[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ILL., OKLA., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 2



ILLINOIS:

Sister Helen Prejean continues 35-year fight against death penalty


Standing behind a podium in one of the meeting rooms in DePaul's Student 
Center, wearing her signature purple jacket, Sister Helen Prejean begins to 
tell a story.

The story is about a man named Richard Glossip, who is currently sitting on 
death row in Oklahoma for the 1997 murder of motel owner Barry Van Treese, a 
murder Prejean believes Glossip did not commit.

Prejean found law yers to take Glossip's case pro-bono, but also mobilized a 
national media effort to raise awareness about his case and his innocence. She 
even managed to get Pope Francis and the Papal nuns to put pressure on the 
state government not to execute him.

"People were calling ... the lines were filling up ... the world was watching 
and people were getting it out on the social media," Prejean said. "When things 
were at their height, 300 million people in the world had heard ... Richard 
Glossip's name."

Prejean's efforts and a problem with the drug cocktail used for lethal 
injection led to a stay of execution. This was but a minor victory for Prejean 
and Glossip, who is still imprisoned and sitting on death row.

The story of Richard Glossip is one of the many stories Prejean has to tell.

This is Prejean's 3rd visit to DePaul since 2014. She spends most of her days 
traveling around the country telling the story of her experience with the death 
penalty and advocating for its abolition.

Prejean began her work with death row inmates in 1981. After moving into the 
St. Thomas housing projects in one of New Orleans poorest neighborhoods, 
Prejean became pen pals with Patrick Sonnier, a convicted murderer waiting to 
be executed by the state of Louisiana.

Prejean became Sonnier's spiritual advisor before ultimately witnessing his 
execution. This experience awakened Prejean to the darkest realities of the 
death penalty and she decided to dedicate her life to not only counseling 
inmates sitting on death row but also to work towards abolishing the death 
penalty.

In 1994, Prejean wrote a book detailing her experiences called "Dead Man 
Walking: An Eye Witness Account of the Death Penalty." The book became a 
bestseller, enjoying the No. 1 spot on the New York Times Bestseller List for 
31 weeks.

Just 2 years later, the book was adapted into a film, directed by Tim Robbins 
and starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, who played Prejean.

Matt Cook, a junior at DePaul, saw Prejean's book and the film as eye opening.

"After watching and reading Dead Man Walking, I never really realized that the 
justice system was so unjust and Sister Helen really emphasized that in her 
book," Cook said.

Prejean credits the people she met while living in the St. Thomas housing 
projects with teaching her how to write.

"I lived this privileged little white life of privilege in Baton Rouge and was 
never in the company of people struggling with poverty and racism, and they 
taught me, they graciously taught me ... and so I began to write."

Through her book and lectures, Prejean has become the face of the struggle 
against the death penalty. But for DePaul students, like junior Maggie Mech, 
she is also a role model.

"She's devoted so much of her time but she's also so well-respected and 
so...well-known in the world just because of how smart she is and how much she 
has done for all different types of people. I think she totally embodies 
Vincentian values" Mech said.

The DePaul Office of Mission and Values described the Vincentian identity as 
"...above all characterized by ennobling the God-given dignity of each person." 
While values like community, service and reflection have guided Prejean's work, 
she has always placed special emphasis on dignity.

On her website, Prejean expresses her belief "in the dignity and rights of all 
persons and recognize that government-sanctioned killing ... is a violation of 
those rights and a denial of human dignity."

Prejean hopes to raise public consciousness about the death penalty and the 
impact it is having on society. One group that Prejean thinks is especially 
important in the fight to end capital punishment is the millennial generation.

"We have a savvier, smarter group of young people coming up ... I am very 
hopeful about young people in this country and how they are helping us," 
Prejean said.

DePaul junior Nora Melton agrees with Prejean's assessment that young people 
should get involved with social justice issues.

"I definitely think that youth and millennials need to be involved in social 
justice issues today," Melton said. "I love that Sister Helen Prejean is really 
including us and making us feel important ... we have so much power even if we 
don't realize that we do ... if we really apply ourselves to change something, 
we can make a really big difference."

As she continues to travel the country and the world, Prejean is hopeful that 
as more people are confronted with the inhumanity of the death penalty, the 
movement to abolish capital punishment will grow stronger.

"It's never going to be 1 man, it's never going to be 1 thing. But I think of 
consciousness raising in the culture (like) the way a pot comes to boil," 
Prejean said.

