[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, MD., FLA., LA.

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 27



TEXAS:

Trial date set for man accused of killing Stripes store clerk


Prosecutors have yet to decide whether they'll seek the death penalty in the 
Elizalde case.Prosecutors have yet to decide whether they'll seek the death 
penalty in the Elizalde case.

The man accused of robbing and killing a store clerk will go on trial this 
summer.

Judge Jose Longoria set James Elizalde's trial for August 15th. During his 
arraignment this morning, a prosecutor told the judge the D.A.'s office hasn't 
decided on whether it will seek the death penalty because Mark Skurka is 
involved in the Travis Magill case.

Elizalde is facing Capital Murder charges, for the shooting death of Ignacio 
Rodriguez. Rodriguez was shot during a robbery at the Stripes store on Staples 
and Carroll Lane back in October.

(source: KRIS TV news)






MARYLAND:

Public defender's office opposes Wilson's criminal bills


Bills that would streamline sentencing for judges considering 
life-without-parole cases and raise the sentencing limit for 2nd-degree murder 
in Maryland met with spirited opposition Tuesday from the state public 
defender's office.

Both bills are sponsored by Del. Brett R. Wilson, R-Washington, who also is a 
county prosecutor. They were heard in the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday 
afternoon.

Wilson and Anne Arundel County State's Attorney Wes Adams said that the first 
bill would correct a flaw in the current sentencing in life-without-parole 
cases.

When capital punishment was legal in Maryland, defendants were entitled to 
sentencing by jury in cases where a death penalty could be applied.

Prosecutors were required to serve notice that they were seeking capital 
punishment, and if the defendant requested a sentencing by jury, the jury - 
rather than the judge - could determine whether he or she was given a capital 
sentence, life without parole or a life term, Wilson said.

However, when capital punishment was repealed in 2013, lawmakers amended the 
criminal code to strike most references to the death penalty. But sentencing by 
jury was omitted.

Wilson and Adams argued that defendants in cases where prosecutors seek life 
without parole had never been entitled to sentencing by jury.

But since the death penalty was repealed, several defendants have used the 
remaining language to appeal their sentences, claiming they were entitled to a 
jury sentence, according to a letter from Attorney General Brian Frosh's office 
in support of Wilson's bill.

Katie O'Donnell of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender argued that the 
language should be maintained, and the option of letting juries decide whether 
a defendant should be given life without parole should be on the table.

"We are in a different legal landscape than we were when capital punishment 
existed in this state," she said. "Right now, life without the possibility of 
parole is the most severe punishment that can be imposed on any individual 
under any circumstances."

Therefore, the whole framework of what criteria should be met for those 
sentences - and who decides whether they are given - should be revisited.

But Wilson and the attorney general said the legislature had never intended to 
create a right to a jury sentencing in noncapital cases.

The 2nd bill would add 10 years to the maximum sentence for 2nd-degree murder, 
raising the maximum from 30 to 40 years.

Testifying before the committee, Adams noted that all surrounding states have 
maximum sentences of at least 40 years for that offense.

Defendants sentenced under current statutes "represent a segment of violent 
offenders eligible to be out within 20 years," even if they are given the 
maximum sentence, he said.

Adding 10 years to the maximum would give judges more discretion in sentencing, 
he said.

Regarding both bills, Wilson said: "None of this happens if someone isn't 
killed, and the perpetrator has been convicted. We're not looking to do this 
just because we can."

But O'Donnell also opposed the 2nd bill, saying it undermines the jury process, 
and 2 previous attempts to increase the maximum had failed.

"What is the compelling reason to change the 30-year penalty that we have had 
for as long as I can remember?" she asked.

Punishment is "based on the level of culpability ... for which the defendant is 
convicted," she said.

(source: Herald-Mail Media)






FLORIDA:

Lawmakers ignored warnings about death-penalty sentencing law

(1st of 3 parts)


To find someone guilty of a crime - any crime - jurors have to agree 
unanimously.

Not so to impose the death penalty. Not here in Florida. And that's why 
Florida's death penalty sentencing procedure is in constitutional hot water.

As Florida law stands now, after jurors find a defendant guilty of 1st-degree 
murder, they aren't required to deliberate to the point of unanimity in order 
to sentence a murderer to death.

They simply take a vote, and let the judge do the rest.

Those split, majority-only sentencing votes reduce the jury's role from 
fact-finder to adviser, the U.S. Supreme Court said on January 12, which 
violates an individual's Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in Hurst v. Florida, "The Sixth Amendment 
requires a jury, not a judge, to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence 
of death. A jury's mere recommendation is not enough."

And juries find facts, traditionally, by reaching unanimous verdicts.

So why didn't the court mention the word "unanimous" in its opinion about 
juries as final fact-finders?

"They frequently try to issue the narrowest opinion possible," says Adam 
Tebrugge, an ACLU staff attorney based in Tampa.

"There's a strong argument that a 7-5 finding is not sufficient to find any 
facts," he added.

Tebrugge is referring to the split-vote recommendation on which a Florida trial 
court imposed the death penalty for Timothy Hurst, whose case just became a 
U.S. Supreme Court landmark. Hurst's case will now go back to the Florida 
Supreme Court, which will determine whether the unconstitutional sentencing 
procedure resulted in "harmless error" for him.

It's hard to see how violating the Constitution could be harmless in a death 
penalty case, attorneys say.

