[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----VA., GA., FLA., LA., OHIO, UTAH, CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

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)