[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, GA., FLA., ALA., LA., KY.. S.DAK., USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 12



TEXAS:

Deadly games----The Court of Criminal Appeals must treat executions with a new 
sense of skepticism.


How can you tell if a criminal is too mentally disabled to merit the death 
penalty?

If you're a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, you look at the prevailing 
standards of psychology and medicine.

If you're a judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA), you look at his 
ability to hustle pool.

This mismatched standard has the state's highest criminal court rehearing the 
death sentence of Bobby Moore, who was convicted for shooting a grocery store 
employee during a robbery in 1980. Moore's lawyers have argued that he is 
mentally disabled and executing him would violate the Eighth Amendment's 
prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

In a 5-3 decision released in March, the Supreme Court found that the CCA 
failed to consider current clinical standards when determining Moore's 
intelligence and relied too much on invented standards that have no real basis 
in medicine or law. Among those invented standards were the facts that Moore 
"lived on the streets, mowed lawns, and played pool for money."

Now the CCA is going to reconsider Moore's death sentence, and we encourage 
them to listen to the dissenting judge who had it right the whole time: Judge 
Elsa Alcala.

Over the past several capital punishment cases to face the CCA, Alcala has 
refused to shy away from pointing out the flaws in our state's death penalty 
process. In fact, the former prosecutor and trial judge has twice called for 
the CCA to address the underlying constitutionality of the death penalty 
itself.

There are 3 key legal arguments to consider: Is the death penalty in Texas 
unconstitutionally arbitrary because race, rather than violence, is a better 
predictor of its application?

Is the death penalty in Texas unconstitutionally cruel because it essentially 
requires convicts on death row to sit in solitary confinement for years, if not 
decades?

Is the death penalty in Texas unconstitutionally unusual because, since 2010, 
capital punishment is practiced in only 16 counties out of more than 3,000 
across the United States?

Beyond the legal realm of Alcala's expertise, Texas also needs to consider the 
deep questions of policy and morality wrapped up in the application of 
government-administered death.

Innocent people like Anthony Graves have been rescued from death row. Others, 
like Cameron Todd Willingham, were executed while questions of guilt still 
lingered.

There's no undoing a mistaken execution, yet Texas persists.

The death penalty doesn't save money - the constitutionally compelled appeals 
process is often more expensive than life in prison. And there's no conclusive 
evidence that it does a better job at deterring crime. In fact, states without 
capital punishment routinely have lower murder rates.

That's why the rest of western civilization has abandoned the practice. 
Countries like Iran, China, North Korea and Saudi Arabia sit among Texas' peers 
in executing criminals - not exactly the company the Lone Star State should 
want to keep.

Questions of life and death aren't a game - pool hustling or otherwise. Nor 
should executions be treated like a political pawn. The CCA and the entire 
state of Texas need to address the death penalty with a new and serious 
skepticism.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

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

Jury Clears the Prosecutor Who Sent Cameron Todd Willingham to death 
row----John Jackson did not commit misconduct in 1992 case, a jury finds.


After a trial of more than 2 weeks, a Texas jury on Wednesday found that former 
state prosecutor John Jackson had not committed misconduct in the 1992 death 
penalty trial of Cameron Todd Willingham.

By an 11-to-1 vote, a Navarro County jury rejected claims by the State Bar of 
Texas that Jackson made false statements, concealed evidence favorable to 
Willingham's defense and obstructed justice.

The state bar had accused Jackson of failing to disclose to Willingham's 
defense lawyers that jailhouse snitch Johnny Webb had been promised favorable 
treatment on an aggravated robbery conviction in return for testimony at 
Willingham's trial.

Webb testified at Willingham's trial that while he and Willingham were in the 
Navarro County Jail Willingham confessed to setting a fire that killed his 3 
daughters. In 2014, Webb recanted that testimony, saying Willingham never 
confessed and that he had testified after Jackson promised him leniency on his 
own criminal charge.

Jackson testified during his trial that he had made no deal with Webb. He said 
he only made efforts to obtain a reduction of Webb's conviction from aggravated 
robbery to simple robbery and an early release from prison because Webb was 
being threatened in prison.

Willingham was executed on Feb. 17, 2004 for setting the fire that killed his 
daughters on Dec. 23, 1991 in their Corsicana, Texas home. The prosecution's 
case against him was 2-pronged - testimony by fire investigators that their 
analysis of the fire debris showed the blaze was deliberately set and Webb's 
assertion that Willingham had confessed.

Weeks before the execution, an independent fire expert concluded there was no 
evidence the fire was deliberately set. Over the next decade numerous experts 
also reached the same conclusion.

The verdict was a defeat for the state bar, which filed a complaint in 2015 
seeking to disbar Jackson. The complaint was the culmination of more than a 
decade of investigation by the Innocence Project, which unsuccessfully sought a 
posthumous pardon for Willingham.

During the trial of the bar complaint against Jackson, state bar lawyers showed 
jurors excerpts of a pre-trial video deposition of Webb during which he said 
that he had lied at Willingham's trial after Jackson promised him favorable 
treatment on his own case.

