[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., ARK., OKLA., N.MEX., CALIF., ORE.

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 21



TEXAS:

New hearing set in death penalty capital murder appeal


Another hearing has been scheduled concerning an appeal of the capital murder 
conviction of Micah Crofford Brown.

Brown remains in custody at the Hunt County Detention Center after being 
transferred from state prison in April.

A status hearing concerning the appeal which had been scheduled July 1 was not 
conducted, due to an elevator fire which forced the evacuation of the Hunt 
County Courthouse.

A hearing is now set in the court on Jan. 5, 2017.

Brown, 37, of Greenville, was convicted in May 2013 and sentenced to death by 
lethal injection in connection with the 2011 murder of Stella Michelle "Doc" 
Ray.

He does not yet have an execution date scheduled.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has upheld the conviction and sentence, but 
a separate post conviction writ was filed by the Office of Capital Writs, 
listing multiple alleged issues with Brown???s conviction and sentence, 
including ineffective assistance by the trial and appeals defense attorneys, 
improper arguments by prosecutors during the punishment phase, and failure to 
present evidence during the punishment phase that Brown suffers from an Autism 
Spectrum Disorder, which may have mitigated the jury's decision to issue the 
death penalty.

The First Administrative Judicial Region has appointed 196th District Court 
Judge J. Andrew Bench to oversee the proceedings.

(source: Herald Banner)






FLORIDA:

State Supreme Court suspends death penalty


For the 2nd time this year, a court has ruled that Florida's death penalty 
statute is unconstitutional.

This time, it was the Florida Supreme Court, handing down a pair of historic 
rulings on Oct. 14 that shifted Florida into the legal mainstream and are 
expected to cut the number of people sent to death row.

Florida has not executed anyone since Jan. 7 because of uncertainty about its 
death penalty, and Friday???s rulings are expected to extend that moratorium 
indefinitely.

'A clear outlier'

In the 1st case, the Florida high court threw out the death penalty given to a 
Pensacola killer, Timothy Lee Hurst, because jurors had not unanimously 
recommended it. Their vote was 7-5.

In the 2nd case, the court ruled that the Florida Legislature botched its 
rewrite of the statute this year. The problem: The new law required just 10 of 
12 jurors to agree on a death sentence.

"The Florida Supreme Court said today that is has to be unanimous under Florida 
law," said Stephen K. Harper, a death penalty specialist at Florida 
International University College of Law.

Until the Oct. 14 rulings, Florida was 1 of 3 states that did not require a 
unanimous jury recommendation in death penalty cases.

The high court said that made the state "a clear outlier."

Called historic

As a consequence of last Friday's rulings, Florida currently has no death 
penalty.

Former Circuit Judge O.H. "Bill" Eaton Jr. called the rulings historic, 
pointing out that for the 1st time in 44 years, no inmates will be sent to 
Florida's death row without all 12 members of a jury agreeing that that is the 
right punishment.

In the Hurst case, the high court ruled that the defendant must be given a new 
sentencing hearing.

Still unclear, though, is what will happen to the other inmates on Florida's 
death row and to murderers given the death penalty under the new statute, which 
was signed into law March 7 by Gov. Rick Scott.

Blow to Bondi

Some attorneys had urged the court to automatically convert all Florida death 
sentences to life in prison, but the recent opinions did not order that.

The new rulings were a blow not just to the Florida Legislature but also to 
Attorney General Pam Bondi, who had defended the old and new laws.

Both of the Oct. 14 rulings were a consequence of an opinion handed down Jan. 
12 by the U.S. Supreme Court. It ruled that Florida's death penalty was 
unconstitutional because it required a judge - not a jury - to decide whether a 
defendant should be put to death.

Bondi had argued that the error was harmless, but in that January ruling, 
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the court disagreed but left it to the 
Florida Supreme Court to hash out who, if anyone, was harmed.

Huge backlog?

The Florida Supreme Court answered that question last Friday, but only in part. 
Hurst was harmed, the court wrote, so he should be resentenced.

