[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CONN., S.C., FLA., OHIO, KAN., N.MEX., UTAH, IDAHO

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 13



CONNECTICUT:

3 Connecticut lawmakers call for restoring the death penalty


As many states move toward eliminating the death penalty, 3 Connecticut 
lawmakers are trying to bring it back in the Constitution State.

Republican Reps. Robert Sampson, Kurt Vail and Kevin Skulczyck have proposed 
separate bills that would reinstate capital punishment, which was abolished by 
the state Supreme Court in 2015. In a sharply divided 4-3 decision, the 
majority opinion said the death penalty "no longer comports with contemporary 
standards of decency and no longer serves any legitimate penological purpose."

Sampson disagrees. He has proposed bringing bring back the death penalty each 
year since 2012, when lawmakers and the governor approved eliminating capital 
punishment, but only for future crimes. That law was ruled unconstitutional by 
the 2015 Supreme Court decision, which said it must apply to all death row 
inmates.

"I believe that it's a mechanism to deter crime and there are crimes so heinous 
they deserve the death penalty," Sampson said.

Sampson cited the 2007 home invasion murders in Cheshire, where 2 paroled 
burglars killed a woman and her 2 daughters after terrorizing the family for 
hours. Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her daughters, 11-year-old Michaela and 
17-year-old Hayley, died. Hawke-Petit's husband, Dr. William Petit, was badly 
wounded but survived. The 2 killers were sentenced to death, but the sentences 
were changed to life in prison without release after the Supreme Court 
decision.

Petit, a Republican, was elected to the state House of Representatives in 
November and has criticized the repeal of the state's death penalty. But he has 
said he has no plans to join any efforts to reinstate capital punishment.

Skulczyck, of Griswold, said he supports using capital punishment for "the most 
serious murder offenses."

"A lawless society inspires a lack of respect for authority and devalues human 
life," he said in a statement.

Vail did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Sampson said that while he doesn't expect his bill to pass, he is emboldened 
because Republicans won enough state Senate seats in November to create a tie 
with Democrats in the chamber - although Democratic Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman would 
break any tie. Democrats hold a slim majority in the House.

Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy would not sign any legislation reinstating 
capital punishment, spokesman Chris Collibee said.

"The governor has been very clear that he is opposed to the death penalty," 
Collibee said. "As people do begin to consider this piece of legislation, we 
think it is wise to remember the decision issued by the state Supreme Court on 
this very issue."

Legislation in at least 4 other states would either restore or expand the death 
penalty: New Jersey, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and New Mexico, according to 
the legislation tracking service LegiScan. Bills are pending in at least 8 
states seeking to abolish capital punishment: Colorado, Missouri, Alabama, 
Indiana, Washington, Arizona, Nebraska and Montana.

There is no death penalty in 19 states, while 31 states have capital 
punishment, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center. Of the 
31 states, 4 have moratoriums on their death penalty laws.

(source: Associated Press)






SOUTH CAROLINA:

Could SC prosecutor be rethinking death penalty trial for Dylann Roof?


Prosecutor Scarlett Wilson of Charleston said she is weighing various choices 
as she decides whether to pursue a state death penalty trial against convicted 
Charleston church killer Dylann Roof.

More than a year ago, she announced she was pursuing the death penalty against 
Roof, 22, a Columbia area, self-defined white supremacist.

But now that a federal jury has given Roof a death penalty sentence, is she 
changing her mind about pursuing the same thing in state court?

"I have been discussing the options with the victims and victims' families," 
said Wilson, 9th Judicial Circuit solicitor, in response to an email query from 
The State newspaper late last week.

Roof's court-appointed attorneys for the state trial, Ashley Pennington and 
Bill McGuire, have told presiding state Judge J.C. Nicholson that Roof is 
willing to plead guilty to murder charges in exchange for life in prison 
without parole. As of yet, Wilson has not accepted that standing offer.

Meanwhile, Charleston lawyer Andy Savage, who represents a number of Roof's 
victims' families, told The State his clients are in favor of allowing Roof to 
plead guilty to murder charges in state court in exchange for an ironclad 
agreement that he will never be paroled or be released from prison.

