[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----IND., OKLA., NEB., MONT., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 14




INDIANA:

2 men to face death penalty in Indiana County killings


Indiana County District Attorney Patrick Dougherty said Friday his office will 
seek the death penalty for 2 Indiana men accused of killing a Cherryhill couple 
in October.

Justin T. Stevenson, 19, and Nathan R. Price, 18, were charged with killing 
Timothy J. Gardner and Jacqueline I. Brink following an alleged drug deal, 
according to court documents.

Both are charged with criminal homicide, conspiracy and robbery and are being 
held in the county prison without bond.

Isaiah Treyvon Scott, who was 17 when he was arrested, is ineligible for the 
death penalty because he was a juvenile at the time of the slaying. In 2005, 
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty for those who had committed 
their crimes at under 18 years of age was cruel and unusual punishment and 
barred by the constitution.

Affidavits of probable cause detail how troopers believe the teens planned the 
robbery and drove to the Hillside Drive home where Brink, Gardner and his 2 
young sons lived.

A neighbor told investigators he heard a knock on Gardner's door about 12:30 
a.m., followed by a fight. The neighbor called 911.

Troopers found Gardner dead in the doorway and Brink dead in an upstairs 
bedroom.

Coroner Jerry Overman indicated Gardner was assaulted with a pipe and Brink was 
struck with a baseball bat, police said.

(source: Tribune-Review)

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

The rarity of the death penalty in Indiana


It is alleged that Marcus Dansby, on Sept. 11, 2016, shot to death Consuela 
Arrington, 38, and 2 of her 3 children - Traeven Harris and Dajahiona 
Arrington, both 18, and attempted to murder the 3rd, Trinity Hairston, 14. 
Dansby had been the boyfriend of Dajahiona, who was 8 1/2 months pregnant with 
a son. When it was determined that the baby would have lived if his mother had 
not died, a 4th murder charge was added.

And now, Dansby is going to pay a price - perhaps the ultimate one. The Allen 
County Prosecuting Attorney's Office has requested to add the death penalty to 
his charges. Capital punishment is so rarely turned to, that it is worth 
reflecting on how the state of Indiana handles it.

Dansby is only the 4th man in 20 years to face the death penalty here. 2 of the 
other 3 plea-bargained their charges down to life without parole. Joseph 
Corcoran, convicted of murdering his brother, James Corcoran, and 3 other men 
in 1988, is the only person sitting on death row, courtesy of Allen County.

There are 2 main reasons for the rarity.

One is that just plain old murder isn't enough to merit the death penalty in 
Indiana. It must be murder with one or more "aggravating circumstances," such 
as a murder committed during the commission of arson, a burglary, kidnapping or 
rape. Murder for hire would count, as would murder of a law enforcement 
officer. So would a murder if the victim were dismembered, burned or mutilated 
- or younger than age 12.

The other is the cost. A fiscal impact report by the nonpartisan Legislative 
Services Agency for the 2010 General Assembly, found that the average cost of a 
death-penalty trial and direct appeal was more than $450,000, compared to 
$42,658 for a life-without-parole case.

We can take pride in the fact that Indiana is not promiscuous in its use of 
capital punishment. This state only executes the worst of the worst.

Or we can ask ourselves if there is really any point to keeping a penalty so 
rarely used that it can't possibly be a deterrent. Are we really seeking 
justice or just exacting revenge because we can?

That's a worthy subject for discussion. Legislators looking for a topic for a 
summer study sessions could do a lot worse.

(source: Opinion; (Fort Wayne) News-Sentinel)






OKLAHOMA:

Advocate: No reason to celebrate Oklahoma's death penalty


Despite voters in November approving State Question 776, which enshrined the 
death penalty in the Oklahoma Constitution, our state's death penalty remains a 
mess. Botched executions and wrongful convictions have plagued the Oklahoma 
death penalty, putting the practice on hold. Due to such practical problems 
with capital punishment, there is mounting evidence that we'd be better off 
without it.

We've learned that it's much less costly to imprison people for life than to 
execute them because of the death penalty's mandated legal costs. According to 
most reports, the death penalty costs millions more than life without parole.

