[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, LA., MO., ORE.

[Rick Halperin]

December 31





TEXAS:

Will Texas lawmakers protect intellectually disabled people from getting the 
death penalty?


Fueled by a U.S. Supreme Court decision chastising Texas for how it
determines intellectual disability in death penalty cases, criminal justice 
advocates say the time has come for the state's legislators to pass a bill that 
aligns with federal law.

Texas, which leads the nation in death row executions, is 1 of 9 states
with the death penalty that hasn’t passed a law outlining rules to protect 
people with intellectual disabilities from being executed.

Without a law, the state’s courts had to come up with their own system. But 
last year, the Supreme Court declared the method violated the Constitution 
because it relies on nonclinical and unscientific standards to determine who 
was intellectually disabled.

“It’s embarrassing that Texas has had to have the U.S. Supreme Court send back 
cases to us telling us we’re not using medically informed criteria when 
applying the death penalty to a very vulnerable population,” said state Rep. 
Joe Moody, an El Paso Democrat. “We have to tackle that. The Supreme Court has 
told us we have to make this change.”

Moody, chairman of the House Criminal Jurisprudence committee, said he expects 
lawmakers to take up the issue this year, though legislation has not yet been 
filed. Last year, House Speaker Joe Straus directed the committee to study the 
issue and report back to the House.

Moody said the committee has drafted a report, and he expects it to recommend 
how to apply the death penalty to both people with intellectual disabilities 
and severe mental disorders.

In 2001, the Legislature passed a law banning the execution of intellectually 
disabled people, but Gov. Rick Perry vetoed it a year before the Supreme 
Court’s Atkins vs. Virginia ruling, which declared the practice 
unconstitutional. Perry said at the time that the law was unnecessary because 
judicial safeguards were in place.

The case of Bobby Moore

Medical experts say Bobby Moore, who has been on death row for 36 years, is 
intellectually disabled. On one test, he recorded an IQ score of 59.

Texas is at the center of this issue as attorneys for death row inmate Bobby 
Moore are seeking review from the U.S. Supreme Court for a 2nd time. In 1980, 
Moore shot a 73-year-old grocery clerk during a botched robbery in Houston. 
After he was sentenced to death, his attorneys’ appeals hinged on Moore being 
severely intellectually disabled.

Last year, the Supreme Court sent Moore’s case back to the Texas Court of 
Criminal Appeals, with a sharp rebuke that said the state’s practice was 
medically outdated and relied on misinformed stereotypes to characterize people 
with intellectual disabilities. In June, despite pleas from the prosecution to 
change Moore’s sentence to life in prison, the Texas appeals court upheld the 
death sentence for Moore.

Moore’s attorney has since petitioned the Supreme Court to vacate the Texas 
court’s ruling.

“This gives added impetus for the Legislature to do something,” said Jordan 
Steiker, a University of Texas law professor and co-director of the school’s 
Capital Punishment Center. “They should pass a statute that over protects, 
rather than under protects and makes it hard to make a mistake.”

He said without a state statute that appropriately protects people with 
intellectual disabilities, Texas will continue to find itself entangled in 
expensive and embarrassing litigation.

Texas judges also say they want the Legislature to pass a law, taking the 
burden off the courts.

“The No. 1 area that needs attention and that has needed attention for over a 
decade is intellectual disabilities,” Judge Elsa Alcala, who sits on the Court 
of Criminal Appeals, said during a hearing of Moody’s committee in March. “My 
court has had various judges repeatedly tell the Legislature, ‘Please write a 
law we can apply.’ ”

Alcala and two other judges forcefully dissented in a 67-page rebuke when the 
court ruled 5-3 to uphold Moore’s death penalty sentence.

“Most judges will tell you that we are not law writers. That’s what you do,” 
she told the House committee members.

The legislative session begins Jan. 8.

(source: Dallas Morning News)



LOUISIANA:

  Death sentences drastically decline; report says there was 'a sea change in 
public opinion'


Louisiana's use of the death penalty has reached record lows in recent years 
amid ongoing debate — both statewide and across the country — about the 
potential for grave and irreversible errors when allowing state executions.

The downward trend is reflected nationwide as death sentences peaked in the 
1990s and have dropped steadily since then. Some states have abolished capital 
punishment entirely while others still have the option but use it less often, 
according to a report released earlier this month from the national nonprofit 
Death Penalty Information Center.

Louisiana is 1 of 31 states where the practice is permitted. But state leaders 
have long grappled with questions surrounding its use.

Discussions have grown more heated in recent months since a federal court order 
was issued prohibiting additional executions in Louisiana until at least summer 
2019 — a moratorium resulting from issues obtaining lethal injection drugs 
because pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to sell them for that purpose.