In capital cases in Florida, the "penalty phase" is a separate proceeding that 
occurs after the jury convicts a defendant of 1st-degree murder. Aggravating 
elements of the crime are weighed against mitigating factors during the penalty 
phase. Florida law requires that judges give "great weight" to the jury's 
analysis of those factors in the form of their sentencing "recommendation."

And that, according to the court's Hurst ruling, is simply not enough to 
satisfy the Sixth Amendment.

"If you don't require a unanimous jury, it destroys the deliberations process," 
Tebrugge says. "You just vote. You don't even have to talk about it."

That argument appears to cut both ways, says criminal defense attorney D. Gray 
Thomas. He says "fear-mongers" in the Legislature will point out that notorious 
serial murderers Ted Bundy and Eileen Wournos were sentenced based on split, 
majority-only jury recommendations.

But, Thomas concedes, had those jurors been required to actually deliberate 
instead of merely voting, they might have reached unanimity on Bundy's and 
Wournos' death sentences, nonetheless.

(source: Julie Delegal, Florida Politics)






LOUISIANA:

Louisiana Case Renews Push For Justices' Review of Death Penalty


On the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to hear a challenge to the 
constitutionality of the death penalty, a new case, this time from Louisiana, 
is being offered to the justices.

Tucker v. State of Louisiana asks the high court whether the death penalty is 
cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth 
amendments. The case also asks whether Louisiana's failure to require juries to 
find that death is the appropriate sentence "beyond a reasonable doubt" 
violates those same amendments and the court's recent decisions involving the 
role of juries in fact-finding.

Death penalty litigators and anti-death penalty groups have renewed efforts to 
bring constitutional challenges to the punishment to the high court in the wake 
of last term's Glossip v. Gross decision. In that 5-4 lethal-injection case, 
Justice Stephen Breyer, joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dissented, 
saying there was significant evidence of serious problems with the death 
penalty to justify full reconsideration of its constitutionality by the court.

G. Ben Cohen of The Promise of Justice Initiative in New Orleans is counsel to 
Lamondre Tucker in the most recent challenge and is undeterred by the high 
court's refusal on Monday to review the death penalty challenge in Walter v. 
Pennsylvania.

"In the end, the court will take the case it wants to take - at the time it 
wants to take it," Cohen said. "All we can do is give the court the opportunity 
to consider the question. Lamondre???s case is emblematic of what is wrong with 
the death penalty - not reserved for the worst of the worst, driven by 
unrestrained prosecutors, overwhelmed or indifferent defense counsel, 
geographic isolation, with the backdrop of a sordid racial legacy."

Tucker's case played out in Caddo Parish where, according to a report by The 
New Orleans Advocate in April, capital punishment is a "cottage industry." Of 
the 12 death sentences handed down in Louisiana in the last five years, eight 
came from that parish. Tucker also was the last person sentenced to death while 
a Confederate flag flew next to the Confederate memorial outside the 
courthouse.

Cohen said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg???s comments after the Supreme Court's 
last term ended, "perhaps gives me hope that the court will consider the 
question here." Ginsburg noted the unfairness of a death sentence from a county 
in Louisiana versus a life sentence in Minnesota.

In 2008, Tucker was 4 months past his 18th birthday, with a 74 IQ, when he was 
arrested and charged with the murder of Tavia Sills, a pregnant 18-year-old 
with whom he had a brief relationship.

Jury selection began March 14, 2011, in Caddo Parish. 1/3 of the venire - and 
1/2 of the African-American venire persons - were removed based upon their 
opposition to the death penalty, according to the petition. The defense 
objected, arguing that death-qualification, coupled with the effect of the 
Confederate flag atop the monument to the Confederacy's Last Stand outside the 
courthouse, distorted the racial makeup of the venire. (The NAACP successfully 
brought down the flag in late 2011 but the generals' monument remains.)

The trial court noted that racial disparities were "troubling," but denied 
relief. Ultimately, in a parish where half the population is African-American, 
the 14 jurors (12 with 2 alternates) included 12 white jurors and 2 
African-Americans.

The prosecutor presented evidence that Tucker committed the killing with 
21-year-old Marcus Taylor. The prosecution relied primarily on the statement 
taken from 18-year-old Tucker during a lengthy interrogation that began when 
Shreveport police officers checked him out of class at his high school on 
September 9, 2008, and continued intermittently, only partially recorded, over 
the next 4 days, states the petition.

The defense called no witnesses and presented no evidence. The closing argument 
was 5 sentences that included: "Good evening ladies and gentlemen," and "Thank 
you." The defense attorney also said Tucker admitted guilt to 2nd-degree murder 
and feticide, which Tucker denied on appeal. The other man, Taylor, who was 3 
years older than Tucker, received a 21-year sentence.

The Louisiana Supreme Court rejected Tucker's constitutional challenge to the 
death penalty and also his claim that the Eighth Amendment and the U.S. Supreme 
Court's decisions in Apprendi v. New Jersey and Ring v. Arizona required the 
jury to find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that death was the appropriate 
punishment.

Cohen said the high court's decision Monday in Montgomery v. Louisiana is 
additional evidence that the country is turning towards the possibility of 
redemption and away from retribution. In that 6-3 decision, the justices held 
that its 2012 ban on the mandatory imposition of life in prison without parole 
for juvenile murderers applies retroactively.

Louisiana has yet to file a brief in opposition to Tucker's petition. If the 
high court were to grant review, the case would not be heard until next term.

(source: nationallawjournal.com)