[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, DEL., GA., FLA., ALA., LA.

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 18



TEXAS:

3 reasons the death penalty is dying


Have you ever killed somebody? The question in and of itself is haunting.

Have you ever killed somebody? Each word rattles my soul.

Have you ever killed somebody? The more times I ask the question, the more 
times I'm brought face-to-face with my own complicity in killing.

Most people don't think about it like that. The more times I ask the question 
to others, the more times I get adamant denials of ever being involved in 
killing anyone. Yet in the midst of a quickness to absolve ourselves of any 
evil, there is our death penalty. Each time the State of Texas kills someone, 
the citizens are responsible. Since 1982, we have killed 538 people.

There is no hope to be found in what we are. There is only hope to be found in 
what we can become.

Recently, the Pew Research Forum reported that support for the death penalty 
hit its point lowest in four decades. I grabbed my heart and almost fell over. 
Though I'd known that support for the death penalty has been declining for a 
number of years nationally, this was the first time that I'd realized had 
fallen so low. Just under 1/2 of Americans now support the death penalty (49 
%), while 42 % oppose it. Support is down from a high of 80 % in 1994. Support 
has even dropped 7 % since March of last year.

The death penalty is dying. How could this be? We've had that killer instinct 
for so long. People are changing. While I can't say for sure why, 3 possible 
reasons are worthy of deep thought.

1. The death penalty is not a deterrent to crime. How do you teach someone not 
to kill by killing? The death penalty is supposed to be a deterrent to killing. 
But how could it be? Capital punishment teaches people that there are ethical 
ways of killing. We can't persuade people to stop killing by showing them how 
to do it again and again. The Death Penalty Information Center has consistently 
reported that the murder rates in death penalty states are higher than in 
states that don't have the death penalty. The death penalty is not a deterrent 
to murder. Some people are finally figuring out they are less safe with a death 
penalty than they are without one.

2. The death penalty costs too much. A Dallas Morning News article in 1992 
showed that the death penalty costs multiple times the amount that it would 
cost to put someone in a maximum security prison for life. And the cost isn't 
going down, as the newspaper reported a few years ago that the cost of 
execution drugs had skyrocketed. Pharmaceutical companies don't want to sell 
drugs meant to save lives to people dedicated to taking lives. The cost to 
carry out these executions is only going to continue to grow. The bottom line 
is that we know it is far more expensive to execute someone than to put them in 
prison for life. The death penalty is starting to earn a reputation for being 
another expensive failed government program.

3. What if we execute someone who is innocent? That's a question that eats at 
the souls of those with knowledge about the death penalty. I think we already 
have. Surely out of the hundreds, there's got to be at least one. Was it Carlos 
De Luna? Was it Cameron Todd Willingham? Or was it someone else entirely? In 
2014, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences released a study 
concluding 1 in 25 sentenced to death in the U.S. is innocent. Despite recent 
exonerations, Texas has still probably executed many innocent people. There is 
no way to stop the execution of the innocent without stopping executions 
entirely.

The 3 reasons to abolish the death penalty meet to form 1 question.

Is the death penalty worth it?

(source: Jeff Hood is a Baptist pastor and activist in Dallas----Dallas Morning 
News)






DELAWARE:

Poll: Delawareans support keeping death penalty


The poll revealed 55 % of registered voters are in favor of the death penalty.

"Delaware is a historically a blue state, you'd expect a liberal position, 
which I take as being repeal of the death penalty to come out stronger, but on 
this issue there is that party divide as well," said Brewer. The Democrats who 
are in favor of repealing are in line with the majority opinion of their party, 
but not necessarily in line with the public as a whole."

(source: WDEL news)






GEORGIA----impending execution

Georgia board scheduled to hold clemency hearing for man set to executed


The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles is scheduled to hear arguments for 
clemency from representatives of an inmate scheduled for execution this week.

Gregory Paul Lawler is scheduled to die Wednesday by injection of the 
barbiturate pentobarbital at the state prison in Jackson. A clemency hearing is 
set for 9 a.m. Tuesday.

The 63-year-old was convicted of murder in the October 1997 shooting death of 
Atlanta police Officer John Sowa. Authorities say Lawler also critically 
injured Officer Patricia Cocciolone.

