[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----N.H., CONN., PENN., VA., FLA., OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

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)