[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.H., PENN., DEL., VA., S.C., FLA., ALA.

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 22



NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Still fighting the death penalty in NH


To the Editor:

Now is the time for all concerned citizens who are interested in abolishing the 
existing death penalty in New Hampshire to come to our aid. Almost 3 years ago, 
I started the Monadnock Concerned Citizens group to repeal and abolish the 
death penalty in New Hampshire. I'm now a member of the board of directors of 
the New Hampshire Coalition to abolish the death penalty, and the 2 groups 
haven't given up on our goal, but we are facing 3 major hurdles:

1. A new proposed bill, HB 351 expands the death penalty to anyone who causes 
the death of someone 18 years or younger.

2. The NHC is operating on a very small tight budget, and we need your 
financial help. Donations can be made to NHCADP, P.O. Box 632, Concord, NH 
03302.

3. The current governor, and the Senate majority are pro-death supporters.

The new governor and legislators will control repealing or adding new laws for 
the next two years. We must now kill HB 351 and you can help. Donate and call 
your representative to vote against the bill, if it comes to the floor.

I will continue to work with both groups, and keep you informed through radio 
and newspapers.

DALE PREGENT--Keene

(source: Letter to the Editor, Union Leader)






PENNSYLVANIA:

DA considering death penalty in double-homicide


The Lycoming County district attorney is considering seeking the death penalty 
against Jordan Rawls if he is convicted in a 2016 double-homicide case, 
according to the court administrator. A 2nd attorney will be hired for the 
defense.

Rawls, 24, of 1024 Race St., is 1 of 2 suspects charged in the Oct. 31 double 
homicide of Kristine Kibler, 50, and her son, Shane Wright, 25, in their home 
on Poplar Street in Newberry.

During their meeting Tuesday morning, the county commissioners considered 
hiring E. J. Rymsza, at $125 per hour, as a 2nd attorney in the defense of 
Rawls.

District Attorney Eric R. Linhardt confirmed he is considering seeking the 
death penalty, but he stressed a final decision has yet to be made.

"Mr. Rawls is potentially eligible for the death penalty because there are 
multiple victims and because the murders occurred during the course of a 
robbery," Linhardt said. "There are 2 penalties available to us: Life without 
parole or death."

By law, 2 attorneys must be hired for a death-penalty case, according to J. 
David Smith, county solicitor.

Adrianne Stahl, court administrator, said Rymsza will attempt to find 
mitigating evidence in the case in an effort to convince Linhardt not to pursue 
the death penalty.

The estimated cost for attorney fees in a death-penalty case could run at least 
$200,000, not including other court costs, said Stahl. If Linhardt decides not 
to pursue the death penalty, the attorney fees would be roughly $50,000, she 
said.

Linhardt said the cost of prosecution is only one of many factors considered.

"Ultimately, the most important factor is whether we conclude that of the 
penalties available, Mr. Rawls most deserves death," Linhardt said.

Ronald Travis, also at $125 per hour, was the 1st attorney hired to handle the 
case. Stahl said if Rymsza is able to find enough evidence to convince Linhardt 
not to pursue the death penalty, then his contract will end and Travis will 
remain the sole attorney.

"2 heads are better than 1," Stahl said. She said hiring Rymsza could "save 
someone's life and the county lots of money."

"Spending a little bit now could save the county a lot of money down the road," 
Commissioner Rick Mirabito agreed.

The commissioners will vote to approve the agreement with Rymsza during their 
Thursday meeting.

(source: sungazette.com)






DELAWARE:

Dover man on death row resentenced to life in prison


A Dover man on death row for 1st-degree murder has had his death sentence 
vacated, officials from the Delaware Department of Justice confirmed Tuesday.

Juan J. Ortiz, who had been on death row since 2003, is now sentenced to 
mandatory life in prison without benefit of probation or parole.

Ortiz had been convicted of 1st-degree murder for the 2001 shooting death of 
his live-in girlfriend Deborah Clay.

Court documents in that case show Ortiz had shot his girlfriend with a 12 gauge 
shotgun while she was taking a shower and then set their mobile home on fire.

Last year the Delaware Supreme Court ruled the state's death penalty as 
unconstitutional. The Court declared that ruling as retroactive, meaning the 
state's death row inmates would be resentenced.