Prosecutors say Lawler shot the officers as they tried to bring his intoxicated 
girlfriend home.

Lawler's lawyers say a recent autism diagnosis helps explain his actions the 
night the officers were shot. They're seeking a commutation of his sentence.

Lawler would be the 7th Georgia inmate executed this year.

(source: Associated Press)






FLORIDA:

Death penalty ruling could mean new sentencing for 386 murderers in Florida


The Florida Supreme Court's decision last week to require unanimous jury votes 
for executions has thrown the state's death penalty into disarray.

In a Friday ruling in Hurst vs. Florida, the justices eliminated part of 
Florida's death sentencing laws, but lawyers and legislators disagree about 
what comes next.

Some say that it could lead to sentences being thrown out for nearly 400 
convicted murderers awaiting execution at Florida State Prison, and that it may 
cripple the state's death penalty long term. Others say the only thing that has 
changed is that a jury must now vote unanimously in favor of the death penalty.

What's clear is this: Even with the case decided, Florida's legal fights over 
capital punishment are far from over.

Death-row defense lawyers say the Hurst decision leaves Florida without a 
functioning death penalty until the state Legislature can convene and rewrite 
the law.

"This is so big," said Martin McClain, a Broward County lawyer who represents 
death-row inmates appealing their sentences. "I don't know of a way to 
overstate the significance."

But legislative leaders say that such action won't be necessary.

"With Friday's ruling, imposing the death sentence will require a unanimous 
verdict with or without legislative action," said Katie Betta, a spokeswoman 
for Senate President-designate Joe Negron, R-Stuart. "In the past, the Senate 
has been supportive of the unanimous verdict requirement."

Buddy Jacobs, general counsel for the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys 
Association, which represents the 20 state attorneys, agrees that no 
legislative action is necessary.

"The death penalty is certainly still legal in Florida," he said. "The 
procedure is what the Supreme Court reacted to."

The court's ruling has raised other questions about how the state should handle 
the 386 inmates on death row under old sentencing rules that have since been 
thrown out. The Supreme Court has not indicated which inmates could be eligible 
to have their sentences changed.

Even the most experienced death-row defense lawyers don't know what to expect. 
McClain said he thinks the court will issue a ruling about which cases are 
going to be treated like that.

"Until we have that sort of broad picture," McClain said, "we're kind of stuck 
waiting."

Some death row inmates - including Timothy Lee Hurst, convicted of killing a 
co-worker in Pensacola in 1998 - will have new sentencing hearings. The court 
will bring in a new jury to hear evidence and decide whether Hurst should be 
executed or sentenced to life in prison.

But not all death penalty cases are the same. So it's possible the court could 
decide that certain kinds of cases are eligible for a re-sentencing and others 
are not.

For example, the court could throw out sentences from time periods when the 
death penalty laws were overturned as unconstitutional, or they could only 
allow a new jury for death-row inmates who raised certain complaints in their 
appeals.

But Maria DeLiberato, a defense lawyer with the Capital Collateral Regional 
Counsel in Tampa, warns that could be seen as an "arbitrary and capricious" 
enforcement of the law and raise new allegations that Florida's death sentences 
flout the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

She's hopeful that the court would allow all inmates a new sentencing hearing, 
not just some of them.

The state attorneys worry about the high costs of a small wave of re-sentencing 
hearings, let alone 386 cases.

"We do not have the manpower to do that," said Jacobs. "We'd have to get 
assistance to do that from the Legislature."

With so much uncertainty, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi has yet to 
publicly respond.

Asked Monday how Bondi believed the courts should handle the 386 cases in 
limbo, her spokesman Whitney Ray said, ???We are still reviewing the ruling and 
considering a rehearing."

(source: Miami Herald)

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

75 Tampa Bay area religious leaders call for end to death penalty in wake of 
Harvard report

The names of those who signed the letter read like a who's who of the local 
religious community, with Catholics, Jews and various Protestant denominations 
represented.

There was James Favorite, the pastor of Beulah Baptist International Church. 
There was Betsy Torop of Congregation Beth Shalom in Brandon. There was Bishop 
Robert Lynch of the Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg.

The 3 were among 75 Tampa Bay clergy members who urged Hillsborough and 
Pinellas prosecutors on Monday to put an end to the death penalty.

