[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., ALA., MISS., NEB., NEV., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 31




PENNSYLVANIA:

Callous application makes case against death penalty


The Oct. 28 headline, "Gunman in Lehigh Valley killing spree dodges the death 
penalty" give lie to the assertion that the death penalty is a necessity 
reserved for the worst of the worst cold-blooded killers.

When the same district attorney doesn't pursue the death penalty for Todd West 
after his cold-blooded killing spree, yet last year tried to get the state to 
kill Johnesha Perry - who at 19 pushed her son to his death after kissing him 
goodbye - I wonder what sort of twisted logic the state is trying to follow on 
the death penalty. To add to the absurdity, at the time the Lehigh County tried 
to get Perry killed, it decided the savage killing of Cheryl Silvoner by Calib 
Barnes, the adult boyfriend of her 14-year-old daughter, didn't justify the 
death penalty. This year Northampton County decided Gary Foley didn't deserve 
to die for killing the 17-month-old daughter of his girlfriend by blunt trauma 
to the head.

While I am sure the district attorneys can explain away what appears to be 
unjust inconsistencies in the application of the ultimate punishment, the 
question remains: If the death penalty does not appear to any normal person to 
be applied fairly, do we really need it?

If we do not need the death penalty, it is no more than the most unjustly 
applied punishment in our criminal justice system, and the most outrageous and 
unnecessary taxpayer expense for a completely ineffective deterrent. Its main 
function seems to be to extract guilty pleas. This callous use minimizes the 
difference between life and death, and puts it on par with the "worst of the 
worst."

David Rose, Easton

(source: Letter to the Editor, lehighvalleylive.com)






ALABAMA:

Death row inmate's appeal denied by Supreme Court


The U.S. Supreme Court today denied the appeal of death row inmate William 
Ernest Kuenzel, a former Goodwater resident sentenced in 1988 for the murder of 
Sylacauga convenience store clerk Linda Jean Offord.

Without comment, the justices turned down Kuenzel's appeal petition, clearing 
away one of the last hurdles to Kuenzel's execution.

William Kuenzel was convicted in 1988 of the murder of Sylacauga convenience 
store clerk Linda Jean Offord.

Kuenzel was sentenced to death for killing Offord in a botched late-night 
robbery in 1987. An accomplice, Harvey Venn, served time in prison and has been 
released.

In recent years, Kuenzel attracted a widespread following of advocates who say 
he's innocent. They cite a lack of physical evidence connecting Kuenzel to the 
crime - blood was found on Venn's pants, but no similar evidence was found on 
Kuenzel - and a lack of reliable testimony.

Under state law, testimony from Venn, a co-defendant, isn't enough to convict a 
man of murder. Kuenzel's lawyers have challenged the testimony of another 
witness who placed Kuenzel at the crime scene - a teen who said she saw Venn 
and Kuenzel from a passing car. Grand jury testimony uncovered years after the 
case was tried showed that the teen witness was initially unable to say for 
certain that she saw Kuenzel at the convenience store that night.

Prosecutors have pointed to Kuenzel's own testimony, noting that Kuenzel was 
convicted of perjury for trying to convince another inmate to provide him with 
an alibi.

The fate of Kuenzel's appeals, however, has often come down to a matter of 
timing. Courts have refused to rehear Kuenzel's case largely because his 
lawyers, early in the case, missed a deadline to file for appeal.

"We're obviously disappointed that the Court didn't review the case of an 
innocent man facing death, given that the key evidence has never once been 
substantively reviewed by any court and only because some paperwork supposedly 
missed a filing deadline in the 1990s," wrote Eric Berman, the spokesman for 
Kuenzel's legal team wrote in an email to The Anniston Star Monday.

A spokeswoman for Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange said the attorney 
general's office had no comment.

Kuenzel was scheduled for execution in March 2015, but courts stayed his 
execution until his most recent appeal could be heard. Prosecutors will likely 
seek a new execution date; barring a new legal challenge, only Gov. Robert 
Bentley could stop that execution, by commuting Kuenzel's sentence.