However, when Webb took the witness stand in person, he refused to answer 
questions about whether he had lied at Willingham's trial and invoked his Fifth 
Amendment protection against self-incrimination more than 50 times. He also 
said he couldn't recall or did not remember nearly 100 times.

The trial was attended by a group of supporters of Jackson, who was elected a 
Navarro County District judge after Willingham's trial. Judge David Farr, who 
presided over Jackson's trial, admonished the Jackson supporters for repeatedly 
expressing audible sounds of disgust and disbelief during Webb's testimony.

The complaint against Jackson was filed by the state bar after the Innocence 
Project uncovered documents, including letters from Webb to Jackson and letters 
from Jackson seeking an early release from prison for Webb. The bar had accused 
Jackson of violating several sections of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of 
Professional Conduct that prohibit making false statements to a judge as well 
as obstructing justice.

The state bar previously was successful in obtaining the disbarment of 2 other 
former prosecutors for making false statements and obstructing justice. In 
2013, Williamson County District Judge Ken Anderson resigned as a judge and a 
lawyer and pled no contest to a contempt of court charge for failing to reveal 
evidence of innocence in the case of Michael Morton, who was exonerated after 
being wrongly convicted and serving 25 years in prison for the murder of his 
wife.

In June 2015, former prosecutor Charles Sebesta was disbarred for concealing 
evidence of innocence while prosecuting Anthony Graves, who was convicted and 
sent to Texas death row for the 1992 murders of 6 people. A federal appeals 
court reversed Graves' conviction in 2006 and he was released in 2010 after a 
special prosecutor conducted a re-investigation of the case and concluded that 
Graves was innocent.

Withholding evidence that is favorable to a defendant, whether it is evidence 
of innocence or evidence that undercuts a prosecution witness such as Webb, is 
one of the most egregious acts of misconduct a prosecutor can commit. The 
National Registry of Exonerations, a national database of more than 2,100 
wrongful convictions in the U.S. since 1989, reports that official misconduct, 
which includes misconduct by prosecutors, police and other government 
officials, has been a contributing factor in about 1/2 of the 2,023 wrongful 
convictions in the Registry.

(source: Maurice Possley is a journalist who investigated the Willingham case 
for The Marshall Project in 2014 in a collaboration with The Washington Post. 
He is also a senior researcher for the National Registry of 
Exonerations----themarshallproject.org)






GEORGIA----impending execution

Lawyers cite troubled past in plea to spare inmate's life


Lawyers for a Georgia inmate scheduled for execution next week are asking the 
state parole board to spare his life, citing a rough childhood, substance abuse 
from an early age and his intellectual disability.

J.W. Ledford Jr., 45, is scheduled to be put to death Tuesday. He was convicted 
of murder in the January 1992 stabbing death of his neighbor, 73-year-old Dr. 
Harry Johnston, near his home in Murray County, in northwest Georgia.

A clemency application submitted by his lawyers and released Thursday by the 
State Board of Pardons and Paroles asks the board to take into account details 
and factors that the courts have been legally or procedurally barred from 
considering.

"The citizens of this state have empowered this Board to make decisions not as 
judges under the law, but as human beings, to serve as the conscience of our 
community," Ledford's lawyers wrote.

The parole board plans to hold a meeting Monday to hear arguments for or 
against granting clemency. The board is the only authority in Georgia with 
power to commute a death sentence.

Ledford's lawyers do not deny that he killed Johnston, and they say his 
troubled background serves not as an excuse but rather to give insight into 
how, at age 20 and with no history of violence, he came to kill his neighbor.

Conasauga Judicial Circuit District Attorney Bert Poston, whose office 
prosecuted Ledford, did not immediately respond to a call Thursday afternoon 
seeking comment, but he has previously said he plans to attend the hearing and 
ask the parole board not to grant clemency.

Ledford told police he had gone to Johnston's home on Jan. 31, 1992, to ask for 
a ride to the grocery store. After the older man accused him of stealing and 
smacked him, Ledford pulled out a knife and stabbed Johnston to death, 
according to court filings. The pathologist who did the autopsy said Johnston 
suffered "1 continuous or 2 slices to the neck" and bled to death.

After dragging Johnston's body to another part of the property and covering it 
up, Ledford went to Johnston's house with a knife and demanded money from 
Johnston's wife, according to court filings. He took money and 4 guns from the 
home, tied up Johnston's wife and left in Johnston's truck. He was arrested 
later that day.

Ledford told police he had a number of beers and smoked a couple joints in the 
hours before the killing.

Known as "Boy" because he was his parents' 1st male child after 6 girls, 
Ledford's childhood was characterized by whippings and verbal abuse from his 
father, who was strict when sober and mean when drunk, the clemency application 
says. Ledford's older sisters and cousins began giving him alcohol when he was 
7 or 8 to watch him get drunk and then began giving him drugs around age 10, 
the application says.

Ledford is intellectually disabled and that caused him to struggle throughout 
school and later made even simple jobs requiring minimal skills difficult, his 
lawyers wrote. State law and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling prohibit the execution 
of the intellectually disabled, which means Ledford is ineligible for 
execution, his lawyers argue.

