[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----S.C., FLA., ALA., TENN., IND., MO.

[Rick Halperin]

May 13




SOUTH CAROLINA:

Dylann Roof's attorney OKs request for mental evaluation, pushes back on 
witness lists


Defense attorneys for Dylann Roof, the 22-year-old white man accused of killing 
9 black parishioners during a Bible study at Emanuel AME Church, say they will 
allow state prosecutors to conduct their own mental evaluation of Roof.

In a hearing last month, the solicitor's office asked to conduct its own mental 
evaluation of Roof to rebut or confirm the findings from a pair of evaluations 
performed by the defense team's experts.

The state trial, originally slated to begin in July, has been pushed back to 
January 2017 to allow the defense's experts to complete 6 months of further 
exams and reports on Roof's mental state.

On Wednesday, Roof's attorney Ashley Pennington agreed to the request, with 
three caveats: the report on Roof's mental state remains sealed from 
prosecutors until the sentencing phase of the trial; Roof's attorneys will be 
in the room during the evaluation and can object to questions; and anything 
Roof says pointing to his guilt in the shooting cannot be included in the 
report.

However, Pennington pushed back against requests for lists of expert and 
general witnesses.

Pennington said he "has no objection to providing to the court to further the 
goal of selecting a fair and unbiased jury." But Pennington says with the trial 
some 7 months away and the investigation ongoing, he does not have a complete 
list of witnesses outside those the solicitor's office plans to call to 
testify.

Further, Pennington says giving a list of experts and general witnesses he 
plans to call during Roof's defense would give prosecutors an advantage beyond 
normal trial discovery.

Instead, he asked the court to follow the precedent set in the 1995 Susan Smith 
trial in which prosecutors and defense attorneys provided witness lists to the 
judge who then passed them out to potential jurors to make sure there were no 
conflicts of interest.

"Following the same procedure here would help ensure the seating of a fair and 
impartial jury without requiring premature disclosure of the defendant's 
prospective witnesses to the state," Pennington wrote.

Roof is accused of killing nine black parishioners at Emanuel AME Church in 
downtown Charleston. He faces a number of murder and attempted murder charges 
for the shooting and prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty.

Roof also faces nearly 3 dozen federal hate crimes charges, but the Attorney 
General's office has not yet announced whether it will seek the death penalty 
also. As a result, that decision has caused a delay in scheduling the federal 
trial.

Roof's attorneys at the state and federal level have said multiple times that 
Roof is willing to plead guilty if prosecutors remove the possibility of death 
as a sentence.

(source: WCIV news)






FLORIDA:

Local Non Profit Pays Tribute to Wrongly Convicted Individuals


A non-profit pays tribute to individuals who've been exonerated for crimes they 
didn't commit.

William Dillon said he'll never forget the day he gained by his freedom.

"2008, November 18th, 5:55 in the evening," said Dillon.

It came after serving 27 years for a crime he didn't commit.

"1981 I was accused of beating a man to death on the beach," said Dillon.

Thursday Dillon along with 13 other exonorees were honored by the innocence 
project.

This non-profit group helped each of these people gain their freedom.

Also in attendance, anti-death penalty advocate and author of the book turned 
movie "Dead Man Walking" sister Helen Prejean.

She said right now Florida's justice system doesn't cater to those with low 
incomes.

There's prosecutorial misconduct for the most part and often they're poor, they 
don't get good defense and they don't have a chance when they go to trial," 
said Sister Helen.

Ii think the courts were kind of blind. I think they pushed it, I think more 
than anything I think they pushed the issue for a conviction and I just looked 
the part. I was tall, a bigger kid I guess and beating a man to death was easy. 
Even though it turned out 4 juveniles actually committed the crime," said 
Dillon.

Dillon hopes no one else will have to go through his situation.

That's why he encourages people to become sponsors for organizations like the 
innocence project.

"This is element to all justice not just to people wrongfully convicted, but an 
element to stopping people being killed in the death penalty, people being 
misused in the justice system, just thrown away through time," said Dillon.

In all the 14 exonorees honored Thursday spent a total of 275 years in prison 
for crimes they did not commit.

