[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----COLO., UTAH, NEV., IDAHO, USA

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 4




COLORADO:

Walmart Shooting Suspect Scott Ostrem Could Face Death Penalty



The Denver man accused of opening fire inside of a Walmart, killing 3 people in 
what police say was an act of "mass chaos," could face life in prison or even 
the death penalty, a judge said Friday.

Scott Ostrem, 47, made his 1st appearance in an Adams County courthouse dressed 
in a blue jumpsuit and giving one word responses to the judge.

Although prosecutors asked for more time to consider multiple counts against 
Ostrem, they were ordered to file formal charges by Monday. Until then, he is 
being held without bond on an initial warrant of 3 counts of 1st-degree murder.

Police in the Denver suburb of Thornton have provided no motive for why Ostrem 
walked calmly inside of a Walmart on Wednesday night and allegedly fired at 
random. He fled amid the panic, sparking a manhunt, and was captured the 
following morning about a half-mile from his home.

The victims were identified as Carlos Moreno, 66, of Thornton, and Victor 
Vasquez, 26, of Denver, both of whom died at the scene, and Pamela Marques, 52, 
of Denver, who died at the hospital.

The affidavit in the case remained sealed Friday.

While police released little information about Ostrem, neighbors at the Samuel 
Park Apartments described him as a loner who would walk around carrying 
weapons.

"He didn't seem to have anybody," Teresa Muniz, one of his neighbors, told The 
Associated Press. "Being angry all the time. That's what he seemed like, always 
angry."

Muniz said most of the building's tenants talk to one another, but Ostrem never 
returned her greetings and swore at people for leaving laundry in communal 
machines. She also said she sometimes saw Ostrem carrying a shotgun or a bow 
and set of arrows to and from the building.

Another neighbor, Gerald Burnett, 63, said he was sitting on the stairs outside 
drinking coffee one morning when Ostrem came down, told him to move and cursed 
at him.

"Dude had an attitude, big time," Burnett said. "He's the type of person if you 
said, 'Good morning,' he wouldn't say nothing."

Another resident, Dennis Valenzuela, told NBC affiliate KUSA that he noticed 
Ostrem treated tenants differently because of their race. Thornton is about 1/3 
Hispanic or Latino.

"Very quiet, but verbally abusive toward Hispanics," said the 49-year-old 
maintenance worker. "Just real rude, he would use vulgar language with 
Hispanics and stuff like that."

Thornton police spokesman Victor Avila wouldn't say if investigators knew about 
neighbors' statements or whether race played a role in the shooting, but told 
NBC News that the case is "an active investigation and everything will be 
looked at."

Ostrem recently had financial problems and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 
2015. He also had minor run-ins with police dating back to the 1990s.

For the past three years, he worked in the metal fabrication shop of a roofing 
company. On the morning of the shooting, he left his work station without any 
explanation and never came back, boss David Heidt told the AP.

"We're all bewildered as to where we are now," Heidt said.

(source: NBC News)








UTAH:

Capital punishment system unfair to defendants and attorneys



When asked if I would be willing to represent a Utah death-sentenced inmate, 
Floyd Maestas, I said absolutely not. I was well aware of the emotional, 
physical and financial toll the representation would place on me and on my 
practice. Yet I eventually agreed because I believe those on death row deserve 
good representation.

Floyd insisted he was not there during the murder, even though at trial 2 
eyewitnesses placed him there, his fingerprint was at the scene and there was 
DNA under the victim's fingernails. But I took my charge seriously and worked 
feverishly to find evidence of innocence.

The United States Supreme Court has consistently held that post-conviction 
lawyers must diligently scour the evidence, investigate the case for innocence, 
and search for any evidence that could "mitigate" or reduce a defendant's death 
sentence. These efforts have resulted in the reversal of death sentences around 
the nation, where innocent people have been exonerated.