Earlier this year, Alabama lawmakers rejected a bill to create an innocence 
commission to hear claims innocence - a bill largely inspired by Kuenzel's 
case. Berman, in his Monday email, called on the Legislature to take up that 
bill again.

Alabama recently resumed executions after a 2-year hiatus brought on by a 
shortage of lethal injection drugs. Inmate Tommy Arthur, in prison for an 
early-1980s murder-for-hire, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Thursday.

(source: The Anniston Star)

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

Lawyers for Alabama inmate disappointed by decision


The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday from an Alabama death row 
inmate who claimed that evidence withheld by prosecutors entitled him to a new 
court hearing.

The justices did not comment in turning away the appeal from Bill Kuenzel, 
convicted of killing a convenience store clerk in the east Alabama city of 
Sylacauga in 1987.

The state attorney general's office could now ask the Alabama Supreme Court to 
set an execution date for Kuenzel, 54.

A prosecutor did not immediately return a message seeking comment. A spokesman 
for Kuenzel's legal team, Eric Berman, said attorneys were "obviously 
disappointed" since Kuenzel's claims have never had a full review because of a 
filing deadline that was supposedly missed in the 1990s.

State courts had earlier refused Kuenzel's pleas for a new hearing.

Kuenzel's case had gotten a boost from former U.S. Attorney General Edwin 
Meese, who argued in court papers that Kuenzel is "very likely actually 
innocent."

Kuenzel's lawyers said that the evidence would have raised doubts about the 
truthfulness of plea deal testimony from a roommate who said Kuenzel committed 
the killing.

Kuenzel was convicted of murdering convenience store clerk Linda Jean Offord, a 
mother of three who was shot to death while working a night shift. Kuenzel's 
roommate, who had blood on his pants after the murder, testified that Kuenzel 
committed the crime.

Kuenzel lawyer's said they found out in 2010 that a teenage witness - who 
testified she saw Kuenzel at the convenience store - initially told a grand 
jury that she wasn't certain it was Kuenzel she saw. Defense lawyers said 
they've also learned that the roommate had a shotgun of the same gauge used to 
kill Offord and also initially told police that he had been at the convenience 
store with another friend, not Kuenzel.

The Alabama attorney general's office has argued that the teenage witness only 
had slight variations in her certainty that Kuenzel was at the store, and there 
was other testimony and evidence that backed up the guilty verdict. Prosecutors 
wrote in a brief that Kuenzel had tried to fabricate an alibi for the day of 
the murder, and that he and his roommate made notes in a notebook that 
suggested they were trying to coordinate their stories to police.

The case is Kuenzel v. Alabama, 16-213.

(source: The Republic)

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

3rd time the charm: Alabama killer spared death sentence


Twice sentenced to die, a Jefferson County man this morning was taken off death 
row.

Marcus Benn twice in the past 21 months was sentenced to die by lethal 
injection for the 2010 slayings of 3 people. Thanks to procedural issues, today 
Benn again went before the judge, this time sentenced to life without the 
possibility of parole.

Jefferson County Circuit Judge Tracie Todd re-sentenced Benn, 40, for his 
conviction in the shooting deaths of Jaime Luna Gutierrez, Jose Manuel Martinez 
Calderon, and Evelyn Peralta. Their bodies were found along Birmingham-area 
roads.

Jurors at an October 2014 trial found Benn guilty and recommended in a 10-2 
vote that he be sentenced to death. Todd followed the juror's recommendation 
and sentenced Benn to death in a written order on Jan. 29, 2015, following a 
hearing.

Benn has been on Alabama death row at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore 
since that 1st sentencing.

On June 3 of this year the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ordered Todd to 
re-sentence Benn because she should have sentenced him in open court, not in a 
written order.

Todd held a hearing on June 20 and re-sentenced Benn to death. But then the 
appeals court came back and said that it had not issued the certificate of 
judgement of its June 3 order until 2 days after Todd's re-sentencing. 
Therefore the re-sentencing was premature and null because at the time of the 
re-sentencing the appeals court still had jurisdiction in the case.

Benn's attorneys filed a renewed motion asking Todd to impose a life without 
parole sentence on Benn.