Savage said if Roof gets a life without parole sentence in state court, "he has 
agreed to waive any appellate rights except he may challenge the competence of 
his attorneys, a challenge that we believe would be unfounded. In return, he 
has asked that he be confined exclusively in a federal prison for the remainder 
of his life. That request is one we endorse."

Roof already said during his federal trial that he didn't trust his 
court-appointed legal team. But he has not filed a formal complaint. And 
although he has admitted the crime, on Friday he filed an appeal that could 
lead to the overturning of some of his federal convictions and the death 
sentence.

Should the federal conviction and sentence be overturned, a state plea deal or 
a state conviction would keep Roof in prison regardless.

Roof was found guilty in December of killing nine African-American parishioners 
at Emanuel AME Church in June 2015. The jury's death penalty decision in 
January came after a high-profile trial that took place amid high security over 
2 months.

Wilson said she's not necessarily in a hurry for a state trial. Nor is she 
delaying a decision.

"I am not operating on a deadline except that I understand the importance to 
the victims of having the state's cases resolved as expeditiously as possible," 
she said.

But she does have some questions she wants answered before she makes a 
decision.

3 choices, but questions about death

Although Wilson had announced she was seeking the death penalty in September 
2015, some 9 months elapsed before the federal government announced it would 
seek a federal death penalty.

After that, various scheduling and procedural matters in both state and federal 
court allowed federal prosecutors to leapfrog the state's death penalty 
timetable and go 1st.

Now, with the federal trial out of the way, Wilson has 3 basic options:

-- To proceed with a state death penalty trial at the Charleston County 
courthouse at a date to be set, but probably later this year. The courts have 
the final say-so in scheduling the trial.

-- To dismiss the existing state death penalty indictments against Roof, a 
process called nol pros, with an option to re-indict Roof anew in years to come 
on death penalty charges if, in the federal court system, he eventually is 
sentenced to life in prison.

-- To allow Roof to plead guilty in state court to the nine murders and settle 
for sentences of life without parole for each of the murders. No matter what 
happened to Roof in the federal system, he would always have a life without 
patrol sentence hanging over his head in the S.C. prison system.

But Wilson also said she is a "looking to discuss with the new (President 
Trump) administration in the Department of Justice their stance on the death 
penalty."

It has been 14 years since the federal government executed anyone. Since the 
federal death penalty law was enacted in 1988, only 3 people have been 
executed. In a filing in state court last summer, Wilson said she has "no 
confidence" the federal government would actually seek Roof's execution.

"While the prior Department of Justice (under President Obama) purportedly 
supported the death penalty," Wilson said, "their refusal to follow through 
with it (in other cases) was a concern of mine. I am hopeful that the new 
Department of Justice administration is more committed to carrying out the 
death penalty than the prior administration."

Wilson said she intends to speak with the Department of Justice once new 
Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his team are in place.

Wilson also said she is seeking information from the S.C. Department of 
Corrections regarding the status of the death penalty in South Carolina.

Is a death penalty really a death penalty?

South Carolina's last execution took place in 2011. There are about 40 inmates 
on the state's death row, including 4 who have been there since the 1980s.

Those cases are in various stages of appeal. If an S.C. inmate's execution date 
were to come due, the state would be unable to carry it out, says corrections 
director Bryan Stirling.

Some drugs used in lethal injections have failed to kill quickly and, many have 
argued, humanely. The subsequent lawsuits and publicity have made it impossible 
for the state to obtain the toxic drugs, Stirling said.

Although Wilson did not discuss other considerations that might make her lean 
toward a guilty plea, they no doubt include, 1st, the difficulty and 
time-consuming process of choosing an impartial Charleston County jury and, 
2nd, the emotional impact on victims' relatives of having another trial.

And, Wilson stressed, whatever she does, she must do nothing that would upset 
Roof's current conviction and death sentence.

"My ultimate goal is to make sure we do nothing to interfere with their 
(federal prosecutors') hard work and that our prosecution serves as a 
meaningful insurance policy for their trial success," Wilson said.

