[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ARK., KAN., NEB., MONT., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 6




ARKANSAS:

The Death of Rickey Ray Rector ---- How the execution of a mentally ill black 
man delivered Bill Clinton into the Oval Office.


The following is adapted from the new book Superpredator: Bill Clinton's Use 
and Abuse of Black America. Each week, Jacobin will be publishing new excerpts. 
Read the last installment here.

Rickey Ray Rector grew up in Conway, Arkansas, just an hour's drive from Bill 
Clinton's own hometown of Hot Springs. From the very earliest days of his life, 
Rickey was considered different and strange. He had few friends, and while 
other children were out running around, Rickey sat under a tree playing alone 
with sticks. Those who saw him said he was dreamy and detached, "as if he were 
locked into some private daze of withdrawal."

He was slow and inept as a student, with what was later described as an 
undiagnosed serious learning disability. As time went on, he became even more 
lost, as well as paranoid, and by junior high he "floundered ever more 
hopelessly in his classwork, still able only to print in the laboring hand of a 
3rd-grader." And though unable to understand much of what was going on around 
him, Rickey was beaten mercilessly by his father.

As he grew up, Rickey became trouble. He would act out, he couldn't focus. 
Others became unsettled by his presence, and would leave a room whenever he 
arrived. Soon, as an adolescent, still not having received mental health 
treatment, Rickey lapsed into violence and delinquency. He was arrested 
frequently for petty crimes. He could not maintain a stable job. He was angry. 
He spiraled into "a kind of slowly accelerating berserkness."

In 1981, Rickey Ray Rector killed a man. After an argument outside a dance hall 
over a 3-dollar cover charge, Rector removed a gun and started shooting 
randomly. 2 people were wounded, while a 3rd, Arthur Criswell, received a fatal 
bullet to the head.

Rector fled, but he didn't go very far. Mostly he ducked in and out of various 
houses around Conway, running in circles, unsure where to go. Eventually, he 
found his way back to his mother and sister. After speaking with them for some 
time, he decided to turn himself in.

Rector's mother called Officer Bob Martin, a family friend who knew Rector and 
whom Rector trusted. Martin was known as an affable and kind policeman, who 
walked the beat and got to know everyone in Conway. Rector was considered 
dangerous, but if there was one person who could safely bring him in, it was 
Martin.

Martin arrived at Mrs Rector's home, and they waited for Rickey to arrive, 
chatting politely in the living room. But Martin did not get a chance to 
persuade Rector to surrender. Sneaking in from the rear of the house, Rector 
approached Martin from behind. When Martin turned around to greet Rector, 
Rector shot him in the head and ran from the house. Seconds after exiting the 
front door, Rector put the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger, 
collapsing into the street.

Officer Bob Martin did not survive Rector's gunshot. But Rector himself did 
survive, albeit only in the most limited sense. In order to save Rector's life, 
doctors had to remove about 1/3 of his brain, much of which had been destroyed 
when Rector shot himself.

The surgery left Rector effectively lobotomized. He had never been particularly 
mentally sound, but after having so much of his brain removed, Rector could 
barely function. A psychologist reported that he had "a near-total inability to 
conceptualize beyond a response to immediate sensations or provocations" and 
"seemed unable to grasp either the concept of past or future." It was "a 
classic prefrontal lobotomy" that had left Rector "totally incompetent." After 
realizing the extent to which Rector's capacity had been destroyed, Rector's 
sister simply assumed that Rector would be institutionalized for life. His 
mental functioning was that of a very young child.

But the people of Conway wanted justice. Bob Martin had been a beloved member 
of the community, and prosecutors wanted nothing less than to make sure Rector 
was executed for the crime. An expert for the state insisted Rector was 
competent to assist his own defense, and Rector was put on trial and sentenced 
to death. When Rector heard the judge read his sentence - death by 
electrocution - "he stood for a few moments as spectators began leaving the 
courtroom and the judge and jury also departed, and then turned . . . and 
muttered, 'Does this mean I'll get a television in my cell now?'"

Rector's fellow death-row inmates immediately knew there was something very 
wrong with him. One said that "no one can pass his cell without answering a 
long repertoire of questions that he has about dogs . . . In the middle of the 
night, his light goes out, he'll start screaming. He's afraid of the dark . . . 
And everybody is up because Rector has woke everybody up." Inmates even began 
supplying him with their own medications in the hope that it would help him to 
calm down.

