[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----VA., N.C., FLA., OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 17



VIRGINIA----impending execution

Death row inmate argues for firing squad days before lethal injection date


You may not care how a killer is killed. But what if there was a way to execute 
convicted murderers on death row with a cheaper and more effective alternative 
than lethal injection?

According to convicted murder Ricky Gray's attorneys, there is. The solution: a 
firing squad.

"[There is] a lot of support for the notion that it is more humane, and less 
painful than the lethal injection protocols, which we've seen time and again 
have resulted in botched executions all across the country," one of Gray's 
attorneys, Lisa Fried told reporters last week.

Gray was convicted of murdering Cox High School homecoming queen Kathy 
Grabinsky Harvey, her husband and their 2 young girls in their Richmond home 
over a decade ago.

Gray was sentenced to death for the crimes. His co-defendant, Ray Dandridge, 
was sentenced to life without parole by jurors.

"I've stolen something from the world," Gray says in a recorded YouTube video, 
speaking out publicly for the 1st time. "It's never left my mind, because I 
understand exactly what I took from the world by looking at my 2 sisters."

On Wednesday, Gray will become the 112th person executed by the Commonwealth of 
Virginia since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme 
Court.

"I'm sorry they had to be a victim of my despair," Gray continues in the video. 
"I robbed them of a lifelong supply of joy."

Recently, Gray's attorneys argued for execution by firing squad, but the 
request was denied by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Now, Gray is facing death by lethal injection - a controversial drug cocktail 
which Gray's attorneys say is "chemical torture".

Court records say the state spent over $66,000 dollars to not only acquire the 
hard-to-get drugs, but to also help hide the identity of the pharmaceutical 
companies involved.

Additionally, Gray's attorney cite sources which show lethal injection has a 7 
% botched execution rate, the highest out of any execution option. The same 
sources show firing squads have a zero % botched execution rate.

Now, only the Supreme Court or the Governor remain able to postpone Wednesday 
night's execution.

In an odd procedural circumstance, Gray's attorneys say his lawsuit alleging 
that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment is still pending in 
court. The Virginia Department of Corrections is supposed to respond to his 
allegations by January 24, 6 days after Gray's scheduled execution.

"If [he] is executed on [Wednesday], the method of execution will be used 
without the court ever resolving whether Gray's allegations that it is a cruel 
and unusual punishment are true," Rob Lee, one of Gray's attorneys, told News 3 
on Monday.

In the past, Virginia governors have not stepped in until all court proceedings 
are resolve, and Governor McAuliffe is likely to follow this practice.

(source: WTKR news)

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

Years after slayings, killer of Va. family faces execution


The 2006 murders of a well-known Richmond couple and their young daughters as 
they were preparing to host a New Year's party sent shock waves through 
Virginia's capital city.

More than 11 years later, some hope the execution of a man convicted in their 
deaths will close a painful chapter of this community's history.

"I do not think we should be saddled with the cost of keeping that heinous 
murderer alive," said Steve Tarrant, who lived near the slain family and still 
gets emotional when he talks about watching their bodies being carried out of 
their home.

"I think his execution will help effect a closure," the 76-year-old said.

(source: Associated Press)






NORTH CAROLINA:

There is no true justice in death penalty


On Jan. 10, self-avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof, who was convicted of the 
murder of 9 African-Americans while they prayed, was sentenced to death. His 
sentence should come as no surprise to those familiar with the overwhelming 
amount of polling data showing majority support for the death penalty. One need 
look no further than the comments section of any article on the Dylann Roof 
saga to see that support for the ultimate criminal punishment is alive and 
well.

Our uniquely American affinity for the death penalty is tragic for the simple 
reason that capital punishment is both morally and intellectually indefensible. 
When subjected to any level of academic scrutiny, the common arguments in 
support of the death penalty: deterrence, fairness and closure for victims' 
families, quickly crumble. Now more than ever, on the heels of what many would 
call a model death sentence, it is worth examining the sad fact that there is 
no logical argument in support of capital punishment.