(source: thestate.com)






FLORIDA:

Attorneys for serial killer Walls in court on Monday


Attorneys representing Frank Walls, an Okaloosa County serial killer who has 
been on death row since 1988, will appear in court on Monday to schedule two 
motions on their client's behalf.

The lawyers are seeking to have Walls' death sentence reviewed because he 
didn't receive the jury consideration of "aggravating factors" that a 2016 
Florida Supreme Court ruling entitles him to, said Assistant State Attorney 
John Molchan, who will represent the First Judicial Circuit at the 9 a.m. 
hearing.

In reviewing the case of Hurst vs. Florida, the Supreme Court ruled that before 
a death penalty can be handed down a jury must agree unanimously that at least 
1 aggravating factor - possession of a weapon during commission of the capital 
crime, for instance - was present when the crime was committed.

The unanimous standard was not applied during Walls initial sentencing.

Molchan said when the motion citing the Hurst case is heard by Circuit Court 
Judge William Stone the state will present the argument that the Supreme Court 
decision does not apply retroactively past 2002.

"We have a lot of case law that says it's not retroactive," Molchan said.

Walls' attorneys' 2nd motion will state that an intellectual disability should 
prevent him from being put to death.

This motion follows a U.S. Supreme Court determination that Florida acted 
unconstitutionally by using a single "bright line" IQ score of 70 to determine 
whether a killer could be put to death.

That opened the door for death row inmates with IQ's slightly higher than 70 to 
present their case for intellectual disability, and the Florida Supreme Court 
determined last year that Walls deserved a hearing on the matter. On Jan. 9, it 
denied a state motion for reconsideration of the 2016 ruling.

Walls, a 1-time Ocean City resident who was sentenced to death in 1988 for 2 
murders and later confessed to 3 more, has been determined to have an IQ of 72.

Molchan said he would be surprised if Walls was in Okaloosa County for the 
Monday hearing, but he said he expects at some point he'll be brought back to 
the county for a court appearance.

State Attorney Bill Eddins has said he expects the state to prevail in both of 
the motions being scheduled Monday. These are the last motions Walls will be 
entitled to file before a death warrant is signed in his case, Eddins said.

(source: nwfdailynews.com)






OHIO:

Prosecutor may seek death penalty in Ohio State student's death


Franklin County Prosecutor files motion to pursue death penalty against the 
accused killer Golsby of murdering Ohio State student, Reagan Tokes.

The state has filed a motion to hold Brian Golsby without bond.

The Grove City Division of Police arrested the 29-year-old man after her body 
was found following her disappearance on Wednesday.

Golsby was also charged with aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, kidnapping 
and rape in connection with her homicide.

According to the Franklin County Prosecutor, those charges make the death 
penalty for Golsby eligible under the Ohio Constitution.

Golsby was scheduled to appear in court on Monday, February 13.

(source: 10tv.com)


KANSAS:

Kansas bill would compensate wrongfully convicted people $80K per year, $1M for 
death row


Legislation introduced in the Kansas Legislature would compensate wrongfully 
convicted people $80,000 for each year they served in prison and $1 million if 
they were on death row.

If it is signed into law, Senate Bill 125 would make Kansas - which currently 
doesn't have a wrongful conviction compensation law - one of the most generous 
states for exonerees. It will be discussed at a Senate Judiciary Committee 
hearing Tuesday.

"It is a very strong bill and we look forward to working with the committee on 
it," said Paul Cates, a spokesman for the Innocence Project.

To qualify for compensation, an exoneree must file a claim within 2 years of 
his or her release showing they were convicted of a felony under state law, 
served time in a Kansas prison, and were found to have not committed the crime. 
It would exclude defendants who pleaded guilty or pleaded no contest to the 
crime.

The Innocence Project would like to see that exemption removed. More than 10 
percent of those exonerated by DNA testing had previously pleaded guilty to 
crimes they didn???t commit, Cates said.

In addition to $80,000 per year served, exonerees would also receive the costs 
of their civil lawsuit, including attorney fees. All payments would come out of 
the state general fund.

