[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----GA., FLA., TENN., MO., CALIF., WASH.

[Rick Halperin]

May 7



GEORGIA:

Conversation with Sara Totonchi


Despite a recent spate of executions, Sara Totonchi predicts a day in the very 
near future with no death penalty, in Georgia and nationwide. Totonchi is 
executive director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, an Atlanta-based 
nonprofit founded 40 years ago to represent people, mostly poor minorities, 
facing a death sentence. Today, the center's staff of lawyers, paralegals and 
investigators also fights what it perceives as human rights violations in 
prisons and jails and advocates on behalf of criminal justice reform. Totonchi 
talked about the center's work and why she says "the death penalty is on life 
support and its end is imminent."

Q: Why was Southern Center founded?

A: The Southern Center was founded in 1976 by a group of activists, ministers 
and lawyers in response to the reinstatement of the death penalty and the 
horrendous conditions in prisons and jails in the South.

Q: Anything changed since then?

A: At the time we were founded, the death penalty was rampant. Last year, there 
were 28 executions in only 6 states nationwide, the fewest since 1991. Even 
though executions unfortunately are being carried out in Georgia, there were 
zero new death sentences imposed here in 2015.

Q: What's behind the shift?

A: A palpable shift in the public's perception of the death penalty. There have 
been 156 exonerations from death row since 1973 - innocent people who could 
have been executed. There is a growing discomfort with the government having 
the ultimate power to extinguish human life.

Q: What is Southern Center's basic philosophy?

A: That a person's life is worth more than the worst decision they've ever 
made. We are working to fulfill the promise of equal justice under the law.

Q: Do you think the average Georgian cares?

A: It is important to remember how wide reaching the criminal justice system is 
here. Nationally, 1 in 31 adults is under some form of correctional 
supervision. In Georgia, the statistic is 1 in 12. The realities of how our 
legal system works become very clear when you or a loved one interacts with it.

Q: What other issues is the Southern Center involved in?

A: There has been a national awakening about the criminalization of poverty and 
acts of police violence against people of color. The Southern Center has been 
sounding the alarm on these abuses for decades. We are involved in criminal 
justice reform in Georgia. Typically, I wouldn't be on the same political side 
as Gov. Nathan Deal but his will benefit our state and citizens for years.

Q: Why are you against the death penalty?

A: My parents instilled in me an obligation to help those less fortunate. 
Growing up half-Iraqi during the Persian Gulf War era, I saw a parallel between 
Saddam Hussein's random killing of innocent civilians and the way the death 
penalty is carried out in the U.S. At the Southern Center, we see cases where 
clients have been represented by lawyers who knew nothing about the law, fell 
asleep during trials, referred to their clients by racial slurs. Some clients 
have struggled with mental health challenges or had childhoods that could be 
compared to horror stories. We see time and time again that the death penalty 
is not given out for the worst crimes but to people who have the worst lawyers. 
It's time to end this practice and embrace equal justice for all.

(source: Atlanta Journal Constitution)






FLORIDA:

With Florida's death penalty on trial, what should happen to 390 on death row?


On Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court heard arguments in a Pensacola murder 
case that in January prompted the U.S. Supreme Court to declare Florida???s 
death penalty statute unconstitutional. An attorney for murderer Timothy Hurst 
asked the state's high court to direct a trial judge to resentence the 
defendant to life in prison. Assistant State Attorney General Carine Mitz asked 
it to rule that despite the high court ruling, Hurst still should be put to 
death.

If it takes all 12 jurors to convict someone of a capital crime, why isn't the 
same unanimous standard required to impose the death penalty in Florida?

This inconsistency is the core problem in Florida's death penalty process, now 
in the legal firing line as never before.

The Florida Supreme Court heard arguments last week in a case that could toss 
the death penalty for all 390 inmates on Florida's death row. It's the result 
of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that found fault with the way 
the state hands down capital punishment.

For decades, Florida has allowed judges - not juries - to make the final call 
on death. Jurors make a recommendation to the judge during a separate "penalty 
phase" following conviction, but it doesn't have to be unamimous. Even without 
a jury majority, a judge can impose death.

Florida is one of only three states where death can be imposed without a 
unanimous jury decision. Alabama and Delaware are the others.

"It's not logical," said Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein, a death 
penalty opponent. "We need unanimity to take someone's freedom away, but not 
for the state to take someone's life?"