Given a shoe-string budget of $30,000, our investigators discovered serious 
evidence to support Floyd's innocence. This included a letter from 1 of the 
eyewitnesses, saying he and his friend framed Floyd and that his friend was the 
real murderer. The DNA "match" was not a match at all, but a Y-chromosome test 
that would match 421 of 591 Hispanics, Floyd's race. Our fingerprint expert 
also believed there were serious problems with the fingerprint identification.

We discovered a very traumatic family history. Floyd was raised in the ghetto 
in a cardboard house with no running water. His father froze to death from 
alcoholism and 2 of his siblings were murdered. As a boy, Floyd held his dying 
sister in the living room after her boyfriend stabbed her. A few days after 
Christmas, police found 13-year-old Floyd passed out on the street from extreme 
intoxication.

Before his trial, all but one expert concluded Floyd was intellectually 
disabled, a finding that prohibits his execution. While the judge sided with 
the one expert at trial, even that expert has now indicated that under newer 
diagnostic criteria, he also believes Floyd is intellectually disabled.

But we were out of money and time. I had exhausted our limited budget. My 
investigators had fronted $17,000 of their own money for evidence and the court 
would not reimburse them. They told me that they could no longer work on the 
case. I still had not read all Floyd's file given its enormity and asked the 
court for more time. The request was denied.

The court denied funding for almost all of my work, resulting in around 
$100,000 of losses. My co-counsel has never been paid for hundreds of hours of 
donated time. I had to put my expenses on credit cards and my wife took a 2nd 
job. The stress culminated when I woke in the night feeling chest pain and 
ended up in urgent care. My doctors believed the heart stress was related to 
the case and asked me to withdraw. I asked the court to let me off and was 
denied. In desperation, I reached out to the American Bar Association, who 
located a large firm who was willing to assist on the case on a pro bono basis.

In capital cases, states provide counsel to the lowest bidder and encourage 
attorneys to do little work and then get out. And courts don't fix the problems 
either. They have refused to find that a defendant was deprived an effective 
attorney, even if he sleeps or is drunk during trial. In my case, the state 
believes my client has no right to an effective attorney at all and that he 
should be grateful they even gave him someone.

The system is full of errors. Since 1976, we have executed 1,452 nationally but 
exonerated 159, a shocking number for so serious a penalty. An astonishing 47 
of 100 death sentences are reversed at some point. These reversals happen 
because of good lawyering, but this safety net is often lacking. Nationwide, 
public defenders work under enormous pressure, with massive caseloads and have 
seen little sign of reprieve.

Our capital punishment system is a charade. We provide a "defense lawyer" but 
either give someone with no experience or refuse to give the necessary 
resources to experienced attorneys. In Utah, a state with one of the lowest 
death penalty populations in the United States, which has not executed a 
defendant since 2010, almost every attorney to take a death penalty case has 
suffered extreme personal loss. The result is a crisis-level lack of qualified 
attorneys willing or able to take on capital cases.

If we have the death penalty, we must commit to protecting the innocent from 
execution. We must also commit to adequately support the attorneys who are 
called upon to perform these difficult tasks.

(source: Samuel Newton has been a criminal defense attorney since 2003. He has 
worked as a public defender in Salt Lake City, a professor of criminal justice 
at Weber State University and as a private practitioner focusing on criminal 
appeals and capital litigation----Commentary, Salt Lake tribune)








NEVADA:

How will Scott Dozier die? Experts weigh in on Nevada's experimental execution 
cocktail



Imagine you're lying down, and you tell yourself to take a deep breath. But you 
realize you can't.

You want to jump up, wave your arms or call for help. But even your face is 
frozen. You're completely paralyzed.

You're slowly suffocating to death, and no one seems to notice.

That's how 2 medical experts described a Las Vegas inmate's possible fate if 
state officials don't administer enough drugs to render him unconscious during 
his voluntary execution - scheduled in less than 2 weeks at Ely State Prison.

That scenario would challenge the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, 
which prohibits the government from imposing a cruel and unusual punishment, 
according to experts.