The death penalty's inconsistency with fiscal responsibility isn't its only 
shortcoming. Oklahomans would also be shocked and dismayed by the wrongful 
convictions and racial disparities found in capital punishment's application. 
More than 155 people nationally and 10 in Oklahoma have been wrongly convicted 
and sentenced to die due, in large part, to prosecutorial misconduct, junk 
science and mistaken eyewitness testimony. That's a high error rate given the 
death penalty's finality. Furthermore, race plays a major role in who receives 
a death sentence. If the victim is a white female, then there is a much higher 
likelihood of an execution compared with a crime with a black male victim, 
which seems to suggest that some lives are more valuable than others.

And Oklahoma has had its share of difficulty when it comes to the death 
penalty. The "win at all costs" mentality was confronted by the 10th U.S. 
Circuit Court of Appeals, which said former Oklahoma County District Attorney 
Bob Macy's "persistent misconduct ... has without doubt harmed the reputation 
of Oklahoma's criminal justice system and left the unenviable legacy of an 
indelibly tarnished legal career."

And that's not all. Consider the case of the disgraced forensic scientist, 
Joyce Gilchrist. She had worked for the Oklahoma City Police Department but was 
accused of perjury and falsifying forensic evidence. Consequently, she was 
fired, but she had been involved in more than 3,000 cases, and 23 resulted in 
death sentences. These kinds of things are littered throughout our justice 
system. If the justice system in America and Oklahoma is this flawed, it 
shouldn't be issuing punishments of death to those convicted.

The wrongly convicted aren't the only ones to suffer because of the death 
penalty. A study was performed by researchers from a death penalty state, 
Texas, and from a non-death penalty state, Minnesota. They found that Minnesota 
family survivors' fared better in "physical, psychological, and behavioral 
health." This runs counter to the "closure" argument offered by pro-death 
penalty advocates. In fact, some of the bereaved report the death penalty to be 
a psychological burden on survivors.

If we have such terrible death penalty results, then should we keep it? This 
deserves an answer. The death penalty appears to be more about vengeance, not 
justice. What is justice then? Justice is restoration of the victims. It is 
using the state to separate the criminal from society for many, many years, 
perhaps life without parole. It is making a person confront the harm they have 
done. America needs less vengeance and more justice.

(source: Craig Dawkins organizes Liberty on Tap OKC, an informal ongoing 
meeting of liberty activists, and is a professor of economics and finance at 
Rose State College----The Oklahoman)






NEBRASKA:

John Lotter files appeal over state's use of judges to weigh death sentence


John Lotter has joined a fellow death row inmate in lodging a challenge to 
Nebraska's 3-judge method for determining whether a killer should receive a 
death sentence.

And a veteran death penalty attorney expects the other eight members of 
Nebraska's death row to follow suit.

A 3-judge panel made the decision to send Lotter to death row in 1996 for his 
role in a 1993 triple murder near Humboldt that inspired the film "Boys Don't 
Cry." The now-45-year-old targeted Teena Brandon for being transgender and 
reporting a rape to police.

Lotter's attorneys argue that Lotter had a right to have jurors, not judges, 
weigh his ultimate fate, following a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that 
declared Florida's scheme unconstitutional.

Lotter argues that a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling "renders the Nebraska 
capital sentencing scheme unconstitutional and void."

The Nebraska Attorney General's Office disagrees - and has filed motions 
resisting a similar attempt in another death row inmate's appeal.

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Florida's capital punishment scheme, noting 
that defendants didn't have the right to have jurors be the finder of every 
fact necessary for the death penalty.

After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida's sentencing scheme, 
Delaware's high court followed suit and threw out that state's scheme.

Attorney Jerry Soucie, who has represented several death row inmates, said 
Friday that Nebraska's death penalty scheme has been ripe for challenge.

Soucie's reason: Nebraska has jurors weigh only aggravating factors that lead 
to death and not mitigating circumstances that might weigh in a defendant's 
favor. And a defendant doesn't have the right to have jurors, rather than 
judges, make the ultimate determination of death or life.

"It is really a big deal," Soucie said. "This issue has been floating around a 
long time."

Omaha attorney Alan Stoler filed a similar appeal on behalf of Jeffrey Hessler, 
convicted in the rape and murder of 15-year-old newspaper carrier Heather 
Guerrero.

State officials have argued that Nebraska's sentencing scheme allows jury 
participation and is not identical to the one struck down in Florida.

In Nebraska, a 2nd trial takes place after a defendant is convicted in a death 
penalty case. The same jury that decided guilt also decides whether aggravating 
factors exist to justify the defendant's execution.