The only argument that attempts to claim a measurable societal benefit to 
retaining the death penalty goes as follows: the death penalty should be kept 
because its very existence deters would-be murderers. If this "deterrence" 
argument strikes you as ascribing an uncomfortable amount of logic to the 
process by which one person decides whether to murder another, you can probably 
already see why it fails. In a 2006 meta-analysis of the many different ways in 
which researchers have sought to measure the deterrent effect, if any, of the 
death penalty, professors from Yale and the University of Pennsylvania 
concluded that "[n]one of these approaches suggested that the death penalty has 
large effects on the murder rate. Year-to-year movements in homicide rates are 
large, and the effects of even major changes in execution policy are barely 
detectable." It is accordingly unsurprising that, when surveyed, 88 % of the 
leading criminologists in the United States stated that death penalty was not 
"a deterrent to the commitment to murder."

Most commonly, death penalty supporters rely on the difficult to quantify 
assertion that there is just something inherently fair about a murderer being 
punished by death. The "eye for an eye" argument is premised upon the belief 
that all human life is equal, and that the fair punishment for killing another 
is for murderers themselves to be killed. While this defense is perhaps morally 
righteous in the abstract, it fails to hold up in practice. The flaw in this 
argument stems from the fact that American justice systems are woefully 
incapable of treating all life as equal. Focusing just on North Carolina, 
researchers at UNC have concluded that "[a] defendant is significantly more 
likely to get the death penalty if the victim is white rather than non-white." 
Specifically, the UNC study found that the odds of a defendant being sentenced 
to death were 3.5 times higher if their victim was white. The "eye for an eye" 
argument falls apart rather quickly in the context of a justice system that 
arbitrarily treats blue eyes as more valuable than brown. The last of the 
common pro-death penalty arguments is that the punishment is necessary in order 
to afford the families of victims a sense of closure. As recently seen in 
testimony from the Dylann Roof trial, however, not all families of victims are 
in favor of their family members' killer being put to death. Notwithstanding 
recent research from Marquette University that challenges the idea that 
executions can provide a sense of closure, there is undeniably some subset of 
individuals who both want to see, and will derive some sense of satisfaction 
out of seeing their loved ones' killers put to death. Their interests must be 
weighed against the dramatically increased litigation costs that accompany 
capital cases. According to researchers at Duke University, "[t]he extra cost 
per execution of prosecuting a case capitally is more than $2.16 million." A 
separate Duke study concludes that it costs North Carolina taxpayers roughly 
$11 million annually to continue to use the death penalty.

Taking all available facts together, the question becomes whether it is logical 
to retain a form of punishment that is administered in a racially biased 
manner, yields no generalized social benefits, and costs taxpayers a small 
fortune, solely for the purpose of indulging the fraction of Americans who both 
lose a loved one to murder, and wish to see that loss repaid by another death. 
Because I cannot believe that a majority of Americans are so morally bankrupt 
as to answer that question in the affirmative, I am left to conclude that the 
continued majority support for the death penalty is due to a pervasive 
ignorance of the issue. Until that changes, each death sentence meted out, even 
Mr. Roof's, provides another occasion to reflect on the sad state of affairs 
that is the American use of capital punishment.

(source: Guest Columnist; Eric Edgerton is a graduate of the George Washington 
University School of Law and a practicing attorney at Roberts & Stevens, P.A., 
in downtown Asheville----Asheville Citizen-Times)






FLORIDA:

Convicted killer gets 2nd chance at life


A convicted killer, sentenced to death at the Orange County Courthouse, will 
get a 2nd chance at life. This comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 
Florida's death penalty law unconstitutional.

Rafael Zaldivar wants Bessman Okafor dead for killing his son Alex Zaldivar. In 
2015 he heard the sentence he'd been hoping for, death. But a few days ago, 
Rafael met with the prosecutor in the case. He says, he told him, they'll have 
to do the death penalty phase of the trial again.

"He's got hope and hope is the only thing that's keeping him alive today and I 
want to take that hope away," said Zaldivar. "Unfortunately in our case it was 
11 to 1. If that particular juror would have decided to vote guilty we wouldn't 
be talking today. So by one juror, we've gotta start all over."

Zaldivar says he and his family will have to take the stand again and re-live 
the unimaginable pain that began back in 2012, when Okafor, murdered Alex 
before he could testify against him in a home invasion case.

"19 years old and in college. He put him on the ground and shot him twice. I 
always wonder what was he thinking."

Now, Zaldivar wonders what will happen next.

