[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, OHIO, KAN., NEB., CALIF, USA

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 4



TEXAS----impending execution

Texas Set to Execute Man Who Pleaded Guilty to Killing 2


Summoned to court to answer charges that he made a threatening phone call to 
his neighbor's home in a rural East Texas county more than 2 years earlier, 
Barney Fuller Jr.'s anger smoldered as he began drinking.

2 nights later, Fuller left his home with a 12-gauge shotgun, a military-style 
semi-automatic carbine and a .40-caliber pistol and carried the weapons about 
200 yards to the home of neighbors Nathan and Annette Copeland. He fired 59 
shots into their house, kicked in the back door and walked inside, opening fire 
again. Nathan Copeland, 43, was killed in his bedroom, shot four times. His 
wife, 39, was gunned down in a bathroom while calling 911. 1 of their 2 
children was shot but survived.

On Wednesday, Fuller, 58, is set for lethal injection for the May 2003 rampage 
outside Lovelady, about 100 miles north of Houston.

He'd be the 7th convicted killer executed this year in Texas and the 1st in 6 
months. His execution would be only the 16th this year nationally, a downturn 
fueled by fewer death sentences overall, courts halting scheduled executions 
for additional reviews, and death penalty states encountering difficulties 
obtaining drugs for lethal injections.

Hours after the shooting frenzy, Fuller called Houston County authorities and 
told them he would surrender peacefully at his home.

He pleaded guilty to capital murder, declined to be in the courtroom after 
individual questioning of prospective jurors began at his July 2004 trial, and 
asked that the trial's punishment phase go on without his presence. He didn't 
return to the courtroom until jurors returned with their death verdict.

"He was very adamant not wanting to be there," William House, one of his trial 
lawyers, recalled. "From the very start, he just really didn't care."

Last year Fuller asked his lawyer to stop filing appeals.

"I do not want to go on living in this hell-hole," he wrote attorney Jason 
Cassel. "Do not do anything for me which will prolong my appeals and time here 
on Texas death row."

A federal judge in June ruled Fuller was competent to make that decision. 
Fuller had testified at a hearing he was satisfied with his legal help, no one 
had coerced him and he was "ready to move on."

His threatening phone call to Annette Copeland came after Fuller, who drew the 
ire of neighbors like her for shooting his weapons on the rural property, shot 
out an electrical transformer that provided power to the Copelands' home. 
"Happy New Year," he told her in the Jan. 1, 2001, call. "I'm going to kill 
you."

A sheriff's department dispatcher who took Annette Copeland's 911 call about 
1:30 a.m. on May 14, 2003, heard a man say: "Party's over, bitch," followed by 
a popping sound. Annette Copeland was found with 3 bullet wounds to her head.

The couple's 14-year-old son, Cody, was hit twice and survived, and their 
10-year-old daughter, Courtney, avoided gunshots because Fuller couldn't find 
the light in her dark bedroom. Cody found his mother's cellphone and called 
police.

Cindy Garner, the former Houston County district attorney who prosecuted 
Fuller, described him as mean and without remorse.

"A lot of times in the country folks argue about chickens and dogs," Garner 
said. "He was shooting his mouth off, but no one had any idea that something 
like this was going to happen, where he was just going to march down the road 
like Rambo and tear up an entire family."

(source: Associated Press)

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

Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----19

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----537

Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #

20---------October 5----------------Barney Fuller---------538

21---------October 19---------------Terry Edwards---------539

22---------November 2---------------Ramiro Gonzales-------540

23---------December 7---------------John Battaglia--------541

24---------February 7---------------Tilon Carter----------542

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)

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

The punishment for having a bad lawyer shouldn't be the death penalty--Duane 
Buck would probably not be on death row had he been given a more competent 
lawyer. Will he receive justice from the US supreme court?


A deeply troubling truth about the death penalty is that it is often handed 
down not to people who commit the worst crimes, but on those assigned the worst 
lawyer to represent them. Buck v Davis, a Texas case that will be argued before 
the US supreme court on 5 October, offers an extreme example of just how deadly 
bad lawyering can be.

Duane Buck was charged with capital murder in Houston, Texas, in 1997. He was 
too poor to hire his own lawyer so the judge appointed two lawyers to defend 
him, one of whom has such an abysmal record in capital cases that the New York 
Times called him: "A Lawyer Known Best for Losing Capital Cases". His 
performance in Mr Buck's was consistent with this record.

In order for a death sentence to be imposed, Texas law requires the prosecutor 
to prove, and the jury to unanimously find, that the defendant is likely to be 
dangerous in the future. In Mr Buck's case, future dangerousness was the 
central disputed issue at sentencing. The prosecutors did not have a strong 
case that Mr Buck would be a danger in the future. Indeed, the evidence showed 
that Mr Buck was not likely to not pose a danger while in prison. But the 
court-appointed defense lawyers, with Mr Buck's life on the line, handed the 
prosecutors powerful evidence for sentencing him to death: Mr Buck was more 
likely to be dangerous because he is black.