(source: WCTC news)

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

Florida bungled death penalty


Florida leaders want to preserve capital punishment as an option in the most 
heinous murder cases. But they're running out of chances to get it right - if 
such a thing is even possible. And no matter what they do, Florida's death rows 
could be emptied soon, with the sentences of 390 condemned men and women 
commuted to life in prison.

Proponents of capital punishment should be angry. State lawmakers were warned 
about the flaws at the heart of Florida's law in 2002, when the U.S. Supreme 
Court ruled that juries should make the determination, beyond a reasonable 
doubt, that a particular crime merited the state's harshest penalty. But given 
repeated opportunities, Florida lawmakers have refused to require unanimous 
jury support for a death sentence. The most recent failure came in January, 
following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case of Florida killer Timothy Lee 
Hurst that was even more forcefully worded in support of juries' as the 
ultimate determiners of death sentences.

Florida's law falls short of the reasonable standard set by the court - despite 
the fact that the death-penalty apparatus operates much like that of other 
states. Juries in capital murder cases first determine guilt or innocence. 
Guilty verdicts trigger a 2nd trial phase, where jurors hear evidence and then 
decide between life in prison or death.

But Florida's law had 2 important wrinkles. Juries could settle on a death 
sentence by a simple majority vote, and those jury opinions were considered 
merely "advisory" to the judge in the case, who could override a recommendation 
for life and impose a death sentence . Both provisions seemed, to many legal 
scholars, to conflict with the high court's landmark 2002 decision in Ring vs. 
Arizona, upon which the Hurst ruling was based.

Unlike the Ring opinion - which was largely ignored in Florida - the Hurst case 
got the Legislature's attention. It scrambled to draft legislation that shifted 
the final determination to juries. But inexplicably, key lawmakers balked on 
unanimity - a standard adopted by nearly every other death-penalty state - 
deciding, instead, to require a "supermajority" (10 out of 12 jurors) in 
support of the death penalty.

Monday, a circuit judge in Miami-Dade County struck down the two-month-old law 
as unconstitutional. "Every verdict in every criminal case in Florida requires 
the concurrence, not of some, not of most, but of all jurors - every single one 
of them," Circuit Judge Milton Hirsch wrote. He's right. Jury unanimity is an 
essential component of the nation's justice system in criminal trials, and 
there's no way to whittle it down without compromising legal protections that 
Americans treasure.

The state will appeal, and just like that, Florida will be back to where it was 
with the Hurst case - arguing its way through a succession of ever-higher 
courts, defending an indefensibly flawed law.

The futility of that exercise can only be underscored by arguments earlier this 
month before the Florida Supreme Court. Attorneys for Hurst and other 
defendants argued that the Hurst ruling tripped a 1972 state law which commutes 
all death sentences in Florida to life in prison without the possibility of 
parole if the U.S. or Florida Supreme Court finds the state's death-penalty 
laws unconstitutional.

Did that happen? The Hurst opinion, written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, doesn't 
seem equivocal: "Florida's capital sentencing scheme violates the Sixth 
Amendment," she wrote.

Had Florida lawmakers amended the law in 2002 to comply with the Ring decision, 
it's unlikely Hurst's case would have made to the U.S. Supreme Court. So they 
have only themselves and their predecessors to blame if the state's high court 
requires all death-row inmates to be resentenced to life in prison.

(source: Editorial, Daytona Beach News-Journal)

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

Judge gives Miami killer life to spare victim's family from death penalty 
disputes


By a 9-3 vote, a jury last year recommended that Charles Johnson should be sent 
to death row for fatally shooting a young Miami mother, execution style.

With many of Florida's death-penalty cases in flux because of a recent U.S. 
Supreme Court decision, a judge on Thursday ruled otherwise, sentencing Johnson 
instead to life in prison.

"This made no sense at all. They all break your heart, but this one made no 
sense," Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Nushin Sayfie told Johnson. "You ruined your 
own life and you took a life and ruined the lives of many others. I pray for 
you."

Sayfie also told the family of the slain woman, 22-year-old Luvonia Williams, 
that she hoped the life sentence would provide finality, instead of more legal 
wrangling and court hearings that a death sentence might bring about.

"My goal is to make sure we don't have to go through this again," Sayfie told 
them.

Williams' mother, Trudy Carter, nodded her head in agreement. Afterward, Carter 
said she was fine with the decision.

