[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KAN., CALIF., AK., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 23




KANSAS:

Becker promotes bill to abolish death penalty


Nearly 20 Kansas lawmakers are lending their names to a new push to abolish the 
death penalty.

A prior death penalty repeal effort by State Rep. Steve Becker, R-Buhler, went 
nowhere. The legislator said this new legislation intentionally lists multiple 
sponsors "to show leadership that this is supported by a wide spectrum."

The state has not executed anyone under the death penalty re-established in 
1994. The last execution occurred in 1965. The Kansas Coalition Against the 
Death Penalty cites a legislative post audit in 2003 that estimated death 
penalty cases, with their appeals, cost 70 percent more over their lifetime 
than similar cases without a death penalty.

Introduced Friday, House Bill 2515 would create the crime of aggravated murder 
and provides for sentences of imprisonment for life without the possibility of 
parole. The legislation would not be retroactive to people on death row. Also, 
it would not apply in cases where the crime was committed before July 1, 2016.

It would create a Kansas death penalty fund for the annual actual or projected 
cost savings from ending the death penalty. The Secretary of the Department of 
Corrections would have discretion over the fund.

Becker is the 1st sponsor listed. Other sponsors are listed in alphabetical 
order and include:

--Republicans: Reps. Steven Anthimides, Wichita; John Bradford, Lansing; Lonnie 
Clark, Junction City; Susan Concannon, Beloit; Diana Dierks, Salina; John Doll, 
Garden City; Michael Houser, Columbus; Connie O'Brien, Tonganoxie; Don 
Schroeder, R-Hesston; William Sutton, Gardner.

--Democrats: Reps. Barbara Ballard, Lawrence; Jerry Henry, Cummings; Dennis 
"Boog" Highberger, Lawrence; Roderick Houston, Wichita; Annie Kuether, Topeka; 
Tom Sawyer, Wichita.

>From within the Republican caucus, there is "very good representation from the 
moderates as well the conservatives," said Becker, a moderate.

A lot of legislators don't like the high cost involved in death penalty cases, 
he said. Some favor repeal for moral reasons. Others are concerned about the 
execution of innocent people, he said.

"If you're not going to use it, why not get rid of it," said conservative Rep. 
John Bradford, Lansing.

Bradford voiced concerns about cost and the possibility of executing someone 
wrongly convicted. "To me, it's not a political issue," Bradford said.

"Truthfully, I think we could pass it in the House," Bradford said.

It needs 63 votes in the House to pass. A couple weeks ago, Bradford said, 
there might have been "70-plus" votes to repeal the death penalty. He thinks 
support might have dipped, but he still sees a House victory as possible.

Becker said he "made a lot of phone calls" and "approached a lot of people" 
about the legislation. He credited the Kansas Coalition Against the Death 
Penalty for its advocacy.

Asked if anyone declined to sponsor the bill out of concern for re-election 
this fall, Becker said no one said that.

(source: The Hutchinson News)

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

The time is right to repeal the death penalty


"The time is always right to do what is right." - Martin Luther King Jr.

Activists for repeal of the death penalty are convinced that the time is right 
to abolish the death penalty in Kansas.

There are many reasons why Kansas should get rid of capital punishment. One is 
the fact that the death penalty is fiscally irresponsible. Death penalty cases 
cost up to 4 times more than a case for life imprisonment.

Another compelling argument for repeal lies in the human aspect, both on the 
part of the victim and the accused. Exonerations are in the media regularly, 
where new scientific methods clear innocent people of their conviction and 
sentence. However, the release from prison does not take away the stigma of 
having been on death row nor restore the time lost from their lives awaiting 
death.

Repeal is the only way to ensure that an innocent person does not die due to 
false witness, corruption or honest mistakes made in the justice system. To 
learn more about the death penalty in Kansas and how to join the coalition for 
repeal, visit http://ksabolition.org.

Using this website, www.kslegislature.org, please contact your state 
legislators and ask them to vote for repeal during the 2016 legislative 
session.

DIANA CARTER, McPherson

(source: Letter to the Editor, salina.com)






CALIFORNIA:

24-Year-Old Charged With Killing Ex, Her New Boyfriend In Winnetka


Authorities have formally charged a 24-year-old man with killing his 
ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend at her Winnetka apartment building.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced Friday that Brian 
Gonzales, AKA Brian Hammons, faces 2 counts of murder with special circumstance 
allegations of murder during the commission of a kidnapping and multiple 
murders.

Gonzales also faces allegations that he used and fired a handgun in the 
commission of the crimes in the incident.

His arraignment is scheduled for next month at the Angeles County Superior 
Court, Van Nuys Branch.