The prison chaplain recalls meeting Rector for the 1st time: "He was gripping 
the bars, howling, jumping . . . There were Indians, he thought, in the corner 
of his cell, who he was busy hunting. In between, he would speak to me." Rector 
was "hollering" "dancing," then "jumping over and shooting at where he had been 
dancing. Pigman says that "it was obvious [Rector] had the mentality of about a 
6- or 7-year-old. . ." For 3 weeks, Rector cowered in his cell, "like a child 
cringing in his bunk," and refused to come to the chapel "because he was afraid 
someone would kill him." Chaplain Pigman conducted his service alone with 
Rector in his cell, as Rector "hulked" in the corner of the room.

The prison staff's notes read: "Smiles continuously . . . Occasionally noted to 
scream and yell without apparent reason . . . Laughing without apparent 
reason." There were "intermittent bursts of barking, baying, then blaring 
laughter and little gleeful shuffles of dancing, fingers snapping."

When Rector's sister Stella visited him, he told her "about serpents slithering 
across his bunk, alligators and chickens set loose by the guards, and people 
shining spotlights into his cell." She remembers that "he was afraid of 
everything that moved. He was afraid to go outside in the yard, because he 
thought somebody would hurt him, do something to him." Rector believed his 
guards were releasing loose alligators and chickens into his cell. At one 
point, Stella visited Rector to let him know that his brother had just died. 
"He asked only a few questions," she said, "and then all of a sudden he asked, 
'You see all that monkey smoke in here?' And began to pace like a wild animal."

Rector's reaction to his mother's death was similarly bizarre. "Rickey and my 
mother had always had this sort of special bond between them," Stella recalled. 
But when one of his attorneys told Rector that his mother was dead, "there was 
absolutely no reaction . . . [he] only said, 'She is?' And then, 'When's 
dinner?'" When his sister took him to the funeral home to see his mother's 
body, "he started laughing when he saw her . . . said, 'Yeah, that's her all 
right, she's dead.'"

After a few visits, Stella concluded that "[t]he person you see here and the 
person that I see, it looks like Rickey. He talks like Rickey, he has some 
characteristics of Rickey. But the real Rickey Ray Rector was destroyed when he 
shot himself with the gun. This person is just not my brother."

It was clear that Rector had become deeply disturbed. A psychologist described 
his linguistic capacity as operating at a "very, very primitive type of level" 
and his motor skills as negligible ("he fumbles, he has trouble picking up 
coins.") Rector's functioning was so obviously impaired, according to the 
psychologist, that there was "no possibility that Rector was shamming his 
pitiable performances in their examinations" (one of the state's own 
specialists reported that Rector was "trying to do the best he could on those 
tests").

Rickey Ray Rector had been set for an execution date several times, but his 
case had been winding through the appellate process. Finally, his appeals 
exhausted (the state had insisted he was perfectly normal), Rector was set to 
be executed in January of 1992. At that point, without any legal remedies left, 
his only hope for reprieve was to be granted clemency by Governor Bill Clinton.

It was an inconvenient moment for Rickey Ray Rector's life to depend on Bill 
Clinton's mercy. As Rector's execution date approached in 1992, Clinton was 
"fighting for his political life." The New Hampshire Democratic primary was 
about to be held, and Clinton was facing a scandal that threatened to derail 
his presidential candidacy. An Arkansas woman named Gennifer Flowers had come 
forward to allege that she and the governor had engaged in a 12-year affair, 
and that she had audio tapes to prove it. In a close race against Massachusetts 
senator Paul Tsongas, Clinton was unsure whether he could withstand the heat 
from the Flowers allegations, and felt he could not afford to take political 
risks.

Clinton had also spent a great deal of energy trying to position himself as a 
"tough on crime" Democrat, in order to distinguish himself from previous 
generations of soft-hearted liberals. Clinton's crime stance had been 
consciously cultivated back in Arkansas. Earlier in his political career, 
Clinton had lost a race against a "law and order" candidate, and those around 
him said he was determined not to make the same mistake twice. There was a 
sharp difference between Clinton???s attitude during his first term as governor 
from 1978 - 1980 (when he lost reelection), and that of his four subsequent 
terms from 1982 to 1992.

As one observer noted, "one almost metaphysical lesson [the loss] provided him 
was never to range, whatever his own impulses, too far beyond the standing 
disposition of the general populace." So when Clinton returned to the 
governor's mansion, he rid himself of any merciful inclinations he may have had 
toward convicted criminals. While in his 1st term, Clinton had commuted 70 
prison sentences, in his 10 subsequent years in office he would commute a total 
of only seven, a small fraction of those that had been approved for commutation 
by the state pardon board. That Clinton had gotten tougher was not just the 
impression of observers. A Clinton spokesman confirmed that the governor "had 
indeed changed some of his policies toward prison inmates."