It was silent about all other death penalty cases.

Belvin Perry Jr., former chief judge of the Orange-Osceola circuit, predicted 
that all 385 death-row inmates would now file paperwork, arguing that they, 
too, were harmed.

It might mean a huge backlog for the Florida Supreme Court and for trial 
courts, he said.

But Harper and Eaton predicted the rulings could apply to far fewer cases, 
primarily those with active appeals and those that have not gone to trial.

All 3 legal experts faulted members of the Florida Legislature. Eaton said they 
had been warned repeatedly since 2000 that they needed to rewrite the statute 
to require unanimous jury recommendations.

Opposed by speaker

The next speaker of the Florida House, Richard Corcoran, attacked Friday's 
ruling as "a miscarriage of justice ... and dangerous for our state."

"We will take a close look at today's rulings and consider our options going 
forward," he said in a statement.

A spokeswoman for Scott wrote in an email that his office was reviewing the 
rulings. That was the same message from the office of outgoing Florida Senate 
President Andy Gardiner and his successor, Joe Negron.

A spokesman for Bondi wrote the same thing, adding, "In the meantime Florida 
juries must make unanimous decisions in capital cases as to the appropriateness 
of the death penalty."

(source: Florida Courier)

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

Botched executions argue for restrictions on Florida's death penalty


Florida has sent a lot of despicable people to the state's execution chamber. 
Men like Ted Bundy, Danny Rolling, and Oscar Ray Bolin made the world a little 
brighter by their forced departures from this planet.

I hate to admit this, but I won't grieve if Dontae Morris joins them for 
murdering 2 Tampa police officers. If we're going to have capital punishment, 
it was made for offenses like that.

But the real question is, should we have it at all?

Florida likes to mete out the ultimate measure of societal retribution. Since 
1979, when John Spenkelink was dragged to the electric chair, Florida has 
executed 90 men and 2 women.

That ranks 4th in the nation since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death 
penalty in 1976.

As of this writing, 386 people are housed on the state's death row. All but 4 
are men. There are 221 white males and 149 black men awaiting their final walk.

So what, you ask? These are bad people and we have a law that allows the state 
to kill them. It's the ol' eye-for-an-eye concept. If one of my family members 
or friends were a victim of 1st-degree murder, you betcha I would want to see 
justice served.

Like anyone else, though, I also would want to know with certainty that we had 
the right guy. Therein lies the problem.

According to deathpenaltyinfo.org , Florida leads the nation with 26 death 
sentences that were overturned when new evidence was presented. That means 
juries and prosecutors can get it wrong.

Sending 1 innocent person to death row is disturbing enough, but 26 is a 
travesty.

Maybe that's why we ought to pay attention when a report from Harvard 
University judged Hillsborough and Pinellas as 2 of 16 counties nationwide that 
are "outliers" for the large number of people they send to death row.

Translation: We appear a little too eager to sentence people to death.

Look, I get it, death sentences are society's way of saying that if you take 
someone's life, the state will take yours. That's been a popular sentiment for 
many years. Public opinion, though, is changing.

According to the Pew Research Center last month, support for capital punishment 
fell 7 % points last year to 49 %. That is the 1st time in 45 years that it has 
been below 50 %.

It is even more pronounced in our fair state. California researcher Craig Haney 
said a poll he conducted showed nearly 58 % of Floridians favor life without 
parole to the death penalty.

Why the shift? I think the number of botched executions, both here and 
nationwide, combined with the lengthy time it takes to actually carry out the 
sentence has made people believe there has to be a better way.

I don't think you can just look at the actual execution in a vacuum, either. 
The march to the death chamber, on average, takes about 15 years from the time 
an inmate is sentenced. Many have been there much longer, waiting 23 1/2 hours 
a day in a 6- by 9-foot cell with no air conditioning.

Some inmates have dropped their appeals, preferring death to living like that.

I wonder whether keeping the death penalty for only the worst of the worst 
offenses - terrorists like Tim McVeigh or anyone who kills a police officer - 
is a better way. Or maybe just scrap it all together.

