[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----IND., ARK., KAN., COLO., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 28



INDIANA:

Baumgardt keeps quiet at death penalty hearing



Anthony Baumgardt, the 21-year-old Lebanon man that is charged with murdering 
Boone County Sheriff's Deputy Jacob Pickett, had little to say in court Friday 
morning.

The shooting of Pickett on March 2 followed a car chase involving BCSO and 
Lebanon Police officers. The chase originated in the 1400 block of Yates Street 
in Lebanon. Police say Baumgardt got out of the car at Indian Spring Apartments 
to flee on foot. During a foot chase, he shot Pickett who died March 5 after 
being sustained on life support for a few days.

In addition to murder, Baumgardt is charged with resisting law enforcement, 2 
counts of possession of marijuana, 2 counts of possession of methamphetamine 
and carrying a handgun without a license.

Baumgardt appeared before Boone Superior Court 2 Judge Bruce Pettit Friday. 
Boone County Prosecutor Todd Meyer is seeking the death penalty.

"This had to be done," Meyer said. "If you take the life of the men and women 
who protect our children and families, there is no other aggravating 
circumstance that needs to exist to seek the death penalty. I'm comfortable 
with this decision."

The penalty is being requested for Baumgardt because investigators say he 
knowingly and intentionally murdered Pickett who was acting in the capacity of 
a law enforcement professional.

Pettit detailed that the defense would have to prove to a jury that any 
mitigating circumstances outweigh the aggravating circumstance of the line of 
duty death in order to avoid the penalty. An alternative punishment in the 
event of conviction would be life in prison without parole.

Baumgardt appeared in court in person with armed guards from the Hamilton and 
Boone County sheriff's offices surrounding him at all times.

He made no comments to reporters as he was escorted from the transport van to 
the Boone County Courthouse.

In court, Baumgardt sat quietly and kept his comments to a minimum as Pettit 
read the death penalty statute. Baumgardt's attorney, Allan Reid, said 
Baumgardt was quiet at his urging. Reid said the case is already an uphill 
battle.

"I was not at his initial hearing ... but I've seen the tapes," Reid said. "He 
made some admissions that will not be helpful in the trial. That's why I asked 
him today to not say anything."

Lebanon resident Mary Cook came to the courthouse wearing a T-shirt 
commemorating Pickett's end of watch and carrying a homemade sign with the 
words "death penalty" written on it.

"This boy needs it [the death penalty]," Cook said. "I'm sorry for his 
[Baumgardt's] family, I really am, but in the same sense he committed a crime 
and he has to pay for it. I wanted him to see that this community is behind our 
Boone County Sheriff's Office and Lebanon Police Department 100 %."

Cook also had a message for Pickett's widow, Jen, who is now tasked with 
raising their 2 young sons alone.

"She is going to raise those children by herself, but she is not by herself," 
Cook said. "The community is behind her."

Seeing support from Cook and others like her, Meyer said he is voicing the 
community's sentiment by requesting the death penalty and by advocating to the 
keep the trial local.

"This community has a right to have this case presented in this community and 
that is what the state will defend," Meyer said. "Make no doubt about it, it is 
important that the defendant get a fair trial."

Reid said the community should keep in mind that Baumgardt, like every other 
citizen of the United States, has the right to a fair trial.

"Nobody should be summarily disposed of," Reid said. "Everyone is entitled to a 
competent defense ... That is my job."

Meyer said his team, along with the defense, will continue their work to 
prepare their respective cases. Reid said the case could take years, but Meyer 
estimated it would more likely be 18 months before it goes to trial.

Pettit kept the existing trial date of July 31, but said the date would likely 
be pushed back after Baumgardt's 2nd attorney joins his defense team.

Baumgardt is being held at the Hamilton County Jail.

Pickett was a Zionsville resident who was raised in Brownsburg.

(source: theflyergroup.com)








ARKANSAS:

Another Ark. death row inmate before state Supreme Court----Brandon Lacy's 
attorneys said the man's initial set of defense lawyers was so bad that he is 
entitled to a new trial



New attorneys for Brandon Lacy say he suffers from alcohol-fueled amnesia and 
received such poor legal help while on trial that he is entitled to a new 
trial, but lawyers for the state say Lacy was aware of his actions when Randy 
Walker died during a $20 robbery in 2007. In their arguments, Lacy's lawyers 
say a co-defendant may have helped fill gaps in the condemned man's memory.

Prosecutors say Lacy struck Walker twice in the head with a fireplace poker, 
stabbed him and slit his throat.

"He asked me, 'Why?'" Lacy told an investigator when asked to recall Walker's 
final words. A co-defendant sentenced to life without parole struck Walker in 
the head with a bar from a set of weights and, after Walker died, the men set 
his mobile home on fire.

In court papers filed ahead of a hearing Thursday before the state Supreme 
Court, Lacy's new lawyers had said the trial team failed to pursue evidence of 
mental problems in a man who has depression and "extreme alcoholism" and abused 
drugs.

