[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, IOWA, CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 24




OHIO:

High court declines to hear death row inmate's appeals


The Ohio Supreme Court on Wednesday denied 2 motions by an attorney for death 
row inmate Nathaniel E. Jackson, including 1 asking them to reconsider their 
decision last year not to vacate his death sentence.

The court announced it will not hear Jackson's appeals because of lack of 
jurisdiction.

Jackson, 45, remains on death row, with a scheduled execution date of July 15, 
2020, according to Trumbull County assistant Prosecutor LuWayne Annos.

However, Annos said Jackson has 2 appeals still pending: a Writ for Certiorari 
with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking re-sentencing, which was denied last August 
by Ohio's high court, and an appeal before Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge 
Ronald J. Rice, which seeks a motion for leave for a new trial.

Rice took over the case from the late Judge John Stuard, who re-sentenced 
Jackson to death on Aug. 14, 2012, after being ordered to do so by the Ohio 
Supreme Court because of the judge's error during the 1st sentencing after the 
2002 trial.

Jackson was found guilty in the 2001 murder of Robert Fingerhut of Howland and 
was sentenced to death by Stuard. Jackson remains on death row at Chillicothe 
Correctional Institution.

The 11th District Court of Appeals vacated Jackson's initial death sentence 
when it found an assistant prosecutor improperly assisted the trial judge in 
preparing the sentencing opinion.

Jackson's co-defendant, Donna Roberts, also convicted of murdering Fingerhut, 
is awaiting a decision in her 3rd appeal for relief from the Ohio high court. 
Roberts, the only woman on Ohio's death row, claimed Rice had re-sentenced her 
without physically seeing her in court for a penalty phase.

In Jackson's appeals to the Ohio Supreme Court, the court on Wednesday refused 
Jackson's bid for post-conviction relief that Rice denied in 2013 and the 11th 
District court affirmed in 2014. The high court also refused to hear Jackson's 
appeal for a new trial, which both Stuard and the 11th District court denied.

An attempt to reach Jackson's attorney, assistant state public defender, 
Randall L. Porter of Columbus, was unsuccessful.

Donna Roberts lived with Fingerhut, her ex-husband, on Avalon Drive in Howland 
and Fingerhut had two life insurance policies worth a total of $550,000 in 
which Roberts was named the sole beneficiary. Roberts began an affair with 
Jackson, which continued while Jackson was confined in the Lorain Correctional 
Institution.

While in prison, Jackson and Roberts exchanged numerous letters and spoke by 
phone, with the prison authorities recording many of the conversations. 
Passages from the letters and calls indicated the 2 plotted to murder 
Fingerhut, and at Jackson's request, Roberts purchased a ski mask and pair of 
gloves for Jackson to use during the murder. Roberts picked up Jackson from 
Lorain Correctional when he was released and 2 days later, Fingerhut was shot 
to death in his home.

Police searched the house and found 145 handwritten letters and cards that 
Jackson sent to Roberts and when they recovered Fingerhut's stolen car in 
Youngstown, they found a bag with Jackson's name on it with 139 letters Roberts 
had sent to him. When Jackson was arrested, he claimed he shot Fingerhut in 
self-defense.

(source: Tribune Chronicle)






IOWA:

Iowa GOP senators seek reinstatement of limited death penalty


A group of majority Senate Republicans wants to reinstate a limited death 
penalty in Iowa in cases where an adult kidnaps, rapes and murders a minor.

Senate File 335 would restore capital punishment in Iowa for the 1st time since 
1965 by establishing a 2-pronged process whereby a jury or judge could convict 
a perpetrator of committing multiple Class A offenses and separately a decision 
could be rendered to execute the offender via lethal injection. Any death 
penalty conviction would automatically be appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court 
and juvenile offenders would not be eligible for capital punishment.

"It's narrowly scoped," said Sen. Jake Chapman, R-Adel, 1 of 6 GOP senators who 
introduced a death penalty measure on Wednesday. Sen. Rick Bertrand, R-Sioux 
City, also filed a death-penalty bill with slightly different provisions.

