[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OKLA. CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 28



OKLAHOMA:

Document filed for death penalty in Oklahoma deputy slaying


An Oklahoma prosecutor has filed formal notice that the state will seek the 
death penalty for a man charged in the killing of a deputy sheriff.

District Attorney Laura Austin Thomas filed the bill of particulars Thursday 
stating 45-year-old Nathan Aaron LeForce should be put to death if he's 
convicted of a 1st-degree murder charge in the shooting death of Logan County 
Deputy David Wade.

LeForce remains jailed and court documents don't list an attorney to speak for 
him.

The document notes that Wade was a law officer, that the shooting was 
"especially heinous, atrocious and cruel" and that LeForce would continue to be 
a threat to society.

Prosecutors say LeForce fatally shot Wade as the deputy served an eviction 
notice in Mulhall, about 50 miles north of Oklahoma City.

(source: Associated Press)






CALIFORNIA:

California and capital punishment: Why this blue state keeps voting for the 
death penalty


California's turbulent history with the death penalty reached another landmark 
in November when voters approved a proposition to expedite death row appeals 
and rejected a proposition to repeal capital punishment.

Proposition 62, which was defeated, would have repealed the death penalty and 
replaced existing death sentences with life without the possibility of parole. 
Proposition 66, which voters approved, could expedite death row processes by 
limiting the amount of time available for appeals.

Although favor for capital punishment in the U.S. generally aligns with those 
on the political right, California has now broken from leftist death penalty 
propositions twice since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978; Proposition 
34 was defeated with 52 % against in 2012, and last fall, Proposition 62 was 
defeated with 53.15 % against, according to Ballotpedia. Both those 
propositions would have repealed the death penalty and replaced it with a life 
sentence without parole.

"I don't remember how I voted for [Proposition 66]," Rochelle Goins, a 
California voter, said in an interview. "I have the feeling that I might have 
voted to expedite [the death penalty]."

While Goins believes there are certain crimes for which the offender does not 
deserve to live, she says the current death penalty process does not deliver 
justice. The death penalty "has been abused, and it has been unfairly 
distributed, and it has been targeting minorities," she believes, and that's 
why she says she voted "yes" on Proposition 62.

To both abolitionists and those who are pro-capital punishment, California's 
death row may not be working. Since 1978, the state has executed only 13 
people, while 749 inmates remain on death row.

Abolitionists who reasoned that implementing Proposition 66 would be better 
than keeping the death penalty as-is may have effectively voted against repeal. 
While it was not made explicitly clear on the ballot, Proposition 62 and 66 
were competing initiatives. If they had both passed, whichever initiative 
passed by a greater margin would have been the one implemented.

Ron Briggs was in favor of the death penalty. Briggs' father led the successful 
campaign for the Death Penalty Act in 1978.

But since then, Briggs has become an abolitionist because he believes the 
system is not financially viable, the appeals process prolongs the suffering of 
victims' families and he could not reconcile capital punishment with his 
Catholic faith.

Last fall, Briggs led the campaign for Proposition 62 and blames the ballot 
outcome on what he says was the campaign's inability to get its message across.

"The late entry of Prop. 66 had the effect that its proponents wanted: it 
confused the voters," Briggs said. "We didn't get the message out properly. I 
mean, fundamentally, we can blame this any way you want to go, but the fact is 
that our campaign didn't do a good enough job."

This ballot issue is not isolated to death penalty initiatives, according to 
Santa Clara Law Professor Ellen Kreitzberg. "Whenever you have 2 competing 
initiatives like this one - you have one which abolishes it and one which 
expedites it - there's always a danger of voter confusion," she said.

Alternatively, voters may have kept the death penalty because of a perception 
of high crime rates. Stanford Law Professor John Donohue says when crime rates 
increase, so does the support for the death penalty - despite the lack of 
evidence that the death penalty acts as a deterrent for violent crime.

Crime rates are actually lower than in past decades, according to Pew Research 
Center. The rhetoric during President Donald Trump's presidential campaign may 
have contributed toward inflating the public's perception of crime rates. "When 
people are fearful, they are more likely to support more draconian measures," 
Donohue said.

