[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, IOWA, WASH.

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 5



OHIO----impending execution

Ohio juror voted for death 20 years ago, now seeks mercy



Ross Geiger had doubts about recommending a death sentence 20 years ago for a 
convicted Ohio killer, concerned about the impact of the offender???s tough 
childhood on his behavior.

But ultimately, Geiger voted in favor of death for Raymond Tibbetts for killing 
a Cincinnati man he was staying with.

Today, Geiger has changed his mind. After reviewing documents made available 
during Tibbetts' clemency appeal last year, Geiger believes he and other jurors 
were misled about the "truly terrible conditions" of Tibbetts' upbringing.

On Jan. 30, Geiger asked Gov. John Kasich to spare Tibbetts, who is set for 
execution Feb. 13.

"After reviewing the material, from the perspective of an original juror, I 
have deep concerns about the trial and the way it transpired," Geiger wrote in 
a letter to the governor. "This is why I am asking you to be merciful."

Geiger said he didn't feel like he had a choice at the time.

"I felt persuaded the law required me to vote for death in this circumstance," 
he told The Associated Press.

The Republican governor is reviewing Tibbetts' clemency request, said spokesman 
Jon Keeling.

Tibbetts, 60, was sentenced to die for stabbing Fred Hicks to death at Hicks' 
home in 1997. Tibbetts also received life imprisonment for fatally beating and 
stabbing his wife, 42-year-old Judith Crawford, during an argument that same 
day over Tibbetts' crack cocaine habit.

The 67-year-old Hicks had hired Crawford as a caretaker and allowed the couple 
to stay with him.

Hamilton County prosecutors have argued that Tibbetts' background doesn't 
outweigh his crimes. That includes stabbing Crawford after he'd already beaten 
her to death, then repeatedly stabbing Hicks, a "sick, defenseless, 
hearing-impaired man in whose home Tibbetts lived," they told the parole board.

"In nearly every case this board reviews, inmates assert that their poor 
childhoods, drugs, or some other reason mitigate their actions," Ron Springman, 
an assistant Hamilton County prosecutor, told the board in a 2017 filing. "The 
mitigation in this case does not overcome the brutality of these murders."

The parole board voted 11-1 last year against mercy. A message was left with 
the Hamilton County Prosecutor's office about Geiger's letter.

Jurors heard "mostly anecdotal stories" from a psychiatrist called on Tibbetts' 
behalf about his troubled childhood and poor foster care, Geiger told Kasich.

Geiger said he was shocked last month reading testimony presented at Tibbetts' 
clemency hearing about the conditions Tibbetts and his siblings lived through 
in foster care.

At night, Tibbetts and his brothers were tied to a single bed at the foster 
home, weren't fed properly, were thrown down stairs, had their fingers beaten 
with spatulas and were burned on heating registers, according to Tibbetts' 
application for mercy last year.

Geiger told Kasich he was angered to see such material, which jurors had never 
been presented.

During the 1998 trial, Geiger managed people processing health insurance 
claims. He described himself as a conservative Republican at the time.

Today he's a commercial banker who voted for President Donald Trump, "a 
pro-growth, economic liberty kind of guy."

He says he made the decision to write Kasich on his own. He also feels sympathy 
for Tibbetts' victims, who deserve justice, he said.

"In a selfish way this is about my feeling duped by the system," Geiger said. 
"The state asked me to carry the responsibility for such a decision but 
withheld information from me that was important."

Geiger's letter matters because the parole board wasn't aware of his regrets 
when it ruled against Tibbetts, said Erin Barnhart, a federal public defender 
representing the inmate.

"Kasich is the only person who has the ability to act on it at this point," 
Barnhart said.

(source: The Republic)

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



"The Penalty" tells three capital punishment-related stories. They include that 
of a recently exonerated death row inmate and a homicide victim's family trying 
to negotiate the legal system. A 3rd story examines the 2014 execution of 
Dennis McGuire using a never tried 2-drug process that Ohio has since 
abandoned.

The film follows federal public defender Allen Bohnert during his unsuccessful 
fight to stop McGuire's execution.

Screenings are scheduled in several Ohio cities beginning Monday to include 
Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dayton and Columbus.

