[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ARK., MO., KAN., NEB.

[Rick Halperin]

May 18



ARKANSAS:

Allen pleads not guilty to capital murder


Cody Allen, 23, of Mountain Home, appeared in Marion County Circuit Court 
Wednesday morning and pleaded not guilty charges in connection with the death 
of Alithia Boyd, a Marion County toddler who died on May 6.

Allen - who is currently being held in the Arkansas Department of Corrections' 
Ouachita Unit on a parole violation - faces life in prison or the death penalty 
if convicted of the crime.

Initially, Allen had faced the Class Y felony of first-degree battery. A Class 
Y felony is the most serious charge a person face in Arkansas, short of a 
capital murder charge.

Last week, Prosecuting Attorney David Ethredge said Allen's criminal history as 
an habitual offender and the facts of the case, allowed prosecutors to seek the 
capital murder charge. The prosecutor noted Allen has twice been convicted of 
felonies in the past 10 years, qualifying him for habitual offender status.

According to the Department of Corrections website, Allen was sentenced to 60 
months in prison on charges of residential burglary, breaking and entering, and 
theft of property in 2014.

The Bulletin will have more on Allen's appearance throughout the day.

(source: Baxter Bulletin)






MISSOURI:

Appeals Court hears arguments on Missouri's lethal injection protocol


An attorney argued before the Missouri Court of Appeals that taxpayers should 
have legal standing to challenge the state's procedures for obtaining drugs for 
lethal injections.

Justin Gelfand, representing 2 former state lawmakers and 2 other citizens, 
argued a lawsuit appeal on Wednesday. The lawsuit alleges the state violates 
federal and state laws by using an illegal prescription to obtain pentobarbital 
from a compounding pharmacy for the executions. The lawsuit does not challenge 
the death penalty, only practices used to obtain the drugs.

A Cole County judge dismissed the lawsuit in July 2015. Part of the judge's 
ruling says taxpayers do not have standing to challenge Department of 
Corrections operations and the Missouri Supreme Court has jurisdiction in death 
penalty-related lawsuits.

Appeals court panels never say how long they will take to issue a ruling.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Our challenge to Missouri executions


About a year ago I signed on as a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the 
Missouri Department of Corrections practice of buying execution drugs out of 
state at an unlicensed compound pharmacy, but the judge determined that we 
plaintiffs, 2 former Missouri legislators, a pastor and me, lacked standing.

Now, on May 18, the Missouri Court of Appeals will hear our case.

As our attorney Justin Geifand said, "The state has successfully fended off 
similar challenges brought by people sentenced to death saying they lacked 
'standing' to bring the case. If the Court of Appeals finds that we, as 
taxpayers, also lack standing to have this case finally decided on the merits, 
then it would appear that nobody has the ability to bring these important 
issues to court. But in America, we bring important issues to court and that's 
precisely what we did here."

Just last week the pharmaceutical firm Pfizer took steps to block use of its 
pharmaceuticals in executions, evidence of the growing repugnance to capital 
punishment. As plaintiffs in this court case, we have the opportunity to object 
to what is, at the very least, the unseemly behavior of the Department of 
Corrections director of adult institutions driving out of state with a satchel 
of cash to purchase execution drugs compounded and prescribed by a doctor who 
conducts no medical examination and is contractually obliged to write the 
invalid prescription.

The most recent Missouri execution a week ago of Earl Forrest is, in my 
opinion, another example of capricious and reckless implementation of the death 
penalty. Forrest killed 3 people, including a sheriff's deputy, but he was 
severely mentally impaired. He expressed deep remorse for the murder of the 
sheriff but not the other 2 whom he killed in a drug deal gone wrong. Surely 
life in prison would have been sufficient punishment. Even better would have 
been appropriate care and treatment of his mental condition which might have 
saved three lives.

(source: Mary Ann McGivern, National Catholic Reporter)






KANSAS----new death sentence

Kyle Flack, who killed 3 adults and a toddler, sentenced to the death penalty 
in Kansas capital murder case----Flack was found guilty for shooting in 2013

Kyle Travor Flack was sentenced to the death penalty Wednesday morning.

Franklin County District Court Judge Eric Godderz on Wednesday morning imposed 
the death penalty on Kyle Trevor Flack in the shotgun slaying of a young mother 
and her 18-month-old in 2013.

The judge also sentenced Flack to 22 years and 3 months for the 2nd-degree 
murder conviction of 1 man, and a life sentence with parole eligibility only 
after serving 25 years for a fourth murder conviction.

Finally the judge sentenced Flack to 9 months for a firearms possession 
violation.

All sentences are to be served consecutively.

In sentencing Flack, Godderz said it was hard for anyone to figure out how 
senseless these killings were.

The victims were unarmed, they were shot at close range, and they were shot in 
the back, the judge said.

"An infant was slain. How anyone makes sense of that is beyond me," Godderz 
said.

The judge also said Flack knew what he was doing was wrong.

"The one thing though, Mr. Flack, is that no one will forget the harm you have 
done," the judge said.

Godderz noted that before the killings, Flack had been convicted of attempted 
murder of a shooting of a man and that in both cases, they were done in a 
"cowardly fashion" where the victims were shot in the back.

The only good thing on Wednesday is that with this sentence that "I'm imposing, 
you'll never get to do it again," the judge said.

The victims' families clapped when the judge made that remark.

The developments from court Wednesday are developing and this story will be 
updated.