As Rector's attorney explained, the new Clinton "would set new execution dates 
at just about every stage, every tick in the process of a case, though the 
parties were nowhere near exhausting their remedies." By 1992, Clinton had set 
70 execution dates for 20 different inmates, including four for Rickey Ray 
Rector alone. Even though many of these were stayed by the courts, setting 
them, according to Rector's lawyer, "[enabled Clinton to say] 'Look, see how 
many executions I've ordered.'"

Thus as the New Hampshire primary approached, Clinton was not oblivious to the 
fact that, as the New York Times reported, "many political experts feel a 
record of favoring the death penalty is a major plus for a Democratic 
Presidential candidate."

As Rector's execution approached, Jeff Rosenzweig, Rector's attorney and an old 
friend of Clinton's, was desperately trying to get in touch with Clinton. 
Rosenzweig was convinced that Clinton must not have understood what Rector was 
actually like, and believed that if he could just speak to Clinton, he would be 
able to clear up the misunderstanding. As Rosenzweig explained: I doubted 
deeply if he had actually talked with anyone who really knew Rector and the 
actual condition he was in. He needed to hear an affirmation from somebody who 
actually knew Rector and whom he knew, hear it himself ear to ear, plainly, 
that this guy was . . . seriously, seriously mentally deficient, just no doubt 
about it.

Jeff Rosenzweig also wanted to tell Clinton that "the politics of it he should 
be aware of as well - that Rector had been convicted by an all-white jury, and 
this was something that just might come to waylay him down the road."

But Rosenzweig's repeated calls to the governor's mansion were going 
unanswered. In the meantime, the records of the prison "death log" note 
Rector's activity during the countdown to his execution: "6.46 AM: Inmate 
Rector began howling. 6.59 AM: Inmate Rector began dancing in his cell." Soon 
after, Rector told a guard that "If you eat grass, lethal injection won't kill 
you."

Jeff Rosenzweig wasn't alone in his desperate attempt to reach the governor. 
Other old Clinton friends were frantically begging Clinton to give Rector 
clemency. As the Guardian reported in 1993:

Others, close to Clinton, were making their own appeals to him. Mrs Freddie 
Nixon, wife of the pastor who had married the Clintons, had even written to 
Rickey on death row, and was particularly distraught. Dr. Douglas Brown, the 
psychiatrist, faxed the governor to say the case had been a "travesty" - far 
from being "competent," Rector was the least competent individual he had ever 
evaluated. He got no reply. Some of Clinton's staunchest admirers, aware of his 
compassion and warmth, confidently expected him to intervene. "Nobody could 
believe that he would go through with it," says one. "You might as well execute 
a child."

Even Jesse Jackson stepped in. "Now, Bill, just on a moral, humanitarian 
basis," Jackson said to Clinton in a phone call, the execution should be 
stopped. Clinton responded by telling Jackson that "he'd been researching 
various ways to get around it, but it just couldn't be done, there were doctors 
who'd said he was competent." Jackson recalled that Clinton "said he'd be 
praying about it, though."

Of course, Clinton was lying to Jackson when he said it "couldn't be done" and 
that he was trying to find ways to get around it. In fact, Clinton had the full 
power to commute Rector's sentence from death to life imprisonment. He had 
simply thus far chosen not to exercise his power to do so.

As Rector's execution time drew closer, even the prison warden had become 
uncomfortable with the idea of executing Rector, with 1 observer saying the 
warden "seemed to be coming apart the closer the execution got."

Finally, after explaining on live television that Clinton was not answering his 
calls, Rosenzweig received a call from Bill Clinton. Rosenzweig explained to 
Clinton that it was all a horrible misunderstanding, Rector was "a zombie - it 
couldn't, it shouldn't be done. He's a child. It's like killing a child." 
Rosenzweig begged Clinton not to allow the execution to proceed. "His 
execution," Rosenzweig said, "would be remembered as a disgrace to the state." 
After listening patiently to what Rosenzweig had to say, Clinton "hung up with 
a non-committal pleasantry."

Still, Rosenzweig believed Clinton couldn't execute Rector, now that he had the 
facts. "I thought he just might not want to be seen as merciless," Rosenzweig 
recollected.

Clinton refused to grant clemency. Rector was executed on January 24, 1992. It 
is unlikely he had any idea what was about to happen. When he had his last 
meal, Rector set the dessert aside for later, even though there wouldn't be a 
later. And in a pitiful and poignant detail, the night before his execution, 
watching Clinton on television, Rector said that he planned to vote for him in 
November.