Addressed to Hillsborough State Attorney Mark Ober and Pinellas-Pasco State 
Attorney Bernie McCabe, the letter referenced a report from Harvard's Fair 
Punishment Project, which found the two counties are among 16 in the nation 
that sentenced five or more people to death between 2010 and 2015.

Researchers accused prosecutors in both counties of being overzealous in 
pursuit of capital punishment, and noted racial disparities and cases in which 
defendants had severe mental illness or intellectual disabilities.

"None of us deny the need for accountability and severe consequences for those 
guilty of grave crimes," the group stated. "At the same time, our criminal 
justice system must recognize the dignity of every person, and not close off 
hope and the possibility for redemption."

9 Tampa Bay area pastors and priests carried the letter to a news conference in 
Joe Chillura Courthouse Square in downtown Tampa. They stood together to 
denounce capital punishment before delivering their missive to the State 
Attorney's Office.

Ober, in a statement, didn't directly address the demand from the clergy 
members but said his office would continue its practice of reviewing cases 
individually, while following the law as interpreted by courts.

McCabe and his chief assistant were both unavailable for comment Monday, his 
office said.

After the Harvard report was released, both Ober and McCabe defended the 
handling of death penalty cases by their respective offices. Both said the 
report was unfair and written in a manner that favored an anti-death penalty 
position.

Appearing at the news conference across the street from Ober's office were the 
Rev. Russell Meyer, executive director of the Florida Council of Churches; the 
Rev. Dr. Bernice Powell Jackson of the First United Church of Tampa; Pastor 
Robert Schneider of St. Stephen Catholic Church in Valrico; Pastor Mel Harris 
of Destiny Baptist Church in Spring Hill and 5 other clergy who signed the 
letter.

"Right now, today, the time has come, the moment is here," Meyer said. "It is 
our opportunity as faith leaders and as people of good will from across the 
state of Florida and particularly Tampa Bay to say it's time to end the death 
penalty. It serves no public good."

Bishop Lynch, who leads Catholics in Tampa Bay and the north Suncoast, was 
among the most prominent names on the list. He signed the letter but could not 
attend Monday's gathering because he was out of the country, said Sabrina 
Schultz of the Diocese of St. Petersburg. The Catholic Church maintains an 
official stance against the death penalty.

Meyer, who recited a litany of moral and legal objections, noted the death 
penalty's effect even on victims' families, who are often subjected to years of 
legal wrangling before an execution.

"It's punitive to the families of the victims," Meyer said. "Why would we put 
families who are victims of horrendous crime through decades of emotional 
torture?"

(source: Tampa Bay Times)

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

Of course, Florida is the nation's slacker in death penalty reforms


We are, as usual, on the wrong side of normal in Florida.

By now, most states have come around to the idea that the death penalty should 
be a rare occurrence in our justice system. Too many exonerations, too much 
racial disparity, too many sentences overturned and far too many families of 
victims waiting for executions that never take place.

So the trend nationwide has been a higher bar and, thus, a lower number of 
death sentences.

And, yet, Florida remains stubbornly stuck in some spaghetti western version of 
America.

We represent about 6 % of the U.S. population, and yet accounted for almost 20 
% of new death sentences in 2015. We've contributed about 15 % of U.S. 
executions over the past 4 years.

All of which explains the flurry of headlines you've seen recently about the 
death penalty. Alarming numbers are being tossed around, and advocacy groups 
are speaking out.

Yet, all the noise and activity means little compared to the widely anticipated 
decision handed down by the Florida Supreme Court on Friday.

Essentially, the justices told state legislators to get their act together.

Florida is one of a handful of states that doesn't require a unanimous jury 
verdict to impose a death sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court slapped Florida back 
in January, and the Legislature tried to fudge its way past with a compromise 
law. And now the state Supreme Court has backhanded that idea, too.

"You have a great number of opinions on whether the death penalty is allowable 
from a theological point of view,'' said the Rev. Russell Meyer, the executive 
director of the Florida Council of Churches. "But there is unanimity on whether 
the application of the death penalty has been unjust in Florida.''

Meyer was among a group of clergy members who delivered letters to the state 
attorney's offices in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties on Monday, demanding 
an immediate moratorium on the death penalty.