That was the conclusion of a psychologist the defense lawyers retained as an 
expert. The psychologist prepared a report stating that being "black" is a 
"statistical factor" that created an "increased probability" that Mr Buck would 
commit criminal acts of violence in the future. The lawyers appointed to 
represent Mr Buck called the expert to the witness stand, elicited his 
testimony that Mr Buck was more likely to be dangerous because he is black, and 
moved the expert's report into evidence.

On cross-examination, the prosecutor emphasized the relationship between race 
and future dangerousness, asking the psychologist if "the race factor, black, 
increases the future dangerousness for various complicated reasons; is that 
correct?" "Yes," the psychologist answered, confirming a pernicious - and false 
- stereotype about black men and criminality. The court-appointed lawyers did 
not object. The judge said nothing. The jurors, after lengthy deliberations, 
during which they asked for - and received - a copy of the psychologist's 
report, found Mr Buck a future danger. He was sentenced to death.

The presentation of the psychologist's expert testimony was egregious and 
inexcusable incompetence on the part of Mr Buck's court-appointed lawyers. And 
it is the focus of Mr Buck's claim before the supreme court that his "trial 
counsel was constitutionally ineffective". The lawyers had the psychologist's 
report mentioning race as a factor in their possession before they called him 
to testify. The psychologist had testified in other cases before Mr Buck's 
trial that race increases the probability of future dangerousness.

The consideration of such evidence was so clearly wrong and prejudicial that 
John Cornyn, who was attorney general at the time and now represents Texas in 
the Senate, conceded that the evidence should not have been admitted in 7 
cases, including Mr Buck's. Each of these cases received new sentencing 
hearings - except Mr Buck's.

The incompetence of the court-appointed lawyers is undeniable. The danger of 
race influencing the capital sentencing decision has long been recognized. 
Competent defense lawyers take every precaution to prevent race from becoming a 
factor in the sentencing decision.

No competent defense lawyer would present the expert testimony of a 
psychologist who had repeatedly testified in other cases that race was a factor 
contributing to future dangerousness and was going to do so in Mr Buck's case. 
It is unfathomable. And it could not have been more prejudicial.

Such testimony could only reinforce racial stereotypes that would increase the 
likelihood that Mr Buck would be sentenced to death. The supreme court should 
correct this grave miscarriage of justice by holding that Mr Buck was denied 
his right to a competent lawyer and setting aside his death sentence.

(source: The Guardian)






OHIO:

Clemency hearing set for inmate with January execution date


Ohio has scheduled a clemency hearing for the 1st inmate scheduled for 
execution next year under a new process for putting condemned prisoners to 
death.

Ronald Phillips is set to die Jan. 12 for the 1993 rape and killing of his 
girlfriend's 3-year-old daughter.

The state prisons agency on Tuesday scheduled a Dec. 1 hearing during which 
Phillips' attorneys can ask the Ohio Parole Board for mercy. Gov. John Kasich, 
a Republican, will have the final say.

The Department of Rehabilitation and Correction said Monday that it plans to 
execute Phillips and 2 other inmates next year with a 3-drug combination that's 
similar to a method it used several years ago.

In 2013, the parole board voted unanimously against clemency for Phillips, 
saying the killing was "among the worst of the worst."

"Words cannot convey the barbarity of the crime. It is simply unconscionable," 
the board said.

Board members also said they weren't convinced Phillips had fully accepted 
responsibility. They said he tried to shift blame onto the girl's mother and 
onto Phillips' father, for allegedly abusing Phillips as a child.

Phillips' execution was previously scheduled and delayed several times, 
including when Kasich allowed time for a last-minute request by Phillips to 
donate organs. The request was ultimately denied. Phillips wanted to donate a 
kidney to his mother, who was on dialysis, and possibly his heart to his 
sister.

Ohio is returning to a form of execution it used from 1999 to late 2006, 
involving drugs that put inmates to sleep, paralyze them and stop their hearts.

The drugs are midazolam, rocuronium bromide and potassium chloride.

The Department of Rehabilitation and Correction won't say where the drugs are 
from, citing a new state law that shields that information.

Experts say the state could have:

-- Bought the drugs from a pharmaceutical distribution company that obtained 
them from a drugmaker that doesn't have strict controls in place to keep drugs 
from being used in executions.

-- Bought the drugs from a distribution company that has them as overstock 
from a time before such controls went into place.

-- Bought the drugs from a pharmacy that knows its identity won't be revealed 
by the new law.

-- Obtained the drugs from a death penalty state with drugs it doesn't need.

