[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KY., ARK., MO., NEB., UTAH, IDAHO

[Rick Halperin]

March 3



KENTUCKY:

Kentucky budget wasted on unused death penalty


It is time for a change in how Kentucky law uses, or fails to use, the death 
penalty. Circuit Court Judge Pamela Goodwine made it clear during the 
conviction of Carlos Ordway for 2 counts of murder that, while the death 
penalty is constitutional here and sometimes necessary, the cost is detrimental 
to Kentucky's economy.

"I don't think anybody would argue that the Commonwealth is in recession, and 
that there is an added cost to putting someone on death row," Goodwine said in 
trial, according to a report from the Lexington Herald-Leader.

In Kentucky, the death penalty is rarely given and, in even fewer cases, 
actually executed. According to deathpenaltyinfo.org, only 3 people have been 
successfully processed through death row and executed for their crimes in 
Kentucky since the U.S. reinstated capital punishment in 1976. The last 
execution performed in Kentucky was in 2008.

Kentucky rarely kills its criminals, especially compared to states like Texas 
where the death penalty is exercised frequently. But what about the people who 
do not make it to the lethal injection table?

There are currently 34 inmates in Kentucky waiting on death row to be 
sentenced. These inmates may be there for much longer than a normal court case 
would take. It shouldn't matter how long it takes - the inmates shouldn't be 
sentenced to die.

"I doubt there are actual appropriate punishments for the horrid things that 
can be done in this world, but I do not believe that imposing death is the most 
appropriate one," said Leah Kubala, a political science freshman.

There are certain factors that go into why it is such an extensive process, the 
biggest being the appeals process.

Typically, a case may take up to a decade, but there are always exceptions. The 
death sentence is the ultimate price to pay; it shouldn't be taken lightly and 
there is no room for error.

However, time equals money. Kentucky has spent millions since 1976 maintaining 
a system that has only put 3 convicted inmates to death.

"Nationally, what we've seen is that on average, a death penalty case from the 
very beginning to the execution can cost 5 times as much as life in prison 
without the possibility of parole," Shekinah Lavalle, the coordinator for the 
Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty said.

The Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy estimates that Kentucky spends about 
$8 million per year defending, prosecuting and keeping death-row inmates in 
prison. The 34 inmates on death row have been convicted of their crimes, but 
because of the appeals process they are able to take a chance at life without 
parole.

Plain and simple, Kentucky is not using the death penalty enough to uphold a 
good argument to keep it. Supporters may argue that it is sound and 
constitutional, but it only is in an ideal world. If the conviction rate in 
murder cases were 100 % accurate, many criminals would have a viable reason to 
be sentenced. Unfortunately, it isn't, and many people are convicted of crimes 
they didn't commit.

(source: Editorial; The (Univ. Ky.) Kentucky Kernel)






ARKANSAS:

Trial reset for May in death of woman


A Craighead County man will be tried in May for the capital slaying of a 
90-year-old Bay woman last summer, Prosecuting Attorney Scott Ellington said 
Wednesday.

Richard Jordan Tarver, 31, of Bay will be tried in Craighead County Circuit 
Court on May 23 after Craighead County District Judge Tommy Fowler changed 
Tarver's original trial date from March 14.

Tarver is accused of killing Lavinda Counce on July 3.

Police said family members reported Counce missing from her home July 3. 
Authorities found her car a day later in the parking lot of NEA Baptist 
Memorial Hospital in Jonesboro, about 10 miles west of Bay. A hospital video 
surveillance system showed a man parking Counce's car in the lot at 12:56 p.m. 
July 4 and then walking toward U.S. 49, which runs by the hospital.

Searchers found Counce's body July 12 in a rural field west of Bay. Sheriff 
Marty Boyd said she had been shot in the head with a large-caliber weapon.

Tarver was arrested July 17 at his home behind the house were Counce lived. He 
has pleaded innocent in Circuit Court.

Tarver is also charged with kidnapping, aggravated robbery, aggravated 
residential burglary, abuse of a corpse, theft of property and possession of a 
defaced firearm.

Ellington said he will seek the death penalty against Tarver.

Fowler recused himself because he was a deputy prosecutor with Ellington when 
Tarver was arrested.

Circuit Judge Cindy Thyer was appointed as the judge for Tarver's May trial.

(source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)






MISSOURI:

Last legal hanging in Missouri in 1937


When traveling salesman Pearl Bozarth stopped for hitchhiker Roscoe "Red" 
Jackson along the highway south of Springfield on Aug. 1, 1934, he didn't know 
he was picking up a killer.

Born and reared in the Howard's Ridge neighborhood of Ozark County, Jackson 
married a local girl and moved to Oklahoma 10 years earlier, but the couple 
recently had separated. The 32-year-old Jackson had turned to a life of crime 
after the breakup and had killed a man in Oklahoma a few days earlier. Now, he 
was trying to get back to Ozark County.