State and federal courts have consistently rejected Ledford's claims of 
intellectual disability, but his lawyers are urging the parole board members to 
use the extra discretion they're allowed to consider the totality of his 
circumstances.

The clemency application also includes testimonials from friends, family 
members and pen pals who say he has offered them support and help even from 
prison. 2 prison guards are quoted as saying he never gave them trouble and got 
along with other inmates and officers.

Life without the chance of parole was not a sentencing option at the time of 
Ledford???s trial, but 5 of the jurors from his trial told his lawyers they 
would have chosen that instead of death had it been available, the application 
says.

(source: The Republic)






FLORIDA:

Florida Supreme Court Vacates Death Penalty Convictions


The Florida Supreme Court has reversed the murder convictions of Ralph Wright 
Jr. Wright had been convicted of the 2007 murder of a Pinellas County woman and 
her son.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that there was no direct evidence tying 
Wright to the murders. Wright was an Air Force officer stationed in Tampa. He 
met Paula O'Connor and later allegedly had his son. Wright denies the child was 
his. O'Connor and the boy were found strangled. The court says there's no 
physical evidence Wright committed the crimes.

(source: WFSU news)

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

Death sentence overturned in James Card case


James Armando Card will be coming back to Bay County for a new sentencing 
hearing in the coming months after the Supreme Court of Florida overturned his 
death sentence.

In a 4-3 ruling issued May 4, Justices ruled James Armando Card, 70, should get 
a new sentencing hearing because his death sentence handed down in June of 1999 
was 11-1, and not 12-0.

Card was convicted of the June 3, 1981, kidnapping and murder of Janice 
Franklin. Card robbed the Western Union office where Franklin worked and 
kidnapped her. According to testimony during his trials, Card was armed with a 
knife when he robbed the Western Union office.

During a struggle, Franklin's fingers were severely cut on both hands, almost 
severing several fingers on her right hand. Card forced Franklin in a car and 
drove 8 miles to a wooded area where he promised he wouldn't hurt her.

When they got to the wooded area, Card instead came up from behind her, grabbed 
her hair, pulled her hair back and slit her throat. The cut to her throat was 2 
1/2f inches deep according to court testimony. It severed her windpipe and her 
esophagus and cut into the bone itself.

Card stood over her and watched her bleed. Card and Franklin knew each other 
and according to the court it was particularly "wicked and vile" because 
"Franklin knew her attacker, had to suffer during the long drive from the 
wounds to her hand and must have been traumatized and terrorized during the 
whole process.... The defendant (Card) told Vicki Elrod that he even enjoyed 
it."

Up next for Card is DNA testing ordered by the state which is being done by 
Florida Department of Law Enforcement on evidence from trial. Those results 
should be back within 8 weeks. A hearing on setting a date for a new penalty 
phase is set for mid-July.

Card is one of Bay County's longest-tenured members of death row, having been 
there since 1982. Only Charles Kinney Foster whose been on death row since 
October of 1975 has been there longer.

Card has already dodged 2 death warrants. Just a day before he was scheduled to 
die in 1986, the Supreme Court of Florida issued an emergency stay of 
execution, saying it need to take sufficient time to review new appeals from 
Card.

On August 18,1987, then-Governor Bob Martinez signed another death warrant, but 
a district court granted Card another stay of execution on September 16, 1987.

Since that time, another death warrant hasn't been signed for Card.

(source: WJHG news)

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

2 death sentences against Palm Coast killer tossed out----David Snelgrove, now 
44, was sentenced to death in 2009 for killing Glyn Fowler, 84, and his wife, 
Vivian, 79.


The Florida Supreme Court has thrown out two death sentences against a Palm 
Coast man, who beat and stabbed his elderly neighbors to death 17 years ago, 
because jurors did not unanimously recommend death.

David Snelgrove, now 44, was sentenced to death in 2009 for killing Glyn 
Fowler, 84, and his wife, Vivian, 79. The couple lived across the street from 
Snelgrove in the city's B section. Snelgrove broke into their home in June 2000 
to rob them and pawn their jewelry to support his cocaine habit. He beat and 
stabbed them 38 times.

In Snelgrove's case, jurors recommended death by a vote of 8-4 for each count 
of 1st-degree murder. Circuit Judge Kim C. Hammond, who has since retired, 
sentenced Snelgrove to death in 2009.

But the state Supreme Court ruled last year in a case known as Hurst that 
jurors must unanimously recommend death before a judge can sentence someone to 
die. The justices ruled that the Hurst decision is retroactive to a 2002 
decision by the U.S. Supreme Court known as Ring v. Arizona.

The state Supreme Court cited the non-unanimous jury vote when it vacated 
Snelgrove's death sentences in the ruling released Thursday and ordered a new 
sentencing phase. Snelgrove's conviction stands.

Florida legislators were warned after the 2002 Ring decision about flaws in the 
state's death penalty but lawmakers did not require a unanimous jury vote until 
this year.

