[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, GA., FLA., MISS., TENN.

[Rick Halperin]

March 27



TEXAS:

Driver Faces Murder Charge in Officer's Death


A driver is facing a capital murder charge after police said he intentionally 
hit and killed an El Paso motorcycle officer in a crash earlier this month.

The car's driver, John Paul Perry, a 45-year-old convict allegedly linked to 
the Barrio Azteca prison gang, was arrested Wednesday near Abilene in 
connection with the death of Officer David Ortiz.

Jail records show that Perry was booked into the El Paso County Jail on 
Thursday evening on charges of capital murder and unauthorized use of a motor 
vehicle.

On March 10, Ortiz was on his police motorcycle stopped at a red light when he 
was struck from behind by a Kia Optima driven by Perry at Lee Trevino and Vista 
Del Sol drives. Ortiz died from his injuries at a hospital March 14.

Perry was arrested Thursday in Merkel, a small town along Interstate 20 just 
west of Abilene, authorities said.

El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said at a news conference that an investigation 
found that Perry "deliberately and maliciously killed the officer."

When a reporter referred to Perry as a "gentleman," Allen responded, "He's not 
a gentleman; let's get that fact straightened out right now. People who kill 
other people are not gentlemen."

The crash was initially believed to be an accident, but El Paso police 
officials said that an investigation involving the Texas Department of Public 
Safety and police in Abilene and Merkel determined that the crash was allegedly 
intentional.

An El Paso police news release stated that "it has been learned that Perry 
observed the officer and made a decision to drive his vehicle into the police 
motorcycle which ultimately led to the officer's death."

The case was initially being handled as an accident by the police Special 
Traffic Investigations Unit until police learned that that the crash was 
allegedly deliberate and homicide detectives with the Crimes Against Persons 
Unit joined the investigation.

Because the investigation continues, police officials would not disclose what 
information led investigators to suspect the crash was done on purpose nor 
offer a possible motive.

Perry was also injured in the crash. After being released from a hospital, 
Perry was arrested March 12 on traffic warrants unrelated to the fatal crash, 
according to El Paso County Jail records. He was released from jail a day later 
with time served.

On Wednesday, El Paso police detectives traveled to Merkel and took part in the 
arrest of Perry, who possibly has family in the area.

Perry was booked into the Taylor County Jail. A jail log shows that by Thursday 
afternoon Perry had been released to another agency.

Texas Department of Public Safety Regional Cmdr. Carey Matthews said at the El 
Paso news conference that the DPS assisted with aircraft and "transportation, 
coordination and surveillance" in the investigation. Perry was flown back to El 
Paso on a DPS aircraft Thursday.

The El Paso District Attorney's Office said that the case is a potential death 
penalty case because it involves the death of a law enforcement officer. 
Capital murder is punishable by execution or life in prison.

El Paso County court records show that Perry has a criminal history, including 
convictions for aggravated assault against a public servant, robbery, assault 
and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in a gang beating in 2013.

In the 2013 beating, court documents allege Perry was a member of the Barrio 
Azteca, a notorious cross-border prison gang allied with the Juarez drug 
cartel.

Richard Rene "Cricket" Espino, who was arrested with Perry in a gang beating in 
2013, was among 17 gang members and associates sentenced last month in a 
federal racketeering case targeting the Barrio Azteca.M

Because the investigation continues, authorities would not comment on whether 
the crash that killed Officer Ortiz is believed to be linked to gang activity. 
It was not disclosed whether Ortiz was specifically targeted.

(source: El Paso Times)






GEORGIA----impending execution

Violent childhood put Georgia man on path to death row


Joshua Bishop was 19 when he began his short journey to Georgia's death row.

He seemed to be headed in that direction all along, authorities say.

"I'm not going to say I'm surprised he killed 2 people," said Baldwin County 
Sheriff Bill Massee. "I was disappointed that life had brought him to the place 
where he killed 2 people ... in such a horrific way."

Bishop, 41, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Thursday for beating a 
man to death with a curtain rod. He had killed another man earlier and, with an 
accomplice, bent his limbs in unnatural directions to make his body fit into a 
makeshift grave. The day before the scheduled execution, the state parole board 
will hold a clemency hearing.

In 1994, Bishop killed Ricky Lee Wills and 35-year-old Leverette Morrison just 
2 weeks apart.

"We were called early one morning to the scene where we found Leverette 
Morrison's body," Sheriff Massee said. "By early evening we had made 2 arrests 
in this case, one of which was Josh Bishop."

