[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., UTAH, IDAHO, USA

[Rick Halperin]

March 31



GEORGIA----execution

Georgia executed Joshua Bishop for 1994 murder


Georgia has executed Joshua Daniel Bishop for the 1994 Baldwin County murder of 
Leverett Morrison, the office of the Georgia attorney general announced 
Thursday.

Bishop, 41, was put to death by lethal injection at 9:27 p.m. at the Georgia 
Diagnostic and Classification Center in Butts County. The sentence was carried 
out shortly after the United States Supreme Court denied Bishop's request for a 
stay of execution.

A possible reprieve from the nation's highest court was all Bishop had left 
after the Georgia Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon declined to halt his 
execution. The State Board of Pardons and Paroles also denied his plea for 
clemency Thursday.

The original execution hour of 7 p.m. came and went, as is the norm in death 
penalty cases.

During his final evening of life, Bishop ate all of his last meal. He also 
received 13 visitors - a mixture of friends, clergy and legal reps - and 
recorded a final statement.

Bishop is the 3rd man Georgia has executed this year. There is another lethal 
injection scheduled for April 12 - Kenneth Fults for murdering his neighbor in 
1996.

Bishop was 19 when he and 36-year-old Mark Braxley murdered Morrison because 
they wanted the keys to his Jeep.

The 3 men had spent much of June 25, 1994, drinking at a local bar before they 
moved their party to Braxley's trailer where they smoked crack.

Morrison, 35, was asleep but woke up when Bishop tried to fish his keys out of 
his pocket. Bishop and Braxley hit Morrison with a car battery and then beat 
him with a curtain rod until he was dead. They left his body between 2 
dumpsters, set fire to his Jeep, and returned to Braxley's trailer to clean the 
murder scene.

Then they went back to the bar to drink.

While Bishop confessed to killing Morrison - as well as a 2nd murder 
investigators did not yet know about - he still went to trial and was 
ultimately sentenced to die. Braxley, however, pleaded guilty and is serving a 
sentence of life with parole.

The 2 were never tried on charges of killing Ricky Lee Wills on June 9, 1994, 
but evidence of Wills' murder was used to secure a death sentence for Bishop. 
Bishop and Braxley said they killed Wills because he he'd had sexual contact 
with Bishop's mother, who was a prostitute and drug and alcohol addict.

Bishop becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in 
Georgia, and the 63rd overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 
1983. Only Texas (536), Oklahoma (112), Virginia (111), Florida (92) and 
Missouri (86) have executed more inmates than Georgia since the death penalty 
was re-legalized on July 2, 1976.

Bishop becomes the 10th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the 
USA and the 1432nd overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 
1977.

(sources: Atlanta Journal Constitution & Rick Halperin)






UTAH:

Utah's Elimination Of Capital Punishment Reflects Growing Bipartisan 
Recognition Of Death Penalty's Flaws, Expert Says


Utah Senate's vote to abolish the death penalty reflects a growing bipartisan 
recognition in some states of the documented flaws of the death penalty, 
including its high cost, decades-long appeals and faulty lethal injection 
protocols, an expert in criminal law and the death penalty said.

There is another reason to abolish capital punishment, said Russell Covey, 
professor of law at Georgia State University College of Law in Atlanta.

"State executions of the guilty sometimes impede exoneration of the innocent," 
he said.

Covey pointed to several recent cases that illustrate this, including that of 
Rodney Lincoln in Missouri, who was charged with murder and assault. Despite 
tenuous evidence, he was convicted largely on the testimony of an 8-year-old, 
who survived the attack and picked Lincoln out of a lineup.

Now more than 3 decades later, the witness believes serial killer Tommy Lynn 
Sells is the real killer -- not Lincoln, Covey explained.

Details from the crime scenes of murders Sells confessed to are similar to 
those found in the slaying of her mother. In addition, DNA tests on the hair 
evidence do not match Lincoln.

"Clarity might have been obtained simply by questioning Sells about the 
incident," Covey said.

Sells confessed to numerous killings from his death row cell, helping clear up 
several cold cases.

"But that option is no longer available because Sells was executed in 2014," 
the professor added.

This may seem like an anomaly, but it's not, Covey said.

Post-conviction DNA testing has exonerated 337 persons to date, and also 
identified 140 actual perpetrators whose DNA is recorded in the database. As of 
the start of the year, there were 2,943 prisoners on death row.