Snelgrove now faces a 3rd sentencing. The one the Supreme Court threw out from 
2009 was his 2nd.

A jury convicted Snelgrove in 2002 of the killings. The jury in 2002 voted 7-5 
to recommend Snelgrove be put to death, and Hammond sentenced him to death.

But the state Supreme Court in 2005, while upholding his conviction, struck 
down the death sentences because the jury had provided one sentencing 
recommendation for both murders.

Snelgrove lived with his aunt and cousin on Bayside Drive in the Indian Trails 
neighborhood. It was Snelgrove's aunt who realized something was wrong when she 
spotted newspapers piling up outside the Fowlers' home.

Snelgrove apparently cut himself breaking into the Fowlers' house through a 
back window. Snelgrove's blood was found throughout the house, including on 
Vivian Fowler's body.

The state Supreme Court's decision could impact a number of defendants in 
Volusia and Flagler counties who were convicted since 2002 and sentenced to 
death on less than unanimous verdicts. Troy Victorino and Jerone Hunter, who 
were convicted and sentenced to death for the Deltona massacre in which 6 
people were killed, are likely to receive new sentencing hearings because 
neither received a unanimous jury vote for death.

Flagler County defendants on death row without unanimous jury votes besides 
Snelgrove are Cornelius Baker and William Gregory. Baker kidnapped Elizabeth 
Uptagrafft during a home invasion robbery in Daytona Beach in 2007 and shot her 
to death in Flagler County. Gregory shot his girlfriend, Skyler Meekins, and 
her boyfriend, Daniel Dyer, to death with a shotgun as the pair slept in her 
grandparent's house near Flagler Beach in 2007.

(source: news-journalonline.com)

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

2 killers get new death sentence hearings


Barry Davis, convicted in 2015 of one of the most heinous crimes in recent 
Northwest Florida history, will receive a new death sentence hearing by order 
of the Florida Supreme Court.

The court on Thursday issued 7 rulings on death penalty convictions. 4 of them 
involved cases in which the defendant was convicted and sentenced to die in 
Florida's First Judicial Circuit.

Davis and Michael Hernandez, who was sentenced to die March 23, 2007, in Santa 
Rosa County for killing Ruth Everett, will return to court for a 2nd penalty 
phase of their trials.

The Supreme Court ruled to uphold the death penalties meted out in 2013 to 
Steven Cozzie and in 2005 to Jesse Guardado.

Davis, Cozzie and Guardado were all convicted and sentenced in Walton County.

"We're happy to have the 2 sentences confirmed and now we'll begin to prepare 
for the 2nd penalty phase for Mr. Davis," said Greg Anchors, the chief 
assistant state attorney for Walton County.

Anchors said Assistant State Attorney Clifton Drake will present the state's 
case in the 2nd death penalty hearing of Davis.

Anchors also noted that at the same time it ruled he should receive a new death 
penalty hearing, the Supreme Court upheld Davis' convictions for the killings 
of John Hughes of Santa Rosa Beach and Heidi Rhodes of Panama City Beach.

Cozzie and Guardado both were sentenced to die by unanimous 12-0 recommendation 
of the juries that heard their cases. Cozzie raped and killed 15-year-old 
tourist Courtney Wilkes and Guardado robbed and killed prominent local 
businesswoman Jackie Malone.

Davis and Hernandez benefited from rulings by the U.S. and Florida Supreme 
Courts that declared the state's death penalty procedure unconstitutional 
because it did not require unanimous agreement among jurors that the ultimate 
punishment was warranted.

The Florida Legislature passed a law this year that requires death penalties be 
handed out only after a jury votes 12-0 to recommend that sentence.

By the time legislators created the new law, though, the state Supreme Court 
had ruled that all death penalty convictions since 2002 were subject to review.

Davis was sentenced to die Aug. 31, 2015, for the murders of Hughes and Rhodes.

Although the bodies of the couple were never found, testimony from Davis' 
girlfriend convinced jurors that he had beaten Hughes and Rhodes unconscious 
and then left them submerged in a bathtub to die. He then stole all Hughes' 
belongings and burned the couple's bodies.

The jury recommended by a 9-3 vote to have Davis put to death for killing 
Hughes and 10-2 that he should die for killing Rhodes.

A Santa Rosa County jury recommended by an 11-1 tally in 2007 that Michael 
Hernandez be put to death for the killing of Ruth Everett, the mother of a man 
Hernandez and Christopher Shawn Arnold set out to rob Nov. 8, 2004.

After entering Everett's home, Hernandez broke Ruth Everett's neck and slashed 
her throat.

Anchors said the Supreme Court has been "spasmodically" ruling recently on 
requests from around the state for rehearings of death penalty recommendations. 
Thursday's rulings indicated it had turned its focus to the First Judicial 
Circuit.

There are 2 remaining First Judicial Circuit cases that have not been ruled on. 
Those are:

-- Robert Hobart, for whom a Santa Rosa County jury recommended death by a 7-5 
vote on Dec. 3, 2012. Hobart was convicted of killing Robert Hamm and Tracie 
Tolbert.

