[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., FLA., LA., KY., ARK., MO., OKLA.

[Rick Halperin]

March 13



GEORGIA----new execution date//impending execution

Georgia Inmate Scheduled to Die


A date is set for a Georgia man on death row.

Joshua Daniel Bishop was sentenced to death back in 1996 after he beat another 
man to death.

Prosecutors say Bishop stole the victim's car, when he and another man decided 
to beat the 3rd person to death and leave his body near dumpsters.

Bishop is scheduled for lethal injection on March 31st.

(source: WJBF news)






FLORIDA:

Time to abolish the death penalty


The recent headlines concerning the death penalty compel me to write a bit of 
my story and to present the other side and what the death penalty can mean to a 
victim's family.

It's been almost 35 years since my mother, at the age of 75, was victim of a 
violent home invasion in her small South Carolina town. She was brutally 
murdered. 3 months later a suspect was brought to trial, found guilty and 
sentenced to the death penalty. At that time in South Carolina, life with no 
chance of parole was not a sentencing option.

Initially I mistakenly thought that this would be the end and derived small 
comfort in feeling that he would never again be able to commit such a crime 
against someone else. However, due to technicalities in our flawed justice 
system, I found myself having to relive the horror in court through 2 more 
trials over the next few years. Each time a different jury found him guilty and 
sentenced him again to the death penalty, thus starting the process all over 
again. It seemed that every time I was able to move slightly forward in my 
grieving or healing process, I would receive another call from the attorney 
general's office informing me of the next step in the appeals process. Even 
though I had once been a legal secretary and tried to research and understand 
the procedures, it was all overwhelming to me.

And in spite of doing everything humanly possible to protect myself and shield 
myself from the media, the sensational nature of this case got picked up by 
national newspapers and television shows. As the case dragged on and the 
defendant became one of the longest death-row inmates, media interest became 
intense. Over the years, my mother's case has been the subject of national 
newspaper stories, a television true-crime show, a major network documentary, 
and a book which painfully twisted the facts to the point of almost blaming my 
mother for her own death.

The defendant has since been exonerated and released - so all of this has 
served no purpose and I will never know the truth of what happened in my 
mother's case. But I do know that the past 30-plus years would have been so 
different and I would have been allowed to grieve and move forward privately 
had this not been a death penalty case.

In my desperation to seek solace somewhere, I found a group in North Carolina 
called Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation where families of victims 
have come together to speak out against the death penalty. They define 
reconciliation as "accepting that you cannot undo the murder but you can decide 
how you want to live afterwards." There is a terribly disempowering effect of 
victimization. There must be a way to reconcile the demands of justice and 
fairness that still allows families to reclaim power, honor their loved one, 
and be allowed to put their lives back together without feeling prey to the 
media and our system of justice. We can begin by abolishing the death penalty.

(source: Viewpoint: Carolyn Lee lives in Pensacola; Pensacola News Journal)






LOUISIANA:

America's death penalty capital: can a black DA really change the system? ---- 
After years of what many say was a culture of unjust death penalty prosecutions 
fueled by racial bias in Louisiana's Caddo Parish, James Stewart's election 
offers cautious hope but some are not so quick to call him a savior


Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish, is tucked in Louisiana's northwest 
corner, bordering small towns in Texas and Arkansas. It has bayous, weeping 
willows, shotgun houses, and blues music, but lacks joie de vivre. It is the 
sober man's New Orleans.

The area distinguishes itself with a grim fact: between 2010 and 2014, it 
sentenced more people to death than any other place in the country. It is also 
the home of Dale Cox, Caddo Parish???s former acting district attorney, a man 
responsible for 1/3 of Louisiana's death row inmates since 2011.

Cox's reputation came to a head last year, when Rodricus Crawford was sentenced 
to death for smothering his 1-year-old son amid a flurry of doubts and 
unanswered questions about the case. Cox had been instrumental in getting the 
death penalty verdict, and features by 60 Minutes and the New Yorker had 
depicted him as a callous man dismissive of racism, working in an office where 
a colleague had a Ku Klux Klan leader's portrait hanging on a wall.