Clinton's plan to appear "tough on crime" had worked. In the following months, 
the political value of Rector's execution became abundantly clear. It knocked 
the law-and-order issue out of the campaign. One commentator said it showed 
Clinton was "a different sort of Democrat." As another put it, "he had someone 
put to death who only had half a brain. You don't find them any tougher than 
that."

Or, as former prosecutor and Arkansas ACLU director Jay Jacobson said, "You 
can't law-and-order Clinton . . . If you can kill Rector, you can kill 
anybody." In the general election, the National Association of Police 
Organizations endorsed Clinton over Bush, and so did a law enforcement group in 
Bush's home state of Texas. (In 1996, the Fraternal Order of Police would 
endorse Clinton's reelection, with the group's president saying that police 
officers "have never had a better friend in the White House than Bill 
Clinton.")

The Rector execution would send a strong message of what it meant to be a 
"different sort" of Democrat. That Clinton was willing to allow this execution 
to proceed, despite the widespread pleas coming in from across the nation, was 
a notice about the direction in which he would take the Democratic Party and 
the nation in the years to come.

(source: Nathan Robinson, jacobinmag.com)

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

Search underway for alternate jurors in Bella Vista murder case


It will take another day to select alternate jurors for the capital murder 
trial for a Bella Vista man accused of killing his 6-year-old son.

Mauricio Torres and Cathy Torres are charged with capital murder and battery in 
the first degree. The couple is accused of killing their son, Maurice Isaiah 
Torres, last year. They each have pleaded not guilty to the charges. 
Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for both.

Prosecutors chose to try Mauricio Torres 1st.

3 jurors were selected during Friday's proceedings to get the dozen needed for 
the jury. 9 people were selected to the panel during the first 3 days of jury 
selection. The jury is made up of 7 women and 5 men.

3 alternate jurors are needed for the case; 1 man was selected Friday evening.

Jury selection resumes at 8:30 a.m. Monday for the search for the final 2 
jurors.

Alternate jurors are needed in case any of the 12 jurors need to be replaced on 
the panel.

Circuit Judge Brad Karren said the trial is likely to begin at 8:30 a.m. 
Tuesday.

Maurice Isaiah Torres was pronounced dead at an area hospital March 29, 2015. A 
medical examiner determined he suffered chronic child abuse and his death was 
from internal injuries caused by rape, according to court documents.

The autopsy also found there were multiple healing and healed wounds and blunt 
force trauma to the child's head and other parts of his body, according to the 
probable-cause affidavit.

Torres also was arrested on suspicion of rape, but prosecutors didn't file a 
formal charge against him because the suspected rape happened in Missouri.

Torres' wife, Cathy, also is charged with capital murder and 1st-degree 
battery. She pleaded not guilty to the charges. Her trial is to begin May 5.

Mauricio and Cathy Torres, 45, are being held in the Benton County jail without 
bail.

If convicted of capital murder, the Torreses could each be sentenced to life 
imprisonment without the benefit of parole or a death sentence. They could each 
be sentenced from 5 to 20 years in prison if convicted of the battery charge.

(source: nwaonline.com)






KANSAS:

Kansas Supreme Court justices have not followed the law


I am a lawyer, a former district judge, a lifelong Democrat and a Kansan. I am 
voting to not retain 4 Kansas Supreme Court justices, up for a retention 
election on Nov. 8.

I am voting not to retain because, like me, they took an oath to uphold the 
laws of the state of Kansas.

I am voting not to retain because this is not a political issue, but it is an 
issue of right and wrong.

Along with Democrats, Republicans, independents and Libertarians alike, I 
believe these Supreme Court justices are consistently putting their personal 
views above the laws of our state.

Kansas citizens have repeatedly shown their support for the death penalty in 
certain cases, yet these justices have not followed the law,choosing instead to 
follow their personal beliefs. The Supreme Court has overturned many death 
penalty convictions handed down by Kansas juries. This has been their view 
until recently, when their decisions have come under scrutiny from the public. 
In most of the cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has reversed the Kansas Supreme 
Court with instructions to follow the law.

It appears these justices are opposed to the death penalty. I respect their 
differing position. The problem, however, is that capital punishment remains 
the law. If these justices cannot follow the law, they should resign; if they 
will not resign, they should be voted out of office.

I invite you to join me in voting "no" on the retention of Justices Lawton 
Nuss, Carol A. Beier, Dan Biles and Marla J. Luckert. This is not politics, it 
is just democracy, and it is just the American way.

