[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CONN., PENN., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

July 25



CONNECTICUT:

Home invasion killer to be resentenced to life in prison


1 of 2 men sent to Connecticut's death row for the slayings of a mother and her 
2 daughters during a 2007 home invasion is set to be resentenced to life in 
prison without the possibility of release because the state abolished the death 
penalty.

Joshua Komisarjevsky is scheduled to be resentenced Tuesday in New Haven 
Superior Court.

He would be the 3rd of the 11 death row inmates to be resentenced to life since 
the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled last year that their death sentences 
violated the state constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual 
punishment.

Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes were convicted of murder in the killings of 
Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, 17-year-old Hayley and 11-year-old 
Michaela, in Cheshire.

Hayes was resentenced to life in prison last month.

(source: Associated Press






PENNSYLVANIA:

Why I don't support the death penalty ----- Too many errors in death penalty 
cases


The death penalty is a hot topic these days. The Democratic Party recently 
added the abolition of the death penalty to its platform, and with the DNC in 
Philadelphia, more talk is surely to come.

When I bring up this issue in conversation, I am often startled by the number 
of people who can't understand why I don't support the death penalty. If a man 
kills another man, doesn???t he deserve to die? My response to such inquiries 
is simple: I have met one of these men who "deserved" to die. The only problem 
is that he was completely innocent.

Shaking the hand of Harold Wilson, Pennsylvania's most recent death row 
exoneree, put the entire death penalty system into perspective for me. Wilson 
spent 17 years on death row for a crime he didn???t commit. His story is 
evidence that the death penalty system is broken.

When the death penalty was created, it was supposed to be reserved for the 
"worst of the worst," those responsible for atrocities so terrible that death 
was the only thing they could possibly deserve. Yet Wilson, a man who committed 
no crime at all, was sentenced to die by the hands of the government. How did 
we allow this to happen? How can we allow this broken system to continue? It is 
impossible to understand the magnitude of a death sentence until you have 
embraced a death row exoneree: A man who so easily could have been lying 
lifeless in a prison cell, a man who so easily could have lost all faith in 
life itself, a man who so easily could have never witnessed true justice.

Shake Harold Wilson's hand, and you will no longer have to ask me why I don't 
support the death penalty.

Emilie Henry

York Township

(source: Letter to the Editor, York Daily Record)






CALIFORNIA:

Murder trial in death of retired kindergarten teacher to finally open


Barely an hour after Susie Ko was murdered in her Hercules home of 32 years, 
Mayor Dan Romero arrived, ducked under the yellow "Police Line" tape and 
surveyed the scene.

"I was there before the police chief showed up," Romero recalled Thursday. 
"That's how well I know the family."

It seems everyone in Hercules knew Susie Ko, 55, a retired kindergarten 
teacher. On Friday, Oct. 5, 2012, her husband, Kelvin Ko, who worked in Idaho 
during the week, returned home for the weekend. He became alarmed when his wife 
failed to meet him at the airport.

First responders found Susie Ko stabbed and beaten to death. It was a savage 
act of violence, practically unheard of in Hercules (population 24,586 at the 
time), a small town tucked against San Pablo Bay that had seen only four 
homicides the previous 8 years.

Monday morning, after nearly 4 years -- interminable in one sense, yet not 
nearly enough time to heal a community that packed Rodeo's St. Patrick's Church 
for Susie Ko's funeral -- opening statements are expected to be heard in a 
Martinez courtroom in the murder trial of Darnell Washington, charged with Ko's 
murder.

Romero plans to be in the audience, just as he's been at many of Washington's 
court appearances over the past 4 years.

"It's hard to believe," Romero said. "Four years ago I was the mayor, then I 
was a councilman, and here it is, and I'm the mayor again. I hope to be mayor 
when the verdict comes in."

Not that a verdict can restore the sense of safety and tranquility that was 
lost almost 4 years ago in Hercules.

"One of the (responding) police officer's parents lived across the street," 
Romero said. "A crime like this hurts the whole community. You start wondering, 
how do we protect ourselves?"

It's difficult to protect oneself from the maddeningly random act that befell 
Ko. The sequence of events that led to her death began on Oct. 2, 2012, when 
Darnell Washington, with help from his wife, Tania, broke out of a San 
Bernardino County jail. A wild series of shootings and carjackings ensued 
before the pair fled Southern California.

They headed north and somehow wound up at the Kos' house on Ash Court. They 
were arrested in Susie Ko's car near Seattle 5 days after she was killed.

"I'm going to jail forever," Tania Washington told police. "You should have 
shot me."

She overestimated. In May, Tania Washington pleaded guilty to voluntary 
manslaughter and other charges. She was sentenced to 23 years in prison.

Darnell Washington is charged with 1st-degree murder with special 
circumstances, which could make him eligible for the death penalty. Because of 
the nature of the case, hundreds of potential jurors were called to seat a 
12-person jury with 6 alternates.

Now comes the trial that could result in justice for the family but can never 
reclaim what's been lost.

"I feel almost stunned that it's starting finally, after seemingly endless 
delays," Sandy Ko, the eldest of Susie Ko's four children, wrote in an email. 
"A wedding and 2 additional grandchildren have been born since."

"Susie Ko was a kindergarten teacher," Romero said. "She influenced 600 or 700 
kids and families. Kindergarten teachers and 1st-grade teachers are special 
people, bringing our children up. There are still teachers there who remember. 
I don't think a day goes by that people don't remember her."

(source: East Bay Times)






USA:

It's time to end or reform the death penalty


America's death penalty systems, regardless of which state, are much more than 
that ... they are, in fact, varying degrees of torture - lethal injection, 
hanging, electrocution - all painful and drawn out methods of demise. We have 
many low cost drugs that simply induce a painless everlasting sleep. For that 
matter, simple carbon monoxide poisoning is painless and, by now, we all know 
there is an abundance of that stuff!

Statistically, the ongoing appeals processes that follow most death sentences 
are more expensive than incarceration for life. Perhaps if we had a remotely 
humane execution process, fewer convicted would appeal?

Plus, murder is murder - state sponsored or otherwise. It multiplies within our 
culture. You beat your children and they go on to beat their peers and spouses, 
and probably their own children as well - generation after generation.

Also, we should consider the discrimination part of the process. When was the 
last time you saw a wealthy person executed?

There are many reasons why America has the highest crime and incarceration rate 
in the world. We are a violent nation; we don't do rehabilitation; we reap 
violence upon the symptoms while ignoring the root causes that inevitably 
multiply them. We take competitive sports that throughout history have evolved 
around courtesy, honor, respect and compassion for one's opponent, and we 
inject so much violence that the original version is unrecognizable.

We load our children up with toy weapons and video war games that are scored by 
number of deaths. And the corporate for-profit mainstream media avoids 
furnishing worldwide statistics about rehabilitation and/or preventative 
progress being made in many nations - not including the U.S.A.

So let's do away with the death penalty, or at least come up with a humane and 
nondiscriminatory version for a good change. It's a start.

John F. Middlemiss Sr., Trout Creek

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