"This error was prejudicial because it robbed Lacy of his only chance at an 
acquittal," lawyer Bill James wrote to the state Supreme Court. Later Thursday, 
the lawyer who argued Lacy's case before the justices said an initial lawyer 
noticed red flags but didn't follow up and that the decision could cost an 
inmate his life.

"For whatever reason, he neglected to do his job," lawyer Michael Kaiser said.

The Arkansas attorney general's office noted the court previously rejected 
Lacy's claims that he had bad lawyers. It said the trial attorneys gave an 
emotional closing argument and, pleading against a death sentence, told jurors, 
"Let him die, but don't be a part of it."

According to prosecutors, Lacy stole $20 from Walker and took back a gun he had 
previously sold to Walker for $100.

Separately Thursday, justices refused to withdraw orders filed in March that 
moved Don Davis and Bruce Ward closer to execution. The inmates wanted their 
cases put on hold while they ask U.S. Supreme Court to consider whether they 
should have had dedicated access to mental health professionals at their 
trials.

Arkansas executed 4 men in 8 days last year. The state uses a combination of 
three drugs to put inmates to death, but as of Thursday had only 2 on hand.

(source: Associated Press)








KANSAS:

Killing of Olathe woman and her unborn child could lead to death penalty



A Kansas City, Kan., man accused of killing his girlfriend and their unborn 
child made his initial court appearance Friday.

Devonte Dominique Wash, 26, is charged with capital murder in the January 
killing of Ashley Harlan and the boy he fathered.

The charge filed Thursday in Johnson County District Court carries only 2 
possible penalties - life in prison with no parole or death.

Attorneys from the Kansas Death Penalty Defense Unit were appointed Friday to 
represent Wash, who was not required to enter a plea during the brief hearing 
in Johnson County District Court.

(source: kansascity.com)








COLORADO:

Huge jury pool whittled down in upcoming El Paso County death penalty trial



Jury selection for El Paso County's first death penalty case in a decade passed 
a key hurdle this week with the conclusion of 2 months of individual juror 
questioning.

A panel is expected to be seated by the end of the next phase - group 
questioning - scheduled for May 10-11. Opening statements are expected May 14.

The defendant, Glen Law Galloway, is accused in back-to-back killings in 2016 
of Marcus Anderson, a homeless man, and Galloway's ex-girlfriend, Janice Nam, 
whom he was forbidden to contact under a prior conviction for stalking.

His trial marks the 1st death penalty case here since cop killer Marco Lee 
averted a death penalty trial in 2008 by pleading guilty to 1st-degree murder 
in exchange for a life sentence without parole plus 167 years.

Nearly 3,000 El Paso County residents were summoned to 4th Judicial District 
Court to be considered for Galloway's panel, in what a jury commissioner 
described as the county's largest pool in memory.

Prospective jurors first reported for duty on March 5 to fill out written 
questionnaires. Those remaining in the pool were ordered to return for 
individual questioning, in which they were called into court one at a time to 
discuss their thoughts about the death penalty and whether they could be 
neutral.

That process spanned 8 weeks and wrapped up on Thursday, leaving 112 candidates 
heading into group questioning.

(source: The Gazette)








CALIFORNIA:

The latest California death row exoneration shows why we need to end the death 
penalty



A Kern County Superior Court judge last week ordered that a 68-year-old former 
farmworker, Vicente Benavides Figueroa, be released from San Quentin's death 
row after the local district attorney declared she would not retry him. 
Benavides had been in prison for more than 25 years after being convicted of 
raping, sodomizing and murdering his girlfriend's 21-month-old daughter.

Benavides was freed after all but one of the medical experts who testified 
against him recanted their conclusions that the girl had, in effect, been raped 
to death - conclusions they had reached after reviewing incomplete medical 
records. In fact, the first nurses and doctors who examined the semiconscious 
and battered girl in 1991 observed no injuries suggesting she had been raped or 
sodomized, but those details were not passed along to the medical expert 
witnesses who testified in court. Injuries later observed at 2 other hospitals 
were likely caused by that 1st effort to save her life, which included attempts 
to insert an adult-sized catheter.

Convicting Benavides was an egregious miscarriage of justice; he spent a 
quarter-century on death row for a crime he apparently did not commit. His 
exoneration serves as a reminder of what ought to be abundantly clear by now: 
that despite jury trials, appellate reconsideration and years of motions and 
counter-motions, the justice system is not infallible, and it is possible (or 
perhaps inevitable) that innocent people will end up facing execution at the 
hands of the state. Not all of them will be saved, as Benavides was.