"When a pot comes to boil you don't have 1 great big fat bubble comes up...but 
you have little bitty bubbles that start in the bottom ... I believe that???s 
the way consciousness changes."

Prejean believes that no matter what the crime, or who the victim, the death 
penalty does not constitute justice.

"(The death penalty) is pain, it's punishment for what you do wrong," Prejean 
said. "The safety of society is another thing ... I believe, and we're 
beginning to see the first seeds of it to go towards more restorative justice."

A shift away from capital punishment and towards restorative justice is what 
Prejean has been working for her entire life. She is confident one day her 
vision will be achieved.

"I have met the American people and what I have met is not people wedded to the 
death penalty, it's just that we haven't reflected on it very deeply at all."

Racism is a fundamental part of Prejean's argument that the criminal justice 
system on a whole needs to be reformed. Not only does the current system 
disproportionately incarcerate African-Americans, but it is also biased against 
them when it comes to sentencing their killers.

In her years of counseling death penalty inmates, Prejean has realized the 
death penalty is reserved for people who kill white people.

"I don't know what made us think that we could design a process ... and that 
we'd be so pure that there'd be no racism in it so if you killed people of 
color or you killed white people," Prejean said. "It's the same, it's equal."

(source: depauliaonline.com)






OKLAHOMA:

Man convicted of killing Arkansas woman in eastern Oklahoma


A jury in Le Flore County has convicted an Arkansas man of 1st-degree murder in 
the 2010 death of a woman in eastern Oklahoma.

Elvis Thacker was convicted Friday of murder and forcible sodomy in the death 
of 22-year-old Brianna Ault. The jury will reconvene Monday to consider whether 
Thacker should receive the death penalty or serve life in prison.

Ault was found dead in a pond in Pocola. Her throat had been cut.

Thacker's attorneys had blamed his brother, Johnathen Thacker, with killing 
Ault. Johnathen Thacker pleaded guilty in 2014 to 1st-degree murder as part of 
an agreement in which he testified that his brother cut Ault's throat with a 
razor after forcing her to perform sex acts, then trying unsuccessfully to 
drown her.

(source: Associated Press)






CALIFORNIA:

Supreme Court rejects death penalty case


The Supreme Court on Monday denied review of a case challenging the 
constitutionality of long-delayed death sentences.

The case centered on Richard Boyer, who was sentenced to death in California 32 
years ago. Boyer had asked the court to weigh whether the delay in carrying out 
his sentence violated the Eight Amendment's protections against cruel and 
unusual punishment.

In dissenting from the court's majority decision to reject the case, Justice 
Stephen Breyer said the delays in Boyer's sentence were the result of a system 
that the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice had called 
"dysfunctional."

The commission released a report 8 years ago, Breyer said, which found that 
that more than 10 % of the capital sentences issued in California since 1978 
had been reversed. Many prisoners had died of natural causes before their 
sentences were carried out and more California death row inmates had committed 
suicide than had been executed by the State.

"Put simply, California's costly 'administration of the death penalty' likely 
embodies three fundamental defects about which I have previously written: '(1) 
serious unreliability, (2) arbitrariness in application, and (3) unconscionably 
long delays that undermine the death penalty's penological purpose.'" Breyer 
wrote in the order Monday. "For these reasons, I respectfully dissent from the 
denial of certiorari."

(source: thehill.com)

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

The trial of alleged "Grim Sleeper" Lonnie Franklin Jr. headed to a close 
Monday after months of testimony about a serial killer who stalked women during 
the 1980s crack cocaine epidemic, then laid low for 14 years before renewing 
the grisly sex attacks


The trial of alleged "Grim Sleeper" Lonnie Franklin Jr. headed to a close 
Monday after months of testimony about a serial killer who stalked women during 
the 1980s crack cocaine epidemic, then laid low for 14 years before renewing 
the grisly sex attacks.

Closing arguments were scheduled to begin in the morning and could last 2 days.

Franklin, 63, could face the death penalty if convicted.

He is charged with killing 9 women and a 15-year-old girl between 1985 and 
2007. They were shot or strangled and their bodies dumped in alleys and trash 
bins in South Los Angeles and nearby areas.

He also is charged with the attempted murder of a woman who survived being shot 
in the chest and pushed out of a car in 1988.

At his trial in February, the women identified Franklin as her attacker and 
said he took a Polaroid photograph of her after the attack.

Prosecutors said a photo showing the wounded woman slouched over in a car was 
found in Franklin's possession when he was arrested in 2010.