On March 31, a Franklin County jury recommended Flack, 30, receive the death 
sentence after they convicted him of fatally shooting the 3 adults and the 
18-month-old toddler on an eastern Kansas farm in 2013.

Flack hid the adult bodies and stuffed the child's remains in a suitcase which 
was found floating in the Tequa Creek.

The jury that recommended Flack receive the death penalty was the same panel 
that convicted him on March 23 of capital murder in the deaths of Kaylie 
Bailey, 21, and her 18-month-old daughter, Lana.

Flack also was convicted in the deaths of Bailey's boyfriend, 31-year-old 
Andrew Stout, and his roommate, 31-year-old Steven White, who lived in a rural 
farmhouse where Flack sometimes stayed.

The rural farm is about 50 miles southeast of Topeka.

Flack, who has been in custody for 3 years since he was arrested, was sentenced 
1 month before his 31st birthday.

Detectives think the shootings occurred on separate days in the spring of 2013. 
Investigators think White was killed around April 20, 2013, and his body was 
later found under a tarp in an outbuilding near the farmhouse. Stout apparently 
was shot on April 29, and his body was found in his bedroom under a pile of 
clothes.

Bailey's partially-clothed body was found in a bedroom, with her hands bound 
behind her back. Authorities think the mother and daughter were killed on May 
1.

Prosecutors presented 2 weeks of testimony during the trial. The defense didn't 
call any witnesses.

Flack's lead defense attorney, Timothy Frieden, urged jurors during the 
sentencing phase to recommend a life sentence without parole, saying Flack was 
not the "monster" they had heard about.

Testimony during the sentencing phase indicated Flack grew up in a chaotic home 
with several family members who suffered from mental illness, was sexually 
abused as a child, and suffered from depression, social anxiety and schizo 
affective disorder.

Frieden told jurors Flack functioned well while imprisoned for a 2005 shooting, 
and if sentenced to life in this case, the public would be safe.

"He is salvageable," Frieden said. "Vote life when it comes down to the end."

Deputy Attorney General Victor Braden said during the sentencing phase that 
jurors had to decide what justice entails.

"Each of you will have to ask yourself what is appropriate justice?" Braden 
said.

Braden said the death penalty was justified by 3 aggravating circumstances: an 
attempted 2nd-degree murder conviction in the May 2, 2005, shooting of Steve 
Free; the fact Flack killed more than 1 person; and the killings of the mother 
and daughter were done in an "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel manner."

Kansas reinstated the death penalty in 1994 but has not performed an execution 
since the 1965 hangings of George Ronald York and James Douglas Latham, 2 spree 
killers.

(source: Topeka Capital Journal)






NEBRASKA:

Death penalty repeal supporters say life means life


A retired district court judge and 2 state senators who supported repeal of the 
death penalty pushed the point at a news conference Wednesday that a mandatory 
life sentence would mean a person would not be allowed out of prison.

"The Legislature examined life imprisonment extensively for years, and we are 
crystal clear that we have a strong life sentence that guarantees those with 
that sentence die in prison," said Lincoln Sen. Colby Coash, who helped lead 
the effort to repeal the death penalty last year.

Lincoln Sen. Adam Morfeld, a member of the Legislature's Judiciary Committee, 
said those who want to bring back the death penalty are attempting to confuse 
voters by suggesting those sentenced to life will be able to get out.

"You will hear those who want to keep the death penalty say that if we get rid 
of it, people are going to get out. This is simply untrue," Morfeld said. "With 
a sentence of life imprisonment, a person cannot be released."

A person can request from the Pardons Board, made up of the governor, secretary 
of state and state attorney general, that his or her sentence be commuted, that 
is, set for a certain number of years so that parole could be considered.

"The possibility that those three elected officials would commute a life 
sentence for 1st-degree murder to a term of years is just as remote as the 
possibility it would commute a death sentence to one of life or term of years," 
Morfeld said.

If voters are concerned, they should ask the governor or attorney general which 
of the 10 men currently on death row he is going to commute to a sentence less 
than life, he said.

"With the death penalty gone, we can be 100 % confident those sentenced to life 
imprisonment will die in prison," Morfeld said.

Coash, a member of the Legislature's Judiciary Committee, said the bill passed 
last year with 16 Republican votes, 13 Democratic votes and one independent 
vote.

Coash said that a year ago, Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson affirmed 
Nebraska law by issuing a legal opinion on the issue, saying: "Under current 
Nebraska law, a sentence of life imprisonment is effectively life imprisonment 
without parole."

District Court Judge Ronald Reagan, who served on the bench for more than 32 
years and sentenced John Joubert to death, said he has no doubt about 
Nebraska's life imprisonment law.

"I want to make sure there is no legal confusion that life imprisonment means 
life in prison, no chance of parole," Reagan said. "Anything else is political 
posturing and has no grounding in the legal realities."

Reagan said he has seen the worst of the worst cases in Nebraska and has 
studied the laws carefully.

When someone is sentenced to life, they die in prison, he said.

Reagan said the Nebraska Supreme Court also has affirmed this.

In 2014, in the Castaneda case, the state's highest court said a life sentence 
in Nebraska is no different than a sentence of life without parole, he said.

"I am confident if Nebraskans are able to have the same conversation that the 
Unicameral has been having over the last several years, they will come to the 
same conclusion that we did," Coash said, "that our death penalty is broken and 
life imprisonment is a better alternative. It exists, and it works."

Nebraskans will get an opportunity in November to vote on whether to reinstate 
the death penalty that was repealed in 2015.

(source: Lincoln Journal Star)