Prosecutors allege that on Jan. 17, Gonzales allegedly confronted his 
ex-girlfriend, Emily Fox, 22, and Jerred Scott, 24, in a hallway at her 
apartment building. While Scott attempted to escape, Fox dialed 911. Gonzales 
is accused of catching up to Scott and bringing him back at gunpoint to Fox's 
location before fatally shooting both of them.

If convicted as charged, Gonzales faces the death penalty or life in prison 
without the possibility of parole.

The DA said the decision on whether to seek the death penalty will be made at a 
later date.

Gonzales is being held without bail.

The case remains under investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department, 
Valley Bureau.

(source: CBS news)

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

New California death penalty rules debated


California's death penalty took center stage Friday as officials held a public 
hearing on proposed new rules that would allow the state to resume executions 
using a single drug in its lethal injections.

Crime victim advocates, civil libertarians, lawyers, priests and others took 
turns in a state health services department auditorium debating the morality 
and legality of the death penalty and, at times, addressing the proposed 
regulations the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is 
proposing.

"We cannot overcome crime simply by executing criminals," George Horan, a 
Catholic priest from Los Angeles, told a room of about 50 spectators.

Horan, who said he was speaking on behalf of California's Catholic bishops, 
decried the fact that spiritual advisers who attended to condemned inmates must 
leave 3 hours before an execution is carried out, and that witnesses are 
brought in to watch executions.

"To me, it just seems insane that we invite people to witness executions," 
Horan said. "Gang members don't do that."

Pro death-penalty speakers decried delays in the use of capital punishment, 
noting that California has gone a decade without executing an inmate.

Kent Scheidegger, legal director for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in 
Sacramento, which helped force CDCR to draw up the new regulations through a 
lawsuit, said the process of obtaining drugs and executing inmates with 
injections is not complicated, adding that "veterinarians do it every day in 
America."

Friday's public hearing attracted a much smaller crowd than the last time the 
department proposed new execution rules in 2009, when 100 speakers and dozens 
of others turned out for an emotional session. 20 people signed up to speak 
Friday and although the hearing was set to last until 3 p.m. - 5 hours - they 
ran out of speakers around 11:30 a.m.

About 12,000 individuals submitted written comments.

Originally, Friday was to be the deadline for submitting public comments about 
the proposed rule changes.

But a lawsuit filed in November by the American Civil Liberties Union of 
Northern California extended that period to Feb. 22.

The ACLU contends the department is withholding 79,000 pages of documents about 
lethal injection that it is seeking in the suit.

The hearing was scheduled in November after corrections officials published 
plans for a new lethal injection method that uses a single drug - a 7.5-gram 
dose of 1 of 4 barbiturate drugs that replaces the old, 3-drug cocktail used to 
execute inmates.

The proposed change comes after officials nationwide found themselves facing a 
shortage of the drugs used in the old 3-drug system because manufacturers 
either stopped making them or refused to provide them for executions, or 
because of legal challenges over the 3-drug method.

The new protocols allow for corrections officials to use one of 4 drugs: 
amobarbital, pentobarbital, secobarbital or thiopental.

Lethal injections were used to put inmates to death at San Quentin 11 times 
from 1996 through Jan. 17, 2006, but no executions have taken place since then 
because of legal challenges.

The state's regulations estimate the cost of a scheduled execution as $186,886, 
including $85,200 in staff training, $97,492 to contract with law enforcement 
to provide crowd control near San Quentin State Prison and about $4,200 to 
purchase the drug.

Death penalty advocates have pushed for the new, single-drug method to help 
kick-start the use of executions in California, and Friday's hearing is part of 
the regulatory process required by the state before the new method can 
officially be adopted.

In addition to comments Friday and written comments submitted by the public 
since November, officials also may consider input from condemned inmates, who 
all were given copies of the proposed change.

The state's Office of Administrative Law must give final approval to the new 
method, and death penalty advocates say there are at least 17 inmates among the 
746 on death row whose appeals have been exhausted and who can be put to death.

But any effort to resume executions will face new legal challenges, and 
advocates who oppose and support the death penalty are circulating petitions to 
put competing initiatives on the November ballot that would allow voters to 
decide whether California should keep the death penalty.

(source: Sacramento Bee)

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

A look at California's death penalty and proposed changes


A look at California's death penalty and proposed changes:

- The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation calculates the 
cost of an execution at nearly $187,000.

- More than 900 killers have been sentenced to die in the state since the death 
penalty was restored in 1978. Only 13 have been executed amid legal challenges.

- Under a proposal to use a single drug in executions, the warden at San 
Quentin State Prison could choose between amobarbital, pentobarbital, 
secobarbital or thiopental, depending on what is available.

- The Berkeley Law Death Penalty Clinic, which opposes executions, says 
amobarbital and secobarbital have never been used in executions.