In August, the Nevada Department of Corrections announced it would use 
fentanyl, diazepam and Cisatracurium in Scott Dozier's lethal injection - a 
cocktail of drugs never before used in an execution.

The new cocktail has raised questions about how the drugs will be administered, 
the details of which would be available in the state's execution protocol. The 
state still hasn't released how it will use those drugs, including dosages.

A court hearing is scheduled for Friday in Clark County about unsealing those 
details for the public.

Dozier, 45, was sentenced to death for the 2002 murder and dismemberment of 
22-year-old Jeremiah Miller, whose torso was found in a suitcase inside a trash 
bin at an apartment complex near the Las Vegas Strip.

Dozier has been sitting behind bars for more than a decade and voluntarily 
waived his right to appeal his sentence.

The drug cocktail has sparked debate over the use of paralytic drugs in lethal 
injections, a topic that's been talked about for decades since the 1st lethal 
injection execution was carried out in 1982.

The Reno Gazette-Journal reached out to Dr. Joel Zivot, an associate professor 
of anesthesiology and surgery at Emory University School of Medicine, and Dr. 
Susi Vassallo, a professor of emergency medicine at New York University of 
Medicine.

Zivot, Vassallo and Denno have all served as experts and written extensively 
about lethal injection and its role in capital punishment.

Here's a look at how each of the 3 drugs work, what they're used for and how 
they could affect Dozier if state officials don't administer them correctly.

Fentanyl in executions: 'It makes sense'

Fentanyl is an opiate, like heroin, but it was "cooked up in a laboratory," 
according to Vassallo.

It's a potent synthetic drug designed to take away symptoms of pain.

"It's extremely short-acting and extremely powerful," said Vassallo, who is an 
emergency medical physician certified by the American College of Medical 
Toxicology, which deals with drug overdoses.

"Depending on the amount you give, somebody can become unconscious and stop 
breathing," she said. "That can be lethal."

The opioid crisis: Here's what you need to know about the deadly opioid.

Fentanyl is a drug that's used every day in modern medicine. It's also at the 
center of the opioid overdose epidemic in the United States.

"So, you can see that fentanyl - if you're trying to kill somebody - it's a 
very good drug for lethal injection," Vassallo said. "It makes sense if that's 
what you're trying to do."

Fentanyl affects different opioid receptors in the body, which are responsible 
for pain relief and breathing.

Opioid receptors exist not only in the nervous system, but in organs, such as 
the heart, lungs, liver, gastrointestinal and reproductive tracts, according to 
the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

"When you inject fentanyl into a human body, that fentanyl goes and finds that 
receptor and provides pain relief and respiratory depression," Vassallo said. 
"It slows breathing until it stops."

At the same time, it keeps the person unconscious and unable to feel pain.

"Nevada could easily kill a human being with fentanyl," she said. "Or they 
could inject an even longer acting, enormous dose of morphine or any kind of 
powerful opiate ..."

Diazepam: The sleeping drug

State officials also plan on using diazepam as part of lethal injection 
cocktail. But the drug itself isn't dangerous . And it doesn't make much sense 
to use it in an execution, according to both Vassallo and Zivot.

Diazepam is used for various reasons. It can be used to temporarily treat 
insomnia, seizures, muscle spasms and anxiety. It can also be used as a light 
muscle relaxant or as a sedative for minor surgery or non-invasive procedures, 
according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Veterinarians also use it to help alleviate anxiety in dogs and cats. But it 
doesn't affect consciousness.

"Diazepam is used for anxiety," said Zivot, who's practiced anesthesiology for 
25 years. "In the past, they were used as sleep promoters."

Basically, it's just a Valium, Vassallo said.

"People take valium to relax," she said.

"Valium, in general, won't kill someone. It would have to be massive doses, 
very massive and given very rapidly."

Cisatracurium: The paralyzing drug

Zivot and Vassallo agreed using Cisatracurium in Dozier's execution could 
violate the Eighth Amendment of the U.S Constitution, which prohibits the 
government from imposing cruel and unusual punishment.