This might shock outsiders far more than Caddo Parish residents. According to 
researchers who used Google searches data of the N-word to measure racism, it 
is among the most racist places in the country.

And yet, last November, an African American judge named James Stewart was 
elected to succeed Cox, largely thanks to the town's large black voting block.

Although black DAs are rare, they aren't so unusual as to warrant the kind of 
national attention Stewart's campaign received. The lingering question in 
everyone's mind: can a black DA change a criminal justice system tarnished by 
accusations of racism? Would his election be more than just a symbolic victory?

I met Stewart in an office at Zion Baptist Church, where he is a longtime 
member. He is an archetypal Southern black man: deep voice, dark skin, big 
body. He is confident and intelligent but also matter-of-fact and approachable 
- a winning political combination.

Raised in Shreveport, his father was a postman, which made him well-to-do. A 
child of desegregation, he was among the 1st wave of black students to 
integrate the city's main high school. He bypassed attending 1 of the state's 
black colleges - rare at the time - in favor of the relatively new University 
of New Orleans, and worked as a parish prosecutor, then judge.

Last summer, around the time national media began scrutinizing Caddo Parish's 
capital cases, billboards appeared around the city beseeching Stewart to run. A 
short while later, a group of about 40 attorneys - the most prominent of whom 
were white - held a press conference to publicly cajole him into running. 
Referring to it as his "calling" moment, he finally decided to answer yes.

District attorneys arguably have the most powerful role in the criminal justice 
system; they get more than 90% of the accused to take plea bargains before they 
ever see a judge. While people of color comprise a majority of those in the 
criminal justice system, their fates are controlled by prosecutors who are 95% 
white, and race is no predictor of how black prosecutors will approach cases. 
Scant research has been done to consider how this affects sentencing outcomes; 
however, the only variance found in a study of the New York County District 
Attorney???s office was that black and Asian prosecutors made more punitive 
demands in plea deals involving misdemeanor marijuana charges.

Even when the DA is black, it is difficult to know how they will approach 
issues such as the death penalty. There was hope that Stewart would establish a 
division similar to Dallas' Conviction Integrity Unit, which was established by 
its former black district attorney to investigate old cases and exonerate the 
innocent.

Stewart has already sent clear messages that this was not to happen. He has 
already decided to seek the death penalty against Grover Cannon, a black man 
accused of killing a police officer. In doing so, he takes an even harder line 
on the issue than black California attorney general Kamala Harris, who has said 
she personally opposes the death penalty yet is appealing a federal judge's 
ruling that California's death penalty is unconstitutional.

He has also remained quiet on the Rodricus Crawford case, even though he has 
the power to drop charges or dismiss an indictment, even if the person has 
already been convicted - which is what Crawford, who was sentenced to death, is 
hoping for.

Cecelia Trenticosta Kappel, senior attorney with the Justice Center, says the 
hope was that Stewart would "see that the state's theory that Rodricus Crawford 
decided to murder his son out of nowhere is implausible, unsupported by 
evidence, and based on abject stereotypes".

According to Crawford's attorneys and evidence submitted with his petition, she 
says that "the state's case for capital murder essentially rested on 2 pieces 
of evidence: brain swelling and a busted lip. New evidence proves that the 
brain swelling was absolutely inconsistent with smothering; and had the state's 
forensic pathologist followed standard medical protocol, the timing of the lip 
injury could have been conclusively proven."

In spite of these facts, Stewart's office has filed an opposition brief to 
Crawford's petition that his sentence be overturned. The brief, which rehashes 
the former prosecutor's arguments in favor of the death penalty, is eerily 
reminiscent of Cox. So too is Stewart's perspective on religion. "Some people 
get caught up in the separation of church and state. To me, all authority comes 
from God," he said during our interview.

Still, which "God" will you get? The one that has entire communities asking for 
mercy, or the one that had Cox demanding death?

"We got to separate the wheat from the tare", Stewart explains. "We can't allow 
some people who could be saved to be caught up. That's the hardest part of the 
job, identifying them: the murderers and the rapists, clearly, they are gone. 
But our closet is getting full and so it is starting to spill back out. 
Economically, we can't afford mass incarceration. So we've got to deal with the 
problem, but it is not the DA or the sheriff's problem. It is a community 
problem."