If the jury finds that aggravating factors were present in the murder, a 
3-judge panel is convened to determine whether they outweigh any mitigating 
factors in the defendant's favor. The 3 judges also must determine if the death 
sentence is warranted and, if so, whether it is proportionate to the penalty 
imposed in similar cases.

After making the necessary determinations, the judges impose the sentence.

"The State of Nebraska denies that Nebraska's capital sentencing statutes 
violated the defendant's ... right to a jury," Assistant Attorney General Doug 
Warner wrote in a recent filing in the Hessler case.

Lotter's attorneys, Rebecca Woodman and Tim Noerrlinger, wrote that Nebraska's 
sentencing setup doesn't go far enough in requiring jury determinations.

"Nebraska (law) unconstitutionally permits a judge, rather than a jury, to find 
facts necessary to impose a sentence of death," they wrote.

Both challenges currently are at the district court level; it could be months 
before they reach the Nebraska Supreme Court.

(source: Omaha World-Herald)






MONTANA:

A look back on history of Montana's death penalty


This is adapted in 2 parts from my Montana chapter in Gordon Bakken's book 
"Invitation to an Execution."

Montana's last hanging was in 1943. In 1983, the legislature amended the law to 
allow the condemned to choose hanging or lethal injection. Changes also made 
county executions obsolete and specified the Montana State Prison as the place 
of execution. These changes essentially overhauled Montana's death penalty. 
These changes were untried until the execution of Duncan Peder McKenzie Jr. in 
1995. Sentenced in 1975 for the murder of teacher Lana Harding, McKenzie 
appealed numerous times. Governor Marc Racicot wrestled with his pleas for 
clemency. A converted house trailer at the Montana State Prison at Deer Lodge 
became the death chamber. Wearing orange prison overalls and lying on a gurney, 
McKenzie had no last words. He was the 1st in Montana to die of lethal 
injection.

When the 1997 Legislature further amended the law to eliminate hanging as an 
option, Terry Allen Langford had already been on "death row" - a symbolic term 
as there has never been a formally designated "death row" in the Montana State 
Prison - for 9 years. He received the death penalty in Powell County for the 
kidnapping and brutal slayings of Edward "Ned" and Celene Blackwood at their 
ranch near Ovando in 1988. Langford's execution was set for Jan. 17, 1992. He 
chose hanging but then moved for the District Court to declare hanging cruel 
and unusual punishment and a violation of his constitutional rights under the 
Eighth Amendment. The court declared the position moot since Langford himself 
elected the method.

Years passed. As Langford initiated further proceedings, the legislature 
removed hanging as an option in 1997. Hanging passed into the annals of the 
state's history. Langford then argued that the amending of the law deprived him 
of his choice of death by hanging - and the final opportunity to avoid the 
death penalty. If the Supreme Court had agreed that hanging was cruel and 
unusual punishment, the law would not have allowed his execution. Langford, 
also convicted of the murder of an inmate during a prison riot in 1991, lost 
this argument and became the second person in Montana to die by lethal 
injection in the converted house trailer on Feb. 24, 1998.

(source: Ellen Baumler is an award-winning author and the interpretive 
historian at the Montana Historical Society----Great Falls Tribune)






CALIFORNIA:

First he yelled that he was guilty. Now suspect in cop killing wants to be his 
own lawyer


Luis Bracamontes, accused in the killing of 2 deputies, is trying to fire his 
defense lawyers and represent himself in his death penalty case, a move his 
attorneys fear would allow him to attempt to plead guilty or no contest and 
then try in court to consent to a death sentence.

The latest legal drama in the case is spelled out in motions filed in 
Sacramento Superior Court in the last several days. They describe the 
difficulty Bracamontes' lawyers - Jeffrey Barbour and Norm Dawson - have had in 
trying to craft a defense for their client.

A hearing over Bracamontes' desire to act as his own lawyer is scheduled for 
next Friday before Judge Steve White, and Barbour and Dawson are again trying 
to close the proceedings to the media and the prosecution.

"Counsel requests that this court close the proceedings and exclude all 
persons, except defense counsel and necessary court personnel," a motion filed 
Friday states. "The prosecution in this case, though permissibly filing a memo 
on the issue, is not a party to the issue of whether Mr. Bracamontes is 
permitted to represent himself."