"Given what we have learned as a result of DNA exonerations, it is almost 
certain that some of them committed additional crimes for which other innocent 
persons have been convicted," Covey said.

In some cases, it may be difficult to argue that offenders do not "deserve" to 
die for their crimes - "but there are more considerations than simple 
blameworthiness to consider," Covey said.

"For the wrongly convicted, the search for truth is never-ending, and sometimes 
the answers lie in the hearts and minds of convicted, and indisputably guilty, 
criminals," he said. "If we execute those with the darkest secrets, we make it 
that much harder for the innocent to find the light," he said.

(source: Russell D. Covey, professor of law, focuses his research on criminal 
law and procedure. He is the author of numerous articles on topics including 
the death penalty, police interrogation, crime and popular culture, jury 
selection, and plea bargaining----newswise.com)






IDAHO:

Defense challenges death penalty in Renfro case


Defense attorneys representing a man accused of killing a Coeur d'Alene police 
officer and stealing his patrol car are challenging the prosecution's notice of 
intent to seek the death penalty.

The Coeur d'Alene Press reports (http://bit.ly/1VV7guz ) that lawyers for 
Jonathan Renfro on Friday filed a motion challenging the death penalty in order 
to "preserve the defendant's rights."

Investigators say Jonathan Renfro, who was on parole, shot Coeur d'Alene Police 
Sgt. Greg Moore on May 5 as the officer questioned him because he feared Moore 
would find a handgun in his pocket - a parole violation.

Moore died later that evening.

Renfro's trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 6.

(source: Associated Press)






USA:

Judge: Donald Fell case can continue


A federal judge has rejected a defense attempt to throw out all the charges 
against the man accused of abducting and killing a North Clarendon woman more 
than 15 years ago.

Lawyers for Donald Fell, 35, were seeking to have the case dismissed, arguing 
in court papers that government prosecutors failed to meet legal requirements 
regarding the wording of the indictment.

In a technical, 30-page opinion issued this week, U.S. District Judge Geoffrey 
Crawford allowed the prosecution's case to proceed. The decision was among a 
flurry of legal filings in recent days that also included additional defense 
efforts to have the case or the death penalty thrown out.

Crawford, rejecting the defense motion to dismiss, concluded the indictment 
largely met the necessary legal requirements, and that some portions of the 
indictment the defense had challenged are matters for the jury to decide at 
trial.

Fell is facing his 2nd death-penalty trial arising from the beating death of 
Terri King, 53, in November 2000. A federal jury convicted Fell in 2005 and 
sentenced him to die, but on appeal, a judge threw out the guilty verdict due 
to juror misconduct during the trial.

Vermont has no death penalty, but Fell is being prosecuted by the U.S. 
government under federal law. He has pleaded not guilty.

The authorities say he and an accomplice were fleeing the double slaying of 
Fell's mother, Debra, and her companion Charles Conway in Rutland when they 
encountered King in a grocery-store parking lot. Fell and Robert Lee stole 
King's car, forced her into the vehicle and drove to New York state, the 
government contends.

The pair kicked and beat King to death in a field while she prayed for her 
life, according to prosecutors.

No charges have been filed in connection with Debra Fell's and Conway's 
slayings. Lee killed himself in prison before standing trial.

This week, in a host of court filings, the defense:

--Raised the possibility of arguing Fell was insane at the time of the crime.

--Suggested that exculpatory evidence has been lost or destroyed during the 
case's long duration.

--Asked the judge for an order "categorically exempting (Fell) from the death 
penalty because he has suffered since birth from neurodevelopmental disorders 
that are the functional equivalent of disorders already recognized as 
disqualifying exemptions to the death penalty."

Regarding Fell's mental state, lawyers wrote in a notice to the court that the 
defense "continues to review the possibility of addressing insanity or mental 
condition evidence through expert witnesses on psychology or psychiatry (or 
both) in the guilt trial."

Fell's trial is scheduled for February 2017 in Rutland. First, though, a 
proceeding is set for this summer to determine whether the death penalty is 
legal. The defense is seeking to have capital punishment declared 
unconstitutional. Lawyers will make arguments during a 2-week, trial-like 
hearing in Rutland that one federal prosecutor has called nearly unprecedented.

Fell has been jailed since his arrest shortly after King's slaying.

(source: burlingtonfreepress.com)