[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, TENN., S.DAK., UTAH, ARIZ., CALIF., WASH.

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 21



OHIO:

Man pleads not guilty to raping, killing Warren native in Columbus----Anthony 
Pardon, accused of murdering Rachael Anderson, entered a not guilty plea for 
all nine of the charges



The registered sex offender accused of raping, torturing and murdering an 
aspiring funeral director was formally arraigned in Franklin County Common 
Pleas Court on Tuesday.

Anthony Pardon stood quietly before a judge as prosecutors detailed the 9-count 
indictment against him.

It includes charges of aggravated murder, aggravated burglary, aggravated 
robbery and kidnapping, with specifications that could lead to Pardon receiving 
a death sentence.

He entered a not guilty plea on all of the charges.

According to police, Pardon killed Rachael Anderson in her east Columbus 
apartment and left her body in a closet.

Her remains were discovered Jan. 29, when co-workers said she did not show up 
for work.

Investigators said Pardon was linked to the crime by DNA evidence.

Court documents indicate Anderson???s cause of death was asphyxiation or 
suffocation.

Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O???Brien said Pardon and Anderson were 
strangers, and the suspect laid in wait for the young woman, inside her home.

"We believe he was in the apartment belonging to the victim when she arrived 
home and then attacked her when she entered her own apartment," he explained.

According to court documents, Pardon previously served 24 years in prison for 
an aggravated robbery, rape and attempted murder conviction from 1982.

Given Pardon's past, Anderson's close friend said this murder never should have 
happened.

"He shouldn't have been let out of jail in the first place," said Tina Kennedy. 
"He should have never had the chance to do this again."

At the time of her death, Anderson was an aspiring funeral director nearing the 
end of her apprenticeship with Shaw-Davis Funeral Homes.

Colleagues said she was about to become the business' 1st funeral director, not 
from the Shaw family.

Her body was discovered one day after her 24th birthday.

(source: WKBN news)

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

Craigslist killer Richard Beasley's attorneys ask Ohio high court to reconsider 
decision denying appeal



Attorneys for convicted Craigslist killer Richard Beasley are asking the Ohio 
Supreme Court to reconsider its decision to deny Beasley's appeal of his 
death-penalty conviction.

Among the issues the attorneys raise is whether Justice R. Patrick DeWine 
should have recused himself from the case when the office of his father, Ohio 
Attorney General Mike DeWine, represented the prosecution in arguments before 
the state's high court.

Attorneys Donald Gallick and Don Hicks are asking the Ohio Supreme Court to 
appoint a visiting justice without ties to Mike DeWine's office to reconsider 
the Beasley appeal.

The Ohio Supreme Court upheld the death sentence Feb. 9 for Beasley, who was 
convicted of posting bogus job offers on Craigslist to rob and murder 3 men in 
2011.

Gallick and Hicks argued that Beasley deserved a new trial because of errors 
made in his original trial in Summit County Common Pleas Court.

Beasley, 58, and his teenage accomplice, Brogan Rafferty of Stow, were 
convicted in 2013 of murdering 3 men and trying to kill another. The murders 
made national news because Beasley posted ads on Craigslist to lure the men to 
a remote spot in southern Ohio.

Beasley and Rafferty were captured after a gun malfunctioned and one of the men 
escaped and hid in the woods after being shot in the elbow.

Beasley was sentenced to death, while Rafferty was sentenced to life in prison 
with no chance of parole.

Other issues Gallick and Hicks raised in the reconsideration request include 
whether an impending U.S. Supreme Court decision could impact the use of 
cellphone records in the Beasley case and if an upcoming Ohio Supreme Court 
ruling could have a bearing on court costs in the Beasley case.

The Summit County Prosecutor's Office declined Tuesday to comment on the 
request for reconsideration.

Beasley's attorneys have said they also plan to appeal to the U.S. Supreme 
Court.

(source: ohio.com)

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

An Ohio juror voted to put murderer to death. Decades later, he wants to halt 
his execution.



On a fall day in 1997, Raymond Tibbetts's wife threatened to kick him out of 
their Cincinnati home. In a drug-addled fury, he beat her to death with a 
baseball bat and stabbed her 21 times with kitchen knives. He then stormed into 
the living room and killed the couple's ailing landlord, stabbing him a dozen 
times in the chest and back before fleeing in the man's car.