No one would hope for Stewart to show greater restraint in death penalty cases 
more than Marty Stroud, a white lawyer with a distinguished legal career.

In 1984, Stroud prosecuted Glenn Ford, a black man convicted of murdering 
jeweler Isadore Rozeman. Ford was sentenced to death by an all-white jury. He 
spent 29 years in isolation at the Louisiana state penitentiary, and was 
diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 2014. After an investigation by the 
Innocence Project, he was declared innocent and received a full exoneration 
that same year. He went to his grave 4 months after his release, aged 65, 
fighting the state for $330,000 in compensation.

Following the exoneration, Stroud couldn't stomach the role he'd played. He 
asked the Louisiana Bar Association to discipline him, and wrote the kind of 
confessional typically reserved for the recesses of one's mind or a priest.

The letter, which appeared in the Shreveport Times, stated:

I was not as interested in justice as I was in winning ... At the time this 
case was tried there was evidence that would have cleared Glenn Ford. The easy 
and convenient argument is that the prosecutors did not know of such evidence 
... Had I been more inquisitive, perhaps the evidence would have come to light 
years ago. But I wasn???t, and my inaction contributed to the miscarriage of 
justice in this matter.

Stroud, a practicing Catholic, says that though he agrees with the church's 
position against the death penalty, after what happened with Ford he would be 
against it regardless.

Counsel were appointed [to Ford]... neither of which had tried a felony or any 
type of criminal case. They had no assets, no investigators, no money for 
experts or consultants.

Compounding the issue for Stroud was the all-white jury.

This happened in 1984, and I can tell you that at that time I did not 
appreciate the nuances of the race question... I thought at the time it was 
fair but looking back on it, it wasn't fair.

The problem with jury bias has persisted ever since. Last year, a study found 
that Caddo Parish prosecutors used peremptory challenges 3 times as often to 
strike black potential jurors as others during the last decade.

It turns out, a critical mass of black jurors matters. Research by Reprieve 
Australia, a group that opposes the death penalty, said the likelihood of an 
acquittal rose with the number of black people on the jury. Using the Reprieve 
study results, the New Orleans office of the Roderick and Solange MacArthur 
Justice Center, a civil rights law firm, filed a class action lawsuit claiming 
Caddo Parish district attorney's office "intentionally and unconstitutionally 
manipulated jury selection to limit the number of African Americans selected to 
serve on juries in criminal trials".

This is, in fact, another area in which Stewart has a great deal of power. 
African Americans are most often excused from juries because the prosecutor 
objects. Were Stewart to issue new guidelines to his attorneys, the jurors 
could be more diverse.

In Caddo Parish, at least 1 of Stewart's supporters remains sober-minded.

"I don't think electing an African American has proven in any quarters of life 
to be the panacea," said Reverend Theron Jackson, who pastors Morningstar 
Baptist Church.

An early petitioner in the jury bias lawsuit, Jackson is a bit of a renegade. 
His approach to the ministry hints at the liberation theology tradition, which 
came under scrutiny with the emergence of President Obama's minister Jeremiah 
Wright and his sermon God Damn America. It's a theology that sees God as 
concerned with the poor, weak, and oppressed.

Jackson is adamant. "A DA can't save this city. He can do his part, but if 
you've got 7 things dysfunctional, you change 1, you still got 6 that are 
dysfunctional." In the space of an hour, Jackson mentions race relations, the 
lack of educational opportunities in the region, and economic deficiencies. He 
even criticizes the city's biggest player: the black church.

But Jackson believes an even bigger problem lies at the heart of Caddo Parish - 
something that needs to be fixed and foremost if any progress is to be 
achieved: the people's mentality.

"One of my biggest questions about slavery has always been: how do you have 8 
people on a plantation who are white and 85 who are black, and they don't 
change something?" Jackson said. "Well, you have to psychologically make a 
slave before you physiologically make a slave, and they work hand in hand. I 
think this still happens here."

