[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CONN., GA., ALA., ARIZ., ORE.

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 13



CONNECTICUT:

2 Connecticut killers' appeals headed to state Supreme Court


The appeals of 2 convicted killers sentenced to lethal injection before 
Connecticut's death penalty was abolished are set to go before the state 
Supreme Court.

The separate cases of Sedrick Cobb and Jessie Campbell III are on the court 
docket for December.

Cobb was convicted in the 1989 killing of Julia Ashe. The 23-year-old woman had 
been Christmas shopping at a Waterbury department store when she was abducted, 
raped then left in an icy culvert to die, prosecutors say. Cobb argues on 
appeal that his trial lawyer failed to present evidence that he has a severe 
mental illness.

Prosecutors reject Cobb's arguments and say his convictions should stand.

In Campbell's appeal, he argues the trial judge improperly ruled he was 
competent to stand trial and failed to properly instruct the jury on his 
defense of extreme emotional disturbance.

Campbell was convicted of shooting 3 women outside a Hartford home in 2000. 
LaTaysha Logan, 20, Campbell's girlfriend and mother of his son, was killed. 
Her friend, 18-year-old Desiree Privette, also was fatally shot. Privette's 
aunt, Carolyn Privette, survived the shooting.

Prosecutor Matthew Weiner rejected Campbell's arguments, saying that even if 
errors were made, they weren't significant enough to affect the verdict.

"The state presented overwhelming evidence that at the time the defendant shot 
each victim, he intended to cause her death," Weiner wrote in a brief to the 
court.

Last year, a divided Supreme Court ruled that a 2012 state law that abolished 
capital punishment for future crimes must be applied to the 11 men who still 
faced execution for killings that happened before the law took effect. A 
majority of justices said the death penalty "no longer comports with 
contemporary standards of decency" and doesn't serve any "legitimate 
penological purpose."

The death penalty was replaced with life in prison.

(source: New Haven Register)






GEORGIA----impending execution//volunteer)

Things to know about the upcoming execution in Georgia


Georgia is preparing to carry out its 8th execution of the year with plans to 
execute a man who killed his ex-girlfriend 15 years ago.

Steven Frederick Spears, 54, is scheduled to be put to death Wednesday by 
injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital at the state prison in Jackson. He 
was convicted of murder in the August 2001 slaying of his former girlfriend 
Sherri Holland at her home in Dahlonega, about 65 miles northeast of Atlanta.

Here are some things to know about the scheduled execution:

THE CRIME

Spears told investigators in a 90-minute, tape-recorded confession that he came 
up with four different plans to kill Holland. According to a summary from the 
Georgia Supreme Court:

-- He went into the crawl space under her house and attached wires to the 
drainpipe and cold water pipe of her shower that he planned to attach to her 
home's circuit board to electrocute her as she showered;

-- He planned to carve a baseball bat from a tree branch, leave it under a 
canoe at her house and beat her to death with it;

-- He planned to crawl into her house from the crawl space through an air 
conditioner vent and load her shotgun so he could use it later;

-- He hid duct tape under her canoe so he could choke her, bind her with the 
tape and suffocate her with a plastic bag.

He ultimately chose the 4th plan, placing Holland's bag-covered head on a 
pillow, "so her face wouldn't be smashed on the floor," he told investigators. 
He left her body in her bedroom and locked the door with a padlock to keep her 
teenage son from entering when he returned home from his dad's house.

Spears lived in the woods for 10 days before an officer saw him walking along a 
highway, asked his name and arrested him.

---

THE MOTIVE

Spears said he told Holland when they began dating that if he caught her or 
heard that she was sleeping with someone else he would "choke her ass to 
death." He told investigators he told her he loved her just before choking her. 
Toward the end of his confession, Spears told investigators, "I loved her that 
much. I told her I wasn't letting her go, and I didn't." He added that he'd do 
it again if he had to.

---

NO POST-CONVICTION APPEALS

Georgia death sentences are automatically appealed. If a sentence is upheld 
through the direct appeal process, the case generally winds its way through 
post-conviction appeals in state and federal courts. Authorities in Georgia 
typically wait until those appeals are exhausted before setting an execution 
date.

But Spears has taken the unusual step of declining to file any post-conviction 
appeals. His trial attorney, Allyn Stockton, said Spears made it very difficult 
for his defense team because he threatened to take the stand and torpedo his 
own case if they presented any mitigating evidence.

Stockton said Spears has failed to answer letters he's sent in recent months 
and has refused to see him when he's come to the prison to visit recently.