Bishop and his co-defendant, Mark Braxley, both quickly admitted to the 
murders. Despite confessing, Bishop went to trial and was sentenced to death. 
Braxley, however, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life with the possibility 
of parole.

According to family members, Bishop was steeped in violence, alcoholism and 
drug addiction from the day he was born.

When Leverette and Wills were murdered, Bishop had been living under a bridge 
with his mother, an alcoholic and drug addict who sometimes prostituted 
herself. She was heard telling her son that men show their love with punches, 
slaps and verbal assaults. She knew a man loved her, she told her son, if he 
beat her.

Family members have said Joshua Bishop never escaped those influences.

Sheriff Massee is sympathetic, but he also said Bishop deserves to be executed.

"We've had many people who have been successful, productive individuals in 
their communities that had terrible home lives, and that's not an excuse," 
Massee said. "But I want to tell you Josh Bishop did have a terrible home 
life."

Former sheriff's office Detective Richard Horn expressed similar sentiments in 
an affidavit attached to 1 of Bishop's appeals.

"Given my knowledge of Bishop and his early environment, it is my opinion that 
he had little chance of success in life," Horn wrote.

A failed plan to steal a car

Bishop, Braxley and Morrison, who may have been Bishop's uncle, spent much of 
June 25, 1994, drinking - first at a Milledgeville bar and later at Morrison's 
trailer.

Bishop and Braxley had a plan to take the keys from Morrison's pocket while he 
was asleep so they could steal his Jeep; Braxley wanted to visit his 
girlfriend. But Morrison woke when Bishop reached into his pants pocket, and 
the 3 began to fight. Bishop and Braxley used a car battery to knock down 
Morrison, and then Bishop set upon Morrison with the curtain rod.

The 2 dumped Morrison's body between 2 trash bins, set fire to his car in 
nearby woods and then walked back to Braxley's trailer to clean up the murder 
scene.

Bishop and Braxley, then 36, were in custody by sundown that day, and it was 
during the police interview regarding Morrison that investigators learned a 2nd 
man had been killed and buried in some woods near Braxley's trailer.

They folded up Wills' body, twisting his legs into unnatural positions, so he 
would fit in the grave.

"It was a very aggressive homicide," Massee said. "We not only had 1 very 
aggressive homicide. We had 2."

Bishop said he killed Wills because Wills boasted about sexually assaulting 
Bishop's mother.

'Nothing good about his family'

The details of Bishop's life reside in written statements, used in his appeals, 
from almost four dozen people, including some from Morrison's family. They 
described lives controlled by alcohol, drugs and physical and verbal abuse.

Bishop's mother treated her 2 sons like "drinking buddies," wrote Barbara 
Cheeley, the boys' aunt. "This seemed to be the way she dealt with them best."

No one connected to these murders - not even the victims - is a sympathetic 
character.

"I had watched him as a juvenile, and he had issues," said Massee, who has been 
sheriff in the Middle Georgia county for almost 3 decades. "You will read 
nothing good about his family. If there is something good out there, I don't 
know about it."

Carolyn Bishop was 17 when she gave birth to Joshua Bishop's older brother, 
Michael. Michael Bishop's father, Mike, was 14 years old when he married 
Carolyn.

Joshua Bishop, however, never knew for certain who his father was.

"Josh was almost obsessed with finding out who his daddy was," the brother 
wrote in an affidavit. "It was sad for me to hear Josh ask so many people while 
he was growing up who his daddy was. The answer was usually 'I don't know,' and 
this was really painful for him to hear."

'Drugs and liquor ruled Carolyn'

Carolyn Bishop told her younger son that 1 of 3 men could be his father, most 
likely Albert Ray Morrison, who was Leverette Morrison's brother.

"Many people say Josh is my son but I don't really know for sure," Albert 
Morrison wrote. "His mama, Carolyn, went with a lot of men, including me and 
Leverette."

Albert Morrison said his dead brother had "problems with drugs as far back as I 
can remember.

"I know Josh was charged with killing Leverette and received a death sentence 
for it," Albert Morrison wrote. "But Josh is the same people as me and 
Leverette. With all the drinking and crack going on, it could just as easily 
have been Josh who was killed as my brother."

Joshua Bishop's maternal grandparents were moonshiners who were more interested 
in drinking than caring for their children, according to relatives' affidavits. 
It "turned out that Carolyn got the worst parts of both," wrote Allen Hartley, 
Carolyn Bishop's 1st cousin.

Joshua Bishop first tasted alcohol at 4 and in just a few years was "huffing' 
chemicals like gasoline. Eventually, he was using cocaine and drinking with his 
mother.