"Life in prison. He has to think about what he did for the rest of his life and 
will never again see daylight," Carter said.

Johnson's conviction and the jury's death recommendation came at an unusual 
time.

A jury in October convicted Johnson of 1st-degree murder for killing Williams, 
and soon afterward recommended death. But before Sayfie could decide whether to 
follow the recommendation, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Florida's 
death-penalty sentencing scheme was unconstitutional because it gave too little 
power to juries.

It remains unclear whether the high court's decision in Hurst v. Florida 
applies to people who had already been convicted, sentenced and had their 
appeals exhausted before the opinion was released.

Last week, the Florida Supreme Court heard from opponents of the death penalty 
who argued that all 390 death row inmates should get life sentences because 
they were sentenced under a flawed system.

The Legislature was forced to revamp the statute. Florida's new law requires 
juries to unanimously vote for every reason, known as aggravating factors, that 
a defendant might merit a death sentence. Whether to actually impose the death 
sentence requires 10 of 12 jurors.

In Johnson's case, prosecutors asked for a new sentencing hearing. His defense 
lawyers, Michael Bloom and Bruce Fleisher, disagreed because the law remains in 
limbo for Johnson.

"Life is the only constitutional sentence that can be imposed at this time," 
Bloom told the judge.

Prosecutors said the shooting stemmed from Williams' sister breaking up with 
David Johnson, Charles' brother.

The contentious domestic dispute culminated in the brothers, both armed with 
guns, shooting into a crowd outside the 1900 block of Northwest 92nd Street. In 
all, 3 people were shot and wounded. Williams was struck and tried to stagger 
away. Prosecutors believe that Charles - on his brother's orders - fired 2 
final, fatal shots as she lay on the ground.

At the time of the shooting, Williams' 1-year-old son was inside a nearby house 
that was also shot up. The jury found Charles Johnson guilty of 1st-degree 
murder and 5 counts of attempted murder.

David Johnson is still awaiting trial.

(source: Miami Herald)






ALABAMA:

What's next for Alabama death row inmate Vernon Madison after execution was 
stayed?


More than 2 hours after Vernon Madison was scheduled to be put to death 
Thursday by the state of Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling 
upholding a lower court's stay of execution.

Madison's attorneys from the Montgomery-based nonprofit Equal Justice 
Initiative had been seeking a stay from state and federal courts since the 
execution date was set in March.

For weeks, their requests had been denied until a federal appellate court 
granted their petition less than eight hours before Madison was to be put to 
death.

Madison, one of Alabama's longest-serving death row inmates, was convicted in 
the April 1985 slaying of Mobile police Cpl. Julius Schulte.

His was convicted and sentenced to death in both 1985 and 1990, but both times 
an appellate court sent the case back, 1st for a violation involving race-based 
jury selection and then based on improper testimony from an expert witness for 
the prosecution.

In 1994, he was tried for a 3rd and final time and convicted. The jury 
recommended a life sentence, but the judge overrode the recommendation and 
sentenced him to death.

This week - 31 years after his arrest - officials with the Alabama Department 
of Corrections had everything in place for Madison's execution to go forward.

He had been moved into an isolation cell near the execution site 48 hours 
before it was set to take place, per ADOC protocol. He was kept abreast of 
Thursday's developments throughout the day, and 2 guards remained with him at 
all times.

After the stay of execution was upheld, he remained in the isolation cell 
overnight before being moved back into his death row cell Friday.

So what happens next, now that Madison has returned to death row yet again?

The appeal that prompted the stay

Madison has claimed that he is mentally incompetent to be executed.

On Wednesday, EJI attorneys filed a petition for a stay and a request for oral 
argument before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The appellate court granted 
that request Thursday morning.

The attorney general's office sought to overturn the decision by filing a 
petition before the U.S. Supreme Court. They argued that the appellate court 
read into the state court order legal conclusions that do not exist and that 
the issue of Madison's competency had been "clearly and plainly foreclosed."

In their response, EJI attorneys asked the Supreme Court to deny the request 
and leave the stay in place, saying Madison's competency claim has not been 
reviewed on appeal in either state or federal court.