To this day, Shreveport's status as 1 of the most segregated cities in the 
nation remains - so much so that the I 49 highway that splits the city is known 
as the Mason Dixon line. The Confederate monument outside the courthouse, where 
a confederate flag flew until recently, suggests there is still far to go to 
free the city from its history.

By 1850, the US Federal Slave Schedule reported 5,763 slaves with 466 
slaveowners in the region. From 1862-1865, Shreveport was the Confederate 
capital of Louisiana, the last Confederate capital to fall. After the civil war 
ended, a different, more deadly form of terror set in for the newly freed.

Outnumbered white racists turned to intimidation to assert their political 
will. They established terrorist organizations such as the Knights of the White 
Camelia, operating across the south. Between 1866 and 1875, some 3,500 people 
in Louisiana, mostly African Americans, were estimated to have been victims of 
violence, ground zero of which was "Bloody Caddo" Parish, where 45 documented 
killings of black Americans by white mobs took place.

Reverend Harry Blake, who worked under Dr King in the Southern Christian 
Leadership Conference, grew up on a plantation just outside Shreveport. He 
believes it was easier to organize for civil rights years ago.

"Racism was more overt. Doors were closed to us everywhere, and we were told to 
like it. Doors are open now, so we're not as concerned." Now black citizens 
attend integrated schools and churches. This might look like progress, but the 
black community is not progressive. This is a place where a black neighborhood 
retains the name of a Confederate general, and the black elite choose to live 
in neighborhoods bearing the name "plantation".

Blake sees what they don't. "I think lynching of black people is going on 
today, but they use an invisible rope, so we don't see it as clearly."

Crawford, who sits in isolation at Angola awaiting the outcome of his appeal, 
believes he is seeing things clearer than ever before, and he doesn't see 
himself as powerless. He believes God is moving on his behalf:

"You know, I look at what's happened in the past year with Dale Cox. The DA 
[Cox's predecessor] dropped dead out of nowhere. Then the New York Times 
article comes out and all of a sudden there's a spotlight on my case, and 
everybody is asking what to do about it when nobody cared before. Then Cox 
isn't running for DA, and then Stewart wins and we're looking at a whole new 
day now. I have to credit that to God. It's the only thing getting me through."

As a child of Shreveport myself, I was taught Bible verses before I learned the 
alphabet and attended church 3 days a week. I have read the Bible, cover to 
cover, twice. I know Jesus. I never saw him fix a thing. I have seen Jesus 
inspire people to endure, to repent, to give, to strive, to grow, and to 
sacrifice.

This is the Jesus Caddo Parish needs, not the Miracle Jesus we invoke when we 
don't want to confront and solve complex problems. A black district attorney 
can't save Caddo Parish, but Stewart speaks like a man who embodies this 
savior.

"Justice is a biblical term. Jesus came for justice. Justice is really just 
treating people fairly and in a God-like way, loving people ... When I was on 
the bench, I always made sure I determined what was right and what was wrong. 
Not necessarily what was politically correct or what people wanted to hear. 
That's the way I operate. However it cuts is the way it cuts."

We pray this is so.

(source: Yolanda Young, The Guardian)






KENTUCKY:

A matter of life and death: Support for death penalty should be revisited


For more than 30 inmates on Kentucky's death row, Rep. David Floyd's 
(R-Bardstown) bill was likely a matter of life and death.

His bill would've abolished the death penalty in Kentucky. Under his proposal, 
inmates sentenced to execution would instead have been granted a maximum life 
sentence without parole.

As The State Journal reported earlier this week, since Kentucky reinstated the 
death penalty in 1976, it's executed 3 people. There hasn't been a hearing for 
a bill abolishing capital punishment in the state until this session, although 
it failed to pass.

It's not surprising. Still, we thought the bill should've received a lot more 
consideration - especially from outspoken "pro-life" lawmakers who've testified 
on previous bills about the "sanctity of life."

While it's inconsequential for us to take a stance on the death penalty now, we 
do maintain that lawmakers should've carefully considered discussions about the 
life and death of individuals.

Among Kentucky lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans who participated in 
committee talks about the issue overwhelmingly favored the death penalty. For 
them and staunch supporters of capital punishment, it's unlikely they can be 
swayed from their convictions.