Authorities caught up with Tibbetts in a matter of days. He was charged and 
swiftly convicted in the murder of Judith Crawford, 42, and Fred Hicks, 67, who 
had recently hired Crawford as a live-in caretaker and allowed the couple to 
stay with him. When it came time to decide Tibbetts's punishment, a jury 
recommended death.

Ross Geiger was Juror No. 2. Like his counterparts, he was at the time, and 
still is, certain of Tibbetts's guilt. But as the convicted killer's case has 
inched up the appeals ladder over the years, he's become convinced that he and 
the other jurors were misled. Now, he's leading a fight to get Tibbetts off of 
death row.

Geiger, a commercial banker with conservative political views, told the 
Cincinnati Enquirer on Sunday that he started reexamining the case only 
recently, when some news articles about capital punishment prompted him to look 
up documents from Tibbetts's parole case.

He said he was shocked to read that Tibbetts, now 60, had experienced years of 
neglect and abuse as a child. A clemency report stated that his parents were 
alcoholics who routinely locked him and his siblings out of the house. It noted 
that multiple sets of foster parents had beaten the children, burned them on 
stoves, left them tied to a single bed overnight and sexually abused them, and 
said Tibbetts had started using drugs as an early teen.

None of that came up during the trial or sentencing, Geiger told the Enquirer. 
Jurors heard from a single psychiatrist who offered "mostly anecdotal stories" 
about the defendant, but no other witnesses were called to testify about his 
past.

"I was astounded by the amount of material that was available (for the trial) 
that I never saw," he said. "There was an obvious breakdown in the system."

"The state had a duty to give me access to the information I needed to make the 
best decision I could," he added. "It's like if you have to take a big test, 
but you were deprived of the textbook."

Geiger wrestled over what to do about those revelations. Eventually, he said, 
he came to believe that he wouldn't have voted in favor of the death penalty 
had he seen evidence of Tibbetts's tortured childhood.

So late last month, with just weeks to go before Tibbetts's planned execution, 
Geiger sent a letter to Gov. John Kasich, R, pleading for him commute the 
sentence to life without parole.

"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, 
according to the Associated Press."This is why I am asking you to be merciful."

Kasich in early February agreed to postpone the execution until October to give 
the parole board more time to review the case.

Tibbetts's attorney praised the move. "Because a juror from the original trial 
recently revealed flaws in the proceedings, there is now incontrovertible proof 
that Mr. Tibbetts never would have ended up on death row had the system 
functioned properly," Erin Barnhart said in a statement earlier this month.

Prosecutors have contended that Tibbetts got a fair trial, saying Tibbetts's 
background didn't insulate him from his savage crimes, which included murdering 
a man on an oxygen tank and stabbing his wife repeatedly after she had died. 
During the appeals process, the state argued that jurors heard sufficient 
evidence about his life to make an informed decision on whether to send him to 
death.

"While Tibbetts's childhood and life may have been rough at times, no jury 
would find that was enough to overcome the aggravating circumstances of the 
crime, double murder and Aggravated Robbery, to recommend a sentence other than 
death," Assistant Attorney General Holly E. LeClair wrote in a June 2009 
filing.

A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit agreed, 
ruling in 2011 that the brutality of Tibbetts's crimes would have "completely 
overwhelmed" any additional mitigating evidence regarding his difficult 
childhood.

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

But Geiger says that cold calculation is precisely what has troubled him.

In criminal cases where capital punishment is an option, juries are required to 
balance aggravating factors, which can range from lack of remorse or the 
horrific nature of a crime, against mitigating factors, which often include 
things like drug addiction or childhood abuse.

During Tibbetts's trial, prosecutors painted a rosy picture of Tibbetts's 
upbringing, portraying him as a sort of black sheep who let his life spiral out 
of control, Geiger wrote in a Cleveland.com commentary earlier this month.

"They said Mr. Tibbetts' placement in foster care was the best thing that ever 
happened to him," he wrote, saying that defense attorneys didn't challenge 
their assertions. He added that they were told that his siblings had 
essentially "turned out fine" when in fact the clemency report showed one had 
committed suicide, one had spent time in prison and a 3rd was homeless.