The death penalty is supposed to be a deterrent, but the number of people 
awaiting execution suggests otherwise. So lock them up and never let them out, 
because our society says killing people is wrong - no matter who does the 
killing.

(source: Column, Joe Henderson, Tampa Bay Times)






ARKANSAS:

Prosecutor seeks death penalty in killing of Arkansas deputy -- Family of 
victim consulted


The state of Arkansas will seek the death penalty against a rural Greenwood man 
who is charged with killing a deputy who answered a disturbance call.

Sebastian County Prosecuting Attorney Daniel Shue informed Circuit Judge J. 
Michael Fitzhugh of his decision in a letter filed Monday in the court case of 
Billy Monroe Jones.

Jones, 35, is charged with one count of capital murder in the shooting death of 
Sebastian County sheriff's Deputy Bill Cooper; 10 counts of attempted capital 
murder in the shooting at other law enforcement officers, including Hackett 
Police Chief Darrell Spells, who was grazed in the head by a bullet; 1 count of 
possession of firearms by certain persons; and 1 count of killing or injuring 
animals used by law enforcement or search and rescue dogs for the wounding of 
Kina, the Greenwood police dog who suffered gunshot wounds while sitting in a 
patrol car.

Jones has pleaded innocent to the charges. A trial date has not been set.

In the letter to Fitzhugh, Shue wrote that he considered the sufficiency of the 
evidence tying Jones to the crimes, the seriousness of the offense, Jones' 
culpability and mental state, his criminal record, aggravating and mitigating 
circumstances, and a potential victim-impact evidence.

"After consulting with law enforcement and the victim's family and considering 
the above listed factors, the state of Arkansas will be seeking the death 
penalty at this time and I am so advising the court," the letter said.

Cooper, 66, a 15-year veteran of the sheriff's office, was fatally shot about 
7:15 a.m. Aug. 10 while responding to a disturbance call on Jones' family 
property at 4722 S. Highway 253 in rural Sebastian County. He died 6 hours 
later in a Fort Smith hospital.

According to reports, Jones fired from inside his home through small openings 
using an assault-style rifle and kept at bay law enforcement officers who 
converged on the property in response to the report that Cooper had been shot.

Many of the officers who were fired on were in groups formed to pull Cooper and 
Spells from the line of fire.

Jones refused to negotiate a surrender, and a standoff lasted 4 1/2 hours. At 
one point, officers sent in a robot to try to determine Jones' location, but 
Jones shot and disabled it, authorities said. Several law enforcement vehicles 
were damaged by gunfire.

Finally, an armored vehicle was backed up to Jones' front door and he 
surrendered.

Investigators from local, federal and state agencies searched Jones' home after 
his arrest and found nearly 60 spent bullet casings and 11 guns, including a 
Bushmaster XM15 semi-automatic rifle believed to have been used to shoot 
Cooper, Spells and Kina.

(source: Arkansas Online)

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

Prosecutor Turned Death Penalty Critic to Keynote Law Review Symposium


In 1984, A.M. "Marty" Stroud led the capital prosecution of Glenn Ford, who was 
convicted of 1st-degree murder and sentenced to death. Ford subsequently spent 
nearly 30 years on death row at Angola State Penitentiary. On March 11, 2014, 
Ford was exonerated and walked off death row. He died from lung cancer on June 
29, 2015.

In a 2015 op-ed for The Shreveport Times, Stroud wrote, "I was 33 years old. I 
was arrogant, judgmental, narcissistic and very full of myself. I was not as 
interested in justice as I was in winning. To borrow a phrase from Al Pacino in 
the movie And Justice for All, 'Winning became everything.'"

Stroud will serve as keynote speaker for The Future of the Death Penalty, a 
symposium sponsored by the Arkansas Law Review. The symposium will be held from 
8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 21, in the law school's E.J. Ball Courtroom 
and will also feature panels with nationally respected experts. 12 guest 
scholars and practitioners will discuss arguments supporting and opposing the 
continuance of the death penalty in America.