Cisatracurium is a paralytic drug, typically used on patients undergoing 
surgery.

Cisatracurium affects how skeletal muscles contract and relax. Even if a 
patient is deeply anesthetized, muscles can still contract during surgery.

"Paralyzing drugs are used safely every day in the country and around the world 
to facilitate surgery," Zivot said. "It allows for muscle relaxation, so the 
muscles don't create a barrier next to the organs beneath."

It's also helpful when placing a ventilation tube in a patient's throat.

"There is a muscle for breathing called the diaphragm, and the diaphragm is a 
skeletal muscle," Zivot said. "When a person is given Cisatracurium, the 
diaphragm muscle becomes paralyzed. It won't move."

But the drug won't affect consciousness, awareness, pain or anxiety, which is 
why state officials plan to use fentanyl and diazepam.

"If I gave Cisatracurium to a person who was awake, they would become quickly 
aware of their inability to move and ... breath," Zivot said. "Even though our 
brain is sending messages to our muscles to move, the muscles themselves would 
not be able to respond."

"Outwardly, we would appear calm," he said. "The expression of our face would 
be relaxed.

"Inside, we would be dying. We would be suffocating, and it would be 
terrifying. But you can't communicate this terror."

(source: Reno Gazette Journal)








IDAHO:

Renfro tells jury he accepts his fate, even if it means the death penalty



For the 1st time since his trial began on Sept. 11, convicted killer Jonathan 
D. Renfro took the stand Friday to speak about his role in the death of Coeur 
d'Alene police Sgt. Greg Moore.

He used his first words to address the slain officer's family.

"I know you all hate me with good cause," Renfro said, facing them. "I know you 
probably don't believe me, but I am sorry."

Renfro then turned to the jury - the same jury that convicted him of 1st-degree 
murder in the May 5, 2015, ambushing and killing - and told them he accepted 
whatever fate they chose.

"I've taken the life of a man who was much greater than I am. I can never fix 
that. Not only have I destroyed that family, I've destroyed my own family," he 
said.

"If you decide the death penalty will give back to the community and the Moore 
family," he continued, "I accept that decision and will support it."

After deliberation, the jury may now elect that Renfro face the death penalty. 
If it doesn't unanimously agree to that sentence, Renfro will spend the rest of 
his life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The jury had not reached a verdict by the end of the day Friday.

During the day's proceedings, however, Deputy Kootenai County Prosecutor David 
Robins gave the jury a long list of reasons why the state believes Renfro 
should receive the death penalty.

"Greg was a good man who deserved many more years with his wife. He was a good 
man who deserved to raise his children," Robins said. "He was a good man whose 
life was ended by a man who didn't want to go back to prison.

"In terms of the family, no words I can say can do justice to the pain they 
feel every day," he continued. "The death penalty will not bring Greg back, but 
it will provide justice to a family that will suffer for the rest of their 
lives."

Defense attorney Keith Roark did not try to convince the jury that his client 
had not committed the killing. Instead, he asked that they simply let Renfro 
die in prison.

"I am asking you to take from this man all of the things that make his life 
worth living. Put him in a place where he will never again be able to look at a 
sunrise over Lake Coeur d'Alene or smell the pine trees after a spring rain ??? 
to never know what it is to walk down the street holding the hand of someone 
you love.

"This can all be over," Roark said. "Nothing you do is going to put back in the 
heart of Dylon Moore what a father's love means. But there is no need to kill 
this man."

Renfro's statements followed a day of painful testimony, as Moore's family 
described how the officer's death had ripped through their lives.

"I miss his touch, his warmth and his presence," Moore's widow, Lindy Moore, 
said through tears. "I miss being his wife. I miss the way he loved me. I miss 
him and I will never be the same.

"My husband was murdered in one moment," she continued. "Our future is gone."

Friday also included the continued testimony of forensic psychiatrist Dr. 
Michael Welner, who testified that he believed Renfro suffers from antisocial 
anxiety disorder and not from a traumatic brain injury as experts from the 
defense had claimed.