TOM SCOTT, Topeka

(source: Letter to the Editor, Topeka Capital-Journal)






NEBRASKA:

Death penalty indefensible


Lincoln attorney Bob Evnen argues with fallacies and fear for the death penalty 
("Life doesn't mean life", Nov. 2). Evnen asserts a weakened version of 
opponent's arguments then easily rebuts them. He then paints a grim portrait of 
criminals roaming the streets trolling for fresh victims.

The 1st strategy is a known logical fallacy. The 2nd ignores future minor 
repairs to the parole system to insure the immutable purpose of criminal 
justice, namely public safety.

Death penalty proponents desire retribution and taking a life deserves equal 
treatment. However, retribution is not necessary if public safety in insured. 
When the murderer is incarcerated for life without parole, public peace is 
restored. Enduring peace is assured by a minor repair: restrict the parole 
board's flexibility for commuting sentences.

Thus, the covenant between law enforcement and citizens is fulfilled. 
Purification occurs; balance, order and harmony return. The cult of the kill as 
a weapon of instinctual and psychological balance is not necessary. Only feral 
animals desire blood as a sign of supremacy.

Thus, the notion of capital punishment lacks virtue. Virtuous people do not 
place others in danger. Scores of examples of death row inmates later found not 
guilty pepper the capital punishment perplexities. Virtuous people obey as well 
as exercise reason. If an act places another in danger, in peril of losing 
their life, then reason demands that the act be nullified.

The time and money spent to repeal the legislature's ban of capital punishment 
is a fool's journey. Buying drugs and funding petition drives are futile 
actions to prove the philosophically indefensible.

Dutch Fichthorn, Lincoln

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

Life without parole exists, and it's better for Nebraska


Bob Evnen seems to criticize my opposition to the death penalty by pointing out 
I sentenced John Joubert to death (Local View, LJS, Nov. 2). In doing so, I 
simply followed my oath to apply existing law. But a life sentence would have 
served the same purpose- and there would have been substantially less taxpayer 
dollars spent on court proceedings in both state and federal courts.

Before the Unicameral Legislature would consider eliminating the death penalty, 
they made a thorough inquiry into Nebraska's life imprisonment laws to ensure 
we have a way to keep the worst offenders away from society forever.

To get clarity on this key issue, the Unicameral asked the Attorney General if 
there was any way for someone sentenced to life imprisonment to ever be 
paroled. The answer from Nebraska's current Attorney General was clear "Under 
current Nebraska law, a sentence of life imprisonment is effectively life 
imprisonment without parole."

The Unicameral also asked me for my professional opinion; I served over 30 
years as a Nebraska Judge. I was equally clear: when someone in Nebraska is 
under a sentence of life imprisonment, they can't be paroled. Period. They die 
in prison.

The other people who die in prison in Nebraska are death row inmates. In the 
last 30 years we have executed 3 people, twice as many have died on death row 
of natural causes. And in the past 19 years we've had no executions. This is 
not for want of trying - in the last 2 decades there have been pro-death 
penalty Governors, Attorneys General, and majorities in the Unicameral, but 
despite repeated attempts they have been unable to get the death penalty up and 
running.

There has been a financial cost to keeping our death penalty on the books all 
these years. Even though we're not able to execute anyone, we've been paying 
for death penalty cases which are long and expensive. Capital cases require 
that we seat a special "death qualified" jury who go through 2 trials instead 
of 1, then a 3rd panel of Judges must affirm their findings.

Even though we've not executed anyone in nearly 20 years, we have borne the 
expense of appeals as the men on death row snake their way through the 
Constitutionally required state and federal appeals. There are more than 40 
appeals that death row inmates can file, that can't be filed by those serving 
life sentences.

There was certainly a cost to the Beatrice 6 by having the death penalty on the 
books. Several of the Beatrice 6 confessed to murder after they were threatened 
with the death penalty. These individuals lost over 75 years of their lives in 
prison before DNA proved their innocence. And now there is the cost to the 
Gauge County taxpayers who are on the hook to pay the $28 million wrongful 
conviction settlement.

The other human cost to the death penalty is to the victims' families of those 
men sitting on death row. The death penalty fails to deliver on its promise of 
an execution. As long as we have the death penalty, but can't carry it out we 
are torturing victims. Even if we were to resume executions, we would still be 
sentencing victims' families to decades of required appeals.

Carey Dean Moore has been sitting on Nebraska's death row for 36 years. For 36 
long years his victims' families have waited and waited for an execution to 
happen. Had he been sentenced to life in prison, those families could have put 
this behind them and gone on with their lives knowing he would be out of the 
headlines and behind bars forever.

