about their alleged abusers. (source: Business Insider) INDIA: B.C. Court of Appeal ruling prevents accused killers of Jassi Sidhu from being tried in India 2 of the 2 judges on a B.C. Court of Appeal panel have ruled that the mother and uncle of a murdered Canadian woman can't be extradited to India to face trial for their alleged roles in the killing. Maple Ridge resident Jaswinder Kaur Sidhu, known as "Jassi", was killed in Punjab in 2000 after marrying a rickshaw driver, Sukhwinder Singh Sidhu, known as "Mithu". The case has attracted widespread media attention over the years and even inspired a book, Justice for Jassi, detailing evidence against the accused. Yesterday, Justice Ian Donald and Justice Mary Newbury overturned a B.C. Supreme Court ruling and determined that Malkit Kaur Sidhu and Surjit Singh Badesha cannot be sent to India. The 2 judges maintained in their written reasons that the pair could be tried in Canada. "A substantial body of evidence exists in Canada: the alleged architects of the conspiracy are here and triggered the killings from here, and many witnesses whose evidence have been tested on Canadian standards live in the jurisdiction," Donald wrote for the majority. He added that it's "likely that Mithu and his mother would cooperate and be willing to travel to Canada to testify". The decision also stated that the accused "may not receive a fair trial in India". Donald and Newbury also maintained in their ruling that India may not honour its assurance not to impose the death penalty or torture Sidhu and Badesha. "Both applicants have health issues," Donald wrote. "Badesha, at 70, suffers from a number of age-related conditions which have required external medical care while he has been in Canadian custody pending extradition. Likewise, Sidhu, now 65, has had two hospital admissions for treatment of a heart condition while in custody." The decision has angered those who feel that justice has not come for the young woman who was killed after falling in love with a man who didn't meet her family's expectations. In a blistering commentary on the Province website, former premier Ujjal Dosanjh pointed out that for a long time, the RCMP didn't feel that this murder of a Canadian woman was worth investigating. Dosanjh acknowledged that India's justice system is not perfect, but emphasized that it's a democracy where "there is the fear of exposure and denunciation for any wrong that may happen". In fact, India is the world's largest democracy with a media with as much, if not more freedom than exists for the media in Canada. India's Ministry of External Affairs informed the federal government in 2014 that its Extradition Act has "specific provision for non-imposition of death penalty where a fugitive criminal accused of an offence punishable with death, is extradited to India by a foreign country, whose laws do not provide death penalty for that offence". "Therefore, Surjit Singh Badesha, a.k.a. Surjit Singh and Malkiat [sic] Kaur Sidhu will not be imposed death penalty," India stated in its submission. The Indian government also noted that its court proceedings are open to the public, which means that Canadian government representatives would have access to the hearings. Counsel for the accused presented evidence about the extent of torture that has taken place in India, including a 2011 report published by the Asian Centre for Human Rights. "Torture of women in custody including rape is reported regularly in India," the report states. "Custodial rape remains one of the worst forms of torture perpetrated on women by law enforcement personnel." In 2014, one of the country's leading papers, the Times of India, reported that the situation has gotten worse. Human Rights Watch has also highlighted Indian authorities' failure to address torture of people in custody. As a result, Donald and Newbury concluded that former justice minister Peter MacKay's decision to support extradition based on the Indian government's assurances was "unreasonable". A dissenting opinion was written by Justice Richard Goepel. He wrote that the minister had to consider if the surrender of the two accused "would shock the conscience of Canadians" to violate the charter guarantee to life, liberty, and security of the person. "In assessing the reasonableness of a surrender order, this Court may not reweigh the factors considered by the Minister," Goepel wrote. "Intervention is only warranted if the Minister's decision is not supported by evidence or fails to consider the relevant or appropriate factors." He added that the minister's decision is "discretionary...subject to a high degree of deference on review". "The question is whether the Minister's decision fell within a range of reasonable outcomes," Goepel wrote. "The reviewing court's role is not to reweigh the relevant factors and substitute its own view. If the Minister failed to consider a relevant factor, this failure may render his decision unreasonable." He concluded that the minister did consider the accused people's health and safety, whether they would be tortured, and whether they would be executed. (source: straight.com) ********************** Togadia wants death penalty for cow slaughter Vishva Hindu Parishad leader Pravin Togadia today demanded the central government pass laws providing for death penalty for cow slaughter and to build Ram Temple in Ayodhya. "Notwithstanding the pendency of the case (regarding the Ram Temple issue) in the court, the union government should pass a legislation for the construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya," the International Working President of VHP said. Speaking after inaugurating a religious programme in Vrindavan, Togadia also said the central government should enact a law for punishing cow slaughter with death penalty. He appealed to the Muslim community if they are aware of the elements who involve in cow slaughter they should disclose their names so that innocent people don't get harassed. On the JNU row, the VHP leader said, "the problem came up since no action was taken against anti-national elements in Kashmir. Unless stern action is taken against such elements, the problem may arise in other parts of the country." "Afzal (Guru, the Parliament attack convict) was an anti-national and a traitor and those supporting him should be hanged," he said. On the recent killing of a VHP activist in Agra, he said government should take stringent action against those involved in the attack. He said the 10-day pro-reservation protest by the Jat community in Haryana was a result of wrong economic policies of the government and "unless job opportunities are provided to the youths such demands may come from other sections of the society as well." (source: siasat.com) *************** SC judge in Afzal case slams critics of the judgement Former Supreme Court judge P V Reddi, who headed a 2-judge bench which upheld Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru's death sentence in 2005, said fair criticism of SC judgements was welcome, but to say that the execution was a "judicial killing" amounted to "crossing the limit". . Justices Reddi and P P Naolekar had upheld a Delhi HC verdict imposing death penalty on Afzal. However, the bench had reversed Shaukat Hussain Guru's death penalty to 10 years' imprisonment. It upheld the HC order to acquit SAR Geelani even though it found his role suspicious, and endorsed the acquittal of Afsan Guru aka Navjot Sandhu. . Trial judge S N Dhingra, who later became an HC judge, had awarded death penalty to Afzal, Shaukat and Geelani. Some JNU students recently termed Afzal's hanging, under the UPA government, a judicial killing and alleged that the terrorist did not get a fair trial. It was followed by exhome minister P Chidambaram's statement that there were "grave doubts" about the extent of Afzal's involvement in the terror attack. . Talking to TOI from Hyderabad, Justice Reddi said, "The judgment speaks for itself. Those who celebrate Afzal martyrdom day must pick up the judgment and read it thoroughly before making comments or criticism. Fair criticism of Supreme Court judgments is the hallmark of our democratic system that zealously guards the right to free speech. But to term it a judicial hanging is crossing the limit. The criticism must be decent and in public interest. If not, then it could hit at the root of democracy, of which Supreme Court is an important pillar." (source: Times of India) INDONESIA: Member of Indonesia's parliament tweets that gays should be put to death----Tifatul Sembiring later takes down tweet amid criticism In the latest incident of anti-gay rhetoric in Indonesia, a member of Parliament from the Islamist Prosperous Justice Party posted on Twitter that gays should be put to death. Tifatul Sembiring, who is the country's former Information and Communications Minister, tweeted: 'A saying of the Prophet [Mohamed]: Whomever you find committing the acts of the community of Lot (homosexual) should be put to death.' After he received criticism from others online, Sembiring deleted the tweet from his account, according to BuzzFeed News. Anti-gay rhetoric has been on the rise in the Southeast Asian country. Earlier this week, Indonesia's leading psychiatric body classified homosexuality and gender dysphoria mental disorders that can be cured with proper treatment. The World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its list of psychiatric disorders in 1970. Gay sex is not a crime in Indonesia but remains taboo in many parts the Muslim-majority. Also this week, Indonesia's minister of defense said the LGBTI movement was more dangerous than nuclear warfare. And in January, the minister of research, technology and higher education called for LGBTI students to be banned from universities. (source: Gay Star News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Feb 28 08:24:45 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2016 08:24:45 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., LA. Message-ID: Feb. 28 TEXAS: Convicted killer maintains innocence 4 decades later Jerry Jurek's hair went gray in prison. But he still combs it back in the Elvis Presley-esque style popular 40 years ago when he was arrested. Once a slender man, he now has a round face and swollen fingers. His hands and arms are tattooed with the faded names of loved ones. Jurek has spent most of his life behind bars for murdering Wendy Adams, the 10-year-old daughter of a Cuero police officer. In 1974, Jurek was sentenced to death in the electric chair. He was 22 at the time. He's now 65. Questions over the fairness of Jurek's confessions ultimately won him a retrial. The 1982 trial ended early when the victim's family asked for a plea deal. Jurek was sentenced to life with parole. During the 1st trial and throughout the appeals process, Jurek's low IQ level was a topic of concern. Expert witnesses testified that he could not make change for a dollar or list the days of the week. His dimness made it difficult to comprehend the weight of his decision to not have an attorney present for his confessions and the consequences of his admissions, according to court documents. After the U.S. Supreme Court suspended capital punishment in 1972, the Texas Legislature passed a new death penalty law two months before Wendy's murder. And Jurek's would be the test case. Asked whether he was scared when given the death penalty, Jurek replied: "When they gave it to me, I just laughed in the judge's face, said how you all going to give me something that there ain't?" His reaction, a mixture of blissful ignorance and far-fetched bravado, was consistent throughout his interview with the Advocate. The Advocate interviewed Jurek at the Coffield Unit, a maximum security prison in Anderson County that houses more than 4,000 inmates. Jurek has spent most of his sentence there, accompanied by a handful of men who were on death row at the same time as him and also got reduced sentences. In a visitation wing near the entrance of the prison, a plexiglass window sandwiched between 2 panels of black metal mesh made it possible to see Jurek's blue eyes clearly. Jurek sat with his arms resting on a small table jutting out below the plexiglass. His hands clasped, the words "LOVE LIL SIS" tattooed on his knuckles. Jurek spoke with a twang that reflected his Louisiana birthplace. When asked a direct question, he often launched into wild stories about his childhood and perceived injustices done against him. He got the tattoo on his knuckles "on the streets" when he was 13 in honor of his 1st girlfriend, he said. "Her hair was that color," he said, pulling at the collar of his white prison uniform. She had pink eyes and, while she had poor eyesight in the daylight, she was an expert marksman at night. "You give her a .30-30 Winchester at night time, she'd strike matches with it. I used to laugh at her about that," he said, chuckling. Jurek's childhood love left him when she turned 13. But his luck turned around years later when a blind date's mother signed over the title for a Mustang Cobra to him. "She hands me the f --- title for this Mustang Cobra. I'm thinking she's playing with me," Jurek said. "She says, 'It's yours. You said you like it, don't you?' ... I said, 'No, you ain't giving me a $119,000 car without some kind of deal behind it.' She said, 'You took my baby out. It's yours.'" Unfortunately, the car was taken back by the woman's ex-husband, a Texas Ranger on the run for murder, he said. Jurek's detachment from reality also was noticeable in his confusion over names. When asked about Wendy Adams' family, he started talking about his wife's family. This was also a problem during his 2nd trial, when Jurek told the judge he did not want to be represented by Douglas Tinker, who was instrumental in getting Jurek the new trial. Tinker - a high-profile defense attorney who would later represent Selena's killer, Yolanda Saldivar - was reappointed to Jurek's defense after it was discovered Jurek had confused Tinker with another attorney. Jurek became less animated when talking about the day of the crime for which he's in prison. His blue eyes fixed straight ahead. His head tilted to the side in attentiveness. Jurek pled guilty in turn for his life sentence. But he said he's innocent. He was with Wendy Adams on Aug. 16, 1973, the day she was murdered. But when the truck they were driving broke down, he said, his attention was directed toward fixing it. During this time, Wendy disappeared with his friend, Ricky Phillips, he said. "I didn't know they had disappeared 'til he came back saying, 'Oh, I killed her.' I said, 'You done what? And I'm thinking he's playing with me. Cause he always doing that to me," Jurek said. "I said, 'Go get the kid. Get her up here. We got to get her back to her parents.' 'No, I killed her.' Said, 'How'd you do it?' He said, 'I drowned her, I drowned her.' Come to find out he actually did do it." Phillips, who still lives in Cuero, said he had no part in the crime. He was brought in for questioning when it was discovered Wendy was missing, but he was never formally charged. Phillips said Jurek dropped him off at a pool hall before he abducted Wendy from the Cuero municipal swimming pool. "Well, it wasn't me, or I'd be in prison. I ain't a damn fool to kill a little girl like that. ... I got more sense than that," Phillips said. "He didn't like her daddy a lot. Her daddy used to stop him driving a lot. Try to stop him from speeding and all that stuff. He used to get in trouble all the time." Jurek has been up for parole 17 times. Each time he's been denied. "They want you to work like a slave in here, but still set you off," he said. Despite his frustration with the parole process, Jurek believes that someday he'll get out. If he does, he wants to move back to Louisiana, where his family lived before his dad lost his job and they moved to Cuero. "First thing I'm going to buy me is a Rolls-Royce. I've fell in love with that," he said. "I want the one they call the Rolls-Royce Drophead. That's a beautiful automobile." (source: Victoria Advocate) FLORIDA: Death row serial killer swore he didn't murder 3 women before he was executed by lethal injection Rib-eye steak, baked potato, lemon meringue pie and Coca-Cola; this was Oscar Ray Bolin's last meal before he was executed in January. Oscar had spent 30 years on death row for killing 3 women in 1986. He protested his innocence to the very end, but a last-ditch appeal to save his life was rejected. "I did not murder these women," he told local media the day before his death. "My conscience is clear." While arguments raged about the ethics of using the lethal injection on the guilty, there was no doubt that 3 young female victims deserved to be remembered. They'd suffered unimaginable fear and pain during their abductions and brutal murders, and while their families fought tirelessly for more than a decade for justice, Oscar played the legal system and even got married. In January 1986, Natalie Holley, 25, was abducted one night after leaving a fried chicken restaurant in Tampa, Florida, where she worked as the manager. The next day, a jogger found her body dumped in woodland. She'd been brutally stabbed to death and the police launched a murder inquiry. 