[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----W.VA., ALA., OHIO, CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

June 1



WEST VIRGINIA:

Delegate calls for return of death penalty following Hatfield death


A member of the House of Delegates promised Tuesday to introduce a bill in next 
year's legislative session to bring back the death penalty in West Virginia.

Del. Rupie Phillips (D-Logan) told fellow House members the reason is last 
week's murder of former coal executive Ben Hatfield.

"He was a friend of man and a supporter of mine. He was the (victim) of a 
cowardly act of some druggies. He was a fine guy," Phillips said of Hatfield.

Capital punishment needs to return because of such acts, Phillips said.

"West Virginia should not stand for something like this."

While Phillips was giving his brief floor speech, 1 of the 3 men charged in 
connection with Hatfield's death was in Wayne County Magistrate Court for a 
preliminary hearing.

Ricky Peterson is named in a number of charges including being an accessory 
after the murder. He allegedly helped alleged shooter Anthony Arriaga after 
Hatfield was shot and killed in a Mingo County cemetery during an alleged 
robbery attempt.

A magistrate found enough evidence Tuesday to forward charges against Peterson 
to the Wayne County grand jury. Peterson is also charged with 
obstructing/resisting an officer and giving false information to a trooper.

(source: West Virginia Metro News)






ALABAMA:

U.S. Supreme Court grants review in another Alabama death row inmate's case


The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday granted an Alabama inmate's challenge of his 
death sentence, less than a month after granting a similar request to another 
death row inmate in the state.

The court vacated the judgment against Corey Allen Wimbley, who in 2008 was 
convicted in the slaying of a store owner during a robbery attempt in 
Washington County.

Wimbley was charged with capital murder in the death of 55-year-old Connie Ray 
Wheat at a grocery store in Wagarville. In 2014, the Alabama Court of Criminal 
Appeals upheld his conviction and death sentence in the case.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Wimbley's certiorari petition, 
sending the case back before the state appeals court. It comes less than a 
month after the court granted similar review in the case of Bart Johnson, also 
a death row inmate in Alabama.

The decisions in both cases were spurred by the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in 
January that Florida's sentencing scheme allowing judges to override juries in 
death penalty cases is unconstitutional. Alabama has a similar sentencing 
scheme.

The court originally denied review of Johnson's case, but after its ruling in 
the Hurst v Florida case, his attorneys with the Equal Justice Initiative asked 
again for a hearing. The U.S. Supreme Court granted that request May 2.

Johnson's case was the 1st Alabama case challenging Alabama's capital murder 
sentencing scheme, since the Florida case was decided, to be reviewed by the 
U.S. Supreme Court. At the time, a law professor told AL.com that the ruling 
was limited in scope because it merely sent the case back to the appeals court, 
not the original trial court.

But at the time Johnson's attorney said it could have broad-reaching effects.

"This ruling implicates all (capital) cases in Alabama," Bryan Stevenson, 
founder and executive director of EJI, told AL.com. "We have argued that 
Alabama's statute no longer conforms to current constitutional requirements. 
The Court's ruling [May 2] supports that view."

District attorneys and Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange have said that 
Alabama's law is not the same as Florida's. They note that the U.S. Supreme 
Court ruled the state's sentencing scheme constitutional in 1995.

(source: al.com)






OHIO:

Tyrone Noling appeal: Ohio Supreme Court asked for access to DNA evidence in 
death-row case


Throughout his 20 years on Ohio's death row, Tyone Noling has maintained his 
innocence. Someone else, he says, killed an elderly couple in Atwater Township.

Despite his conviction for the 1990 murders of Bearnhardt and Cora Hartig in 
Portage County, no physical evidence has ever linked him to crime.

Noling wants DNA testing of shell casings from the scene that would have come 
from the perpetrator's gun, as well as ring boxes found opened in a ransacked 
bedroom drawer. The technology wasn't available to do such testing at the time 
of his 1996 trial and on Tuesday, Noling's attorney asked the Ohio Supreme 
Court to help him win access to the powerful forensic tool.

Ohio law currently allows people who aren't facing the death penalty the right 
to an automatic, mandatory appeal when their requests for DNA tests are denied, 
but capital defendants like Noling don't have same right. They must ask the 
seven justices on the Ohio Supreme Court to review their cases, something the 
high court can refuse to do.

That distinction isn't fair and doesn't make sense, said Carrie Wood, an 
attorney from the Ohio Public Defender's Office who is representing Noling. The 
discretionary aspect of the law, argued Wood, violates Noling's constitutional 
right to due process and equal protection.