"Florida has more exonerations than any other state, and we've found that 90 
percent of them come in cases where juries weren't unanimous," said Robert 
Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in 
Washington, D.C.

Since the death penalty was reinstituted in 1976 after a U.S. Supreme Court 
ruling, Florida has executed 92 people. The last to be executed from Broward 
(Robert Henry, 2014) and Palm Beach County (William Van Poyck, 2013) each had 
non-unanimous jury recommendations.

Timothy Lee Hurst, sentenced to death for the 1998 murder of a co-worker at a 
Popeye's restaurant in Pensacola, challenged Florida's system. His jury 
recommended death by a 7-to-5 majority.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard his case and in January ruled Florida's system 
unconstitutional. In an 8-1 decision (Justice Samuel Alito dissented), the 
Supreme Court said Florida improperly allowed judges alone to making findings 
of fact in the sentencing phase.

Now it's up to the Florida Supreme Court to sort out what to do with Hurst and 
389 other death row inmates.

Should all 390 have their death sentences commuted to life in prison without 
parole? Or just the roughly 75 % who were sentenced to death without unanimous 
jury recommendations?

A group of prominent attorneys and former Florida Supreme Court justices filed 
a brief saying that all death sentences should be voided. They cited an earlier 
law that says if the death penalty is found defective, all death sentences 
should be tossed.

That would be tough to take for victims' families in the cases where juries 
were unanimous in recommending death, such as the brutal 2010 Broward home 
invasion slaying of Nova Southeastern University professor Joseph Morrissey by 
Randy W. Tundidor.

In response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the Legislature changed the law 
this year so that a minimum 10-2 majority is required to impose death.

Why not just make things neat by requiring 12-0 jury decisions, like nearly all 
other states with the death penalty?

"The only explanation is politics," Finkelstein said. "The state knows there 
would be a lot fewer death sentences if it had to be unanimous."

"It was a legislative compromise," said Dunham who testified before a Florida 
Senate committee about the bill. He said the Senate wanted a 12-0 standard, but 
the House pushed for 10-2 because "that's what prosecutors wanted."

Dunham said the state is setting itself up for future challenges with the 
revision.

Perhaps it's time to ditch the death penalty overall. At the very least, its 
time to make 12-0 the jury standard to impose it.

(source: Column, Michael Mayo; Sun-Sentinel)

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

Supreme Court Weighs Nine Mile Popeyes Death Penalty Case


The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday heard arguments in a key case that led to 
an overhaul of the state's death-penalty sentencing system and could have 
sweeping implications for the 390 inmates awaiting execution in Florida.

The case involves Timothy Lee Hurst, who was sentenced to death for the 1998 
killing of a fast-food worker on Nine Mile Road in Pensacola.

Hurst was the plaintiff in an appeal that resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court 
ruling in January that Florida's system of allowing judges - and not juries - 
to decide whether defendants should face death equates to an unconstitutional 
violation of the Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury.

Lawmakers hurriedly overhauled the death-penalty sentencing system this winter 
to address the U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

Since the January ruling, the Florida Supreme Court has been grappling with the 
impact of the decision on death row inmates like Hurst. Lawyers for the 
prisoners contend that Florida law requires the death sentences be reduced to 
life in prison without parole. Prosecutors argue that the court should consider 
the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a case-by-case basis.

David Davis, a Leon County assistant public defender representing Hurst, argued 
Thursday that the new law overhauling the sentencing system should not apply to 
Hurst and that his client must be resentenced to life behind bars.

Echoing arguments made by a group of legal luminaries in a brief filed in 
Hurst's case this week, Davis relied on a 1972 statute which provides that "in 
the event the death penalty in a capital felony is held to be unconstitutional 
by the Florida Supreme Court or the United States Supreme Court," the court 
having jurisdiction over a person previously sentenced to death "shall sentence 
such person to life imprisonment."

That law came in anticipation of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case known as 
Furman v. Georgia, which resulted in a nationwide moratorium on the death 
penalty and led to the commutation of all death sentences in Florida to life in 
prison without parole.

Justice Peggy Quince noted that the decades-old law deals only with decisions 
regarding the death penalty itself, not the process involving sentencing.

"The Supreme Court (in the Hurst ruling) did not say that the death penalty was 
unconstitutional. It said the Florida procedure was unconstitutional. Isn't 
that a difference?" she asked Davis.

