[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KAN.,NEB., ARIZ., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 29



KANSAS:

Kansas high court justices defend handling of capital cases


4 Kansas Supreme Court justices facing a campaign to oust them in the Nov. 8 
election say the court has decided capital murder cases on legal and 
constitutional issues while avoiding politics and emotion.

Past high court rulings overturning death sentences are at the center of the 
effort to remove Chief Justice Lawton Nuss and Justices Carol Beier, Dan Biles 
and Marla Luckert. They face statewide yes-or-no votes on whether they stay on 
the court for another 6 years.

The court's critics are particularly upset about July 2014 rulings overturning 
death sentences for Jonathan and Reginald Carr. The 2 brothers had faced lethal 
injection for shooting 4 people in December 2000 after forcing them to perform 
sex acts and robbing them. Among other things, the court concluded that 
fairness required the brothers to be sentenced separately.

The 4 justices declined to discuss specific cases this week, citing judicial 
ethics rules, but they provided written answers to questions from The 
Associated Press. Nuss and Luckert noted that the court has upheld several 
death sentences, and all 4 said the court is fair and impartial.

"I can say that our court sees a great deal of human tragedy, and, as people, 
my colleagues and I feel enormous natural sympathy for those in pain," Beier 
wrote Friday. "As judges, however, we have a duty not to be influenced by our 
feelings. This is one of the great challenges of our job."

Nuss and Luckert were named to the court by moderate Republican Gov. Bill 
Graves, while Beier and Biles were appointed by Democratic Gov. Kathleen 
Sebelius. All were retained with at least 62 percent of the vote in 2010.

Also on the ballot is Justice Caleb Stegall, conservative GOP Gov. Sam 
Brownback's only appointee. He joined the high court in December 2014 - after 
the Carr decisions and others overturning death sentences - and isn't targeted 
by the ouster campaign.

Stegall said courts should not be immune from criticism, "but the judicial 
function demands that judges stay out of these political arguments."

Conservative Republicans and abortion opponents are pushing to remove Nuss, 
Luckert, Beier and Biles ahead of decisions in pending abortion and school 
funding cases.

But Amy James, spokeswoman for the anti-retention group Kansans for Justice, 
said she and other murder victims' families and friends don't see criticizing 
the court's death penalty rulings as "about politics." One of the Carrs' murder 
victims was her boyfriend, Brad Heyka.

"This is an issue that we feel crosses all parties and really doesn't have a 
party affiliation," James said.

Criticism of the decisions in the Carr cases resonates strongly with some 
voters. Dennis Rees, a 63-year-old retired Wichita executive, cited the rulings 
after voting against the justices this week.

"When people are caught, accused, tried and the matter adjudicated, it is not 
the business of the Supreme Court to overrule a fair trial," Rees said.

Kansas reinstated capital punishment in 1994 but no one has been executed 
since, with the state Supreme Court overturning death sentences 7 times in 20 
years. 5 of those decisions were later reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court, 
including the Carr rulings.

But Luckert noted in her response to AP, "no one convicted of capital murder in 
Kansas has been let out of prison during that process."

The Kansas court has upheld 3 death sentences within the past year. Speaking in 
general, Nuss wrote that such rulings represent "decisions that were warranted 
by the law as applied to the specific facts and proceedings in each individual 
case."

Biles said parties in cases and their supporters are expected to sometimes 
criticize the court's decisions. But he said the justices must make decisions 
"in a fair and impartial manner."

"As a result, we must stay above the fray," Biles wrote.

(source: The Republic)






NEBRASKA:

ebraska Supreme Court rejects appeal of man on death row


Jeffrey Hessler lost an appeal Friday that claimed he should not have been 
allowed to plead no contest to a sexual assault charge later used to put him on 
death row in a separate murder case.

Hessler, 38, has been sentenced to die for the Feb. 11, 2003, abduction, rape 
and murder of 15-year-old Heather Guerrero of Gering. At the same time that he 
confessed to Heather's murder, Hessler also told authorities he had raped a 2nd 
teenage girl, from Scottsbluff, 6 months earlier.