When jurors considered the evidence during the trial's penalty phase, they 
decided the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors. The vote in 
favor of execution was unanimous.

"Mr. Tibbetts' crimes were terrible, and nothing excuses his guilt," Geiger 
wrote in Cleveland.com. "But if I had known all the facts, if the prosecutors 
had been honest and forthcoming about the horrors he and his siblings 
experienced in the foster care system, and if we had an accurate understanding 
of the effects of Mr. Tibbetts' severe drug and alcohol addiction and his 
improper opioid prescription, I would have voted for life without parole over 
death."

Kasich's decision to delay the execution until the fall gives the Ohio Parole 
Board time to consider Geiger's letter. Last year, the board voted 11-1 to deny 
clemency to Tibbetts. And in early February, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 
6th Circuit ruled that his execution could proceed.

Geiger told the Enquirer he remains convinced of Tibbetts's guilt and said he 
feels like he made the right decision based on the evidence he was offered at 
trial. He's also sympathetic to the victims' families. But he says the state 
failed to present a fair case.

"I don't really view it as changing my mind because the information wasn't 
available at the time I was asked to make the decision," Geiger said. "Based on 
the information available now, I don't think justice was served in the case of 
Tibbetts."

(source: Chicago Tribune)








TENNESSEE:

Death row inmates sue, calling state's lethal injection drugs torture----The 
filing likely delays any potential executions. Billy Ray Irick, a 59-year-old 
Knox County man convicted of the 1985 rape and murder of a 7-year-old girl, is 
set to be executed Aug. 9.



Tennessee cannot execute death row inmates using a controversial 3-drug mix 
because doing so would violate constitutional bans on cruel and unusual 
punishment, lawyers argue in a new lawsuit filed Tuesday.

The lawsuit, filed in Davidson County Chancery Court by lawyers representing 33 
death row inmates, comes days after Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery 
moved to push the state's largest ramp up of executions in nearly 80 years.

"What Tennessee is proposing to do amounts to torturing prisoners to death, 
which we know because we've seen this protocol fail in other states," said 
Supervisory Assistant Federal Public Defender Kelley J. Henry, an attorney for 
the death row inmates.

The U.S. Supreme Court will review whether recent lethal injection protocols 
were constitutional.

"You cannot break the law in order to enforce the law, which is what this new 
lethal injection protocol does...To use this torturous protocol requires 
pharmacists, doctors, and prison officials to act illegally."

The filing likely delays any potential executions. Billy Ray Irick, a 
59-year-old Knox County man convicted of the 1985 rape and murder of a 
7-year-old girl, is set to be executed Aug. 9. While he is the only offender 
essentially without other appeals who is scheduled to die this year, last week 
Slatery asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to set 8 executions before June 1.

"The state, through the Department of Correction, is required by law to carry 
out executions by lethal injection; however, its ability to do so after June 1, 
2018 is uncertain due to the ongoing difficulty in obtaining the necessary 
lethal injection chemicals," reads a statement from the office of the attorney 
general. The last time Tennessee executed at least 8 people in a single year 
was 1939, according to Department of Correction records. The last execution in 
Tennessee was 2009.

Lethal injection is the primary means of carrying out the death penalty in 
Tennessee, although the electric chair is also legal. The state had used 
pentobarbital, a barbituate, but manufacturers have largely stopped selling the 
drug to anyone using it for executions.

In January, the Tennessee Department of Correction adopted a new protocol for 
lethal injections, relying on a 3-drug mixture intended to put an offender to 
sleep before stopping the lungs and heart.

In practice, executions using the drugs in other states left offenders in 
clear, protracted agony, if not alive. During executions in Oklahoma, Arizona, 
Ohio and elsewhere, midazolam - the drug intended to render the offender 
unconscious - failed to work.

Tennessee corrections officials knew this could be a problem, according to 
documents obtained by the USA TODAY NETWORK-Tennessee that are also cited in 
the lawsuit. In September, a supplier noted potential problems with midazolam 
in an email to Tennessee prison officials in

"Here is my concern with midazolam...it does not elicit strong analgesic 
effects. The subjects may be able to feel pain from the administration of the 
2nd and 3rd drugs. Potassium chloride especially," wrote the supplier in an 
email.

"It may not be a huge concern but can open the door to some scrutiny on your 
end."