It is not unreasonable to desire the death penalty for the worst of the worst 
offenders. Many thoughtful and good people hold this position. But this desire 
comes with a mighty high price tag to many, many Nebraskans. We have life 
imprisonment; it is a harsh punishment that keeps us safe at a fraction of the 
cost. I believe life imprisonment is better for Nebraska, so I will vote to 
"retain" the legislature???s action that replaces the death penalty with life 
imprisonment.

Judge Ronald Reagan retired after 32 years on the bench in Sarpy County 
District Court.

(source for both: Letter to the Editor, Lincoln Journal Star)






MONTANA:

Montana death-row inmates question use of execution drug


Attorneys for 2 Montana death-row inmates are questioning whether state 
Department of Justice officials told a witness to change his testimony to 
bolster their failed argument that a substitute drug met the legal requirements 
for use in executions.

District Judge Deann Cooney has scheduled a Nov. 18 hearing on the issue raised 
by ACLU of Montana Legal Director Jim Taylor, one of the lawyers representing 
inmates Ronald Allen Smith and William Gollehon.

"Had the expert not changed his testimony, we would not have gotten to trial," 
Taylor said. "We want to know what happened. We just want a hearing and we've 
been trying to get a hearing for a year."

Department of Justice spokesman John Barnes did not immediately return a 
telephone message seeking comment.

In court documents filed in response to the inmates' request to preserve 
evidence and re-open the case, Assistant Attorney General Ben Reed said the 
accusation is groundless and Auburn University pharmacy school dean Roswell Lee 
Evans' testimony was consistent.

At the trial last year, District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock effectively blocked 
executions in Montana after ruling that 1 of the 2 drugs to be used in lethal 
injections did not meet a requirement under state law to be an 
"ultra-fast-acting barbiturate." The state does not have an alternative 
barbiturate to use in lethal injections.

Montana originally used sodium pentothal as the barbiturate, but that drug is 
no longer available in the U.S. for executions. State officials named 
pentobarbital as a substitute.

State attorneys argued unsuccessfully at trial that pentobarbital, which has 
never been used in a Montana execution, meets the requirement. Their expert, 
Evans, wrote an expert declaration in March 2015 that did not address the 
"ultra-fast acting" question. In April 2015, he supplemented that declaration 
by adding pentobarbital could be considered "ultra-fast acting" but that it is 
classified differently.

Taylor wrote in his request to re-open the case in March that Evans testified 
in a separate case in Tennessee in which he was asked about his testimony in 
the Montana case. According to a transcript, Evans was asked whether the 
Montana attorney general needed him to say pentobarbital was ultra-fast acting 
and he wrote that it could be.

"Could be," Evans answered. "That's not how it's classified."

Based on that testimony, Taylor wrote, it appears state attorneys persuaded 
Evans to change his original declaration.

"A fair reading of Evans' testimony ... is that someone from the Montana 
Attorney General's Office told Evans that what he had said in his first expert 
report was insufficient, and that he needed to change his opinion to fit what 
the defense required," Taylor wrote.

Reed, in response, wrote that Evans' testimony was consistent because 
barbiturates are typically classified by duration - "ultra-short acting" - and 
not rapidity - "ultra-fast acting." When read together, his statements are 
consistent and explain that while it is not classified as "ultra-fast acting" 
it could be described that way because the drug's onset is incredibly fast.

Evans' "could be" answer to the Tennessee attorney's question addressed what 
Evans actually wrote in the declaration, not whether the Montana attorney 
general's office needed him to change his testimony.

Taylor said the inmates' attorneys took their concerns to the attorney 
general's office. They received a response in February that "we took what we 
believed to be the appropriate actions with the DOJ lawyers involved in the 
death penalty litigation." The email also said that the state's dealings with 
Evans had ended.

Taylor said the actions the state may have taken against its attorneys in the 
case merit investigation by the court.

Reed responded that the argument is "nebulous and speculative."

(source: Associated Press)






CALIFORNIA:

How a Former L.A. District Attorney Finally Agreed With Activist Mike Farrell 
on the Death Penalty


Ira Reiner, who served as District Attorney of Los Angeles County for 8 years, 
and Mike Farrell, President of the board of Death Penalty Focus, have publicly 
and respectfully debated the death penalty many times over the years, but it 
wasn't until now that Proposition 62, known also as The Justice That Works Act 
of 2016, is on the California ballot that they at long last saw eye to eye.

Ira Reiner was the District Attorney of Los Angeles County from 1984 to 1992. 
Mike Farrell is an actor and death penalty abolitionist. Reiner, who supervised 
the prosecution of Richard Ramirez, the "Night Stalker," felt that the 
depravity of some crimes provoked a visceral reaction toward the perpetrator 
that led him to believe "some people don't deserve to live." Farrell, while 
acknowledging the instinctual response to such horror, thought the vital 
question was, "Do we deserve to kill?"