Prosecutors say many of the killings occurred in the midst of a crack cocaine 
epidemic in South Los Angeles and many of the victims were prostitutes.

At one point, prosecutor Beth Silverman told jurors that Franklin targeted 
women "willing to sell their bodies and their souls in order to gratify their 
dependency on this powerful drug."

Prosecutors allege that firearms or DNA evidence connects Franklin to the 
killings. Before his arrest, a police officer posing as a busboy at a pizza 
parlor got DNA samples from dishes and utensils Franklin had been using at a 
birthday party.

Franklin's lawyers, however, argued that many DNA samples taken from "Grim 
Sleeper" victims or their clothing didn't match Franklin.

Defense attorney Seymour Amster told jurors last month that many victims had 
DNA from more than one man on their bodies and that more than 20 DNA tests 
excluded his client.

Both Silverman and Amster acknowledged disliking each other and at times held 
heated arguments in the courtroom out of the jury's hearing.

In March, Amster yelled at Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy after she 
ruled that he would have to refile a subpoena.

"I am now going to rest. We have no defense," Seymour said to gasps in the 
courtroom. "I cannot represent this man any further." However, he continued on 
with the case.

Authorities dubbed the killer the "Grim Sleeper" because of a gap between 
killings from 1988 to 2002.

(source: US News & World Report)

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

Kamala Harris picks her fights as criminal justice crusader


As district attorney of San Francisco, Kamala Harris looked at the criminal 
justice system like a pyramid, with the worst crimes occupying the tip. The 
largest mass of the pyramid, Harris wrote in her 2009 book, is the "truly 
staggering" number of nonviolent offenders.

"The problem is that we have been using only the tools best suited to combating 
the offenders at the top of the pyramid, and we have been using them on the 
entire crime pyramid," she wrote in "Smart on Crime."

Offering a blueprint for how nonviolent offenders could be successfully 
redirected, including initiatives she used in her own department, Harris 
declared, "It's time to rock the crime pyramid."

Since taking office with an upset victory in 2010 over former Los Angeles 
County District Attorney Steve Cooley, Harris has sought to do so by creating a 
division to reduce repeat offenders, launching a pilot re-entry program at a 
Los Angeles County jail and opening a bureau for children's justice.

Now as the Democrat campaigns for U.S. Senate, Harris also highlights broader 
accomplishments, from fighting mortgage fraud and reducing elementary school 
truancy to combating transnational gangs. She's battled for gay marriage rights 
and supported a presidential order shielding unauthorized immigrants from 
deportation.

Yet on issues that have reshaped the state's criminal justice system - 
including historic prison realignment, an initiative changing certain felonies 
to misdemeanors, and scores of public safety bills in the Legislature - Harris' 
role has not been pivotal. The pyramid shook, but often it wasn't her doing the 
shaking.

"Once she became attorney general, I didn't see the transition from those 
initiatives: her writings and her overall philosophy," said Earl Ofari 
Hutchinson, president of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable. Harris, he 
said, could have been "a more vigorous advocate for full criminal justice 
reform."

"She's been confined to (her) comfort zone and unwilling to be big and bold."

Harris' reluctance to use the state's top law enforcement office as a megaphone 
to advance her earlier work has disappointed allies in the fight, some of whom 
question whether she's strategically avoided topics that put her at loggerheads 
with the law enforcement community she worked hard to bring around since taking 
office.

Last year, retired California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso testified in 
favor of a bill that would have required the attorney general to appoint a 
special prosecutor to examine police officers' lethal uses of force. He said 
independent probes are needed to uncover the facts. Harris' office took no 
position at the time.

"I hate to speculate why, except of course that many of the police agencies 
would not want that," Reynoso said. "It may be, politically speaking, that she 
does not want to be on the opposite side of those folks."

In an interview, Harris said she didn't support the measure, Assembly Bill 86, 
because it would have taken discretion from district attorneys. Unless they 
have been shown to abuse their powers, she thinks they should retain them. 
Harris disputed that her relationship with law enforcement had bearing.

"Here's the bottom line: I am trying to change the system from the inside," she 
said. "They (activists) are trying to change the system from the outside. And 
together, change will occur."

Harris' supporters point to the statewide policy initiatives and dozens of 
bills the attorney general's office endorsed to bolster their case that she has 
accomplished far more than any of her predecessors to advance major, if not 
always visible, changes to the system.