One reason the confession to the 1st rape was significant was that it gave the 
prosecution an avenue to use the case to argue for an aggravating circumstance, 
an element necessary to secure a death sentence.

Hessler's defense team advised him to plead no contest to the earlier sexual 
assault before his murder trial. They planned to make a double jeopardy 
argument that they hoped would disqualify the earlier rape conviction as an 
aggravating circumstance.

His trial lawyers told Hessler their theory was untested, but faced with 
confessions and DNA evidence that proved Hessler's guilt, their strategy was to 
try to keep him off death row. Hessler also told his lawyers that he did not 
want to go to trial on the earlier rape charge.

Ultimately the strategy failed and the sexual assault conviction was used by 
the prosecution during the sentencing phase in the murder case.

In his post-conviction motion, Hessler argued that he received ineffective 
legal assistance in the rape case because his lawyers should have argued that 
he was mentally incompetent to make the plea. Hessler had been diagnosed with 
bipolar disorder, depression and paranoid delusional disorder.

Scotts Bluff County District Judge Randall Lippstreu reviewed the testimony of 
three psychiatric professionals who had met with Hessler. Despite Hessler's 
illness, all 3 said he understood what was happening and was able to assist in 
his defense. His own trial lawyers gave similar testimony.

The district judge ruled that Hessler failed to prove that he was incompetent 
and therefore overruled his motion.

The Supreme Court upheld the lower court and also rejected other error claims 
raised by Hessler in the same case.

The high court has previously affirmed Hessler's death sentence on direct 
appeal.

More recently, Hessler has filed a different motion that challenges the 
constitutionality of Nebraska's sentencing procedure in death penalty cases. 
That claim is based on a U.S. Supreme Court decision in a Florida death penalty 
case.

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

Economist challenges Nebraska attorney general to public debate on cost of 
death penalty


The economist who estimated that Nebraska spends $14.6 million annually on the 
death penalty challenged the biggest critic of his findings to a public debate.

Creighton economics professor Ernie Goss said in a Friday letter that Attorney 
General Doug Peterson has repeatedly misrepresented his cost analysis. Peterson 
has released his own research that he says shows that the death penalty costs a 
small fraction of Goss??? estimate.

Goss invited Peterson to a public forum where both could present their research 
"so voters can analyze the data and decide for themselves what the economic 
costs of Nebraska's death penalty are."

In response, Peterson's spokeswoman issued a press release saying the attorney 
general is "confident in Nebraskans' ability to determine the facts when they 
vote on the death penalty."

Peterson, who supports the death penalty, has assailed the $16,000 study that 
Goss did on commission for Retain a Just Nebraska, an organization working to 
preserve the Legislature's 2015 repeal of capital punishment. On Nov. 8, voters 
will decide on a referendum on the repeal legislation.

Peterson said one flaw of the Goss analysis stems from its reliance on studies 
conducted in other states that show that death penalty cases generate higher 
defense costs, take more court time to resolve and generate more appeals than 
cases that result in life in prison.

Nebraska's costs are lower than other states', Peterson argued, because the 
state sets a high bar for death penalty prosecutions and ultimately sends a 
relatively small number of killers to death row.

Goss said his $14.6 million estimate was derived from an economic equation that 
factored in justice cost data reported by Nebraska counties to the U.S. Census 
Bureau. The analysis has a margin of error of half a percent, he added.

The Goss report can be found at retainajustnebraska.com, while Peterson's 
research is on his website at 
ago.nebraska.gov/media/news/view/101182/nebraska-facts-about-nebraskas-death-penalty.

(source for both: omaha.com)

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

Jury finds death penalty aggravators exist in Anthony Garcia murders


A Douglas County jury on Friday found that there are enough aggravating 
circumstances to warrant the death penalty for convicted serial killer Anthony 
Garcia.

Those factors are: that the murders were especially heinous, that more than 1 
person was killed at the time of the murders and that murders were committed to 
conceal the identity of the killer.