But Davis said the law links the procedure and the penalty.

"It's sort of like a symbiotic relationship. You can't have 1 without the 
other. It's sort of like having a bag full of bullets without a gun. They don't 
do you any good unless you have the gun. In this case, unless you have this 
procedure, you don't have the death penalty," he said.

The 8-1 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Hurst case dealt with the sentencing 
phase of death-penalty cases after defendants are found guilty, and it focused 
on what are known as aggravating circumstances that must be determined before 
defendants can be sentenced to death. A 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, in a 
case known as Ring v. Arizona, requires that determinations of such aggravating 
circumstances must be made by juries, not judges. Under Florida's new law, 
juries will have to unanimously determine "the existence of at least one 
aggravating factor" before defendants can be eligible for death sentences. The 
law also requires at least 10 jurors to recommend the death penalty in order 
for the sentence to be imposed, and it did away with a feature of the old law 
that had allowed judges to override juries' recommendations of life in prison 
instead of death.

Justice Barbara Pariente, who earlier this year called reliance on the 1972 law 
a "fallacious" argument, questioned why Hurst should not be resentenced under 
the new law.

Davis said that, by applying the new law retroactively, "you've essentially 
ignored" the law that requires the sentences to be reduced.

"So you think the Legislature intended to provide a gap and give all the 
defendants that had previously been sentenced to death a life sentence? You 
think that is even remotely the case?" Pariente said.

Assistant Attorney General Carine Mitz argued that the "plain language" of the 
1972 law is clear.

"It doesn't say the death penalty statute. It doesn't say Florida's death 
penalty statute. It specifically says the death penalty," Mitz said.

The justices also focused much of Thursday's hearing on the issue of "harmless 
error," a legal term meaning that any other jury would come to the same 
conclusion.

Hurst was sentenced to death for the 1998 killing of fast-food worker Cynthia 
Harrison in Pensacola. Harrison, an assistant manager at a Popeye's Fried 
Chicken restaurant where Hurst worked, was bound, gagged and stabbed more than 
60 times. Her body was found in a freezer of the Nine Mile Road restaurant.

The jury in the Hurst case recommended a death sentence to the judge, but its 
vote was split s7 to 5.

Davis argued that harmless error does not apply in Hurst's case because "there 
was no jury verdict" on his death sentence.

"Harmless error analysis presumes that you have a legal verdict. In this case, 
we don't. It was just merely a recommendation. We don't know what factors the 
jury found. ... And not only that, we don't know what weight they gave to them. 
So the whole harmless error idea just falls apart," Davis told reporters after 
the hearing.

But Mitz said that any jury would return the same recommendation when 
reconsidering the circumstances of Hurst's case.

Justice Charles Canady stepped in to support Mitz's arguments.

"Based on the facts, isn't there a strong case, that you're trying to make, 
that any rational jury necessarily would have found those 2 aggravators on 
which the trial court relied in imposing the sentence?" he asked.

Pariente and Quince also expressed concerns about the constitutionality of 
Florida's new death penalty law, at least in part because it only requires 
juries to decide that 1 aggravating factor exists for the death penalty to be 
imposed.

"The worst thing would be ... a new statute that has constitutional infirmities 
that we then are applying across all these prosecutions and 10 years from now 
we end up with another 100, 200 people on death row, and no one gets to what 
the state wants, which is to have the worst of the worst executed," Pariente 
said.

But Sen. Rob Bradley, a Fleming Island Republican who is a former prosecutor, 
said in a telephone interview that the state's new law is firm.

"If one looks at the Florida Supreme Court's treatment of death penalty cases, 
it's obvious that it is a liberal court that doesn't like the death penalty. 
Therefore, it's not surprising that they will look to pick apart and find flaws 
in what should be obviously a constitutional statute that conforms to what the 
U.S. Supreme Court has done," he said.

(source: northescambia.com)






TENNESSEE:

Death penalty murder trial starts Monday


An Anderson County murder trial where the state is seeking the death penalty 
for the 1st time in a year is scheduled to begin Monday in Criminal Court.

Norman Lee Follis, Jr., 52, is accused of strangling his uncle, Sammie J. 
Adams, 79, with a heater cord while Follis' girlfriend, Tammy Sue Chapman, 48, 
watched.

