[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KY., MO., OKLA., NEB., UTAH

[Rick Halperin]

May 21



KENTUCKY:

Champion murder trial delayed until 2017


Ryan Champion's trial is now scheduled for February 2017. He could face the 
death penalty in the October 2014 deaths of his mother, father, and the man 
police believe Champion hired to kill them.

He's charged with 4 counts of murder and one count of kidnapping.

Champion's defense team says it felt more time is needed to give him a fair 
trial. The lawyers have more than 1,600 pages to go through. Champion's lawyers 
are also trying to get his military and adoption records. And, because their 
client could be sentenced to death, they say they want to give the case their 
full attention.

Friday was our 1st time hearing details of what took place in 2014. Hoping for 
justice, the Champion family had to relive the details of how their loved ones 
died in the courtroom.

Kentucky State Police Detective Brent Miller says a .45 caliber handgun was 
used to kill them. He said he also believes Facebook messages support a 
conspiracy to kill the Champion family. Investigators obtained messages with a 
warrant and letters of authenticity. The judge will determine if they're usable 
in the trial at a later date. Miller also said witness testimony proves 
Champion had a hatred for his family and may have offered money for someone to 
kill them. 7 spent casings were found around the crime scene.

The evidence was heard Friday to determine whether it could be used in trial.

Public defenders Joanne Lynch and Audrey Woosnam asked for more time to build 
their case.

"We believe the judge made the right decision given that, if there is a jury 
paneled in this case, they're going to be making a life and death situation," 
Woosnam told Local 6.

Commonwealth Attorney Carrie Ovey-Wiggins said she's frustrated that she can't 
go to trial sooner. "We have been spending a substantial amount of time 
preparing, getting ready to go to trial, getting subpoenas. We're ready to go 
to trial."

The defense asked for the trial to be in July 2017, but the judge determined 
that would be 2 years and 11 months after the murders, and that's just too much 
time.

(source: WPSD news)






MISSOURI:

Missouri Plans to Seek Death Penalty for Mexican National


Missouri prosecutors on Friday filed their formal plan to pursue the death 
penalty against a Mexican national in the shooting death of a man a day after 
he allegedly killed 4 people in Kansas.

Prosecutors in Montgomery County submitted court papers saying they will seek 
capital punishment for Pablo Serrano-Vitorino if he's convicted of 1st-degree 
murder in the March 8 death of Randy Nordman at that man's home in New 
Florence, about 70 miles west of St. Louis. Serrano-Vitorino also is charged 
with armed criminal action and burglary.

A judge last week ordered Serrano-Vitorino, 40, to stand trial on the Missouri 
charges and scheduled a June 1 arraignment. A message left Friday with 
Serrano-Vitorino's attorney seeking comment on the case was not immediately 
returned.

Serrano-Vitorino, who federal immigration officials have said is in the U.S. 
illegally, is accused in Kansas of killing a Kansas City, Kansas, neighbor and 
3 other men at the neighbor's home the night before Nordman was slain nearly 
200 miles away. Serrano-Vitorino was captured after a manhunt and is jailed in 
Missouri without bond.Authorities have not discussed a motive for any of the 
killings.

In his court filing Friday, Montgomery County Prosecutor Nathan Carroz cited 
"aggravated circumstances" related to Nordman's slaying that make the case 
eligible for the death penalty. Among them: The Missouri killing was a 
continuation of the Kansas shooting rampage, Nordman's killing involved 
burglary and robbery, and that slaying was "outrageously or wantonly vile, 
horrible or inhuman" in its randomness and its "callous disregard for the 
sanctity of human life."

Carroz also cited Serrano-Vitorino's previous legal issues that have included 
California charges involving spousal battery and threats with the intent to 
terrorize, as well as Kansas charges since 2012 involving domestic battery and 
2 cases of driving under the influence.

(source: Associated Press)






OKLAHOMA:

Oklahoma's Death Penalty Procedure Is In Shambles, According To Grand Jury 
Report

Yesterday an Oklahoma grand jury returned a scathing report on the state's 
death penalty procedure, saying that in the execution of Charles Warner and 
near-execution of Richard Glossip, the state's execution process failed "from 
drafting to implementation."

"A number of individuals responsible for carrying out the execution process 
were careless, cavalier and in some circumstances dismissive of established 
procedures that were intended to guard against the very mistakes that 
occurred," Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt said in a statement.

Charles Warner was executed in January 2015 by a 3-drug cocktail: a sedative, a 
paralytic, and a drug that stopped his heart. According to approved protocol - 
and the state's official post-execution records - the last, lethal drug was 
supposed to be potassium chloride. However, Warner was mistakenly executed with 
potassium acetate, a mistake that wasn't discovered until the scheduled 
execution of Richard Glossip in September 2015.

Both potassium chloride and potassium acetate will kill you. Only potassium 
chloride, however, is listed as an acceptable execution drug by the state. 
While the jury did not find that using the wrong drug in Warner's execution 
caused him "needless pain," they nevertheless found that it infringed upon his 
rights, specifically, depriving him of his chance to "challenge the procedure 
prior to his death." Legally, the state is required to notify death row inmates 
of exactly which drugs will be used in their execution at least 10 days in 
advance, giving them time and opportunity to request a stay of execution - 
which is usually based at least in part on the planned manner of execution.

An extended tragedy of errors

How do state officials use the wrong drug to kill someone and not notice? The 
106-page grand jury report exhaustively documents failure after failure, 
ultimately leading to the use of the wrong drug.

