[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----ALA., OHIO, IND., N.DAK., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

June 6




ALABAMA:

Rowe worried about losing judges with new act passed by legislature


Walker County's legislative delegation voted against a new act that one House 
member fears could lead to the county losing some of its judges in a 
redistribution effort.

The act was passed by the Legislature in the 2017 Regular Session that ended 
last month, which also dealt with a couple of other court-related bills 
involving the appeals process in death penalty cases and whether judges can 
override a jury's decision in a capital murder case.

State Rep. Connie Rowe, R-Jasper, a former Jasper police chief, was concerned 
about a new act, voted against by the entire county delegation, which could 
change the allocation of district and circuit judges.

According to a summary sheet from the Senate Majority Leader's Office, "The 
Judicial Resources Allocation Commission will review the need for judgeships in 
each district, using population size and caseload. As vacancies occur, the 
commission will match the judgeship with the county that has the most urgent 
need."

"I'm against it, because I don't want to lose a judge's seat,"?Rowe said. "We 
may very well."

Rowe said different counties may look at the issue differently. She said Blount 
County, in her district, has only 1 circuit judge, Steven King, who is 
extremely overworked and needs more help. "I?don't know how he does it, and I 
don't know how that circuit clerk's office does it up there."

At the same time, Walker County residents would not want to lose a judge, she 
said.

"I?have talked to our local judges, who have told me that we would really run a 
risk of losing 1 of our seats here. I think our courts are busy here in Walker 
County. I was there for 22 years in that courthouse, and I didn't see a lot of 
twiddling thumbs in those courtrooms. They were busy."

The Legislature's website showed Senate Majority Leader Greg Reed, R-Jasper, 
and state Rep. Tim Wadsworth, R-Arley, also voted against the bill.

On a related topic, Wadsworth approved the passage of a bill that shortens the 
state court appeals process in death penalty cases from the current 15 to 18 
years down to a period of nine to 12 years.

"You have got people who have been waiting for 30 years for the person who 
killed their family member to be executed, and this speeds up that process," he 
said.

Rowe agreed with the bill, saying she wanted a much shorter time for appeals.

In another court-related legislative issue, Rowe voted against the judicial 
override bill, which passed in the Legislature, including a 78-19 vote in the 
House. The new act ends the practice of judges reversing decisions by juries in 
capital murder cases.

"I voted against that bill,"?she said. "I?was not for getting rid of judicial 
override. I think a judge should be able to override the jury."

She went on to question if judges were useless if sentencing guidelines dictate 
what sentences are handed out and the judges can't override juries. Rowe said a 
judge may want to override juries who may "overzealously pursue a death penalty 
because of some circumstance or under-sentence someone because of a non-related 
circumstance.

"I think there is a purpose for why we have judges and we continue to strip 
them of their authority,"?she said.

(source: Daily Mountain Eagle)

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

Jury sentences Auburn man to life in prison for murder of 5-year-old


An Auburn man was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole on Monday after 
being convicted of capital murder in the 2015 death of his 5-year-old 
stepdaughter on Friday.

George William Barton was convicted Friday of killing his stepdaughter, Caley 
Presley, on June 7, 2015 in their Rosie Street home in Auburn after a 2-week 
trial.

The jury returned on Monday for the sentencing portion of the trial where the 
state and defense issued statements and called witnesses. The jury had 2 
options of sentencing for Barton: the death penalty and life without parole.

(source: oanews.com)






OHIO:

Ohio could have path to obtaining long-sought execution drug


Ohio may have a path to obtaining a long-sought lethal injection drug if the 
state can locate the proper ingredients, the prison system's top lawyer said 
during a deposition in a legal challenge to Ohio's proposed execution drugs.

The state has been unable to carry out executions on more than 2 dozen 
condemned killers because of court challenges to its proposed 3-drug method, 
which includes midazolam, a sedative used in problematic executions in other 
states.

Gov. John Kasich delayed executions once again in May, including that of Ronald 
Phillips, now scheduled to die in July for raping and killing his girlfriend's 
3-year-old daughter in Akron in 1993.

Stephen Gray's deposition, taken last year and unsealed May 24, suggests Ohio 
may have a possible source of a barbiturate called pentobarbital through a 
compounding pharmacist. Gray said in the deposition that the pharmacist might 
be able to supply pentobarbital to the state.

Pentobarbital was Ohio's preferred lethal drug until U.S. supplies dried up, 
and obtaining supplies of pentobarbital could go a long way to breaking the 
legal deadlock over state executions. A single, lethal dose of pentobarbital 
was without problems in 10 Ohio executions from 2011 to 2013.