Under the DNA testing statute, "an applicant who is sentenced to probation 
receives more protection to ensure appropriate access to post-conviction DNA 
testing than someone who is sentenced to death."

The law was put on the books to "potentially identify wrongfully convicted 
people in the state of Ohio," she said.

That's an important function of post-conviction DNA testing, especially for 
those sentenced to death, she added.

Any law or language in the law that makes it harder for people like Noling to 
have those crucial tests run should be changed, Wood said.

Portage County Prosecutor Victor V. Vigluicci, arguing for the state, said the 
Ohio legislature has every right to restrict the appeals of inmates.

"The legislature, your honors, in crafting this statute, looked long and hard 
at constitutionality. It's not something that they skipped over or glossed 
over. When this was passed in 2003, the legislature contemplated allowing no 
appeals" of a trial court's decision to restrict access to DNA testing, "which 
was in their power to do."

Extending constitutional protections to "convicted felons" is "asking this 
court to take a tremendous leap and go where no court has gone before."

The law is there to protect against "endless, endless requests for DNA - this 
case is the poster child for that. This is the third request for DNA from this 
defendant. And here I am again, in the Supreme Court, 27 years after the 
murder."

The hearing lasted a little under an hour. A decision in the case is likely by 
the end of the year.

Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor questioned if Noling is asking for anything more 
than other convicted felons. He's not looking for special rights. He just wants 
those same rights to be extended to those sentenced to die.

True, said Vigluicci, but the Supreme Court can hear DNA appeals from death row 
inmates if they want to.

And regardless, the Ohio constitution says that people are entitled to a fair 
trial and one direct appeal and that's it, Vigluicci responded. There's no 
right to those same protections after they've been convicted. Once a jury has 
spoken, they're outside "the constitutional umbrella."

"We're hopeful that it doesn't take Tyrone 40 years to find justice and that we 
can get access to crucial forensic evidence in this case." -- Noling attorney 
Carrie Wood

"But what about the reality that this DNA testing has exonerated people on 
death row," O'Connor pressed. What about the trend in legal circles to afford 
capital defendants an extra layer of protection "because death is different and 
because you don't want to leave any stone unturned," she said.

"Philosophically, how would you look at that?"

Vigluicci sidestepped that question. The case law is clear, he said. Noling and 
other capital defendants are not entitled to more due process than 
garden-variety defendants convicted of lesser crimes.

U.S. Supreme Court's view

But the U.S. Supreme Court sees it another way, said Wood. While it's true that 
the Federal Constitution guarantees no right to appellate review once a state 
affords that right to one group of people, the state may not "bolt the door of 
equal justice."

That means that because Ohio allows those garden variety defendants to have the 
automatic right to appeal a decision by a trial court barring them from access 
to DNA testing, it can't turn around and arbitrarily deny that same right to 
defendants facing a lethal injection. To do so is a violation of the Equal 
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States 
Constitution, Wood argued.

Condition of evidence questioned

Justice Paul Pfeifer asked Vigluicci another question about the condition of 
the evidence at issue: Isn't there a dispute as to whether or not the shell 
casings found at the Hartig house have been hopelessly contaminated by years of 
handling by law enforcement? Are we here "having an argument about something 
that leads nowhere?" he asked.

"Correct your honor, we're here because it's gonna cause another year or two 
delay in executing Mr. Noling," Vigluicci responded, adding that the remaining 
evidence is "untestable."

But as Noling's lawyer, Wood pointed out, no testing has ever been done on the 
shell casings and the ring boxes - and that is necessary to determine what, if 
any, DNA is left behind.

Although no testing of the shell casings and ring boxes has been done, the 
trial court did agree to test a cigarette butt found on the Hartig's driveway, 
a potentially rich source of DNA that might well have been dropped by the 
killer, as neither Cora nor Bearnhardt Hartig smoked.

Those tests revealed Noling hadn't smoked the cigarette so that evidence 
couldn't be used to place him at the Hartig's house. But his lawyers want the 
full results of that test, not just the part that excluded Noling, so they can 
compare the DNA found on the cigarette to whatever comes up in future DNA tests 
on the shell casings and ring boxes.

As to issues of contaminated samples, even if there is someone else's DNA on 
the shell casings or other evidence tested, "if the same DNA profile is on 
cigarette butt and on those shell casings," said Wood . . . "the only person 
that would have touched that cigarette butt and touched those shell casings is 
the person who killed the Hartigs." That's why Noling keeps coming to the court 
and asking for the right to run those DNA tests.