But the debate on capital punishment and its effectiveness is still worth 
broaching. Advancements to DNA testing exonerated no less than six wrongly 
convicted men last year in America. And as Rep. Floyd testified this week 
before a House committee, our Department of Public Advocacy errors in about 67 
% in its cases. In 2011, the DPA notified the state it should halt executions 
because of that high failure rate.

Critics of the death penalty say the cost to execute inmates is substantially 
higher than the cost to permanently imprison them. It's already cost 
Kentuckians $400 million to execute 3 inmates in the past 40 years.

But no amount of money can right the wrong of executing an innocent person.

Before decision-makers execute an inmate under the limits of our law, we hope 
they can be 100 % certain that their death is warranted. If not, then we're 
simply killing people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong.

(source: Editorial, The State Journal)






ARKANSAS:

Multiple Washington County murder cases stress public defenders office


Washington and Madison counties have 24 prisoners charged with murder and the 
sheer volume of the cases is overwhelming the public defender's office and 
stretching resources at the prosecutor's office.

"What we're dealing with is, we have a certain number of attorneys who are 
death-qualified to handle murder cases, and we're just about at our limit," 
said Denny Hyslip, chief public defender. "There are more (murder cases) right 
now than I can ever remember at any one time. Normally, there were three or 
four a year, but in just the last couple years the numbers have increased 
significantly."

--

Murders

Murder cases in the 4th Judicial District

-- Rodolfo Martinez, 18, Giovanni Vasquez-Sanchez, 17, and Jose Delatorre, 18, 
are all charged with accomplice to capital murder in the death of Jimmy 
Rodriquez, 20, on April 11, 2015, in Springdale. Vasquez-Sanchez is charged as 
an adult. A 13-year-old boy was arrested but information is unavailable because 
his case is in Washington County Juvenile Court. All five are from Springdale. 
3 men were standing near a car when 4 men in a blue Ford Focus pulled up and 
demanded to know their gang affiliations. 1 of the 3 said he was in a gang, and 
1 of the people in the car opened fire, killing Rodriguez.

-- In a Fayetteville case, 5 people are charged in the killing of Victoria 
Annabeth Davis on Aug. 19, 2015. Rebecca Lloyd, 36, John Christopher Davis, 27, 
and Mark Edward Chumley, 45, all of 433 S. Hill Ave., and Christopher Lee Treat 
and Desire Treat, both 29, of 315 S. Block St., Apt. 15. Are all charged with 
accomplice to capital murder. Police said Victoria Davis, 24, of 433 S. Hill 
Ave., was held captive at her house for hours and brutally beaten by her 
husband, John Davis, and the other 4 defendants.

-- Corey Lee Ryan of Farmington, Erick Picker of Fayetteville, and Stephen 
Scott of Springdale are charged with accomplice to capital murder in the 
stabbing death of Gustavo Ortiz of Springdale in what police said was a drug 
deal gone bad at Econo Lodge in Fayetteville on Sept. 6, 2014. Ryan pleaded 
guilty to a reduced charge of 1st-degree murder in a deal with prosecutors and 
was sentenced to 35 years in prison along with 10 years for robbery. Picker and 
Scott are awaiting trial.

-- Hector Trejo, 17, is charged as an adult with capital murder in the death 
of Eliazar Torres, 21, of Springdale. Torres was stabbed to death during a 
party at Scottish Inns & Suites on Jan. 10. 7 others were arrested on 
preliminary charges of up to and including accomplice to capital murder but 
prosecutors opted for lesser charges after reviewing the evidence in the case.

-- Antoine Jackson, 29, of North Little Rock is charged with capital murder in 
the death of Emily Nash, 28, on May 27, 2015, in Springdale. She had gunshot 
wounds to her head and hand.

-- Samuel Robert Hill, 27, of Fayetteville is charged with capital murder in 
the death of his father, Allen Hill, 61, at the elder Hill???s house near 
Elkins on Aug. 20, 2014. Allen Hill was shot multiple times in the chest.

