[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MD., FLA., ALA., MISS.

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 21




MARYLAND:

Bill Introduced To Reinstate Death Penalty In Maryland


There is new push to reinstate the death penalty in Maryland, but only under 
certain circumstances.

Anne Arundel County Delegate Michael Malone is introducing House Bill 881.

It would reinstate executions for convictions in the murders of a 1st 
responder, corrections officer, or a police officer.

In the last 7 years, at least 21 Maryland law enforcement officers have been 
killed in the line of duty.

Maryland abolished the death penalty in 2013.

If the bill becomes law, a new death chamber would need be be built and new 
protocols would have to be put into place.

(source: WJZ news)

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

House Judiciary to debate death penalty, sexual assault, police surveillance


Bills to reinstate the death penalty, allow evidence of past sexual assault and 
form a commission to oversee police surveillance technology are all slated for 
a hearing in the Maryland General Assembly on Tuesday afternoon.

The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hear 23 bills at 1 p.m.

Death penalty

House Bill 881, sponsored by Del. Michael E. Malone, R-Anne Arundel, would 
reinstate the death penalty - which was repealed in 2013 - for a person 
convicted of 1st-degree murder of a law enforcement officer, correctional 
officer or first responder. The bill is co-sponsored by multiple Republican 
delegates.

The fiscal and policy note for the bill estimates a "significant increase in 
general fund expenditures" for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional 
Services because the state's death chamber was decommissioned and there are no 
protocols in place anymore.

House Bill 1152, sponsored by Del. Barrie S. Ciliberti, R-Carroll and 
Frederick, proposes a task force to examine the resinstatement of the death 
penalty with a report date of Dec. 1, 2018.

(source: thedailyrecord.com)






FLORIDA:

High court says Florida prosecutors can seek death penalty despite 
questions----Justices say death penalty can stand if jury recommendation is 
unanimous

Florida prosecutors can seek the death penalty in ongoing cases despite a state 
Supreme Court ruling that found a new death penalty law unconstitutional.

The high court ruled Monday that the death penalty can be applied as long as 
there is a unanimous jury recommendation.

The court ruled last October that a new state law requiring at least a 10-2 
jury recommendation is unconstitutional, but Monday it said other aspects of 
the law are constitutional and prosecutors can proceed in capital punishment 
cases.

Prosecutors had been in limbo wondering whether the death penalty could be 
applied. Attorney General Pam Bondi asked the court to clarify.

The court released an opinion last month saying the death penalty couldn't be 
applied in pending cases, but then withdrew the opinion hours later.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Retrial of former Jabil executive facing death penalty can move forward, 
Florida Supreme Court rules The Florida Supreme Court ruled Monday that the 
retrial of a former Jabil executive charged with killing his estranged wife and 
her friend can move forward.

Patrick Evans' case came to a halt last year after the state's highest court 
ruled that only unanimous juries can sentence defendants to death and that the 
current law requiring a 10-2 jury vote for the death penalty can't be applied 
to pending trials.

Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Joseph Bulone ruled in October that the trial 
could go forward as long as jurors were told that, if Evans was convicted of 
the murders, all 12 of them must vote unanimously to send Evans to death row.

Evans' attorneys from the Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender's Office disagreed and 
filed an emergency petition with the Florida Supreme Court.

"It is not a court's job to write the law," the petition reads. "There cannot 
be a fair trial when there is not a constitutional law in place to follow."

In the opinion released Monday, the justices explained that even though the 
current death penalty statute needs to be revised, most of the law "can be 
construed constitutionally and otherwise be validly applied to pending 
prosecutions" as long as the jury unanimously finds the defendant can be 
sentenced to death.

In a separate ruling, the state court said a motion seeking clarification on 
the authority of trial courts to apply the current law to pending prosecutions 
was "denied as moot" and referred to their opinion in the Evans case.