"That would be compelling evidence of Mr. Noling's innocence," she said.

Looking for justice

Outside the courtroom, Vigulicci expressed frustration at having to appear in 
court, again and again, to defend the state's conviction of Noling.

"3 times for DNA," he said, "for a 27-year-old murder. We're just anxious to 
see justice done, so are the Hartig's family."

"We're also anxious for justice to be done," attorney Wood responded. "There 
are many cases, including capital cases in Ohio, specifically (Cleveland's) 
Ricky Jackson where it took 40 years for Mr. Jackson to find justice. (Jackson 
was convicted of a 1975 murder he didn't commit.)

"We're hopeful that it doesn't take Tyrone 40 years to find justice and that we 
can get access to crucial forensic evidence in this case."

(source: cleveland.com)






CALIFORNIA:

Prosecutor: Show no mercy, sentence Oakland man to death in killings of 
8-year-old girl, man


The prosecutor in the case of convicted killer Darnell Williams told the jury 
Tuesday that the Oakland man who took the life of an innocent 8-year-old girl 
deserves no mercy as the jury considers a death penalty sentence.

"We're here because Alaysha is not here," prosecutor John Brouhard said Tuesday 
during closing arguments in the penalty phase of the trial.

"That adorable little girl who liked to play dress up ... that man took a gun 
and shot that girl in the neck and chest and left her to die a horrible death."

Williams was convicted of killing Alaysha Carradine, 8, last month on July 17, 
2013 in Oakland. He shot through the apartment door at Alaysha and 2 other 
children and a grandmother. Williams is said to have wanted revenge for the 
shooting death of his friend, Jermaine Davis. He went to the apartment to hurt 
his friend's alleged killer's ex-girlfriend and children. Alaysha was there for 
a sleepover.

Brouhard showed photos of Alaysha wearing a Justin Bieber T-shirt and playing 
the Uno card game with her grandmother.

"She didn't get to stay a kid because the defendant took that away from her," 
Brouhard said.

Williams was also convicted of the murder of Anthony Medearis, 22, whom he shot 
in the back as Medearis ran and pleaded for his life in Berkeley following a 
dice game Sept. 8, 2013. Medearis was shot 15 times.

Brouhard called the deaths of Alaysha and Medearis "sinister and horrific."

"Without hesitation, the death penalty is the only just verdict in this case," 
Brouhard said.

Williams was also labeled a "psychopath," a term that psychiatrist Gretchen 
White agreed with last week when she testified about Williams' upbringing. A 
psychopath is someone who shows no remorse, acts impulsively and doesn't take 
consequences into consideration, the prosecutor argued.

Brouhard also said that Williams had a choice in each crime he committed -- 
there were multiple chances he could have changed his mind and stopped.

"Show the defendant as much mercy as he did to the victims in this case. Which 
is, none," Brouhard said.

But defense attorney Deborah Levy asked the jury for sympathy, and to give 
Williams life in prison without the possibility of parole. Darryl Billups, 
Williams's other attorney, told the jury the question came down to "whether or 
not you want to kill Darnell Williams."

Levy argued that sentencing Williams to death was the same "street justice" 
that Williams felt he needed to exhibit when he went to avenge his friend's 
death.

"His life is in your hands, literally. You are allowed to show mercy to Mr. 
Williams," Levy said.

She argued that Williams never had a chance growing up, given that both of his 
parents were in and out of jail or prison. Giving him the death penalty "won't 
bring Alaysha back. It will be another life gone," Levy said.

She said with life in prison without parole, there's a chance Williams could 
even earn his high school degree and help others.

The jury is expected to begin deliberations Wednesday.

(source: eastbaytimes.com)

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

Toronto heir accused of grisly Los Angeles murder could face death penalty


A Canadian accused of torturing, disfiguring and ultimately killing his 
girlfriend in their West Hollywood apartment last week could be put to death by 
the state of California if convicted because of the gruesome nature of his 
alleged crime.

Blake Leibel, a graphic novelist, screenwriter and son of a prominent Toronto 
developer, pleaded not guilty to charges of premeditated murder, mayhem, 
aggravated mayhem and torture Tuesday. The alleged victim: Iana Kasian, his 
live-in girlfriend and mother of his newborn child.

Prosecutors say Leibel tortured and mutilated Kasian before killing her, then 
draining the blood from her body. (The mayhem charges refer to the mutilation.)

Because of the vicious circumstances of the case, Leibel is eligible for the 
death penalty, according to a press release from the Los Angeles Police 
Department.