"If you spent much time with Carolyn you felt like you were living in a 
tornado," Mary Bass Fordam, Carolyn Bishop's older sister. "Carolyn loved a man 
that would fight with her. The drugs and liquor ruled Carolyn. It was the thing 
she wanted more than anything in life.

"Carolyn's demons were big ones. They took control of her and made her an even 
more horrible person. Carolyn could say some horrible things to us and to her 
boys. And, the only time I could stand to be around Carolyn was when I was 
drunk."

(source: myajc.com)






FLORIDA:

Despite new law, Florida's death penalty process flawed


Florida has a new death-sentencing law to replace what the U.S. Supreme Court 
threw out 2 months ago. On balance, it's an improvement.

Jurors must now identify, unanimously, any of the reasons - what the law calls 
aggravating circumstances - why a person they have convicted of a capital crime 
should die rather than serve life in prison.

But it requires only 10 of the 12 jurors to agree that the defendant should 
die. That's better than the old law, which let as few as 7 recommend death and 
left the actual decision to the judge. The new law specifies life if there are 
not at least 10 votes for death. And the judge can still choose life even if 
the jury recommends death.

So there should not be as many new death cases for the state Supreme Court to 
review. From 2000 through 2014, in nearly 1/2 the appeals it received, fewer 
than 10 jurors had voted for death. (The court affirmed most of those 
sentences.)

That doesn't necessarily predict that jurors will continue voting the same way. 
Research suggests they'll be taking their decisions more seriously under the 
new law.

The larger question is whether there will be any executions in the near future, 
if ever.

1 reason is that Florida remains an "outlier," as the lawyers put it, along 
with only Alabama and Delaware, in not requiring a unanimous jury 
recommendation.

State prosecutors insisted on that, warning that a single "rogue" juror might 
prevent the execution of a notably loathsome killer.

But in winning that battle, they may have lost the war. That hypothetical rogue 
juror could achieve the same result simply by refusing to agree to the finding 
of any aggravating circumstance.

The 1st person condemned by less than a unanimous recommendation is sure to 
appeal on that issue. The law also makes semantic changes in how to weigh the 
reasons for and against execution, and those too will be grist for the appeal 
mill.

Even if the law is upheld, it's doubtful the new sentencing process can be 
applied to the 389 people on death row, all of whom - excepting, perhaps, only 
those who pleaded guilty or waived jury trials - can claim that the U.S. 
Supreme Court's Jan. 12 decision in Hurst v. Florida calls for their sentences 
to be commuted to life in prison.

Florida's old law left it to the judge to speculate on what aggravating factors 
the jury found.

"The Sixth Amendment," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for an 8-1 majority, 
"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."

But that decision did not actually spare Timothy Hurst, who was convicted of 
murdering a restaurant co-worker in Pensacola. Instead, it was left to the 
Florida Supreme Court to decide whether the failure to respect the Sixth 
Amendment in Hurst's case - and by implication in all the others - was 
"harmless error."

How could any violation of the Bill of Rights possibly be harmless? But that's 
the state's position.

The state Supreme Court will hear oral arguments May 5.

If the attorney general loses on the question of harmless error, the next issue 
will be on whether Hurst - and by implication all the others - should go before 
a jury again or be automatically resentenced to life.

There's a serious issue as to whether the new law could be applied to any 
murder committed before it was passed.

Then there???s the matter of a law the Legislature passed in 1972 on the hunch 
that the U.S. Supreme Court would strike down capital punishment nationwide - 
as it did a few months later.

That law, still on the books, provided for life sentences for anyone on death 
row if capital punishment were declared unconstitutional. Following the U.S. 
Supreme Court decision that temporarily abolished the death penalty nationwide, 
life sentences were ordered for 90 men and one woman in Florida.

Hurst's lawyers contend that the automatic commutation law applies just as much 
now as it did in 1972. Significantly, the Florida Supreme Court called last 
month for briefs on that issue.

Florida executed 92 people - with nearly 400 still under sentence of death - 
under a law that emerged around dawn on Dec. 1, 1972, from the sleep-deprived 
members of a House-Senate conference committee who were eager to wind up a 
special session and go home. Although it was radically different from what 
either house had proposed, both passed it the same day with only 3 of the 160 
members voting no.

The fact that it took nearly 44 years for that law to be found unconstitutional 
goes to the fundamental difference between law and justice. Law is supposed to 
serve justice. But sometimes it interferes.

In 2 earlier Florida cases, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively upheld what it 
has now found unconstitutional.

\"Time and subsequent cases," Sotomayor wrote, "have washed away the logic."