Bozarth owned a poultry medicine company and traveled the Midwest peddling his 
products. A friendly sort who often picked up hitchhikers, he took Jackson to 
Branson and bought him a meal.

Resuming the trip, the pair stopped for the night at a resort in Forsyth owned 
by an acquaintance of Bozarth. The next morning, Bozarth, with his passenger 
sitting beside him, pulled into a service station for gasoline and flashed a 
wad a cash when he paid for it. He and Jackson headed east out of Forsyth.

On Aug. 4, a farmer discovered a man's body in a clump of bushes beside the 
road about 17 miles northeast of Forsyth near Brownbranch. The man had been 
shot twice in the head and his wallet was missing.

The Forsyth resort owner promptly identified the body. It was surmised that 
Bozarth had been killed Aug. 2 because the farmer reported having heard shots 
that day.

The hitchhiker whom Bozarth had befriended immediately was suspected of the 
heinous crime.

A man who'd seen Bozarth and his passenger in Forsyth said the hitchhiker 
looked like a man he'd worked with in Gainesville years earlier. Following up 
on the clue, authorities identified the suspect as Red Jackson.

They soon trailed him to Oklahoma. He was arrested when he drove Bozarth's car 
into Wekoka and was brought back to Missouri on Aug. 8 to face a murder charge.

Granted a change of venue to Stone County, Jackson was found guilty of 
1st-degree murder at his trial in mid-December 1934 in Galena, but the jury 
deadlocked on the question of life imprisonment versus the death penalty. 
Assessing the punishment, the judge sentenced Jackson to death by hanging and 
set the execution for Feb. 18, 1935.

The defense appealed the case to the Missouri Supreme Court, causing a -year 
delay. The high court finally ruled in March 1937, upholding Jackson's death 
sentence and setting a new execution date of April 16.

2 Stone County officials prepared to carry out the hanging, although many local 
citizens were against the idea. A legal hanging never had taken place in the 
county, and many residents wanted to keep it that way, feeling that the 
execution should take place in the county where the crime was committed.

In early April, the governor granted Jackson a reprieve until May 21 so he 
could study the case further. A new law was in the offing to abolish hanging in 
favor of the gas chamber as a method of capital punishment and to move all 
executions to the state prison in Jefferson City, and many locals hoped it 
would take effect before Jackson's hanging.

In mid-May, however, the governor telegraphed the Stone County sheriff that the 
execution would take place as scheduled May 21.

On May 20, Jackson was brought back to Galena from Jefferson City, where he'd 
been held for safekeeping. That evening, curious people began drifting into 
Galena from surrounding towns in anticipation of the execution the next day. 
The event took on a carnival atmosphere, according to a Springfield newspaper, 
as revelers celebrated the imminent doom of a killer.

Early the next morning, a stockade surrounding the scaffold was opened and 
onlookers with passes surged into the enclosure, "packing it like sardines," 
according to a Galena newspaper. Hundreds of other spectators watched from afar 
as Jackson was led from the courthouse on a runway leading directly to the 
gallows.

The condemned man's last words were "Well, be good, folks." He was dropped into 
eternity shortly after 6 a.m.

The execution of Jackson stands as the last legal hanging in Missouri, as the 
gas chamber was adopted as a mean of execution shortly afterward.

(source: Larry Wood is a freelance writer specializing in the history of 
Missouri and the Ozarks. This column is condensed from a chapter in his book 
"Desperadoes of the Ozarks."----Neosho Daily News)






NEBRASKA:

Anthony Garcia hearing focuses on DNA evidence


Accused Creighton killer Anthony Garcia was in court Wednesday as attorneys 
discussed DNA evidence in the case.

A new judge in the case heard arguments for several motions, including about 
the accuracy of DNA testing.

Garcia's attorneys questioned the reliability of DNA results found at 1 of the 
crime scenes.

The judge also heard arguments regarding the death penalty and the jury 
selection process.

(source: KMTV news)






UTAH:

Utah Senate narrowly votes to abolish death penalty


A year ago, Utah lawmakers were expanding the ways the state could execute 
inmates condemned to death. This week, the state took a major step toward 
possibly abolishing the death penalty entirely.

The Utah state Senate narrowly voted on Wednesday to approve a bill that scraps 
the death penalty, with 15 state senators - the minimum number needed for 
passage - voting to send it to the state's House of Representatives.

A dozen senators voted against this bill, while 2 were absent or did not vote. 
It is still not clear what will happen to the bill when it moves to the state 
House or, if it passes that chamber, makes it to Gov. Gary R. Herbert (R), who 
supports capital punishment and signed a bill last year expanding use of the 
firing squad.

