[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., UTAH, USA

[Rick Halperin]

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)