Compounding pharmacists typically mix small, specialty batches of drugs that 
aren't subject to the same type of federal regulations as pharmaceuticals 
mass-produced by drug makers.

If Ohio could legally import overseas ingredients for pentobarbital, "then 
maybe there may be a relationship with that compounding pharmacist to supply 
that to my Department," Gray said in the Dec. 16 deposition.

In the same deposition, Gray confirmed that a compounding pharmacist on a 
prison system list wouldn't be able to mix pentobarbital without being supplied 
the active ingredients. The list Gray refers to, "Exhibit 22," is sealed.

The prison system declined comment. Timothy Sweeney, the attorney who 
questioned Gray in the deposition, also declined comment.

In a May 25 filing with a federal appeals court in Cincinnati, Sweeney and 
other attorneys argue that, based on the evidence, death row inmates "are 
likely to succeed in showing that pentobarbital is available to Ohio."

The appeals court on June 14 will hear death row inmates' challenge of the 
state's proposed 3-drug method that includes midazolam, which was used in 
problematic executions in recent years in Arizona, Arkansas and Ohio. Opponents 
say midazolam creates a substantial risk of harm by not rendering inmates 
deeply unconscious.

A 3-judge panel previously declared the method unconstitutional, but in a rare 
move, the full court agreed to re-hear the case at the state's request.

(source: The Republic)






INDIANA:

State is in a death penalty corner


Indiana officials probably don't want to have a big debate about the death 
penalty, but they more or less have to. The issue has been hijacked by capital 
punishment opponents, who have pushed the state into a corner by challenging 
the lethal cocktail used to carry out state-sanctioned executions. If the state 
can't talk its way out of the corner, it might have to go back to "less humane" 
methods of execution.

Most death penalty states have a similar dilemma. Influenced by anti-capital 
punishment activists, major drug companies have stopped making their lethal 
products available to states using them for capital punishment, so states have 
been scrambling to find alternatives.

In 2014, the Indiana Department of Corrections came up with a 3-drug cocktail 
of methohexital, potassium chloride and pancuronium bromide, which no state or 
federal prisoner in the country has been executed by. Other states coming up 
with their own concoctions have had horrible instances of prisoners dying 
gruesome, drawn-out deaths, which has put the "cruel and unusual punishment" 
argument back on the table.

Roy Lee Ward, one of Indiana's 11 prisoners on death row, sued the state in 
2015, arguing that the DOC skirted procedures when it chose the new drugs. A 
LaPorte Circuit judge dismissed the claim. But now a 3-judge Indiana Court of 
Appeals panel has reversed the lower court. The judges found that when the DOC 
chose the new drugs, it violated Ward's rights under the state and federal 
constitutions. The DOC did not follow guidelines set by the General Assembly 
that regulate how state agencies change its rules, including holding a public 
hearing, the court said.

The state's options are limited. Even if it backs up and follows all the 
procedures the court says are necessary, it may be a moot point. Indiana's 
stock of lethal injection drugs is expired - and, given the attitude of the 
drug companies, the state is not likely to replenish them any time soon.

So what is the state to do? Put executions on hold indefinitely, which would 
have the effect of eliminating capital punishment? Bring back the gas chamber, 
hanging, the firing squad, the electric chair?

It is more than a little ironic that lethal injections were settled on as a 
more humane way of dispatching capital offenders. In trying to deal with claims 
of its cruelty, the state might have to revert to killing in ways considered 
even more barbaric.

Maybe it's time for one of those public hearings.

(source: Editorial, News-Sentinel)



NORTH DAKOTA:

Why does North Dakota not have the death penalty?


Regarding Ashley Hunter ... will someone please explain to me why this 
miscreant isn't facing the death penalty? Why does North Dakota not have the 
death penalty? Just what kind of 'Red State' are we, anyway?

Life without parole costs the taxpayer a fortune, and for what? So the 
snowflakes can feel good about their misplaced compassion? Maliciously taking 
another life makes your own forfeit, and it is the law's duty to take it from 
you. That Ashley Hunter will continue to breathe the air is an insult to his 
victims' memory.

Furthermore, why did it take 2 years to bring this guy to trial? I understand 
attorneys require time to blow smoke at each other...but two years? Justice 
delayed is justice denied!

It is an insult to decent people that this animal is being warehoused instead 
of executed. North Dakota needs the death penalty now, and it needs to be 
applied in all cases of premeditated murder.

Virginia and Texas have the right idea: try 'em, fry 'em, and forget 'em.

Anything less is an injustice to the families of murder victims, and civilized 
society as a whole.

Shaun Moser, Fargo

(source: Letter to the Editor, inforum.com)






CALIFORNIA:

Court to hear challenge to speed up California executions


The California Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday over a ballot 
initiative designed to speed up executions that could fundamentally change the 
way the court handles death penalty appeals.