-- Thomas McCoy, who was sentenced to death Nov. 19, 2010, in Walton County 
for killing Curtis Brown. Jurors voted 11-1 to recommend death.

(source: nwfdailynews.com)

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

Cozzie death sentence upheld by Supreme Court of Florida


The latest appeal for Steven Anthony Cozzie has been denied by the Florida's 
highest court.

In an opinion released Thursday, the Supreme Court of Florida upheld Cozzie's 
death sentence.

In the 6-1 ruling, the justices said Cozzie's sentence "is proportional in 
relation to other death sentences that this Court has upheld."

Cozzie, 27, strangled, beat and sexually battered Courtney Wilkes, 15, on June 
16, 2011 in a wooded area near Seagrove Beach in Walton County. Wilkes was on 
vacation with her family when the murder happened on the day before the family 
was scheduled to go home.

A jury recommended death for Cozzie by a 12-0 vote when he was convicted of the 
crime. Cozzie was 21 when the crime occurred.

In upholding the jury's recommendation of death Justices wrote "This Court has 
repeatedly affirmed the death penalty where the defendant has kidnapped, 
sexually battered, and murdered a child victim.... Accordingly, Cozzie's death 
sentence is proportionate. For the foregoing reasons, we affirm Cozzie's 
conviction for 1st-degree premeditated or felony murder with a weapon and his 
sentence of death."

(source: WJHG news)

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

Death Sentence Upheld for Walton Murderer


The conviction and death sentence of a Walton County murderer was upheld 
Thursday by Florida's Supreme Court.

The court ruled the trial judge was not responsible for any errors that merited 
an appeal and the capital sentence he received was constitutional.

In addition to the death penalty for felony 1st-degree murder, Cozzie received 
the maximum sentences possible for separate counts of sexual battery, 
aggravated child abuse, and kidnapping with a weapon with the intent to commit 
a felony.

Cozzie will serve all these sentences consecutively as punishment for the 
murder of 15-year-old Georgia resident Courtney Wilkes.

Wilkes was on vacation with her family in Seagrove Beach in June 2011 when 
Cozzie raped and killed her.

(source: mypanhandle.com)






ALABAMA:

State to seek death penalty in Renee Eldridge murder case


After a hearing in a Chambers County courtroom, the family of Renee Eldridge 
feels that a weight has been lifted off their chest after the state decided 
they are seeking the death penalty against Stacey Gray.

Gray is charged with the murder of Eldridge back in July 2015. Eldridge was 
reported missing 4th of July weekend, and found murdered in a Chambers County 
creek.

Gray was arrested a few days later in Notasulga.

Back in March, the state was given until May 11 to decide whether they would 
seek the death penalty against Gray.

The state decided that they are seeking the death penalty against Gray.

Members of Eldridge's family were in court on Thursday. They said that hearings 
like Thursday's take a great toll on them.

"Every time you have to lay eyes on him," Eldridge's brother James said. "Even 
to come to this town knowing you have to look at him is very tough."

For now, the family is hoping and praying that when it comes time for the trial 
that the truth comes out and justice is served.

"I don't know what could satisfy me honestly," James Eldridge said. "The death 
penalty is as close as we're going to get to anything. It's a good feeling, but 
it still doesn't take your pain away."

(source: WRBL news)






LOUISIANA:

Death penalty doesn't work, should be scrapped


Louisiana's death penalty is an incredibly expensive, entirely arbitrary, and 
an error-prone monument to the failures of big government. The Louisiana 
Legislature is considering 2 bills to replace the death penalty with life 
without parole, saving Louisiana - under conservative estimates - at least 10 
million dollars annually. Not only is Louisiana's death penalty expensive, it 
is particularly error-prone. As Frank Baumgartner and others have noted, some 
82 % of Louisiana death sentences imposed since 1976 have been reversed. And 
with last month's exoneration of Rodricus Crawford, 11 individuals sentenced to 
death in Louisiana have been released from prison without any charges 
whatsoever. By any measure, Louisiana taxpayers are getting scammed.

Jeff Sadow's columnl of May 6 - suggesting Louisiana's death penalty might save 
lives by deterring capital murder - is both empirically and logically moribund, 
and is counter to the views of virtually all the top criminologists in the 
United States In 2012, the renowned National Research Council, a division of 
the National Academy of Sciences and composed of the foremost scholars in the 
United States, reviewed all the research done on the deterrence question, and 
concluded that there is not a shred of evidence that the death penalty has any 
effect on the homicide rate. Their report also discredited the small number of 
studies that had claimed to find a deterrent effect. And, as one of us found in 
a 2009 study, 95 % of the nation's top criminologists - a group to which it 
seems unlikely Sadow belongs - rejected the idea that the death penalty is a 
better deterrent than life without parole to the commission of homicide.