She reactivated the office's dormant powers to convene closed-door meetings 
with law enforcement up and down the state where she presented ways to 
coordinate and combat human trafficking, the need to adopt technology such as a 
digital forensic crime lab and to work on plans to implement realignment.

They believe her standard definition for recidivism allows law enforcement 
agencies across the state to accurately measure repeat offenses.

Back on Track LA, an expansion of the nationally recognized program she started 
in San Francisco, connects inmates with an array of services in and out of 
custody, such as therapy, health care, child support, education and 
job-training skills, to help them become contributing, law-abiding members of 
society.

"To look at where the dialogue was in the country before, and where it has gone 
on criminal justice reform, in many ways it is catching up to what she has been 
saying since before it was even popular," said Lenore Anderson, executive 
director of Californians for Safety and Justice.

Last year, Harris initiated a web-based public portal showing years of arrest 
and crime rates, and deaths in custody, among other data sets, by department.

She helped develop statewide policies regulating the use of body-worn cameras, 
saying she favors the technology, and new training on racial profiling, 
implicit bias and procedural justice, also known as officer communication, 
which advocates say builds trust, noted Anderson, Harris' chief of policy when 
she was district attorney.

"I think it would be impossible for anyone to conclude that the attorney 
general has been shy about what she thinks on criminal justice," Anderson said. 
"This has been a major theme of her tenure as an elected official, both local 
and statewide."

Harris touts her career as a prosecutor as preparation for the U.S. Senate, an 
office she said she'll use to speak up for society's voiceless, reduce 
sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and take questions about criminal 
backgrounds off job applications. In California, she's worked to prevent sexual 
assault, eliminate the rape kit backlog in state labs, fight cyberexploitation 
and protect sensitive immigrant communities.

Harris said there's an extensive amount she's done in cases in which she didn't 
invite the media, or politicians, into the room.

"In order for a lot of this stuff to work, law enforcement has to understand 
the viability and appropriateness so that they will actively participate and 
cooperate," she said.

"True, I haven't been engaged in a lot of grandstanding," Harris added. "I 
haven't sought a lot of publicity on it. But the work has happened. These are 
things that did not occur before."

Harris was not the choice of law enforcement when she ran in 2010. Most of the 
leading groups endorsed Cooley, some citing his unwavering support for the 
death penalty. Harris had not sought death for the 2004 killer of San Francisco 
police Officer Isaac Espinoza.

Law enforcement committees alone committed roughly $1.5 million in outside 
spending for Cooley, with nearly $113,000 coming from the Peace Officers 
Research Association of California. 22 days after the election, Cooley conceded 
the close race. Harris quickly arranged meetings with groups such as PORAC.

"She came to law enforcement and many other groups and said, 'Here's what I 
want to accomplish. Help me accomplish them. And how can we best get there?'" 
PORAC President Mike Durant said.

In 2014, Harris had a nominal Republican opponent but the backing of most 
public safety groups.

Asked about any areas of disagreement with Harris, Durant said, "Nothing comes 
to mind."

Robert Weisberg, faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, 
said the state AG's power over criminal issues is limited because county 
prosecutors mostly operate on their own. Criminal appeals are generally handled 
by deputy attorneys general, he said.

"She has seen her role as synthesizing ideas that have emerged as consensus 
beliefs and tried to embed them into public discourse in a way that might 
promote action by the agencies that have more direct power than she does," 
Weisberg said.

"It's just been the nature of criminal justice lately that the attorney 
general, by its office, has not been the center of attention," he added.

Harris did not help shape the public safety realignment program championed by 
Gov. Jerry Brown. Spurred by a federal order to reduce prison overcrowding, 
Brown and lawmakers in 2011 moved to shift many state responsibilities for 
lower-level felons to the counties, paying for it with a mix of sales taxes and 
fees.

Harris said she created one of the first examples of successful realignment 
with her program in San Francisco. Later, Brown's policy formed the impetus for 
Harris' Division of Recidivism Reduction and Re-entry as a way to embed the 
responsibility in the Department of Justice, Harris said.

"I think I have played quite an active role of showing how it can be done 
within the system," she said.

Death penalty opponents are discouraged by Harris' performance on the issue. 
Despite being a lifelong critic of capital punishment, she promised to follow 
the law. In office, she defended it in court. That "raised doubts" about her 
commitment to changing the system, said Hadar Aviram, professor at UC Hastings 
College of the Law in San Francisco.

"It was a big disappointment," Aviram said. "I was surprised to see a 
proclaimed and vocal opponent of the death penalty take steps to actively to 
defend it."