(source: Associated Press)








IOWA:

State can't be trusted on capital punishment



During this legislative session, there has been renewed discussion of bringing 
back Iowa's death penalty which ended in 1965. There are opponents to bringing 
back the death penalty who have based their opinions on financial and budgetary 
concerns, opponents who have religious or moral disagreements to the death 
penalty, and opponents who believe it would give murderers additional fame and 
publicity when the media covers their death penalty appeals.

Without getting into those debates, I simply raise the question if we should 
trust the state to execute people based on their previous history of carrying 
out executions.

We have no idea what a new death penalty in Iowa would look like once it gets 
out of the legislature, and there are many scientific and case studies of 
innocent people imprisoned and even executed that should give us cause for 
concern. When emotions are high, we often make irrational decisions that have 
unintended consequences.

Proponents of the proposed death penalty legislation claim that the new death 
penalty will only be used in rare cases. Whenever new legislation is proposed, 
it almost always starts small. As time goes by, the Overton window moves, and 
the legislature grants itself more power and authority by passing additional 
laws. Before you know it, the original law looks nothing like what the new 
legislation is doing.

In addition to not knowing what would be in the legislation, the government has 
a horrendous track record with criminal justice. The National Registry of 
Exonerations lists 2,164 criminal exonerations that have taken place and 353 of 
them listed were exonerated from DNA evidence. In 2014, a study released in the 
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences claimed that 4.1 % of people 
sentenced to death in the United States were likely innocent. In 2015, the FBI 
admitted that the hair analysis, which was used in 32 death penalty cases, was 
a flawed analysis.

Once a person is executed, we cannot bring them back no matter what evidence we 
later find or confessions are made. Why should we trust the legislature with 
the responsibility of passing legislation that would end human life when we may 
have such a high rate of innocent people being executed?

The role of the government is to protect life, liberty, and property. Bringing 
back the death penalty will not protect any of those things. In fact, based on 
previous studies and results we know that it can be used to end innocent lives 
mistakenly. Our state motto proudly says, "Our Liberties We Prize and Our 
Rights We Will Maintain." How can we live up to our motto if we execute even 1 
innocent person?

(source: Gues Column, Jake Porter; The Gazette)








WASHINGTON:

End death penalty in Washington



Washington's death penalty is applied inequitably and its administration is 
costly.

For so many reasons, Washington state should eliminate the death penalty.

As King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberghas argued eloquently in these pages 
and recently before a state Senate committee: the death penalty is not a 
deterrent to crime, it is unnecessary for public safety, it is not worth the 
cost to taxpayers or the emotional energy for victims' families, and it simply 
hasn't worked the way it was intended.

Since Washington reinstated the death penalty in 1981, 33 people were sentenced 
to die, 5 have been executed and 8 are currently on death row. Gov. Jay Inslee 
declared a moratorium on executions in 2014, which helped boost this policy 
conversation. But that does not bind future governors.

The Legislature should end the death penalty this year.

Senate Bill 6052, which would eliminate the death penalty, has bipartisan 
support for a variety of reasons, including those listed by Satterberg. Also, 
as primary sponsor Sen. Maureen Walsh, R-Walla Walla, says, the death penalty 
process is not worth the $1.5 million in public costs per case and the years 
victims' families suffer through the process.

Not all victims' families or prosecutors agree that the death penalty should be 
abandoned. But as Satterberg asks: Do you support the death penalty Washington 
has or the one you wish we had?

"The law we have is deeply flawed," he told the Law & Justice Committee, which 
passed the bill out of committee on Jan. 25.

The law is used only in the most populous counties, because those are the only 
municipalities that can afford decades of death penalty appeals. Most counties 
do not have the resources to even consider pursuing the death penalty. Even in 
the counties where such a process is possible, death penalty cases suck money 
away from other important prosecutorial work.

The legal system is imperfect, no matter how carefully these cases are managed. 
Nationally, since 1973 at least 160 people have been freed from death row after 
new evidence shows they were wrongly convicted, according to Conservatives 
Concerned About the Death Penalty.

Washington state should eliminate the death penalty.

(source: Editorial board members are editorial page editor Kate Riley, Frank A. 
Blethen, Donna Gordon Blankinship, Brier Dudley, Mark Higgins, Melissa Santos, 
William K. Blethen (emeritus) and Robert C. Blethen (emeritus)---- Seattle 
Times)