10 months later, Stephanie Collins, 17, disappeared from a shopping centre car park. Weeks later her battered body was found in Hillsborough County, Florida. She was wrapped in sheets and had blunt force head injuries. On the very same day she was found, police discovered the body of Terri Lynn Matthews, 26, by a railway line in Pasco County, Florida. She'd been abducted the night before from a post office where her car was found with the engine still running. The post she'd collected was scattered on the ground. Terri had been beaten, raped and stabbed - and was also wrapped in sheets. With 3 women snatched and killed in the same way, the authorities knew there was a serial killer on the loose, but it took 4 years and a betrayal of trust before anyone was charged with the murders. In 1990 Police received an anonymous tip on a phone line, pointing the finger at Oscar Ray Bolin. There was no need for a manhunt - he was already in prison serving a 75-year sentence for kidnapping and raping a waitress who worked at a truck stop cafe in 1987. Oscar was a former carnival worker, and long distance truck driver. There was a record of his car being near Natalie Holley's abandoned vehicle at the time of her disappearance. Another key witness came forward and testified against him in court. Oscar's half-brother Phillip Bolin said he'd seen him beating a woman wrapped in a sheet. Oscar had claimed it was a woman who had been shot in a drug deal gone wrong. Phillip also said he'd watched Oscar try to drown the woman with a hose and beat her with a club. That woman turned out to be Terri Matthews. Oscar's wife Cheryl, who is now deceased, also testified against her ex-husband. Convicted In July 1991, Oscar was convicted of Natalie Holley's murder. 3 months later he was found guilty of murdering Stephanie Collins and, in 1992, guilty of murdering Terri Matthews too. He was given life, and the death sentence for Terri's murder. But over the next 2 decades, all 3 convictions were overturned at least twice due to legal errors, and it dragged out the suffering of the victims' families. Oscar claimed his ex-wife's testimony wasn't admissible in court because their conversation was his 'spousal privilege' and it had been violated. There was also another convict who had confessed to the crimes before committing suicide, and a forensic officer who'd handled evidence that had been later disqualified. But despite Oscar facing 10 more juries, each one found him guilty. By 2005 he was re-convicted of all 3 murders and the death sentence for Terri Matthews was upheld. Oscar managed to remain in the spotlight for decades with his legal battles and, incredibly, his love life. While in prison, Oscar started dating Rosalie Martinez, a paralegal on his defence team. Rosalie had been married to a prominent attorney when she met Oscar, but she divorced him to marry the convict on live TV in 1996 to an audience of 12 million. They remained together until his death and Rosalie insists she never thought he was guilty, and campaigns for the end of the death penalty. In January this year, Oscar filed a last-minute appeal, but it was denied. On January 7, he spent 3 hours with his wife then ate his last meal. Then he was taken to the room where more than 30 witnesses, including the victims' families, were waiting out of sight. Moments before the execution, Oscar was asked if he had any last words. "No sir," he replied. At 10.16pm, he died after being administered a lethal injection. Terri and Stephanie's mothers were there to see Oscar die. They'd stuck together through 10 trials - along with Natalie???s mum, who has since passed away. Their bond was like no other. They shared the pain of losing daughters and the agony of his constant denial which led to years of sitting in courtrooms. The day before Oscar died he gave an interview with Fox 13 News claiming he'd been framed. Oscar said evidence had been tampered with and planted. "I did not murder these women," he said. "My conscience is clear. Florida's just killing me, [the families] are not getting any peace by executing me tomorrow." But the victims' loved ones say they have found peace. They've expressed their relief that their ordeal is finally over, and although the punishment of death legally was just for Terri???s murder, they agreed Oscar had died "for all our girls". Oscar denied his 3 young victims the chance of a future so the law took away his. (source: Daily Mirror) LOUISIANA: Can we afford the death penalty? Last year the criminal indigent defense system was broken. Today it is shattered. When the Caddo Parish indigent defense system went into emergency operation last year, it was one of only a handful of parishes in that situation. Now, 8 parishes are operating under emergency circumstances, and more likely will follow. Courts are responding by appointing private lawyers to represent indigent persons accused of crime. Those include lawyers who have never tried a civil case, much less a criminal case. Imagine that you are poor. You have been accused of a robbery you did not commit. You can't afford a lawyer. When you appear in court, the court appoints a lawyer to represent you. When you ask the lawyer about his experience, you learn he has never tried a case of any kind, never made an argument before a court, and has been a title examiner for 20 years. You also learn that the lawyer will not be paid for his services at all. What would you think about your chances of receiving adequate representation? Suppose courts appointed doctors to render medical services to the poor. You need a heart transplant. The court appoints a radiologist to perform the transplant who has never performed an operation of any kind since medical school. The radiologist will not be paid for the operation, and neither will the nurses, hospital, and other staff. What do you think about your chances for survival? Under the current system, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of indigent defendants will be represented by lawyers inexperienced in criminal law. Even if convicted, those convictions are subject to reversal due to inadequate lawyering. Despite lawyers??? ethical responsibility not to undertake matters in which they are incompetent, courts are appointing them to do just that. Last Wednesday, Pete Adams, Louisiana District Attorneys Association executive director, spoke to the Shreveport Bar Association on the topic, "Funding for Indigent Defense - Who's Responsible." Rather than offer an effective solution, he repeated the mantra of prosecutors that there is plenty of money for indigent defense, but too much is spent defending death penalty cases. While I was not present, reports from members present indicate the discussion and questions that followed could be tactfully described as "testy." The remarks raise a significant question, but in a different context. From the standpoint of effectiveness, is the death penalty a good investment? Does the death penalty deter murders? Studies suggest that it does not. In a comparison by the Death Penalty Information Center of murder rates in death penalty states versus states without the death penalty from 1991 through 2013, the collective murder rate for the death penalty states was higher the collective rate for states without the death penalty. For example, the murder rate in Louisiana, a death penalty state, has been the highest in the country in every year from 1996 through 2014. How much extra does the death penalty cost? There are three basic components, the cost of prosecution, the cost of defense (because the public normally pays for indigent defense), and the additional cost of housing a death penalty defendant on death row. In addition, consider that a capital case almost always goes to trial, even if the defendant would be willing to plead guilty if a death sentence was not available, and there would be no trial cost at all. The prosecution of a death penalty case runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The defense costs the same or more. Because the penalty phase of the trial occurs immediately after the verdict, the prosecution and the defense must prepare for that phase, even if the defendant ultimately is acquitted. Often the greatest costs of defense are to develop "mitigation" evidence, or facts that might cause a jury to recommend life in prison rather than the death penalty. Mitigation cost is zero if there is no death penalty. Society has a right to execute murderers. If it is to do so, it should ensure that persons who might lose their lives receive a competent and well-funded defense. If the death penalty is not an effective deterrent, is the satisfaction of society's right worth its fiscal cost? In 2015, Nebraska, a very "red" state, decided it was not. The Nebraska legislature repealed the death penalty there. Shouldn't Louisiana be asking the same question in its current fiscal crisis? Would scarce public monies better fund education rather than prosecutions that do not reduce the murder rate? (source: Opinion; Tom Arceneaux has been involved in master planning for Shreveport as well as many civic organizations----Shreveport Times) From rhalperi at smu.edu Sun Feb 28 08:25:55 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2016 08:25:55 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 28 BANGLADESH: Minister urges chief justice to point out lapses in war crimes cases Against the backdrop of strong dissatisfaction of the Supreme Court about the way the prosecution and the investigation agency of the war crimes tribunal are handling the 1971 war crimes cases, Law Minister Anisul Huq yesterday urged Chief Justice (CJ) Surendra Kumar Sinha to give observations about these in the upcoming verdict. "Whatever the CJ has said is discernible. I learned it from the reports appearing in the media. The thing for me to do now is to know completely why the honourable chief justice has said this," he said. The minister was talking to newsmen after attending a seminar on arbitration in Dhaka. "I believe he will for sure point this out in the upcoming verdict, and if he doesn't do, I will take his advice for sure about what he had tried to say and why. After learning the matter completely, I will act to find a remedy in this regard," Huq added. The Supreme Court on February 23 came down hard on the ICT prosecution and the investigation agency for their poor performance in dealing with the war crimes cases. Earlier, the highest court in its observation in the verdict on the appeal of another Jamaat leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee, blamed the prosecution and the investigation agency for their 'incompetency'. Chief Justice Sinha vented his anger when a 5-member bench of the Supreme Court led by him was hearing an appeal filed by war crimes accused Mir Quasem Ali challenging his death penalty. The bench gave the observation after receiving records and documents of International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), saying that the prosecution could not produce witnesses in some charges brought against Quasem. During the hearing, the CJ said they are shocked at the performance of the prosecution and the investigators for their incompetence in dealing the war crimes cases. Huge amount of money are being spent, but their responsibilities are not reflected in their performance, the CJ observed. The attorney general was placing arguments before the apex court when the CJ made his observations. Chief Justice Sinha told the attorney general that the judges were shocked to note that the prosecutors appear before the media and make statements immediately after a session of the case proceedings at the tribunal. The CJ asked the attorney general why action is not being taken against the incompetent prosecutors and investigators. The International Crimes Tribunal-2 on November 2, 2014, sentenced Quasem to death after finding him guilty on 10 charges of abducting, confining and torturing people during the liberation war in 1971. Earlier, the SC in a verdict on the case against war criminal Sayedee castigated the prosecutors and investigators for their poor performance in handling the case. (source: Gulf Times) PHILIPPINES: Can Duterte do it? Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte says that he will eliminate the drugs problem and all forms of criminality within the 1st 3 to 6 months of his presidency. That is most welcome. He is a foolish Filipino who will not be excited about it, unless he is a drug lord or a criminal. Can he do it? How? Other than general statements about having criminals killed, Duterte has not provided us with any concrete plan on how he intended to carry out his ambitious program. He should be more specific since the fight against crime is the main theme of his presidential campaign. For starters, he should reveal how he can have criminals killed without running afoul of the constitution. As a lawyer, Duterte is, I'm sure, aware of Section 19 of Article III which prohibits the imposition of the death penalty unless Congress provides for it "for compelling reasons involving heinous crimes." Since he will by that time have taken his oath to "preserve and defend (the) Constitution, execute (the) laws (and) do justice to every man," Duterte, I assume, would not have anyone killed without affording him due process, notwithstanding his reputation for tolerating extrajudicial killings in Davao City. So he will ask Congress to pass a law imposing the death penalty for heinous crimes. He will certify the bill as urgent, reminding the legislators that they too have taken a similar oath to consecrate themselves to the service of the nation. Those who understand the lawmaking process are aware, however, of how the legislative mill can grind oh so slowly even if both the House and the Senate agree to fast track the proceedings. A bill of that significance will require public hearings that, alone, could take months, given the expected opposition from the Church and human rights groups. By the time the law is submitted to Duterte for approval, more than 3 months shall have passed of his term and that is already a very generous estimate. Anyway, let us say he has the desired law already and still 3 months left of his self-imposed deadline to wipe out criminality from the face of this part of the earth. Because he is no slouch, Duterte shall by then have already identified all the drug lords and other criminals, located their lairs and gathered enough evidence to damn them. They are all arrested and held in jail without bail while the courts hear their cases. The trial courts go on overdrive and decide the cases within 2 months. Duterte now has 1 month left of his 6-month window. How long do you think will the automatic review of death convictions take? I am not being pessimistic. All I want is for Duterte to provide us with, if not the detailed plans, at least a timeline. I do not want to think like most others do that: --He will hit the ground running on his first day of office and order his men (death squads?) to kill them on sight. --He will abolish Congress and the judiciary in order to eliminate the roadblocks and make summary justice the hallmark of his administration. I still believe that a President Duterte will uphold and preserve the Constitution. (source: Opinion, Frank Malilong; Sun Star) INDONESIA: Should Indonesia Abolish the Death Penalty Law for Drug Criminals?