Bracamontes is accused in the October 2014 slayings of Sacramento County 
sheriff's Deputy Danny Oliver and Placer County sheriff's Deputy Michael Davis 
Jr. during a bloody daylong crime spree. A Mexican citizen who was in this 
country illegally at the time of the slayings, Bracamontes has proved to be a 
challenge to his lawyers as he has alternately joked in court proceedings and 
once blurted out that he was guilty and wanted to be executed.

His lawyers already have unsuccessfully challenged their client's mental state 
in court and now say "he may not be competent to act as his own attorney."

"As this court is aware, it is anticipated that Mr. Bracamontes will ask this 
court to waive counsel in the case and proceed pro per (representing himself)," 
they wrote. "As this court is also aware, defense counsel will not consent to 
Mr. Bracamontes' anticipated desire to plead guilty in this case."

Prosecutors Rod Norgaard and David Tellman responded by filing court papers 
noting that "criminal defendants have a constitutional right to defend 
themselves."

They cited a December finding by the California Supreme Court in a similar case 
in which Andy Mickel represented himself in a death penalty trial over the 2002 
ambush slaying of Red Bluff police Officer Dave Mobilio.

Although there were questions about Mickel's mental state, he was found to be 
competent to act as his own attorney. He was convicted and sentenced to death. 
Mickel also testified during trial that he committed the crime.

Lawyers say any defendants who try to represent themselves are making a grave 
mistake, but they note that it is a defendant's right and is not that unusual.

"It never goes well," said veteran Sacramento defense attorney William 
Portanova, a former prosecutor. "It happens more than it should, and it goes 
wrong every single time it does.

"In prosecutors' offices, there's a phrase to describe it: it's called a 
slow-motion guilty plea."

Portanova added that a defendant who tries to enter a guilty plea - even in a 
death penalty case - needs to be found to be making the decision as "the 
product of a knowing, intelligent and voluntary waiver of constitutional 
rights."

(source: Sacramento Bee)

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

California killer of 9-year-old commits suicide on death row


Authorities say a California death row inmate who killed a 9-year-old Oceanside 
boy has hanged himself in his cell.

State corrections officials tell the San Diego Union-Tribune 
(http://bit.ly/2jggvtH ) that Brandon Wilson was found dead Thursday at San 
Quentin State Prison.

The 33-year-old was convicted of slitting the throat of Matthew Cecchi in an 
Oceanside Harbor restaurant in 1998.

The Oroville boy was in town for a family reunion.

Wilson, a drifter from Wisconsin, said he'd taken LSD and believed God had told 
him to kill people.

He was captured 2 days later after stabbing a woman during a robbery in 
Hollywood. She survived.

At his murder trial, Wilson told jurors he had no remorse and told them to 
recommend the death penalty or he would kill again.

(source: Associated Press)






USA:

Access to dead man's files granted


The attorneys representing Donald Fell were given access this week, about a 
month before his 2nd capital trial is expected to begin, to statements made by 
a man who police said was his partner in 3 murders.

Fell, 36, was tried in 2005 for the 2000 murder of Terry King, 53, of North 
Clarendon.

Police said Fell and Robert Lee, a longtime friend, killed Fell's mother, Debra 
Fell, and her friend, Charles Conway, in Rutland in November 2000. To escape, 
Fell and Lee allegedly carjacked King in the parking lot of the Rutland 
Shopping Plaza then took King to New York state and killed her, according to 
police.

Lee killed himself while in prison on Sept. 20, 2001.

In August, Fell's defense team requested access to information possessed by 
Burlington attorneys John Pacht and Bradley Stetler, who had represented Lee. 
Fell's attorneys said Lee's father had agreed to let them have the information, 
which included police reports and a letter Lee is said to have written to his 
family. But Pacht and Stetler said they believed the material was privileged 
and couldn't be released without a court order.

The request filed by Kerry DeWolfe, a Corinth attorney who is part of Fell's 
defense team, said the information was necessary to Fell's defense because the 
prosecution's theory of the case was that "a domineering Mr. Fell manipulated 
his submissive and compliant friend Mr. Lee."

"Even if the Government was not taking the position that Mr. Fell was the more 
blameworthy mastermind, the defense would have a substantial need for 
information about Mr. Lee and the circumstances of the crime. Such evidence 
could not only contradict the government's theory that Mr. Fell manipulated his 
submissive and compliant friend Mr. Lee, but could also show that Mr. Lee was 
actually themajor or sole participant in the crimes, or that it was actually 
Mr. Lee who manipulated Mr. Fell into committing the crimes," DeWolfe wrote.