Given the strength of their personal convictions and the growing resonance of 
the death penalty issue, the 2 debated the question in a number of different 
venues over a period of years, gradually developing a mutually growing respect 
and eventually a friendship despite their opposing points of view.

Farrell's involvement with human rights and death penalty abolition efforts 
across the country eventually led to his becoming President of the board of 
Death Penalty Focus, an organization devoted to promoting abolition through 
educating and informing the public about the terrible problems with the death 
system in America.

Reiner, among other pursuits after leaving office, began to teach law in 
Israel, commuting to that country for years. There he discussed the use of the 
death penalty in a nation that did not, except for the "Eichmann exception," 
practice it. With some distance from the complex decision-making process in his 
former office, he reexamined his difficulty with choosing death when many 
defendants were represented by counsel far less experienced than his staff. He 
saw that with so many people involved, so many perspectives to be considered, 
with pressure from both the public and departmental needs and ambitions, it is 
impossible for one to make a purely rational choice.

No matter how hard one tries to gain the clarity necessary to assume the moral 
authority to deem a human life valueless, he realized, he can never achieve the 
perfection necessary for such a task. And given the fact that politics, 
political considerations and personal ambition come to play in an adversarial 
proceeding, the process may too often become one in which the "best arguments" 
used to make a case actually stray from reality. And false arguments, he knew, 
are the same as false evidence. The skill of an advocate may weigh more heavily 
than a factually stronger case less well argued, corrupting the truth-seeking 
process.

By 2012, with California's death penalty on hold for 6 years due to a judge's 
ruling and support for state killing dropping across the country, Farrell and 
Death Penalty Focus partnered with other social justice organizations to put an 
initiative on the ballot to end capital punishment. The ensuing campaign, while 
unsuccessful, surprised many by coming very close to winning. It made abolition 
simply a matter of time.

Today, Proposition 62, The Justice That Works Act of 2016, a less complex bill 
than its predecessor, is on the ballot. This straightforward proposition will 
replace the death penalty with life without parole. It makes those re-sentenced 
to life work and pay 60% of their earnings to a victims families relief fund. 
And it saves California's taxpayers $150 million every year.

A competing measure, Proposition 66, drawn up by a group of District Attorneys 
and prosecutors, is also on the ballot. This initiative claims it will shorten 
the time death cases take on appeal while saving the state money. It cannot 
live up to its promise, Farrell and Reiner say, because it adds 2 appeals to an 
already lengthy (25 to 30 year) process and claims it will require the courts 
to resolve them in 5 years. "The authors know, or should know," Farrell says, 
"they cannot dictate to the California Supreme Court the time allowed for their 
deliberations. It's absurd and it violates the constitution." Further, Reiner 
adds, "They intend to force appellate lawyers untrained in the highly technical 
aspects of death penalty litigation to take cases they don't want. That alone 
will further complicate and drag out the process."

Because Proposition 66 complicates and further lengthens a troubled process 
that cruelly drags victim's family members through years of re-victimization, 
former District Attorney Reiner and abolitionist Farrell no longer debate the 
issue. Together, they are supporting Yes on 62 and No on 66 to end the pain. 
While Reiner continues to experience a reaction to the horrifying crimes 
committed by some, he and Farrell now share the belief that justice is better 
served by imprisoning malefactors for the rest of their lives than it is by 
continuing an inherently flawed process driven by visceral feelings.

(source: truthdig.com)

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

Proposition 62 is the wrong direction


While I am deeply opposed to the death penalty, I feel compelled to share my 
reasons for opposing Proposition 62, the ballot measure to repeal the death 
penalty.

It essentially creates a new form of death penalty, death by imprisonment.

I care about this because I care deeply for the women I have been working with 
over the last 6 years through The Lioness Tale Prison Project who are serving 
life without possibility of parole (LWOPP) sentences.

I know these women's lives, already horrific enough, will be made more 
difficult if this law passes. I know they will be serving the exact same 
sentence as those who will be joining them from death row, some of whom are 
sociopathic killers who can never be released safely back into society.

But the women I know can be released. Some of them killed their abuser in order 
to protect themselves and/or their children; some were accessories to 
burglaries gone wrong where a boyfriend ended up killing someone; some aren't 
even serving LWOPP for murder; some may actually be innocent! This law will 
lock their fate right along with those convicted of much more heinous crimes.