Welner, who charged the state $210,000 for his research and $6,000 a day to 
testify, said Renfro had been doing well before making a decision to pursue 
criminal activity.

"If he wasn't armed, he would not have shot Sgt. Moore," Welner said. "He chose 
to arm himself. This was a byproduct of his won choices, of doing what he 
wanted to do and being where he wanted to be."

First District Judge Lansing Haynes then allowed Moore's mother, father and 
14-year-old son to testify.

The stories painted a compelling picture of a bear of a man who always found 
time for his family, who daily wrestled his son and became a lifelong friend to 
anyone who got to know him.

Dylon told the jury he knew his father as "Batman" because "he worked in the 
night, and he had a belt with a lot of gadgets. He was filled with a love for 
me that will never be duplicated."

The teenager testified about the night his father was shot and the ongoing 
regret of not being able say goodbye to his dying father, who he was told was 
unrecognizable because of the shot to his face.

"I didn't know I would never give him another hug or see him at the softball 
game again," he said as he cried. "He made me feel like I had a place at the 
top of his heart. I love my dad, and will miss him for the rest of my life."

Fred Moore, himself a lifelong police officer, spoke in broken sentences about 
the son who followed his footsteps into law enforcement.

Greg Moore "told me many times that he loved his job because he liked to help 
others," Fred Moore said. "I was always told that the loss of a child is the 
worst thing a human can suffer. I can tell you ... it's unbearable and it just 
never goes away."

(source: spokesman.com)








USA:

Trump's complicated past with the death penalty and due process



The day after Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was charged with desertion in 2015 after being 
held captive in Afghanistan for nearly 5 years, Donald Trump tweeted that the 
former Taliban prisoner should "face the death penalty" for abandoning his post 
and endangering his unit.

On Friday, a military judge gave Bergdahl no prison time, a move that 
now-President Trump criticized on Twitter as "a complete and total disgrace to 
our Country and to our Military."

Earlier this week, as the clock approached midnight, the President tweeted that 
the suspect who killed 8 by driving a truck down a Manhattan bike path "SHOULD 
GET DEATH PENALTY!" -- the 1st time he tweeted a call for capital punishment as 
sitting President.

Legal experts said the President's comment, followed by a subsequent tweet 
repeating his call the next day, could entangle prosecutors as they seek to 
seat an unbiased jury and deliberate over what punishment to seek.

For the last 1/2 decade of public life and beyond, Trump has consistently 
called for capital punishment against some of America's most high-profile 
criminals. But he's done so with limited concern for due process -- in both the 
justice system and the method of execution itself -- which courts have shaped 
and ethicists have debated in the US for decades.

Trump has called for the death penalty more than a dozen times in the last 5 
years, including:

On Drew Peterson, who gained national headlines after the disappearance of his 
fourth wife, Stacy, Trump tweeted to "change the law" and "bring back the death 
penalty!"

Trump called for the "DEATH PENALTY!" in a tweet against the "deranged animals" 
who killed two police officers in Mississippi in 2015.

He also tweeted that Jared Lee Loughner, who shot former Rep. Gabrielle 
Giffords and killed a half dozen others in 2011, "should be given the death 
penalty, not his plea bargained life in prison -- which will cost the taxpayers 
many millions of dollars."

But it's not just the use of capital punishment that Trump has pushed for. He's 
also called for expediting the judicial process and hinted at skirting the 
justice system's due process and implementing more brutal methods of execution.

In 1 tweet against the Aurora, Colorado, shooter James Holmes, who shot 82 
people in a movie theater, Trump called for a "fast trial" and for lawmakers to 
"immediately pass speed up legbostoislation."

On a gunman who shot and killed a former coworker at the Empire State Building 
in 2012, Trump recommended "fast trials and death penalty."

In the case of Boston Marathon bomber, Trump tweeted for a "quick trial, then 
death penalty."