----Indonesia, following President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo's anti-drug campaign, executed a total of 14 drug dealers in January and April of last year. The rise in the number of drug users in Indonesia had led civil society organizations to urge the government to abolish death penalty against drug dealers. Their suggestions were based on the data provided by the National Narcotics Agency (BNN), which showed that there is an increasing number of drug users in Indonesia, from 4.2 million people in June 2015 to 5.9 million people in November 2015. The fact could suggest that the death penalty law for drug-related crime is not quite effective to curb drug use and drug smugglings in Indonesia. This is according to leaders of civil society organizations who attended a discussion forum about drug trafficking issues at the office of Komnas HAM in Jakarta as reported by Kompas.com. Besides Komnas HAM executives, also attending the meeting were representatives of other civil society organizations like Universitas Indonesia's Indonesian Judicial Watch Society (MAPPI) and the Setara Institute. Among the attendants were senior officials of BNN, the National Police (Polri) and the Army Strategic Command (Kostrad). Indonesia, following President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo's anti-drug campaign, executed a total of 14 drug dealers in January and April of last year. They included 2 Indonesian nationals. The President repetitively said he would not show mercy for drug smugglers. The executions took place despite mounting pressures from within Indonesia and various parties in the international community that President Jokowi give clemency to drug convicts in death row. In last Friday's discussion forum, Nur Kholis, an executive of the National Commission of Human Rights (Komnas HAM), said, "Punishment (against drug dealers) could take the form of life sentence or others." Meanwhile, Setara Institute chairman Hendrardi said on a separate occasion that it was so ridiculous to see the government's failure to rid prisons and detention centers of drug trafficking practices. In the meeting at Komnas HAM, BNN head Comr. Gen. Budi Waseso admitted the illegal widespread use of narcotics in Indonesia. Even government workers and law enforcement personnel had been implicated in drug use and trafficking. The 2-star police general suggested that the punishment meted out to these people should be harsher than those given to others. The discussion at Komnas HAM followed early last week's arrest of a House member, 19 personnel of the Army Strategic Command (Kostrad), 5 police officers and 8 civilians. All these people had been suspected of using drug and their names were found on a list of alleged drug buyers at the Kostrad command in Tanah Kusir, The Jakarta Post reported. In response to the arrest, Kostrad Headquarters in Central Jakarta last Friday conducted urine tests for its personnel. (source: globalindonesianvoices.com) **************** AFP to help Indonesians in 'cyanide' case after death penalty taken off table----Justice Minister Michael Keenan's approval required for AFP to assist with possible death penalty case in Indonesia Indonesia has guaranteed that an Australian permanent resident charged with murdering her friend with cyanide-laced coffee will not face the death penalty. Justice Minister Michael Keenan has now agreed to the Australian Federal Police assisting with the case of 27-year-old Jessica Kumala Wongso, who allegedly poisoned her friend Wayan Mirna Salihin at an upmarket cafe in Central Jakarta in January. The allegations have transfixed Indonesia. Indonesian police sought assistance from the AFP because the 2 women had studied together at Billy Blue College of Design in Sydney and Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. Jakarta police chief Tito Karnavian last week flew to Australia where he met with Mr Keenan, who was required by law to personally sign off on the request. A spokeswoman for Mr Keenan told Fairfax Media the minister agreed Australia would provide assistance in the investigation of the alleged murder in accordance with Australian law. "The Indonesian government has given an assurance to the Australian government that the death penalty will not be sought nor carried out in relation to the alleged offending," she said. Jakarta CID chief Krishna Murti told Fairfax Media the approval came after the Indonesian Attorney-General's Office guaranteed it would not seek the death penalty. "Please note that the death penalty is the maximum sentence, it's reserved for extraordinary crimes only," he said. "After the guarantee, approval was given and now we have started cooperating with the AFP." Under AFP guidelines on international police assistance in death penalty situations, ministerial approval is required if a person has been detained, arrested, charged or convicted of an offence that carries the death penalty. The AFP faced criticism for handing over information to Indonesian authorities about the Bali 9, which led to their arrests for heroin smuggling in 2005. The coordinators of the Bali 9, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, were executed in Indonesia last year. New guidelines for the AFP's role in cases involving the death penalty were introduced in 2009 after a federal court exonerated the AFP from acting unlawfully in the Bali 9 case but argued new protocols were needed. Chief detective Krishna said police were investigating the interaction between Ms Wongso and Ms Salihin and their interactions with other people: "The case is now progressing and we are getting a flow of information in." He said Ms Wongso, who worked for NSW Ambulance until late last year, was a permanent resident of Australia. "Therefore we stopped her from travelling back to Australia (in January). It would've been difficult if we had to extradite her back." Ms Wongso and Ms Salihin met at Olivier Cafe in Grand Indonesia Shopping Mall on January 6. Ms Salihin took a sip of the Vietnamese iced coffee, which Ms Wongso had reportedly ordered for her. She began to suffer convulsions and foam at the mouth and died on the way to the hospital. A pretrial motion at which Ms Wongso's lawyer argued there was insufficient evidence to justify her ongoing detention is currently before the Central Jakarta District Court. The court's ruling is expected to be handed down before March 2. (source: Sydney Morning Herald) PAKISTAN: To the gallows: Murder convict sentenced to death Additional District and Sessions Judge Muhammad Yaqoob on Friday awarded death sentence to a man he convicted of murder. Prosecution said Jamshed and his accomplices Rashid, Arshad, Azmat, Asmat, Sajid, Khalid Husssain, Sabir Ali and Talib Hussain had shot Mujahid Ali over a property dispute in 2012. After hearing the arguments and examining the evidence, the judge awarded death penalty to Jamshed and directed him to pay Rs100,000 compensation to heirs of the deceased. He would undergo an additional 6-month term if he fails to pay the fine. The judge acquitted the others, giving them benefit of doubt. Separately, Additional Sessions Judge Malik Ali Raza Awan awarded death sentence to a man he convicted of murder and acquitted 3 others. (source: The Express Tribune) INDIA: Death from Trial Court, Acquittal from High Court and Life Sentence from Supreme Court In these days, civilized people are generally insensitive to come forward to give any statement in respect of any criminal offence. Unless it is inevitable, people normally keep away from the Court as they feel it distressing and stressful, the Bench said. Supreme Court in Sadhu Saran Singh vs. State of UP, taking note of the reluctance of people to come forward to give statement in respect of criminal cases, said that prosecution case cannot be doubted merely on the ground of absence of Independent witness. Apex Court Bench comprising of Justices Dipak Misra and N.V. Ramana set aside the order of acquittal by the High Court. The Trial Court in this case had convicted the accused and had imposed death sentence on 2 accused. The relative of the deceased had appealed, after taking leave of the Court, against the acquittal by the High Court. Non examination of independent witness, not a ground to doubt prosecution case The Bench observed "non-examination of any other independent witness is concerned, there is no doubt that the prosecution has not been able to produce any independent witness. But, the prosecution case cannot be doubted on this ground alone. In these days, civilized people are generally insensitive to come forward to give any statement in respect of any criminal offence. Unless it is inevitable, people normally keep away from the Court as they feel it distressing and stressful. Though this kind of human behaviour is indeed unfortunate, but it is a normal phenomena. We cannot ignore this handicap of the investigating agency in discharging their duty. We cannot derail the entire case on the mere ground of absence of independent witness as long as the evidence of the eyewitness, though interested, is trustworthy." Trial Court imposes death penalty, High Court acquits, Apex Court awards life imprisonment The Trial Court had awarded death sentence to Ramashraya Singh and Kamla Singh. The Apex Court said that this is not a rarest of the rare cases which warrants the penalty of death sentence. The Court also said that the reasons given by the High Court to reverse the conviction and sentence of the accused are flimsy, untenable and bordering on perverse appreciation of evidence. Finally the Apex Court awarded Life imprisonment. (source: livelaw.in) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 29 09:31:28 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 29 Feb 2016 09:31:28 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----N.H., CONN., PENN., VA., FLA., OHIO Message-ID: Feb. 29 NEW HAMPSHIRE: Halt executions For the Monitor As an Episcopalian and long-term opponent of capital punishment, I appreciate any measure that moves New Hampshire closer to total repeal of the death penalty. I am especially gratified that Senate Bill 463, a bill suspending executions, has recently been voted "ought to pass" by the Senate Judiciary Committee. There are several aspects of SB 463 that can be commended. The sponsors of the bill represent a bipartisan diversity of views on the political spectrum. It heartens me to see our state senators working together to pass significant legislation. SB 463 is also historically significant. If the bill passes the full Senate and then the House, it will be the first time that a state legislature has called a halt to executions. The bill suspends the death penalty until it can be guaranteed that innocent people will not be executed. Since 1976, 156 people have been released from death rows because they did not commit the murders for which they were convicted. This risk is unacceptable. Previously, only state governors and in one case an attorney general have called for moratoriums. Passage of SB 463 would be a halt called by our state legislature because the risk of executing an innocent person is too high. Passage of SB 463 would be a significant step forward for New Hampshire. MARTHA A. HUNT North Sutton (source: Letter to the Editor, Concord MOnitor) ************** Death penalty suspension coming up for Senate vote New Hampshire's state Senate is poised to take up a bill that would effectively end use the death penalty in the state without flat-out repealing it. Republican Sen. Kevin Avard is the primary sponsor of a bipartisan measure to "suspend" use of the death penalty until "methods exist to ensure that the death penalty cannot be imposed on an innocent person." New Hampshire is the only state in New England with the death penalty still on the books, and efforts to repeal it in 2014 deadlocked in the 24-member Senate. The vote in Thursday's Senate session will be close, likely with 1 or 2 votes determining the outcome. Not all senators could be reached Friday by The Associated Press for a full vote count. (source: Associated Press) CONNECTICUT: Connecticut court to rule on death penalty abolishment The Connecticut Supreme Court is set to rule on whether to confirm or overturn its decision last year to abolish the state's death penalty. Justices are expected to release their ruling Monday in the appeal of Russell Peeler Jr., who was sentenced to death for ordering the 1999 killings of a woman and her 8-year-old son in Bridgeport. The court ruled 4-3 in August that capital punishment was unconstitutional, striking down a 2012 law that abolished the death penalty for future murders but left it in place for 11 men already facing execution. The decision came in the appeal of another death row inmate, Eduardo Santiago. The Supreme Court allowed state prosecutors in the Peeler case to address issues the court raised in the Santiago ruling. (source: Associated Press) PENNSYLVANIA: Justices weigh if DA-turned-judge had murder case conflict A Pennsylvania death row inmate has a simple challenge for the U.S. Supreme Court: The same person shouldn't be both his prosecutor and judge. Yet inmate Terrance "Terry" Williams says that's exactly what happened to him. Williams says then-Philadelphia District Attorney Ronald Castille signed off on the death penalty prosecution in 1986 and then voted on Williams' appeal as chief justice of the state Supreme Court in 2014. The court reinstated Williams' death sentence, reversing a judge who'd found that Castille's prosecutors hid evidence in the case. The case goes before the nation's highest court on Monday. Castille says he's confident he was fair and impartial. Williams' lawyers call Castille's dual role an outrage. 8 justices are hearing the case. Justice Antonin Scalia died earlier this month. (source: Associated Press) ****************** This Man Is on Death Row for Killing His Alleged Rapist On January 26, 1984, Terrance "Terry" Williams bludgeoned and stabbed 50-year-old Herbert Hamilton to death. Williams poured kerosene on the body, tried to set it on fire, and fled the crime scene. Police would later discover a stash of photos Hamilton had taken of teenage boys performing sexual acts, and multiple young men came forward with stories about being sexually abused by Hamilton, who was said to prey on adolescents, deal them drugs, and force them to have sex. But killing Hamilton isn't what sent Terry Williams to death row. On June 11 of the same year, Williams, now 18, beat 56-year-old Amos Norwood to death with a tire iron in a Philadelphia cemetery. He then took the man's money, credit cards and car, and set the corpse on fire. Both of the older men were sexually abusing Williams, who has since described a childhood defined by violence both in and outside the home. The teen was apprehended that July, and in separate trials, the same Philadelphia assistant district attorney prosecuted him for both murders. For Hamilton's killing, Williams got 27 years. For Norwood's killing, which prosecutors falsely portrayed as the brutal robbery of a stranger, Williams was sentenced to death. What the prosecution kept from the jury is significant enough that 5 of the jurors from the original trial have signed statements saying they wouldn't have voted for a death sentence had they known then what they do now. On Monday, the United States Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in Williams's appeal to vacate that death sentence in what might be the last chance for the killer - and victim - to receive the justice that has eluded him for 3 decades. Both murders are clearly about a young man who killed his sexual abuser. What made the outcomes of the 2 trials so different were the actions of the prosecution: In the 2nd trial, the prosecutor chose to conceal Williams's true motives, according to his defenders and multiple judges, as well as evidence from the DA's office. Assistant District Attorney Andrea Foulkes insisted the cemetery attack was a robbery motivated by greed, pure and simple. In her telling, Norwood was acting as a good Samaritan who offered a ride to Williams - a total stranger. The crime was so heinous that Foulkes asked for the death penalty. The jury went for it. But thanks to evidence that surfaced in 2012, we know the police and DA were well aware the middle-aged man and the teenager knew each other intimately. A rector at St. Philip's Episcopal Church, where Norwood had been a youth volunteer, told police back in 1984 that a parishioner had reported Norwood "propositioned" her teenage son "for sex." Norwood's widow even told the police about her husband's strange relationship with young men. Foulkes's handwritten 1984 interview notes refer to the complaint against Norwood as well as "other possible