Over the last 25 years, the murder rate in states without the death penalty has 
been consistently lower than in states with the death penalty. Research in 
Arizona and Oklahoma suggests that having the death penalty increases rather 
than reduces the number of murders - indicating that it might actually have a 
brutalizing effect, increasing homicides and detracting from the valuing of 
life. There is reason to suspect that this brutalizing effect exists in 
Louisiana - where the state has the highest murder rate in the country. If the 
death penalty deterred, Louisiana would have a lower murder rate than states 
like New Jersey, New York and Michigan, states that have already sent their 
death penalty statutes to the junkyard.

But one doesn't need a Ph.D. to question the deterrent value of the death 
penalty. America's police chiefs identify the death penalty as the last-ranked 
priority in reducing crime, and the most inefficient use of taxpayer dollars. 
And more specifically, using the death penalty to deter murders suggests both a 
rational mindset and a valuing of life regularly missing from those who commit 
murder. The last 2 defendants on Louisiana's death row who have died did so 
voluntarily - one with the assistance of the state (Gerald Bordelon) and one 
alone in his cell (Terrance Carter). For many, life imprisonment is an even 
worse punishment than death on the gurney.

In the end, even Sadow must acknowledge that the death penalty that currently 
exists in Louisiana - with 1 (voluntary) execution in the last 15 years, and 
numerous errors - performs no deterrent function. Sadow suggests that the 
problems with capital punishment in Louisiana might be fixed, cases expedited, 
assurances made - and that with a few constitutional short-cuts and frequent 
executions it might be able to deter crime. The country that Sadow is 
describing, however, is not America - it's maybe Saudi Arabia. And when Sadow 
proposes a death penalty system that has reduced the risk of wrongful execution 
to zero, he is imagining a regime of perfection that does not exist.

Criminologists agree, the best way to "deter" crime is to prevent the 
conditions that lead to it: better education, more support from positive role 
models, better mental health treatment. Louisiana has to decide whether it 
wants to continue spending millions of dollars on a system that does not deter, 
that does not provide justice, and that that has a demonstrable record that it 
gets it wrong far more often than it gets it right. We suggest that those in 
favor of such system be sent the bill for it. And we also suggest that 
academics think twice before disseminating unsubstantiated pseudo-science, 
especially when millions of dollars - along with the conscience of the 
community - are at stake.

(source: Guest Column; Michael L. Radelet, a sociologist at the University of 
Colorado, has published research and testified as an expert on death penalty 
issues. Ben Ben Cohen is of counsel at the Promise of Justice Initiative---- 
The Advocate)






KENTUCKY:

Accused murderer Brice Rhodes could face death penalty if convicted


He's accused of 3 murders, and threatening a judge -- and when the suspected 
killer goes to trial, conviction could mean the death penalty.

Death penalty paperwork has been filed in the case against Brice Rhodes.

Rhodes still doesn't have an attorney.

Police say the 25-year-old killed 3 people, including 2 teen brothers in 
Louisville. Since his arrest, Rhodes has also been accused of threatening a 
judge and a corrections officer -- and even trying to escape from jail.

Rhodes will next be in court in July.

(source: WDRB news)





SOUTH DAKOTA:

Defense files motion to exclude death penalty in Lewandowski murder case


The defense attorney for a Roslyn man charged with murder has filed a motion 
claiming the prospect of the death penalty is improper in the case.

Jason P. Lewandowski, 45, is charged with premeditated murder, burglary and 
committing a felony while in possession of a firearm. He has pleaded not guilty 
by reason of insanity.

Tom Sannes, Lewandowski's attorney, filed the motion last week at the Day 
County Courthouse in Webster.

Lewandowski is accused of entering a Roslyn residence on Nov. 15, 2015, and 
shooting Jeremy J. Hendrickson, 33, in the head. Hendrickson died from his 
injuries on Dec. 9, 2015.

The motion states by excluding the death penalty, the case can move forward 
"without the extraordinary measures required in capital cases."

Sannes notes a host of reasons the death penalty shouldn't be used, including 
that:

-- Lewandowski does not fit into the narrow class of defendants the death 
penalty applies to as mandated by the Constitution.

-- The offense was not committed by a person with a prior felony.

-- There is no allegation that the defendant created a great risk of death to 
more than 1 person in a public place or that Lewandowski acted for financial 
gain.

-- Hendrickson was not a public official.

-- There is no allegation of murder for hire.

-- The victim was not younger than 13, there is no allegation of torture and 
the alleged facts to not meet the legal definition of depravity of mind or 
aggravated battery.

-- The facts do not allege the killing of a law enforcement officer or that 
the offense was committed during the course of an escape.

-- There is no allegation that the offense was committed to avoid, interfere 
with or prevent arrest, or that the offense occurred in the course of the 
manufacture or sale of drugs.

-- Proceeding with the case as a death penalty case is against the best 
interests of society and the judicial economy.

-- Heightened constitutional standards apply to death penalty cases.

-- Capital trials cost taxpayers significantly more money.

-- Experts have more expansive roles in capital cases in that they are more 
costly and their work is more time-consuming.

-- If it were to continue as a death penalty case, the Constitutional rights 
of Lewandowski would be violated and he will be prejudiced.

A motions hearing is set for May 31. The trial is set to begin Oct. 2 and run 
through Oct. 27.