There was a time when, after 30 years of incarceration, LWOPPS could attend a 
Board of Prison Hearing. This allowed some light at the end of the tunnel for 
those people who had spent years turning their lives around by utilizing every 
life-changing program the prison had to offer. Can you imagine living an entire 
lifetime (some of these women were sentenced as teenagers) without hope? Recent 
changes in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and in 
some California laws have allowed hope to rise again that people sentenced to 
LWOPP may have a chance to live outside of prison walls. Proposition 62 will 
effectively close off this possibility of light, basically sealing their 
coffins. This is a cruel death penalty, plain and simple.

There are some people who should never get out of prison, some of these people 
are on death row, and some are already serving LWOPP. But many LWOPPS could be 
released right now with absolutely no threat to any one.

If proposition 62 passes, innocent people may be condemned to this new sentence 
of life without possibility of parole, without the built-in protections death 
row inmates currently have - such as a state appointed attorney to accompany 
them through an appeals process.

This is a bad law. If it doesn't pass then we can take the anti-death penalty 
momentum and craft a law that leads us in the direction we want to go: 
rehabilitation, not retribution. Proposition 62 takes us in the wrong 
direction.

(source: Opinion, Diane Pendola, The Union)






USA:

Roof jury pool among the largest called


Dylann Roof, 22, stands accused of shooting to death 9 worshippers at 
Charleston's Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015. Ahead of the 
federal trial, U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel ordered that 3,000 jury 
summons be mailed to prospective panelists in the Charleston area.

Based on jury questionnaires, those 3,000 have now been whittled to a pool of 
512, and the final phase of selection, one that will end with 12 jurors and 6 
alternates, is set to begin Monday.

Though the initial jury pool is among the largest called, jury experts say they 
are unsurprised at its size given the notoriety of the crime.

Here's a look at jury pools in other infamous cases:

James Holmes: In the largest pool in U.S. history, 9,000 jury summons were 
mailed in preparation for the trial of the 2012 movie theater shooting in 
Aurora, Colorado. The judge first planned to call 6,000 potential jurors, but 
explained in court documents why he decided to boost that number: "It will be 
much easier to call off prospective jurors who are not needed than it will be 
to adjust if there are insufficient prospective jurors." The final panel 
rejected the death penalty after being unable to agree on execution. Holmes was 
sentenced to life without parole plus 3,318 consecutive years behind bars for 
shootings that left 12 dead and 70 injured.

Dennis Oland: In Canada, the Oland family is best known as founders of 
Moosehead Breweries, so when onetime stakeholder Richard Oland was murdered, 
the case received intense media attention there. His son, Dennis Oland, was 
convicted in New Brunswick, Canada, adjacent to Maine. The court initially sent 
5,000 summons to prospective jurors ahead of that 2015 case.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: The death penalty trial of Tsarnaev, convicted in the 2013 
Boston Marathon bombing, began with a jury pool of 1,373. Defense attorneys had 
requested a venue change to Washington, D.C., a move the court rejected. Jury 
selection took nearly 2 months, and the final panel sentenced Tsarnaev to 
death.

O.J. Simpson: The "Trial of the Century" saw the football legend on trial for 
the 1994 murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron 
Goldman. A jury pool of 1,000 was initially summoned to the courthouse, with 
the final panel rending a verdict of not guilty. Simpson again faced criminal 
charges after a 2007 robbery. That panel, narrowed from an original pool of 
500, found him guilty.

Theodore Kaczynski: A federal judge summoned 600 jurors in the death penalty 
trial of Ted Kaczynski, the "Unabomber" who began mailing explosives in the 
late 1970s, prompting the FBI to assemble a task force. He was captured in 1996 
after a manifesto he authored led to his identity. The day before trial, 
Kaczyniski struck a plea deal that kept him off death row.

Eric Rudolph: The 1996 Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta and related attacks 
touched off a massive manhunt in the mountains of Western North Carolina for 
Rudolph when he was named a suspect in 1998. Until his capture in 2003, wry 
commentators crowned him the nation's hide-and-seek champion. As the case moved 
to trial, a federal court had planned to call 500 potential jurors. He later 
pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to 2 consecutive life terms.

Susan Smith: A mere 250 prospective jurors were summoned for the death penalty 
trial in the Smith case, one that caught national attention in 1994 when she 
first claimed her 2 young sons were abducted by a black man who stole her car 
and pleaded for their return. The South Carolina woman later confessed to 
drowning the boys. Smith was then represented by legendary capital defense 
attorney David Bruck, as Roof is now. Bruck won a sentence of life in prison 
for the mother.

(source: citizen-times.com)