"This decision provides our courts with the clarification needed to proceed 
with murder cases in which the death penalty is sought," Attorney General Pam 
Bondi said in a statement Monday.

Last month, the court rescinded an opinion in the Perry vs. Florida case after 
it accidentally published an order that said prosecutors could not seek death 
sentences under the current law.

The State Legislature is expected to pass a new statute this session.

5 justices concurred with Monday's Evans opinion. Chief Justice Jorge Labarga 
wrote that the "unconstitutional portion" of the current law that requires a 
10-2 vote can be "separated from the rest" of the statute.

2 justices dissented in part. Although Justice Barbara J. Pariente agreed that 
the trial phase of a death penalty case could move forward, she disagrees with 
having sentences imposed without a revised law. Justice Peggy A. Quince 
concurred.

"What remains uncertain is whether additional appellate issues will be created 
by penalty phase proceedings conducted without benefit of a new statute," 
Pariente wrote.

Before his arrest, Evans was a Jabil vice president earning a 6-figure salary 
and was married to Elizabeth Evans, a sales director. She later filed for 
divorce. On Dec. 20, 2008, she went on a date with a co-worker, Gerald Taylor. 
Later that day, authorities said, Evans confronted them inside her Gulfport 
condo and shot them dead.

In 2011, a jury convicted him on 2 counts of 1st-degree murder. The next year, 
a circuit judge sentenced him to death.

But in November 2015, the Florida Supreme Court overturned his conviction, 
citing errors in a detective's testimony and criticizing a prosecutor's 
remarks.

A hearing to set a new trial date is scheduled for this morning.

(source: Tampa Bay Times)

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

Jacksonville woman plans to travel to Tallahassee to fight new court ruling on 
death penalty


Florida prosecutors can now seek the death penalty despite questions about the 
constitutionality of the law.

Monday's ruling from the Florida Supreme Court ruled the death penalty can be 
applied as long the jury is unanimous.

A Jacksonville mom said she is heading to Tallahassee to speak to legislators 
this week.

Darlene Farah's daughter Shelby was robbed and killed in 2013.

She's been fighting against the death penalty for her daughter's accused 
killer.

"Shelby was robbed and killed 3 years and 7 months ago today, and probably 
about a couple weeks after -- maybe a week and a half after -- a grand jury 
indicted for the death penalty," Farah said. "I have been fighting since then."

Under the previous law, a judge had the power to impose the death penalty.

The state previously legislated there had to be at least a 10-2 jury 
recommendation.

Under the new legislation, someone can be put to death only if all jurors 
agree.

Farah feels it's important for people to hear about her daughter's case because 
many don't understand the long, grueling process families must go though.

"A lot of them don't even realize it takes 20 to 30 years before anybody even 
gets executed," Farah said. "And a lot of people don't know they are 
automatically granted appeals."

She said every time she walks into the court room and looks at her daughter's 
accused killer, it takes the life out of her.

Farah will be in Tallahassee possibly until Thursday. She plans to speak at a 
press conference with several church leaders and then speaking at two different 
hearings.

(source: actionnewsjax.com)






ALABAMA:

Support common sense reform of Alabama's death penalty process


Over 10 years ago, I joined a team of legal experts brought together by the 
American Bar Association to review Alabama's use of the death penalty. Our team 
included a prosecutor, 2 criminal defense attorneys, a State Senator, a law 
professor, a law professor who is a former federal magistrate judge, and a 
retired Associate Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. Some were death penalty 
supporters, others opponents. But we weren't brought together to debate the 
effectiveness or morality of the death penalty. Our mandate was more basic - 
does Alabama's death penalty process ensure fair and accurate outcomes? Our 
conclusion - it did not.

The ABA's final report on Alabama's death penalty process, released in 2006, 
included 6 key recommendations for reform. In the view of our team, until those 
recommendations were implemented Alabama ran the risk of making a fatal error.

This legislative session, one of those recommendations - requiring all death 
sentences to be based on a unanimous jury vote - is before our state lawmakers. 
I urge them all to support this common sense reform.