(source: WMDT news)






VIRGINIA:

U.S. Supreme Court rejects appeal from Virginia death row inmate who shut down 
Virginia Tech's campus in 2006


The nation's highest court on Tuesday refused to hear the appeal of a Virginia 
death row inmate who killed a hospital security guard and sheriff's deputy 
during an escape that sparked a massive manhunt that shut down Virginia Tech's 
campus in 2006.

William Morva argued that he should have been allowed to present evidence that 
he wouldn't pose a threat to prison guards or others if he was sentenced to 
life in prison. But the U.S. Supreme Court left in place a ruling from the 4th 
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejecting Morva's claims.

Morva's attorneys didn't immediately respond to requests for comment on 
Tuesday.

Morva had been in jail for about a year awaiting trial on attempted robbery 
charges when he was taken to a Blacksburg hospital for treatment of an injury 
in August 2006. After arriving at the hospital, he overpowered a Montgomery 
County sheriff's deputy and used the deputy's pistol to shoot an unarmed 
security guard, 32-year-old Derrick McFarland, being fleeing.

Morva's escape set off a police manhunt that forced Virginia Tech to cancel 
classes on the first day of the academic year and warn students to stay inside.

A day after McFarland's killing, Morva fatally shot Montgomery County Sheriff's 
Deputy Eric Sutphin, who had been searching for the inmate on a walking trail 
near the Blacksburg campus. Later that day, police found Morva lying in a ditch 
with the sheriff's deputy's gun on the ground nearby.

Attorneys for Morva, now 35, told the Supreme Court that he was unfairly 
prevented from presenting evidence at trial to refute prosecutors' argument 
that Morva would threaten the lives of prison guards and others if allowed to 
live. Morva's trial lawyers had said a forensic psychologist would have shown 
jurors that Morva wasn't dangerous in prison, but they were blocked from 
presenting that testimony.

"With that testimony excluded, the prosecution argued freely to the jury - 
without fear of any meaningful rebuttal - that Mr. Morva would endanger the 
lives of prison guards unless sentenced to death," his attorneys told the 
Supreme Court.

Morva is 1 of 6 inmates on Virginia's death row. A circuit court will hold a 
hearing on Friday to set an execution date for another inmate, Ivan Teleguz, 
who was convicted in 2006 of hiring another man to kill his ex-girlfriend.

(source: Associated Press)






SOUTH CAROLINA:

Justices reject appeal from South Carolina death row inmate


The Supreme Court has turned away an appeal from a South Carolina death row 
inmate who pleaded guilty to killing an off-duty police officer during a 
multistate crime spree in 2004.

The justices on Tuesday left in place a lower court ruling that rejected Mikal 
Dean Mahdi's claims that his lawyer didn't do enough to present evidence of his 
troubled childhood.

Mahdi said his lawyer relied on a single expert witness instead of calling 
family members and others to offer more details about Mahdi's years growing up 
with an abusive father.

Prosecutors said that during his crime spree Mahdi killed a North Carolina 
convenience store clerk, carjacked a sport-utility vehicle in South Carolina 
and later killed Orangeburg Public Safety Capt. James Myers on Myers' farm.

(source: therepublic.com)






FLORIDA:

Death penalty dropped for 4 former students accused of Homestead murder


The State has waived the death penalty for 4 of 5 former students accused of a 
gruesome machete murder in Homestead.

A judge came to the decision during a hearing, Tuesday, for the suspects 
involved in murdering 17-year-old Amaya Guardado, back in June of 2015.

Christian Colon, Joseph Cabrera, Desiray Strickland and Jonathan Lucas will now 
face life in prison if convicted of 1st degree murder.

"We're very happy they waived the death penalty against Christian Colon," said 
Colon's attorney, Jimmy Dellafera, "and we thank the State Attorney's Office. 
Many times, these cases take forever to get a waiver of the death penalty. 
Based on these children's ages, I think they did exactly the right thing in 
this matter."

The state will only seek to execute the alleged ringleader, 22-year-old Kaheem 
Arbelo.