Marcus Benn had originally been sentenced in January 2015 for his conviction on 
7 capital murder charges involving the slayings of Jaime Gutierrez, Jose 
Colderon, and Evelyn Peralta.

Todd at today's hearing said she had considered the request and that in light 
of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling striking down Florida's death penalty 
statute in January in the case of Hurst v. Florida, she was granting the motion 
and sentencing Benn to life without parole.

Todd noted that she had previously declared the state's death penalty 
sentencing scheme unconstitutional in four of her pending capital murder cases. 
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals in June struck down her ruling

The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals in June struck down her ruling

In its order the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals told Jefferson County 
Circuit Court Judge Tracie Todd to vacate her March 3 order and ordered her to 
vacate her order and allow prosecutors to pursue the death penalty in those 
cases.

The appeals court, however, noted a difference in the two states' laws. 
Florida's law had conditioned a 1st-degree-murder defendant's eligibility for 
the death penalty based on a finding by the trial judge, rather than the jury, 
that an aggravating circumstance existed.

Alabama's law is constitutional because it already states that a capital murder 
defendant is not eligible for the death penalty unless the jury unanimously 
finds beyond a reasonable doubt, either during the guilt phase or during the 
penalty phase of the trial, that at least one of the aggravating circumstances 
exists, the Alabama appeals court stated.

Todd was asked if her order was final by a defense attorney. "It is final as 
far as I'm concerned," Todd said.

Deputy Jefferson County District Attorney Neal Zarzour told Todd that 
prosecutors reserved the right to review her order in light of the appeals 
court order of the 2nd re-sentencing.

In case the state appeals court reverses and rules that her June 20 order was 
in fact final, then she would set that aside and enter the sentence of life 
without parole.

Benn was represented at today's hearing by Ryan Becker of the Montgomery-based 
Equal Justice Initiative.

Benn also was convicted of murder in 1994 and was sentenced to life, but was 
released on parole in 2009.

Attorneys Sammie Shaw, Philip Petersen and EJI attorney Stephen Chu, also 
represented Benn.

Benn's original death sentence in 2015 was included in a study by Harvard's 
Fair Punishment Project study on 16 "outlier" counties in the nation with the 
most death penalty sentences issued between 2010 and 2015. Jefferson County had 
5, including Benn, during that period.

(source: al.com)






MISSISSIPPI:

Mississippi seeks death penalty for man accused of killing Tupelo cab driver


The State of Mississippi will seek the death penalty for the man accused of 
killing a Tupelo cab driver earlier this year.

Leontay Gates appeared in Lee County Justice Court Monday morning where he 
pleaded not guilty to the charges of capital murder, armed robbery (2) and the 
possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

On the night of May 13, 55-year-old Charles Williams of Tupelo was killed on 
Graham Drive. His body was found with a gunshot wound to the head.

Days later, Lee County deputies responded to a phone call made by Gates at his 
home. When deputies arrived, they found him lying on the ground where he was 
quickly taken into custody.

Also, days after the death, Tupelo police charged Gates with 2 counts of armed 
robbery and for the possession of a weapon by a felon.

His court date is January 17, 2017.

(source: WTVA news)






NEBRASKA:

History of death penalty in Nebraska


As Nebraska voters prepare to make a decision on whether to keep the death 
penalty in the state, here is a look back at where it all started.

Nebraska's history with capital punishment is a complex and peculiar one. As it 
currently stands, Nebraska as a state has employed the death penalty since the 
early 20th century, when it executed its 1st person, a man by the name of 
Gottlieb Neigenfind, by hanging.

At the turn of the century, individual counties, not the state, carried out 
most executions. Hanging was the most common form of execution until 1913, when 
Nebraska officially changed its execution method from hanging to electrocution. 
Hangings had become gruesome public spectacles that were at times horribly 
botched, but they were actually very few in number; only 7 people were hanged 
before 1913.

37 people have been executed legally by the state of Nebraska, with 34 since 
1976, when the federal government reinstated the death penalty.

It took nearly 100 years before the state changed its method of execution from 
electrocution, which eventually was viewed in the same light as hanging as 
cruel and unusual, to lethal injection, which has been rife with issues, too.