The Director of the Department of Corrections changed the execution protocol 
verbally and without authority. Trainings lacked "key components," and the IV 
team was "largely absent." The pharmacist was told the order over the phone and 
never given a written prescription or contract, and he then ordered the wrong 
drug - which he blamed on "pharmacy brain," saying that he was paying attention 
to the potassium part and ignoring the rest.

Though the pharmacist's negligence was perhaps the most glaring mistake, the 
report details how at many points in the following series of events that 
mistake could have, and should have, been noticed.

Although the drugs passed through multiple inspection checkpoints - including 
the Department's General Counsel, an agent in the Office of the Inspector 
General - they were never actually inspected. Multiple people said that 
although they agree its important to verify the drug, they "just didn't think 
it was [their] role."

I just totally dropped the ball, is all I can say.

When a warden finally did note that they had received potassium acetate, he 
dutifully documented the drugs and didn't report it to anyone. The unit chief, 
also present, said he "really wasn't looking at the bottles that closely."

The IV chief - who actually administered the drug - also didn't notice the 
discrepancy. When asked how he could fail to notice, he responded "that's a 
great question." He speculated that he may have been distracted by calculating 
the drug concentrations in his head - and concluded "somehow that glaring word, 
acetate - I don't know, ma'am. I just totally dropped the ball, is all I can 
say."

'Careless, cavalier, and dismissive'

In Glossip's near-execution in September of that year, a similar chain of 
inspection failure started. That time, however, officials noticed they had the 
wrong drug - but only at the final step. The IV chief noticed the mistake and 
told the General Counsel, prompting a flurry of lawyers to weigh in on whether 
the execution could go forth as scheduled.

The Governor's General Counsel - Steve Mullins, who has since stepped down and 
is currently under investigation - advocated that Glossip's execution go 
forward despite knowing that it was a different drug.

"It is unacceptable for the Governor's General Counsel to so flippantly and 
recklessly disregard the written Protocol and the rights of Richard Glossip," 
the report read.

It is unacceptable for the Governor's General Counsel to so flippantly and 
recklessly disregard the written Protocol

Ironically, Mullins implied that, since to his knowledge at the time, the drug 
may have already been - mistakenly - used to execute Warner, it constituted an 
"established" practiced. Mullins testified that he planned to get affidavits 
saying the 2 were "medically interchangeable," proceed with the execution, then 
seek "clarification" before the next execution. Once Glossip's execution was 
stayed, he advised that they shouldn't say it was because they had the "wrong 
drug" - because then people might find out that they had already used the 
"wrong drug" to kill Warner.

The report notably goes beyond ascribing the mistake to just a series of 
missteps by individual government employees. It also condemns the state's 
execution protocol at large, concluding "the Execution Protocol lacked controls 
to ensure that the proper execution drugs were obtained and administered."

The lack of an effective verification procedure is particularly damning because 
it was implemented after a badly botched execution to prevent future mistakes. 
The protocols that failed were put in place after the 2014 Oklahoma execution 
of Clayton Lockett, who writhed and gasped in pain for 43 minutes before dying. 
An autopsy report found that the execution team incorrectly applied an IV. Yet 
even in the wake of Lockett's case and the increased scrutiny that followed, 
Oklahoma's officials still carried out an avoidable litany of errors.

"Based on these failures, justice has been delayed for the victims' families 
and the citizens of Oklahoma, and confidence further shaken in the ability of 
this State to carry out the death penalty," concluded the report.

(source: thinkprogress.org)






NEBRASKA:

Meeting will focus on bill to end death penalty


State Sen. Colby Coash will discuss the upcoming vote to retain the Nebraska 
Legislature's vote to end the death penalty at a news conference Monday in 
Kearney.

According to a media release from Retain a Just Nebraska, Coash will be joined 
by other senators at 3 p.m. at Best Western Inn at 224 Second Ave.

Retain a Just Nebraska is a public education campaign to urge the retention of 
LB268, the Legislature's bill to end the death penalty.

(source: Grand Island Independent)






UTAH:

Death penalty bills expected to return to the Utah legislature


Bills that would speed up the death penalty process or repeal it altogether are 
expected to return to the Utah State Legislature.

Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, told FOX 13 he has already opened bill files that 
would cut down on the length of appeals that death row inmates have. Some 
inmates on death row in Utah have been appealing their sentences for decades.

"If I could get it 10 years or less, I think we're in the ballpark," Rep. Ray 
said.

But opponents of capital punishment said they were planning for legislation 
that would enact a repeal. Last year, the Utah State Senate passed a bill that 
ended the death penalty, but the House would not vote on it.

The Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, which supports a repeal of the death 
penalty, said it was anticipating lawmakers would bring that legislation back.

"We will see that again and that's good for the debate," said Jean Hill, the 
government liaison for the diocese. "Because then we can really talk about what 
is the ultimate benefit of (the death penalty), and there is none."

There are 9 death row inmates in Utah. 3 have chosen to die by firing squad. 
The primary method of execution in Utah is lethal injection, but the Utah 
Department of Corrections has said right now it does not have the drugs to 
carry out an execution. That makes firing squad the default method.

Rep. Ray said he believes any bill to repeal the death penalty would not pass 
in Utah.

"A lot of the support on that last year was the fact that the death penalty was 
too hard to do and took too long, and I think if we can come out with something 
that answers that, there's not enough support to get rid of the death penalty," 
he told FOX 13.

The bills are expected to be debated in the 2017 legislative session.

(source: Fox News)