Authorities said the slaying occurred sometime between Dec. 5, 2011, and Jan. 
24, 2012. Adams' decomposing body was found stuffed under a staircase in his 
apartment on Patt Lane in the Anderson County portion of the Powell community.

In a confession, Follis said Adams attacked him when he tried to pull Adams off 
his girlfriend after he had grabbed her.

Prosecutors spent 3 days this week selecting a jury to hear the case. Jurors 
will be sequestered, and the trial is expected to take several days.

The victim's advanced age was a factor in the decision to seek the death 
penalty, District Attorney General Dave Clark said in 2014.

Follis and Chapman remain in the Anderson County Jail under $1 million bonds. 
Chapman will be tried later.

(source: Knoxville News Sentinel)






MISSOURI----impending execution

Earl Forrest Scheduled to be Executed Next Week in MO


Who Is Earl Forrest?

On May 11, 2016, Missouri is set to execute Earl Forrest for the murders of 
Harriett Smith, Michael Wells, and Deputy Joann Barnes in 2002.

Forrest, who was extremely intoxicated and high on methamphetamine at the time 
of the murders, has always accepted responsibility for the crimes and was 
willing to accept a life without parole sentence for his actions. Years before 
the murders, Forrest suffered a serious head injury that left parts of his 
brain significantly damaged. Unfortunately, his trial attorneys failed to 
investigate and adequately present the extent of his head injuries. Had the 
jury been convinced of Mr. Forrest's head injury, they may not have recommended 
a death sentence.

While this would be the 1st execution in Missouri in 2016, Missouri has had a 
recent history of executing a number of prisoners, a fact that should be deeply 
troubling for all who believe in the dignity of all human beings.

WHAT DOES THE CATHOLIC CHURCH TEACH ABOUT THE DEATH PENALTY?

Take Action to Stop This Execution

You can take action today. Send an email to Governor Nixon asking him to show 
mercy to Earl Forrest and commute his death sentence to life in jail without 
parole. Let the governor know that the death penalty should not be used because 
it disregards the sanctity and dignity of human life. It also continues the 
cycle of violence.

There is also a prayer vigil being held on the steps of St. Francis Xavier 
Church (College Church) at the corner of Lindell and Grand on Saint Louis 
University's campus from 3- 4 PM on Wednesday, May 11. It is organized and 
sponsored by Missourians Against the Death Penalty. This group typically holds 
prayer vigils on the afternoon of scheduled executions.

Finally, pray for a greater respect for all human life. Ask the Holy Spirit to 
touch the hearts of all in our country to see the dignity in all human persons, 
particularly in those in whom it may be hardest to see it. Pray too for the 
victims of crime and their families, those who have been wrongly convicted, and 
those waiting execution.

(source: genlifestl365.com)






CALIFORNIA:

DA admits 'distressing' lack of disclosure to defense counsel about jail 
informants


As assistant public defender Scott Sanders fought to prevent a client from 
being sentenced to death in a California murder case, he asked about records of 
interactions between the Orange County Sheriff???s Department and jailhouse 
informants.

There were none, he was told. But that wasn't true: Unbeknownst to higher-ups, 
deputies kept a log between 2008 and 2013, reports the Daily Pilot.

It came to light only when 1 deputy happened to show it to a sergeant in recent 
weeks, she testified in an unusual Tuesday hearing, under questioning by 
Sanders.

Sgt. Kirsten Monteleone and a commander said they had sent a department-wide 
memo and emailed some 300 current and former deputies earlier this year, after 
a cache of notes concerning a different case came to light and they were tasked 
with investigating to see if any other unknown material existed. Nothing was 
disclosed to them at that time, the newspaper reports.

Pushed by Sanders for an explanation of why the deputy who revealed the log 
hadn't done so earlier, Monteleone said he hadn't considered the material to 
fall within the category of requested notes. About 80 pages of material from 
the log have now been provided to Sanders.

Within hours of the Tuesday hearing, the Orange County district attorney 
released a written statement: "The OCDA finds it distressing that these notes 
would be withheld from the OCDA, the court and the public until this hearing. 
The OCDA has been assured by Sheriff Sandra Hutchens that she will take 
appropriate internal actions to address this issue."

Meanwhile, the Sanders client whose case sparked the hearing, convicted 
double-murderer Daniel Patrick Wozniak, 31, is still awaiting his sentence, the 
Daily Pilot reports. A jury recommended the death penalty in January. Wozniak's 
formal sentencing is scheduled later this month.

