[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., ALA., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 20



TEXAS:

As an Attorney, Death Penalty Enthusiast Ted Cruz Really Loved Describing 
Brutal Crimes


Texas Senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz has never exactly hidden his 
passion for the death penalty - it's a love that speaks its name over and over 
whenever he talks in public. As the New York Times lays out today, his passion 
took a somewhat more unseemly form when he was a Supreme Court Clerk, where he 
seemed to take unusual relish in laying out the details of violent crimes.

Cruz has always been pro-death penalty and a staunch advocate for keeping the 
system churning along just as it currently kills people (except, as Mother 
Jones pointed out, in 2010, when as a private practice attorney, he represented 
a wrongfully convicted man who spent 14 years on death row). He may have gotten 
some of that from his father; Rafael Cruz has argued from the pulpit that God 
himself is pro-death penalty.

That enthusiasm made itself evident when he was clerking for Supreme Court 
Justice William H. Rehnquist in 1996, the Times writes, and became known for 
his colorful briefs on death penalty appeals, which "often dwelled on the lurid 
details of murders that other clerks tended to summarize in order to quickly 
move to the legal merits of the case."

That's unusual for a dry, dispassionate SCOTUS brief, and really made old Ted 
stand out at the office, a fact he himself was not unaware of. Per the Times: 
"I believe in the death penalty," Mr. Cruz wrote in his book "A Time for 
Truth." As he saw it, it was his duty to include all the details and "describe 
the brutal nature of the crime."

"Liberal clerks would typically omit the facts; it was harder to jump on the 
moral high horse in defense of a depraved killer," he wrote.

Cruz's love of death began even before that, in fact, during a clerkship at 
federal appellate court in Virginia with Judge J. Michael Luttig. Luttig's 
father was killed by a 17-year-old would-be carjacker named Napoleon Beazley in 
1994. The horrible incident created a bond between Cruz and Luttig, who began 
working for the judge soon after. A very strong and slightly macabre bond, 
again, per the Times:

Mr. Cruz became devoted to Mr. Luttig, whom Mr. Cruz has described as "like a 
father to me." During his clerkship, he presented his boss with a caricature of 
him and other clerks pulling a stagecoach driven by the judge. According to 
someone who saw the illustration, there was a graveyard behind them with 
headstones representing the number of people executed in their jurisdiction 
that year.

One thing we can say about Ted Cruz: the man's character is consistent.

(source: jezebel.com)






FLORIDA:

Denise Lee's killer among death penalty cases to be reviewed


In another sign of the impact of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a 
key part of Florida's death-penalty sentencing system, the state Supreme Court 
has issued orders allowing 6 death row inmates to file briefs about how the 
ruling might apply to their cases. That includes the sentence of Michael King, 
who was convicted in September 2009 in the abduction, rape and killing of North 
Port's Denise Lee, 21. The same jury that convicted King also recommended 12-0 
that he die for the crimes.

The Florida Supreme Court's orders, issued Tuesday, are in cases that already 
had been scheduled for oral arguments during the `st week of February.

The orders will allow lawyers for the inmates and the state to file briefs next 
week about the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in advance of the oral arguments.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision, found Jan. 12 that Florida's system 
of imposing death sentences was an unconstitutional violation of the Sixth 
Amendment right to trial by jury because it gave too much decision-making power 
to judges instead of juries.

A key question is whether - or how - the ruling might apply to people already 
sentenced to death.

Besides King, Tuesday's orders allow briefs to be filed on behalf of Richard 
Knight, convicted in a Broward County case; Raymond Bright, convicted in a Bay 
County case; Dontae Morris, convicted in a Hillsborough County case; Jacob John 
Dougan, convicted in a Duval County case; and Eric Lee Simmons, convicted in a 
Lake County case, according to court documents.

In a motion filed Friday in the Florida Supreme Court, Morris' attorneys said 
the breadth of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling was "unanticipated" and that it 
should apply to Morris' case.

The Florida Supreme Court also will hear similar arguments Feb. 2 in the case 
of Cary Michael Lambrix, who is scheduled to be executed Feb. 11.

Lawyers in Attorney General Pam Bondi's office have argued that the U.S. 
Supreme Court ruling should not affect Lambrix, who has been on death row for 
more than 3 decades.

(source: Herald Tribune)

*************

Shelby Farah's mother to ask state not to execute Rhodes if found guilty


Shelby Farah's mother is scheduled to meet with a state attorney Thursday to 
request the death penalty be taken off the table for her daughter's accused 
killer.

Darlene Farah lost her daughter, Shelby Farah, when Shelby was murdered during 
an armed robbery at the Metro PCS store where she worked. Police say James 
Rhodes walked in, robbed the store and shot her to death.

Rhodes will go on trial later this year.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled Florida's system for sentencing people to 
death is considered unconstitutional. Justices of the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 
that the state's procedure is flawed because juries work on an advisory role, 
and judges have the final say on sentencing.

Farah will meet with State Attorney Bernie de la Rionda on Thursday.

(source: actionnewsjax.com)






ALABAMA----impending execution

Catholic bishop asks Gov. Bentley to stop execution


Birmingham Catholic Bishop Robert J. Baker today sent a letter to Gov. Robert 
Bentley asking the governor to commute the sentence of a convicted killer set 
to be executed on Thursday.