Stroud's work toward putting a stop to the killing human beings in the name of 
justice has garnered him a place in the national debate about the continued use 
of the death penalty. He received the 2016 Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project 
Champion of Justice Award, and he has spoken to a variety of groups and media 
outlets about his experiences. He has appeared on 60 Minutes, 20/20 and CNBC 
and has been a guest on NPR and National Public Radio in Canada.

In the same 2015 op-ed Stroud wrote, "Had I been more inquisitive, perhaps the 
evidence would have come to light years ago. But I wasn't, and my inaction 
contributed to the miscarriage of justice in this matter. Based on what we had, 
I was confident that the right man was being prosecuted and I was not going to 
commit resources to investigate what I considered to be bogus claims that we 
had the wrong man.

"My mindset was wrong and blinded me to my purpose of seeking justice, rather 
than obtaining a conviction of a person who I believed to be guilty. I did not 
hide evidence, I simply did not seriously consider that sufficient information 
may have been out there that could have led to a different conclusion. And that 
omission is on me."

Stroud was raised in Shreveport, Louisiana. He graduated from St. Louis 
University in 1973 and graduated with honors from Louisiana State University 
School of Law in 1976. After law school, he served as a law clerk for the Hon. 
Tom Stagg in the Western District of Louisiana. He then worked as an assistant 
U.S. attorney in the Western District of Louisiana for 6 years, the last 2 of 
which he was chief of the criminal section. Subsequently, he became the first 
assistant district attorney in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, and served in that 
office for 6 years.

In private practice since 1989, Stroud has general trial practice in the 
federal, state and local courts of Louisiana. He is a member of the Bars of the 
U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the 
Western, Middle and Eastern District Courts of Louisiana.

The Arkansas Law Review Symposium is worth 6 hours of continuing legal 
education credit, and the public is invited to attend. Admission is free but 
registration is requested.

(source: Univ. Arkansas News)






OKLAHOMA:

SQ 776 stirs controversy over death penalty


The measure on the Nov. 8 ballot would make the use of the death penalty a part 
of the state's constitution. Opposing sides on the issue can't seem to agree on 
what impact the change would have on the death penalty.

The slogan of the opposition is 'Think Twice,' which could also apply to simply 
understanding what State Question 776 is about.

The measure on the Nov. 8 ballot would make the use of the death penalty a part 
of the state's constitution. Opposing sides on the issue can't seem to agree on 
what impact the change would have on the death penalty.

"It doesn't actually change the death penalty at all, that's the thing," said 
SQ 776 opponent Abraham Bonowitz, who hosted an informational event on the 
issue. "State Question 776 is not an up or down question on the death penalty; 
it's a question of whether we want to put the death penalty into the 
constitution."

State Rep. Mike Ritze said the bill adds into the constitution "what's already 
in the statute." He supports the initiative, which he says would allow the 
legislature to designate which type of executions take place.

"There really was not anything in the constitution, there was in the statutes, 
that basically codifies the death penalty," he said.

Frank Thompson, who conducted 2 executions in Oregon, says we 'have to be 
careful about messing with" the state constitution.

"Public policies need to be in a position where they can be easy, readily, and 
timely corrected, and when you put it in your constitution, that sort of 
mitigates against that ability," he said.

(source: KTUL news)




NEW MEXICO:

Death penalty raises issues


Does the fear of death enter into the mind of a criminal when he or she is 
planning or committing acts of violence? Some would argue that it does, and, as 
a result, they would claim any person inclined to commit an evil act, for fear 
of the death penalty, would have a change of mind and decide not to commit the 
intended crime.

Those in favor of placing the most heinous criminals to death would also ask us 
to recall all those injured by the most terrible amongst us. And it is true, 
there is no argument at all, unnecessary evil occurs every day, and some of the 
most terrible amongst us have caused a heartbreaking amount of destruction, 
pain, agony and sorrow.

