[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., MO.

[Rick Halperin]

August 22



FLORIDA----impending execution

Catholic bishops call on Gov. Scott to halt scheduled execution----It has been 
20 months since an inmate has been executed in Florida, and the state's 
Catholic bishops are calling on Gov. Rick Scott to halt Thursday's scheduled 
execution of Mark James Asay.



In a letter delivered to Scott Monday, Michael Sheedy, executive director of 
the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote: "Indeed, Mr. Asay's violent 
acts call out for justice and should be condemned. However, life without parole 
is an alternative and severe sentence. We hold that if non-lethal means are 
available to keep society safe from an aggressor, then authority must limit 
itself to such means."

After a lengthy suspension of Florida's troubled death penalty system due to 
legal challenges and actions by the Legislature,, Asay, 53, is scheduled to die 
at 6 p.m. Thursday at Florida State Prison in Starke for the murders of 2 men, 
Robert Booker and Robert McDowell, in Jacksonville in 1987. Booker, who was 
African-American, was shot in the abdomen after he and Asay had a 
racially-charged confrontation outside a bar. In a summary of the case, the 
state Supreme Court quoted Asay as having used the N-word 3 times.

Asay has been on death row since 1988, and his lawyers have repeatedly tried 
without success to prevent his execution. The lawyers unsuccessfully petitioned 
the Florida Supreme Court for access to the bullets that killed Asay's 2 
victims, and they sought a rehearing based on the court's acknowledgement that 
it incorrectly identified McDowell as black, when he was white or Hispanic.

Asay will be the 1st white inmate to be executed for the killing of an 
African-American in Florida history.

His sister, Gloria Dean, tells a Jacksonville TV station that her brother 
joined a white supremacist prison gang in Texas for his own protection, but 
that he is not a racist and that the killings were not racially motivated.

Bishops in Florida have consistently opposed the death penalty for decades, 
without success. Prior to Asay's execution, the bishops said, prayer vigils 
will be held at locations around the state, including Miami, Miami Shores, 
Pompano Beach, Inverness and on Tampa radio station WBVM 90.5.

Asay is one of 362 inmates on Florida's death row. Scott has signed more death 
warrants than any other governor since the state reinstituted the death penalty 
in the 1970s.

(source: Tampa Bay Times)

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

Florida execution machine ready to kill again



It is a tale of 2 states.

1 is modern and internationally connected, linked to the rest of the world 
through trade and tourism and known for its health, software and space 
technology industries.

The other is an outlier state stuck in the past, connected to a punishment 
which in the 21st century sets it apart from much of the world.

Both are the US State of Florida, which is on the brink of conducting its first 
judicial killing in a year and a half, even as much of the country has turned 
against this cruel policy.

'Bold, positive change'?

4 years ago, Governor Rick Scott promised 'bold, positive change' for Florida. 
However, not when it comes to the death penalty apparently.

In March 2017, State Attorney Aramis Ayala - the 1st African American to be 
elected to this position in Florida - decided not to pursue the death penalty 
because of its clear flaws. In response, Governor Scott ordered her to be 
replaced with a prosecutor willing to see executions carried out.

Since then the governor has transferred 27 capital murder cases to Ayala's 
replacement. 2 of these cases have already resulted in juries voting for death 
sentences.

Ready to kill again

>From Thursday 24 August, the Florida execution machine will be ready to kill 
again. The prisoner who will be first in line for lethal injection is Mark 
Asay, sent to death row in 1988.

Alaya and her successor have taken very different stands in Florida. She has 
acted to drop the death penalty, which is a waste of resources, prone to 
discrimination, arbitrariness and error, and makes promises to murder victims' 
families it cannot keep. But her successor wants to crank up the machinery of 
death.

We know which side we're on: ending the death penalty for good is the only 
approach consistent with international human rights principles. The alternative 
is not.

(source: amnesty.org.uk)








MISSOURI----stay of impending execution

Missouri governor issues say of execution for Marcellus Williams



Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens Tuesday issued a stay of execution for Marcellus 
Williams.

In a release early Tuesday afternoon, Greitens said new information prompted 
him to issue the stay and appoint a Gubernatorial Board of Inquiry for 
Williams.

"A sentence of death is the ultimate, permanent punishment. To carry out the 
death penalty, the people of Missouri must have confidence in the judgment of 
guilt," Greitens said in the release.