Death penalty opponents are challenging a ballot measure passed by a slim 
majority of voters in November that aimed to reform a dysfunctional system that 
hasn???t executed a condemned killer in more than a decade.

Foes of capital punishment argue that Proposition 66 was unconstitutional 
because it would take power away from the state's high court to decide how it 
handles cases and it would disrupt the court system, cost the state more money 
and undermine the appeals process.

If allowed to take effect, the measure would require more lawyers to take death 
penalty appellate cases, some trial court judges would be assigned appeals and 
all state appeals would have to be completed in 5 years, which is about 1/3 of 
the time it typically takes.

With a backlog of 380 death penalty appeals, there's concern judges would be 
overwhelmed trying to speed through appeals, said Elisabeth Semel, a law 
professor at University of California, Berkeley, who consulted for death 
penalty opponents on the case.

"There's an enormous ripple effect to that," said Semel, who directs the 
school's death penalty clinic. "The attention the justices can pay to each 
individual case is significantly diminished. When you're talking about life and 
death, that's important."

The ballot initiative supported by 51 % of voters was designed to "mend not 
end" capital punishment in California, where nearly 750 inmates are on death 
row and only 13 have been executed since 1978.

A competing measure to repeal capital punishment lost by a slightly wider 
margin. Both sides acknowledged the current system is broken.

"The 1 thing everybody agreed on was that the status quo was unsatisfactory," 
said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, 
which advocated for Proposition 66. "What they're asking to do is override the 
voters and keep the status quo."

Scheidegger thinks law and history is on his side. He noted the state Supreme 
Court has said it ???jealously guards??? the right to the ballot initiative and 
most attacks have failed.

He also disputed that the intended reforms will cause the chaos suggested by 
challengers.

The legal challenge was brought by Ron Briggs, a former El Dorado county 
supervisor whose father wrote the ballot measure that expanded California's 
death penalty in 1978, along with former state Attorney General John Van de 
Kamp, a longtime death penalty opponent, who died in March.

Challengers also said the proposition violated a requirement that a ballot 
measure only cover a single subject.

They said it incorporated unrelated elements such as provisions that would 
allow condemned inmates to be housed at prisons other than San Quentin and 
would require inmate pay go toward victim restitution.

The court will have 3 months to rule on the case.

If the court tosses out the petition, about 20 inmates have exhausted all 
appeals and can be executed, Scheidegger said.

(source: dailyjournal.net)

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

Death penalty is upheld for Orange County killer:


The California Supreme Court on Monday upheld the death penalty for Gerald 
Parker, known as the "Bedroom Basher" for terrorizing Orange County in the late 
1970s in a string of home-invasion rapes and murders.

Parker was a staff sergeant based in Orange County for the U.S. Marine Corps in 
1978 and 1979. During that time, 5 women in Anaheim, Costa Mesa and Tustin were 
raped and beaten to death in their apartments.

A 6th victim, D. Green, survived with brain damage, but her 9-month-old fetus, 
identified by the court as Chantal Green, was delivered stillborn.

Green's husband, Kevin Lee Green, was wrongly convicted of the attack. He was 
imprisoned from 1980 to 1996, when DNA tests linked the victims to one another 
and to Parker.

Parker admitted during a police interrogation to burglarizing all 6 homes, but 
claimed he was intoxicated at the time and did not intend to kill the victims, 
identified by the court as: Sandra Fry, Kimberly Rawlins, Marolyn Carleton, 
Chantal Green, Debora Kennedy and Debra Senior.

An Orange County judge sentenced Parker to death in 1999.

(source: Los Angeles Times)

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

No death penalty for Sierra LaMar's killer


A convicted Morgan Hill killer was sentenced Monday to serve life in prison 
without possibility of parole. The jury unanimously decided against sentencing 
Antolin Garcia-Torres to death.

The same jury found Garcia-Torres guilty last month of kidnapping and murdering 
a 15-year-old girl, Sierra LaMar, while she was on her way to school.

A Santa Clara Hall of Justice courtroom was completely silent just before the 
jury's sentencing decision was read. Sierra's father looked disappointed, 
holding his head in his hands.

During the trial's penalty phase, Garcia-Torres' defense team sought sympathy 
from the jury by illustrating what life was like for Garcia-Torres as he was 
growing up in Morgan Hill. According to testimony, his alcoholic father beat 
his mother and sexually molested a young female family member.

Prosecutors said Garcia-Torres deserved the death penalty because he did not 
show mercy toward Sierra when he decided to kidnap her. Since then, he 
exhibited no remorse, and has not revealed where Sierra's body is, prosecutors 
said.

(source: KSBW news)