(source: ABA Journal)

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

Oakland: Darnell Williams found guilty in 2 murders, faces death penalty


A 25-year-old Oakland man whose gunshot into a house killed an 8-year-old girl 
at a sleepover and who weeks later fatally shot a man in the back at a dice 
game was found guilty of 1st-degree murder Friday in the 1st case in 4 years 
where Alameda County prosecutors have sought the death penalty for a murder 
conviction.

Darnell Williams stared straight ahead and showed no reaction when the court 
clerk read the verdict after 2 days of deliberations, but family members of 
both victims -- Alaysha Carradine killed in Oakland, and Anthony Medearis, 22, 
shot in Berkeley -- gasped, then began weeping and embraced.

Later outside the courtroom, Alaysha's cousin, Shaquilla Jackson, said her 
family had been waiting for this moment for 3 years: "We're so happy," she 
said.

The case now moves to the penalty phase, where the same jury of seven women and 
five men will decide whether Williams will be sent to death row.

Jackson was embraced by her family in the 2nd row of the Oakland courtroom 
after the court clerk read the 1st count as guilty of 1st-degree murder. 
Alaysha's mother, Chiquita Carradine, who lives out of the state, did not 
attend the verdict hearing. When reached by phone Friday afternoon, she 
declined to comment.

Williams, wearing a black and blue sweater and black slacks, remained 
stone-cold without reaction, staring straight ahead as the court clerk read off 
a total of 9 guilty verdicts.

Medearis' mother, Dolanda Medearis, also wept during the reading of the 
verdict.

Jackie Winters, Anthony Medearis's aunt, said her family and Alaysha's family 
became close after the violent deaths of their family members at the hands of 
Williams. They exchanged phone numbers, keeping each other in the loop about 
the trial proceedings. The 2 families would sit together during testimony 
consoling one another.

Last week, when Jackson openly sobbed during emotional closing arguments when a 
video was shown of a police officer carrying Alaysha to an ambulance and 
talking with her, Winters consoled her. When a photo of Anthony Medearis was 
shown to the jury, Jackson in return put her arm around Winters as she cried.

"We appreciate the closure we got," Winters said.

The jury also affirmed the special circumstances of lying in wait, multiple 
murders, and murder during the course of a robbery that make Williams eligible 
for the death penalty.

There were at least 6 victims, including Alaysha and Medearis, in what 
prosecutor John Brouhard called a "rampage of violence" between the July and 
September slayings in 2013.

Alaysha was sleeping overnight at a friends house the night she was killed. It 
was 11:15 p.m. on July 17, 2013 at the Wilson Avenue apartment in Oakland when 
the doorbell rang. Alaysha and her 7-year-old friend and her 4-year-old brother 
went to answer it, thinking it was the friend's mother. Instead, they were met 
with a "barrage of gunfire," when Williams shot through the metal screen door 
into the apartment, hitting the young children, Brouhard said.

Alaysha was shot just below the neck and the 2 other children were injured. 
Williams' gunfire also hit a woman who was lying on the couch inside the house, 
children's grandmother. She was shot in the upper thigh.

Williams had gone to the house, prosecutors said, seeking revenge for the death 
of his friend, Jermaine Davis, who was killed in a shooting earlier that day in 
Berkeley. Williams believed that the father of the children who lived in the 
house, Antoine York, had killed Davis and he wanted to hurt York, or someone 
close to him, a witness said during the trial.

Williams' then-girlfriend Britney Rogers testified that he confessed to her 
about the shooting that night. She said that he came back wearing a bulletproof 
vest and had 2 guns with him. He told her he believed that York's "baby mama," 
or the mother of his children, lived at the apartment. He told her when the 
door opened, he saw a woman lying on the couch and kept shooting.

The detail about a woman lying on the couch was not made public before the 
trial, Brouhard argued during the trial, meaning that only the shooter, and 
whoever the shooter told, would know about it.

Weeks later, Williams killed Medearis on Sept. 8 during a dice game in 
Berkeley. He had told someone before the shooting that he didn't like Medearis 
and that he was a known snitch. Minutes before the shooting, he sent a 
text-message to a friend saying he was about to rob Medearis.

The 2 men got into an argument at the dice game and when Medearis ran, Williams 
shot after him, hitting him in the back. Williams' own 8-year-old nephew, who 
was present during the dice game, was also injured in the shooting when a metal 
bullet fragment lodged under his eye.