(source: The Public Opinion)






USA:

Judge grants Dylann Roof's request to replace lawyers he called the 'sneakiest' 
people he ever met to appeal death sentence


White supremacist Dylann Roof will have a new legal team representing him as he 
moves to appeal his death sentence for killing nine worshippers at Charleston's 
Emanuel AME Church in June 2015.

At Roof's request, U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel issued an order Thursday 
relieving the convicted killer's top-flight legal team of further 
responsibilities once they file his notice of appeal with the 4th Circuit Court 
of Appeals.

They will be replaced by federal public defenders from California and Maryland, 
the order states.

Roof was convicted of all 33 charges he faced and sentenced to death in 
January. At the close of his trial, he expressed a desire for new 
representation, saying he didn't trust his current lawyers, led by noted 
capital defense specialist David Bruck.

Documents unsealed at the close of the case revealed a long-running feud 
between Roof and his legal team over trial tactics, particularly his lawyers' 
desire to mount a mental illness defense on his behalf.

Roof had turned irate after realizing his attorneys planned to introduce 
evidence showing he had a crippling anxiety disorder, depression and autism.

Documents quoted him as saying he wanted to kill Bruck if he ever got out of 
jail.

In November, Roof penned a letter to prosecutors calling his defense attorneys 
"the sneakiest group of people I have ever met" and their efforts to portray 
him as mentally ill "a lie." That letter prompted the first of two psychiatric 
exams that both concluded he was competent to stand trial. He went on to 
sideline his lawyers during the trial's penalty phase, and the jury handed him 
the ultimate punishment for his crimes.

Authorities recently transferred him to an Indiana prison for federal death row 
inmates.

Gergel's decision to switch out the defense team came 1 day after the judge 
denied Roof's motion for a new trial.

Roof and his legal team had argued that his actions didn't constitute 
interstate commerce - a necessary component for the federal prosecution - 
because the attack was planned and executed completely within South Carolina. 
They also argued the charges for which Roof was convicted don't meet the 
definition of "crimes of violence" necessary under federal law to support death 
penalty convictions.

In a 31-page ruling, Gergel torpedoed both arguments and refused to throw out 
Roof???s convictions in favor of a new trial.

(source: The Post and Courier)

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

Despite High-Profile Executions, Death Penalty on Decline----'The message of 
the Church is resonating,' according to Florida Bishop Frank Dewane.


Despite 4 high-profile executions in Arkansas in April, the death penalty is on 
the decline in the United States - and that is thanks in large measure to a 
major shift in public opinion that has been driven in part by Catholics.

"The message of the Church is resonating," said Bishop Frank Dewane of Venice, 
Florida, who chairs the U.S. bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human 
Development.

Annual executions peaked at 98 in 1999 and have been on the decline ever since. 
In 2016 there were 20 executions, the lowest in a quarter of a century.

The drop in annual death sentences has been even more precipitous: from 295 in 
1998 to 30 last year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a 
nonprofit which tracks data on capital punishment in the United States.

"We're undergoing a national climate change on the death penalty," said Robert 
Dunham, executive director of the center.

Recent developments on the state level reinforce the downward trend. Over the 
last year in Florida, a series of court rulings and new legislation have made 
it harder to pass death sentences by barring judges from overriding juries and 
requiring jury recommendations to be unanimous. In 2016, the absence of such 
protections in the Delaware's death-penalty statute led the state Supreme Court 
to strike it down.

A key factor in the decline of the death penalty is public opinion. "We have 
seen changes in public attitudes toward the death penalty across all 
demographics. That includes religious groups," Dunham said.

Polls show that the number of Americans who still support capital punishment is 
falling. In the mid-1990s an estimated 80% of the public approved. By 2016, 
that had diminished to 60%, according to Gallup. Another poll, from the Pew 
Research Center, puts it even lower, with 49% still in favor and 42% against.

Catholics are divided but slightly in favor of abolition: 46% to 43%, according 
to Pew.

For Catholics, an instrumental point in challenging acceptance of the practice 
was Pope St. John Paul II???s 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Value and 
Inviolability of Life), which called for the use of the death penalty as a 
means of societal self-defense and only when there was no other option, such as 
lifetime incarceration.

"He said we shouldn't ever need to do this," Bishop Dewane said.

Theological Perspectives

Among theologians, however, there is a debate as to whether John Paul II was 
issuing a prudential judgment or developing Church doctrine on the matter.

"Conservative Catholics tend to have a much higher regard than progressives for 
the voice of tradition in moral debates. They see that the death penalty was 
strongly defended for over a thousand years by the Catholic Church - although 
never defended by any infallible teaching - and feel an understandable 
hesitation to conclude that there's something inherently problematic with it, 
as John Paul II taught that there was," said Christian Brugger, a theologian at 
the University of Notre Dame in Sydney, Australia, and the author of Capital 
Punishment and Roman Catholic Moral Tradition.

While Brugger said he sympathizes with conservatives who hold to the Church's 
small-t tradition on morality, he faults those who "continue to defend a 
normative role" for the death penalty for failing to fully engage with the 
teaching of John Paul II.