In a 2009 Nebraska Supreme Court case, State v. Mata, the court declared 
electrocution to be cruel and unusual punishment, making it unconstitutional, 
and Nebraska, like most states, moved to adopt lethal injection.

"Presently we have no actual means of executing someone,"said Steven Griffith, 
executive director of Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. "The 
lethal injection and the specified drugs are not available, specifically the 
sodium thiopental, just not available, and no prospect of ever being able to 
get them."

But not everyone sees the injection drug issue as a complete roadblock, and 
certainly not a reason to repeal the death penalty.

The co-founder of the Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, Bob Evnen, said the 
injection drug issue stems from an issue with the federal government, adding 
it's a problem that could be solved.

"Other states have been successful doing this," Evnen said. "We can be 
successful, too ...These are solvable problems."

The last execution in Nebraska was in 1997 when the state executed Robert 
Williams. This is a key point that opponents of the death penalty in Nebraska 
argue - that the system is ineffective because it's not being used and is just 
there for show.

As for why the death penalty has remained a punishment in Nebraska, Sen. Colby 
Coash of Lincoln, who was among those leading the legislative fight to repeal 
capital punishment, said he thinks it's a matter of familiarity.

"I guess there's a certain level of comfort thinking the death penalty was out 
there, which makes them want to keep it on the books," Coash said. "But the 
Nebraskans I've talked to, once they understand it hasn't been working, that we 
actually haven't used it, they view it as a system that's broken, which is the 
way the Legislature really looked at it."

(source: Norfolk Daily News)

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

How much does the death penalty cost Nebraska?


This election day, voters will decide whether or not to bring the death penalty 
back to the Cornhusker state.

This comes a year after Nebraska became the 1st red state to repeal it in more 
than 40 years. When it comes to crime and punishment in Nebraska, what costs 
more?

"When you look at the cost of the death penalty, it isn't the cost of 
execution, it's the cost of the entire process," said Robert Dunham, executive 
director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

Dunham says evidence suggests the death penalty costs more than life in prison, 
pointing to a recent study from Creighton University which estimates the death 
penalty costs Nebraska $14.6 million a year.

"The study that was done in Nebraska is consistent with everything we've seen 
everywhere else. The methodology is clear," Dunham said.

Anthony Yezer, an economics professor at George Washington University says the 
study's findings are meaningless.

"I don't think that there's anyway in which through standard economic research 
I can sort out the relationship between adopting the death penalty and 
expenditure on crime. It's just too complex of a system. We can't have a 
controlled experiment," Yezer explained.

"The model and its results are meaningless because they are a classic example 
of putting the con into econometric analysis that has been disparaged in the 
economic literature referenced in my textbook," he said.

Here's what you need to know when you're making your final decision on this 
measure. If you want to do away with the death penalty, you darken the oval 
next to Retain. That would keep a state law upholding the ban. If you want to 
reinstate the death penalty, you vote to repeal the law.

If the death penalty is successfully reinstated, some experts think it could 
later be found constitutional.

"This is not a question of will Nebraska's death penalty be challenged. It has 
been challenged," Dunham said.

This January, the Supreme Court ruled on a case that found Florida's death 
penalty violated the 6th amendment. That's because the ultimate determination 
of life and death was made by judges and not juries, similar to how Nebraska's 
statute works.

"That's another consideration for voters to think about when they go to the 
polls. If they reinstate the death penalty, are they really reinstating 
something that's constitutionally viable? All of the most recent evidence 
suggests that it may not be," Dunham said.

A recent Pew Research Poll shows support for the death penalty across the 
country is the lowest its been in nearly 4 decades.

(source: 1011now.com)




NEVADA----new death sentence

Las Vegas jury chooses death penalty for man convicted in 2009 killing


A 53-year-old man with a decades-long criminal past was sentenced to death 
Monday for his role in a 2009 slaying.

Brian Haskell lay dehydrating for upward of 3 days before he died after being 
brutally beaten in his northwest valley home, prosecutors said.