- Inmates could choose the gas chamber instead of a drug injection.

(source: Associated Press)






ALASKA:

Bill to update Alaska Military Code of Justice advances


A bill to update Alaska's Uniform Code of Military Justice is making progress 
through the state House, advancing Friday from a judiciary committee review. It 
is expected to be scheduled for a vote by the full House.

Lawmakers advanced the bill intended to strengthen the state's military code 
after a scathing report found that actual and perceived favoritism, ethical 
misconduct and fear of reprisal were eroding trust and confidence in the 
leadership of the Alaska National Guard. The National Guard Bureau Office of 
Complex Investigations also found the Alaska National Guard was not properly 
administering justice through the investigation or adjudication of guard member 
misconduct.

Then-Gov. Sean Parnell asked the bureau in 2014 to investigate reports of 
sexual assault, rape and fraud among members of the Alaska National Guard. 
Investigators found that while the guard's sexual assault prevention and 
response program was well-organized, victims did not trust the system and the 
guard did not have a mechanism to coordinate prosecution with local law 
enforcement.

Alaska's code was established in 1955 and has remained largely unchanged since 
then. According to the National Guard Bureau Office Of Complex Investigations, 
Alaska National Guard leadership seemed unaware that the state's code of 
military justice existed and the investigation found no record of a court 
martial since 1955.

One issue with the state's current code was a lack of enforcement capability 
for the guard for any crime that could be tried by civil authorities.

The new bill calls for potential jail time and dishonorable discharge for 
crimes such as writing bad checks, breach of peace and indecent exposure. It 
also includes several sections that apply to cases typically handled by 
civilian authorities including sexual assault and drunk driving.

While the changes would empower the state's national guard to prosecute more 
crimes committed by service members than is currently allowed, the guard's 
prosecution process is limited to a maximum of up to 10 years in jail time and 
- unlike the federal Uniform Code of Military Justice - Alaska's guard would 
not be able to impose a death sentence.

Rep. Wes Keller, R-Wasilla, said he noticed the sentencing maximum language and 
interpreted it to mean that the maximum penalty in a sexual abuse case was the 
same as the maximum penalty for a military crime such as collaborating with the 
enemy.

"In the federal case, that could be a death penalty," Keller said. "I'm just 
wondering if there are any ramifications of having those two maximum penalties 
the same."

U.S. National Guard Capt. Forrest Dunbar, who was tasked with helping to 
overhaul the state's code of military justice, told Keller that the state's 
National Guard felt the sentencing maximum was appropriate.

He said the guard would not prosecute certain kinds of crimes that could be 
punished with harsher sentences in civilian courts.

"We took a number of things out. Things like murder and the highest levels of 
sexual assault - sexual assaults of a child, those kinds of things - because we 
don't feel it's appropriate for our national guard to be prosecuting those 
things. Those are civilian crimes, primarily civilian crimes and they have much 
higher limits on sentencing," Dunbar said.

Punishments that could include the death penalty at the federal level for 
certain military offenses - misbehavior toward the enemy or desertion - Dunbar 
said would typically occur in situations where service members were in active 
duty statues and therefore subject to prosecution under the federal code.

"We acknowledge that there could be sort of a 1-in-a-million, who knows what 
the exact proportion is, but a very, very unlikely chance where we would have 
an enemy here in Alaska and for whatever reason the federal government hasn't 
responded and federalized us and in that brief window one of our soldiers could 
commit one of these very specific offenses. In which case we would be limited 
to ten years in prison," he said.

(source: Associated Press)






USA:

Justice Breyer Is Dying For A Case That Will Kill The Death Penalty For Good


He's ready.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer wants to hear a real death penalty case 
soon.

The U.S. Supreme Court gets last-minute death penalty appeals all the time, 
even when it's on summer recess. It seldom grants them.

It refused 2 requests late Thursday from Christopher Eugene Brooks, an Alabama 
inmate who was hoping to convince the justices that his death sentence was 
unconstitutional. He was executed less than an hour later.

1 of Brooks' 11th-hour appeals dealt with Alabama's planned use of midazolam, 
the same sedative the Supreme Court held was constitutional in an explosive 
case last year. The court rejected Brooks' petition without comment, presumably 
for that reason.

But the inmate's 2nd request dealt with Alabama's process of putting people to 
death -- a judicial system in which judges essentially play God.

The court also rejected Brooks' petition on that point. But this time, 3 
justices spoke. And all 3 questioned whether Alabama's system can survive the 
weight of the Constitution much longer.