Their passion was obvious and commendable. Their aim, a little less so.

The clergy seemed to target prosecutors after a critical report by Harvard 
University's Fair Punishment Project spotlighted Duval, Hillsborough, 
Miami-Dade and Pinellas as some of the most aggressive counties in the nation 
when it comes to death penalty verdicts.

The numbers from the Harvard project are indisputable, but they seemed to gloss 
over the point that Florida's death penalty laws are more lax than almost every 
other state. So, from a statistical point of view, it would make sense that the 
largest counties in Florida would have the highest number of cases.

Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe had not yet seen the letter on 
Monday afternoon, but suggested the clergy might direct their attention to 
lawmakers, not enforcers.

"Philosophically, I'm not opposed to unanimity as the standard for death 
penalty sentences,'' McCabe said. "My only concern is what do we do with all of 
the cases that came before (a new law).''

The reality is most of the nearly 400 residents of Florida's death row would 
never be executed even if the law was not changed. A Washington Post study last 
year showed that, during a 40-year span nationally, about only 16 % of 
prisoners sentenced to death were ever executed. Most had their convictions or 
sentences overturned and more than 1/3 spent decades on death row.

The point being, Florida lawmakers shouldn't worry about what happens 
retroactively to any death penalty sentences that were not the result of a 
unanimous jury decision. It would be a waste of money and energy to retry cases 
of inmates who are never going to get out of prison anyway.

Instead, we should be focused on fixing an unconstitutional and ineffective 
law.

Whether you believe in capital punishment or not, we should at least be able to 
agree that we need a higher bar for death sentences.

And Florida needs to join the rest of the nation in the 21st century.

(source: John Romano; Tampa Bay Times)






ALABAMA:

Report: Jefferson County sends more to death row than most counties nationwide


Jefferson County sent more criminal defendants to death row between 2010 and 
2015 than almost every other county in the nation.

That's according to a report released last week by Harvard Law's Fair 
Punishment Project. The report also states that all five of those sentenced to 
death in Jefferson County during that period were black.

Those numbers landed Alabama's most populous county on the short list of 16 
outliers in the group's report "Too Broken to Fix."

"These outlier death penalty counties are defined by a pattern of bad defense 
lawyering, prosecutorial misconduct and overzealousness, and a legacy of racial 
bias that calls into question constitutionality of the death penalty," Rob 
Smith, one of the report's researchers, stated in a press release.

It's a report that Jefferson County's District Attorney Brandon Falls believes 
is flawed and doesn't address the underlying facts of the cases to explain why 
the defendants were sentenced to death.

"Educated minds can disagree about the effectiveness and appropriateness of the 
death penalty," Falls stated in an email to AL.com. "The role of the District 
Attorney's Office is to protect the citizens of Jefferson County by enforcing 
the law as set out by the Alabama Legislature, the Alabama appellate courts, 
and the U.S. Supreme Court, and to do so ethically and without bias toward any 
individual. This responsibility is and always will be the highest priority of 
my office."

The 1st part of the report was issued in August and included a look at 8 
counties, including Mobile County. The 2nd half of the report with the other 8, 
including Jefferson County, was released last week.

Nationwide, the report states, juries in 2015 returned 49 death sentences, 
which is the fewest number since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. That 
came from 33 counties in 14 states, according to the report. 31 states still 
have the death penalty.

But 16 counties were "outliers," imposing 5 or more death sentences between 
2010 and 2015, the report states. Among these "outliers", 2 were in Alabama 
(Jefferson and Mobile) and 4 in Florida.

Meanwhile Alabama's reputation as being an outlier state when it comes to the 
death penalty also grew last week.

Florida and Alabama were the only 2 states that permitted a split jury to 
recommend death, the report noted. But that changed Friday when the Florida 
Supreme Court ruled that non-unanimous jury death recommendations are 
unconstitutional.

That now leaves Alabama as the only state to allow a jury to recommend the 
death penalty for a defendant on a non-unanimous vote - at least 10 of 12 
jurors have to vote for death.