Convicted felon Will Sitton had leveled the most severe blows, punching, 
kicking and stomping on the 68-year-old Haskell as he crumpled and fell 
unconscious in his bedroom. Sitton's girlfriend, Jacquie Schafer, and his 
brother, Robert, also participated in the attack, according to prosecutors.

A jury of 8 women and 4 men found that aggravating factors in Sitton's past - 3 
rape convictions, an attempted murder conviction, an attempted arson, a DUI, 
along with his checkered behavior behind bars - outweighed mitigating factors 
that could have spared him from capital punishment, including pleas from his 
mother and his ex-wife.

In closing arguments of Sitton's penalty hearing, Chief Deputy District 
Attorney Lisa Luzaich said Sitton had "not a speck of remorse" for any of his 
crimes.

Sitton made an obscene gesture at jurors as they exited the courtroom Monday.

"Nothing like being railroaded," he said before being escorted from the room.

Days earlier, the same jury convicted Sitton and Schafer of 1st-degree murder. 
Schafer, 39, is not facing the death penalty and is scheduled to be sentenced 
in December.

Robert Sitton, 39, pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder in 2010 and testified 
against his brother at trial.

Will Sitton first faced a jury in the case a year ago, but District Judge 
Douglas Smith declared a mistrial after jurors inadvertently received evidence 
they were not supposed to have reviewed.

Another prosecutor, Jacqueline Bluth, told jurors on Thursday that Haskell was 
"a kind and generous man who didn't deserve to die."

She argued that death was an appropriate punishment for Will Sitton.

"When someone will not stop, what is our recourse?" Bluth said. "When the 
counseling won't work, when jail won't work, when prison won't work, what left 
are you to do? When all the options are exhausted, enough becomes enough."

Defense lawyer Christopher Oram had asked jurors to "spare his life, please 
spare his life" and said Sitton was "not the worst of the worst" among 
convicted murderers.

Along with 1st-degree murder, Sitton and Schafer also were convicted last week 
of robbery, burglary, conspiracy and forgery.

Prosecutors said that after the Oct. 29, 2009, beating, the couple stole 
Haskell's laptop and television, cashed several checks from his account, 
accessed his bank information and used his cellphone.

Schafer had been living with Haskell before he asked her to move out. She 
accused him of groping her in front of her daughter and physically attacked 
Haskell before the brothers beat him, prosecutors said.

Robert Sitton testified that Haskell was unconscious but still breathing when 
the trio left the northwest valley apartment.

A medical examiner said he could have lived for at least 3 more days. His body 
was found Nov. 14, 2009, with at least 2 different types of shoe prints on his 
back. Bones were broken in his nose, ribs and spine.

(source: Las vegas Review-Journal)






CALIFORNIA:

Abolish or amend? California voters face conflicting death penalty props


Californians will decide whether to repeal or change the state's most severe 
form punishment this November.

Propositions 62 and 66 are conflicting, however they are founded on the same 
idea: capital punishment cases are drawn out too long and are too costly.

Currently, 748 people sit on death row in California with executions at a 
standstill; the last one happened more than a decade ago. Meanwhile, the 
growing population of death row is a source of frustration for many 
Californians, including Morro Bay resident Ray David.

"Time to step it up; get them off death row," Ray said. "Clean up the system - 
release tax dollars."

A "yes" vote on Proposition 62 abolishes the death penalty. Instead, convicts 
would serve life in prison without parole.

Supporters of 62 say the measure will eliminate the risk of putting a wrongly 
convicted person to death.

Nancy Halstead of Morro Bay says she is glad to see Prop 62 on her ballot and 
will vote in favor.

"I sort of understand the feeling behind [the death penalty] but I still think 
in the end, it's almost as barbaric as whatever that person did, to kill them 
also," Halstead said.

Proponents argue 62 could save California $150 million per year, by shortening 
trials and cutting costs in counties for jails and paying public defenders. Cal 
Poly student Alison O'Neill says death row's hefty price tag has swayed her.

"It's very expensive and it's not really used in the way it was originally 
intended," O'Neill said.

Alternatively, Proposition 66 keeps the death penalty but seeks to shorten the 
time legal challenges to death sentences take, using the campaign slogan, 
"Mend, Not End."