Harris' office appealed after Cormac Carney, a federal judge in Orange County, 
2 years ago overturned the death sentence of Ernest Dewayne Jones, sentenced 
for the murder of his girlfriend's mother in 1995. In ruling it 
unconstitutional, Carney said the death penalty takes too long and that 
unpredictable impediments were unfair. His ruling was overturned by a panel of 
the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Aviram, who at the time started a petition urging Harris not to appeal in the 
Jones case, contrasted her appeal with her refusal to defend the Proposition 8 
ban on gay marriage, which she said was unconstitutional.

"There is no way of knowing how that case could have come out if the attorney 
general's office had put up a fight based on its ministerial role," Aviram 
said. "I think the death penalty issue called for similar consideration."

Harris said she appealed the death penalty case because she wanted to ensure 
Carney's arguments would not be used to hasten executions. She said the case 
differed from her action on Proposition 8 because she had a duty as the state's 
lawyer to represent its interest on the death penalty.

"On Prop. 8, that was in my independent capacity as attorney general," she 
said. "And in Prop. 8, also, the governor agreed. So everyone was on the same 
page."

Harris is cautious when ballot measures are before voters, arguing that she 
should not take sides because her office prepares the title and summary seen by 
voters. Her neutrality differs from recent predecessors, including Brown, Bill 
Lockyer and Dan Lungren, but is consistent.

That meant she did not factor in the debate over Proposition 47, the 2014 
measure pushed by Anderson and other criminal justice advocates, which reduced 
certain drug and property crimes to misdemeanors.

Supporters would have liked to see Harris at their side, while some law 
enforcement leaders believe she should have stepped in to oppose it. They blame 
the law for a rise in crime.

Mike Ramos, the district attorney of San Bernardino County, said that while he 
despises Proposition 47, calling it a "get out of jail free" card, he 
understands. Making her opinion known would be a conflict, he said, given her 
duties.

"Would I have loved for her to take my side against Prop. 47? Of course," said 
Ramos, who is running for attorney general in 2018. "Do I understand why she 
didn't? Yes, I do."

Jan Scully, former district attorney of Sacramento County, said Harris should 
have been more involved from a prosecutor's standpoint. Scully and other 
elected prosecutors and county sheriffs, who were unhappy with many of her 
positions, wanted her to denounce Proposition 47, insisting it stood to 
diminish consequences and accountability.

"We felt as prosecutors that Kamala was weak or missing when it comes to 
matters of public safety or criminal justice, and far more political - always 
looking for her next office," Scully said. "She didn't try to be everything to 
prosecutors and law enforcement. But she didn't go so far out there on the 
liberal side, either. If anything, she was nothing to anyone."

Harris has been circumspect about most legislation relating to criminal 
justice, though her office sometimes provides technical assistance not 
appearing on the record. She sponsored or supported about 60 bills, including 8 
dealing with human trafficking, 6 with firearms and 4 with truancy. In that 
time, more than 440 bills were referred to public safety committees and 
subsequently passed by the full Legislature. Brown signed about 85 % of the 
bills, vetoing the rest.

In addition to staying out of debate over the lethal-force bill supported by 
Reynoso, Harris did not take a position on landmark racial- and 
identity-profiling legislation, steered clear of a bill limiting law 
enforcement's ability to confiscate property from people not convicted of 
crimes, and did not support statewide standards regulating body-worn cameras by 
police officers, siding with law enforcement in contending there's no 
1-size-fits-all approach to the issue.

Harris did back a less-fractious bill requiring agencies to report to her 
department incidents in which an officer is involved in the use of force.

Lockyer said Harris has had an "outstanding record," but one that "doesn't 
necessarily involve jumping into every public controversy."

"I think she is careful, and that's a smart thing to do," Lockyer said. "Some 
people want more active engagement with the issues they get involved in. And 
again, that's one way people can do these things. Another is to do the job and 
try to do the job well."

(source: Sacramento Bee)






USA:

Presidential Candidates and the Death Penalty


Unlike in past elections, national interest in the presidential candidates' 
position on the death penalty has waned, partly due to a decline in the number 
of states that no longer allow capital punishment. Also, in U.S. the rate of 
violent crimes decreased steadily for 20 years, until 2015 when, according to 
the FBI, the numbers rose to 1.7 % with a 6 % increase in homicides.