The board will include 5 people - all appointed by the governor - that will be 
able to look further into Williams' case. The board would then make a 
recommendation to the governor on if Williams should be executed.

Williams was scheduled to be executed Tuesday at 4 p.m.

Supporters of Williams cited a lack of DNA evidence in 2016 as reasons to 
review the case.

Williams was sentenced to death in the 1998 fatal stabbing of Lisha Gayle, a 
former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter who left journalism for social work. 
Authorities say she surprised Williams while he was robbing her home in the St. 
Louis suburb of University City.

The ACLU of Missouri issued a statement Tuesday praising the governor for the 
decision.

"We are relieved that Governor Eric Greitens stayed the execution of Marcellus 
Williams to allow for a board of inquiry to review Mr. Williams' case in light 
of new evidence," ACLU of Missouri executive director Jeffrey Mittman said in a 
release.

(soruce: KSHB news)

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

Greitens stops execution after questions about DNA evidence



Gov. Eric Greitens has granted a stay of execution to Marcellus Williams, who 
was facing death by injection at 6 p.m.

He said he was appointing a board of inquiry to investigate the case.

"A sentence of death is the ultimate, permanent punishment," he said in a 
statement. "To carry out the death penalty, the people of Missouri must have 
confidence in the judgment of guilt. In light of new information, I am 
appointing a Board of Inquiry in this case."

Williams, 48, was sentenced to death in 2001 for the fatal stabbing of former 
Post-Dispatch reporter Lisha Gayle, 42, at her home in University City on Aug. 
11, 1998. The prosecution said Williams was burglarizing the home when Gayle, 
who had been taking a shower, surprised him. She fought for her life as she was 
stabbed repeatedly.

Williams' attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop his execution. 
They are seeking a new hearing or the commutation of his sentence to life in 
prison. And they are asking Gov. Eric Greitens to grant clemency.

The attorneys claim recent DNA tests could prove Williams' innocence. Using 
technology that was not available at the time of the killing, those tests show 
that DNA found on the knife matched an unknown male, according to an analysis 
by Greg Hampikian, a biologist with Boise State University.

The Missouri Supreme Court in 2015 postponed Williams' execution to allow time 
for the DNA tests, but last week after results of those tests were made 
available, the same court denied his petition to stop the execution and either 
appoint a special master to hear his innocence claim or vacate the death 
sentence and order his sentence commuted to life in prison.

Now the attorneys have taken the argument to Supreme Court Justice Neil 
Gorsuch, circuit justice for the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which 
includes Missouri and 6 other Midwestern states.

In its response to the U.S. Supreme Court, the state said it had a wealth of 
non-DNA evidence to convict Williams. The state could prove Williams had sold 
Gayle's laptop to a 3rd party after the killing, and had 2 witnesses who 
independently said he confessed to them. And, the state said, the lack of DNA 
evidence did not mean he was innocent.

The case has attracted national attention because no forensic evidence has ever 
pointed to Williams, and now what has been tested points away from him.

"As a matter of fairness, what do you do when you've said somebody should get 
DNA testing, and they get the DNA testing, and the DNA testing suggests they 
didn't commit the murder?" asked Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death 
Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit clearinghouse for studies and reports 
related to capital punishment. "Missouri is trying to execute him without 
giving him an evidentiary hearing on what that DNA evidence means."

He said DNA exonerations in the last 2 decades have "shown us that all the 
other evidence the jury relied on in those cases was wrong. And in case after 
case after case, prosecutors and judges had said it doesn't matter because 
there is overwhelming evidence of guilt."

Gayle was a Post-Dispatch reporter from 1981 to 1992. She left the paper to do 
volunteer social work with children and the poor. The 47 men Missouri has 
executed since 2000

(source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

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

Prosecutor says no chance condemned is innocent



St. Louis County's prosecutor says there is "zero possibility" that an inmate 
who is scheduled to die is innocent of the fatal stabbing that put him on death 
row.

Marcellus Williams is due to be executed at 6 p.m. Tuesday for fatally stabbing 
former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Lisha Gayle during a 1998 robbery at 
her home in University City, a St. Louis suburb.

Williams' attorneys cite DNA evidence on the murder weapon that matches another 
unknown man, but not Williams. But St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch 
says the DNA tests were simply inconclusive.

McCulloch says there is ample other evidence that Williams committed the crime.

Williams would be the 2nd man executed in Missouri this year.

(source: therepublic.com)