-- Rashad Santon Brown, 17, of Fayetteville is charged as an adult with 
1st-degree murder in death of Cedric Oliver, 19, of Springdale early Dec. 12, 
2015. Oliver was stabbed at a party in Fayetteville.

-- Hector Saul Ramos, 18, of Springdale is charged with 1st-degree murder in 
the death of Fabian Rodriguez, 18, in Springdale early March 13, 2015. 
Rodriguez was shot outside Ramos??? home.

-- Cantrell A. Graydon, 31, of Fayetteville is charged with capital murder in 
the death of David Allen, 25, in Fayetteville on Oct. 24, 2015. Allen was 
stabbed multiple times in the back and neck.

-- Jimmy Lee Hancock, 46, of Fayetteville is charged with 1st-degree murder in 
the death of Anthony Dell Jackson, 58, in Fayetteville on August 31, 2015. 
Jackson was stabbed in the neck and head.

-- Wanda Andaluz-Prado, 44, of Springdale is charged with 1st-degree murder in 
the death of Pedro Coria Campuzano, 36, in Springdale on Aug. 16, 2015. 
Campuzano was stabbed in the chest.

-- Freddie Davis Matthews, 40, of Fayetteville is charged with 1st-degree 
murder in the death of Alfred Davis Matthews Jr., 43, in Fayetteville on Jan. 
29, 2016. Alfred Matthews was stabbed.

-- Juan Pablo Perez-Lopez, 30, of Springdale is charged with capital murder in 
the death of Jesus Cecilio Villalobos, 48, in Springdale on Feb. 13, 2013. 
Villalobos was stabbed multiple times.

-- Cody Wade Wise, 27, of Rogers is charged with capital murder in the death 
of Ronnie Kultgen, 53, of Garfield near Clifty in Madison County. Kultgen's 
badly decomposed body was found Aug. 29, 2015. Kultgen, last seen alive April 
15, was shot in the head.

-- Travis Bell, 36, is charged with capital murder in the death of Tommy R. 
Moffett, 56, on Sept. 1, 2015, in Huntsville. Moffett had a fractured skull and 
.22-caliber rounds were found near his body.

[source: Staff report]

--

There were 11 homicides in 2015 and 2 so far this year in Washington County, 
according to Coroner Roger Morris. The average over the past 10 years is 5.7 
per year, according to Arkansas Crime Information Center statistics. There were 
10 homicides in Washington County in 2013 but only 1 each in 2008 and 2010 and 
3 in 2014. The 24 pending cases include 1 lagging from 2013, but the rest are 
from the past 2 years. 11 people are charged in just 3 of the cases.

Madison County had 2 homicides in 2015, the 1st since 2009, according to the 
information center. Benton County has 2 murder cases pending with 3 defendants.

The defender's and prosecutor's office in Washington County also have to handle 
Madison County cases because it is the other part of the 4th Judicial District.

A couple of murder defendants have private attorneys, but the vast majority are 
considered indigent and have been appointed lawyers free of charge. The public 
defender's office has only 2, Hyslip and Leana Houston, certified to handle 
capital cases. They recently lost 2 certified lawyers, Tony Pirani and Autumn 
Tolbert, who are now in private practice. Pirani still handles some capital 
cases for the office as an appointed attorney.

To make matters worse, in cases with multiple defendants the public defender's 
office can only represent one of them, because of the possibility of 
antagonistic defenses. Lawyers have to be found to represent the other 
defendants, either through the state Public Defender Commission or lawyers in 
private practice.

"All these murder cases, it used to not be this way; it's crazy," said Kent 
McLemore, a Fayetteville lawyer who is representing 2 defendants in different 
cases.

To ease the burden, the commission has been appointing attorneys to represent 
some of the defendants, according to Hyslip. That process has led to delays and 
scheduling headaches because those lawyers are often not from Northwest 
Arkansas.

The commission is supposed to provide backup for public defenders who have a 
conflict or not enough resources to handle the case load. Gregg Parrish, 
executive director, said he has 8 lawyers in his Little Rock office who do only 
capital conflicts and who work with 8 mitigation specialists and 8 
investigators to cover the entire state.