"Right now there is no criminal charge difference," said Chapman, who noted 
that committing one or more Class A felonies carries a maximum penalty of life 
imprisonment so there's no deterrent for a kidnapper or rapist not to kill the 
victim.

"What this says is that if you do all 3, you are going to be in line for the 
death penalty," he noted. "Not only is it a deterrent from someone thinking of 
taking that next step having kidnapped and raped and then considering killing 
that individual, it also is - for me - the penalty is fitting for the crime. So 
you have 2 aspects: you have the deterrence but then you also have if it does 
happen, what is the proper, just punishment for that crime."

Sen. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a 
bill co-sponsor, said the bill is arriving with the session's 1st "funnel" 
deadline approaching at the end of next week for non-money bills to have 
cleared at least 1 standing committee to remain eligible for debate this year. 
He said he hoped to schedule a subcommittee next week but he was uncertain how 
far the measure would go this session.

He said the 2005 Eastern Iowa kidnapping and murder of 10-year-old Jetseta Gage 
is often cited as an example of why the death penalty is needed.

"We have talked about this for many years," Zaun said of reinstating capital 
punishment. "There's no higher penalty if you kill off your witness. I 
typically am not a big death penalty person, but I think in this particular 
situation where a child is raped then killed, I agree that the death penalty is 
in order."

Sen. Pam Jochum, D-Dubuque, said she was in the Iowa House when lawmakers 
debated reinstating the death penalty in 1995.

"We spent an enormous amount of time and emotional energy - that's part of our 
job - trying to decide whether or not that was a good thing for Iowa to do and 
the answer was no," Jochum noted. "So we've been through this more than once 
before and I think that in Iowa if you are convicted of a capital crime - life 
is life. You are going to die in prison and I think that's satisfactory."

Earlier this month, Republicans who control the Legislature introduced a major 
rewrite of Iowa's collective bargaining law and passed it within 10 days using 
a "time certain" procedural move that ended debate and brought the issue to a 
vote. Jochum said if Republicans used the same expedited procedure for the 
death penalty issue it "would be an absolute injustice, truly, to give 
something of that magnitude that short a period of time where the state is 
sanctioning killing people.

"Regardless of the offense they committed," she added, "we're still going into 
the same gutter that others are in and I don't think the state should be 
involved in it. Life is life."

(source: The Gazette)






CALIFORNIA:

Man charged in 2010 triple homicide mentally competent to stand trial


A man charged in the 2010 killings of three people in their home near Valley 
Plaza has been determined mentally competent to stand trial.

Tokunbo Okuwoga, 28, is charged with the murders of then 22-year-old Felipe 
Bravo Junior, his father Felipe senior, and Felipe Junior's girlfriend, Daina 
Caraveo.

Okuwoga was committed to a term of no more than 3 years at Atascadero State 
Hospital last September.

Court records indicated Okuwoga and Bravo Jr. robbed a home together in 
September of 2010 and Bravo agreed to testify against Okuwoga in the case. 
Police said Okuwoga shot Bravo to keep that from happening. Okuwoga had pleaded 
not guilty to all charges.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty if Okuwoga is convicted. He is 
scheduled to return to court Monday. That's when a new trial date is scheduled 
to be set.

(source: kerngoldenempire.com)






USA:

2nd death penalty trial in Rutland death delayed


The 2nd death penalty trial of a man charged with killing a Rutland supermarket 
worker more than 16 years ago is being delayed until September, a court 
official says.

The federal trial of Donald Fell for the abduction and death of Terry King in 
2000 was scheduled to begin Monday in U.S. District Court in Rutland, but U.S. 
District Judge Geoffrey Crawford decided after a hearing Thursday in Burlington 
to delay the trial, said Jeff Eaton, the clerk of the court. Eaton said 
Crawford's written decision probably won't be available until Friday.

Defense attorneys said in a court filing last week that they needed more time 
because some members of the defense team had been working on another death 
penalty case. They said the defense also has questions about the government's 
case that they want resolved before the trial begins.