In a 4-4 decision released at 8:22 p.m. Thursday, the Supreme Court denied the 
request to vacate the stay of execution. The Attorney General's Office declined 
to comment.

"We are relieved that important questions surrounding the propriety and 
constitutionality of Mr. Madison's execution will be reviewed," EJI founder and 
executive director Bryan Stevenson said Thursday night.

The case will now be taken up before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Madison's attorneys must file briefs by May 27, and the attorney general's 
office must respond by June 10. Madison's attorneys then will have until June 
17 to file a reply.

Oral argument will take place in Atlanta on June 23, with each side allowed 30 
minutes.

An alternative appeal cites judicial override

In January, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hurst v. Florida that Florida's 
scheme allowing judges to override a jury's sentencing recommendation in death 
penalty cases was unconstitutional.

Alabama has a similar sentencing scheme, though the attorney general's office 
has noted that it was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1995.

In another ruling issued May 2, the U.S. Supreme Court granted review of the 
case of Alabama Death Row inmate Bart Johnson. It was the 1st Alabama case 
challenging the state's capital murder sentencing scheme to be reviewed by the 
U.S. Supreme Court since Hurst was decided.

Madison's attorneys argue that the 2 rulings have "raised fundamental questions 
about the constitutionality of the use of judicial override in Alabama."

This week, they asked the Alabama Supreme Court to grant a stay so that Madison 
could litigate his challenge to the state's death penalty sentencing scheme and 
judicial override system. In an order issued Wednesday, the court unanimously 
denied the request.

On Thursday they appealed that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, filing a 
motion for a stay of execution based on the constitutionality of judicial 
override.

"Vernon Madison was given a life sentence by a Mobile County jury made up of 
jurors who believe in the death penalty," Stevenson said. "In most Alabama 
courtrooms, Mr. Madison would have never been sentenced to death. Judicial 
override in Alabama should be eliminated."

Future executions in Alabama?

Madison's execution was the only one scheduled in Alabama.

In February, the Attorney General's Office requested that the Alabama Supreme 
Court set execution dates for Madison and 2 other inmates: Robert Bryant 
Melson, convicted in Etowah County, and Ronald Bert Smith, convicted in Madison 
County.

All 3 inmates are currently on death row at Holman Correctional Facility near 
Atmore.

No other planned execution dates have been released.

John Palombi, Assistant Federal Defender for the Middle District of Alabama, 
represents Melson and Smith. He told AL.com in March that he had received the 
motions to set execution dates and planned to respond, also citing issues with 
the state's death penalty sentencing.

"We believe that these motions are premature in light of the questionable 
constitutionality of Alabama's death sentencing scheme," he said.

(source: al.com)






TENNESSEE:

Life without parole, not death, in 1st-degree murder case


An Anderson County man convicted of 1st-degree murder on Tuesday avoided the 
death penalty on Thursday, but he did receive a sentence of life without 
parole.

A jury of 8 women and 4 men unanimously agreed on that decision after more than 
seven hours of deliberations on Wednesday and Thursday. Besides death and life 
without parole, they could have also returned a life sentence with the 
possibility of parole.

The jury said that prosecutors had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the 
killing of Samuel "Sammie" J. Adams, 79, sometime in mid-December 2011 was 
especially, heinous, atrocious, or cruel, and that Adams was 70 or older. Those 
were 2 of the 4 aggravating factors the jury could consider during the 
deliberations over whether to impose the death penalty against Norman Lee 
Follis Jr., 52.

Follis is Adams' nephew, and he was convicted of 1st-degree murder for killing 
his uncle in Anderson County Circuit and Criminal Court on Tuesday.

Adams' decomposing body was found buried under at least 10 blankets in a closet 
underneath a staircase at his apartment on Patt Lane in Claxton on January 24, 
2012. A couch was shoved against the closet door. Adams had been reported 
missing. He died of strangulation.

In taped interviews with Anderson County Sheriff's Department Detective Don 
Scuglia, Follis said he was defending first himself and then his girlfriend, 
Tammy Sue Chapman, 47, from Adams. His uncle had been on top of Chapman, 
groping her, and when he intervened, Follis said, his uncle grabbed him. During 
the struggle, the 2 fell to the floor, according to Follis and his defense 
attorneys, and Follis grabbed a white extension cord to defend himself and push 
Adams off him.

