[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.H., COLO., WYO.

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 20




NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Don't expand death penalty


The New Hampshire Legislature is considering a bill to make the murder of a 
child a capital offense subject to the death penalty (HB 351). As a mother, 
grandmother and retired teacher who abhors the thought of any violence 
perpetrated on a child, I strongly oppose this bill.

Every time we increase the number of people who can be sentenced to death, we 
also increase the likelihood that an innocent person will be executed. Since 
1973, more than 140 Americans convicted in a court of law and sentenced to 
death have been exonerated and released, based on information discovered while 
they were languishing on death row. Tragically, when exonerating evidence comes 
to light after a wrongly convicted person has already been executed, there is 
no way to correct the injustice.

Cases of exoneration reveal what we all know to be true: any system designed 
and implemented by humans will inevitably involve some human error. Unreliable 
eye-witness testimony, racial bias, faulty forensic analysis and other problems 
have, time and again, led to the conviction of innocent persons. Cases 
involving the death of a child are particularly vulnerable to such errors, 
because of the intense pressure for swift justice.

It's difficult to imagine a horror worse than the murder of a child. However, a 
sentence of life imprisonment adequately punishes those found guilty of such a 
heinous crime, while ensuring that we never add to the horror by executing an 
innocent person.

Please urge your representative to oppose HB 351.

MARY WILKE ---- Concord

(source: Letter to the Editor, Concord Monitor)






COLORADO:

'Murder for fun' zones


Boulder DA Stan Garnett's guest commentary ("Time for Colorado to repeal the 
death penalty," Daily Camera, Feb. 15) sets up 3 straw men in the form of other 
DA opinions on the death penalty that Stan refutes easily, since the other 
Colorado DAs do not share his liberal wisdom. Stan does not mention the huge 
hole in the argument for abolishing the death penalty, namely that our Colorado 
prisons would then become "murder for fun" zones in which prison guards and 
non-violent prisoners would be at huge risk of their lives. In fact, the Denver 
Post on Feb. 15 describes a prisoner allegedly killing his cell-mate in a 
10-minute-long beating episode - and this is with the death penalty still 
active!

Since liberal death penalty opponents will never compromise with their 
intellectually inferior opponents, this hole in their idea is not likely to be 
repaired.

Stan concludes his article with the assertion that "Colorado has a very fair 
and effective justice system." Apparently he has already forgotten the barbaric 
treatment in 2015 of Longmont resident Monty Turner, who was sentenced to 36 
years in prison for a non-injury child abduction case - 9 times the 
legislature's recommended sentence for the crime. Turner made the mistake of 
helping the Boulder DA's office embarrass itself in a previous child custody 
related episode. On the other hand, Stan was lenient with Turner's 72-year-old 
father, who drove the car in the custody dispute abduction - he got only 25 
years! Note that most murderers in Colorado are punished less severely than 
Monty Turner was.

Instead of fooling with the death penalty, the 2017 legislature should work to 
outlaw the practice by Colorado DAs of over-charging accused citizens by piling 
on essentially identical charges for a single crime.

John O'Neill

Boulder

(source: Letter to the Editor, Boulder Daily Camera)






WYOMING:

Wyoming kills death penalty repeal


The bill to repeal Wyoming's Death Penalty is no longer being taken under 
consideration in the Legislature's House.

House Bill 240 (HB 240), sponsored by Representative Marti Halverson proposed a 
complete repeal of Wyoming's death penalty law.

"I'm pretty adamantly opposed to the death penalty, so I thought that this 
[House Bill 240] was great." UW Professor of Philosophy Edward Sherline said.

According to the Wyoming Constitution, a person convicted of murder in the 1st 
degree can be punished by death, life imprisonment without parole or life 
imprisonment, with the exception of persons under the age of 18, who will not 
be given the death penalty. The present form of execution in Wyoming is death 
by lethal injection.

Representative Mark Baker, co-sponsor of HB 240, said that as of Feb. 15, the 
bill did not meet the cut-off date and is indefinitely postponed for the 
session.

Sherline said the death penalty has not had a significant impact on Wyoming, 
however, he still opposes it. The last person to be executed in Wyoming was 
Mark Hopkinson in 1992 and the last person sentenced to death row was Dale 
Wayne Eaton in 2004.

Since 2014 Judge Alan B. Johnson has overturned Eaton's sentencing on the 
grounds that Eaton received poor representation, which was due to the Wyoming 
Public Defender's office's lack of funding. At this time no one is on death row 
in Wyoming or being tried for the death penalty, according to the Death Penatly 
Information Center's website.

"I wouldn't have cared otherwise, how would it affect me?" Brian Halsey, a 
Political Sicence and History student at UW said. "It [the death penalty] 
doesn't dictate my everyday life so why should I worry about it? In Wyoming it 
is okay because it won't really be used in a state with a population of 
500,000."

A bill was considered in the 2015 session to replace the state's back up method 
of execution. The bill would have replaced the gas chamber with a firing squad 
as an alternative in the event that lethal injection is not available.

A bill to eliminate the death penalty will not be considered this year, 
however, this may still be a step in that direction.

"Maybe this is just the 1st step in the door." Sherline said.

(source: The (Univ. Wyo.) Branding Iron)