"With the secrecy provisions, we have no way of knowing if drugs were obtained 
legitimately or through some kind of misrepresentation," Robert Dunham, 
executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes 
capital punishment, said Tuesday.

(source: kansas.com)






KANSAS:

SCOTUS allows John Robinson's conviction, death sentence to stand


The U.S. Supreme Court today declined to review the case of John Robinson 
leaving his capital murder conviction and death sentence intact, Kansas 
Attorney General Derek Schmidt said.

The high court's denial means Robinson's conviction and death sentence, which 
previously were affirmed by the Kansas Supreme Court, will stand on direct 
appeal. The case will next be returned to the Kansas courts for further 
proceedings under the Kansas death penalty statute. Although the U.S. Supreme 
Court's action marks the end of Robinson's direct appeals, under both Kansas 
and federal law Robinson has remaining options to seek further judicial review 
through collateral proceedings.

Robinson was convicted in 2002 in Johnson County District Court of capital 
murder in connection with the serial murders of at least 6 women.

This is the 1st death penalty case to exhaust direct appeals since the Kansas 
Legislature reinstated the death penalty in 1994. Robinson is 1 of 10 people 
under sentence of death in Kansas. The other death penalty cases that remain 
pending at various stages of direct appeals before the Kansas Supreme Court 
are: State v. Scott Cheever (Greenwood County); State v. Gary Kleypas (Crawford 
County); State v. Jonathan Carr (Sedgwick County); State v. Reginald Carr 
(Sedgwick County); State v. Sydney Gleason (Barton County); State v. Justin 
Thurber (Cowley County); State v. Craig Kahler (Osage County); State v. Frazier 
Glenn Miller (Johnson County); and State v. Kyle Flack (Franklin County).

In an 11th case, State v. Doug Belt (Sedgwick County), the defendant died in 
prison, but the appeal remains pending and the Kansas Supreme Court held oral 
argument on Sept. 16.

(source: sekvoice.com)






NEBRASKA:

Death penalty activists to speak in Lincoln


5 years after the controversial execution of Troy Anthony Davis in Georgia, his 
sister Kimberly Davis and documentary filmmaker and author Jen Marlow will 
discuss how his case affected the fight to abolish the death penalty.

Davis and Marlowe are the featured speakers at this year's Sorensen Lecture at 
the Unitarian Church of Lincoln, 6300 A St., Sunday. The 7 p.m. lecture is free 
and open to the public.

Marlowe is a Seattle-based author/documentary filmmaker and human rights 
activist who wrote the book, "I Am Troy Davis," in 2011. Kimberly Davis travels 
the country speaking about the death penalty.

The lecture honors the memory of C.A. Sorensen, a former attorney general of 
Nebraska and death penalty opponent.

Nebraska voters in November will decide Nov. 8 whether to repeal a legislative 
bill that abolished the death penalty in the state.

(source: Lincoln Journal Star)






CALIFORNIA:

Proposition 62 Backers: 'It's Time To End California's Death Penalty'


In 2005, Dionne Wilson was desperate for revenge. Her husband, Dan Niemi, a San 
Leandro cop, was shot seven times and killed in an ambush while answering a 
public disturbance call. The killer was on probation and desperate to avoid 
going back to prison for having guns and drugs in his possession.

The Alameda County district attorney asked the jury to return a death sentence 
for the killer, Irving Ramirez. And Wilson wanted it, too.

"I begged for it," Wilson remembers. "I told them they had to. They have to 
give me this justice for my children and for my family."

Wilson got her wish. Ramirez was sentenced to death. But it didn't have the 
effect she hoped for.

"That verdict was supposed to be the thing that made me feel better," Wilson 
says. "And I felt nothing. All I felt was betrayed, disappointed, let down. I 
was still full of hatred and anger, and it had nowhere to go. It made it worse. 
It actually made it worse for me."

"The whole system is so broken that there really is no repairing it," Wilson 
says. "I think what makes the most sense is just to end it. Let's be smart on 
crime instead of this tough on crime that has utterly failed."

Wilson is not your typical crime victim advocate. Most not only want to keep 
the death penalty, they want to speed up executions with Proposition 66.

Most of California's 58 district attorneys, including Anne Marie Schubert from 
Sacramento, oppose Proposition 62. Schubert says the death penalty should be 
reserved for what many call "the worst of the worst," whose heinous crimes 
affected hundreds of victims.

"We're talking about well over 200 children, 44 or 45 police officers killed in 
the line of duty," says Schubert. "We're talking about women who have been 
kidnapped, raped and tortured. We're talking about serial killers, mass 
killers."

Schubert says it would be an injustice to their victims if those death 
sentences are overturned.