incidents," including a teenage boy whom Norwood "touched on privates." Meanwhile, Foulkes wrote down that Norwood was one of "Terry's Johns." And she called the police unit investigating the murder "the faggot squad." Those notes remained unseen until 2012, with the Philadelphia DA keeping them hidden even after a judge explicitly asked if the state had any evidence suggesting Norwood's "homosexuality." Even the prosecution's own star witness, Williams's friend Marc Draper who was with him the night of Norwood's murder, told Foulkes that Williams and Norwood knew each other. But as Draper finally revealed years later, she pressured him into testifying that the two were strangers. When Williams's lawyers argue in front of the Supreme Court Monday, they will be able to point to this and other pieces of key evidence the prosecution concealed in the trial, painting Williams as a senseless killer. But the focus of Williams's attorney Shawn Nolan and his co-counsel will be on more recent alleged ethical and legal violations: namely, the failure of State Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Castille to recuse himself from the appeal of the death sentence even though he had overseen the prosecution - and personally approved the death sentence request as Philadelphia district attorney. It's hard to overstate the importance of this case for those who believe in a criminal justice system founded on judicial impartiality. Among those who have filed amicus briefs supporting Williams are 16 former prosecutors and 7 former appellate judges, including Kenneth Starr, the lawyer made famous by the Monica Lewinsky scandal in the 1990s. The psychological and physical abuse Williams endured began at home. On one occasion, his mother, Patricia Kemp, chased and pushed him down a flight of stairs in front of teachers and students. Another time, she beat him in front of his teachers so severely that the faculty promised Williams they would stop contacting her. Williams's mother beat all 3 of her children regularly - sometimes with extension cords, according to neighbors and friends. She even poured boiling water over her toddler-aged daughter, sending her to the hospital. After both of his older siblings joined the Air Force to escape the violence, Williams was left alone to witness the violent fights between his mother and stepfather, Ernest Kemp - and endure his own abuse. The Kemps routinely beat each other with baseball bats, Williams claimed. Ernest once allegedly leveled a gun at his wife's face and then Williams's face, threatening to kill them both, and cracked Patricia's skull with a lead blackjack. She, in turn, was said to hit Ernest in the head with a frozen steak, knocking out 2 of his teeth. Williams's physical and mental abuse in his own house was followed by sexual abuse in the community - which is no surprise given that children who suffer early psychological and physical abuse endure higher rates of sexual victimization later in life. Dr. David Lisak, a nationally-known forensic psychologist, spoke with Terry Williams at length and reviewed over 70 interviews, sworn statements, and medical documents from friends, family, teachers, psychologists and medical professionals. "His mother brutally abused him, both physically and emotionally, and so damaged (him) that he desperately sought the attention and approval of an older male, someone who could replace the father he never knew," Lisak wrote in a report on Williams. "His desperate need was a vulnerability that drew sexual predators to him." When Williams was 6, he has said, an 11-year-old boy in his neighborhood invited him home, made him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and raped him. When Williams was in middle school, he claimed, a teacher showed him special attention, buying Williams and his mother groceries, plying him with gifts, and inviting him to his home, where he raped him on repeated occasions. Williams was 13, he told Dr. Lisak, when he met Amos Norwood, a chemist and church deacon, at a deli. Norwood invited him to hang out, took him to bars, and soon started pressing him for sex, rewarding the boy with gifts and cash. Sometimes, against his protests, Williams reported, Norwood would hit him with whips or belts and penetrate him violently, without lubrication. Later, Norwood would be contrite, and pay Williams extra to make up for the pain he'd caused. Williams recalled to Dr. Lisak meeting Norwood for sex the night before the murder at an abandoned parking lot. "I took my pants off... He made me lean against his car and he penetrated me from behind. This night he was rough in penetrating me. He didn't use any Vaseline. I felt hurt and mad because he was rough with me that night. He forced himself into me. I told him to stop. He kept on. I was clenching my anus so tight trying to stop him but he wouldn't stop and it hurt so bad I screamed." Like the district attorney's notes about his abuse, Williams's story remained hidden long after he was sent to death row. It wasn't until 1996, when Shawn Nolan and colleagues from the Federal Defender's Capital Habeas Unit came on board, that Terry Williams began to reveal the traumas of his young life. For the 1st time, he had a capable defense team. Williams's original counsel, Nicholas Panarella, who would later be suspended over his role in a wire fraud scheme, had waited a year and a half after his court appointment to the capital case to meet his client. Incredibly, Panarella visited Williams for the first time the day before jury selection - and 18 months after taking on the case. They ultimately settled on the implausible defense that Williams neither knew nor killed Amos Norwood despite overwhelming physical evidence and the testimony of an eyewitness. Prosecutors would later use Williams's claims of innocence to argue he dug his own grave. Once they were on the case, Nolan and his team tracked down other young men who claimed they'd been abused or propositioned by Norwood. Interviewing people from the church, the attorneys found their way to a man named Ronald House, who swore in an affidavit that Norwood had tried to have sex with him when he was 16 or 17. When he told his mother, she informed the church rector. When he did nothing about it, House and his mother left the church. The attorneys used this new evidence, as well as Williams's obviously ineffective counsel, to fight for a new sentencing trial. But for four years, the DA's office fought them every step of the way. The state insisted there was no evidence of any abuse and dismissed the new claims as "gossip." A federal judge - the same one who asked if the state had anything showing Williams was gay, and was told they did not - ruled in 1998 that the original counsel had been ineffective, but accepted the state's argument that since no reliable evidence of abuse existed, Williams would have been sentenced to death even if he'd had a competent attorney. (Andrea Foulkes told me by phone it "wouldn't be appropriate" to discuss an open case. A spokesman for incumbent Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams told me he couldn't comment but that the office had released statements to the media.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When I spoke to Nolan last spring, he described the "last ditch effort" he and co-counsel made in January 2012, when appeals had been exhausted and an execution date had been set for that October. They reached out again to the key trial witness against Williams, Marc Draper. Draper had pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder and been sentenced to life in prison without parole. Realizing that the clock was ticking - and having "found God," as he told Nolan - Draper agreed to talk. Not only did he confirm the sexual relationship, but Draper also accused the DA's office of coercing his original testimony to match their theory. Draper signed an affidavit saying he had told investigators, "Norwood was a homosexual and that he was in a relationship with Terry and that that is what this case is really about." The prosecution, he added, "did not want to hear that. They wanted the motive to be a robbery and kept coming back to that. That's how they wanted me to testify. That it was a robbery." Draper explained in the affidavit that Foulkes threatened to pursue the death penalty unless he testified that the murder was a robbery. To sweeten the deal, Draper said, she promised to only charge him with second-degree murder and write a letter of recommendation to the parole board. But during the initial trial, when Draper was asked if he had made any deals with the DA's office, he said no. And Foulkes didn't correct him. It was Draper's revelation that convinced Common Pleas Judge Teresa Sarmina to grant Williams an emergency evidentiary hearing for September 20, 2012, two weeks before he was set to be killed. During the 3-day hearing, Sarmina ordered the DA's Office, over its objections, to retrieve their trial files from storage for review. The contents of the boxes were astonishing. "I was like, Oh My God! Look at this," Nolan told me. "This totally corroborate[d] what we ha[d] been pleading all along." The DA's claim in post-conviction hearings that Williams was lying about being abused by Norwood was "totally false," and "outrageous." In fact, the files proved that they knew better, Nolan argues. Sure enough, Foulkes's notes referred to a deal she made with Draper. And she had, in fact, written a letter to the parole board in 1988, in which she said: Therefore, it is proper for you to consider the cooperation of this inmate when determining his eligibility for parole or commutation at some future date. That I provide you with the particulars of Mr. Draper's cooperation was the only benefit or promise conveyed to him in exchange for his complete truthful cooperation. I hope this information will be useful in your evaluations. Among the other evidence that damns the prosecution is the police report of an interview with Reverend Charles Poindexter, the rector at St. Philip's Episcopal, where Norwood volunteered. The summary reads that Poindexter "related in confidence that deceased may have been a homosexual, and that he in fact had received a complaint about 5 years ago from the mother of a 17-year-old parishioner that deceased had propositioned the 17 year old for sex, (male)." This, of course, corroborated the claims made by Ronald House. But it wasn't seen until 2012; when the Poindexter interview was handed over to the defense during the 1986 trial, that portion was omitted. Also in the DA's boxes was the original version of the police activity sheet of an interview with Norwood's widow, Mamie. She described one night when her husband woke her up at 2 AM to ask for money. She noticed a "young, slim male" standing silently in the hallway. Her husband loaded his car full of stereo equipment, drove off with the young man and returned the next day, telling her a "rambling" story in which he was "abducted," but able to "escape" after using "psychology" on his kidnappers. He refused to call the police and begged his wife not to. Again, this section was omitted from the police interview summaries Foulkes handed over to the defense. One of Foulkes's own handwritten pre-trial notes - also not seen until 2012 - described Norwood as one of "Terry's Johns." Another note referred to another young man who was "touched on privates" as well as "other incidents." Her notes also mentioned the church rector's account of a mother, presumably that of Ronald House, complaining that Norwood had propositioned her son. And she really did refer to the police unit investigating the case as the "faggot squad." During the 2012 hearing, Foulkes admitted to Judge Sarmina that the handwriting was hers, but insisted, despite her own notes, that she had found no credible motive for the murder other than robbery. "I would have preferred to have more evidence of homosexuality if it was available... It would have made a cleaner motive... I had no evidence of it at the time of the trial." What makes Foulkes's claim of ignorance especially implausible is that she had just successfully prosecuted Williams for the murder of Hamilton, another middle-aged man who preyed on young men. At the Norwood murder trial, Foulkes mentioned the Hamitlon murder, but only to make the point that Terry Williams was a heinous criminal who had killed "2 innocent men" and deserved death. In a 185-page decision, Judge Sarmina found that "evidence has plainly been suppressed," in a "willful" rather than "accidental" way. Citing Brady v Maryland (1963), the landmark Supreme Court ruling that withholding evidence that "is material either to guilt or to punishment" violates due process, she found Foulkes had "a duty to provide the defense" with her notes but omitted them "because it was exculpatory and 'material'..." Because Foulkes had "played fast and loose" with the facts, Sarmina concluded, she'd "undermine[d] confidence in the jury's death sentence," which the judge vacated, granting a stay. "It has never made sense to me why they have gone to the lengths they have in this particular case," Nolan told me, "when you have someone who was sexually abused for so many years, including by the victim he killed. And there was evidence to support all of this in their very files that they hid. It just shocks me that they still are seeking death in this case. It makes no sense." But even before Sarmina delivered her decision in 2012, District Attorney Seth Williams went on the attack, penning an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Making the case for Williams's execution." After Sarmina ruled, Williams issued a press release blasting the judge for vacating a death sentence "over a few handwritten notes and scraps of paper." Moreover, he argued, if Terry Williams had been abused, he should have said something. "How in the world could the prosecutor have 'suppressed' information that was in the defendant's own head?" DA Williams wrote. "If the defendant was really involved with Mr. Norwood, who would know better than the defendant?" Nolan is still stunned by the district attorney's victim blaming. "This is the 1980s. Terry was 18. He had been sexually abused since the time he was 6. He met his lawyer the day before his trial started. I mean, he's gonna tell the lawyer, 'By the way, that guy has been raping me since I was 13?'" But for DA Williams, it was Foulkes who had been "unfairly victimized." To defend "the integrity of the jury's verdict and sentence" he petitioned Pennsylvania's highest court to overturn the stay. Ronald Castille, who was DA in Philadelphia when Terry Williams was convicted, was now chief justice on the state Supreme Court. He had personally signed off on pursuing Terry Williams's death sentence. And when running for his judgeship, he boasted about the number of people he had sent to death row. As one ad blared: "If you are looking for a law-and-order guy - Ron Castille. He put 45 murderers on death row." On October 1, 2012, the defense team asked Castille to recuse himself. Later that same day, the judge refused. So it was no surprise when the court unanimously overturned Sarmina's stay. In a concurring opinion, Castille doubled down on DA Williams's victim-blaming, writing that Terry Williams "could have argued Norwood's homosexual proclivities developed into sexual abuse, leading to rage and [the] ultimate murder of Norwood... However, [Williams] chose not to do so. Instead, [he] perjured himself at trial, testifying he did not know the victim, had never seen him before, took no part in the murder, and had no reason to be angry with him or wish to harm him." Nothing the DA's office had done while Castille was running it mattered, the Castille-led court ruled, since Terry Williams hadn't told his lawyer at trial that the man he killed was his rapist. Castille's refusal to recuse himself was so glaring that it prompted a bevy of former prosecutors and judges to file briefs supporting Williams, including Michael Wolff, who served as chief justice on the Missouri Supreme Court and is now dean of the St. Louis University School of Law. "In effect, [Castille] was protecting the reputation of the office that he ran," Wolff told me over the phone. "Certainly a person who had involvement in a case and expressed an opinion about the suitability of a death penalty for this particular person shouldn't end up as a judge on the case. This is really about fairness in the courts