Garcia was convicted Wednesday of 4 counts of 1st-degree murder. The convicted 
killer of Thomas Hunter, Shirlee Sherman, Dr. Roger Brumback and his wife Mary 
will now face a 3-judge panel for the death sentence. It will include Judge 
Gary Randall, who presided over the trial. That's if Nebraska voters bring back 
capital punishment in the November election.

The jury returned its verdict Friday afternoon after a brief session of 
deliberations. Garcia was not present for the hearing Friday -- having chosen 
not to come to court. A Douglas County Corrections sergeant testified that 
jailers gave Garcia an opportunity to attend.

"He responded, 'Why would I do that?'" the sergeant testified.

Both the panel and the jury must agree on aggravating circumstances before 
Garcia can be sentenced to death.

Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine spent less than 15 minutes explaining to the 
jury the aggravators that existed, and again flashed the murder scene photos, 
describing the killings as torture.

"You already found the defendant guilty of the crimes," Kleine said. "I hope 
you can find these aggravators very simply and very quickly."

Garcia's defense attorney Bob Motta Sr. stood up with little to say.

"I can't tell you what to think, or what to decide," he said. "Look to your 
respective religions and God and make a decision based on that."

The jury took about 30 minutes to come back with its decision.

Garcia's defense team has promised an appeal.

(source: KETV news)

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

Death penalty fight continues throughout the state


Proponents of the death penalty traveled through western Nebraska, urging 
voters to vote to repeal LB 268.

The Nebraska Legislature passed the bill, which repealed the death penalty 
during the 2015 Legislative session. Nebraskans for the Death Penalty Rick 
Eberhardt, Pierce County Sheriff, and Vivian Tuttle, the mother of a bank 
robbery victim, are among those urging citizens to cast their vote to repeal. A 
vote to repeal would retain the death penalty in Nebraska.

Eberhardt and Tuttle said they have been talking to people about how important 
it is to keep the death penalty in the state of Nebraska and will continue 
spreading that message.

"No matter where you live in Norfolk, Nebraska or in Scottsbuff, Nebraska, or 
Omaha, Nebraska, no matter where you live, the victims' families all cry the 
same tears," Pierce said. "We believe that Nebraskans have the right to vote on 
the death penalty."

Tuttle and Eberhardt spoke harsh words for legislators who voted to repeal the 
death penalty. Even more, the 2 said, 25 senators voted against an amendment 
that would have allowed voters to decide the issue. Instead of putting the 
issue before the voters, they said, the legislators voted down the amendment 
and then overrode Gov. Pete Ricketts' veto.

Pierce said that 167,000 people - and 1,673 people from Scottsbluff - signed a 
petition to bring the death penalty issue before the voters. Tuttle, who lists 
a Ewing, Nebraska, and Palmview, Texas, address on her card, said she traveled 
9,000 miles last summer to circulate the petition.

She said her granddaughter had just gone off to college when her mother, 
Evonne, and 4 others were killed in a Norfolk bank robbery in 2002. She says 
her granddaughter came home to tell her 3-year-old and 5-year-old sisters about 
their mother's death. Her granddaughter also testified during hearings on the 
death penalty.

"That pain is still there," she said, and she says it won't go away until the 
men convicted in the bank robberies are executed. "...She wants to retain the 
death penalty. They (the men convicted in the robberies) were given five death 
sentences and if LB 268 were to go into effect and be carried out, they would 
be given life sentences without parole. But, I've been told by the governor, 
the secretary of state and everyone else that there is no such thing as life 
without parole. After you serve so many years, you can go before the parole 
board. We don't want that to ever happen. We want justice and justice happens 
when this is carried out."

Tuttle and Pierce said groups seeking to repeal the death penalty aren't 
putting victims of crimes first.

"These were innocent humans, children, wives, husbands that were brutally 
murdered," Pierce said, saying that anti-death penalty groups want people to 
put more value on murderers' lives to those of victims. "It should be about the 
victims, their families and the community. If the death penalty is taken away, 
people need to realize there will be no crime in this state, no matter how many 
people are killed, how young they are, no matter what the circumstances are, 
that will warrant the death penalty."