Besides being found guilty of the 1st-degree murders, Williams was also found 
guilty of three counts of attempted murder, shooting into a home, possession of 
a gun by a felon and assault with a gun.

The same jury will now serve in the penalty phase of the trial, where they will 
make a recommendation of the death penalty or life in prison without parole. 
The penalty phase begins May 16.

(source: Mercury News)

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

ACLU wins access to 12,000 internal prison documents on California's plans for 
lethal injection


A court fight delaying approval of a new method for executing inmates in 
California ended this week with the release of 12,000 internal prison documents 
about the state's plans for lethal injection.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, which went to court 
in November to obtain the documents, said it would make them public early next 
week. The legal standoff ended when the California Supreme Court on Wednesday 
rejected a request by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to 
intervene in the case.

Prison authorities unveiled the new, single-drug execution protocol in early 
November, but the litigation forced the state to extend the public comment 
period by about 7 months.

The court fight is likely to be one of many as the state proceeds to try to 
restart the death chamber at San Quentin Prison. Litigation has put executions 
on hold since 2006.

Kent Scheidegger, a director of the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice Legal 
Foundation, accused the ACLU of using the records' request to delay approval of 
the new protocol and to dig up ammunition for another lawsuit to prevent the 
state from going forward.

"They have succeeded in getting a Superior Court judge to allow them to use the 
Public Records Act as a device to ridiculously extend this public comment 
period," Scheidegger said. "I think they want more information to launch a 
lawsuit" against the new protocol.

The ACLU said it needed the records to comment on the proposed protocol and to 
prevent botched executions.

Ana Zamora, the group's criminal justice policy director, said 2 of 4 possible 
barbiturates the state has proposed for executions - amobarbital and 
secobarbital - have never been used in executions.

Amobarbital, once thought to be a truth serum, has hypnotic and sedative 
properties. Secobarbital has been used in physician-assisted suicide, but 
Zamora said it is typically taken orally and there are questions about whether 
it can be injected in a potent amount.

The state's plan to use compounding pharmacies also concerns the group because 
she said they are not licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. An 
ineffective drug could result in a prolonged and inhumane execution, opponents 
of capital punishment say.

The corrections department "aggressively fought to withhold these documents for 
months even after the court determined that these 12,000 pages must be turned 
over," Zamora said.

She said the ACLU has not had time yet to analyze or even read all of records, 
many of which the group must redact under a court order.

"We have just been dealing with the sheer volume and the redacting," she said, 
adding that the documents arrived in 800 PDF attachments not long after the 
state high court declined to review the case.

The ACLU asked for the documents in August and September, arguing the 
California Public Records Act compelled their production. The group wanted them 
ahead of the prison department's announcement of the new execution protocol.

After failing to obtain most of the records, the group sued the state.

A Marin County judge reviewed the requested records and ruled that some must be 
made public. Communications between prison authorities and Gov. Jerry Brown 
were private, the judge said, but other records were subject to public 
disclosure.

Prison officials asked the California Supreme Court to overturn the lower 
court. They argued the records were protected by the legal privilege provided 
to lawyers and their clients.

In the meantime, opponents of capital punishment have submitted signatures for 
a Nov. 8 ballot measure that would end the death penalty and replace it with 
life without parole.

Signatures for a counterinitiative that proponents say would help speed up 
executions have not yet been submitted. A spokesman for the pro-death penalty 
measure said the signatures will be turned in within the next several days, and 
he expects the measure to qualify.

Scheidegger, frustrated by continuing delays in the capital punishment process, 
said the state must finalize the execution protocol 1 year after public 
comment.

"They have to address every single comment that is made," Scheidegger said, 
"and they might not make it."

(source: Los Angeles Times)






WASHINGTON:

Deadline extended for Yakima County Prosecutor's death penalty decision


The man accused of shooting and killing 2 women at the Yakima Money Tree was 
back in court Friday.

Yakima County Prosecutor Joe Brusic asked the court for more time to decide on 
whether or not to pursue the death penalty for Manuel Verduzco.

Brusic now has until July 15th to make a decision.

Dozens of loved ones came to court today in honor of the victims.

Verduzco is suspected of shooting and killing Marta Martinez and Karina 
Morales-Rodriguez while they were on their way to work in March.

(source: KIMA TV news)