180 capital murder cases and 205 murder cases were charged in Jefferson County 
between 2010 and 2015 - JeffCo DA

Alabama also finds itself alone in allowing judges to override jury 
recommendations of life without parole and single-handedly increase the 
sentence to death. Florida's override law was declared unconstitutional early 
this year. Delaware had been the only other state to allow judicial override 
(although judges there didn't use it) but that state's supreme court in August 
also declared override unconstitutional.

Of the remaining 10 counties in the report's top 16, 5 are in Southern 
California, 2 in Texas, and 1 each in Louisiana, Nevada, and Arizona.

The report also found that:

--10 of the 16 counties had at least 1 person released from death row since 
1976. -- The 10 counties account for more than 10 % of all death row 
exonerations nationwide.

--Jefferson had 3 men taken off death row in that period - Anthony Ray Hinton, 
Wesley Quick, and Montez Spradley, the report states.

--Jefferson County imposes about 1.47 death sentences per 100 homicides.

--All 5 of the cases in Jefferson County between 2010 and 2015 had 
non-unanimous jury recommendations on what the defendants' sentences should be. 
2 had their jury recommendations for life without parole overridden to death by 
a judge. And 1/3 - 33 % - of the cases had defendants with intellectual 
disability, severe mental illness, or brain damage.

"The study does not address the facts of any of those cases, but those facts 
are worth noting for a better perspective of why they received that sentence," 
Falls said.

The report doesn't also consider the sheer volume of homicide cases in 
Jefferson County.

Falls notes that during that six-year period of 2010 to 2015 the report 
studied, there were 180 capital murder cases and 205 Murder cases charged in 
Jefferson County.

The report doesn't name the defendants in the 5 cases it reviewed for its 
report, but according to project officials the 5 death sentences imposed 
between 2010 and 2015 in Jefferson County are:

--Jeffery Tyrone Riggs - A jury in 2010 found Riggs guilty of capital murder in 
the 2008 shooting death of his girlfriend Norber Payne. She was shot 4 times 
with a .50 caliber pistol inside her Birmingham apartment. In a 10-2 vote the 
jury recommended he be sentenced to life without parole. Jefferson County 
Circuit Judge Clyde Jones, however, overrode the vote and sentenced Riggs to 
death. Riggs, however, won a new trial based on a problem with jury 
instructions. Another jury in February 2015 recommended in an 8-4 vote to 
sentence Riggs to life without parole. Jones this time followed the jury's 
recommendation and Riggs is no longer on death row. Falls said the new sentence 
should exclude Riggs from the study as he is no longer facing the death 
penalty.

--Justin White - A jury in December 2009 found White guilty in the July 2006 
death of Jasmine Parker, whose nearly nude body was found inside a Birmingham 
apartment she shared with her mother. A pair of jeans was wrapped around her 
neck. The jury in Parker's death had recommended life without parole in a 9-3 
vote but Jefferson County Circuit Judge Clyde Jones overrode that 
recommendation and imposed the death penalty. By the time of White's 2009 
trial, he was already serving a life without parole sentence for the 2006 rape 
and murder of a University of Alabama at Birmingham student, 20-year-old Sierra 
Black.

--Anthony Lane A jury in 2011 convicted Lane of capital murder during the 
commission of a robbery for the 2009 shooting death of 57-year-old Frank 
Wright, of Schererville, Ind., who was killed off Messer Airport Highway while 
en route to pick up his wife at Birmingham's airport. Following the jury's 
recommendation for the death penalty, a 10-2 vote, Jefferson County Circuit 
Judge Clyde Jones sentenced Lane to death. Lane claims he is intellectually 
disabled and shouldn't be executed. Falls said before the trial Lane was given 
the opportunity to plead guilty and receive a sentence of life without parole, 
which he refused.

--Dontae Callen - A jury in 2013 found Callen guilty of capital murder in the 
Oct. 29, 2010 stabbing deaths of his aunt, Bernice Kelly, 59; and his cousins 
Quortes Kelly, 33; and Aaliyah Budgess, 12, and setting fires in the Birmingham 
apartment after the slayings. The jury had recommended in an 11-1 vote to 
recommend Callen, who had confessed to the 3 slayings, be sentenced to death. 
Jefferson County Circuit Judge Laura Petro followed the jury's recommendation.