Currently, Alabama is the only state in the nation in which a judge can 
sentence a person to death even if the jury votes for life without parole. Even 
when other states permitted judicial override, Alabama stood out for its high 
use of the practice. As I and a group of 100 other lawyers and law professors 
from around Alabama wrote last December, "[a]s of late 2013, Alabama judges 
were responsible for 26 of the 27 instances since 2000 in which a judge in any 
state has overridden a jury's advisory sentencing verdict of life without 
parole."

Judicial override increases the likelihood of an arbitrary and unreliable death 
sentence. As we wrote in 2006, "[j]udge override diminishes jurors' sense of 
responsibility for the enormous life and death decision they must make, and 
results in jurors paying less attention to jury instructions and deliberating 
for less time. All of this can result in unfairness and inaccuracy."

When a juror votes for life without parole, they may feel confident enough to 
convict the defendant, but not confident enough to support execution. This 
uncertainty, referred to as "residual doubt," suggests that when a juror votes 
for life without parole, the case may involve weaker evidence, and thus a 
higher chance that the defendant is actually innocent. And, the evidence from 
Alabama supports this. While judicial override cases accounted for 50 % of 
those wrongfully convicted and freed from Alabama's death row between 1981 and 
2015, they accounted for less than 25 % of all death sentences.

We also live in a state where judges are elected by popular vote. This places 
political pressure on judges, particularly in election years, to show that they 
are tough on crime, and judicial override provides an easy way for a judge to 
prove it. The real world impact of this pressure is clear. As the Equal Justice 
Initiative found, "[t]the proportion of death sentences imposed by override 
often is elevated in election years." In a system that relies on elected 
judges, it may not be possible to remove politics from all sentencing 
decisions. But, death is different - it is absolute. Judicial override is both 
unfair to judges and contrary to the fair administration of justice. The time 
to end this practice has come.

Alabama is also 1 of just 4 states that doesn't require a jury to be unanimous 
in its sentence recommendation to the judge. Juries are already structurally 
biased toward a death sentence because citizens who oppose the death penalty 
are excluded from the jury. By requiring a jury to come to a unanimous decision 
to impose a death sentence, research shows that jurors are more likely to focus 
on the evidence, which results in a more accurate outcome. The legislature 
should require this.

Our legislators should not wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to order this 
change. While the Court previously upheld Alabama's death penalty sentencing 
process in 1995, its death penalty related case law has shifted dramatically in 
the past 22 years. Since that time, the Court has shielded juveniles and the 
intellectually disabled from facing execution. It also, just last year, ruled 
that Florida's sentencing process was unconstitutional. At the time, Florida's 
process was very similar to Alabama's. And, last year, the Court remanded four 
Alabama cases to be reviewed by the appellate court in light of that decision.

Some have argued that Alabama's current process is constitutional based on a 
Supreme Court decision from 22 years ago. Recent history highlights a flaw in 
their logic, as Florida's taxpayers learned the hard way. Like in Alabama, the 
Court had previously found Florida's sentencing process to be constitutional. 
But, as the Court stated last year, "[t]ime and subsequent cases had washed 
away the logic of [the cases upholding Florida's sentencing process]." The same 
fate likely awaits Alabama's current sentencing process. By acting now, the 
legislature could spare Alabama taxpayers the costs associated with future 
litigation and resentencing hearings.

Arbitrary and unreliable are 2 words that should never be associated with the 
death penalty. By supporting common sense legislation - ending the practice of 
judicial override and requiring a unanimous vote by a jury - Alabama lawmakers 
will make our death penalty process more fair and accurate. Regardless of one's 
position on the death penalty, that is a goal which we all can agree.