Innocent people end up facing execution at the hands of the state. The case 
also ought to remind us of the dangers inherent in California's efforts to 
speed up the calendar for death penalty appeals under Proposition 66, which 
voters approved in 2016. Moving more quickly to execute convicted death row 
inmates increases the likelihood that due process will be given short shrift 
and the innocent will be put to death. Benavides - described in court filings 
as a seasonal worker with intellectual disabilities - was convicted in 1993. 
But the records that blew up the case against Benavides, but also raised doubt 
that Consuelo Verdugo had been murdered at all, were not uncovered until about 
2000. Proposition 66 makes it less likely that such diligent research can be 
completed in the single year it gives appellate attorneys to file their cases 
(a process that currently consumes 3 years or more), and thus more likely that 
innocent people will be put to death.

This rush-to-execute mood isn't California's alone. Florida adopted its own 
speed-up legislation 5 years ago. And around the country, pro-death penalty 
advocates argue that the condemned take advantage of the appeals process to 
delay their executions. Federal statistics for 2013, the last year available, 
show an average of 15 1/2 years between sentence and execution for people on 
death row in the U.S. At least 365 people have been on California's death row 
for 20 years or more.

Benavides was released after more than 25 years. 2 half-brothers in North 
Carolina spent about 30 years under death sentences before they were 
exonerated. Since the Supreme Court revived the death penalty in 1976, more 
than 150 people have been exonerated of the murders for which they were 
condemned (in most cases that also meant the real killers got away with it), 
with an average of more than 11 years between sentence and exoneration. A 2014 
study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 
estimated that at least 4% of the people sitting on America's death rows are 
probably innocent. With a national death row population of 2,700 people, that 
means more than 100 people currently under death sentences probably are 
innocent - about 30 of them in California. A rush to execution will only 
increase the chances that state governments will execute the innocent in the 
name of the people.

The unfixable problem with the death penalty is that mistakes get made, 
witnesses lie, confessions get coerced - all factors that can lead to false 
convictions. It is abjectly immoral to speed things up by limiting due process. 
The better solution is to get rid of the death penalty altogether.

(source: Editorial Board, Los Angeles Times)








USA:

4 Chinese Charged in Fentanyl Trafficking Case



The U.S. Justice Department on Friday announced charges against 4 Chinese 
nationals and 6 co-conspirators for trafficking large quantities of the 
synthetic opioid fentanyl into the United States, part of the Trump 
administration's crackdown on an abuse epidemic that has killed tens of 
thousands of Americans.

The charges, handed down by a federal grand jury in North Dakota in January and 
March, were unsealed and announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in North 
Dakota. In all, 32 people have been charged in the case, an operation Sessions 
described as "an elaborate and sophisticated conspiracy" to sell fentanyl in 11 
U.S. states, resulting in overdose deaths in at least 3 states.

"Today's indictments are a step toward dismantling an alleged international 
fentanyl trafficking operation and eventually ending this nation's 
unprecedented drug crisis," Sessions said.

The charges followed the 1st indictments of Chinese nationals for fentanyl 
trafficking, announced in October. Sessions said 1 of 2 indictments unsealed 
last year began with the overdose death in January 2015 of a teenager in Grand 
Forks, North Dakota, a tragedy that allowed prosecutors to trace the source of 
the fentanyl to China.

Chinese supply

"Most fentanyl doesn't come from here," Sessions said. "The vast majority is 
made in China and then shipped here, either through the mail or brought across 
the porous Southern border."

The Justice Department identified the operation's ringleader as Jian Zhang, who 
had been previously indicted in connection with the fentanyl trafficking case. 
U.S. prosecutors alleged that Zhang ran an organization that manufactured 
fentanyl in at least 4 labs in China and sold it to American customers over the 
internet.

All 5 Chinese nationals remain at large.3 co-conspirators have been arrested in 
3 different states.

The Treasury Department designated Zhang, 39, as a "significant foreign 
narcotics trafficker" under the Kingpin Act and sanctioned a biotechnology firm 
he owns. The agency also sanctioned 4 other Chinese nationals.

The Kingpin Law allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty for traffickers of 
large quantities of illegal drugs. Sessions recently urged U.S. prosecutors to 
seek the death penalty in drug kingpin cases.

The U.S. substance abuse epidemic killed nearly 64,000 Americans in 2016, the 
most on record, making drug overdoses the No. 1 killer of Americans under age 
50, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The deadly epidemic is fueled by opioids such as heroin and prescription 
painkillers. But the "top killer opioid" is fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that 
is 30 to 50 times more potent than heroin and 50 to 100 times stronger than 
morphine. Synthetic opioids like fentanyl killed about 20,000 Americans in 
2016, Sessions said.

Federal priority

The Trump administration has made ending the drug crisis a priority. In 
October, Trump declared the opioid epidemic a national public health emergency, 
a declaration he extended this week for an additional 90 days.

Sessions said the Justice Department was "taking aggressive steps to prosecute 
those who would profit off of addiction, with a particular focus on fentanyl," 
and had tripled the number of fentanyl prosecutions in 2017 compared with 2016.

Last week, the department announced charges against dozens of people in a 
takedown of a major fentanyl and heroin distribution network.

(source: voanews.com)