Nevertheless, others would argue that the fear of death does not have any 
impact on whether a person is going to commit a monstrous act. They would 
reason that such an act is based upon the circumstances of the event.

For example, all people entangled in the distribution and/or consumption of 
illegal drugs presumably know that the risks involved in their chosen pursuit 
includes the risk of death, from many sources, including all others involved in 
the same pursuit. Yet, illegal drug participants remain involved in the 
criminal activity despite the fatal risks.

Those opposed to the death penalty would also argue that any person who is a 
minor, incompetent, mentally ill, alcohol or drug induced, and/or mentally 
underdeveloped is unlikely to change any given behavior for fear of death. That 
these individuals are incapable of evaluating the consequences of their 
actions, and therefore, they are incapable of changing their behavior even when 
the result is death.

Those supporting and opposing a death penalty will point to polls that lend 
value to their respective positions. These public surveys in all likelihood 
will be dissected by race, gender, income and political affiliation. Each side 
will also argue the history of the death penalty drawing attention to the 
constitutional basis, rational and limitations.

Certainly, each side will debate the Eighth Amendment of the Bill of Rights 
having to do with "cruel and unusual punishment," and the corresponding 
decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court and various state supreme courts.

There will be an examination of what is done around the world in other 
societies. What is done elsewhere will be measured against our local standards 
and customs. There will also be countless examples of victims in pursuit of 
justice and innocents wrongfully condemned.

There will be a great deal of purpose and admonition on every side.

Those opposed to the death penalty will undoubtedly cite the moral or religious 
implications of such action, such as "2 wrongs do not make a right" or "thou 
shalt not kill." Those in favor of the death penalty will argue with equal 
passion "an eye for an eye" or "if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and 
cast it from thee." And like a sermon, there will be the most assured rebuttal 
of "turn the other cheek" or "let anyone amongst you who is without sin be the 
first to cast a stone."

What is the right answer, then? There is a lot to ponder!

Does the death penalty really reduce violent crime or are we just getting rid 
of one more bad person in the world? Does it really prevent or dissuade 
criminals or does it satisfy our sense of retribution against someone that 
committed a depraved, immoral act? What will satisfy our sense of justice: 
death, or life in prison without the possibility of parole where a person would 
have a lifetime to think about their actions?

As in all life or death decisions, the debate is detailed, complicated and 
replete with valid or invalid support, depending on your position.

There are no easy answers. But, hopefully, the outcome will be weighed, 
debated, considered and assessed in a manner worthy of a decision of such 
magnitude.

(source: Opinion; Frank A. Sedillo is a judge of the Bernalillo County 
Metropolitan Court----Albuquerque Journal)






CALIFORNIA:

Prop. 66's 'speed-up' in death penalty won't work


In November, voters get to decide whether to abolish the death penalty 
(Proposition 62), or to create a mechanism to try to "speed it up" (Proposition 
66).

San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael Ramos encourages voters to vote 
for Proposition 66, to get the death train back on track. There is a certain 
dark elegance to Proposition 66, because it gives the illusion of a streamlined 
process.

I do not presume to guess what will help the family members of murder victims 
gain some measure of comfort after their ordeal. I also do not have the hubris 
to believe that I can change the core beliefs of death penalty supporters.

But I can tell you this. The death penalty is different from any other criminal 
sanction. The government can unwind erroneous non-capital convictions, but it 
cannot un-execute an innocent person. Nationally, there have been 344 
exonerations through DNA testing alone (innocenceproject.org). In California, 
there have been 166 exonerations since 1989 (National Registry of 
Exonerations), and 3 were on death row (deathpenaltyinfo.org). California 
courts understand that "death is different," and they carefully, but not 
flawlessly, scrutinize death verdicts.

The poorly conceived Proposition 66 will do nothing but create another layer of 
litigation in capital cases. If the goal is to give families of murder victims 
some "closure," the better solution is to have death row prisoners serve a life 
sentence without the possibility of parole (LWOP). With an LWOP sentence, the 
condemned would join the ranks of 4,500 other nameless, forgotten prisoners who 
never get a parole hearing, who never have abolitionists taking up their cause, 
and who are scheduled to simply, and unceremoniously, die behind bars.