Neither of the defendants in those earlier cases was actually executed. But 
subsequent to their decisions, 80 others were. Think about that.

Posterity will wonder, I am sure, why Florida has continued to perpetuate a 
practice that has been abandoned by most other civilized countries.

(source: Martin Dyckman is a retired associate editor of the newspaper formerly 
known as the St. Petersburg Times----ocala.com)






MISSISSIPPI:

Death by firing squad, Miss. lawmakers want it as cheaper execution alternate


The Mississippi House wants to allow the state to execute prisoners using a 
firing squad if officials decide lethal injection is too expensive or 
unavailable.

The House amended Senate Bill 2237 Friday, which dealt with making the 
execution process secret, passing it 80-39 and sending it back to the Senate 
for more work.

The Louisiana Supreme Court has delayed the planned execution of a man 
convicted of beating and stabbing a 71-year-old woman to death while robbing 
her home in 1997. The court agreed Wednesday to indefinitely postpone the March 
14 execution date that a state judge had set for Daniel Blank. Blank's 
attorney, Gary Clements, says it was "totally premature" to...

Attorney General Jim Hood asked lawmakers earlier this year to approve 
alternate execution methods including the firing squad, electrocution and the 
use of nitrogen gas. Those measures had not, until Friday, passed either 
chamber.

Rep. Robert Foster, R-Hernando, said afterward that the firing squad is a more 
humane, effective and less costly option than lethal injection. He said he 
thinks the vast majority of Mississippi residents would support an optional 
firing squad.

"It's been one of the more common practices through history," he said. "It's 
very instant and about as humane as you can get while performing an execution 
in my personal opinion."

Death penalty opponents called the move "barbaric." Jim Craig, a lawyer who has 
sued Mississippi over its current method of execution by lethal injection, 
noted lawmakers voted on the afternoon of Good Friday, the time when Christians 
believe Christ was crucified.

"It's very instant and about as humane as you can get while performing an 
execution in my personal opinion."

"I find it frankly disgusting that in the week we're commemorating the 
execution of Jesus of Nazareth, the Mississippi Legislature is so devoted to 
vengeance that they want to bring Mississippi back to the 19th century," Craig 
said.

Utah is the only American state that has executed someone by firing squad since 
the resumption of the death penalty, said Robert Dunham, executive director of 
the Death Penalty Information Center. That nonprofit organization opposes 
executions and tracks the issue. Utah has killed 3 men by firing squad, the 
most recent in 2010.

Other states have begun adopting alternate methods of execution to be used if 
lethal injection is ruled unconstitutional or a state can't obtain drugs. 
Oklahoma would use either electrocution or firing squad. Wyoming would use the 
gas chamber. Tennessee would use electrocution.

Other parts of the bill make secret the names of prison employees at an 
execution and the pharmacy providing lethal drugs. The measure also bars 
anyone, including news reporters, from discussing names of relatives of the 
prisoner or crime victim who attend an execution without their permission. 
First Amendment advocates say that measure unconstitutionally restrains free 
speech.

"There are severe implications for First Amendment rights attached that 
legislators either did not understand or disregarded outright," said Layne 
Bruce, executive director of the Mississippi Press Association.

The Mississippi Supreme Court heard arguments in November, but hasn't ruled, on 
Craig's lawsuit that seeks to compel the Mississippi Department of Corrections 
to disclose information about its execution procedure and the supplier of 
execution drugs. A lower court judge ruled for disclosure in March, but the 
information has remained secret during appeals.

Hood has said prison employees have refused to work on the execution team 
because of fears about retaliation. He's also said pharmacies should be free 
from "strong-arm tactics" by death penalty opponents.

Craig disputes claims that any person or business has been threatened. The 
state has introduced no specific evidence of threats in court.

(source: Associated Prtess)

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

House approves execution by firing squad


The Mississippi House, working late on Good Friday, voted to allow executions 
to be carried out by firing squad if the drugs needed to carry out lethal 
injections could not be obtained.

Freshman Rep. Robert Foster, R-DeSoto, offered the amendment to allow firing 
squads to be used to legislation that was designed to keep secret the 
identities of the suppliers of the execution drugs, members of the execution 
team and members of the victim's and killer's family.

The amendment passed 70-39. Then the overall bill passed 80-39.

The proposal now goes back to the Senate, which can accept the House changes to 
the proposal or to invite conference to try to work out the differences.

House Judiciary B Chair Andy Gipson, R-Braxton, who supported the Foster 
amendment, said Utah and Oklahoma had similar provisions in its death penalty 
laws.

The bill, itself, already was controversial. Some members questioned keeping 
aspects of an execution secretive.