The week following its approval, Briggs and former California Attorney General 
John Van de Kamp litigated Proposition 66. The California Supreme Court is 
expected to rule by August on challenges to Proposition 66, leaving the death 
row process' future in uncertainty.

(source: Peninsula Press)






USA:

The death penalty has long divided Americans. Here's why those who oppose it 
are winning


A series of executions in Arkansas has reignited the longstanding battle over 
the death penalty.

Beginning last week, the state tried to put eight men to death over 11 days 
before the drugs it uses in executions expired. After legal challenges, half of 
the executions were blocked in court.

Yet, despite the high-profile executions in Arkansas - including the 1st 
double-execution in the nation in nearly 17 years - the use and support of the 
death penalty in the United States has steeply declined to levels unheard of in 
decades.

Capital punishment is still legal in most states. But, while activists and 
experts say it is farfetched to expect it to be banned nationwide anytime soon, 
they say the momentum against it is strong.

"Practically speaking, the death penalty is in its last days. But like any 
disease that's rendered obsolete by modern medicine, it has a few flareups 
before the end," said Eric Freedman, a law professor at Hofstra University. 
"The long-term trend toward its extinction is pretty clear and pronounced."

Here's why.

Fewer people are being executed by fewer states

The number of executions in the U.S. annually hit a high of 98 in 1999. Last 
year, the number of people executed was 20. The last time the number was that 
low was in 1991, when 14 people were put to death.

If all the scheduled executions this year are carried out, 25 Americans will be 
put to death, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The 
Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization advocates against the death 
penalty.

7 states have or are scheduled to carry out executions, according to the 
center: Texas, Virginia, Missouri, Arkansas, Ohio, Georgia, Alabama.

"It is a phenomenon now of a few counties in a few states," said Freedman. "The 
vast majority of the country is living in counties where there hasn't been an 
execution for decades."

Public support is at its lowest level in 40 years

More Americans support the death penalty than those who are against it. But 
surveys over the years show that opposition is increasing and support is 
declining.

According to the most recent Pew Research Center poll, 49% of Americans support 
the death penalty for people found guilty of murder. At the same time, 42% of 
Americans are against it. The gap between Americans in part depends on 
political party. Only 34% of Democrats favor the death penalty, compared with 
72% of Republicans.

Experts say the decline can be attributed to a variety of factors, including 
well-publicized cases of people who were sentenced to death and then 
exonerated.

One recent such case was in Delaware in January, when Isaiah McCoy, a 
29-year-old on death row for murder, was released from prison after being found 
not guilty in a 2nd trial.

"When people find out real people are sentenced to death even though they are 
not guilty, people start struggling to support executions," said Rob Smith, the 
Director of Harvard Law School's Fair Punishment Project. The Fair Punishment 
Project has argued against the Arkansas executions, saying the trials of the 
men on death row were full of "legal deficiencies."

Prosecutors are less willing to seek the death penalty - and jurors are less 
friendly to it

It's not just that fewer people are being executed. Generally speaking, fewer 
people are being sentenced to death.

Death sentences hit a high in 1996, when 315 Americans were condemned to die, 
according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The decline has been steady 
since. Last year, 30 people were sentenced to death.

"The vast majority of prosecutors these days will never even seek the death 
penalty," Smith said. One reason, he said, is that jurors are less likely to be 
sold on it. Life sentences without parole, Smith said, are seen as better 
options.

Some district attorneys and state attorneys general have gone a step further, 
promising to not push for death sentences.

One of them is Dist. Atty. Aramis Ayala of Orlando, Fla., who vowed last month 
to not seek the death penalty in her cases.

"I am prohibited from making the severity of my sentences the index of my 
effectiveness," she said in a statement. "What has become abundantly clear 
through this process is while I currently do have discretion to pursue death 
sentences, I have determined that doing so is not in the best interests of this 
community, or in the best interest of justice."

Governors of several states, including Washington, Oregon and Colorado, have 
also imposed moratoriums on the death penalty while they are in office.