(source: Opinion: William N. Clark, a partner at Redden, Mills, Clark, and 
Shaw, LLP in Birmingham, who served as a member of the American Bar 
Association's Alabama Death Penalty Assessment Team. Mr. Clark is also the past 
President of both the Birmingham Bar Association and the Alabama State Bar 
Association, and served on the recent Alabama Task Force on Prison 
Reform----al.com)






MISSISSIPPI:

Law students review death row conditions


Students from the MacArthur Justice Center revisited Mississippi State 
Penitentiary, or Parchman Farm, this month as a part of their 2-year initiative 
to improve living conditions for Mississippi death row inmates.

Assistant Director of the MacArthur Center Cliff Johnson escorted his students 
to Parchman earlier this month. He has worked with students to improve death 
row living conditions since 2015, when the MacArthur Center won a lawsuit 
against the state regarding inmate treatment.

"23 hours a day they are locked in individual cells," Johnson said. "1 hour a 
day they're permitted to go to what's called 'the yard.'"

The MacArthur Center monitors many aspects of the prison to judge death row 
prisoners' living conditions. Law students keep track of issues ranging from 
leaking cells, inmate healthcare, insect infestations, disciplinary proceedings 
and proper nutrition. The state of Mississippi is required by law to address 
all of these concerns.

UM law student Kyla Brown said before visiting Parchman she was convinced these 
inmates deserved their sentences and poor living-conditions. Then she said, she 
sat down with an inmate.

"When you get in there you can see and feel the human attributes, they're not 
just people who did horrible things and made a bad choice," Brown said. 
"They're still humans who deserve to be under reasonable conditions."

She said she met an inmate who grew up in a troubled home. She said as a child, 
the man told her he lived in a roach-infested apartment without much help.

"Before, I had such a different view, I was so scared," Brown said. "Then when 
I left all I could feel was empathy and sympathy. I was so sad about their 
circumstances."

The kitchen in the Mississippi State Penitentiary's death row division is 
currently out of service while undergoing construction and renovations.

"They are bringing in food from a distance, [which is] temporarily making the 
portion size smaller and the food is being served cold," said Johnson.

MacArthur Center students gather inside information from the death row inmates 
themselves. The state legally allows these inmates to talk with students about 
whether or not their basic human rights are being met in the facility.

Last June, Prison Legal News reported 18 inmate deaths in a little over 6 
months at the Mississippi State Penitentiary. 5 of these prisoners had 
pre-existing medical issues.

The American Civil Liberties Union sponsors the National Prison Project to 
ensure acceptable living conditions for prisoners across the country. The 
Mississippi ACLU has separately cited "urgent problems" in the state's prison 
system, and highlighted poor treatment of mentally ill prisoners.

Students at the MacArthur Center also have the goal of improving prison life 
for inmates suffering from mental illness.

"[The MacArthur Center is] concerned with the effects of solitary confinement 
for such an extended period of time, making sure people are getting the mental 
health care and medical treatment they need," Johnson said.

Law student Josh Horton said he began studying law following his own arrest and 
still feels anxious inside a prison.

"The visit left me with more questions than answers," Horton said. "Anyone who 
says those guys have it easy are sadly mistaken and have never been behind the 
walls."

Pew Research Center reported 49 % of Americans favor the death penalty for 
persons convicted of murder. Last September, Pew also reported national 
opposition to the death penalty is at its highest since 1972. Mississippi 
legislators have been engaged in debate surrounding the death penalty since 
last year.

HB 638 recently passed through the Mississippi House of Representatives as a 
response to legislation some lawmakers feel could improperly remove 
Mississippi's death penalty by restricting certain lethal injection drugs. If 
passed by the Senate, the bill would allow the state to execute prisoners by 
firing squad, electrocution, nitrogen hypoxia or lethal injection. This will 
reopen the discussion for alternative euthanization methods for inmates on 
death row.

"So, whatever you think about the death penalty, the issue here is about the 
humanity about how we treat people when they're incarcerated and paying the 
price that they have to pay," Johnson said. "I think that's the place where we 
can find agreement."

(source: thedmonline.com)