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

[Rick Halperin]

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)