Stockton plans to ask the State Board of Pardons and Paroles to spare Spears' 
life at a clemency hearing set for Tuesday. Enotah Judicial Circuit District 
Attorney Jeff Langley said he plans to ask the board to allow the execution to 
proceed. The parole board is the only authority in Georgia with power to 
commute a death sentence.

---

RECORD NUMBER OF EXECUTIONS

Spears would be the 8th person put to death by the state of Georgia this year. 
That's the most in a calendar year in the state since the death penalty was 
reinstated nationwide in 1976. Georgia executed 5 inmates last year and 5 in 
1987.

If his execution is carried out, Georgia will have executed more people this 
year than any other state. Texas and Georgia are currently tied with 7 
executions apiece. 3 other states - Alabama, Florida and Missouri - have each 
carried out 1 execution this year, bringing the total number of executions this 
year to 17.

(source: Associated Press)






ALABAMA:

Officials: too much time, money spent on death row


Alabama officials want to lessen the amount of time convicted murderers spend 
on death row - and the amount of time and money the state spends fighting their 
appeals.

"I'm frustrated with the whole process, not just Tommy Arthur," said Rep. Lynn 
Greer, R-Rogersville.

Arthur, one of the state's longest-serving death row inmates, had his execution 
stayed for the 7th time earlier this month.

"The Legislature needs to make a decision. We're either going to have a death 
penalty, or we need to repeal all these laws," Greer said. "We've made a joke 
of this."

He estimated lengthy appeals cost the state millions of dollars.

Arthur's 7th stay is exceptional, and his latest appeals are based on the 
state's lethal injection method. But in general, it takes too long to carry out 
the death penalty in Alabama because of the appeals process, officials said.

Greer is working with others, including the Madison County District Attorney's 
Office, on legislation to shorten the time. The legislation is modeled after 
Texas law.

"No one is for taking any appeals away from anyone, we just don't want this to 
drag out for years," Greer said. "It's not federal law that causes these lags, 
it's state law. And the Legislature can change that."

Jay Town, the assistant district attorney in Madison County, has been working 
on the proposed legislation. He said the way the process works now, it can take 
up to 25 years for a death penalty to be carried out. Officials from the 
Alabama Attorney General's Office in 2013 said the average time on death row 
was 15.5 years and growing.

In Texas, it's a little more than 10 years.

Like Texas, Alabama has 2 routes for appeals on death penalty cases in state 
courts. In Texas, the 2 appeals processes run concurrently. In Alabama, 1 has 
to end before the 2nd begins. Sometimes, the 2nd occurs a decade after 
conviction, Town said.

Greer sponsored legislation in 2013 to send appeals directly to the Alabama 
Supreme Court, skipping the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. That bill died 
without a committee vote.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, said death penalty 
appeals "has been a line in the sand" for Democrats who have fought previous 
legislation.

"But Greer is right, there does seem to be a need to streamline (appeals)," 
Ward said. "It's a waste of resources and time."

He said long appeals processes are cruel to victims' families.

"Every time an appeal is held, you're putting the families of victims through 
this all over again," Ward said.

Cruel and inhumane

It's cruel to the criminal's family too, said Sherrie Stone. Her father, 
Arthur, has been on death row for 33 years. She hasn't taken a position on the 
death penalty until this year. She wants it abolished, not because its cruel 
and unusual - most of the inmates on death row did much worse to their victims, 
she said.

"However, the death penalty process is cruel and inhumane for the families," 
Stone said last week. "(For) both sets of families.

"You have years of appeals, in some cases multiple scheduled executions. I know 
the government's answer is to speed up the executions. That is not the answer."

Since 1973, more than 156 death row inmates have been exonerated, according to 
the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.

"With life without parole, it eliminates years of appeals and the scheduled 
executions," Stone said. "At least people can move on with their lives."

The Alabama Attorney General's Office last week declined to comment on any 
death penalty changes it'd like to see. A spokesperson said they do not track 
the costs from Arthur's appeals.

Some lawmakers estimate death penalty appeals cost millions, but they don't 
want to back away from state executions.

"At some point, society has the right to protect itself, and that's a right of 
the state that needs to be maintained," Sen. Dick Brewbaker, R-Montgomery, said 
recently. "I don't think we should abandon the state's position on the death 
penalty because it costs too much money to try the case."

Brewbaker this year sponsored a bill to create an Innocence Inquiry Commission 
to review death-row inmates' claims of innocence. The bill passed in the Senate 
but died in the House.