Nothing in the motion suggests there is evidence that Lee was the leader in the 
alleged murders, or even that the defense plans to make that argument.

On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford granted the defense 
request because of the "exceptional circumstances" of the Fell case.

"Other statements by Mr. Lee are very likely to be introduced in any penalty 
phase. These statements are significant because they relate to the relative 
responsibility of Mr. Lee and Mr. Fell for the charged conduct. Mr. Lee's 
statements may tend to identify Mr. Fell as the leader in that relationship," 
the judge wrote.

However, the decision was not a complete victory for the defense. Crawford 
noted that the prosecution had been given permission to use some of that 
evidence if Fell is convicted while the jury considers sentencing.

Prosecutors have already said they plan to ask for the death penalty.

Fell was already sentenced to death in 2006, but his conviction in that case 
was overturned based on juror misconduct.

Fell's defense team filed another motion Monday asking the court to reconsider 
its decision to allow prosecutors to use Lee's statements, even during the 
sentencing hearing and not during the trial.

Prosecutors also filed a motion this week asking Crawford to reject Fell's 
attempts to delay the trial over issues related to the death penalty.

The death penalty has not been used in Vermont for about 60 years, but Fell is 
being prosecuted by the federal government, not by the state of Vermont.

The death penalty has been the subject of a number of motions in the case as 
recently as December, and Crawford has rejected requests to rule against the 
possibility that Fell will be sentenced to death.

Fell's trial is approaching soon. Orders issued this week said that orientation 
of prospective jurors and completion of juror questionnaires will begin at the 
federal courthouse in Rutland on Feb. 9.

The drawing of a jury will begin Feb. 27 and the trial will start immediately 
afterward and will be held each day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., another order in the 
case said.

(source: Rutland Herald)

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

When is it time to abolish the death penalty in the Unites States?


7 of the 12 jurors who convicted Ronald B. Smith of murder of a convenience 
store clerk in Alabama voted to not invoke the death penalty. Unlike other 
states, Alabama allows the judge to make the ultimate ruling on invoking that 
supreme penalty. He elected to sentence Smith to death. Alabama is the only 
state in the union that permits such an override of a jury.

The case slowly wound its way through the Appellate Courts until it reached the 
United States Supreme Court. We now have only 8 Justices, thanks to Mr. 
McConnell not permitting a hearing of President Obama's nominations some 10 
months ago. When the vote was final, it was 4 to 4. To reverse the lower 
court's decision and appellate affirmations, a 5th vote was required to 
overrule the death penalty judgment. There would be no reversal nor stay of 
execution. Mr. Smith was executed 2 days after the opinion was released.

Most people do not realize America is the only 1st-world nation that still has 
a death penalty. Not even Russia has it any longer. When I was privileged to go 
to Russia a few years back with other lawyers and judges from across the United 
States, we met with Russian judges, law professors, law students, and even the 
Chief Justice of the Russian Supreme Court. I remember clearly during a 
question and answer session in a law school, one student asked us, "If America 
is the land of the free and is so into the rights of man, how can your country 
retain your death penalty?"

I remember smiling to myself and thinking we shouldn't let the lawyer from 
Texas answer because, at the time, Texas executed as many people per year as 
the rest of the other 49 states combined. Fortunately, a lawyer from New York 
fielded the question the best he could.

But that does not answer the question that student asked. The two schools of 
thought on the death penalty are still miles apart, much like the schools of 
thought on abortion. I do find it most interesting those who are in favor of 
the death penalty are anti-abortion proponents. In one case one can kill and in 
another it should not be permitted.

I understand our prisons are totally overcrowded. I have read we have more 
people in custody than any other nation. But the time between a death sentence 
and the execution is now years and years apart. The expenses of the appeals and 
post-trial motions are mind boggling. It is cheaper to keep the convicted 
person in prison the rest of his or her life than to impose the death penalty 
and go through all the legal processes.

As we all know, while Governor of Illinois, Kankakeean George Ryan wrestled 
with this issue and decided to put a moratorium on executions. He commuted the 
sentence of death on all the persons on death row to life without parole. One 
of the more than 100 of those given this reprieve was the killer of Gov. Ryan's 
next door neighbor. It was not an easy decision and was hated by many law 
enforcement personnel. Very early in his term as Governor, Mr. Ryan had a young 
man awaiting execution. The man's father came and begged Mr. Ryan to spare his 
son with his gubernatorial power. He did not, and that man's son was the last 
person executed in Illinois. Mr. Ryan has expressed the pain involved with that 
situation and vowed he would not face it again.