Quoting an admonition by Pope Francis that "Justice is never reached by killing 
a human being," Baker wrote, "In addition, alternative approaches to serious 
crimes like murder, such as a life sentence without parole, give the 
opportunity for a person incarcerated to seek pardon, forgiveness, and 
conversion of mind and heart to the Lord."

Attorneys for Alabama Death Row inmate Christopher Brooks are trying to stave 
off his execution Thursday night.

The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and the Alabama Supreme Court both on 
Tuesday afternoon denied Brooks' requests for emergency stays of his execution. 
His attorneys say they are appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Brooks is scheduled to be put to death at 6 p.m. Thursday by lethal injection 
at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. It would be Alabama's 1st execution 
since July 2013 and the 1st using the state's new 3-drug combination.

Brooks was convicted in the December 1992 rape and beating death of Jo Deann 
Campbell.

(source: al.com)






USA:

Justices Only Tinker With Death-Penalty Rules


Any remaining suspicion that the Supreme Court is soft on the death penalty 
should be dispelled by Wednesday's judgment in 2 cases challenging capital 
sentences in Kansas. In an 8-1 decision, the justices reinstated death 
sentences that had been overturned by the Kansas Supreme Court.

The state court had said that jurors must be told expressly that mitigating 
circumstances introduced by the defense didn't need to be proved beyond a 
reasonable doubt, as findings for the prosecution must be proved. But the U.S. 
Supreme Court said no such instruction was necessary. Only Justice Sonia 
Sotomayor dissented, which means that the other 3 liberals joined the opinion, 
including Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, who've said they 
think the death penalty in general is unconstitutional.

To understand the ruling, you need to understand the formal way that juries in 
Kansas (and elsewhere) are asked to decide on a capital sentence. After the 
conviction of the basic crime, the trial enters a penalty phase. The 
prosecution introduces what're called "aggravating circumstances to show that a 
defendant should receive a sentence of death. The defense then introduces 
"mitigating circumstances," which are supposed to undercut the logic of 
execution.

In the cases before the Supreme Court, Kansas v. Carr and Kansas v. Gleason, 
the jurors were told that "The State has the burden to prove beyond a 
reasonable doubt that there are 1 or more aggravating circumstances and that 
they are not outweighed by any mitigating circumstances found to exist." 
According to the Kansas Supreme Court, this language introduced a possible 
confusion. The jurors would've understood that the aggravating circumstances 
had to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, which was legally correct. But they 
may also have thought that the mitigating circumstances had to be proved by the 
same standard.

The justices at the U.S. Supreme Court found this argument unpersuasive. The 
opinion, by Justice Antonin Scalia, said that to the contrary, the jury 
instruction clearly stated that "both the existence of aggravating 
circumstances and the conclusion that they outweigh mitigating circumstances 
must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt." In contrast, he wrote, "mitigating 
circumstances themselves, on the other hand, must merely be 'found to exist.'"

For Scalia and the other justices, the difference between something being 
proved beyond a reasonable doubt and something merely being "found to exist" 
was intuitively clear. But what's intuitive to a lawyer might not be intuitive 
to a jury member.

Scalia had more to say, however. The official holding of the case is that under 
the Constitution, there's no need for a special jury instruction specifying 
that mitigating circumstances don't need to be proved beyond reasonable doubt. 
Yet Scalia added what lawyers call a "dicta" (short for "obiter dicta," an old 
form now rarely used in the U.S. courts) -- words not necessary to the holding 
but helpful for clarification.

In the dicta, Scalia said that it didn't make much sense to think of mitigating 
factors as subject to a burden of proof at all. Aggravating factors under 
Kansas law are specific facts, he explained, which "either did or did not 
exist" and therefore could be found beyond a reasonable doubt. "Whether 
mitigation exists, however," Scalia wrote, "is largely a judgment call (or 
perhaps a value call); what 1 juror might consider mitigating another might 
not."

Scalia's dicta introduced the hoary fact/value distinction to the area of 
death-penalty sentencing. He's saying that value judgments can't really be 
proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

In dissent, Sotomayor singled out the dicta for special criticism. She pointed 
out that many states do in fact "specify a burden of proof for the existence of 
mitigating factors ... presumably under the belief that it is, in fact, 
'possible' to do so."

Sotomayor took her criticism further, arguing that the court shouldn't have 
taken the case in the first place. True, the Kansas Supreme Court was applying 
the U.S. Constitution, not its own state law, so the Supreme Court was 
technically empowered to review its ruling. But in Sotomayor's view, the court 
still should've resisted the temptation to weigh in, because by doing so, it 
reduced the likelihood of individual state experimentation with capital 
sentencing.

Sotomayor's argument that the court should allow state supreme courts to 
function as laboratories of democracy for capital sentencing is a bit 
opportunistic. No doubt she'd acknowledge that federal intervention is 
completely justified when state supreme courts fall short of full 
constitutional protection of capital defendants.

What she's arguing, therefore, is that the U.S. Supreme Court should allow 
state courts to protect defendants more than is required by the high court's 
jurisprudence, but not less. That's certainly true with respect to state 
constitutional law. But it isn't at all clear that it should be true with 
respect to the federal Constitution, which needs a uniform interpretation to 
satisfy the basic principle of equal protection.

The fact that the rest of the court's liberals didn't join Sotomayor signals 
that for them, the death penalty is still business as usual. The Constitution 
specifies rules for operating what Justice Harry Blackmun called "the machinery 
of death." So long as those rules are followed, the machinery will be allowed 
to continue cranking away.

(source: bloombergview.com)