[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., OKLA., KAN., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 6



ALABAMA:

Alabama's judicial override system must end


Lost in a flurry of other news from Washington D.C., the Supreme Court last 
Monday refused to hear a case challenging the constitutionality of Alabama's 
capital punishment scheme. Judges in Alabama are legally able to override jury 
recommendations for life without parole and choose to sentence defendants to 
death instead. This makes Alabama once again the lone holdout in a legal battle 
the rest of the country has already settled. Florida and Delaware, the other 2 
states that have had judicial override in recent memory, had their laws 
declared unconstitutional in January and August of 2016, respectively.

Capital punishment is a contentious issue, but not allowing a judge to actively 
go against a jury's recommendation of mercy should not be. The U.S. Supreme 
Court agreed when they ruled that Florida's version of judicial override 
violated the Sixth Amendment, citing a requirement that a jury, not a judge, 
must find the facts necessary to impose the death penalty. Although the 
procedural elements of judicial override in Alabama differ from Florida's 
former scheme, the relevant considerations for unconstitutionality apply to 
both. The Supreme Court has yet to hear a case challenging the capital 
sentencing structure in Alabama, though there are currently several before it.

In addition to most likely being unconstitutional, judicial override presents 
clear ethical problems. The law essentially provides judges with total 
discretion on when it can be used, with the only requirement being that the 
judge must assign the jury's recommendation "weight" before reaching a 
decision. The nature of the system easily allows for considerations other than 
justice to come into play. Trial and appellate court judges are elected in 
Alabama, which creates a potential incentive for judges to override jury 
recommendations so as not to appear "soft on crime." Claud Neilson, former 
candidate for the Alabama Supreme Court, had an ad featuring the message that 
he'd "looked into the eyes of murderers and sentenced them to death." The idea 
that a judge's record of sending people to die could garner support from voters 
is exactly why judges should not be able to ignore a jury's decision and send 
someone to death row. In fairness, Neilson has never used judicial override.

Historically, around 10 % of homicide cases in Alabama that have black 
defendants have had white victims. That leaves between 80 and 90 % of cases 
where the defendant was black that the victim also was. According to the Equal 
Justice Initiative, cases with black defendants and white victims account for 
about 30 % of judicial overrides, while cases where both the defendant and 
victim are black account for only around 20 p%. The proportional disparity 
implies that judges put more weight towards overriding life sentences for black 
defendants when their victims are white. There is no reason to believe that 
crimes committed by black people against white victims are any more heinous or 
violent than those with different racial breakdowns. This imbalance is clear 
racial bias, and it furthers the argument for judicial override to be deemed 
unconstitutional and repealed.

There is no compelling reason to maintain the practice of judicial override. 
All other states have either willfully stricken it from their law books or 
never had it instituted at all. Alabama has shown a stubborn willingness to be 
the last bastion for bad laws throughout its history. Unfortunately we should 
not expect that the drawn-out death of this issue will be any different than 
the ones that fell before.

There are currently 183 people waiting to die in Alabama after the execution of 
Ronald Smith, whose jury recommended life without parole, in December.

(source: Opinion; Mason Estevez is a junior majoring in economics and 
journalism----The (Univ. Ala.) Crimson White)






OKLAHOMA:

Ohio judge's ruling places execution drug back in headlines


In Ohio, an execution once scheduled for Feb. 15 is no longer on the calendar. 
A federal judge ruled recently that the state's new 3-drug process is 
unconstitutional, and he took particular issue with a drug familiar to Oklahoma 
officials.

Magistrate Judge Michael Merz agreed with the attorneys for 3 death row inmates 
that it wasn't certain the sedative midazolam wouldn't cause "substantial risk 
of serious harm," which is the bar the U.S. Supreme Court set in a 2008 case 
from Kentucky.

Midazolam was the focus of a legal challenge in Oklahoma brought in 2015. 
Attorneys for Richard Eugene Glossip, John M. Grant, Benjamin Robert Cole and 
others objected to the sedative's use in a case that went to the U.S. Supreme 
Court. There, justices sided with the state and rejected arguments that using 
midazolam could lead to an unconstitutional level of pain.

The ruling meant Oklahoma could resume executions, which had been on hold 
pending the outcome of that case. But no one has been executed here since 
Charles Warner in January 2015, due not only to legal challenges, but also 
concerns about the state's protocol and its ability to get the necessary drugs.

Ohio now finds itself in a similar situation. Merz not only nixed the state's 
ability to use midazolam, but also barred Ohio from using the other 2 drugs it 
had been using. Instead, he said the state should look to use a compounded 
version of the barbiturate pentobarbital.

Oklahoma would prefer to use pentobarbital, but like Ohio and other states has 
been unable to obtain it because manufacturers have stopped supplying it for 
executions. That has led officials to look for other drugs, some of which have 
been problematic. In the Warner execution, for example, it was learned several 
months after the fact that the wrong third drug had been used.