(source: WSV news)

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

'We choose life,' say churches calling to stop executions----Darlene Farah, 
whose daughter Shelby was murdered in 2013, calls for an end to the death 
penalty surrounded by church leaders in the state Capitol on Tuesday.


As state lawmakers prepare to pass legislation requiring juries vote 
unanimously to sentence convicted murderers to death, a coalition of churches 
has a different idea: Abolish the death penalty entirely.

Members of the Florida Council of Churches and representatives from the AME and 
Catholic denominations on Tuesday called on lawmakers to pass a moratorium on 
executions, citing high cost of death penalty appeals, the possibility of 
wrongful convictions and the impact on victims' families being forced to relive 
their loved one's murder repeatedly in court.

"Even if we pass unanimous juries, we still haven't solved the economic issues 
and we still haven't solved the fact that families keep being dragged through 
this trauma over and over again," said Rev. Russell Meyer, a Lutheran pastor 
from Tampa and executive director of the Florida Council of Churches.

What's more, they say, there is a moral problem with the state killing people 
-- even the most depraved criminals.

"The church has come today on the issue of life and death," said AME Rev. James 
Golden. "We choose life."

The religious groups are meeting with lawmakers to urge them to pass a 
moratorium. Lawmakers will consider death penalty legislation today and 
Wednesday, and activists plan to speak up in those hearings.

So will Darlene Farah, a Jacksonville mother whose daughter Shelby was murdered 
in 2013. Farah has been urging the court not to give a death sentence to her 
daughter's killer, who she says she has worked to forgive.

"I know what it feels like to have a child taken away from you," Farah said. 
"The mother of the person who committed the murder is going to have her chld 
taken away from her."

(source: Bradenton Herald)

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

We now have 6 drug cartel associates saying they did the murder for which Kris 
Maharaj sentenced to death


Kris Maharaj, an elderly British citizen, has filed a final appeal against his 
wrongful conviction in Florida 30 years ago, which saw him sentenced to death.

Krishna 'Kris' Maharaj, a 78-year old British businessman, was arrested in the 
US in 1986 and sentenced to death. He has spent 3 decades in prison, despite 
compelling evidence of his innocence, collected his lawyer, Clive Stafford 
Smith. The US courts commuted his death sentence in 2002, but have dismissed 
subsequent evidence suggesting he was framed.

"We now have no fewer than 6 cartel associates saying they did the murder for 
which Kris Maharaj was originally sentenced to death. The terrible possibility 
is that the US federal court will not allow us a hearing, based on the bizarre 
laws that govern such applications. I hope we can persuade them, but the 
injustice Kris has faced for 3 decades is why he and I are both so upset that 
Boris Johnson refused to intervene on his behalf. After all, what is a British 
passport for?"

Since Kris's original conviction, 6 people affiliated with a Colombian drug 
cartel have said they committed the murders for which he was sentenced to 
death. Kris's final appeal to the US federal courts was filed earlier this 
month, and asks for this new evidence to be heard.

Kris and his MP, Conservative Sir Peter Bottomley, have asked the UK Government 
to submit a so-called 'amicus' briefing to the court, supporting Mr Maharaj's 
request to be given the opportunity to demonstrate his innocence.

However, the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, has declined to submit such a 
briefing. In a letter sent in December, the Foreign Office said: "The Minister 
does not think it is appropriate to do so on this occasion", and did not give 
any further reasoning.

The decision appears to be at odds with previous UK actions in US legal cases. 
3 years ago, the Foreign Office commissioned four lawyers from an international 
law firm to intervene on behalf of oil giant BP, in litigation surrounding the 
Deepwater Horizon oil spill, because the case "implicates the rights of one of 
the United Kingdom's largest companies".

The appeal for Kris is filed amid concerns for his wellbeing. Last month, he 
was hospitalised for several weeks after becoming seriously ill with a rare 
skin condition. Mr Maharaj is already confined to a wheelchair, after he 
contracted a similar illness in 2011.

(source: repireve.org.uk)






ALABAMA:

U.S. top court spurns Alabama death row inmate; Sotomayor outraged


The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear a death row inmate's 
challenge to Alabama's execution method, prompting liberal Justice Sonia 
Sotomayor to assert that the court should have considered whether the lethal 
injection procedures amounted to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.