After a string of missing children in October 2012, Trump called for "fast 
trial" and "death penalty" on Twitter.

But he's also entertained more gruesome methods of execution. He also called 
for a "very fast trial and then the death penalty" against "the animal" who 
beheaded a woman in Oklahoma in September 2014, then tweeting "the same fate - 
beheading?"

And in a February 2016 speech on the campaign trail, Trump mocked people who 
consider the death penalty unconstitutional and develop humane methods of 
execution while talking about the fight against ISIS and the immigration 
system.

"It's like these guys that commit murder, right? They commit murder. They kill 
someone. ... They go to jail. 'We don't want the death penalty. It's cruel and 
unusual punishment,'" he said. "And then you have another case when they get 
the death penalty, want to give them drugs to put them to sleep quietly and 
this. Look, we're in a fight for our lives."

Capital punishment is legal in 31 states and the federal government, according 
to the National Conference for State Legislatures.

On the campaign trail ahead of the Iowa caucuses, Trump proposed an executive 
order requiring mandatory capital punishment for killing a police officer. 
Legal experts highlighted multiple constitutional concerns with the proposal at 
the time.

Trump's support for the death penalty stretches back decades, when he ran 
multiple full-page ads in New York City newspapers in 1989 following the rape 
and assault of a Central Park jogger.

In the full-page ads, Trump said that "our society will rot away" until capital 
punishment is used more commonly. "I no longer want to understand their anger. 
I want them to understand our anger. I want them to be afraid," he wrote. "They 
should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for 
their crimes.''

Trump interviewed with Playboy on the topic the next year. "When a man or woman 
cold-bloodedly murders, he or she should pay. It sets an example. Nobody can 
make the argument that the death penalty isn't a deterrent. Either it will be 
brought back swiftly or our society will rot away. It is rotting away," he 
said.

Trump's desire to expedite the justice system hasn't stopped at capital 
punishment. When asked on "Fox and Friends" in April 2013, he said he supported 
nixing the US Supreme Court's requirement that suspects be read their rights to 
remain silence and obtain a lawyer at apprehension -- dubbed Miranda rights.

"I don't think so at all," Trump said in 2013 when asked whether he thought 
police ought to maintain the Miranda requirement.

"What I don't like seeing is a lot of people are saying we did something 
wrong," he said, lamenting questions at the time over whether a Boston Marathon 
bombing suspect was read his Miranda rights properly. "Here we go again, I mean 
I see it all the time. We did something wrong. We didn't read their rights. 
They weren't told of their rights."

"You know we have to get back to business in this country. This is 
disgraceful," he said.

(source: CNN)

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

Child-killer Joseph Duncan still fighting death sentence



Although child-killer Joseph Duncan waived his right to appeal his triple death 
sentence for the 2005 kidnapping, torture and murder of a 9-year-old North 
Idaho boy, Duncan, through a team of attorneys, is now pressing a series of 
continued challenges.

That's in part because more than two years after Duncan waived his appeals, he 
changed his mind. Courts said it was too late for his direct appeal, but he's 
now in the midst of the next stage, his habeas filings, in which his attorneys 
can challenge aspects of his conviction and sentencing on constitutional 
grounds. These challenges start in the U.S. District Court but can be then 
appealed again to the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme 
Court.

Duncan's case already has been to the U.S. Supreme Court twice; the high court 
refused to review it each time.

Last week, federal prosecutors in Idaho filed their legal arguments responding 
to Duncan's 231-page "motion for collateral relief," which his attorneys filed 
last winter.

"None of Duncan's contentions have merit," prosecutors wrote in their 
conclusion, after going through, in detail, Duncan's arguments on various legal 
and procedural grounds.

Duncan's attorneys are raising arguments ranging from questioning the 
constitutionality of the death penalty to suggestions that Spokane attorney 
Roger Peven's early withdrawal from Duncan's case due to unrelated personal 
problems sabotaged Duncan???s case - even though the confessed murderer and 
child rapist pleaded guilty to all the charges, including multiple murder 
charges.