One person was sentenced to death in Louisiana in 2018 following no death 
sentences in both 2016 and 2017, according to the report. The state's last 
execution took place in 2010 though dozens of people remain on death row 
awaiting execution.

"In a lot of respects Louisiana mirrors what's going on around the country," 
said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. 
"Americans are much less supportive of the death penalty than they were a 
generation ago. There has been a sea change in public opinion."

Dunham described a "deep and broad decline" in death sentences even in 
conservative states where the practice has historically received the most 
support.

There were 42 death sentences imposed nationwide in 2018, which marks an 85 % 
decline since the mid 1990s — when annual totals reached more than 300, 
according to the report. Executions have also dropped significantly: 25 people 
were executed in the United States this year, down from 98 in 1999.

Dunham said one of the reasons for the decline is that people are realizing 
wrongful convictions are real. And can result in innocent people being 
sentenced to death.

He said Louisiana has the highest exoneration rate of death row prisoners since 
1900 — meaning "more people per capita than any other state this century, which 
raises serious questions about the death sentences that are imposed." Eleven 
people have been exonerated after receiving death sentences in Louisiana and 
"every single one of those cases involved either police or prosecutorial 
misconduct," Dunham said.

Opponents also argue that the practice disproportionately affects defendants in 
certain communities where prosecutors are more likely to seek a death sentence. 
Research shows that more than half of all death sentences have come from fewer 
2 % of counties in the United States. Dunham said Louisiana is no different, 
with death sentences concentrated in both East Baton Rouge and Caddo parishes.

The one Louisiana resident sentenced to death this year was David Brown of 
Lafourche Parish — that parish's 1st death sentence in four decades. He was 
convicted in the 2012 stabbing deaths of a woman and her 2 young daughters, 
according to reports from the Daily Comet. The jury found that Brown also 
sexually assaulted 2 of the victims and set their home on fire during the 
attack. Jurors voted in 2016 that Brown should receive capital punishment but 
he wasn't sentenced until June 2018 because of delays to the case, including a 
request for retrial that was denied.

State legislators have consistently rejected proposals to abolish capital 
punishment in recent years as some advocates argue it's valuable for victims' 
families searching for justice. Measures have gained traction but ultimately 
been defeated, often along party lines. And the issue could remain on the table 
for at least the next few years.

A spat between Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards and the state's Republican 
Attorney General Jeff Landry this summer turned the spotlight on the politics 
of capital punishment in Louisiana. Landry argued the challenges associated 
with obtaining lethal injection drugs could be eliminated if the state started 
allowing other methods of execution — including hanging, firing squads and the 
electric chair. His proposal came after the Edwards administration requested 
and obtained the federal court order prohibiting executions until next year.

The attorney general seized onto Edwards' reluctance to reveal his personal 
views on the death penalty, asserting the governor was dragging his feet in 
enforcing state law. Landry pointed to other states that have found ways to 
access the drugs and execute prisoners. And he said continued delays prevent 
families from getting justice for horrific crimes.

Opposition from the Catholic Church could also affect public opinion among 
Louisiana residents continue to ponder questions about capital punishment, 
Dunham said.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Louisiana Conference of 
Catholic Bishops have called for an end to the death penalty and Pope Francis 
changed the Catechism earlier this year to declare the practice unacceptable in 
all cases.

Catholic activists like Sister Helen Prejean — who grew up in Baton Rouge and 
graduated from St. Joseph's Academy in 1957 — have also been spreading that 
message for decades.

"Where is the dignity in rendering a human being completely defenseless and 
taking them out and killing them," she said, speaking to St. Joseph's students 
at a school event earlier this year. "Where is the dignity in that?"

(source: The Advocate)




MISSOURI:

Missouri man accused of killing his family could face the death penalty


Prosecutors say a St. Louis-area man charged with fatally shooting his 
girlfriend, her 2 young children and her mother could face the death penalty 
once the investigation is complete.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that authorities are still investigating 
what led to the shooting late Friday. Richard Darren Emery of St. Charles, 
Missouri, is facing 15 charges, including 1st-degree murder.

Emery, who often goes by his middle name Darren, exchanged gunfire with 
officers as he fled. He was captured several hours later — wounded and covered 
in blood.

St. Charles is a city of about 70,000 residents on the Missouri River northwest 
of St. Louis.

A candlelight vigil was planned Sunday evening to honor the victims: 
61-year-old Jane Moeckel, 39-year-old Kate Kasten, 8-year-old Zoe Kasten and 
10-year-old Jonathan Kasten.

Emery remained in a local hospital with 2 gunshot wounds that authorities said 
did not appear self-inflicted and most likely came from the shootout with 
officers.