--Marcus Benn - Jefferson County Circuit Judge Tracie Todd in January 2015 
sentenced Benn to death for his conviction in the 2010 shooting deaths of three 
people, and dumping their bodies along Birmingham-area roads. Jurors had 
recommended in a 10-2 vote that Benn be sentenced to death for the slayings of 
Jaime Luna Gutierrez, Jose Manuel Martinez Calderon, and Evelyn Peralta. At the 
direction of an appeals court Todd in June re-sentenced Benn because she had 
originally sentenced him in a written order, not in person. Falls said the 
study fails to mention that Benn was convicted of murder in 1994 and was 
sentenced to life, but was released on parole in 2009.

Study: Mobile, Jefferson counties 'outliers' with death penalty

This week's report focuses on 8 of those "outlier" counties, including Mobile. 
The 2nd half of the report, which will provide details on Jefferson County, is 
to be released in September.

The report also reviewed 18 capital murder cases that were decided on direct 
appeal from Jefferson County - including both Birmingham and Bessemer divisions 
- from 2006 to 2015.

Of those 18 cases, 89 % involved black defendants. And six of the cases 
involved defendants with serious mental illnesses, brain damage, or 
intellectual impairment, including the case of former death row inmate Esaw 
Jackson, who was resentenced to life without parole in 2012 for the 2006 
shooting deaths of 2. The judge found Jackson had an IQ score of 56 and could 
not be executed.

56 % of the 400 cases it looked at in the 16 counties nationwide in the study 
involved defendants with significant mental impairments or other forms of 
mitigation, such as the defendant's young age.

"It has become clear that a significant proportion of individuals we are 
sending to death row suffer from serious mental impairments, or are so young in 
age, that they appear to be nearly indistinguishable from the categories of 
people whom the Supreme Court has said we shouldn't be executing due to their 
diminished culpability," said Carol S. Steiker, Professor of Law at Harvard.

(source: al.com)






LOUISIANA:

Judge: Triple-murder trial can continue in Lafourche


For the second time, a judge has rejected defense attorneys' requests to move a 
triple-murder trial out of Lafourche Parish and bar the death penalty from 
being considered.

David Brown's trial is now in its 6th week of jury selection in Thibodaux, and 
attorneys are expected to make opening statements Saturday, though that 
schedule could change.

Brown, 38, of Houma, is charged with 1st-degree murder in the Nov. 4, 2012, 
stabbings of 29-year-old Jacquelin Nieves and her daughters, 7-year-old 
Gabriela and 1-year-old Izabela. He is also accused of sexually assaulting 
Jacquelin and Gabriela Nieves and then setting the family's Lockport apartment 
ablaze.

State District Judge John LeBlanc denied motions from the Capital Defense 
Project of Southeast Louisiana, led by New Orleans attorney Kerry Cuccia. The 
defense team had unsuccessfully made the same requests to now-retired state 
District Judge Jerome Barbera in 2014, though for different reasons.

This time, Brown's attorneys argued that he couldn't get a fair trial in 
Lafourche because a sequestration requirement severely limited the number of 
potential jurors. They asked to bar the death penalty for the same reason.

Once jurors are selected, they will remain in a local hotel for the rest of the 
trial and won't have access to the news or be able to contact family members 
except for emergencies.

In court documents filed early this month, Cuccia said almost two-thirds of the 
potential jurors had been excused because sequestration would have presented 
too much of a hardship for them. Because so many people were eliminated, he 
wrote, the remaining pool may not be representative of the parish.

Among the groups underrepresented in the pool, Cuccia said, were black 
residents and working people.

LeBlanc sided with prosecutors, who noted that for most of the potential jurors 
released because of hardships, the defense asked that they be excused. In a 
written opposition to moving the trial, Assistant District Attorney Joe Soignet 
said potential jurors were dismissed for individual, legitimate reasons and not 
as a class.

"What the defense motion ignores is that jury selection, by its very nature, is 
a process of attrition," Soignet wrote. "It is designed to take a large (yet 
never mandated) number of potential jurors and reduce it to only 12. Thus, the 
mathematical proportions are always 12/x, with the only variable being the 
number of potential jurors the trial court decides to screen. ... The process 
employed in this particular case need only result in the selection of 12 jurors 
and four alternates."

(source: Daily Comet)