The 2nd drug in the mixture, vecuronium bromide, essentially paralyzes the 
offender. That means the offender would still be conscious but potentially 
appear as though they are not feeling pain.

The 3rd drug, potassium chloride, causes a pain similar to "being burned alive 
from the inside," according to attorneys for the inmates.

Lawyers want the chancery court to declare the 3-drug mixture unconstitutional. 
It's only the latest legal challenge to Tennessee's lethal injection 
methodology.

In 2017, the Tennessee Supreme Court rejected a filing by Henry and other 
lawyers seeking the court to declare the use of pentobarbital unconstitutional.

"The intended result of an execution is to render the inmate dead," wrote Chief 
Justice Jeffrey Bivins in an opinion at the time.

There are currently 60 people on death row.



SOUTH DAKOTA:

Bill to prohibit death penalty for mentally ill offenders tabled



A bill to prohibit offenders with severe mental illness from receiving the 
death penalty was voted down Tuesday morning after opponents testified of 
unintended consequences and loss of justice for families of victims.

House Bill 1123 would have prohibited offenders with a previously diagnosed 
severe mental illness from receiving capital punishment. The bill would have 
applied only to people with severe mental illness at the time of the crime and 
with a documented diagnosis of the illness prior to the crime.

It was tabled to the 41st day by a vote of 5-2 in the Senate Judiciary 
Committee Tuesday morning, killing the bill. Sens. Arthur Rusch, R-Vermillion, 
and Craig Kennedy, D-Yankton, were the 2 nays.

Supporters of the bill, including former judges, social workers and a faith 
group, said the state should not seek to execute severely mentally ill people, 
and that there is a gap in the court system between being found guilty but 
mentally ill and being found not guilty by reason of

insanity at a trial.

Rusch, a former circuit judge and state's attorney, said the bill was not 
intended to be a "get out of jail free card" and that it applied to a small 
number of people in the state.

"We shouldn't go out of our way to execute those kind of people," Rusch said. 
"There should be a difference between people who commit a crime because they 
are seriously mentally ill and people committing a crime (because of evil 
intent)."

The bill would have had unintended consequences that ultimately would have 
ended the use of the death penalty in South Dakota, Attorney General Marty 
Jackley testified.

Jackley criticized the bill's lack of language, saying it did not specify that 
the documented mental illness needed to be the same one suffered from at the 
time of a murder.

Severe mental illness is described by current South Dakota law as a 
"substantial organic or psychiatric disorder of thought, mood, perception, 
orientation, or memory which significantly impairs judgment, behavior, or 
ability to cope with the basic demands of life."

"Every murder is an inability to cope with some demand of life," Jackley said.

Paul Bachand, executive director for South Dakota State's Attorney Association, 
also testified against the bill. He talked about the 2012 capital punishment of 
Donald Moeller, who was convicted of raping and killing 9-year-old Becky 
O'Connell in 1990.

"Maybe he could have been documented with prior rapes he would have had sexual 
sadism disorder and saved himself (from the death penalty) because of severe 
mental illness," he said.

It is already unconstitutional to execute a juvenile or someone who has been 
determined to have an intellectual disability.

(source: Sioux Falls Argus Leader)








UTAH:

Republicans Push to Ban Death Penalty in Conservative Utah----The Republican 
leader of the Utah House of Representatives is backing an effort to repeal the 
death penalty 3 years after lawmakers voted to reinstate a firing squad as a 
backup method for executions.



The Republican leader of the Utah House of Representatives backed an effort 
Tuesday to ban the death penalty in the conservative state, coming three years 
after lawmakers voted to reinstate the firing squad as a backup method for 
executions.

House Speaker Greg Hughes and Republican Rep. Gage Froerer, who is sponsoring 
the measure that faces its first hearing Wednesday, acknowledged that it would 
be an uphill battle to persuade the GOP-controlled Legislature to abolish 
capital punishment, though a similar ban came close to passing 2 years ago.

They told reporters that while abolishing the death penalty has traditionally 
been seen as a liberal position, conservatives who believe government is 
imperfect and should be limited also should support it.

"I don't think it's the government's right to take life," Froerer said. "Let's 
be pro-life."

If it passes, Utah would join 19 states and the District of Columbia that have 
overturned or banned the death penalty. Lawmakers in conservative Nebraska 
abolished capital punishment in 2015, but a statewide vote reinstated it the 
following year.