Legislation introduced last year in the Kansas House offered dramatically 
smaller payouts for exonerees: the federal minimum wage multiplied by 2,080, or 
about $15,000 per year. That bill, House Bill 2611, died in the House Judiciary 
Committee. It was introduced by former Rep. Ramon Gonzalez, R-Perry.

The most high-profile exoneration in the state in recent years was that of 
Floyd Bledsoe, wrongfully convicted of killing Camille Arfmann in Oskloosa in 
1999. He was sentenced to life in prison but released in December 2015 after 
DNA results and suicide notes from his brother showcased his innocence.

Under the 2016 House bill, Bledsoe would have received $235,248. Under the 2017 
Senate bill, he would be eligible for $1,248,000. Bledsoe said he was impressed 
by the Senate bill and credited Gonzalez, a police chief and special 
investigator who reexamined his wrongful conviction, with laying the groundwork 
for it.

"In his defense, he just wanted to get something going. He said he didn't want 
($235,248) to be the number, he just wanted to get something going," Bledsoe 
said.

Tricia Bushnell, director of the Midwest Innocence Project and a former 
attorney for Bledsoe, said MIP supports the Senate bill.

"It provides fair compensation for the wrongfully convicted," she said.

SB 125 also would turn over $5 million to the heirs of anyone wrongfully 
executed in Kansas. It is highly unlikely that the provision will be necessary 
anytime soon; Kansas hasn't executed an inmate since 1965.

The federal government and 32 states have wrongful conviction compensation laws 
on the books. Kansas is one of the 18 that do not. The federal law, established 
in 2004, compensates exonerees $50,000 for each year spent in federal prison, 
plus up to $50,000 for each year spent on death row.

Texas, with its notorious tough-on-crime reputation, has the nation's most 
generous compensation law. It pays a lump sum of $80,000 per year served, along 
with lifetime annuity payments of $40,000 to $50,000 plus $25,000 for every 
year that someone was wrongfully registered as a sex offender. As of mid-2016, 
the state had paid $93 million to wrongfully convicted Texans.

In the absence of a compensation law, Kansas exonerees are still able to 
receive compensation through civil lawsuits. Eddie Lowery was exonerated in 
2003 after serving 9 years in prison for a rape and assault in Ogden that he 
didn't commit. 7 years later, he won a $7.5 million settlement from Riley 
County.

(source: cjonline.com)






NEW MEXICO:

Death penalty bill will be killed, and N.M. is better for it


Ron Keine, an innocent man who was sentenced to death in New Mexico because of 
bad cops and perjured testimony, won???t have to return to the state to testify 
against the bill to reinstate capital punishment.

Keine, an active Republican, stood ready to travel to New Mexico to try to 
reason with Republican legislators who want to revive the death penalty. Now he 
can save the airfare and stay at his home in suburban Detroit.

Every legislator knows that the surest bet in this year's session is that the 
death penalty bill will die.

The proposal, House Bill 72, was scheduled to be heard on a recent Saturday, 
when a big crowd would have turned out. But the sponsor postponed the hearing, 
delaying the inevitable. As soon as the death penalty bill is called, majority 
Democrats will kill it.

That's the wise decision. New Mexico is broke, barely able to provide money for 
ordinary jury trials.

Death penalty cases are the most expensive part of the judicial system. And 
states with capital punishment run the very real risk of executing innocent 
people unless they can provide an adequate defense fund.

Even murder cases that seem clear-cut can result in wrongful convictions. Keine 
knows this all too well.

He and 3 of his buddies were members of a motorcycle gang in the 1970s. They 
became convenient targets for lazy investigators and prosecutors who wanted to 
solve the high-profile murder of a university student in Bernalillo County. 
Those in power cut corners to get the convictions. And they were as wrong as 
they could be.

Keine and the other 3 defendants landed on death row. The state had to free 
them after 17 months when its case, built on lies, was exposed by a Detroit 
News investigation. Keine, 69, is the only 1 of the 4 who's still alive, a 
flesh-and-blood reminder of the danger in believing that every criminal 
investigation is done by the book.