About the same time that Gov. Ryan was wrestling with imposing a moratorium, a 
program through Northwestern University Law School was started. Composed of 
faculty and students, this group, called the Center for Wrongful Convictions, 
was obtaining the release and retrial of several men originally sentenced to 
death. With new evidence and DNA now available, several of those men who might 
have been executed before the moratorium not only were spared but were released 
from prison.

The governors of Illinois have followed Mr. Ryan's lead and have maintained the 
moratorium since it was first initiated under his governance. To sentence a 
person to death, regardless of the alleged crime, has a finality that cannot be 
reversed.

One of the opponents of the death penalty is U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen 
Breyer. He continued his push for its abolition in a recent death penalty case 
from Ohio. The appeal involved the death sentence of a man named Henry Sireci. 
In writing his dissent last month, Breyer went a bit further saying the court 
also should have considered the fact Sireci has served 4 decades on death row 
awaiting execution, and wasn't that really a violation of the Eighth Amendment 
and its ban against cruel and unusual punishment?

Each state has the right to have a death penalty or not. The involvement of the 
United States Supreme Court comes not with the right to so sentence a person to 
death but whether that state has violated any of the defendant's rights under 
the U.S. Constitution. The federal government does not have the right to ban 
the death penalty. It is a state's right under the division of power between a 
state and the federal government. The 1 caveat on that is the Supreme Court 
someday could hold that the death penalty is a per se violation of the Eighth 
Amendment and that would end the death penalty everywhere in the United States.

Perhaps it is time. Civility demands respect for the worst citizen even when 
the citizen does not deserve it. The right to a jury trial, to have a lawyer, 
to remain silent and not testify if one so chooses are some of the rights given 
to us all by the U.S. Constitution. Perhaps some day the right not to be 
executed in any form or manner could be based on being cruel and inhumane 
punishment under the Eighth Amendment as suggested by Justice Breyer. This 
finally would banish the death penalty in all 50 states. I would bet, however, 
that any new justice nominated by Mr. Trump probably will not agree with that 
philosophy.

(source: Dennis Marek; Kankakee Daily-Journal)

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

Faith leaders, anti-death penalty groups to mark 40th anniversary of executions 
at Supreme Court


Faith leaders and members of the anti-death penalty group Abolitionist Action 
Committee (AAC) will convene at the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 17 to mark the 
40th anniversary of the 1st modern death penalty execution.

The demonstration, which is organized by the AAC, will start at 10 a.m. and 
will include the unveiling of a 30-foot long banner and 40 posters listing by 
year the names of all the men and women executed in the United States since 
1977, according to a press release from the AAC.

"We are prayerfully calling on the new president and leaders in the few states 
where it is still used to stand down on the death penalty," Bill Pelke, 
spokesman for the ACC, said in the press release.

The demonstration marks 40 years since Utah executed Gary Gilmore, the 1st 
execution after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the death penalty in Gregg v. 
Georgia - a ruling that signaled the start of the new death penalty law in the 
U.S.

According to the press release there has been 1,442 executions since Gilmore's. 
The press release also states that there are 5 more executions scheduled for 
this month. Christopher Wilkins was executed in Texas on Jan. 11 and the 
execution of Ricky Javon Gray is scheduled for the following day, Jan. 18, in 
Virginia.

Dozens of faith-based and civil rights oriented organizations are expected to 
attend the demonstration, including the Catholic Mobilizing Network, Center for 
Action and Contemplation and PICO National Network. The press release states 
that arrests are expected as the organizations participate in "non-violent 
civil disobedience." The group, which has hosted the event every 5 years since 
1997, has had 48 arrests associated with the event.

The AAC will also be hosting a program the day before at the Lutheran Church of 
the Reformation in Washington. The program, titled "Voices of Experience," will 
feature Derrick Jamison, who was exonerated after being on death row for 20 
years, family members of murder victims and Randy Gardner. Gardner's brother 
was executed in Utah.