San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow says 66 can fix the system.

"If you remove of that red tape and allow attorneys to be representing their 
clients earlier on in the process, we can actually reduce the cost on the 
taxpayer while simultaneously making sure we bring closure and finality for the 
victims of these horrible crimes," Dow told KSBY.

Supporters of 66 say the threat of capital punishment will keep crime rates 
down. Ray David agrees and says it's time for executions to resume.

"I don't wish to pay for people who are incarcerated for years and years and 
years. That's taxpayer dollars," he said. "Get them out of here. They are 
criminals."

If both measures pass, the one with the most "yes" votes will supersede the 
other.

(source: KSBY news)






USA:

US justice: The last days for death row?


California's system of capital punishment has hit a serious snag: it doesn't 
kill people any more.

In nearly 50 years, only 13 of the more than 1,000 people convicted of murder 
in California have been put to death. There have been no executions since 2006, 
when a court imposed a moratorium over concerns that the state's lethal 
injection protocol contravened the 8th amendment prohibiting "cruel and unusual 
punishment".

The death row population - almost all of it housed in San Quentin state prison, 
set on a promontory of San Francisco Bay - has swelled to nearly 750. Convicted 
murderers here are more likely to die of natural causes.

For people like Marc Klaas, this is unsupportable. His 12-year-old daughter, 
Polly, was raped and murdered in 1993. The killer, Richard Allen Davis, was 
sentenced to death 3 years later and his conviction was upheld by the 
California supreme court in 2009.

The case is now winding its way through the federal courts, as Davis argues, 
among other things, that his trial lawyer failed to represent him adequately 
and the jury was given faulty instructions. Such habeas corpus procedures, all 
funded by the state, usually take years before finally reaching the US Supreme 
Court.

"The man has been on death row for 20 years now, insulting the memory of my 
daughter," Mr Klaas says. "It's time to make the system work."

As well as voting for presidential and Congressional candidates next week, 
Californians will be balloted on 2 voter initiatives that promote very 
different responses to this state of affairs. The outcome could be a watershed 
in what abolition advocates claim is an inevitable progression towards the end 
of the death penalty in the US.

One initiative, known as Proposition 66, is designed to unblock the execution 
pipeline. By ending the severe shortage of lawyers available to handle appeals 
and putting time limits on the process, it is meant to end the execution 
drought. But critics warn that clearing the backlog on death row would lead to 
a surge in executions that would spark widespread protests in what is a 
fundamentally liberal state.

"To execute everyone on death row, you'd have to kill a person a week for the 
next 14 years. It's not going to happen," says Paula Mitchell, head of a Loyola 
Law School project to uncover cases of wrongful convictions.

The other voter initiative, Proposition 62, would abolish the state's death 
penalty altogether. Four years ago, a similar proposal won the backing of 48 % 
of voters. This time, the most closely followed survey of opinion - conducted 
by the Field Poll and the University of California at Berkeley - is again 
showing support for abolition running at 48 %. If both propositions pass, then 
the one with most votes will prevail.

Trend for repeals

The initiatives present dramatic and opposingviews of the future of capital 
punishment in the US. America???s most populous state is grappling with an 
issue that legislators and courts in a number of states have addressed. If 
there is a vote to abolish, it would confirm a marked swing in public 
sentiment.

As the only fully westernised country to use capital punishment, the US is a 
glaring outlier in the developed world. Seen from elsewhere - particularly 
Europe - it is jarring that a country which wants to be seen as a standard 
bearer for human rights still puts prisoners to death.

Executions have been in decline across the country. Since 1999, when the number 
peaked at 98, the highest since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, they 
have fallen steadily. The figure was 28 last year, the lowest in more than two 
decades. The number of death sentences handed down has dropped even more 
precipitously, from a peak of 315 in 1996 to 49 in 2015, as prosecutors reacted 
to a change in public mood.

Waning confidence in the infallibility of prosecutions has been a significant 
factor in a string of repeals. Illinois abolished the death penalty 5 years ago 
after discovering 13 mistaken convictions. 6 other states have abolished the 
death penalty in the past 9 years, including New York and New Jersey, bringing 
the total to 19. Executions are on hold in 9 others, and Washington DC has also 
abolished the practice.