"State and federal law require that I appoint 2 attorneys to represent each 
defendant, also appoint a mitigation person to work on the mitigation aspects 
of the case as well as an investigator for each defendant," Parrish said. "I 
will continue asking the legislature to appropriate additional positions for 
this agency, including mitigation people and investigators. In the interim, I 
have to go outside the agency to comply with state and federal law. I have to 
send people from Little Rock or eastern Arkansas to go to the places they are 
needed, and you and I both know that's no easy task."

It gets more complicated in the cases with multiple defendants. In a case with 
4 defendants, for example, the local public defender's office would appoint 2 
lawyers to 1 of the defendants, Parrish would assign 2 of his lawyers to 
represent one of the defendants. Then, to avoid a conflict of interest, he'd 
have to find outside counsel with the qualifications and experience to 
represent the 2 remaining defendants.

Parrish said his lawyers have to work under the assumption the death penalty is 
in play from the time of an arrest until it is formally waived by prosecutors. 
There is no time frame for the state to make that decision.

Capital cases are labor intensive, even more so when the defense attorney has 
to make frequent trips back and forth across the state and, perhaps, have 
several extended stays to get the job done.

"These are not cases that can be resolved or taken to trial in 3 to 4 months," 
Parrish said. "We have a mandated obligation in these cases because the law 
recognizes them as extraordinary. They are unlike any other cases. And, so, we 
have to treat them that way, and if we don't then what happens is you run the 
risk of missing something and, if there is a conviction and subsequent appeal, 
you're looking at a new trial and you have to go through this whole process all 
over again. It's better from our standpoint to do it right the first time. We 
just need the time and people and opportunity to do that."

On the prosecution side, Prosecuting Attorney Matt Durrett said at least 9 
lawyers in his office, including himself, currently have some part in at least 
1 murder case. 6 are taking a lead role. Each prosecutor is also juggling a 
workload of 160 or more cases of various kinds.

"It's unprecedented with these homicides. I think the most we've ever had in a 
year was 5, and we had about a dozen last year. Hopefully, it was just a freak 
year as opposed to a trend," Durrett said. "It used to be that if you walked 
down the hall and asked if anybody wanted a murder case, there'd almost be a 
fist fight. Now, it's having enough warm bodies to handle these cases."

Murder cases, especially capital cases with the death penalty potentially in 
play, take a long time and lots of work compared to more run of the mill cases, 
Durrett and Hyslip said. Taking on a murder case can be a commitment of 2 years 
or longer in some instances.

"Ideally, I'd love to get these things through the system as quickly as 
possible but you can't do that because you don't want to sacrifice any part of 
thoroughness, for lack of a better term, because lives are at stake," Durrett 
said. "A lot of it is based on what the defense has to do."

If the state opts to seek the death penalty in a case, the amount of scrutiny 
ratchets up exponentially, Hyslip and Durrett said.

"With the death penalty, we have to make sure everything is done correctly 
because they're going to keep reviewing it over and over and over again looking 
for a reason to overturn these things," Durrett said. "With the gravity of it 
all, first and foremost you want to get it right. You don't want to be having 
to piece together a case after 25 years."

Hyslip said the effectiveness of counsel is also looked at more closely.

"It's very important that we have lawyers here who are well-trained and 
death-qualified," Hyslip said.

Durrett said being able to plea bargain a case saves everybody time and work. 
It also provides some closure to families of murder victims as opposed to the 
death penalty process, which can take 20 years or more.

"Lots of times you have situations where a defendant is willing to plead to 
life without parole as opposed to the death penalty, and that's hard to turn 
down," Durrett said. "One of the many benefits of a plea is the certainty and 
the finality of it. You know what's going to happen, and that puts an end to 
it."

(source: Northwest Arkansas News)



MISSOURI:

Event to focus on murder victims' families who oppose death penalty


2 people who oppose the death penalty even though they have loved ones who were 
murdered will speak to the public at a Monday event.

The program, "Journey of Loss and Healing: Murder Victim Family Members Urge an 
End to Execution," will feature Jim Hall and Val Brown, both of whom had 
daughters who were murdered. People who attend the event will also have the 
chance to watch documentary "Potosi: God on Death Row."