and the perception by the parties and the public that they're getting a fair shake. What is the perception? How would you feel if you were appearing in a court and the presiding judge, the Chief Justice, was somebody who had prosecuted you? That doesn't look right." Despite the apparent conflict of interest, the death sentence was reinstated, and outgoing Republican Governor Tom Corbett set an execution date for March 4, 2015. On February 13, 2015, newly elected Governor Richard Wolf issued a moratorium on capital punishment, pending the findings of a state bilateral task force on the death penalty. For Terry Williams, the only death row inmate scheduled for imminent execution, Wolf's moratorium offered hope. Once again, DA Seth Williams was furious about being denied the chance to execute Terry Williams, declaring, "The governor's action today was an injustice to the citizens of this state..." The DA's office petitioned the State Supreme Court, which Castille has since retired from, to overturn the moratorium. In December, the Court upheld it, leaving Terry Williams in a sort of limbo, spared an execution date, but still on death row. Which brings us to Monday's hearing, when the Supreme Court considers the life and death of Terry Williams. This isn't just a case about an individual whose whole life has been marred by relentless abuse and trauma. This isn't just the story of someone who was failed by the very people, institutions, and systems which were supposed to protect him. Nor is this a story about the death penalty, per se - even though death penalty supporters would be hard-pressed to argue that Williams didn't commit his crimes under mitigating circumstances. It's not hyperbole to say that rule of law itself is at stake in this case, which is why Williams's supporters include not only the usual suspects like the American Civil Liberties Union, organizations that oppose capital punishment and advocate for the victims of sexual abuse, but also the judges and prosecutors. The actions of Castille, their brief argues, "undermined the legitimacy of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and indeed the judicial system as a whole." Or as former Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Wolff put it, "What you do is that you lose the public's trust and confidence in the judiciary. And once you've done that, you've really hit one of the fundamental tenets of the rule of law. You've knocked over one of the pillars." (source: vice.com) VIRGINIA: Pentagon Staff Accused in Killing Wife, Police Officer, Seeks Death Penalty A Virginian shooter who allegedly killed his wife and a young police officer has been identified as an active duty Army staff sergeant assigned to the Joint Staff Support Center at the Pentagon, authorities say. Ronald Williams Hamilton, 32, is accused of killing Prince William County Police Officer Ashley Guindon and shooting 2 other police officers as they came to his house Saturday afternoon after answering a domestic call, according to county police. He surrendered to backup officers who arrived after the 3 officers were shot and found a dead woman, an 11-year-old boy and 2 used guns. Crystal Hamilton, 29, was found dead in the house and later identified as the shooter's wife. On Friday, Guindon, 28, was just recently sworn in and Saturday was her 1st day at patrol work. She graduated in forensics and had an internship at the Prince William County Police Department where she returned after 6 years in the Marine Corps., said department's head Stephan M. Hudson. "The investigation revealed that the accused and his wife were involved in a verbal altercation which escalated physically," he said. "The wife was able to contact police; however, before officers could arrive, she was allegedly shot and killed by the accused." According to Hudson, two other shot officers had non-life threatening injuries, however still on "a long road ahead" before fully recovering. Hamilton is being held without bond on charges of capital murder of a police officer and is scheduled to be arraigned Monday. There is a probability that Hamilton will receive the death penalty on charges of capital murder of a police officer, and 1st-degree murder however the decision rests with the court to decide, according to Commonwealth Attorney Paul Ebert. Besides 2 counts of murder, Hamilton is charged with 2 counts of malicious wounding of a police officer and 2 counts of use of a firearm in commission of a felony. (source: sputniknews.com) FLORIDA: Florida teaches wrong lessons with its death penalty system This is my final semester of college, and I am making new discoveries about the world I'm graduating into. Take, for example, Florida's death penalty. When I recently learned the facts about it, I was stunned. I mean, here I am just beginning to learn about the death penalty, and I am astounded that it even still exists. And considering the wealth of data and evidence about the failures of the system, it is even more remarkable that Florida still does not require unanimous jury verdicts in capital cases. Our state's leaders stubbornly cling to a death penalty scheme that shows a low regard for human life. Florida is just 1 of 3 states, including Alabama and Delaware, that do not require unanimous jury verdicts to sentence a person to death. I could hardly believe it. In my way of thinking, if a jury is not unanimous then, obviously, some jurors have serious doubts. For me, if there is even 1 person who remains unconvinced, then it's not beyond a reasonable doubt in my mind. Predictably, the results are horrifying. Florida leads the nation with 26 people being released from our death row because they were wrongly convicted. Many aspects of the process should give us pause, such as eyewitness misidentifications and inaccurate forensic analyses, which can jeopardize human life. But there can be no doubt that mistakes are inevitable when unanimous jury verdicts are not required. And mistakes add to the outrageously high costs of the death penalty system. As a conservative Republican, I believe that it's a huge problem any time taxpayers have to pay more to cover something that does nothing to benefit society. Studies have shown that the death penalty is not a deterrent to crime. The pursuit of death sentences also takes needed resources away from police services and safety. Law enforcement could use the money we waste on capital punishment to actually deter crime. The death penalty does not fit with my concept of limited government. The government should have no role in deciding which of our citizens should live or die; it's too much power. Trials can be skewed by prosecutorial misconduct or ambition. Perhaps a judge is considering re-election while presiding over a death penalty case, or a state attorney is facing a close re-election while prosecuting one. Given the corrupting influence that power can have, lives should not be put at risk. I am also a pro-life Catholic. Growing up in a conservative Catholic home, I have always been pro-life. My faith teaches me that life is precious and that we should value it. I believe we have to practice what we preach and recognize that God holds out the possibility of redemption for all human beings. As the last 3 popes have preached, with today's maximum security prisons we have the means to contain dangerous people, so we don't have to kill them. How does it reflect on our society if we execute people who are mentally ill? How about the undeniable racial disparities in death sentences? What about the real possibility of executing innocent people? For these reasons and more, an increasing number of my fellow conservatives are no longer standing with the death penalty. Despite all the advances in society, it almost seems like Florida is taking a step backward with the continued use of the death penalty. The fact that Florida still does not require a unanimous jury verdict for a death sentence makes zero sense. It's time to address this glaring fault in Florida's law. (source: Commentary; Hannah Minogue is a senior majoring in political science and minoring in criminology at the University of South Florida in Tampa. She is a member of the College Republicans and a volunteer for the Marco Rubio presidential campaign----tbo.com) OHIO: To My Pen Pal On Death Row... A few weeks ago I sent a birthday card to my pen pal, Austin Myers, the youngest man on death row in Ohio. Austin was convicted in 2014 for the murder of 18-year-old Justin Back and sentenced to death. (Another man, Timothy Mosley, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murder. Prosecutors agreed to remove death penalty specifications in return for Mosley's guilty plea and his testimony against Myers.) One of Myers' early letters told me, "On January 28th I will have been incarcerated for 1 full year." The average time spent on death row is 15 years. I sent him a colourful card with a simple geometric pattern "Happy Birthday" on the front, blank inside for my own message. Austin is 21, 3 months younger than my little brother. I wrote that I hoped he had a good day, and told him to take care. Sometimes it???s difficult to know what to say. Whether Austin committed the crime he was convicted of isn't my place to say. I don't write because I think he's innocent and I take no view on whether he's guilty. I write because he's a human being who endures a life I can't imagine. In our letters we've discussed the theory of infinite space and the multiverse hypothesis, the philosophical implications of fear. Sometimes we just write about our favourite bands. I've been writing to Austin for almost 18 months. My first impressions were of an intelligent and rather introspective young man. His letters are very articulate and his handwriting is neater than mine. At first we wrote about the same things any pen pals would write about: our friends and families, our interests, the differences in our day to day lives. I send Austin postcards when I go away on holiday. A while ago, he sent me a commissary shopping list on a single A4 sheet detailing the items available to the prisoners on death row - the paraphernalia of his life in prison, which I saw were small, bland, and profoundly insular. In our letters we've discussed the theory of infinite space and the multiverse hypothesis, and the philosophical implications of fear. Sometimes we just write about our favourite bands. He signs off his letters with "Peace" or occasionally, "Live life." Writing to Austin reminds me to do that. I'm not the only one writing to people on death row. I'm a member of Human Writes, a UK based organisation that helps set up prisoners on death row in the US with pen pals. I first became aware of Human Writes when I was an angry and opinionated 16-year-old. I wanted to get involved back then because I saw the death penalty as cruel and ineffectual and dehumanising. I still think all that. But teenage anger (or any other kind) shouldn't be a motivator in becoming a pen pal. The Human Writes website makes no bones about it. A blunt warning advises prospective pen pals: "[...] members must be at least 21 years old. However, it is not something you should go into lightly. We ask people to make a definite commitment to writing [...] it can be devastating for prisoners if their pen pal stops writing for no apparent reason.? Luke Templeman is public information officer for Human Writes. Over the phone he tells me that Human Writes is not a protest group. "We're not political in any way," he says. "It's not our view to take a position on legality or morality. Our concern is for the psychological wellbeing of the inmates." Once a person decides to become a pen pal, Human Writes sends the address of a prisoner they have paired you with. You don't get to pick your pen pal yourself, but if you want to, you're probably entering into it for the wrong reasons. I've thought a lot about my own motivations. When I discuss it with my friends, they are, for the most part, less than supportive. Tomorrow night, I'll be watching Austin on TV. He's appearing in the BBC Three documentary Life and Death Row. I'm nervous. The documentary will detail Austin's case, include comments from Justin Back's mother and interviews with Austin himself. How will this portrayal affect my view of the man I've been writing to? A few months ago he asked me about the documentary. "I'm communicating with them now and I think I'm going to do it," he said, before asking what I thought. I told him the BBC have a good reputation and will probably put together a balanced documentary, but to be careful nonetheless. Whatever I take away from the BBC's documentary, I will continue to write to Austin. I've thought a lot about my own motivations. When I discuss it with my friends, they are, for the most part, less than supportive. One friend - a follow journalist - accused me of voyeurism. This upset me, but I realised it was important to be able to answer to that. Why did I want to do this? A writerly curiosity to get into the mind of somebody different to myself? I didn't think so. I struggled to think of a crime that justified, to my mind, the punishment of death row, or a person who deserved to be sentenced to that kind of life. A conversation with my boyfriend eventually clarified my motivation. "What if you end up writing to somebody who's a real monster? Somebody who's killed kids, or a serial rapist?" I wouldn't know anything about my pen friend until after I'd committed, long term, to writing to them. And even then, only if they chose to tell me. I considered my boyfriend's question and struggled to think of a crime that justified, to my mind, the punishment of death row, or a person who deserved to be sentenced to that kind of life. I asked Luke about the motivations of the other 1,500 Human Writes members in the UK. "Almost all the reasons come back to simply seeing people in a place of great suffering. For me personally, I see a system where people feel dehumanised. All people deserve to be treated as people." I realised, in the end, that I can argue endlessly with my friends, and my boyfriend, but this is all it comes down to: I believe everyone should be treated as a human being. Life And Death Row is shown on BBC Three on Tuesday March 1st. (source: Abigail Moss, refinery29.uk) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 29 09:32:26 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 29 Feb 2016 09:32:26 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., NEB. Message-ID: Feb. 29 MISSOURI: 25 Years Later, Ozark Murder Case Back Before Supreme Court----Walter Barton appeals his 3rd death sentence Gladys Kuehler was viciously murdered in her trailer home in Ozark, Missouri on an October afternoon in 1991. The man who has been convicted 3 times for her death, is back before the state Supreme Court this week with another appeal. In his latest appeal to avoid the death penalty, Walter Barton, now 60, claims he was abandoned by his public defender after his 2006 conviction. It was the 3rd time a Missouri jury found him guilty of the grisly murder of his former landlady. The case comes before the state Supreme Court Tuesday, where judges will hear arguments from Barton's lawyers and state prosecutors. This latest appeal is only the latest twist along a lengthy path Barton's case has taken since he was first found guilty of the grisly death of his former landlady. Barton is now among the inmates who have been on Missouri's death row the longest. Now Barton is appealing claiming he was abandoned by his attorney during the post-conviction appeal process, effectively denying him his constitutional right to due process. Over the 25 year history of the case, Barton has been granted several changes of venue.There have been 2 mistrials, a trial and conviction followed by a reversal and remand by the Missouri Supreme Court, and a second trial ending in conviction which was upheld by the Supreme Court but later thrown out by a lower court. Barton's 5th and latest trial was held in Cass County, where the jury also found him guilty and recommended the death penalty. Barton appealed, the Missouri Supreme Court upheld the conviction and sentenced again. (source: Court Opinions State v. Barton, 936 S.W.2d 781 (Mo. banc 1996) (remanding for new trial); State v. Barton, 998 S.W.2d 19 (Mo. banc 1999), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 1121 (2000); Barton v. State, 76 S.W.3d 280 (Mo. banc 2002) (reversing denial of post-conviction relief); State