St. Charles County Prosecuting Attorney Tim Lohmar said investigators did not 
know the motive for the shootings as of Saturday evening.

"We may never know," Lohmar said during an earlier news conference. "This one 
in particular was the worst example of a domestic violence case. Anytime you 
have a domestic violence case you worry about the safety of the victim, and 
this would be your worst nightmare."

The initial call came to police came from inside the house, and Lohmar said 
investigators believe Moeckel made it.

"During that phone call, the 911 operator could hear gunshots in the 
background," St. Charles Police Lt. Tom Wilkison said.

Lohmar said Emery attempted to flee in his pickup and was stopped by a police 
car. He and the officers exchanged shots, and he fled on foot.

Authorities described his attempt to steal another vehicle as a carjacking and 
said she stabbed its female driver 7 times. They said her injuries were not 
life-threatening.

The area is wooded, and Lohmar said Emery was able to elude police in the dark. 
But when he sought shelter in the bathroom of the convenience store a few miles 
away, an employee contacted police, Lohmar said.

Each of the charges against Emery carries a possible penalty of 30 years to 
life in prison, Lohmar said, adding that more charges are possible and seeking 
the death penalty is an option under Missouri law.

"It's premature for us to make any sort of pronouncement about that right now, 
but I can tell you this thing looks and smells like a death penalty case," he 
said.

(source: Associated Press)




OREGON:

Gov. Brown, it’s time to commute Oregon’s death row


On the evening of Nov. 1, as day turned into night outside the Riverbend 
National Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee, Edmund Zagorski spoke 
his last words. “Let’s rock,” he said, before prison staff covered his head 
with a black shroud and sent thousands of volts of electricity through his 
body. At 7:26 p.m. he was pronounced dead.

Zagorski had specifically requested to die by electrocution rather than lethal 
injection, which has been the standard method for many years. He wanted to 
avoid the seemingly torturous deaths endured when dying by lethal injection. 
Others facing their own executions are demanding the firing squad or the gas 
chamber. Despite the ongoing decline in support among Americans for the death 
penalty, an ugly national conversation has begun as to how to put an end to the 
lives of people convicted of heinous crimes.

What does this have to do with Oregon? Our state has had a moratorium on 
executions in place since 2011. Moreover, we have executed only 2 people since 
the death penalty was reinstated in 1984, both by lethal injection and both of 
whom gave up their appeals.

Yet, despite the lack of executions, the state of Oregon’s continued support of 
the death penalty causes harm. The state defends existing death sentences, and 
district attorneys are still pursuing new sentences -- at vast expense. All 
those who labor within the “machinery of death” ­– judges, court staff, 
prosecutors, defense attorneys and others – continue their grisly work. The 
families of murder victims are promised an illusory “closure,” and the families 
of those on death row struggle with knowing that their loved ones live in the 
shadow of death.

This ambivalence has a price beyond our state. Oregon’s continued 
administration of the death penalty helps to create the political space for 
executions in other states. Gov. Kate Brown could act decisively, using the 
powers the voters of Oregon have given her, and encourage other states to end 
their death penalties. Hence, we are calling on Gov. Brown to commute the 
sentences of all those on death row to life without the possibility of parole.

Brown commissioned a report that was published in 2016 iterating numerous 
problems with Oregon’s death penalty: the huge cost, the risk of executing an 
innocent person, the racial disparities, the high rate of sentence reversals, 
and the lack of a viable execution method. The flaws in our state’s system of 
capital punishment are clear, especially when you also consider the extremely 
high rate of mental impairments among those who receive death sentences and the 
fact that it’s a punishment that only a few counties are equipped to pursue.

Furthermore, the same report and other legal analysis make clear that Gov. 
Brown would be well within her powers to commute these sentences. Her ability 
to commute any criminal sentence to any lesser one is absolute. No one would 
obtain parole as a consequence of commutation, but we would cease funding de 
facto life without parole for people on death row and be honest about the fact 
that they will never be executed. The millions of dollars saved could be much 
better spent.

Brown should end the fiction that is the Oregon death penalty by clearing death 
row. Doing so would be an important step toward the decision that Oregon voters 
must take: removing capital punishment from the state constitution. It would 
spare state officials from gruesome discussions about the “best” way for the 
state to kill. In the history of this country, no state has ever been able to 
administer the death penalty in a manner that is consistent, humane, just, 
effective, or fair. Let’s not persist in dithering over what to do when the 
answer is straightforward.

Gov. Brown, the evidence is unambiguous and your authority is clear, please put 
an end to the wastefulness and suffering of Oregon’s death penalty.

(source: Opinion; Bobbin Singh is executive director of the Portland-based 
Oregon Justice Resource Center. Alice Lundell is the center’s communication
director----The Oregonian)