"I will bring it back (in the 2017 session) if there's any chance of it coming 
to the House floor for a vote," Brewbaker said. "Last time, there just wasn't. 
I'm not going to do anything to raise any false hopes for anyone - it seems 
cruel."

Brewbaker is pro-death penalty, but said no stone should be left unturned when 
proving guilt.

"I don't think the system is as sound as we think it is," he said.

Death debate continues

There will be a bill in the Legislature next year to repeal the death penalty. 
It' s perennial legislation from Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma.

"I feel like it's a tremendous waste of time and money," Sanders said Friday. 
"And I think it's a waste of life.

"Just from a practical point of view, we ought not be in the business of 
killing people.

Alabama currently has 185 inmates on death row, according to the Department of 
Corrections' website. The longest-serving inmate is Arthur Lee Giles, who was 
put there for a Morgan County murder in 1979. Besides Arthur, 5 other inmates 
will have been there at least or more than 30 years this year. About 30 more 
have been there 20 or more years.

"If we're going to have the death penalty, it shouldn't take 30 years," Town 
said.

Arthur was sentenced to death for the 1982 murder of Muscle Shoals resident 
Troy Wicker. Arthur's most recent appeals have challenged the constitutionality 
of the state's 3-drug lethal injection procedure.

Last week, a federal judge said he may allow the state to use a large dose of 
one sedative to execute another inmate in December. U.S. District Court Judge 
Keith Watkins gave Ronald Bert Smith's attorneys 1 week to argue why the state 
should not execute Smith using a large dose of midazolam, followed by a 
continuous infusion of the same drug.

Meanwhile, in response to challenges to the lethal injection procedure, Sen. 
Trip Pittman, R-Daphne, earlier this month proposed legislation to allow the 
state to execute by firing squad.

Greer said if the state wants the death penalty, it needs to address the delays 
in carrying out executions.

"Let's either make it effective or let's repeal it," Greer said. "But let's 
stop fooling people, especially victims' families."

(source: Times Daily)






ARIZONA:

The death penalty in Mohave County----For County Attorney Matt Smith, sending 
the worst of the worst to death row is sometimes necessary


On one hand, horrific, depraved crimes raise heated passions in favor of the 
ultimate punishment. Opponents, on the other hand, argue the death penalty is 
fundamentally flawed because of the arbitrary manner in which it is meted out - 
primarily affecting minorities and the poor.

There are no easy answers.

For Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith, whose office has 2 death penalty cases 
on the docket - both involving men who allegedly committed 2 of the most 
shockingly brutal crimes in the county's history - the process is emotionally 
exhausting, but morally important.

Smith sat down with The Kingman Daily Miner to discuss how Arizona's death 
penalty works and highlighted capital cases with ties to the region.

He's been prosecuting in Mohave County for nearly 3 decades, and he has the 
memories to prove it.

How to Land on Death Row

There is only 1 crime that makes a defendant death penalty eligible: 1st-degree 
murder. And not just any garden-variety killing, but those particularly 
disturbing ones that demonstrate a depraved state of mind. They are called 
aggravating factors and there are a number of them. Some, such as the victim's 
youth or advanced age, are routine. Acts committed in an especially cruel 
fashion make a crime death penalty eligible, as does previous convictions, 
particularly for other violent acts; and whether the killing was due to 
financial or property gain to name a few.

"If none of them apply, you don't have the death penalty as a possibility," 
Smith said.

Mitigating factors, things that lessen a defendant's culpability such as child 
abuse, intoxication, age and mental deficiencies can get a defendant off the 
hook - insofar as life in prison without parole is likely preferable to death 
row.

Executions are carried out at Florence State Prison, where lethal injection is 
the method most often used on those occasions they are carried out. Those 
convicted prior to November of 1992 have the option of lethal injection or gas 
inhalation. No executions were performed from 1962 to 1992.

There is a moratorium on Arizona's death penalty, which is currently under 
review following the botched 2014 execution of Joseph Rudolph Wood III, who was 
convicted of murdering his estranged girlfriend, Debra Dietz, and her father, 
Eugene Dietz, in 1989.

Wood did not succumb after he was given what was thought to be a lethal dose. 
He took two hours to die and over that time he was given 15 times the standard 
dose of the 3-drug mixture. Wood gasped and snorted for more than an hour after 
the drugs were injected. The process should've taken about 10 minutes.

The potential for such incidents is only 1 reason why a capital case is tightly 
regulated by law. Once a person has been indicted in a death penalty-eligible 
case, the county attorney's office has 30 to decide to seek the death penalty. 
Once they do, and the case ultimately goes to trial - usually no less than a 
year or 2 after an arrest is made - prosecutors and defense attorney must 
select a "death qualified" jury. Those jurors are informed of the capital case 
and understand they might be asked to render a death verdict at the end.