Oregon, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Washington state have moratoriums on 
executions, and several states are considering bans this year. The Washington 
Senate passed a ban this month that now awaits House action.

In Utah, the lawmakers appealed to libertarian leanings among conservatives, 
pointing to state studies that found a sentence of life without parole costs 
taxpayers less than a death sentence.

Both Hughes and Froerer, who are not seeking re-election, voted in 2015 to 
reinstate the firing squad as a secondary execution method if Utah could not 
get lethal-injection drugs. States have struggled to obtain the drugs as 
pharmaceutical companies began blocking the use of their products for 
executions.

Hughes said that if the government is going to put people to death, then it 
should not be "sanitized so it doesn't offend the senses" and should show the 
brutality of it.

If Utah has the death penalty, then not only should the firing squad be an 
option, Hughes said, "But we should probably televise it. Let everyone see it. 
Let it be streamed live."

The proposed ban would not apply to cases where the government has already 
declared it's seeking a death sentence. There are at least 3 cases where 
prosecutors are seeking the death penalty and 9 men are on death row. All could 
still face execution under the proposal.

Gov. Gary Herbert's office did not return a message seeking comment about 
whether he would approve such a measure. He said two years ago that he supports 
capital punishment but demurred about whether he would sign or veto a ban.

Utah's last execution was in 2010, when Ronnie Lee Gardner was killed by a 
firing squad for the 1984 murder of attorney Michael Burdell during a failed 
courthouse escape.

In 2016, Gardner's brother joined a push to ban the death penalty in Utah. The 
effort failed on the last night of the legislative session. Hughes said 
lawmakers in the House fell about 7 or 8 votes short of having enough support 
to bring the measure to a vote of the full chamber.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Will Utah legislators abolish the death penalty in 2018? These conservative 
lawmakers think so.



When lawmakers considered abolishing Utah's death penalty system in 2016, Rep. 
Gage Froerer was against the legislation.

2 years later, the Republican lawmaker from Huntsville has changed his position 
- and is now sponsoring a bill that could eliminate capital punishment in Utah.

"I think it's very clear that this, as it exists today, is not good public 
policy," Froerer said during a Tuesday news conference at the state Capitol.

Utah's current death penalty system is inefficient, Froerer said, and 
expensive. And it often leaves family members of victims waiting through 
decades of appeals before a killer is executed and the case is closed.

HB379 would prohibit Utah prosecutors from seeking the death penalty after May 
8. It still would allow for the nine men currently on death row to be executed, 
and would allow prosecutors to continue to seek executions in current cases - 
so long as they file their intent to do so before the May deadline.

HB0379 Death Penalty Amendments

Abolishes the death penalty in Utah. It would not affect current prosecutions, 
or the 9 men who are currently on Utah's death row.

Current Status: House/ to standing committee

The bill has the support of House Speaker Greg Hughes, who said Tuesday that 
while eliminating the death penalty has traditionally been viewed as liberal or 
"soft on crime," he is a "staunch conservative" who wants the punishment ended.

"I think it's an outdated form of punishment and sentencing," Hughes said. "I 
think we as a society in 2018 are better than that."

Froerer and Hughes acknowledged that passing the bill will be an uphill battle 
with Utah's lawmakers. But they both stressed that abolishing capital 
punishment aligns with conservative values - it's pro-life and it limits 
government power and spending.

Utah legislators came close to abolishing the death penalty in 2016, but the 
bill never reached the House floor before the midnight deadline on the last 
night of session. Hughes said Tuesday that they were likely just a half-dozen 
votes shy of passing the bill then.

Hughes said some lawmakers hesitated to vote in support of ending the death 
penalty at that time after hearing "heart-wrenching stories" from family 
members of murder victims who were in support of capital punishment.

"That's the hardest part of this issue," Hughes said. "We want to have all of 
that empathy ... [but] we want to make sure that sentencing is one that 
delivers as advertised. And I worry that the death penalty overpromises and 
underdelivers in terms of justice."

Brett Tolman, former U.S. Attorney for Utah, said Tuesday at the news 
conference that most of the family members of victims with whom he came in 
contact during a decade of prosecuting crimes did not want the death penalty 
imposed. The threat of the death penalty also did little to deter crime, he 
said.