"Duncan attempts to lay the blame for every asserted error at the feet of Roger 
Peven," federal prosecutors wrote. "After Peven revealed personal and substance 
abuse issues that had affected his ability to represent Duncan, the court 
permitted him to withdraw as lead counsel. But Duncan never wanted for 
attorneys, and enjoyed the services of the nation's most celebrated 
capital-defense lawyer, Judy Clarke, as an advisor to his team of lawyers and 
eventually, in Peven's stead, as lead counsel."

Duncan's appellate attorneys, led by Assistant Federal Defender Lindsay Bennett 
in Sacramento, are offering an array of other grounds as well for overturning 
his death sentence.

They're suggesting a possible "miscarriage of justice" because Duncan's history 
of being abused as a child wasn't detailed to jurors. Duncan himself refused to 
allow that evidence to be presented, saying he didn't want his past experiences 
presented as an "excuse for his behavior" and that childhood abuse he suffered 
was "irrelevant."

He acted as his own lawyer during his federal sentencing trial and refused to 
present any of that evidence. But much of it came out anyway, when the 9th 
Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ordered U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge to hold 
a "retroactive competency hearing" to determine, in open court, whether Duncan 
was mentally competent. He had lawyers at that 6-week 2013 hearing, and after 
Lodge again found him competent, they appealed unsuccessfully both to the 9th 
Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Duncan's lawyers also are suggesting Duncan wasn't mentally competent to plead 
guilty in 2007, though at the time he was represented by a team of attorneys 
and consulted with them on the decision. They're alleging he had ineffective 
assistance of counsel in that decision, violating his constitutional rights.

Federal prosecutors counter that the lawyers didn't seem to question Duncan's 
competency until he fired them and took over his case himself.

Duncan's lawyers say his legal team was pressed for time to prepare for his 
trial because Peven's departure, and his lack of early preparation work, had 
left them far behind schedule, and U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge wouldn't 
grant their requests for more delays in the case.

When they advised Duncan to plead guilty to the crimes and move on to the 
sentencing phase of the trial - something he'd been indicating all along he 
wanted to do - "this was triage, pure and simple," Clarke wrote in court 
documents, "motivated exclusively by our need for more time to prepare."

There are other claims Duncan is raising, including that a 2015 Supreme Court 
case changed the interpretation of one of the three charges under which he 
received the death penalty; and that video evidence shown in court of Duncan 
torturing his young victim, Dylan Groene, was prejudicial and shouldn't have 
been shown.

Prosecutors responded that the graphic videos showed exactly what jurors needed 
to see "in order to decide if a defendant should receive the greatest 
punishment," including the presence of aggravating factors such as committing 
the offense in a "heinous, cruel or depraved manner" and with a "vulnerable 
victim." "Such evidence can be expected to be horrific," the U.S. attorney's 
office wrote. "They showed precisely what Duncan did."

Now that the government has responded, Duncan's lawyers have until Jan. 30 to 
file a reply. Then, Lodge could hold a hearing, or rule on the arguments as 
submitted. After his decision, further appeals could follow.

It's part of a lengthy series of steps, guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, 
that must occur before a criminal defendant can be executed. Just 3 federal 
executions have been carried out since the federal death penalty was reinstated 
in 1988; the last one was in 2003.

"It is a long, long road," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Syrena Hargrove, who 
worked on the latest filing for the Idaho U.S. attorney's office.

In addition to the 3 death sentences for the kidnapping, torture and murder of 
Dylan, Duncan received 9 life sentences for his 2005 attack on Dylan's family 
at their Wolf Lodge Bay home. Duncan killed Dylan's mother, older brother and 
mother's fiance before kidnapping the family's 2 youngest children. Only 
Dylan's then-8-year-old sister, Shasta, survived the ordeal.

Duncan remains on federal death row in Terre Haute, Indiana. Aged 42 at the 
time of the crimes, he is now 54.

(source: spokesman.com)