[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., NEB., NEV., WASH., USA

[Rick Halperin]

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)