[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, FLA., USA

[Rick Halperin]

January 1, 2018




TEXAS:

Report: Bexar County juries don't like the death penalty



Juries are becoming more and more reluctant to hand out death sentences 
throughout Texas, but especially in Bexar County, according to a new report by 
the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

In 2017, juries in Texas sentenced 4 people to death - the lowest level since 
the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the state's revised capital punishment statute in 
1976.

Bexar County juries sentenced no one to death last year, the report states, and 
have sentenced only 1 person to death in the past 8 years: Mark Anthony 
Gonzalez, who was convicted in the 2011 murder of a Bexar County sheriff's 
sergeant.

Harris County, meanwhile, has sentenced 10 people to death in the past 8 years.

"Texas continues to move away from the death penalty, even in the counties that 
have used it the most," Kristin Houle, executive director of the Texas 
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said in a news release.

"Prosecutors, juries, judges, and the public are subjecting our state's death 
penalty practices to unprecedented scrutiny," she added. "In an increasing 
number of cases, they are accepting alternatives to this flawed and 
irreversible punishment."

6 counties - out of 254 counties in Texas - account for more than 1/2 of all 
new death sentences imposed in the past 5 years, the report found. Bexar County 
is not one of them.

The Texas Coalition Against the Death Penalty, an advocacy organization based 
in Austin, said the decline can be credited to improvements in the quality of 
legal counsel and the exorbitant cost of death penalty trials.

Other reasons cited: Prosecutorial discretion, concerns about wrongful 
convictions and the availability of life in prison without the possibility of 
parole - which became a sentencing option in Texas in 2005.

Historically, Bexar County has been one of the counties to hand out the most 
death penalties. Since 1974, prosecutors in Bexar County have secured 76 death 
sentences, the 3rd-most sentences statewide.

But in recent years, that trend has declined. Between 2009 and 2012, 4 juries 
that could have used capital punishment rejected the sentence. The defendants 
were sentenced to life in prison without parole instead.

The report also shows the application of the death penalty remains near 
historic lows.

Last year, Texas put 7 people to death, matching 2016 for the lowest number of 
executions in 2 decades. Still, Texas accounted for 30 % of all U.S. executions 
last year.

2 people from Bexar County were executed in 2017: Rolando Ruiz, a hit man who 
killed a woman on behalf of her husband and brother-in-law, and TaiChin Preyor, 
who killed a 24-year-old woman in a drug-related attack.

Bexar County matched Tarrant County for the most executions in the state. 
Harris County, in comparison, had zero executions - the 1st time that's 
happened since 1985 - and Dallas County accounted for 1 execution.

However, the report noted that application of the death penalty remains 
racially biased. Over the past 5 years, 70 % of death sentences have been 
imposed on people of color. More than 1/2 of those death sentences were handed 
to African-American defendants - even though African-Americans make up only 13 
% of the population.

5 executions already are scheduled for the 1st quarter of 2018, though none of 
them are from Bexar County.

On Nov. 28, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed the execution of Juan 
Castillo to review claims of false testimony. His execution has not yet been 
rescheduled.

(source: San Antonio Express-News)








FLORIDA:

2nd suspect in Super Bowl Sunday triple murder to face death penalty



The state of Florida is seeking the death penalty against a man accused of 
killing 3 people at a Super Bowl party in February.

Marcus Steward, 25, was arrested last month in Riviera Beach as the 2nd suspect 
in the Feb. 5 attacks on Mohawk Street, according to the incident report. 
Police DNA evidence linked Steward to the murders. There was DNA found on a 
glove, a hoodie, and part of a rifle. The evidence was found in the back of 
Sean Henry's stolen Honda Accord and in culvert along I-95 where police found 
Henry's stolen car abandoned.

Steward is charged with 3 counts of 1st degree murder with a firearm, 1 county 
of attempted 1st degree murder with a firearm and 1 count of grand theft of a 
motor vehicle.

Christopher Vasata, 24, is also facing the death penalty for the triple murder. 
He was arrested in late March for his alleged role in the killings and is in a 
wheelchair due to injuries sustained during the shooting.

Steward is due back in court Jan. 12 at 8:30 a.m.

(source: CBS News)








USA:

Abolish the death penalty



I strongly believe that the death penalty should have been abolished long ago.

The death penalty is not moral. It goes against our natural rights. I would not 
want to be killed. Would you? Prison is a place to think about one???s action. 
A person who has done an extreme wrong should be sentenced to life in prison. A 
death sentence says we have given up on that person.