This week, Tuttle and Eberhardt traveled to Gordon, Chadron, Alliance, 
Scottsbluff and continued on to Sidney and Alliance as part of their efforts to 
reach potential voters.

"We believe that an informed public is a good thing."

They said some of the work they are doing is to speak about the efforts of 
those against the death penalty. While they called themselves volunteers for 
Nebraskans for the death penalty, the called those with Retain A Just Nebraska, 
the most prominent group that has been campaigning to retain LB 268, high paid 
lobbyists using "outside money to further an agenda to abolish the death 
penalty throughout the nation.

"We think its important that everyone read the ballot, sit down at the kitchen 
table, sit down with your family and your friends," Eberhardt said. "Ask people 
about the cases and then when you pull that curtain shut, your vote will matter 
as much as the governor, any state legislator and the guy living down the 
street."

(source: Scottsbluff Star Herald)

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

Death penalty ads missed crucial point


Nebraska Secretary of State John Gale was right to pull public service 
announcements that were scheduled to air on the death penalty referendum.

The radio ads were aimed at a real problem, but they were the wrong solution.

The problem is the confusing language that appears on the ballot. To reiterate, 
votes who support the death penalty will vote to repeal. Voters who oppose the 
death penalty will vote to retain the law passed by the Legislature, which 
replaces the death penalty with a sentence of life in prison.

The radio ads tried to oversimply the situation, and the end result was that 
they were misleading. The announcements made it sound as though the choice was 
solely to keep or abolish the death penalty without reference to the fact that 
the law in question replaced the death penalty with life in prison.

There is no doubt that it's important that voters know that, under the law, 
criminals convicted of the most heinous murders will never be allowed back into 
society, and that public safety is protected.

As Darold Bauer, campaign manager of Retain a Just Nebraska said, that 
information is critical.

"Decades of research has shown that voters' opinion of the death penalty 
changes drastically based on whether or not the assurance of life imprisonment 
exists," he said.

It's also shown by the fact that the issue comes up repeatedly in debates on 
the referendum.

Death penalty proponents have disingenuously made the claim that there is no 
such thing as life in prison without parole because a judge can always commute 
a life sentence.

Here's what retired District Judge Ronald Reagan had to say in May.

"I want to make sure there's no legal confusion. Life imprisonment means life 
in prison, no chance of parole. Anything else is legal posturing and has no 
grounding in the legal realities.

Reagan knows the subject as well as any legal expert and better than most. As a 
judge, he sentenced sadistic serial killer John Joubert to death. Joubert died 
in the electric chair in 1996.

If the argument being spread by death penalty advocates had validity, it would 
be just as true to say that there can be no such thing as the death penalty in 
Nebraska because a judge could always commute the sentence.

Reagan's words are worth repeating: "Let me be perfectly clear about what 
happens when someone is sentenced to life in prison. They die in prison."

That's the information that was omitted from the public service announcements 
and Gale rightly took them off the air before they misled voters.

(source: Editorial Board Lincoln Journal Star)






ARIZONA:

News outlets argue for names of lethal drug suppliers


An attorney for a coalition of news organizations suing Arizona over the way it 
carries out executions said in federal court Friday that the public has a right 
to know where the state gets lethal injection drugs and how many doses are 
administered.

The state says releasing those details would jeopardize the confidentiality of 
executioners and would lead suppliers to stop providing the drugs if their 
names were made public.

The lawsuit is 1 of 2 challenging the secrecy around executions in Arizona. A 
group of news organizations, including The Associated Press, filed it shortly 
after the July 23, 2014, execution of Joseph Rudolph Wood, who took nearly 2 
hours to die.

His attorneys said Wood's execution was botched, a claim the state denies. He 
was given 15 doses of a 2-drug combination, which was not revealed until days 
after he died.

The attorneys made oral arguments before U.S. District Judge Murray Snow, who 
asked pointed questions and said he would issue a decision as soon as possible.

A different lawsuit filed before the execution by Wood and other death-row 
inmates is ongoing. Executions in Arizona are on hold while that lawsuit plays 
out in court.