History has shown that when the crime numbers are up, more people are pro-death 
penalty and interest in the position political candidates take on the issue 
becomes more important to voters.

Lessons Learned?

A good example of this was the 1988 presidential election between Michael 
Dukakis and George H.W. Bush. At the time, the national murder rate was 
averaging around 8.4 % and 76 % of Americans were for the death penalty, the 
2nd highest number since recording began in 1936.

Dukakis was pegged as being too liberal and soft on crime and received a fair 
amount of criticism because he was opposed to the death penalty.

An incident that many believe sealed his fate as the presidential loser 
occurred during an October 13, 1988, debate between Dukakis and Bush when the 
moderator, Bernard Shaw asked Dukakis if he would be in favor of the death 
penalty if his wife were raped and murdered. Dukakis replied that he would not 
favor it and reiterated that he was opposed to the death penalty all of his 
life. The general consensus was that his answer was cold and his national poll 
numbers plummeted that same night.

Despite the fact that the majority of the U.S. is still in favor of the death 
penalty, opposition is rising and it is now at 38 % which is the highest it has 
been in 40 years.

Bernie Sanders - Against the Death Penalty

During a February 2016 MSNBC debate, Bernie Sanders voiced concerns that there 
have been innocent people, particularly minorities, who have been executed.

"Of course there are barbaric acts out there, but in a world of so much 
violence and killing, I just don't believe that government itself should be 
part of the killing," Sanders said. "I just don't want to see government be 
part of killing."

Bernie Sanders has been against the death penalty for over 20 years.

Hillary Clinton - Supports the Death Penalty

Hillary Clinton has taken a more cautious stand than her counterpart. During 
the same debate, Clinton said that she was concerned about how the death 
penalty is handled on a state level and that she has a lot more confidence in 
the federal system.

"For very limited, particularly heinous crimes, I believe it is an appropriate 
punishment, but I deeply disagree with the way that too many states still are 
implementing it," Clinton said.

Clinton was again confronted with questions about her views on the death 
penalty during a CNN-hosted Democratic town hall on March 14, 2016.

Ricky Jackson, an Ohio man who spent 39 years in prison and came "perilously 
close" to being executed, and who was later found to be innocent, was emotional 
when he asked Clinton, "In light of what I've just shared with you and in light 
of the fact that there are undocumented cases of innocent people who have been 
executed in our country. I would like to know how you can still take your 
stance on the death penalty."

Clinton again voiced her concerns, saying, "the states have proven themselves 
incapable of carrying out fair trials that give any defendant all the rights 
that defendant should have..."

She also said she would "breathe a sigh of relief" if the Supreme Court of the 
states eliminated the death penalty. She then added that she still supported it 
"in rare cases" on a federal level for terrorist and mass murderers.

"If it were possible to separate the federal from the state system by the 
Supreme Court," Clinton added, confusingly, "that would, I think, be an 
appropriate outcome."

Donald Trump - Supports the Death Penalty

On December 10, 2015, Donald Trump announced to several hundred police union 
members in Milford, New Hampshire, that one of the first things he would do as 
president would be to sign a statement that anybody that kills a police office 
would get the death penalty. He made the announcement after he accepted the 
endorsement of the New England Police Benevolent Association.

"One of the first things I do, in terms of executive order if I win, will be to 
sign a strong, strong statement that will go out to the country -- out to the 
world -- that anybody killing a policeman, policewoman, a police officer -- 
anybody killing a police officer, the death penalty. It's going to happen, OK? 
We can't let this go."

Trump also earned his pro-death penalty status after taking out a full-page ad 
in 4 New York City newspapers titled, "BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY! BRING BACK 
THE POLICE!" It was assumed that his actions were in reference to the May 1989 
brutal rape of a woman who was jogging in Central Park, although he never made 
reference to the attack.

Ted Cruz - Supports the Death Penalty

Ted Cruz has been a long time supporter of the death penalty and believes that 
the decision should be left up to each state.

In a September 2015 interview with POLITICO, Cruz said, "I spent a number of 
years in law enforcement dealing with some of the worst criminals, child 
rapists and murderers, people who've committed unspeakable acts. I believe the 
death penalty is recognition of the preciousness of human life, that for the 
most egregious crimes, the ultimate punishment should apply."

Cruz also supported the decision to execute a man in Texas who many were 
fighting to keep alive because the man was mentally ill.

"I trust the criminal-justice system to operate, to protect the rights of the 
accused, and to administer justice to violent criminals," Cruz said.

(source: about.com)