Like Froerer, Tolman said he once supported capital punishment.

"I was wrong," he said. "There is no place for the death penalty in our 
country."

(source: Salt Lake Tribune)








ARIZONA:

Man convicted of murdering 2 in Mesa awaiting death penalty decision



A 28-year-old man convicted of murdering two young men is waiting to find out 
whether he will spend the rest of his life in prison or be put to death.

Jesus Busso-Estoppellans was found guilty of 1st-degree murder in the 2011 
shooting deaths of 18-year-old Tyler Webster and 19-year-old Olek Wladyszewski.

It happened in Mesa on June 29, 2011. According to police, Webster and 
Wladyszewski were sitting in a car when Busso-Estoppellans, 21, at the time, 
walked up and shot them both in the head.

"... Webster was able to call 911 alerting officers that he had been shot in 
the head while he sat in the passenger seat of his car," explained a news 
release about the conviction from the Maricopa County Attorney's Office. "The 
driver Wladyszewski, had also been shot in the head and died at the scene."

Webster later died at the hospital.

According to MCAO, police used text messages to connect Busso-Estoppellans to 
the double shooting. Investigators said he and Wladyszewski had been 
communicating about meeting in the area just minutes before the incident.

Police arrested him a couple of days after the shooting.

"Busso-Estopellan later admitted to investigators that he had lured the victims 
with the promise of a drug deal and then shot them both as they sat in the 
car," according to MCAO. "He told investigators he had planned to kill 
Wladyszewski and killed Webster to ensure there were no witnesses to the 
murder."

Court paperwork from the time of the arrest showed that Busso-Estopellan 
brokered a marijuana purchase from Wladyszewski 2 months before the shooting, 
but the man who bought the pot hadn't paid yet and was threatening 
Busso-Estopellan.

Busso-Estopellan, who is in the U.S. illegally, said his actions were to 
protect his family from the man involved in the purchase of the marijuana. He 
also indicated he had been planning to the crime for 1 to 2 months.

MCAO spokeswoman Amanda Jacinto said the jury found aggravating factors in the 
case, which means they can sentence Busso-Estoppellans to death.

There are 117 inmates on Arizona's death row right now. All but 3 of them are 
men.

Executions in Arizona

It has been nearly 4 years since Arizona carried out an execution. The last 
execution was that of Joseph Wood in July 2014. It took him nearly 2 hours to 
die after he was given 15 doses of the 2-drug combination -- the anesthetic 
midazolam and a narcotic painkiller -- Arizona used at the time.

The execution, which Woods' attorney described as botched, spawned more debate 
about how Arizona carries out the death penalty. Executions were put on hold 
while lawsuits on the issue made their way through the system.

In September 2017, a judge ruled that Arizona does not have to tell the public 
where it gets the drugs it uses for executions. Several media outlets, 
including Arizona's Family, had sued to get the information released.

Earlier in the year, the state revised its execution procedures, but lawyers 
for condemned inmates said the changes are not enough because the Arizona 
Department of Corrections director can make changes to the written procedure as 
he or she deems fit.

A few months later, both sides hit upon an agreement that limits the power of 
the DOC director to change execution drugs at the last minute, requires that 
drugs be tested before use and bars the state from using expired drugs. It also 
increases transparency in the execution process.

(source: azfamily.com)








CALIFORNIA:

California law school deans ask for new investigation in Kevin Cooper case



Four California law school deans have asked Gov. Jerry Brown to open an 
independent investigation into the case of Kevin Cooper, convicted and 
sentenced to death row for the 1983 Chino Hills knife-and-hatchet murder of 
four people, 2 of them children.

The letter is one of several sent to Brown asking him to grant a pending 
clemency petition from Cooper, which would put his death sentence temporarily 
on hold during the investigation.

The American Bar Association sent Brown a similar letter in March 2016. Others 
who have written letters to Brown include former California Supreme Court 
justices Cruz Reynoso and Joseph Grodin and late California Attorney General 
John Van de Kamp.

The bloody June 4, 1983, attack for which Cooper was convicted and sentenced 
took the lives of Doug and Peggy Ryen; their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica; and 
neighbor Christopher Hughes, 11, who was staying overnight at the Ryens' home. 
The boy was a friend of the Ryens' 8-year-old son, Joshua, who survived the 
attack with a slashed throat.