v. Barton, 240 S.W.3d 693 (Mo. banc 2007), cert. denied, 129 S.Ct. 79 (2008) The crime Gladys Kuehler, 81, managed the Riverview Mobile Home Park in Ozark, Missouri in October, 1991. Her trailer was a busy place, with family, friends, tenants and business partners making a constant stream of visits most days. It was the same on October 9. According to testimony in all 4 of Barton's trials, Kuehler had visits from Carol Horton, one tenant of the park, who often helped Kuehler with errands and chores because she was limited to moving around with a cane. Also visiting the day of the murder were Bill and Dorothy Pickering, the owners of the trailer park, who came by to pick up rent receipts. And Walter Barton was also in and out of Kuehler's trailer that day, stopping by to ask to borrow money. Kuehler was last seen about 2:45 by Ted and Sharon Bartlett, former residents of the trailer park who stopped by to visit Kuehler. Family and friends made several attempts to reach Kuehler after 3:00 p.m., but could not get an answer on the phone or at the door. About 7:30 p.m., Kuehler's granddaughter, Debra Selvidge and Horton flagged down an Ozark police office, who called a locksmith to open the door to Kuehler's trailer. Selvidge and Horton, went inside, followed by Barton. Selvidge found Kuehler's body in the bedroom. Kuehler's partially nude body lay on the floor between the bed and the wall. She had been brutally attacked with a knife. Her throat was slit, she had been stabbed more than 50 times, including 23 times in the back and there were also 2 X-shaped slash wounds to the abdomen. Barton was almost immediately a suspect after small blood stains were found on his clothes and DNA testing determined one of the stains was Kuehler's blood. Barton argued it must have gotten on his clothes when they discovered the body. Barton also admitted he answered the phone in Kuehler's trailer about 3:15 when the owner of the trailer park called for her. (source: ozarksfirst.com) ********* Man charged in Missouri girl's death fights death penalty Defense attorneys for a man charged in the death a 12-year-old Missouri girl are fighting against a possible death sentence even before the man goes on trial. A circuit judge heard testimony Friday on motions challenging the prosecution's notice of intent to seek the death penalty against Bobby Bourne Jr., 36, of Lockwood, who is charged with 1st-degree murder and kidnapping in the 2013 death of Adriaunna Horton of Golden City. His trial is scheduled for July. Prosecutors say she was kidnapped from a park and killed on a farm near Golden City. Thomas Jacquinot, a capital murder case attorney with the state's public defender's office, filed the motions to lay the groundwork for a possible appeal on constitutional grounds if Bourne is convicted and sentenced to death, The Joplin Globe reported (http://bit.ly/1Tec8eE ). Circuit Judge James Journey indicated at a hearing in October that he doesn't believe he has the authority to overturn the death penalty law. He said Friday he would rule on the motions soon. Wanda Foglia, a professor of law and criminal justice studies at Rowan University in New Jersey, was the only witness at the hearing. Foglia is an investigator with the Capital Jury Project, a 14-state study funded by the National Science Foundation. She discussed seven critical findings of the project, which surveyed 1,198 people who served as jurors in the guilt and punishment phases of capital murder trials. The study found: --About 1/2 the jurors said they made decisions on punishment of defendants before hearing any testimony or evidence in the punishment phase. --Jury selection doesn't remove jurors who feel the death penalty is "the only acceptable punishment" for the type of murder case they are hearing. More than half the jurors considered it the only acceptable punishment for defendants with prior murder convictions, for premeditated murders and for murders with multiple victims. --Those jurors displayed significant rates of failure to understand jury instructions. --Many jurors erroneously believe the death penalty is mandatory in certain cases. In Missouri, 48.3 % of the jurors surveyed believed it was mandatory if the defendant's conduct was proved to be "heinous, vile or depraved," and 29.3 % believed it was required if the defendant could be shown to pose a future danger to others. The Supreme Court has ruled that there are no mandatory requirements of the death penalty. --Capital jurors often don't understand that the primary responsibility for sentencing rests with them. --Race strongly influences the process. Defendants are more likely to receive the death penalty if the victim is white and chances are highest when the victim is white and the defendant is black. --Jurors tend not to believe that a sentence of life without parole, the only other sentence possible in capital murder cases in Missouri, actually means life without parole. Foglia said that in Missouri cases, 46 % of jurors were deciding in favor of the death penalty in the guilt phase of the trial. Jurors who took premature stances were more likely to believe the defendant was guilty, to think the death penalty was the only acceptable punishment and to have inappropriate discussions of their penalty inclinations during deliberations in the guilt phase. She also said capital jurors also frequently do not understand how to handle mitigating and aggravating circumstances presented in the punishment phase. (source: Associated Press) NEBRASKA: Nebraskans for the Death Penalty is finalizing Repeal the Repeal campaign The campaign to bring back capital punishment is about to start its next phase. Nebraskans for the Death Penalty gathered 166,000 signatures last year to get a referendum on the issue the November General Election ballot. Group co-founder Bob Evnen says a grassroots campaign will convince voters the death penalty is needed and not a broken system. "And what I would really hope that the Unicameral would turn its attention to would be how to carry out the sentence and to focus on that instead of just throwing in the towel," Evnen tells Nebraska Radio Network. Evnen says they are putting together a coalition of groups and people who believe the state needs to execute those who commit serious crimes. "It will be a campaign that covers all the bases. It certainly will be a grassroots campaign," Evnen says. "There are tens and hundreds of thousands of Nebraskans who favor retaining the death penalty - repealing the repeal." The legislature repealed the death penalty last year, and the group Retain a Just Nebraska is fighting to keep that from being overturned in November???s election. (source: Nebraska Radio Network) ************* Death penalty debate heats up as both sides fight for voters This November major issues will appear on the ballot in Nebraska beyond who's elected to the presidency. The death penalty debate is heating up again, bot sides launching re-newed campaigns. Last Wednesday, the advocated for abolishing the death penalty launched "Retain A Just Nebraska". But coming soon, the people who want to keep the death penalty will launch "Repeal the Repeal". "We think that the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for heinous murderers and we are going to do anything we can to make sure Nebraskans understand that and go out and vote in November," said Rod Edwards, state field director of Nebraskans for the Death Penalty. 9 months from the general election, both sides are already gearing up for a fight to win over voters. "It's just costing us money," said Lincoln Senator Colby Coash during a Retain A Just Nebraska commercial. Nebraska hasn't carried out an execution since 1997. Supporters of the abolishment say capital punishment isn't cost effective. However Edwards disagrees, "They try and say that the death penalty is more expensive--that is not accurate." Edwards said opponents are tipping their hand by starting to advertise already. "Our opposition is out there already with slick television ads 9 months before the election just goes to show that they know they have a lot of ground to make up," said Edwards. The Nebraska legislature overrode a veto from Governor Pete Ricketts to abolish the death penalty in the state. Since then, more than 166,000 Nebraskans signed the petition to reinstate the death penalty. Voters will decide which side will win in November. (source: KMTV news) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 29 09:33:23 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 29 Feb 2016 09:33:23 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 29 TURKEY: Deputy PM urges Parliament to restore honor of coup victims The Constitutional Conciliation Committee of Parliament will soon convene to relaunch talks to replace the current Constitution, which was written during the Turkish military coup of the 1980s.Urging all political parties to remove the bases for execution from the Constitution and provide "restoration of honor" to those who were executed after the Sept. 12 coup of 1980, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus addressed Parliament on Saturday, emphasizing that the previous execution orders are a "disgrace" for Parliament. Urging for unity, Kurtulmus said that Turkey is going through a rough transition period and that it should speed up reforms in efforts to come out of this period. The deputy prime minister also addressed opposition parties, saying that all of the judicial bases for the death penalty must be lifted. "Death sentences in Turkish history continue to be as a disgrace for Parliament. Turkey still has a Parliament regardless of those who signed execution orders in the past. If we are truly disturbed by the execution of former Prime Minister Adnan Mendres or the executions of the Sept. 12 coup, then all 4 political parties must lift all judicial groups for the death penalty and take a huge step in leading Turkey in the democratization process," he said. In 2013, the Parliamentary Committee of Petition postponed the restoration of honor request made for Menderes and his ministers. Commenting on the matter, Kurtulmus urged all members of the political parties to restore honor to Menderes and his ministers, as well the victims of Sept. 12 coup. He said that this goal can be achieved if Parliament wants. Kurtulmus said that Ankara has spent nearly $1.5 trillion dollars in counterterrorism operations. "Turkey could have been 25 years ahead if it had not been so acquainted with terror," he said. Responding to questions raised during Parliament's budget meeting, Kurtulmus said that the game plan from 100 years ago has once again been put into effect and has placed terrorist organizations such as the PKK, DAESH and the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party Front (DHKP-C) into the plan. (source: Daily Sabah) PAKISTAN----execution Mass Pakistan protests as governor's killer is hanged Thousands protested in Pakistani cities Monday against the execution of a man hailed by hardline Islamists as a hero for killing a provincial governor who was seeking reform of the blasphemy law. Protests against the hanging of Mumtaz Qadri were held in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and several smaller cities, with demonstrators burning tyres and chanting slogans. But mass demonstrations did not break out and most rallies dispersed peacefully after security was stepped up at flashpoints across the country of some 200 million. These included the garrison city of Rawalpindi where hundreds of supporters gathered at Qadri's family home. Qadri, a police bodyguard to Salman Taseer, shot the liberal Punjab governor 28 times at an Islamabad market in 2011. He said he was angry at the politician's calls to reform the blasphemy law. Blasphemy is a hugely sensitive issue in the Islamic republic, and Qadri was hailed as a hero by many conservatives eager to drown out calls to soften the legislation. Critics say the law -- which carries the death penalty -- is largely misused, with hundreds languishing in jails under false charges. Analyst Hasan Askari said the next 24 hours would be "sensitive" for the government, adding that Islamabad had weighed the danger of mass violence against the need to "wash away the suspicion" of sympathy for militancy. By far the biggest protest was held in the port mega-city of Karachi Monday afternoon, with around 7,000 people taking to the streets. In the eastern city of Lahore, around another thousand people protested, while hundreds others demonstrated in Pakistan-held Kashmir, Peshawar, Multan, and other smaller cities, later dispersing peacefully. Up to 900 people demonstrated in the southwestern city of Quetta. Qadri was hanged in Rawalpindi's Adiala jail early Monday, senior local police official Sajjid Gondal told AFP. Mosques near Qadri's family home in the city broadcast the news, with cries heard from inside the house as hundreds of mourners arrived. Paramilitary Ranger forces and police in riot gear as well as ambulances and dozens of police vehicles were stationed at the house early Monday. But they had melted away by mid-morning, an AFP reporter said. By afternoon hundreds of mourners remained, forming a queue roughly half a kilometre long to view the body. The funeral is expected to be held Tuesday. "I have no regrets," Qadri's brother Malik Abid told AFP, tears rolling down his cheeks, while women chanted nearby. He said the family had been called to the prison Sunday evening by officials who said Qadri was unwell. - 'Ready to sacrifice' - But when they arrived, Qadri greeted them with the news that authorities had deceived them and that his execution was imminent. "I am proud of the martyrdom of my son," Qadri's father Bashir Awan told AFP, adding he was ready to sacrifice all five of his other sons "for the honour of the Prophet". Earlier, authorities blocked roads in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, bringing morning traffic to a standstill. Protesters in Islamabad burned tyres and briefly attacked a local news van. National media played down the news on orders of the government, two senior anchors told AFP. Most channels led their bulletins with Pakistan's win for best foreign documentary at the Oscars. Taseer's son Shehryar said on Twitter the hanging was a victory for Pakistan, but not for his family. "The safe return of my brother is the only victory my family wants," he wrote, referring to his sibling Shahbaz Taseer, who was kidnapped later in 2011 -- reportedly by the Taliban. As well as calling for blasphemy law reform, Taseer had been vocal in his support of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who has been on death row since 2010 after being found guilty of insulting the Prophet Mohammed. Qadri's lawyers drew on Islamic texts to argue that he was justified in killing Taseer, saying that by criticising the law the politician was himself guilty of blasphemy. That argument was rejected by the Supreme Court which in December upheld the death sentence, sparking rallies. Pakistan ended a 6-year moratorium on the death penalty in December 2014. Last month authorities announced they had executed 332 people since then. (source: Daily Mail) ************ Mumtaz Qadri hanged to death Pakistan on Monday hanged the assassin of a governor who sought reform of the country's blasphemy law, officials and supporters told AFP, saying Mumtaz Qadri -- feted as a hero by Islamist supporters -- had been executed at a prison in Rawalpindi. "I can confirm that Qadri was hanged in Adialia jail early Monday morning," senior local police official Sajjid Gondal told AFP. A prison official confirmed the execution of Qadri, a former police bodyguard who killed liberal Punjab governor Salman Taseer in 2011. Around 50 Rangers and police in riot gear as well as ambulances and dozens of police vehicles were stationed outside Qadri's home in the city early Monday, an AFP reporter there said, blocking the street and refusing to allow people to enter. Armed Rangers could be seen stationed on the roof of the building housing Qadri's residence and some roads in the neighbourhood were closed. Cries were heard from inside the house as around 20 people gathered, apparently family members, and mosques could be heard broadcasting news of the execution. "We have beefed up security in Rawalpindi to maintain law and order and to deal with any untoward situation," Gondal said. He said the hanging took place after a final meeting between Qadri