Public opinion has swung steadily against capital punishment over 2 decades, 
according to the Pew Research Center, with the proportion supporting the 
ultimate sanction dropping below half in a survey published in September.

But as Californians decide whether to sign their own death warrant for capital 
punishment, 2 other states face a different choice. After Nebraska's 
legislature voted for repeal last year, a proposal to reinstate the death 
penalty will be on the state's ballot. In Oklahoma, voters are being asked to 
enshrine the death penalty in the state's constitution, which would make it 
harder for those campaigning for abolition.

Passions are high on both sides. Mr Klaas believes death is the necessary 
punishment for his daughter's killer. But Dionne Wilson, the widow of policeman 
Dan Niemi, who was shot and killed in 2005, says the death penalty did not 
bring the satisfaction she had expected.

"It was what I wanted. I did it from a place of extreme pain and anger. I just 
wanted the guy to die in the worst possible way," she says. But of the moment 
the penalty was handed down, she adds: "I was expecting to be healed by it. I 
was expecting to feel better. I got my justice. But it didn't work."

Now a strong advocate of repeal, Ms Wilson expresses incredulity that the US 
should still back the practice: "We're supposed to be this moral conscience for 
the world. Really?"

Costly crisis

Advocates of abolition rely heavily on two strong impulses. One is moral 
revulsion. Pope Francis helped bring the issue to national attention on a visit 
to the US last year when he called on Congress to end the practice. And during 
the presidential primaries, Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders took a rare 
stance for a US politician, urging the US "to join almost every other 
westernised country on earth" in ending capital punishment.

Fear of executing the innocent also provokes a visceral response. 4 % of those 
facing the death penalty have had their convictions overturned - enough to 
worry many people that innocent people might have been among the more than 
1,400 executed in the US since 1976.

These considerations tend to sway about 40 % of voters who can be counted on 
for a solid base of support for repeal in the US, says Matt Cherry, head of 
Death Penalty Focus, a group pushing for abolition. But, alone, they are not 
enough to swing the argument.

If the tide is turning, it is for other reasons. The case being made in 
California is typical of the new opposition to capital punishment in the US: 
that the system is too expensive and it fails to achieve what it is meant to 
do.

Across the country, concerns about the number of prisoners on death row, the 
fairness of convictions and the adequacy of execution procedures have prompted 
misgivings about capital punishment. But California, with the biggest death row 
population by far - roughly 1/4 of America's death row inhabitants are in the 
Golden State - is facing this crisis more acutely than most.

According to a state estimate, the death penalty costs Californians $150m a 
year more than they would pay if the same prisoners were given life without 
parole. Yet there is still too little money to expedite cases: fewer than 100 
lawyers are available to handle habeas corpus defences, a shortage that adds to 
the length of appeals by killers like Davis.

This legal logjam galls supporters of the death penalty, since the same people 
who argue the system should be abolished because it does not work effectively 
are often the very people who are working hard to delay executions from taking 
place. "The abolitionists have done a good job convincing people that the very 
roadblocks they have created have made the system unworkable," says Mr Klaas.

Proposition 66 is intended to make the system work more effectively by, among 
other things, shortening appeals and bringing more lawyers to bear on cases. 
But to its critics, efforts like these would remove checks in the system and 
represent a step backwards.

"It's about speeding up the system, not fixing it - it's about removing the 
safeguards," says Nick McKeown, a Stanford University professor and 
entrepreneur who has been the biggest financial backer of repeal, having put up 
$1.5m of the $7.5m raised to back Proposition 62. Kirk Bloodsworth, who was 
convicted of murder in Maryland in 1985, only to be exonerated on DNA evidence 
8 years later, says of California's attempt to remove roadblocks to executions: 
"If it was enacted in the state of Maryland, I'd be dead."

"The criminal justice system is filled with problems," says Mr Bloodsworth. 
"You can't kill your way out of this, you have to try something different."