The court rejected an appeal by Thomas Arthur, convicted in the 1982 shooting 
death of his girlfriend's husband. In November, the court granted Arthur's 
request to put his execution on hold, but only because conservative Chief 
Justice John Roberts chose to side with the court's four liberals as a 
courtesy.

Sotomayor, in a strongly worded an 18-page opinion joined by fellow liberal 
Stephen Breyer dissenting from the court's refusal to hear the case, further 
exposed the rift among the 8 justices over the death penalty.

"He has amassed significant evidence that Alabama's current lethal junction 
protocol will result in intolerable and needless agony," she wrote, referring 
to Arthur's argument that Alabama's lethal injection method violated the U.S. 
Constitution's Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Arthur had proposed being executed by firing squad instead.

Sotomayor said American society's acceptance of different methods of execution 
has changed over time, as science reveals the level of suffering involved. 
States have cast aside hanging, electrocution and gas chambers for this reason, 
turning since the 1980s to an injection of lethal chemicals.

"What cruel irony that the method that appears most humane may turn out to be 
our most cruel experiment yet," Sotomayor wrote.

The justices have sharply disagreed among themselves over capital punishment. 
In 2015, they upheld Oklahoma's lethal injection process in a 5-4 ruling even 
as Breyer and fellow liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg raised concerns about 
whether capital punishment violated the Eighth Amendment.

Breyer repeated his concerns on Dec. 12 on the same day the court rejected four 
other death penalty appeals. But the court has shown no signs it will take up 
the broader question of the constitutionality of the death penalty.

Arthur has been on death row for more than three decades since being convicted 
of fatally shooting Troy Wicker as he slept.

Lawyers for Arthur have said lower courts are divided over how to interpret the 
Supreme Court's 2015 Oklahoma decision. Their challenge focused on part of that 
ruling that said an inmate contesting a method of execution based on the risk 
of severe pain must show there is a "known and available alternative."

Arthur's lawyers asked the Supreme Court to clarify several issues, including 
whether prisoners can only pick available alternatives that are already 
available in the state where they are to be executed and whether, if they are 
proposing a lethal injection drug, they have to show the drug is readily 
available.

Under Alabama law, death by firing squad is not available, Sotomayor noted. As 
a result, the legal rule set by the Supreme Court in the 2015 case "permits 
states to immunize their methods of execution - no matter how cruel or how 
unusual - from judicial review and thus permits state law to subvert the 
federal constitution," she wrote.

Sotomayor said the meaning of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and 
unusual punishment should be determined not by the standards that prevailed 
when the amendment was adopted in 1791 but instead by the evolving standards of 
decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.

The case focused on the use of a sedative called midazolam as part of the 
lethal injection drug cocktail. Sotomayor said examples are piling up with 
evidence of midazolam's inability to render an execution painless.

Sotomayor wrote, "Execution absent an adequate sedative thus produces a 
nightmarish death: The condemned prisoner is conscious but entirely paralyzed, 
unable to move or scream his agony, as he suffers what may well be the chemical 
equivalent of being burned at the stake."

(source: Reuters)

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

Supreme Court denies execution by firing squad


The Supreme Court refused Tuesday, over the vehement dissent of 2 justices, to 
let a death-row prisoner in Alabama choose a firing squad over a lethal 
injection cocktail that has caused several botched executions in recent years.

The court's unsigned and unexplained denial represented the latest chapter in 
its running debate over the morality of the death penalty and the methods used 
to carry it out - a debate enlivened in 2015 when 2 justices said the time had 
come to decide whether capital punishment is constitutional.

At that time, the court ruled 5-4 that states could continue to use a 
controversial form of lethal injection that critics say can lead to severe pain 
and suffering, even if a sedative makes it impossible to tell whether the 
condemned prisoner can feel its effects. The court also said prisoners must 
identify a "known and available alternative" means of execution - something 
Justice Sonia Sotomayor called "a macabre challenge."

That's what Alabama's Thomas Arthur did. Citing the risks identified from the 
use of the sedative midazolam, he asked that a firing squad carry out the 
execution that had been scheduled six times since he killed his girlfriend's 
husband in 1982, only to be blocked by legal challenges.