Hall's daughter, Kelli Hall, was abducted, raped and murdered in St. Charles in 
1989. Her family initially supported the death penalty for the men arrested for 
the crime, but had a change of heart after 1 of them was executed, according to 
a news release.

Brown's daughter, Angie Brown, was shot by her ex-boyfriend, Deandra Buchanan, 
while she held her 2 children. He was also convicted of killing his aunt 
Juanita Hoffman and her partner, William Jefferson. He has been sentenced to 
life in prison, where Brown has visited and forgiven him.

The event is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Calvary Episcopal Church at 123 S. Ninth 
St.

(source: Columbia Daily Tribune)






OKLAHOMA:

3 Botched Executions No Deterrent to Oklahoma's Commitment to Death Penalty


Despite Oklahoma's bungling of its last 3 scheduled executions, the state's top 
law enforcement officer said justice demands that lethal injections resume once 
his office's probe into the last 2 drug mix-ups are complete.

Republican Attorney General Scott Pruitt said a grand jury directed by his 
office is nearing completion of a months-long, closed-door investigation into 
how the wrong drug was used to execute an inmate in January 2015 and then 
delivered again to death row for a scheduled lethal injection in September that 
was halted just before the inmate was to die.

Pruitt declined to discuss details while the probe was ongoing, but said state 
officials have a duty to Oklahoma citizens, who overwhelmingly support the 
death penalty, that it is carried out properly.

"It's important that as state officials, when the people of Oklahoma have said 
unequivocally that the death penalty is the right form of punishment in certain 
instances ... that we carry that out in a very sober and thoughtful way," 
Pruitt told The Associated Press.

Since Pruitt launched the investigation in October, 3 key players connected to 
Oklahoma's last several executions have resigned after showing up to testify - 
Oklahoma State Penitentiary Warden Anita Trammell, former Department of 
Corrections Director Robert Patton, and Gov. Mary Fallin's general counsel, 
Steve Mullins.

Pruitt declined to say whether the resignations were connected to his probe, 
and all 3 have been asked not to publicly discuss their grand jury testimony.

Oklahoma ranks 2nd only to Texas in the number of executions carried out since 
the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976, and has the 
busiest death chamber in the nation based on its population, according to the 
Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment.

The drug mix-ups in Oklahoma followed a botched lethal injection in 2014 that 
left inmate Clayton Lockett writhing on the gurney and mumbling in an execution 
that Patton tried unsuccessfully to halt before the inmate died 43 minutes 
after the procedure began.

An investigation later revealed that a faulty insertion of the intravenous line 
and lack of training of the execution team contributed to the problems.

Pruitt acknowledged Oklahoma has struggled to obtain the necessary drugs needed 
to carry out executions because manufacturers of the most effective execution 
drugs have prohibited states from purchasing them for lethal injection. Pruitt 
has even suggested the state set up its own compounding laboratory as a 
potential solution to that problem.

"It's just something policymakers need to wrestle with - the securing and 
sourcing of these drugs for the long term," Pruitt said.

Since executions have been on hold in Oklahoma for most of the last 2 years 
amid 2 separate investigations, 5 death row inmates have exhausted their 
appeals and are awaiting execution dates. There are 49 inmates on death row in 
the state, including 1 woman.

Pruitt has said he won't request any execution dates until at least 150 days 
after his investigation is complete and the results are made public.

The state's interim prisons director said the execution team at the Oklahoma 
State Penitentiary in McAlester is continuing to prepare and practice for when 
lethal injections resume.

"I can guarantee the people of Oklahoma that when the time comes to carry out 
this duty, it will be performed humanely and properly," said interim Department 
of Corrections Director Joe Allbaugh.

But amid a budget crisis that has prompted deep cuts to state agencies across 
the state, death penalty opponents question the wisdom of Oklahoma leaders 
continuing to defend an increasingly expensive and problem-plagued policy of 
putting people to death.

"It's painful to know how much money we're spending to kill people," said Adam 
Leathers, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. 
"It may or may not bring some people a degree of catharsis, we don't know, but 
it sure seems to be costing the taxpayers a lot of money."

(source: Associated Press)