First up was Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who last week, in Hurst v. Florida, led 
the court in striking down Florida's judge-centric sentencing scheme. Joined by 
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she declined Brooks' petition due to "procedural 
obstacles." But she suggested that the changed legal landscape since the Hurst 
decision -- still causing chaos in Florida -- meant Alabama's capital 
sentencing scheme's days were numbered.

The big surprise, though, was Justice Stephen Breyer, the only one who would 
have spared Brooks' life for a little while so the court could take a closer 
look at his claim that Alabama's sentencing regime violates the Constitution.

"Christopher Eugene Brooks was sentenced to death in accordance with Alabama's 
procedures, which allow a jury to render an advisory verdict that is not 
binding on the court," wrote Breyer. This system, he added, "is much like and 
based on Florida's" now unconstitutional system.

Then came the kicker.

"The unfairness inherent in treating this case differently from others which 
used similarly unconstitutional procedures only underscores the need to 
reconsider the validity of capital punishment under the Eighth Amendment," 
Breyer wrote.

As if to say, "I'm ready to consider whether the death penalty is 
unconstitutional once and for all."

(source: Cristian Farias, Legal Affairs Reporter, The Huffington Post)

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

World View: Death penalty opponents sense an opportunity----Abolitionists are 
now pinning hopes on the case of Pennsylvania woman Shonda Walter


"His head was in his hands," the defence lawyer recalled of the hearing, "and 
he just had a troubled look on his face." Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote on 
the 9-member US Supreme Court, would rule in the case last June with the death 
penalty majority. But it clearly did not sit easily with him.

Abolitionists who have for years studied every twist and turn, every nuance in 
the court's rulings on the issue, trying to find hints of a change in the 
judicial climate, sense that this at last might be a moment of opportunity.

Kennedy has ruled both ways in cases where limits have been proposed on the 
scope of the death penalty - age, mental capacity, etc - but has not yet made 
explicit his view of its overall constitutionality. But, significantly, he has 
spoken of the need to take into account public and international opinion. And 
the tide has definitely turned.

Opponents of capital punishment are now pinning hopes on the case of 
Pennsylvania woman Shonda Walter; the Supreme Court is this week considering 
whether to hear her case or not. Since Walter does not fit the special 
categories of defendants that the court has over the years gradually shielded 
from the death penalty, her appeal is based on the claim that all executions 
violate the US constitution. An opportunity, lawyers believe, Kennedy willing, 
for the US to this week break with a practice that has brought its justice 
system international opprobrium.

International legal groups, including the Bar Council of Ireland and those of 
Australia, the UK, Canada and South Africa, have filed amicus curiae opinions 
in support of Walter; the UK pleading specifically refers to the danger of 
executing the innocent, exemplified in the capital convictions in the 
Birmingham 6 and Guildford 4 cases.

Uneven application

Walter was 24 when in 2005 she allegedly killed a neighbour, 83-year-old James 
Sementelli, with a hatchet. Although her lawyer told the jury she had committed 
the crime and on appeal made arguments the judge said were "unintelligible", 
the courts refused to accept an "incompetent counsel" plea. Her new lawyers 
argue that Walter "emerged from an arbitrary process which fails to limit the 
death penalty to the worst offenders".

That arbitrariness, the uneven application of the state's most draconian 
punishment, as much as the cruelty of the punishment, will be central to the 
case.

Only 15 % of US counties now account for every death sentence handed down since 
the 1970s, and countless reports show that black or poor defendants such as 
Walter are far more likely to face capital charges.

Seven states have abandoned the practice since 2004, bringing the total to 19, 
while since the turn of the century executions and sentences have been 
declining more or less year on year. In 2015 there were 28 executions and 49 
new death sentences, the lowest numbers in decades. Texas, Georgia and Missouri 
now account for the vast majority of death row cases.

The decline in capital punishment, which steadily reinforces the legal 
"arbitrariness" argument, mirrors a decline in public support.

Polls now show an even split between support for death and support for life 
without parole. Support for the death penalty in principle, though still a 
majority, has declined by a quarter since the 1990s.

The legal battleground has in recent years largely been focused on eroding 
capital punishment at the edges. This week the Supreme Court ruled against 
Florida in a case in which judges rather than juries imposed the death penalty, 
opening up the potential for challenges to many ongoing cases as well as dozens 
of new appeals.

The courts have barred the execution of several categories of people: minors, 
the intellectually disabled and those convicted of a crime other than murder.

New DNA techniques have allowed campaigners to show that many on death row are 
innocent. Several states have abandoned the practice because of the excessive 
cost of capital trials, while challenges to the use of specific drugs as 
ineffective and cruel have delayed executions.

Perhaps, however, the central issue can now be faced head on. As the New York 
Times legal correspondent Adam Liptak puts it: "They can no longer ignore the 
clear movement of history."

(source: Irish Times)