Controversial drugs are in short supply and pharmaceutical companies are taking 
a stand

The Republican governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, defended the state's 
string of planned executions this month by saying it needed to carry them out 
before the drugs it uses expired.

"It is uncertain as to whether another drug can be obtained," Hutchinson said 
in a statement.

1 of the drugs in question is midazolam, a sedative that's part of a 3-drug 
cocktail the state uses in lethal injections. The controversial drug has been 
tied to several faulty executions, including those in Oklahoma, and expires at 
the end of April.

Another drug used in the state is vecuronium bromide, a muscle relaxer. 
McKesson Corp., a medical supplier that sold the drug to Arkansas, took the 
state to court over it. The company says Arkansas purchased the drug, which 
McKesson says is only intended for medical use, under false pretenses.

The controversy over drugs goes beyond Arkansas and extends to the federal 
government.

In 1 example, the Texas prison system filed suit this month against the Food 
and Drug Administration, which seized 1,000 vials of an execution drug whose 
importation was banned in 2015. The state purchased the drug, sodium 
thiopental, from India, and the FDA wants it shipped back or destroyed. The 
Texas Department of Criminal Justice argues that law enforcement agencies are 
exempt from the ban.

Major court cases loom as states reexamine policies

Outside of Arkansas and Texas, several other court cases over the death penalty 
are looming.

In Cincinnati, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled in June to 
have the full court consider whether the state's use of a 3-drug cocktail in 
lethal injections is unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. Earlier, a 
3-judge panel in the appeals court had upheld a stay that kept the state using 
the procedure in executions.

In California, the Supreme Court is expected to decide this summer on 
challenges to a voter-approved proposition that reduces the time allowed for 
appeals of death sentences. The new rule was intended to speed up executions in 
the state, where there are nearly 750 people on death row. The state is 
considered a "symbolic" death penalty state because capital punishment is legal 
but has not been used since 2006.

States are also reconsidering their use of the death penalty.

In Oklahoma, a state commission said this week that a moratorium on the death 
penalty should be extended until the system for carrying out sentences is 
changed so that innocent people do not die.

"Ultimately we found that there are many serious systemic flaws in Oklahoma's 
death penalty process that obviously can and have led to innocent people being 
convicted and put on death row," former Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry, who is on the 
Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission, said in a statement. Henry was 
governor for 2 terms during dozens of executions between 2003 and 2011.

The state had been under scrutiny since a series of botched executions, and it 
imposed a moratorium in 2015 after the wrong drug was used in one. In a 
high-profile 2014 execution, inmate Clayton Locket was alive and struggling for 
43 minutes on the gurney after a lethal injection.

(source: Los Angeles Times)

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

House moves bill making it easier to seek death penalty for cop killers


The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday passed legislation that would make it 
easier to impose the death penalty against anyone who kills a law enforcement 
officer or first responder.

The Thin Blue Line Act, sponsored by Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., would make the 
victim's job as a police officer, firefighter or other first responder an 
"aggravating" factor that would factor into death penalty decisions.

There have been 39 law enforcement deaths in 2017 so far, according to the 
Officer Down Memorial Page.

"Congress should do all it can to protect our police officers and first 
responders," Buchanan said ahead of Thursday's vote. "My bill makes sure that 
anyone who targets law enforcement officers is held accountable."

The committee passed the resolution 19-12, in the face of opposition from 
Democrats, the ACLU and NAACP's Legal Defense Fund. It now goes to the House 
floor for a vote.

According to Monique Dixon of the Legal Defense Fund, the legislation 
"needlessly duplicates federal and state laws that already impose serious 
penalties on persons convicted of crimes against law enforcement. At a time 
when public support for the death penalty is at its lowest point in decades, 
Congress should reject this unnecessary bill and focus on substantive policing 
reform."

However, a number of national law enforcement organizations support the 
legislation, including the National Association of Police Officers, National 
Fraternal Order of Police, Major Counties Sheriffs of America and the American 
Federation of Government Employees.

(source: Washington Examiner)