Oklahoma now has 48 inmates on death row, 13 of whom have exhausted their 
appeals and will be eligible for execution dates when the state resumes lethal 
injections. The unknown is when that might occur - a moratorium in place since 
late 2015 won't be lifted until all federal and state investigations into the 
state's death penalty are finished, and changes to state execution protocol are 
completed and ready to be implemented by the Department of Corrections.

Oklahoma's isn't the only death chamber getting little use. In a story last 
week, The Associated Press highlighted 10 active death penalty states - in 7 of 
those, no executions are scheduled. Ohio has enough drugs on hand to carry out 
4 executions, but the magistrate's Jan. 26 ruling has erected a roadblock.

It will be interesting to see how quickly Oklahoma is able to ramp up once its 
revamped protocol is approved. The state carried out zero executions in 2016, 
the 1st time that has happened since 1994. Might Oklahoma go 2 consecutive 
years without an execution? If so that would be notable, but perhaps not 
terribly surprising given today's climate.

(source: The Oklahoman Editorial Board)






KANSAS:

Death penalty bill to get hearing


5 years ago, when the Kansas House Corrections and Juvenile Justice Committee 
conducted a hearing on a bill that would end the death penalty, Steven Becker 
was a retired judge testifying along with other death penalty opponents.

On Monday, Feb. 13, House Corrections and Juvenile Justice will conduct a 
hearing at 1:30 p.m. in the State Capitol on a bill to abolish the death 
penalty. Rep. Becker, R-Buhler, is the principal figure behind the bill.

"I don't think I'll be testifying at the hearing," Becker said Friday. He sits 
on Corrections and Juvenile Justice, as do some other bill co-sponsors.

The hearing could draw a number of people offering testimony, including 
victims' family members, law enforcement and prosecutors, church leaders, and 
advocacy groups, such as the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

In recent years, legislative attempts to eliminate the death penalty have been 
thwarted when bills landed in a committee and no hearing occurred. "That was my 
decision to schedule a hearing," said Corrections and Juvenile Justice 
Committee Chairman J. Russell Jennings, R-Lakin.

House Bill 2167 has 15 sponsors. Besides Becker, other legislators from the 
region putting their name on the bill include Reps. Tory Marie Arnberger, 
R-Great Bend; Eber Phelps, D-Hays; Tim Hodge, D-North Newton; Susan Concannon, 
R-Beloit; and Diana Dierks, R-Salina.

The legislation would establish the crime of aggravated murder with sentencing 
of imprisonment for life without the possibility of parole. It would not change 
current death sentences.

Kansas has not carried out the death sentence since that penalty was restored 
over 20 years ago.

(source: Hutchinson News)






USA:

A Wiser Generation of Prosecutors


The newly elected district attorney in Denver, Beth McCann, announced last 
month that her office would no longer seek the death penalty. "I don't think 
that the state should be in the business of killing people," she said.

In Harris County, Tex., which includes Houston and has long been one of the 
most execution-friendly counties in America, the new district attorney, Kim 
Ogg, said there would be "very few death penalty prosecutions" under her 
administration.

In January, the Democratic attorney general in Washington State, Bob Ferguson, 
proposed a bill that would ban the death penalty there. The bill is supported 
by the governor, Jay Inslee, a bipartisan group of legislators and, notably, by 
Mr. Ferguson's Republican predecessor.

These women and men are at the forefront of a new generation of local and state 
law-enforcement officials, most elected in 2015 and 2016, who are working to 
change the national conversation about the proper role of the prosecutor - one 
of the most powerful yet least understood jobs in the justice system.

Just a few years ago, it was political suicide for a district attorney almost 
anywhere to profess anything less than total allegiance to the death penalty, 
or to seeking the harshest punishments available in every case.

Times are changing. As capital punishment's many flaws have become impossible 
to ignore, its use has dwindled. The number of new death sentences and 
executions continues to drop - only 30 people were sentenced to death 
nationwide in 2016, and 20 were executed. Prosecutors aren't just seeking fewer 
death sentences; they're openly turning against the practice, even in places 
where it has traditionally been favored.

Reformist prosecutors are also changing how they handle non-capital offenses, 
which make up the vast majority of prosecutions. Kim Foxx, the new state's 
attorney in Cook County, Ill., which includes Chicago, ordered her prosecutors 
in December not to bring felony charges in shoplifting cases involving less 
than $1,000 of goods, which is the vast majority of cases. The idea is to keep 
more nonviolent offenders, many of whom are homeless, drug addicted or mentally 
ill, out of jail and steer them into treatment programs where they will be less 
likely to re-offend.

Prosecutors like these are especially important today. Donald Trump's blunt, 
hysterical "law and order" campaign distorted the reality of crime in America - 
invoking an apocalyptic hellscape when in fact crime remains at historic lows. 
Now that Mr. Trump is president, his dark vision is likely to be implemented on 
the federal level by his pick for attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who as a 
senator has fought almost all efforts at justice reform.

In these circumstances, the best chance for continued reform lies with state 
and local prosecutors who are open to rethinking how they do their enormously 
influential jobs.

(source: Editorial New York times)