"The Pope taught more than that the death penalty should be limited to cases of 
necessity. He deliberately re-conceptualized the justification of capital 
punishment from a model of retributive justice to one of societal self-defense. 
This is not a minor move. No longer can the state justifiably kill someone for 
what he's done - because he 'deserves' it. It can only kill a man if he poses a 
grave and present aggressor's threat to the community's welfare," Brugger said.

However, others say this is going too far.

Edward Feser, a philosopher at Pasadena City College and the author of the 
forthcoming book By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital 
Punishment, contends Brugger's position is undermined by the fact that 
then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said soon after the release of the encyclical 
that John Paul II had not, in Feser's words, "modified any doctrinal 
principles." In 2004 Ratzinger then said that faithful Catholics could disagree 
with the Pope, according to Feser.

"Another problem is that if the Pope had really made this alleged doctrinal 
modification, he would have been contradicting the clear and consistent 
teaching of Scripture, the Fathers of the Church and previous popes, all of 
whom teach that capital punishment can, in principle, be legitimate for 
purposes other than countering an immediate physical threat - for example, for 
purposes of retributive justice or for deterrence purposes," Feser said.

"There is simply nothing else for John Paul II's statements to be other than a 
prudential judgment, given the Church's indefectibility," Feser added.

Changed Minds

Whether a prudential judgment or a doctrinal statement, it appears that John 
Paul II's opposition to the death penalty has influenced many Catholics to 
change their stance.

Heather Beaudoin, the co-coordinator of Conservatives Concerned About the Death 
Penalty, said that many of those involved in the movement hail from a Catholic 
background. She noted that one of the founders of the group is longtime 
conservative fundraiser and publisher Richard Viguerie, who is Catholic. A 
number of Republican lawmakers who have led the charge to end capital 
punishment also are Catholic, according to Beaudoin.

Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, which was founded on a 
national level in 2013, represents a growing discomfort over state executions 
among the political right.

Beaudoin once worked at a crisis-pregnancy center in her home state of Montana 
and said being against the death penalty is part of being pro-life. Some may 
contend that there's a difference, because those sentenced to death are not 
innocent. But Beaudoin says the risk of executing someone who later turns out 
to be innocent is too high: Since the 1970s, more than 150 death-row inmates 
have been exonerated, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

The death penalty should also give fiscally minded conservatives pause, too, 
Beaudoin says, given its exorbitant cost.

In Kansas, for example, death-penalty cases cost on average $400,000, four 
times as much as those where it is not a factor, according to a 2014 state 
report. California has spent more than $4 billion on death penalty-related 
expenses, according to a report cited by the Death Penalty Information Center.

Some counties have been nearly bankrupted by such high costs, Beaudoin said. 
(One county in Nebraska, for example, had to mortgage its ambulances after 
attempting to execute 2 offenders, according to Beaudoin.)

There's also an important philosophical argument to consider for those who want 
limited government. "There is no greater power that we can give to the state 
than the ability to decide who lives and who dies," Beaudoin said.

Still Room for Debate

For Catholics, it's not only John Paul II who has reinforced the Vatican's 
stance against the death penalty, according to Bishop Dewane. So have his 
successors.

Pope Francis' message of mercy in particular is having an effect by creating a 
climate that nurtures abolitionist efforts, according to Dunham.

"Mercy and the death penalty are not compatible," Dunham said.

But Brugger believes Francis is unlikely to address the underlying "theoretical 
issue" behind the Church's firm stance against the death penalty - leaving room 
for theologians to debate whether that stance is a development in doctrine or 
merely a change in how doctrine is applied. The question is an important one 
because it affects the level of assent to this teaching that is required from 
faithful Catholics.

Given the ongoing debate among theologians, what is the average lay Catholic to 
do?

"Given the confusions about the state of the question, it's not easy to give a 
succinct answer," Brugger said. "They should do their best to think with the 
Church on the issue. This means, on the one hand, they should be under no 
illusion about the fact that Catholic theological tradition defended for 
centuries the right of the state to kill malefactors through lethal punishment. 
On the other, they should see that under the influence of St. John Paul II the 
Church's theological tradition of justifiable homicide underwent a significant 
development."

Brugger pointed to the Church's teaching on just-war principles as another 
recent development in doctrine.

Said Brugger, "Intellectual docility towards these developments and a readiness 
to fairly characterize what's been happening under John Paul II seem to me 
required of all Catholics."

The Catechism and Capital Punishment

"The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people's 
rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of 
safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and 
duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. 
Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the 
offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the 
value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and 
protecting people's safety, has a medicinal purpose: As far as possible, it 
must contribute to the correction of the guilty party" (2266).

"Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully 
determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to 
the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending 
human lives against the unjust aggressor.

"If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's 
safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these 
are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in 
conformity to the dignity of the human person.

"Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for 
effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense 
incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the 
possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the 
offender is an absolute necessity 'are very rare, if not practically 
nonexistent'" (2267).

(source: National Catholic Register)