"I believed then, and I still believe now, that the death penalty is morally 
wrong. I never condoned what my brother did, but when the state executes 
someone, they create yet another family that is damaged and grieving. We don't 
have to kill to be safe from dangerous criminals and hold them accountable. It 
is time to abolish the death penalty," Gardner said in the statement.

(source: National Catholic Reporter)

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

Prosecutors want their experts to mentally evaluate alleged prison guard killer


Federal prosecutors want to have their own doctors evaluate gang assassin 
Jessie Con-ui, who is seeking to claim a "mental disease or defect" defense 
against the death penalty if convicted of murdering a correctional officer at 
U.S. Penitentiary at Canaan.

Con-ui, 39, is accused of kicking Nanticoke native Eric Williams down a flight 
of stairs before beating and slashing him to death with 2 shanks in February 
2013 because he was angered over a cell search. If convicted at his trial in 
April, Con-ui's attorneys are seeking to claim a "mental disease or defect" 
defense in an effort to save him from the death penalty.

In a filing Friday, prosecutors say Con-ui has already been evaluated by 2 
neuropsychologists as well as radiologists and an expert in image analysis.

"In order to independently determine the merits of defendant's claim, and to 
prepare for possible rebuttal testimony, the United States needs to have its 
experts evaluate the defendant," prosecutors wrote, seeking a court order to 
perform their own tests.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Con-ui for committing what 
they have characterized as a cold, calculated murder in which Con-ui paused to 
rinse a cut on his hand during the attack that inflicted more than 200 stab 
wounds on Williams. When it was over, Con-ui stopped to sit and chew a piece of 
gum he stole from the officer's pocket, prosecutors say.

Con-ui's defense alleges he snapped and killed Williams in a fit of rage 
because of mistreatment by guards in the federal Bureau of Prisons. His 
attorneys are seeking to limit the number of aggravating factors jurors will 
consider when deciding whether to put him to death if he is convicted.

Con-ui is already serving 25 years to life for the 2002 murder. As part of his 
initiation into the Arizona Mexican Mafia, Con-ui lured a gang member who had 
fallen out of favor with gang leadership to a Phoenix laundromat in 2002 and 
shot him 4 times in the head, according to prosecutors.

Con-ui remains imprisoned at ADX Florence, the supermaximum security prison in 
Colorado.

(source: citizensvoice.com)

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

Death the right sentence for remorseless Roof


It took the jury slightly less than 3 hours to sentence Dylann Roof to death 
for murdering 9 men and women at Emanuel AME Church 18 months ago.

The jury - 2 men and 10 women - made the correct decision.

If ever there was a case in which the death penalty was fully deserved, this 
was one.

The trial of the 22-year old white supremacist showed him to be methodical in 
his preparation for the mass murder and carefully selective as to his target. 
He had visited the historic black church on Calhoun Street three times before 
the massacre.

He was merciless as he shot those in the Bible study group, who had invited him 
into their discussion, and with whom he spent almost an hour before killing 
them. He pulled the trigger more than 75 times, reloading 7 times and shooting 
his victims repeatedly.

Roof showed no remorse in the courtroom, no repudiation of his ideology of race 
hatred, no shame for having committed a hideous crime of devastating 
consequences. Indeed, he appeared virtually without emotion throughout the 
trial, even when he acted as his own legal counsel during the sentencing 
portion.

There will be opponents of the death penalty who will argue that Roof should 
have been spared the death penalty on moral grounds, or that spending a life 
behind bars is a greater punishment than execution.

But the law makes execution the ultimate penalty, and the jury rightly decided 
it was the penalty Roof deserves. The judge is required to follow through on 
the jury's unanimous decision.

One question remains: Should the state now pursue its murder case against Roof 
following the completion of the federal hate crimes trial?

Circuit Court Judge J.D. Nichols last week suspended the state trial 
indefinitely. State prosecutors should weigh their options regarding his 
pending murder trial, recognizing the burden that another trial would put upon 
the survivors of the massacre, and the families of those slain.

There will most likely be appeals of the sentence, or at least attempts to 
appeal.

Certainly, there is no question as to Roof's guilt. He admitted it from the 
outset, though he initially sought a deal that would give him life 
imprisonment.

He returned briefly to that theme on Tuesday in his closing remarks, reminding 
jurors that it would take only one of them to spare his life.

But all the facts of the case and all the testimony in his trial inexorably led 
to the conclusion reached by the jury in its sentence.

(source: Post and Courier, Charleston)