Follis said the killing occurred in mid-December 2011, and he hid his uncle in 
the closet because he was scared and didn't know what else to do.

But during the month before Adams was found, prosecutors said, Follis misled 
others about where Adams was, telling them he had taken his uncle to a 
hospital, even though he knew Adams was dead in an apartment closet in Claxton.

Prosecutors questioned Follis' credibility throughout the trial. They said 
Follis had told "lie after lie after lie" to family, friends, neighbors, and 
law enforcement officers, and that his explanation of the killing was a story 
that he had latched onto and then elaborated upon during the interviews with 
Scuglia.

Prosecutors said Follis and Chapman profited from the death of Adams. Follis 
sold his uncle's car to a Knoxville man for $1,000 cash on January 16, 2012, 
according to testimony.

Danny Adams, Sammie Adams' son, said he and his sister Melinda Hackett, Sammie 
Adams' daughter, were pleased with the conviction and the sentence of life 
without parole.

"It's closure for my father," Danny Adams said. "The system worked this time 
... My sister and I are pleased with the decision of the jury."

It was the 1st death penalty trial in Anderson County since 1991.

"We are glad that this defendant will not ever walk as a free man again," said 
Tony Craighead, deputy district attorney general in the Seventh Judicial 
District (Anderson County), who prosecuted the case along with assistant DA 
Emily Abbott.

The trial started with jury selection on Wednesday last week, and the 
sentencing hearing started Wednesday this week.

Don Elledge was the judge.

Follis was represented by defense attorneys Mart Cizek and Wesley Stone.

Chapman has also been charged with 1st-degree murder, and she is also facing 
the death penalty. Her trial is scheduled for August.

(source: Oak Ridge Today)






INDIANA:

Who Pays For Indiana's Death Penalty Cases?


Pursuing a death penalty sentence isn't cheap, but some argue you can't put a 
price on justice.

The Owen County Prosecutor is considering the death penalty for the man accused 
of raping and killing Shaylyn Ammerman.

When a prosecutor in Indiana decides to pursue the death penalty, taxpayers 
often end up paying the bill.

That could happen in Owen County, where the prosecutor is considering capital 
punishment for the man accused of raping and killing 1-year-old Shaylyn 
Ammerman.

It puts counties in a difficult position where they have to consider emotions 
and budgets.

Counties Struggle To Cover Costs Of Pursuing Capital Punishment

"Shaylyn was probably the most perfect little 1-year-old you could have," says 
Morgan, Shaylyn???s grandmother.

Shaylyn went missing from her grandmother's house in March. Police later found 
her body in a rural area of Gosport.

They arrested family friend Kyle Parker, who police say took Shaylyn out of her 
crib before raping and murdering her. Parker pleaded not guilty to the charges 
and could go on trial this summer.

"He just took everything away from me," Morgan says.

The case meets state requirements to qualify for the death penalty, but the 
Owen County prosecutor hasn't decided if he's going that route.

"At this point we're not going to make an emotional determination regarding the 
death penalty or life without parole request," Owen County Prosecutor Don 
VanDerMoere said in March.

It's a difficult decision to face - one many counties have grappled with.

More than a decade ago Parke County experienced one of its worst crimes in 
decades.

Chad Cottrell was convicted of killing his wife and 2 stepdaughters at their 
Rockville home.

The graphic crime shocked the small town.

"I think the emotions were really high and mainly because we're dealing with 
children here," says Jim Meece, president of the Parke County commissioners. 
"Here's someone that apparently just decided one day he was going to kill these 
children and that's what occurred. So all the sudden all the people who thought 
they were safe in Parke County and comfortable all the sudden were not safe and 
comfortable anymore."

The prosecutor requested the death penalty in that case.

According to a Legislative Services Agency report from 2014, death penalty 
cases cost, on average, ten times more than life without parole cases.

The state will reimburse counties for up to 1/2 of the costs - but counties 
must come up with the rest of the money.

"There was really no way that Parke County could fund that out of our general 
fund," Meece says. "Our entire budget is between 10 and 12 million and we knew 
that this case was going to cost well over a million dollars."

The Parke County commissioners got legislative approval to enact an income tax 
increase to pay for the case. The tax was in place until the case concluded, 
which took several years.