"Do you think he has another chance? Sure. He's coming back. It's a 50/50. He's 
coming back. And we're gonna have to tolerate this guy at taxpayers expense."

Zaldivar says he plans to fight in court.

Okafor is scheduled to have a hearing in Tallahassee in March.

(source: Fox News)

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

Make death penalty - and justice for victims - swift and sure


ernard L. Welch, a longtime death-penalty opponent, wrote a My Word column in 
the Jan. 7 Orlando Sentinel questioning this country's use of the death penalty 
to punish those who murder. He asked whether the death penalty "mimics the 
cowardice of the killer."

As a retired prosecutor, I once dealt with our death-penalty law, and I have 
seen the handiwork of the murderers I prosecuted. I have participated in 
presenting to a judge and jury the facts regarding what these murderers did so 
that, based on the law, the judge and jury could determine whether the 
defendant in fact deserved to be put to death. This is a determination the 
defendants in these cases did not bother to make regarding their victims.

I have also litigated the post-conviction motions that inevitably follow a 
sentence of death.

Murder defendants are entitled to legal process - something they did not afford 
their victims. One good example of the care that is taken to make sure a murder 
defendant receives the death penalty only when he truly deserves it would be 
the case of Bryan Jennings, a Brevard County murderer.

Jennings was convicted of kidnapping 7-year-old Rebecca Kunash from her bedroom 
on May 11, 1979, while her parents slept nearby. He smashed her head into a 
curb, raped her several ways, and then drowned her and left her body floating 
in a canal.

Jennings has been tried, convicted and sentenced to death 3 times for this 
murder, and today he is still alive on death row awaiting the outcome of yet 
another appeal by his court-appointed attorneys. Rebecca is still dead.

While Welch suggests the importance of the defendant coming to realize "the 
truth of his actions" and postulates that spending time in prison is more 
punitive than receiving the death penalty, the lack of a waiting line to be 
executed in the most humane and painless way the state can provide contradicts 
that assertion.

The continued appeals by those on death row is another clear rejection of that 
misguided assertion. Murderers on death row want to live - something they 
denied their victims. I submit it is much more important that we provide the 
victim's family justice than it is for the defendant to come to some 
realization of "the truth of his actions."

Welch questions whether the government's right to kill is any more respectful 
of the right to life than "the maniacal actions of a Dylann Roof." In light of 
the requirements that must be met to allow a death-penalty sentence, it would 
clearly seem so.

Some of those requirements include: probative evidence obtained illegally is 
excluded from being presented by the state; guilt must be proved beyond a 
reasonable doubt; if a conviction results, the state must then prove 
aggravating circumstances exist, which outweigh any mitigating circumstances 
that exist; a jury and judge must consider whether the death penalty is 
warranted under the law and must agree that it is; and, review of the case may 
continue more than 37 years before such murderers are executed.

What do you think?

(source: Op-Ed; As assistant state attorney in the 18th Judicial Circuit, Chris 
White prosecuted numerous capital murder cases. He is retired----Orlando 
Sentinel)






OHIO:

Ohio killer asks to be spared from death penalty


Attorneys for a death row inmate sentenced to die for fatally stabbing a 
67-year-old man are asking the Ohio Parole Board for mercy for their client.

Raymond Tibbetts is scheduled for execution in April. He was convicted of 
killing Fred Hicks at Hicks' Cincinnati home in 1997.

The parole board meets Tuesday to hear arguments for and against clemency for 
Tibbetts.

Records show that Tibbetts first killed his wife, 42-year-old Judith Crawford, 
by beating her with a bat and stabbing her during an argument over Tibbetts' 
crack cocaine habit. Tibbetts then killed Hicks, who had hired Crawford as a 
caretaker and allowed the couple to stay with him.

Tibbetts was sentenced to death for the killing of Hicks and life imprisonment 
without parole for Crawford's death.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Man convicted of murdering Warren couple wants death sentence thrown out


A man who has been on Ohio's death row for 30 years for murdering an elderly 
couple in their Warren home has asked the Ohio Supreme Court to vacate his 
death sentence.

Charles Lorraine was sentenced to die for the 1986 stabbing deaths of 
80-year-old Doris Montgomery and her 77-year-old husband Raymond.

He was convicted on 2 counts of aggravated murder, 2 counts of burglary, 2 
counts of complicity to commit burglary, and 1 count of robbery.