People in countries across the world receive unfair death sentences. For 
example, in 2016, thousands of people were unjustly executed in totalitarian 
nations such as China.

The cost of supporting a prisoner on death row greatly exceeds the cost of 
putting the person in prison for life. Death sentences lead to expensive 
appeals. That money is paid by taxpayers, so we all bear part of the cost of 
the death penalty.

In California alone, the death penalty has cost the state more than $4 billion 
since 1978. Research has shown that trying a case where the death penalty is 
not an issue costs $740,000. A case in which prosecutors seek the death penalty 
costs $1.26 million.

The death penalty is cruel. People just like the people who are reading this 
letter are executed every year, and this penalty costs taxpayers a lot of money 
that could be used for better purposes. The only clear solution is to abolish 
the death penalty.

Konor Onufer

Hickory Middle School

(source: Letter to the Editor, Virginian-Pilot)

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

States Study Use of Fentanyl as Execution Drug



Faced with pharmaceutical supplier refusals, states are having serious 
difficulty obtaining the lethal drugs used for current execution protocols, so 
they are increasingly examining alternatives - including fentanyl, the 
synthetic drug that is in large part responsible for the nation's deadly opioid 
epidemic.

Nevada and Nebraska have developed execution protocols including fentanyl, and 
plan to employ them early in 2018. But those plans are drawing strong 
opposition from death penalty opponents and some physicians, who caution the 
powerful painkiller - whose overdoses kill many thousands in this country every 
year - might cause excruciating or prolonged deaths. They also call attempts to 
use a drug untested for executions as akin to conducting experiments on humans.

But proponents argue fentanyl is a widely available surgical anesthetic and 
anti-pain treatment for advanced cancer patients, and states have thus far had 
no problems obtaining ample supplies of the drug. It's also extremely potent - 
in fact, 50 times stronger than heroin.

Nevada had planned to carry out its 1st execution making use of a 3-drug 
protocol using fentanyl in November. Developed by a team that included the 
state's former chief medical officer, the protocol starts with injecting the 
sedative diazepam, better known by the trade name Valium, followed by fentanyl, 
to bring on unconsciousness.

If the 1st 2 drugs work as planned and are administered properly and in large 
enough doses, they ought to be sufficient to stop the condemned inmate's 
breathing. But the state plans to add a 3rd drug, cisatracurium, a paralyzing 
drug discovered in South America, to hasten death in case the 1st 2 drugs work 
too slowly. Concerns about the 3rd, paralyzing drug caused a state judge to 
postpone the execution last month, and the Nevada Supreme Court is currently 
considering the case.

Nebraska plans to roll out its new fentanyl-aided execution method as early as 
January 2018. It would use the same 3 drugs as in Nevada's protocol, followed 
by an injection of potassium chloride, designed to stop the heart. That has 
also raised concerns, since even in smaller doses, potassium chloride causes a 
burning sensation; opponents argue the procedure might leave the injected 
person conscious of feelings of torture-like burning but too sedated and 
semi-paralyzed to be able to alert to their ordeal.

The difficulty obtaining chemicals needed for current execution protocols has 
also led some of the 31 states still authorizing capital punishment not only to 
search for new options, but also to consider reviving older ones. For example, 
Mississippi and Oklahoma have authorized use of nitrogen gas as an alternative 
execution method.

While lethal injection is the primary method of execution in every state 
authorizing the death penalty, some states may look to earlier alternatives. 
Nine states continue to permit electrocution as an alternative method to lethal 
injection, 6 allow use of gas chambers, three permit firing squads, and 2 allow 
hanging. Some death row inmates, including the one awaiting fentanyl-aided 
execution in Nevada, have indicated they would prefer to face a firing squad, 
and some state legislatures have been considering proposals to add such mostly 
abandoned alternatives as fallbacks if lethal injection becomes impossible due 
to court rulings or the inability to obtain the necessary chemicals.

(source: Christopher Zoukis is the author of Federal Prison Handbook: The 
Definitive Guide to Surviving the Federal Bureau of Prisons, College for 
Convicts: The Case for Higher Education in American Prisons (McFarland & Co., 
2014) and Prison Education Guide (Prison Legal News Publishing, 2016). He can 
be found online at ChristopherZoukis.com and 
PrisonerResource.com.----Huffington Post)