If there's 1 thing supporters and opponents of capital punishment agree on, 
it's that California's death penalty as it is today doesn't work. Since 
California reinstated capital punishment in 1978, about 875 death sentences 
have been handed down.

Of the 119 deaths among condemned inmates in California, only 13 were the 
result of a state execution. The vast majority died of natural causes or 
suicide. The last execution occurred in 2006. That same year federal Judge 
Jeremy Fogel put a hold on further executions over concerns about the state's 
3-drug protocol for putting inmates to death. More than a decade later, 
California has still not given final approval to a new procedure. Even before 
that latest legal delay, the average time between conviction and an execution 
was about 20 years.

The number of death sentences handed down each year in California has been 
declining since peaking at 38 in 1999. Last year 14 death sentences were 
returned, and so far this year there have been only 6, including 1 last month 
in Alameda County.

Geography matters a lot, too. Los Angeles, California's largest county, also 
has given out the most death sentences - 267 since 1978. But a few smaller 
counties, including Riverside, Kern and San Bernardino, are responsible for a 
disproportionate number of them.

Number of People Sentenced to Death in California Since 1978

Death penalty opponents say capital punishment can't be fixed and should be 
scrapped. They argue it's too expensive, doesn't deter crime or provide any 
relief to crime victims' families. And, they say there's always the chance 
legal errors could lead to the execution of an innocent person.

Proposition 62 would replace all existing death sentences with life in prison 
without the possibility of parole. The inmates would also have to work while 
behind bars, with some of their wages going to pay restitution to their 
victims.

The last time a measure to ban capital punishment was on the ballot was 2012, 
when voters rejected Proposition 34 by 53 to 47 %. This time around a Field 
Poll in mid-September showed Proposition 62 leading but still short of the 50 % 
needed to pass.

(source: capradio.org)

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

Speaker: Death penalty 'ultimate insult to human dignity'


Anti-death-penalty activist and actor Mike Farrell opened up the Archdiocese of 
San Francisco's Reentry Conference and Resource Fair on Oct. 1, telling his 
audience why he considers the death penalty "the ultimate insult to human 
dignity."

"I've come to see the death penalty as the lid on the garbage can of the 
criminal justice system," he said. "Once we take that lid off people will have 
to look into this rotten, stinking, maggot-infested mess that is this system 
and do something about it."

The 1-day conference hosted by the archdiocese's restorative justice office 
included a series of panel discussions with faith leaders, city and county 
criminal justice experts, lawyers and judges, anti-death penalty activists, 
homelessness and mental-health experts and others working in restorative 
justice. Over 30 exhibitors offered resources.

The former "MASH" cast member filled in at the last minute for death-penalty 
opponent St. Joseph Sister Helen Prejean, who had to cancel her keynote 
appearance to attend to her dying sister.

After decades of volunteer work with recovering addicts, alcoholics and 
"thieves and whores" who reclaimed their lives, Farrell said he saw that all 
human beings want the same things, "love, attention and respect." Those raised 
without those things can spend a lifetime seeking it in destructive ways.

As president of the board of Death Penalty Focus, a death penalty alternative 
organization, Farrell is campaigning in support of Proposition 62, The Justice 
That Works initiative on the 2016 ballot.

"Anyone that looks seriously at the death penalty in this country cannot escape 
knowing it is racist in application, used primarily against the poor and poorly 
defended, and expensive - 18 times more expensive here in California than life 
without parole - and it often entraps and kills the innocent."

Most of us "don't know the ugly stuff," said Farrell, but those who do take a 
serious look at the process, "they know." Police and prosecutors rationalize 
and argue, sometimes even admitting they know the truth, he said. But they say 
it's the law.

"And it is the law," said Farrell. But laws can be changed when we learn that 
they don't work are in fact, doing more harm than good.

"That's what we need to do with this one," he said, because too many people 
don't understand the harm the death penalty does to all of us.

"There is an inevitable, inescapable consequence associated with the taking of 
a human life," he said. "The person being killed pays a price, of course, but 
what price is paid for those doing the killing? What is the cost to the society 
that hires people to kill for them? The moral cost."

(source: Catholic San Francisco)






USA:

Judge trying to avoid family stress in church shooting trial


The federal judge in the trial of Dylann Roof in the Charleston church 
shootings says he wants to avoid undue stress on the victims' families.

During a hearing in chambers last Friday, U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel 
discussed court plans to recess during the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New 
Year's holidays. An attorney representing families of the victims said some 
plan to be out of town during that time.

Gergel assured him the trial would break and said there's plenty of stress and 
tragedy in the case without lawyers and the court adding to it. A transcript 
was released Monday.

Jury selection continues in November.

The 22-year-old Roof faces the death penalty if convicted on federal charges in 
the shooting deaths of nine people at Emanuel AME Church in June, 2015.

(source: Associated Press)