But a federal appeals court ruled - and the Supreme Court apparently agreed - 
that Arthur failed to prove the lethal injection would be painful. What's more, 
the court said, Alabama does not authorize the use of a firing squad.

Sotomayor, joined by Justice Stephen Breyer - the court's leading critic of the 
death penalty - wrote a blistering 18-page dissent in which she said states can 
now "immunize their methods of execution, no matter how cruel or how unusual, 
from judicial review."

If Arthur was imprisoned in Oklahoma, where firing squads are authorized, he 
would be able to avoid lethal injection, she noted. Oklahoma is one of the 
states, along with Ohio, Arizona and Alabama, where executions using midazolam 
have caused prisoners to writhe in apparent pain over the past 3 years.

"Even if a prisoner can prove that the state plans to kill him in an 
intolerably cruel manner, and even if he can prove that there is a feasible 
alternative, all a state has to do to execute him through an unconstitutional 
method is to pass a statute declining to authorize any alternative method," 
Sotomayor said. "This cannot be right."

(source: USA Today)

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

Sotomayor questions whether lethal injection is 'our most cruel experiment yet'


Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote Tuesday that lethal injection "may 
turn out to be our most cruel experiment yet" in the search for a humane manner 
in which to carry out the death penalty.

Sotomayor, along with Justice Stephen G. Breyer, dissented from the court's 
decision not to hear the case of Thomas Douglas Arthur, Alabama's oldest 
inmate, who killed his girlfriend's husband in 1982. The court, with Chief 
Justice John G. Roberts Jr. providing a "courtesy" 5th vote, recently delayed 
Arthur's execution while deciding whether to take his case.

As is the court's custom, the majority did not give a reason for passing up 
Arthur's case.

Sotomayor's dissent was just the latest example of how the court is split over 
the death penalty, although clearly a majority of the court still finds it 
constitutional. Breyer and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg have called for the 
court to accept a case that would allow briefing on that question but have 
found no other takers.

Sotomayor in her Tuesday dissent did not question the constitutionality of the 
death penalty but criticized the methods by which it is carried out. In the 
past, she has been especially wary of Alabama???s procedures.

Arthur had objected to the use of the drug midazolam in his planned lethal 
injection, saying it has led to unconstitutional levels of pain and suffering 
in previous executions. The Supreme Court upheld the drug's use in 2015's 
Glossip v. Gross, and said objecting inmates must prove the drug would cause 
severe pain and propose another means of execution.

Arthur proposed a firing squad. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th 
Circuit turned him down, saying that he had not met the burden of proving 
midazolam would cause pain so severe it would be unconstitutional and that the 
state of Alabama did not sanction firing squads.

Sotomayor called the Glossip decision's test "a macabre challenge" but said 
Arthur had met it.

"After 34 years of legal challenges, Arthur has accepted that he will die for 
his crimes," Sotomayor wrote. "He now challenges only how the state will be 
permitted to kill him."

Sotomayor wrote the dissenting opinion for the court's liberals in Glossip and 
Tuesday repeated assertions that midazolam might only mask pain and suffering 
during lethal injections, not relieve it. The court in the past has said 
needless suffering during executions is unconstitutional.

Death by firing squad may be more instant and cause less suffering, Sotomayor 
wrote. But in any case, denying Arthur that choice makes the test the court 
authorized in Glossip irrelevant, she said. "Under this view, even if a 
prisoner can prove that the state plans to kill him in an intolerably cruel 
manner, and even if he can prove that there is a feasible alternative, all a 
state has to do to execute him through an unconstitutional method is to pass a 
statute declining to authorize any alternative method," Sotomayor wrote. "This 
cannot be right."

While Sotomayor has not joined the call to consider whether the death penalty 
can ever be constitutionally applied, she has become an outspoken critic of how 
it is carried out.

Referring to hanging, electrocution, the gas chamber and lethal injection, she 
said: "Evolving standards have yielded a familiar cycle: States develop a 
method of execution, which is generally accepted for a time. Science then 
reveals that - unknown to the previous generation - the states' chosen method 
of execution causes unconstitutional levels of suffering."

Lethal injection, she said, may be the latest in that pattern.

"What cruel irony that the method that appears most humane may turn out to be 
our most cruel experiment yet," she wrote.

(source: al.com)