An attorney for the media outlets, John Langford, said the state has an 
obligation under the First Amendment to provide information about where it gets 
lethal injection drugs, how many doses are administered during an execution and 
the qualifications of those who give them to inmates.

"Without that information, the public cannot meaningfully understand what's 
happening in executions," Langford said.

Jeffrey Sparks, assistant state attorney general, said the First Amendment does 
not extend to the details the news organizations seek. He said allowing the 
public to view how many doses of lethal injection drugs are given during an 
execution would jeopardize staff members because they could be identified.

Under the current protocol, executioners are not visible to witnesses.

Snow pushed the state on why it could not enact measures allowing executioners 
to be seen injecting drugs but be fully disguised by typical medical garb that 
others in the execution chamber wear.

The state also says that suppliers would stop providing execution drugs if the 
state were to reveal where they came from because of threats they could 
receive.

"The First Amendment doesn't go that far," Sparks said.

(source: The Republic)






CALIFORNIA:

Convicted serial killer won't return to Wyoming to face murder charge from 1977 
killing


A convicted serial killer charged last month in the 1977 killing of a woman in 
Sweetwater County will not travel from California's death row to face his 
1st-degree murder charge in Wyoming, Sweetwater County Attorney Daniel 
Erramouspe announced late Thursday.

Rodney Alcala is too medically frail to travel to Wyoming to face trial for the 
1977 death of Christine Thornton, whose body was found on the remote plains 
northeast of Granger, Erramouspe said in a statement.

"The fact that this case will not be proven in court does nothing to dissuade 
me from knowing that Alcala murdered Ms. Thornton," Erramouspe said.

Alcala, now 73, has been found guilty of killing 7 people in 2 states, though 
authorities estimate he may have killed up to 130 victims across the U.S. He is 
known as the "Dating Game killer" for appearing on the popular television 
program in the late 1970s.

Alcala can no longer walk or leave the hospital wing of the Corcoran 
Penitentiary in California, where he???s held, without medical services, prison 
staff told Erramouspe.

Alcala was previously extradited to New York from a California prison in 2013 
to face murder charges in the killings of 2 young women in the 1970s.

Erramouspe charged Alcala with first-degree murder on Sept. 20 after decades of 
investigation by law enforcement and Thornton's family.

A rancher discovered human remains near a 2-track dirt road on public land 
outside of Granger in 1982, but it wasn't until 2015 and a twist of fortune 
that the remains were identified as those of Thornton, court documents show.

"The solving of this cold case, with the random facts, indicates solid 
investigation and integrity by the Sweetwater County Sheriff's Office...," 
Erramouspe said Thursday. "It also shows the power of perseverance on behalf of 
Ms. Thornton's family in never giving up the search for their sister."

For decades, Thornton's family searched for the missing woman without much 
luck. But in 2013, one of her sisters began looking through photos taken by 
Alcala that had been released by California investigators in hopes of finding 
more of his victims.

There, among the dozens of photos of women, the sister happened upon one of 
Thornton. In the photo, a smiling Thornton is astride a blue and white Kawasaki 
motorcycle in a yellow top, blue jeans and red flip-flops. She was also wearing 
a gold ring and a watch with a thin brown band.

After finding the photo, 2 of Thornton's sisters submitted DNA samples to a 
database maintained by the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. In 
July 2015, their DNA matched with a sample taken from the remains found in 
Sweetwater County.

Deputies from the county sheriff's office began to investigate. The clothes in 
the photo of Thornton atop a motorcycle were similar to those found near her 
remains, including the gold ring and the watch. Investigators had found a blue 
and white Kawasaki motorcycle in Alcala's Seattle storage locker. A deputy went 
to the spot where her remains had been found and compared it to the plains 
featured in the photo. The location was virtually the same, the deputy found.

Thornton's family told investigators they had last seen her in August 1977 and 
that she had been pregnant at the time.