If there is a 1st-degree murder conviction the aforementioned aggravation and 
mitigation sentencing phase begins. The prosecutor first has to land a 
conviction from the jury, and then the jury has to unanimously agree on the 
aggravating factors for death to be imposed. If the jury doesn't agree 
unanimously, a life (with or without parole) sentence will be considered and in 
the case of a hung jury, the attorney's office can retry the penalty phase. The 
entire case can be retried on a hung jury. A 2nd attempt at a death sentence 
with a hung jury will grant the defendant an automatic life sentence.

Capital cases are more expensive in respect to both time and money. A defendant 
gets two lawyers and both sides expend funding for expert witnesses in most 
cases. More time is needed to screen the larger amount of potential jurors. 
Those expert witnesses are brought in often have to travel. Travel to interview 
witnesses and associates of the defendant also comes into play. If a death 
sentence is handed down, a lengthy and prohibitively expensive appeals process 
automatically kicks in.

High Profile Cases

There are currently 7 convicts on Arizona's death row with ties to Mohave 
County. 2 are from Kingman (1 has been executed), out of 120 death row inmates.

Charles Ellison, 51, sentenced to die for the 1999 strangulation murders of 
Joseph Boucher, 79, and Lillian Boucher, 73, of Kingman. His accomplice, 
Richard Finch, was sentenced to life without parole.

Brad Nelson, 44, sentenced to die for the 2006 bludgeoning death of Amber 
Graff, his 14-year-old niece, in a Kingman hotel room.

Frank Anderson, 68, and Bobby Poyson, 40, for the August 1996 bludgeoning and 
shooting murders of a Golden Valley family.

Graham Henry, 68, on death row for the June 1986 murder of Roy Estes, an 
elderly Las Vegas man. Estes' throat was slit and his body left in the desert.

Roger Murray, 46, on death row for the May, 1991 shotgun slaying of Dean 
Morrison and Jackie Appelhans of Grasshopper Junction.

His brother and accomplice Robert Murray was also on death row, but died of 
untreated cancer while on June 28, 2014.

Danny Lee Jones, 52. Sentenced to die for the March, 1992 murders of Bullhead 
City residents Robert Weaver, Weaver's 7-year-old daughter Tisha and Weaver's 
grandmother Katherine Gumina.

Daniel Wayne Cook was executed Aug. 8, 2012, at the age of 51, for the July 19, 
1987 murders of Carlos Cruz-Ramos and Kevin Swaney in Lake Havasu City.

He is the only Mohave Country resident to be executed since Smith's time with 
the county attorney's office 29 years ago. He has been county attorney for 
nearly 14 years.

Smith wouldn't go into details regarding the ongoing cases of Darrell Ketchner 
and Justin James Rector.

Ketchner, 58, is accused of the July 2009 fatal stabbing of 18-year-old Ariel 
Allison and the shooting and stabbing of her mother Jennifer.

According to Smith, that case needs to be retried due to improper testimony 
offered at Rector's 1st trial. Ketchner never denied committing the crime.

The sole focus of his defense rested in avoiding the death penalty.

Rector could face the death penalty if he's found guilty of the alleged 2014 
murder of 8-year-old Bella Grogan-Cannella in Bullhead City.

The Human Toll

Smith became emotional when he described the frustrations for his office and 
defense attorneys.

"These are usually just horrendous crimes," he said. "This is the worst of the 
worst." Smith is often mystified over Nelson's decision to kill his young 
niece.

"How can you not think 'why did he have to kill her'," he asked. "She had her 
whole life ahead of her." Nelson has since asked that his appeals be dropped 
and he be put to death.

The Ellison case also took a toll on the longtime prosecutor. Smith described 
what must have been absolute helplessness for the Boucher couple that had lived 
a meaningful life into their 70s before their murders.

"What could be your worst nightmare?" he said. "They're in a nice neighborhood, 
married over 50 years and wake up in the middle of the night and have 2 
intruders in (their) house.

"As he died, he knew his wife was getting killed at the same time that he's 
getting killed in the worse way possible, being suffocated by a pillow in his 
own house," Smith continued. "While his wife of 50 years is going through the 
same thing and there's not a damn thing he can do about it."

"I still get pissed off when I think about that," he said.

He recognizes the extreme grief and anger for the surviving family members, but 
knows the legal teams have an emotional load to carry.