It cost more than $1.5 million - and the judge ended up sentencing Cottrell to 
life without parole.

"After he took the plea, we still had to pay the hotel about $10,000 just to 
cover the reservations we'd made," Meece says.

Lake County had to dip into its reserves in 2012 to pay for a capital 
punishment case. And Grant County transferred money from its road and bridges 
fund to help cover costs of a death penalty case.

Parke County Commissioners had to raise local income taxes in order to pay for 
a death penalty case several years ago.

High Costs Lead To Decline In Death Penalty Requests

The high price of death penalty cases is partially the result of rules the 
Supreme Court adopted regarding defense lawyers who work on the trials.

"There had to be 2 lawyers appointed for a defendant," says Paula Sites, 
assistant executive director of the Indiana Public Defenders Council. "They had 
to have a certain level of experience and certain specialized education and 
they also had to have their caseloads limited in terms of how many other cases 
they were trying to handle. And they were paid at an hourly rate."

Sites works with defense lawyers who take on those cases. She says the high 
costs are one reason the state's seen a significant drop in death penalty 
cases.

On average, there have been fewer than 2 death penalty cases filed per year 
over the past 5 years.

"People are looking much more carefully at how you spend our public dollars, 
our taxpayer dollars," she says. "So, you wouldn't pay for a program that was 
going to be only 20 % effective, only 1 in 5 cases resulting in what you're 
actually trying for."

On average, the number of death penalty requests filed over the past few years 
has dropped.

There's also another option available for high-level crimes that's cheaper. In 
1993, legislators passed a bill allowing prosecutors to seek a life without 
parole sentence.

"I think the concern was if this person who committed this terrible crime 
doesn't get the death penalty, could they end up committing another crime at 
some point in the future if they just had a certain number of years and there 
was a possibility they would get parole?" says IUPUI Clinical Professor Of Law 
Joel Schum. "With life without parole that's not a possibility, so I think 
that's made it easier I think to resolve some of these cases."

Some argue cost shouldn't be a factor in deciding how to prosecute cases like 
the one in Owen County, where the family of Shaylyn is struggling to cope.

"On the outside I may look strong, but on the inside I'm not," Morgan says. "I 
either go to bed crying or wake up crying or both."

The family doesn't care what punishment the prosecutor pursues - because to 
them it will never be enough.

"I mean if they give him death that's going to be easier than what we have to 
deal with," Morgan says.

There's no specific deadline for the Owen County prosecutor to file paperwork 
requesting the death penalty, but he said he'll make the decision in the coming 
months.

Kyle Parker could go to trial as early as August.

(source: indianapublicmedia.org)






MISSOURI:

Forrest execution could be Missouri's 1st and last one of 2016


Earl Forrest received a lethal injection Wednesday night at the state prison in 
Bonne Terre. Forrest was convicted of killing Harriet Smith, Michael Wells, and 
Dent County Sheriff's Deputy Joann Barnes.

The death penalty debate has been ongoing for decades. Regardless of what side 
you're on, the fact is we're seeing fewer executions in Missouri and 
nationwide.

Springfield Defense Attorney Adam Woody said, "I think that the justice system 
is becoming somewhat more apprehensive to impose the ultimate punishment."

Woody says advancements in technology could be one of the reasons fewer people 
are sentenced to the death penalty.

"In dozens of cases, DNA has exonerated death row inmates. And it's alarming. 
That's a scary trend," he said.

But that was not the case in tonight's execution. Forrest was put to death for 
a crime he committed back in December of 2002. What started as an argument over 
methamphetamine ended with three people dead. More than a decade later, he was 
given a lethal injection.

The Supreme Court denied a stay of execution that was filed by Forrest's 
attorney, and Governor Jay Nixon also denied his clemency petition.

However, Woody says it wouldn't be surprising if there isn't another execution 
in Missouri for some time.

"There are certainly pros and cons, for and against the death penalty. But 
again, with the advancements of DNA technology, demonstrating and illustrating 
that innocent people are being put to death at the hands of the government, I 
think that's starting to alarm not just the public the criminal justice system 
as well," Woody said.

Forrest's execution was the 19th in Missouri since 20013.

(source: KSPR news)