and his family late Sunday, and that the body had been sent to his relatives. Qadri shot Taseer 28 times in broad daylight in an upscale market in the capital Islamabad. He later admitted the killing, saying he objected to the politician's calls to reform Pakistan's controversial blasphemy laws. Taseer had also been vocal in his support of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who has been on death row since 2010 after being found guilty of insulting the Prophet Mohammed. Qadri lost a petition for the Supreme Court to review his sentence in December last year. The decision came after the court warned in October that in Islam a false accusation can be as serious as the blasphemy itself, and that calls for blasphemy law reform "ought not to be mistaken as a call for doing away with that law". Rumours started pouring in earlier today as his supporters started Twitter trend to call for protest against his expected hanging. The protests have erupted in Hyderabad, Rawalpindi, Karachi and Lahore after the announcement by leaders of the movement to free Mumtaz Qadri. Twitter is abuzz with opinions from journalists and experts who while commending the move, fear consequences. Security has been beefed up in the whole country as protests are growing violent at few places. Supporters of Mumtaz Qadri have blocked Shahdra Chowk in Lahore to protest his execution. In Rawalpindi, the police was put on a highalert earlier in the night. "We have orders to strictly monitor the activities following the execution of Mumtaz Qadri," a source informed The Nation. (source: The Nation) GEORGIA/MALAYSIA: 2 Georgians Condemned for Malaysian Drug Offense Return Home 2 Georgian women accused and sentenced to death for drug trafficking in Malaysia in 2010 returned to their homes on Sunday. Babutsa Gordadze, 26, and Darejan Kokhtashvili, 37, faced the death penalty in for allegedly carrying a large amount of drugs hidden in picture frames they had packed in their luggage hidden in picture frames. Georgia-based media company, Rustavi 2, reported that Gordadze's family members welcomed her when she arrived at Tbilisi's airport. Journalists were not allowed to access to either of the returnees. Gordadze and Kokhtashvili were convicted and sentenced to death by hanging for allegedly trafficking illegal drugs in October 2010. After Georgian authorities became involved in the negotiations, their punishment was reduced to an eight-year prison sentence. The negotiations allowed the 2 to serve the remainder of their sentence in their home country. The Georgian and Malaysian governments later agreed the 2 would be paroled and deported to Georgia in 2016. 16 Asian countries currently employ the death penalty for drug-related crimes. The majority of the region's governments do not publicly release information on the number death sentences carried out for those convicted of narcotics smuggling. Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, however, report a high proportion of death sentences for those convicted of drug offenses. (source: Georgia Today) NIGERIA: Reverend King - Loss of 10-Year Battle to Escape Death Row Whichever way life is viewed, its gravity and sanctity become weightier than should have been the case, when it is fading away like the morning dew. It is like a curtain being drawn, as play characters leave on the theatre stage. With pated breadth, Nigerians, many of whom have followed the case of Lagos State versus Rev. Dr. Chukwuemeka Ezeugo King, founder and leader of Christian Praying Assembly, Ajao Estate, Lagos, waited for the Supreme Court verdict. It came at the weekend. Its affirmation of the death sentence passed on the Rev. King by the Lagos Court of Appeal, in which Supreme Court Justice Sylvester Ngwuta upheld that he would die by hanging, brought the 10-year old legal battle to a close. The unpalatable twist to the case came as the five-man panel unanimously ruled that the 20 years imprisonment, which was in addition to the death penalty, for attempted murder on 5 other members of the church aside the lady member that died, is now of no consequence since the death sentence takes the place of the former. Life has its ups and downs, and fate, sometimes plays uncanny games. Just as the Reverend's birthday was being marked at the weekend by church members, friends and well-wishers, the Supreme Court had an awkward kind of gift coming his way, the Verdict. Like the Sword of Damocles, the hangman's noose may finally be on its journey to the executioner's table, if nothing else obstructed its way. TROUBLE started on July 26, 2006 at the Reverend's residence in Ajao Estate, Lagos, when he was alleged to have set some members of his church ablaze for offence, which he classified as "acts of fornication." Incidentally, one of them, Ann Uzoh later died in a Lagos hospital according to the charge sheet by the Lagos State Public Prosecutor. Rev. King was brought before the court in September 26, 2006 on a six-count charge of murder and attempted murder occasioned by allegedly pouring petrol on 6 members of his church and later set them on fire. But he made a 'not guilty' plea to all the charges. The presiding judge, Joseph Oyewole had, on January 11, 2007, passed death sentence on him for alleged murder of a church member, Ann Uzoh, as well as the attempted murder of five other members of his church. Since then, the Church Founder has been in jail awaiting the consummation of the sentence, while exploring legal options of quashing the verdict of the High Court and Court of Appeal in Lagos. Rev King, through his lawyer, Mr. Olalekan Ojo, pursued an appeal before the Court of Appeal. But it did not turn his way because in its lead judgment delivered by Justice Fatima Akinbami, the Court of Appeal upheld the death sentence passed by Justice Joseph Oyewole of a Lagos State High Court. Since then, the embattled minister, who has been in prison custody had been fighting to get an appeal against the death sentence, citing that there were incongruent issues in the evidence of the prosecution's witness. Justice Oyewole had in his landmark judgment on January 11, 2007 convicted Rev King and sentenced him to death through hanging over the murder of Uzoh. On February 2013, King's appeal failed as the Court of Appeal, sitting in Lagos, ruled that it had upheld the death sentence passed by the Lagos High Court. Church Members loyalty In spite of their leader's travail, the church has been running with its activities, and the loyalty can be gauged by the splash of birthday congratulatory messages and advertisements that was given much prominence in the newspapers over the weekend. He is referred to as "His Holiness" and widely seen by Church members as today's messiah even like Jesus Christ in the newspaper messages. The church is still committed to his financial and material upkeep in jail without failing. One of the papers observed that his absence has changed nothing in the manner of operation of the church, noting that late comers to a recent Sunday service were still subjected to kneeling outside by tough-looking ushers. Extra Judicial Leeway The Judiciary has ended its side of the legal process, but Rev. King stand a chance of being let go or the judgment commuted to life jail, as some members of the Bar told The Guardian. The prerogative of mercy lies in the hand of the President of the country, since the matter was finally concluded by the Supreme Court, the Federal Government-related organ. It could have been the Lagos State affairs, if it ended at the State High Court and Court of Appeal. All said, the Reverend may be still be spared, especially these days that His Holiness, Pope Francis is campaigning against death sentence. PFN Position on Oddities The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) did not, at the time, give a nod at Rev. King's actions. Former PFN National Secretary-General, Bishop Joseph Ojo had condemned the incident. He was reportedly irked that the place was called a church contrary to the alleged practices in the place. He was apparently referring to the flogging and beating of members, and the alleged burning of people with petrol. While there was admittance of beating and flogging in the church, the Reverend pointed out that the 'burning incidence' was an accident. The Bible and the practices of the Lord Jesus Christ remain the standard for today's Christians. The scripture clearly stated it that for the woman caught in adultery, who was to be stoned to death, she ran to Jesus for refuge and deliverance from the hands of them who were to kill her. All that Jesus said was that those of them who had no sin in their life should cast the first stone. The accusers, being pricked in their hearts, dropped their missiles and disappeared, leaving the adulterous woman alone. "Where are thy accusers? Does anyone accuse you?" he asked her, but she answered him, "None." Jesus told her that he is also not accusing her, but charged her to "Go and sin no more." Perhaps, it would be apt to bring the antithetical nature of certain practices in the Christian churches, especially in modern Pentecostalism, where leaders have turned to cult figures, drawing huge followership. 37 years ago, on Nov. 18, 1978, the Rev. Jim Jones instigated a mass suicide at the Peoples Temple Agricultural and Medical Project in Jonestown, Guyana. It is the well-known Guyana Tragedy. With about 913 dying by choice or intimidation in Jonestown and a U.S. representative and others fatally shot at a nearby airstrip, the world was shocked. The followers had believed a lie by Reverend Jones and all partook in drinking of lethal liquid and perished. The world has continued ever since, but here was a generation that derailed from the core practice of the Lord Jesus and the Acts of the Apostles of the Lord Jesus. Only recently, the religious world continued to reel in numbing surprises as one after the other, certain leaders come up with spooky practices like members eating grass, a pastor being borne by members all through aspects of their service because the leader's feet must not touch the ground as 'commanded' by some god, and yet another leader is said to suck the breast of women for some weird deliverance. These 'enticement' in the hope that people would get miracles and money without checking out what the bible says about what is God's path to righteous service have turned to snares and offences that enslave the soul. Rev. King's Bios One Mr. Aaron Ezeuko, who claims to be an uncle to Rev. Emeka King Ezeugo, told a Lagos-based paper, which visited the eastern village of Umulekwe, Achina, in Aguata Local Government of Anambra State that is the Reverend's home town. According to the paper, Aaron, who is the younger brother to Rev King's father, late Edwin Ezeuko said that "the Ezeuko family is popular, responsible, well-behaved and God fearing" and "that Emeka (Rev. King) was well brought up and therefore, could not explain what had happened to him after he left home to Lagos." It was learnt from the eldest man in the family, Mr. Godwin I. Ezeuko, that before Rev. King started his own church, he was a visioner at All Christian Practical Praying Band, Ufuma, popularly known as "Ekpere Ufuma" in the east before he left for Lagos. It is reported that the Reverend is a degree holder in Psychology, though the University from where it was obtained could not be confirmed. (source: All Africa News) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 29 16:36:40 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 29 Feb 2016 16:36:40 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CONN., PENN., N.C., LA., IND. Message-ID: Feb. 29 CONNECTICUT: Connecticut Supreme Court rejects ex-death row inmate's appeal The Connecticut Supreme Court has rejected a former death row inmate's appeal of 1 of his murder convictions. Justices ruled 7-0 Monday that a lower court didn't violate Russell Peeler Jr.'s rights when it refused to order the state to pay for a lawyer of his choice for his 2013 retrial in the 1997 killing of Rudolph Snead Jr. in Bridgeport, after the Supreme Court overturned his conviction. He was convicted at retrial after the state hired another lawyer and sentenced to 105 years in prison. Peeler also was convicted in the 1999 killings of an 8-year-old witness in the Snead case and the boy's mother. He was sentenced to death. The state Supreme Court abolished capital punishment last year - a decision it is reconsidering in Peeler's appeal of the death penalty. (source: Associated Press) PENNSYLVANIA: Supreme Court justices troubled by judge's actions in death penalty case U.S. Supreme Court justices appeared troubled on Monday by a judge's failure to step aside in a death penalty case he had previously worked on as a prosecutor involving a convicted murderer who killed a man who had sexually abused him as a minor. The 8 justices heard oral arguments in the Pennsylvania capital punishment case in an appeal brought by Terrance Williams, who was convicted of the 1984 bludgeoning murder of a 56-year-old man in Philadelphia in a crime committed when he was 18 years old. Lawyers for Williams argued that former Pennsylvania Chief Justice Ronald Castille should have recused himself from hearing Williams' appeal as a member of the state Supreme Court because he had served as the local district attorney at the time of the conviction. Although a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court signaled concern that Castille participated in the case, it was unclear exactly how the justices would rule. Some justices indicated it would be difficult to set rules that would determine exactly what level of involvement in a prior case should require a judge to recuse himself. The case focuses on a December 2014 Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that upheld Williams' conviction and sentence. Castille had denied a recusal motion filed by Williams and was in the majority in the unanimous decision. The normally 9-member Supreme Court is shorthanded following the Feb. 13 death of Justice Antonin Scalia. (source: Reuters) NORTH CAROLINA: Wake jury returns verdict of 1st-degree murder in case of man accused of killing Shaw student 20 years ago Twenty years after Shaw University student Lacoy McQueen went missing, her boyfriend at the time has been convicted of murdering the 20-year-old, pregnant woman. A jury on Monday found Edwin Christopher Lawing guilty of 1st-degree murder after several hours of deliberation. Prosecutors and defense attorneys stitched together evidence and testimony from last week as they persuaded jurors on Monday of their closing arguments in the murder trial of Lawing, 41. Prosecutors contended Lawing, an N.C. State University in May 1996 when McQueen went missing, strangled his pregnant girlfriend, then dumped her body in a remote wooded area off U.S. 1, not far from Kittrell, a small Vance County crossroads town. McQueen's fragmented remains were found in 1997 by a hunter. Some of her clothing was in the area, as were her socks with bones from her feet still in them. Defense attorneys contended that police set their sights early on Lawing as their main suspect and pursued him for 2 decades. Lawing was arrested in 1997, but prosecutors dropped the charges before he went to trial, citing a lack of evidence to proceed. Lawing, who settled in Concord, was arrested again in 2014 and charged with 1st-degree murder after investigators took a new look at old evidence. The defense team pointed a finger at men in a blue car, building on a narrative that Lawing provided to investigators 20 years ago after McQueen went missing. 