(source: Guest Commentary; Suzy Israel is a criminal defense attorney with 
Brown White & Osborn LLP, Redlands. She is a former deputy public defender for 
San Bernardino County----San Bernardino Sun)

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

Making California's death penalty more like Texas' is a mistake


Proposition 66 is an ill-conceived attempt to fix California's failed death 
penalty system, and its poorly written provisions will increase the risk of 
executing the innocent. The initiative proposes to re-make California's capital 
punishment process to be more like the "fast track" in Texas, even at a time 
when Texas, to its credit, has begun to seriously investigate the unreliability 
of certain forms of forensic science evidence and the problem of prosecutorial 
misconduct that has led to wrongful convictions and executions of the innocent.

Cameron Todd Willingham was one of those innocent people. In 1991, Willingham's 
house caught fire and tragically killed his 3 little girls. Willingham tried to 
save his daughters, but the fire rapidly engulfed the house. Using invalid 
science, the fire marshals incorrectly testified that Willingham spread 
accelerant throughout his house and intentionally set the fire. A jailhouse 
snitch, claiming he was promised nothing, also testified to a "confession." 
Willingham was convicted of arson murder and sentenced to death.

Willingham's innocence became clear as arson science evolved. Days before his 
execution in 2004, one of the world's leading arson scientists submitted a 
report informing the courts and the governor that the conviction was based on 
flawed science that had been discredited for more than a decade. But the 
execution proceeded anyway.

Since then, the nation's leading fire scientists and the Texas Forensic Science 
Commission have reviewed the evidence in the Willingham case and agreed it was 
unreliable. The Texas State Fire Marshal has begun a review of old arson cases. 
And the Texas Bar has brought disciplinary charges against the prosecutor who 
tried Willingham's case because a deal with the jailhouse snitch was not 
disclosed to the defense.

Exonerations in capital cases are not rare lightning strikes. Since 1989, 
California exonerated three men sentenced to death in the same period that it 
executed 13 individuals. A 2014 study by the National Academy of Sciences 
recently calculated a false conviction rate in capital cases of "at least" 4.1 
%. Prop. 66 would increase the chance of executing innocent people by stripping 
away protections that prevent unjust executions. It would sharply limit the 
ability of defendants to introduce new evidence of innocence. It would require 
inexperienced attorneys to take on death penalty cases, increasing the 
likelihood of mistakes, while impairing the rights of individuals to raise 
these concerns in court.

Ensuring innocent people are not executed takes time; Prop. 66 cuts that time 
short. Seven of the last 10 exonerations across the country occurred 25 years 
or more after the death sentence was imposed. Prop. 66 attempts to rush 
executions by enforcing arbitrary time limits for appeals and preventing courts 
from considering new evidence.

Prop. 66 has other unintended consequences as well. The nonpartisan Legislative 
Analyst's Office estimates that Prop. 66 will cost taxpayers tens of millions 
of dollars with additional "unknown" costs in the future. The initiative will 
add 2 more layers of government bureaucracy by requiring local county courts to 
handle death penalty appeals first, before sending those cases to the state 
Supreme Court, potentially causing more delays.

Truth be told, the best way to prevent the execution of the innocent, save $150 
million annually of taxpayer money and relieve overburdened courts is to vote 
"yes" on Prop. 62, which repeals the death penalty and substitutes life without 
the possibility of parole. In contrast, Prop. 66 promises a "speed up" that 
will never happen, values expediency over fairness and accuracy, dramatically 
increases costs and assures that California will execute the innocent - a 
morally intolerable event by anyone's calculus. Vote "no" on Prop. 66.

(source: Guest Commentary; Barry Scheck co-founded the Innocence Project at the 
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law----Orange County Register)

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

End the death penalty


Like America itself, the death penalty has a racist past it has yet to reckon 
with.