Keine's wrongful conviction was one of many that caused me to oppose the death 
penalty. But there was a time, after a friend of mine, Ray Garcia, was murdered 
by a robber, that I wanted to see a death sentence carried out.

Ray, 26, was working the graveyard shift at the front desk of a hotel in 
Colorado. A female co-worker had needed the night off, so Ray filled in for 
her. He did favors for people all the time.

On that night in 1988, a gunman robbed the hotel. He forced Ray and the hotel's 
unarmed security guard onto the floor, then shot them in the head 
execution-style. Ray died instantly. Against all odds, the guard survived and 
later identified the killer. It was a crime that shocked a city, and it met 
every standard for a death penalty case.

Instead, the district attorney made a deal with the shooter, who pleaded guilty 
to 1st-degree murder in return for a life sentence.

Later, the man who killed Ray was charged with 2 more murders, both committed 
before the one at the hotel. The killer received the death penalty for 1 of 
them.

Ray's parents felt no better when the killer went to death row. Nothing would 
bring back their son. And the death sentence meant the killer's appeals would 
drag on.

Years rolled by, and his death sentence was overturned. He's serving 2 terms of 
life with the possibility of parole and one sentence of life without parole. 
The killer, Ronald Lee White, now 61, contracted hepatitis and is so shriveled 
that he no longer looks evil. He will die in prison.

Still, he's already outlived Ray by 29 years. Along with political posturing, 
the reason there's a call for the death penalty in New Mexico is because of 
criminals like White.

But the best evidence against the death penalty is Ron Keine. He and 155 other 
innocent people have walked off death rows since 1963, all of them grateful 
that truth finally set them free. Nobody knows how many other innocents still 
sit in prison or have been executed.

In New Mexico, where money is scarce, the chances of errors in death penalty 
cases would be greater than most places. The demise of the death penalty bill 
will be the best outcome for a system that's supposed to provide justice for 
all.

(source: santafenewmexican.com)






UTAH:

New poll shows large majority in Utah moving away from the death penalty


The Utah Justice Coalition is pleased to report the results of a new poll that 
shows the changing attitudes toward the death penalty by Utah residents.

The results show that 64-percent of Utahns who were polled favor alternatives 
to the death penalty for people convicted of murder.

The survey of 784 Utah voters by Public Policy Polling of Raleigh, North 
Carolina took place January 13-15. Respondents were asked this question; "Of 
the following list of choices, which punishment do you prefer for people 
convicted of murder?"

Here is how they responded:

9% Life in prison with no possibility of parole

47% Life in prison with no possibility of parole and a requirement to work in 
prison and pay restitution to the victims

8% life in prison with a possibility of parole after at least 40 years

29% The death penalty

6% not sure

"By giving people the full array of alternatives to the death penalty this poll 
was able to find out how people in Utah really feel," said Kevin Greene, 
Organizing Director of Utah Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, a 
project of the Utah Justice Coalition. "The death penalty is losing favor in 
our state because it wastes tax dollars, is ineffective in stopping violent 
crime, and risks possibly killing an innocent person, and none of those things 
align with our conservative principles."

(source: utahpolicy.com)






IDAHO----female may face death penalty

Bingham County woman accused of 1st-degree murder for weekend homicide; Melonie 
Smith could face death penalty


Bingham County authorities say they are investigating a weekend murder and have 
a suspect in custody.

Melonie D. Smith, 48, of Bingham County, has been arrested on a charge of 
1st-degree murder - the most severe homicide charge under Idaho criminal law. 
If convicted authorities said she could face the death penalty.

The Bingham County Sheriff's Office says the murder occurred Saturday and Smith 
was arrested and booked into Bingham County Jail early Sunday morning.

Authorities have confirmed that one person was killed but they have not yet 
provided any information on the cause of death or where in Bingham County the 
crime occurred. Authorities have not released the name of the victim or even 
provided the person's gender and age.

The Sheriff's Office is investigating the case with help from the Blackfoot 
police/Bingham County detective division.

The Sheriff's Office stated: "The location of the crime scene will not be 
released at this time. The detectives division is still in the early stages of 
the investigation so no further information will be released at this time."

(source: idahostatejournal.com)