2 McQueen, a Shaw student who dreamed of becoming a doctor, had been romantically involved with Lawing in 1996. Lawing, according to testimony from a former roommate, "was popular with the ladies" while a student at NC State. Initially, when questioned about McQueen???s disappearance, Lawing told investigators he had not seen his girlfriend on the May day she went missing. He later said he had been in Pullen Park that day with her and they argued. Lawing told the investigator that McQueen got into a blue car with 2 men after their discussion - one was in the driver's seat and another in the back seat. Prosecutors highlighted that Lawing could give few details beyond his scant description, unable to tell investigators from which direction the car came and what the men inside looked like, other than that he said they were black. Public defender Celia Visser argued that prosecutors had not proven their case. She contended that the piece of physical evidence that prosecutors said linked Lawing to McQueen's death - a rock fragment found in his shoe similar to stones at the site where her body was found - were tiny "pebbles" that were not like fingerprints. Visser argued that tests linking the rock to the crime scene was "junk science" in a case where she contends the lead detective "stalked" Lawing "like a bloodhound." Wake County Assistant District Attorney Patrick Latour countered that Lawing was stalked because he was the man who should be convicted. Latour told the jury before they began their deliberations at 12:30 p.m. that he did not have to prove how McQueen died or where she died for them to reach a verdict of 1st-degree murder. He argued that McQueen's blood was found in Lawing's dorm room. He mentioned that Lawing's roommate that summer recalled coming home that evening and seeing a woman he could not identify in the room. Lawing asked his roommate to give him and the woman a couple of hours alone, and the roommate grabbed his wallet and left the 2 inside the dorm. Latour pointed out that McQueen had told her roommates at Shaw that she had opted against terminating her pregnancy and planned to tell Lawing that in person on the day she went missing. Latour argued that McQueen likely was lured into Lawing's dorm room that day and killed while there. He acknowledged not knowing how, if that were the case, the defendant got the body out of the building and into a car outside that he had borrowed from a woman he knew. But he pointed out that Lawing was familiar with Kittrell and its remoteness. Lawing, according to testimony, had traveled through there with a former girlfriend on several occasions before his involvement with McQueen. "Kittrell, North Carolina, is not something that just pops into your head," Latour said. Latour argued that Lawing killed McQueen because he was not looking forward to becoming a father. The prosecutor contended that Lawing did not want a child to interfere with his social lifestyle. "This is a crime of greed, a crime of selfishness," Latour said. The jury will weigh charges of 1st-degree murder, which includes malice, premeditation and intent, or 2nd-degree murder. (source: newsobserver.com) LOUISIANA: The public defender meltdown in Louisiana Louisiana, which has the highest incarceration rate in the country, no longer provides public defenders to all its people accused of crimes; within months over 1/2 its public defender offices are expected to become insolvent. "It's a nightmare," according to James Dixon, the chief Louisiana Public Defender. "You have people in jail that don???t have lawyers. It's that basic." In Louisiana, public defenders are appointed to represent nearly 250,000 people each year. Dixon has been warning of a constitutional crisis for years due to inadequate funding. His office has recently been sued in a federal class action by the ACLU. The state public defender indicated that 24 of the 42 local public defender offices will become insolvent and restrict services in the next few months. Many already have broken down. Public defenders in 13 of Louisiana's 42 judicial districts are already restricting services. For example, the Lafayette Parish public defender has laid off 35 of its 52 attorneys, and imposed salary cuts of 20 % on those who remain. The constitutional guarantee of speedy trial is gone and death penalty cases are grinding to a halt. The remaining public defenders face caseloads of 1,000 felonies a year, a rate more than 5 times as high as recent Texas legislature mandated caseload study which concluded that public defenders should represent no more than 175 felonies a year. New Orleans public defenders have been refusing to represent the most serious cases since January. Their budget has been cut from $9.5 million to $6 million in the past 4 years. That office, which represents 85 % of those charged in criminal court, has already laid off lawyers, and cannot replaced the many lawyers who have resigned because of a hiring freeze. The office handles 10,000 misdemeanors and 8,000 felonies a year. One public defender wrote in the Washington Post that brand new lawyers have to handle cases with life sentences, carry double the number of cases that the American Bar Association recommends, do not have the time to even see their clients and are forced to plead people out to felony convictions on the day they meet them. Louisiana funds 2/3 of its public defender system with fines and fees from people convicted of traffic offenses and crimes. Budgets for public defenders are small to begin with. In New Orleans, the budget of the public defender is less than half that of the prosecutor. The state spends somewhere around $3.5 billion on police, prosecutors, courts and jails, versus less than 2 % of that on public defenders. Cardozo Law Professor Ellen Yaroshefsky told a New Orleans court that the New Orleans public defender's office was being run in an unethical manner. "I'm very troubled by the situation this public defender's office is in," Yaroshefsky testified. "To call this a 'justice system' is really a misnomer. ... I believe this entire office is operating as a conflict of interest. The lawyers here are compromising some clients in other to represent others. They make a decision to triage, and triage is a conflict of interest. This is a problem now that is a judicial problem, and I believe needs to be dealt with on that level." Meanwhile, Louisiana is facing a huge overall budget deficit of nearly $1 billion this year and double that next year due to fiscal problems left by departing Governor Bobby Jindal. (source: Louisiana Weekly) INDIANA: SCOTUS rejects Evansville SWAT raid, death penalty appeals A 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against the city of Evansville for a bungled SWAT raid will stand, as will the death sentence of a Gary man convicted in the 2007 shooting deaths of his wife and 2 stepchildren. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear those appeals Monday. Justices denied certiorari in Billy Bolin, et al. v. Louise Milan, 15-566, and in Kevin C. Isom v. Indiana, 15-533, after conferencing on the petitions Feb. 19. Louise Milan sued Billy Bolin, the Evansville chief of police, the city and others after a SWAT team sent a phalanx of armored, flash-bang tossing officers smashing through her open, glass front door, after which no arrests were made. Officers were looking for the source of Internet police threats, but the 7th Circuit ruled in a scathing August opinion that Evansville was not shielded from an excessive force lawsuit, calling the lack of investigation and evidence before the raid of Milan's home "a failure of responsible police practice." After the raid on Milan's home, a suspect a few doors down was asked to come to the police station the next day, where he was arrested. Evansville's petition asked justices to review whether the 7th Circuit erred in denying qualified immunity to police by finding use of flash-bang grenades unreasonable. The city argued police were executing a warrant "to prevent a potential mass murder," and that the use of flash-bangs "was necessary for their safety." In the other Indiana case, Kevin Isom sought appeal on the question of whether in imposing the death penalty, a unanimous jury must find beyond a reasonable doubt that aggravating factors outweigh mitigating factors. Isom's death penalty was imposed after he was convicted of killing at close range his wife, Cassandra, stepdaughter Ci'Andria Cole, 13, and stepson Michael Moore, 16. The Indiana Supreme Court affirmed Isom's death sentence in 2015. The court found the nature of the crimes made the death penalty handed down by a Lake County jury appropriate. Isom is 1 of 13 people on Indiana's death row at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. The last execution in Indiana was in 2009. (source: The Indiana Lawyer) From rhalperi at smu.edu Mon Feb 29 16:37:22 2016 From: rhalperi at smu.edu (Rick Halperin) Date: Mon, 29 Feb 2016 16:37:22 -0600 Subject: [Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide Message-ID: Feb. 29 IRAQ: 24 people executed by ISIS in Mosul including group's finance minister At least 24 people including a top official of the Islamic State in Mosul were executed on various charges by the group on Monday. 213 others were also captured, a Kurdish official told Rudaw. "On Monday ISIS executed 24 persons charged with refusing to fight for the group on the battlefields," Saeed Mamuzni, a Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK) official in Mosul, told Rudaw. "213 other civilians were also detained by ISIS in Mosul," he added. "Ahmed Abdulsalam al-Obeidi the finance minister of ISIS's Mosul Wilayat was among the executed who were charged with treachery against the group." Mass killings and arrest by ISIS have recently increased. 11 leaders of the group, including a Sharia court judge, were imprisoned last week in Mosul on charges of "treachery" upon the order of the group's top leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. "The 11 ISIS leaders were captured on charges of treachery against the organization," Mamuzini explained. (source: rudaw.net) DENMARK: Off With Their Heads: Danish Imam Preaches Death Penalty for Adultery A notorious Muslim cleric in Denmark apparently promotes some extremely harsh punishments for adultery among his parishioners. According to an expose conducted by Danish media, a prominent imam at the Grimh???j mosque located in the city of Aarhus preached that adulterers should be flogged or even stoned to death, Berlingske newspaper reports. Footage from a hidden camera and obtained by TV2 channel reveals how imam Abu Bilal teaches a group of women and children what he believes are proper Islamic norms of punishment for adultery. "If the adulterer is a married man or woman, he or she should be stoned to death. If it's a girl, she should be flogged," Abu Bilal declared. When the footage was aired on television, the mosque???s representative Oussama El-Saadi told media that the imam was merely retelling the audience passages from Quran. He also added that his mosque adheres to all regulations and abides by Denmark's laws. It should be noted that in 2014 Abu Bilal was fined 75,000 Danish kroner (over 10,000 euros) for urging the audience to kill Jews during his visit to a mosque in Berlin. The Grimhoj mosque also previously attracted considerable media attention last year when Oussama El Saadi publically declared his sympathies towards Daesh (a terrorist group also known as ISIL, ISIS and the Islamic State). Furthermore, it became known that a large number of young men connected to the mosque travelled to Syria and Iraq to join Daesh, Berlingske points out. However, despite numerous calls to shut down the notorious place of worship, the mosque continues to operate as usual. (source: sputniknews.com/) PAKISTAN: Honour killing: Court awards death penalty to 2 brothers A sessions court on Monday awarded death penalty on 2 counts to 2 brothers, Ahsan and Zeeshan, for murdering their sister and her husband who had married without their consent. The court also imposed a fine of Rs. 1 million on both the accused. Additional District and Sessions Judge Muhammad Naveed Iqbal announced the decision after hearing arguments of parties and examining the available evidence. According to prosecution, the accused had killed their sister and her husband in 2009 for 'honour' after the couple had married of their own free will. Yaki Gate police had registered a case of double murder in 2009 against the accused. (source: Business Recorder) BANGLADESH: No one will get away with irresponsibility in Mir Quasem Ali case: Imran Everyone will have to pay if Jamaat-e-Islami leader Mir Quasem Ali escapes death penalty because of irresponsibility on the part of tribunal lawyers and investigating agencies, Ganajagaran Mancha spokesperson Imran H Sarker has said. The War Crimes Tribunal awarded death penalty to Mir Quasem, the Jamaat's 'chief financier'. Imran warned lawmakers and the investigators during a torchlight rally at Shahbagh on Monday, ahead of a hearing on Ali's appeal against the death penalty. The Appeal Bench headed by Chief Justice SK Sinha had recently found flaws with the handling of the cases besides the progress of the tribunal's investigating wing and the prosecution, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said. This is learnt to have made death penalty supporters think Mir Quasem would escape the gallows like Delawar Hossain Sayedee. The attorney general, however, said the court's dissatisfaction will not reflect on the final verdict. Protesting the 'conspiracy to save' Mir Quasem, Imran said, "If irresponsibility lets a war criminal get away with minor punishment instead of the death he deserves, everyone will have to take the blame. That includes the honourable court to." (source: bdnews24.com) ********************* Execution no way to deliver justice for Salman Taseer murder The taking of another life is no way to ensure justice for the murder of Salman Taseer and Pakistan must immediately impose a moratorium on executions as a 1st step towards abolition of the death penalty, Amnesty International said today. Mumtaz Qadri, the bodyguard of ex-Punjab governor Salman Taseer, was hanged today in Islamabad's Adiala Prison, after he had been convicted of murder. Mumtaz Qadri admitted that he killed Salman Taseer in January 2011 over the governor's opposition to Pakistan???s blasphemy laws. "Salman Taseer was a brave voice for religious tolerance in Pakistan and his murderer should be brought to justice, but carrying out more killings is a deplorable way to honour Salman Taseer's life and message. The death penalty is always a human rights violation, regardless of the circumstances or nature of the crime," said Champa Patel, Amnesty International's South Asia Regional Office Director. "While it is positive that the government is committed to tackling religious extremism and is taking proactive steps to ensure perpetrators of violence are brought to justice, carrying out yet more killings only continues the cycle of violence. "The authorities have now executed more than 300 people in little more than 14 months - Pakistan must immediately impose a moratorium on executions with a view to the eventual repeal of the death penalty." Background Protests against the hanging of Mumtaz Qadri have been sweeping across Pakistan today. Amnesty International urges authorities to ensure that the security forces avoid resorting to the use of force and only do so if non-violent means remain ineffective in containing violent acts or threats of violence by protesters; if force used, then it should be necessary and proportionate to contain such violence, and with a focus only on the individuals posing a threat. They must respect the right of protesters to demonstrate peacefully. Pakistan's blasphemy laws fuel intolerance and a simple accusation is sometimes enough to put people at risk of vigilante mob violence. Everyone in the country, whether Muslim, Christian or from another minority religious group, is at risk. Amnesty International urges the Pakistani authorities to urgently reform the laws to be in line with international law and standards. (source: Amnesty International) ********** Coast guard bill passed with provision of death penalty for mutiny The parliament today passed a bill, titled 'Bangladesh Coast Guard, 2016', with a provision for maximum punishment of death sentence for any involvement in mutiny in the force. Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal placed the bill that was passed in the parliament in a voice vote. The proposed law aims to make the coast guard disciplined, skilled and effective through updating the existing 1994 Act. The law also defined various mutiny-related offences, trial procedures, and capital punishments for mutiny apart from other offences. The bill will pave the way to protect the sovereignty of the country's geographical area as well as preventing crimes and establishing rights on its maritime resources. About the aim of the proposed law, the home boss said, it would help controlling crimes in the country's maritime areas, river routes and coastal belts. It would also help preventing intrusion into the country's offshore areas and ensure security of onshore areas adjacent to the sea, he added. (source: The Daily Star)