"A decision on whether to seek the death penalty will be made at a later date," 
the release said. California last executed a prisoner in 2006.

The accused wore a sleeveless padded suicide jacket during his brief court 
appearance in Los Angeles. He had chains wrapped around his waist, his hands 
were cuffed in front of him.

His lawyers met with him for about 10 minutes before his plea. Lawyer Alaleh 
Kamran questioned Leibel's mental competence, prompting Los Angeles Superior 
Court Judge Keith Schwartz to a psychological evaluation.

Police found Leibel barricaded inside his apartment last Thursday after 
Kasian's mother reported her missing. The Kyiv, Ukraine-born woman moved to the 
United States 2 years ago and gave birth to a baby girl on May 3, her 1st 
child, friends said.

In a picture posted recently on Facebook, a tired-looking Kasian holds a tiny 
infant in pink pants and a green shirt to her chest. She's smiling down at the 
camera, her lips parted slightly, hair tucked messily behind her ears.

Kasian was reportedly born in in 1986. Her father was a sailor, said Nataliiya 
Khilshevskaya, a former classmate.

"She was a very happy person (with a) strong and fighting character," 
Khilshevskaya wrote in a message on Facebook.

Kasian lived in Kyiv until her late 20s, said Denis Aronchik, a family friend. 
She studied law in college and worked in tax inspection, said another friend, 
Anna Seleznova.

She was a very happy person (with a) strong and fighting character.

Aronchik said she moved to the United States 2 years ago on a student visa and 
met Leibel soon afterward.

Leibel was arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department May 20 and charged 
with sexual assault. He was released the same day on US$100,000 bail.

Kasian was not the alleged victim, Aronchik said, but when she found out about 
the charge, she moved out of their apartment and in with her mother, who was 
visiting the United States to help with the baby.

Aronchik said Kasian went back to the apartment last Tuesday to speak with 
Leibel. When she didn't return by the next day, her mother went to police. On 
Thursday, officers entered the apartment and found Kasian's bludgeoned body 
inside.

Leibel, his curly hair unkempt, stubble on his cheeks, did not speak in court 
Tuesday. As he was led into the prisoner's box, he seemed to scan the 
courtroom, as if looking for someone.

He stood against the glass for most of the appearance, staring out toward his 
lawyers. At one point, he ran his finger along a windowsill.

Members of Leibel's family, including his brother Cody, were in the courtroom 
earlier. But they had stepped out by the time Leibel arrived, under special 
escort, from jail.

Kamran declined to comment on the case afterward. She also would not say 
whether the Leibel family intended to seek custody of the couple's child.

"We would really like to have this case tried in the courtroom, not in the ... 
media," she said.

Kasian's mother is caring for the baby, said Aronchik. The family is raising 
money online to have Kasian's body brought back to Ukraine and to fund what 
they expect will be an expensive custody battle.

"(The baby) is a citizen of America but we want her to live with her 
grandmother and Yana's sister in Ukraine," Kasian's friend, Kristina Horkova, 
wrote in a message on Facebook.

Through Leibel, the baby is an heiress of 2 prominent and wealthy Toronto 
families. Leibel's father, Lorne, made a fortune in the Greater Toronto Area's 
suburban home building boom of the 1980s and 1990s as the president of Canada 
Homes, once described as the nation's largest home builder.

His mother, Eleanor Leibel, was the daughter of Paul and Leona Chitel. The 
Chitel family founded Alros Products Ltd., a plastics company based in Toronto 
that does business as Polytarp.

"For me it's a big loss," Zhenia Kasian wrote to the National Post in a message 
Tuesday. "I do not know how to live without my beloved sister."

(source: nationalpost.com)






USA:

Clinton Camp Dodges On Whether to Seek Death Penalty for Charleston Murderer


The Bernie Sanders campaign did not hesitate to respond when the Department of 
Justice announced last week that it was going to pursue the death penalty for 
Charleston murderer Dylann Roof. In an email to The Huffington Post, who asked 
both Democratic candidates to weigh in, Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs wrote, 
"Sanders opposes the death penalty."

The editors have yet to receive a straightforward answer from Hillary Clinton.

The Huffington Post first posed the question to Clinton's campaign on May 25, 1 
day after the Justice Department made its announcement. We followed up twice 
that day, and once the day after. We tried again this Sunday and Monday.

The campaign only responded to one of those emails, and did so off the record - 
but needless to say, it didn't answer the question.