Some of the 1st capital crime laws in the colonies were written in response to 
a New York slave riot in 1712, when a group of slaves broke free and killed 
some white people. 21 slaves were sentenced to death, 20 being executed by 
burning and one died on a breaking wheel.

Many Southern states saw execution as a fitting punishment to crimes like 
bruising their owners. This mentality of capital punishment as social control 
of black people has stayed in the national mentality.

"If the death penalty were to be removed from our statute-book, the tendency to 
commit deeds of violence would be heightened owing to this negro problem," 
Arkansas governor George Hays said in 1927. In the face of race riots in the 
'60s, figures like George Wallace emboldened law enforcement to call for the 
death penalty to keep the "urban" population in check.

These instances of covert and overt racism in the justice system led to a death 
penalty that exists to protect white people and punish people of color.

Though worse in the South, a Santa Clara Law study found that while white 
Californians only represent about a quarter of homicide victims, people who 
kill white people make up 50 % of the offenders given the death penalty.

This not only shatters the misguided argument that All Lives Matter in the eye 
of the law, it exposes the arbitrary way the death penalty is applied to 
homicide cases. With capital punishment applied at the prosecutor's discretion, 
systemic inequalities can easily continue, and this means the state should 
cease to participate in the killing of its own citizens, especially when it has 
cost taxpayers billions of dollars since being reinstituted in 1978.

Proposition 66 would streamline a mechanism that is fundamentally broken, 
taking away the right of individuals to challenge their guilt before being put 
to death in a system that has been wrong far too often to be considered 
infallible. The Experience encourages you to Vote 'yes' on Prop 62 and 'no' on 
66. End injustice, don't hasten it.

(source: Editorial, Los Medanos College)






OREGON:

Krude Rude Brood gang member found guilty in fatal jail stabbing


A Marion County jury unanimously found a 45-year-old man and member of the 
Krude Rude Brood gang guilty of fatally stabbing a fellow inmate while 
incarcerated in 2013.

Following an almost month-long trial, David Ray Bartol was found guilty of 
aggravated murder and may face the death penalty, according to the Marion 
County District Attorney's Office.

Bartol was accused of stabbing Gavin Siscel, 33, to death with a homemade knife 
in the Marion County jail's day room. Siscel was serving a 30-day sentence for 
contempt of court at the time of the attack.

Bartol had been incarcerated since March 2013 while awaiting trial for a 
robbery. The day before he stabbed Siscel, Bartol was arraigned on attempted 
murder charges in connection with a January home invasion shooting in South 
Salem.

The Oregonian reported that, during a separate trial, Multnomah County 
prosecutors said Bartol braided together and melted the threads of his jail 
uniform and formed them into a shank. He repeatedly pounded the shank into 
Siscel's eye with a sandal.

Siscel died 5 days later. Officials said it appeared to be a random assault 
rather than a fight that escalated.

In August, a Multnomah County jury found Bartol guilty of 24 counts - including 
aggravated attempted murder and kidnapping - for torturing 2 fellow Krude Rude 
Brood gang members. Bartol was accused of sanding gang members' tattoos off, 
injecting them with heroin and shooting them. He was sentenced to 55 years in 
prison.

Bartol's arrest record spans almost 3 decades and includes convictions for 
attempted murder, robbery and assault. Previous court records listed Bartol as 
Salem resident.

During his sentencing in Multnomah County, Bartol's defense attorneys argued 
that he didn't understand the severity of his crimes because he is 
intellectually disabled and has fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

The Krude Rude Brood, a White supremacist gang, became notorious in Portland 
for dealing methamphetamine and torturing its enemies, according to The 
Oregonian. The gang's leader, David Corbit, 49, is currently serving a 14-year 
sentence in federal prison for drug trafficking and assault convictions.

The penalty phase of Bartol's trial began Wednesday and could last until 
mid-November. Jurors will consider whether Bartol should be sentenced to death 
for Siscel's murder. If given the death penalty, Bartol would join 34 others on 
Oregon's death row.

(source: Statesman Journal)