Cooper, 60, has exhausted all appeals from his 1985 conviction and sentencing, 
and he is likely to be 1 of the first prisoners executed if California resumes 
the death penalty. He has always claimed he was innocent.

The state last executed a prisoner in 2006, and injunctions against further 
executions remain standing in state and federal courts over issues of execution 
method and protocol.

The Feb. 14 letter is signed by Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University 
California School of Law in Berkeley; Michael Waterstone, dean of Loyola Law 
School in Los Angeles; Lisa A. Kloppenberg, dean of the Santa Clara School of 
Law; and John Trasvina, dean of the University of San Francisco School of Law.

"Mr. Cooper's clemency petition does not ask you to pardon him or commute his 
sentence," the letter states. "It asks only that you order an independent 
innocence investigation that includes state-of-the-art DNA and other forensic 
testing."

Cooper's supporters have long pointed to what they believe are exonerating 
issues in the case regarding DNA evidence, inadequate defense at trial, claims 
about other possible suspects they say were not investigated at the time, and a 
related cover-up by the investigating San Bernardino County Sheriff's 
Department. They also contend that racism played a role in charging and trying 
Cooper, who is black.

Prosecutors have said Cooper's advocates ignore a big volume of direct and 
circumstantial evidence that tie Cooper to the attack. 2 days before the 
slayings, he had escaped from nearby California Institution for Men in Chino. 
Cooper has admitted hiding in a vacant house near the Ryen home, but he denies 
killing anyone.

"Because the clemency petition is pending, it would be inappropriate to comment 
at this time," Christopher Lee, spokesman for District Attorney Mike Ramos, 
said Tuesday in an email.

Gov. Brown's office declined comment on Tuesday. The clemency petition was 
filed in February 2016.

During Cooper's appeals in the early aughts, 2 DNA tests concluded Cooper was 
the killer. Cooper since then unsuccessfully sought additional tests on a 
T-shirt, a speck of blood on a paint chip, and a vial of blood drawn from 
Cooper after his arrest.

"An investigation with up-to-date DNA testing could show whether someone else 
committed the crimes - someone who may still be at large," the letter says.

The letter from the deans points to the case of Craig Coley, whose sentence 
Brown commuted in November 2017, after DNA evidence exonerated him of a 1978 
double slaying in Simi Valley. He had served nearly 39 years in prison after 
being sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Brown can order a temporary reprieve to Cooper's death sentence to complete the 
investigation.

(source: Daily Bulletin)








WASHINGTON:

State Senate Signs Off On Abolishing Death Penalty, House To Review



The State Senate has signed off on abolishing the death penalty in Washington 
State.

The chamber voted 26-22 last Wednesday to repeal the law under SB 6052 and 
instead change capital punishment for life in prison without parole. There was 
vigorous debate prior to the vote with the bill's prime sponsor, GOP senator, 
Maureen Walsh speaking in favor:

"There have been some comments that have been made about the fact that it was 
an initiative of the people," Walsh said. "I think that initiative was passed 
years before we had additional information that would maybe make us rethink 
this policy in our state."

Walsh said she has no religious motivation for the bill, but to simply address 
a 'flawed policy.'

"We spend a lot of money, our tax money, appealing these decisions and we have 
done this for many, many years," Walsh said. "We save about one million to 
1.5-million dollars is the rough estimate, I don't like to put a dollar amount 
on anything we're talking about people's lives. The reality is, I've spoken 
with enough of the families of the victims to realize and understand, that the 
majority of them do not get great vindication from the death of the perpetrator 
who killed their loved one."

Fellow Republican Mark Schoesler rose in opposition to the bill.

":I have no trust in the judiciary that life without parole really means life 
without parole," Schoesler said. "In our court system today, does anyone have 
absolute confidence in anything? I don't. For something as sensitive to our 
population as this, I don't have it, maybe a vote of the people would have it, 
but I'll be voting no."

The bill passed with 4 democrats voting against it and 5 Republicans in favor 
including 12th District Senator, Brad Hawkins. The bill is now scheduled for 
executive session in the House Committee for Feb. 22 in anticipation of other 
legislative action.

(source: ncwlife.com)