On Wednesday, a spokesman for Herbert reiterated his stance on capital 
punishment while expressing some reservations.

"Governor Herbert continues to be a supporter of the death penalty but has 
concerns over the excessive length of time it often takes from the date of 
conviction to the actual punishment," the spokesman, Jon Cox, said in a 
statement.

The bill in Utah would prohibit death sentences for aggravated murders 
committed on or after May 10, while it would also ban death sentences for 
crimes committed before that date if the death penalty has not been sought yet.

This legislation went to the House on Wednesday and was introduced there the 
same day. In Utah, bills must be read three separate times in each of the 2 
chambers. It would take at least 38 votes in the House to approve the bill and 
send it to Herbert.

If the bill does wind up passing the House and Herbert opts for a veto, it 
would require a 2/3 vote in both chambers to override that. Utah's legislative 
session is scheduled to end next week.

Utah state Sen. Steve Urquhart (R), who sponsored the bill, told The Washington 
Post's Amber Phillips last month that he was "making tremendous headway talking 
with House members" about the repeal.

Urquhart said his arguments talked about how the death penalty is costly and 
described the process as riddled with delays.

"I'm thinking that it's wrong for government to be in business in killing its 
own citizens," he said last month. "That cheapens life."

The issue of how long inmates spend on death row was also cited by Supreme 
Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer in a high-profile dissent discussing the death 
penalty last year.

Breyer, who was joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, questioned whether the 
death penalty was constitutional and said that inmates condemned to death faced 
"unconscionably long delays that undermine the death penalty's penological 
purpose."

Death-row inmates nationwide have spent an average of 14 years under those 
sentences, according to the most recent federal figures. (In some cases, as we 
saw in Texas last year and Georgia last month, inmates were executed at least 
30 years after they were sentenced to death.)

Meanwhile, the number of executions nationwide - along with death sentences - 
has fallen considerably in recent years. Last year, states executed 28 inmates, 
the smallest number in more than 2 decades, according to the Death Penalty 
Information Center.

In Utah, the possibility of a bill banning the death penalty comes a little 
less than a year after state lawmakers, facing a nationwide shortage of lethal 
injection drugs, decided to make firing squads the state's backup option so 
that they could still carry out executions.

As this drug shortage has continued, the country has seen a larger shift away 
from using the death penalty. Fewer inmates are sentenced to death and fewer 
executions are carried out, a big change from just 2 decades ago. A majority of 
the American public supports the death penalty, but that number is 
significantly down from what it was 2 decades earlier amid an era of heightened 
anxiety over crime.

The last decade has also seen movement in some states to get away from capital 
punishment entirely. A third of the states with formal bans against the death 
penalty have gotten rid of the practice since 2007.

Last year, in Nebraska - which, like Utah, is reliably conservative - lawmakers 
voted to ditch the death penalty and join that list, passing a bill that 
replaced it with life imprisonment.

Those same lawmakers then overrode a veto from the governor, briefly making 
Nebraska the 19th state in the country to abolish capital punishment. That law 
was quickly put on hold after opponents submitted enough signatures to stop the 
repeal until voters weigh in this November.

Death-penalty opponents in Nebraska pointed out that the state had not executed 
an inmate since 1997, with State Sen. Colby Coash, the Republican co-sponsor of 
the bill there, saying he felt capital punishment was "inefficient" and 
"costly."

In Utah, executions have also been a rare occurrence. Since 2000, the state has 
executed one inmate: Ronnie Lee Gardner, who was put to death by firing squad 
in 2010.

Utah technically never got rid of the firing squad, though in 2004 the state 
largely discarded the practice. The law that year let inmates sentenced 
previously choose between lethal injection or a firing squad. Last year, Utah 
made firing squads the backup method of execution.

(source: Washington Post)






IDAHO:

Northwest killer denied death sentence appeal


The U.S. Supreme Court has denied hearing an appeal of a man who was sentenced 
to death for kidnapping, torturing and killing a young northern Idaho boy after 
killing several of members of his family.

U.S. Attorney Wendy Olson announced Wednesday that the high court had made 
their decision earlier this week.

Joseph Edward Duncan III faces the death penalty for the 2005 murder of 
9-year-old Dylan Groene. He also faces several life sentences for the murder of 
3 family members and the kidnapping of his then-8-year-old sister.

At the time, Duncan represented himself at his sentencing hearing but later 
waived his right to appeal. He has since changed his mind and his defense 
attorneys say he wasn't mentally competent to waive his rights.

The high court's decision affirms U.S. District Court Judge Edward Lodge's 2013 
finding that Duncan was competent to waive his appeal.

No execution date has been set, and Duncan's attorneys may still seek other 
post-conviction relief.

(source: Associated Press)