Last year, Roof, a young man suspected of being sympathetic to white 
supremacist groups, walked into a Charleston church and murdered 9 people who 
were ready to pray for him. It was a horrific tragedy that eventually convinced 
Gov. Nikki Haley to lead the effort to take down the state's confederate flag.

HuffPo, like many voters no doubt, believes that this tragedy demands some kind 
of response from the presidential candidates. Yet, once again, Clinton is 
giving us another example of her lack of transparency.

Interestingly, Clinton's husband introduced a piece of legislation during his 
presidency that could very well determine how the court decides Roof's 
sentencing - something that ThinkProgress reminded readers about last week.

That changed in 1994, when President Bill Clinton's Federal Death Penalty Act 
greatly expanded the list of offenses for which federal defendants can face the 
death penalty. There are currently 54 people on federal death row, sentenced 
after Clinton's expansive crime bill. Roof would bring that number up to 55 if 
convicted.

This context makes Hillary's silence even more awkward and unacceptable.

As a rule, anyone running for president should know how to give a simple "yes" 
or "no" answer.

(source: townhall.com)

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

What juries should know before deciding on death sentence


How much should a jury know before it sentences a prisoner to death? The 
Supreme Court clarified its rules on that question on Tuesday, striking down 
the sentencing of an Arizona defendant because his jury wasn't clearly told 
that he could be imprisoned for life without the possibility of parole as an 
alternative to a capital sentence. 2 justices dissented - and you can probably 
guess which ones those were.

The court's basic rule goes back to the 1994 case of Simmons v. South Carolina. 
In that case, the court held that if the prosecution argues that a person 
should be executed because he'd be dangerous in the future, then the jury 
should be told that he could also be sentenced to life behind bars without 
becoming eligible for parole.

In Tuesday's case, an Arizona judge found a clever way around that rule. The 
prosecution was trying to convince the jury to execute Shawn Patrick Lynch for 
a 2001 murder, arguing that Lynch would be a public menace otherwise. Lynch's 
lawyers wanted the jury to be told that it could sentence him to spend the rest 
of his life in prison without coming up for parole.

Instead, the judge told the jury that if it didn't impose a death sentence, 
Lynch would get "either life without the possibility of release until at least 
25 calendar years in prison are served, or 'natural life,' which means the 
defendant would never be released from prison."

The reason the judge used this language was that, under Arizona law, the 
governor can exercise clemency to free a murder convict after 25 years in 
prison unless the defendant had been explicitly sentenced to prison for his 
"natural life." Thus, reasoned the trial judge, he could tell the jury that 
Lynch might get out in 25 years even without the possibility of parole.

Arizona's Supreme Court agreed, ruling that the trial judge didn't have to 
explain that Lynch would not have been eligible for parole.

The Supreme Court rejected that position in an unsigned opinion. It held that 
the jury should have been told that Lynch would never be eligible for parole. 
(The court didn't say whether it would be all right for the jurors also to be 
told that executive clemency was a possibility.)

Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, joined by Justice Samuel Alito. Notably, 
Chief Justice John Roberts didn't join them, as he hasn't joined most of their 
joint dissents this spring. It's as if Roberts has drawn a line between himself 
and the court's hard-core conservatives.

Thomas first said that the Arizona jury instruction was fine, because it was 
true. He deplored the court's "micro-managing" of state death penalty 
instructions. But Thomas's bigger point was that the Simmons precedent is 
wrong. To Thomas, juries choose the death penalty out of moral revulsion, not 
concern about whether somebody might endanger the public.

"In Simmons," he wrote, "the defendant beat and raped 3 elderly women - one of 
them his own grandmother - before brutally killing a 4th." Quoting Justice 
Antonin Scalia's dissent, which he himself also signed, Thomas wrote that "The 
notion that a jury's decision to impose a death sentence would have been 
altered by information on the current state of the law concerning parole (which 
could of course be amended) is ... far-fetched to say the least."

What Thomas fails to recognize is, of course, that it's the prosecution that 
warns that a criminal would be dangerous if not executed. Once that idea is in 
the mix, the jury should hear that there's another way to deal with the danger: 
a life sentence without the possibility of parole. If Thomas is so certain that 
a jury will impose death anyway, he should have no objection to that jury 
instruction.

Alito has now replaced Scalia as the court's other death penalty conservative. 
The fact that Thomas is sticking by his guns more than 20 years after Simmons 
is a sign that he won't budge -- even if the world moves on.

(source: Column; Noah Feldman, a Bloomberg View columnist, is a professor of 
constitutional and international law at Harvard----Chicago Tribune)