'Out of control'

Supporters of repeal believe they are tapping into a deeper distrust across the 
country in the way law enforcement and the court system operates. A spate of 
police shootings has made this a national issue in election year. But prison 
overcrowding in California is worsened by a "3 strikes" law that sends repeat 
offenders to prison for life regardless of the severity of the crime. 
Californians voted 4 years ago to limit the 3 strikes rule to violent offences, 
and this year governor Jerry Brown has backed another voter initiative to make 
it easier for nonviolent offenders to get parole.

These developments point to widespread public unease about how the system 
operates, says Mr McKeown, and are the best sign that Californians may be ready 
to vote for repeal.

"The main thing that's changed since 2012 is the spotlight on the criminal 
justice system," he says. "There's a fear that many, many people are innocent 
and the system is out of control."

When it comes to capital punishment, 1 sign of the unfairness highlighted by 
many critics is the extreme concentration of death penalty convictions in a 
small number of jurisdictions. Of more than 3,000 counties in the US, only 16 
imposed at least 5 death sentences between 2010-15, according to Harvard Law 
School's Fair Punishment Project. California is home to 5 of the 10 counties 
that have sent the most convicted prisoners to death row.

With only a small number of district attorneys in the US pushing aggressively 
for death sentences, the chance of ending up on death row has much to do with 
the luck of geography. The counties with the most zealous records are all in 
southern and western states, says the Harvard study, with Florida, Arizona and 
southern California leading the way.

Race also plays a part. "We've created a system where the penalty applies more 
harshly, and is given more easily, to poor people of colour," Ms Wilson says.

In a study of all California's death penalty convictions in the 1990s, 
published in the Santa Clara Law Review more than a decade ago, it was the race 
of the victim, more than the killer, that determined whether the ultimate 
penalty was applied. Killing a non-Latino white person was four times more 
likely to bring a sentence of death than if the victim was Latino, and 3 times 
more likely than if the victim was black.

Whether or not California abandons the death penalty is now down to white 
moderate conservatives, says Mr Cherry. These are the swing voters who will 
make the difference, part of an ageing middle class in the southern Californian 
suburbs of Orange County and east of Los Angeles. "They support the death 
penalty in principle, but are open to changing their minds," he says.

California has long been known as a place where national social trends first 
become apparent. It has not been at the forefront when it comes to the repeal 
of capital punishment. But if voters back Proposition 62 next week, it may be 
the barometer that indicates an American swing away from capital punishment has 
become irreversible.

The controversy over lethal injection

Like other states that have run into legal challenges over their execution 
methods, California is struggling with a paradox: how to kill prisoners 
humanely.

Lethal injections have been the norm in the US since executions resumed in 
1977, when Oklahoma came up with a 3-drug cocktail intended to first 
anaesthetise a condemned prisoner, then paralyse the muscles and finally stop 
the heart.

Supplies of the 1st drug, sodium thiopental, dried up after foreign 
manufacturers tried to prevent its use. That was followed by a European ban on 
exports of the drug for use in lethal injections five years ago. Federal 
regulators have also cracked down on states that have found ways of buying it 
through unlicensed intermediaries.

New drugs have been used in its place, leading to allegations that convicted 
prisoners have been subjected to unnecessary pain. Oklahoma is among the states 
in the spotlight, after one prisoner, Clayton Lockett, died of a heart attack 
during a failed execution in April 2014. The state responded with a new 
procedure, only to find itself back in the spotlight when the wrong drugs were 
given to another prisoner.

California's lethal injection procedures were rejected by an appeals court a 
decade ago, leading to a suspension of executions. Since then, the state's 
corrections department has been seeking approval for a new protocol based on a 
single drug.

Proposition 66, which will be put before voters next week, would speed this up 
by ending public debate and exempting execution methods from the state's normal 
legal procedures. To critics, circumvention will lead to secrecy and haste, 
resulting in more botched executions.

Proponents say too much time has been spent already on debating execution 
methods. Marc Klaas, the father of a murder victim in California, expresses 
incredulity at "the whole idea that there might be some injustice in the last 
30 minutes of an unrepentant killer's life. I mean, seriously? Anyone cares 
about that?"

(source: Financial Times)