The last execution date for Lorraine was set in 2012.

Even after state officials said that Lorraine had exhausted all appeals and 
Governor John Kasich refused to grant clemency, a federal judge stopped the 
execution, saying Ohio had failed to follow its own rules for executions.

Lorraine's attorney has now filed a motion with the Ohio Supreme Court citing a 
U.S. Supreme Court decision handed down last year ruling that a jury must 
evaluate and weigh all factors required by law to impose the death penalty.

The motion says that an earlier ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court found errors 
in the sentencing phase of Lorraine's case, and argues that the matter should 
be sent back to the trial court in Trumbull County for re-sentencing.

The Trumbull County Prosecutor's Office has yet to file a response to the 
motion.

Background

According to court records, the Montgomerys had been friendly and generous to 
Lorraine in the past and they had hired him to perform tasks around their home.

On May 6, 1986, investigators say Lorraine got Raymond Montgomery to go to the 
2nd floor of his home on the pretense that he had forgotten an item.

Upon entering the room, Lorraine, while wearing rubber gloves, stabbed 
Montgomery 5 times with a butcher knife.

After killing the husband, police say Lorraine returned to the first floor, 
where Mrs. Montgomery was confined to bed, and stabbed her 9 times.

He then burglarized the residence.

Showing no remorse, Lorraine went to a bar and bought drinks with the stolen 
money, according to court documents.

He and a friend returned to the Montgomerys' home to steal again.

(source: WFMJ)

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

Opponents of death penalty urge Kasich to commute sentences to 
life----Executions scheduled through end of 2017, with 2 dozen other dates set 
through 2021


Opponents of capital punishment urged Gov. John Kasich to postpone the state's 
scheduled executions and commute the death sentences of Ohio inmates to life in 
prison without the possibility of parole.

Ohioans to Stop Executions and other like-minded groups also want lawmakers to 
move legislation barring death sentences for the mentally ill and implementing 
additional supports for the families of murder victims.

"You need not execute dangerous offenders in order to feel safe from them or 
hold them accountable," said Abraham Bonowitz, a spokesman for Ohioans to Stop 
Executions. "As the courts are still sorting out Ohio's execution protocol, I 
want to make it clear that Ohioans to Stop Executions does not take a position 
on how we kill our prisoners. Our concern is that we kill prisoners in light of 
the many problems that exist with the morality, the fairness and the accuracy 
of Ohio's capital punishment system."

The groups had planned to protest the execution of Ronald Phillips, who was 
sentenced to die for the 1993 rape and murder of a 3-year-old girl in Akron.

He was supposed to face lethal injection on Jan. 12, but the procedure was 
postponed until Feb. 15. Ohioans to Stop Executions and others instead gathered 
Jan. 12 at the Statehouse to call for an end to the death penalty and to visit 
lawmakers to discuss the issue.

There are 7 other executions scheduled through the end of this year and 2 dozen 
other dates set through 2021.

Executions in Ohio have been on hold since the lethal injection of Dennis 
McGuire in January 2014. McGuire, who received a capital sentence for the rape 
and murder of a pregnant Preble County woman, gasped for breath during what 
witnesses described as a prolonged procedure under the state's former 2-drug 
execution method.

In early 2015, state prison officials abandoned that combination, switching to 
2 different drugs, though that protocol has not been used.

The state and others have struggled to find supplies of execution drugs, after 
manufacturers blocked their use for lethal injections. State law changes have 
since enabled the purchase of drugs from compounding pharmacies, under 
legislation that allowed the names of those businesses to be kept secret.

And pharmacy logs released by state prison officials late last month show 
sufficient supplies of lethal injection drugs on hand for coming executions.

Last year, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction announced it 
would restart executions in 2017, using a new 3-drug combination that was 
similar to the method the state relied on for past executions.

During meetings with lawmakers' offices Thursday, capital punishment opponents 
urged passage of legislation implementing recommendations of a Supreme Court 
task force that studied ways to improve the administration of the death 
penalty.

"We have been saying fix it or end it," Bonowitz said. " It's pretty clear that 
few Ohio legislators want to concern themselves with this issue. We will keep 
pushing on the reforms Our mission is to end executions in our state once and 
for all. That is our goal, and we will achieve it."

(source: twinsburgbulletin.com)