Alcala was on probation for an assault against an 8-year-old girl during the 
summer of 1977 when he was given permission by his parole officer to travel 
from Los Angeles to New York; Washington, D.C.; Illinois and Mexico. 
Investigators believe he killed Thornton during these travels.

Sweetwater County deputies and Erramouspe traveled to California last month to 
meet with Alcala at the Corcoran State Penitentiary, where he lives on death 
row.

When presented with the photo, Alcala said that he had taken the photo but that 
Thornton "was alive before I left her," according to court documents.

Alcala has been convicted of killing 4 women in California, for which he 
received the death penalty, and 2 women in New York, for which he was sentenced 
to a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Alcala was known to approach his victims pretending to be a photographer and 
ask them to pose for him, court documents show. He then killed them by 
strangulation or physical assault. All of his known victims were women.

(source: trib.com)

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

Suspect pleads not guilty in California deputy's slaying


Law enforcement officers shut down a block surrounding the Modoc County 
Superior Court on Friday for the 1st court appearance of a man accused of 
killing a sheriff's deputy, a crime that has rocked the normally sleepy 
Northern California community.

"We're the 10th largest county in the state of California, geographically, but 
we're small - less than 10,000 people - and we've never had to deal with such a 
tragic loss," Sheriff Mike Poindexter said before the arraignment of Jack Lee 
Breiner.

Breiner, appearing in an orange jumpsuit and using a wheelchair, pleaded not 
guilty to the murder of Deputy Jack Hopkins and attempted murder of Poindexter.

Breiner allegedly shot and killed Hopkins on Oct. 19 outside the county seat of 
Alturas as Hopkins responded to a family disturbance, Undersheriff William 
"Tex" Dowdy has said.

Poindexter later apprehended Breiner, who was shot in a gunfight that also 
caused minor wounds to the sheriff from glass pieces that hit him after Breiner 
shot at the sheriff's car.

Breiner arrived from the Redding area, where he's still being treated for 
gunshot wounds to his lower leg, Modoc County District Attorney Jordan Funk 
said. Deputies loaded him from a stretcher to the wheelchair to take him 
inside, where a judge forbade all of the about a dozen people who attended the 
hearing from carrying cellphones.

Hopkins' parents, who live in Yreka, did not attend the hearing.

The block surrounding the Modoc County Superior Court was locked down ahead of 
Breiner's transport from the jail to courthouse, a stretch of only a few 
hundred feet.

Officers also stood guard on the roof of the courthouse.

Breiner could face the death penalty if convicted, although Funk noted a 
pending statewide ballot initiative to repeal the death penalty could remove 
that option.

"We'll know in a couple of weeks what the status of the death penalty is in the 
state," Funk said.

Breiner will continue to be held without bail. Superior Court Judge David Mason 
appointed Madera-based Richard Ciummo & Associates to represent him. Funk said 
the same firm handles the hiring of county???s public defenders.

Law enforcement officers in Modoc County and elsewhere continue to mourn 
Hopkins' death.

"Jack was great, I wish I had 10 more just like him," Poindexter said before 
the arraignment.

Poindexter called Hopkins a team player who worked as a bailiff, patrol deputy 
and in other roles. He volunteered whenever needed.

"We're a family and when you lose a family member and - I mean - need I say 
more? We're pulling together, we're trying," Poindexter said.

At least 2 signs honoring Hopkins sat along Highway 395, 1 of only 2 major 
thoroughfares in the rural town in far Northern California.

"I just think it's shock," said Elsie Burke, who has lived in the area for more 
than 30 years and on-and-off before that, echoing what many others in the 
community have said.

Hopkins was well known in the area.

"Every time you turn around another officer is being shot," Burke said of the 
recent high-profile killings of police across the nation. "It touches you 
really closely, if not personally."

Burke said the small-town sense that "everyone knows everyone" applies to 
Alturas.

Hopkins' funeral is set for Nov. 5 in Yreka.

The Butte County Sheriff's Office, under the direction of Lassen County Sheriff 
Dean Growden, is handling the criminal investigation into the case.

The California Highway Patrol is handling the administrative investigation into 
the officer-involved shooting.

(source: USA Today)