"To think about being involved in a (capital) decision is a weighty thing to 
have on your mind," he said. "Somebody could actually end up being killed over 
this."

Smith has kept his personal feelings locked away during some of those trials. 
He listens to both the prosecution and defense in hopes they make the right 
decision.

"To me, it's a matter of just doing my job," he said. "You do the job and do 
the analysis as a 1st-degree murder. I let (the defense) present everything and 
let the jury do their job and decide.

"That's my philosophy about it.

"My feeling is that there are some cases that are so egregious that the person 
does not deserve a plea agreement," he said. "I think the cases we discussed 
today are those types of cases."

Smith said Chief Deputy Attorney Jace Zack, who retires this month after 31 
years with the attorney's office, prosecuted Graham Henry not long after taking 
the job. Smith knows Zack won???t be with the office to see that execution 
carried out.

He believes he won't see it carried out either.

(source: Daily Miner)






OREGON:

Death penalty issues prompt judge to postpone Springfield man's capital murder 
trial


Kyle Dean Pfaff of Springfield is charged with the most serious of crimes and 
could be sentenced to death if he is convicted of brutally murdering a 
23-year-old woman in July 2015.

His attorneys, however, argue that Lane County prosecutors should be prohibited 
from pursuing the death penalty. They assert in recently filed motions that 
Pfaff, 32, is intellectually disabled, and that prosecutors secured an 
indictment in the murder case after a key witness lied in his grand jury 
testimony.

Pfaff's trial had been set to begin in February. But Lane County Circuit Judge 
Maurice Merten agreed Thursday to scrap that schedule to give prosecutors time 
to study and respond to the defense motions.

Unless the 2 sides strike a plea deal to resolve the case this winter, Merten 
intends to set a new trial date after hearing evidence on the death penalty 
issues in March.

Pfaff is charged with aggravated murder in the death of Sarah Ann Coleman, a 
prep cook who was engaged to be married before she was slain inside her home on 
South 15th Street in Springfield. Police say Pfaff has admitted to the killing.

Coleman's homicide was one of a number of violent, deadly incidents that 
occurred in the Eugene-Springfield area during summer 2015.

Pfaff lived in a camper trailer behind the rental house, which Coleman shared 
with Pfaff's cousin. Coleman reportedly was frustrated about living on the same 
property with Pfaff - a convicted felon and registered sex offender, according 
to police - and had made plans to move elsewhere shortly before she was killed.

Authorities allege Pfaff broke into the house, and then assaulted and sexually 
abused Coleman after she interrupted the burglary. He then allegedly killed her 
and fled Springfield in her car. A few days later, police spotted the vehicle 
in a rural area near Sutherlin and arrested Pfaff there.

Pfaff subsequently confessed to murdering Coleman, a Springfield police 
detective wrote in a search warrant affidavit filed in the case.

A medical examiner who conducted an autopsy found that Coleman's skull had been 
fractured and that she was strangled, police said.

Pfaff has not admitted to having sexually assaulted or strangled Coleman, but 
has confessed to causing "blunt force trauma" to the victim and "made 
statements that would be enough to convict him of some of the charges against 
him," defense attorney Mark Sabitt wrote in a motion filed Tuesday.

In that same motion, Sabitt alleges that an "uncharged co-conspirator" who was 
present for the burglary gave false testimony to the grand jury that indicted 
Pfaff.

Before the man testified, prosecutors had an Oregon State Police detective 
administer him a lie-detector test. The detective concluded that the man had 
been truthful when he said during the examination that he had not witnessed 
Coleman being assaulted and had not caused her any injuries.

Defense lawyers, however, say their experts reviewed the polygraph test results 
and determined that the witness had been deceptive in his answers.

Sabitt argued in the motion that Merten should penalize prosecutors for having 
the man testify at grand jury by removing death as a potential sentence.

Defense lawyers also argue that Pfaff shouldn't face a death penalty if he is 
convicted because, they say, he has a low IQ and is intellectually disabled. 
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that executing a killer who has an 
intellectual disability is a violation of the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and 
unusual punishment.

Lane County Assistant District Attorney Steve Morgan told Merten that 
prosecutors didn't know that Pfaff's legal team would raise the issue until 
late August and that prosecutors need more time to properly respond to it. 
Morgan wrote in a recent court filing that there "was never any suggestion that 
(Pfaff) was intellectually disabled during the investigation" into Coleman's 
death.

If Pfaff is convicted but prosecutors do not seek a death penalty, he would be 
sentenced to either life in prison without the possibility of parole, or life 
with the possibility of parole after 30 years.

(source: Register-Guard)