Fell's attorneys declined comment in an email Thursday on the judge's decision. 
Prosecutors also had no comment.

King's daughter, Lori Hibbard, of Rutland, said she and other family members 
were disappointed by the delay.

"It's disheartening. It's disappointing. It seems like this is never going to 
end for us," Hibbard said. "It's unbelievable. We want some kind of closure."

Fell, now 36, was convicted and sentenced to death in 2005, but his conviction 
was overturned because of juror misconduct. He has pleaded not guilty to 
several federal charges, including carjacking and kidnapping with death 
resulting.

In the past, he has offered to plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of life 
without parole, but prosecutors are determined to seek the death penalty.

(source: Associated Press)

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

How Should Christians Think About Lethal Injection? Christian Ethicists Respond


Christian leaders are weighing in on Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's 
recent comments about the death penalty, particularly lethal injection, which 
she suggests may be "our most cruel experiment yet."

In a 6-2 decision, along with Justice Stephen G. Breyer, the High Court's 
1st-ever Hispanic judge dissented from the court's decision not to hear the 
case of Alabama's oldest inmate, Thomas Douglas Arthur, who in 1982 murdered 
his girlfriend's husband. The Supreme Court had recently moved to delay his 
execution while they deliberated hearing his case. Arthur's particular 
objection was to the use of the drug midazolam used in lethal injections due to 
the physical pain and suffering it can cause.

"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."

To flesh this out from a Christian standpoint, The Christian Post reached out 2 
Christian ethicists, 1 who is supportive of capital punishment, the other 
opposed.

"Romans 13 makes that very clear when it says [the state] bears not the sword 
in vain," said Richard Land, who is the former president of the Ethics and 
Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and current 
president of Southern Evangelical Seminary in Matthews, North Carolina.

"The word sword there [indicates] the sword that was used for capital 
punishment in the Roman empire," he said.

If a Christian is going to support the death penalty, he added, they must be as 
dedicated to its fair and just and equitable application as they are to its 
being utilized by the state.

"And clearly, historically, in the United States, it has not been," Land 
explained. "You are far more likely to be executed if you are a person of 
color, if you are poor, or if you are a man."

Land believes the U.S. has substantially rectified two of those three 
inequities, "but it is still far more likely that you are going to be executed 
in the United States if you are poor rather than wealthy."

Regarding the method of administering the death penalty, a civilized society 
should do their best to determine the most humane and painless way to do so, he 
said.

"That's why lethal injection was invented," Land continued, but "if indeed 
Sotomayor's objections are correct, then we need to find a more humane way to 
execute justice and capital punishment."

"Sometimes the only way society can bear fitting witness to the horrible nature 
of the crime committed and the callous disregard for their fellow human beings 
is the forfeiture of their lives."

CP asked Land if he thinks capital punishment deters people from committing 
crimes, if it is really effective anymore.

"It does have some," Land said, "and it would have greater deterrent effect if 
it were practiced more regularly and in a more timely fashion."

When people are in prison longer than some people live, as is the case with 
this particular case in Alabama who has been on death row for so long, "it robs 
it from its deterrent effect," he concluded.

CP also reached out to Roger Olson, Professor of Christian Theology and Ethics 
Truett Seminary at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

"I have long advocated life in prison without the possibility of parole for 
those found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of truly heinous crimes such as 
murder," Olson wrote in an email to CP Thursday.

But the death penalty goes too far, he has argued forcefully.

Writing on his blog last year, Olson opined that authentic Christians must 
oppose the capital punishment for one distinctly theological reason.

"When we take another human life unnecessarily, we usurp God's prerogative for 
that person's eventual salvation or, if they are already saved, for that 
person's future service for the Kingdom of God," Olson wrote.

"I believe the Christian reasons for opposing the death penalty are so strong 
that capital punishment ought to be, as slavery was in the mid-19th century, an 
issue for a 'church struggle' that divides if sadly necessary," he said.

(source: christianpost.com)