"If there is anything the government does that should be transparent, it is 
legally killing someone,' said Rep. Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia.

But Rep. Joey Hood, R-Ackerman, said both Republican Gov. Phil Bryant and 
Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood supported the legislation. Joey Hood said 
the bill was needed because efforts were being made by opponents of the death 
penalty to acquire the names of those involved in executions to make it more 
difficult to carry out the death penalty.

He said about 20 states had similar laws.

Rep. Jay Hughes, D-Oxford, asked about the fact that the bill included "a prior 
restraint" that makes it illegal for media outlets to reveal the information.

"It is a balancing act," said Gipson when asked about prior restraint. "We feel 
we need to preserve the death penalty."

Layne Bruce, executive director of the Mississippi Press Association, spoke 
against the bill.

"The Association feels there is strong legal precedent to support our position 
that this bill involves issues of prior restraint, seriously undermining the 
rights of freedom of speech and freedom of the press," he said. "Further, we 
believe both the U.S. and Mississippi constitutions firmly establish the matter 
of prior restraint cannot be tolerated in our democracy. Both the U.S. and the 
state Supreme Court have affirmed this many times."

Of the legislation, Attorney General Hood said earlier this session, "My reason 
for asking our lawyers to draft this bill was to protect the identities of the 
pharmacy and state executioner assisting the state in carrying out state law.

"I have the utmost respect for the privacy right of victims, but I also 
recognize the constitutional concerns involved. We will work with the 
Legislature to address the concerns raised by members of the media in regard to 
the identity of execution witnesses."

(source: djournal.com)






TENNESSEE:

Conservatives should oppose the death penalty


Though support for the death penalty in the U.S. is the lowest it has been in 
40 years, a majority of people still support the practice. However, a growing 
number of political conservatives are recognizing that the death penalty is a 
government program that doesn???t work.

I understand the emotional appeal of the death penalty: Evil demands a strong 
response, and murder should be followed with swift and sure justice. 
Unfortunately, the death penalty system is never swift in executing death 
warrants, but is always costly and, occasionally, misguided.

For these reasons, conservative legislators around the country are seeking to 
replace the death penalty with "death by incarceration," or life without 
parole.

Nebraska, 1 of the country's most conservative states, repealed its death 
penalty last year, led by state Sen. Colby Coash (R). Sen. Coash, who spoke at 
an event hosted by Tennessee Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty 
(TNCC) in January, said he and the majority of his Republican colleagues sought 
to end this costly government program, not despite being conservative, but 
because they are conservative.

6 other states this year are considering repeal bills sponsored by Republicans, 
and Montana's House of Representatives carried a bipartisan bill to repeal the 
death penalty that came just 1 vote short in 2015.

For many of these lawmakers, opposition to the death penalty is not based on 
moral or philosophical qualms with executions; it is their belief that the 
death penalty system is a bloated, broken government program that does nothing 
to make citizens safer or to provide legal finality to victims.

Though the total cost of the death penalty in Tennessee is unknown, our 
neighbor North Carolina found that the death penalty costs its state $2.16 
million per execution more than life without parole. A 2004 Tennessee report 
issued by the comptroller of the Treasury concluded that capital murder trials 
alone cost 48 percent more than trials that seek life without parole. With this 
high cost, we still fail to see outcomes, with only six executions in Tennessee 
since 1960 (the last one in 2009).

At its peak, Riverbend Maximum Security Institution held 150 death row inmates; 
today, there are 66 death row inmates housed by the state of Tennessee. Through 
the constitutionally mandated appeals process, a number of death row inmates 
have had their sentences overturned, and at least four were found to be 
wrongfully convicted and were released.

The leading cause of death on Tennessee's death row is not pentobarbital or the 
electric chair, but natural causes, with the average time spent on death row 
being 28 years.

The death penalty system creates a dilemma for conservatives - how to bring 
swift and sure justice to victims' families while also ensuring an innocent 
person is not executed, and to do so in a cost-effective way.

With such a flawed system, striking this balance is not possible, and Tennessee 
conservatives should call for moving away from the death penalty.

Life without parole would allow the state to save money and redirect resources 
to police investigators, victims' compensation and mental health services. 
Tennessee Conservatives Concerned is leading the effort toward engaging 
conservatives in removing this broken system to better use the state's 
resources.

(source: opinion; Amy Lawrence, a Tennessee conservative who has worked on 
numerous Republican campaigns, is the coordinator for Tennessee Conservatives 
Concerned About the Death Penalty (TNCC). Learn more about TNCC at 
www.tnconservativesconcerned.org.----The Tennessean)