[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----KAN., NEB., CALIF., WASH.

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 23




KANSAS:

Death penalty decision pending in alleged hate crime killing at Olathe bar



Federal prosecutors want more time to decide if the death penalty will be 
sought for the alleged hate crime killing of an Indian man in Olathe.

Adam W. Purinton is facing state murder charges in Johnson County and federal 
hate crime charges in the February 2017 killing of Srinivas Kuchibhotla and the 
wounding of 2 other men at Austins Bar & Grill.

Purinton, 52, was charged 1st in Johnson County, and that case is proceeding 
1st. He faces a sentence of life in prison if convicted.

But the federal hate crime case carries a potential death sentence.

That decision rests with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and last summer a 
judge stayed the federal case to allow the attorney general time to consider 
factors in the case and make a decision.

Prosecutors say that the process is ongoing, but is not yet complete.

They are seeking an additional stay of 90 days and said that attorneys for 
Purinton do not object.

He is being held in the Johnson County Detention Center and has waived his 
right to a preliminary hearing.

His next Johnson County court appearance is scheduled for May 8.

According to previously filed court documents, Kuchibhotla and another Indian 
man who worked with him at Garmin were at the bar when Purinton allegedly began 
making derogatory remarks.

He was told to leave by bar management, but returned a short time later with a 
gun and shot Kuchibhotla and his friend, according to the allegations.

A 3rd man who tried to intervene was also wounded.

(source: Kansas City Star)








NEBRASKA:

U.S. Supreme Court won't take up Nebraska death row inmate's appeal



The U.S. Supreme Court won't take up a Nebraska death row inmate's latest 
challenge to his sentence.

John Lotter, who was convicted in the killing that inspired the 1999 movie 
"Boys Don't Cry," was seeking review of an 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals 
order July 31 denying him permission to go forward with an appeal in U.S. 
District Court in Nebraska.

The court denied his petition Monday without comment or explanation, saying 
simply: "Petition DENIED."

The request was a long shot considering the country's highest court gets 7,000 
to 8,000 requests to hear cases each term and grants and hears oral arguments 
in about 80, according to the Supreme Court's website. To be approved, four of 
the nine justices must agree to hear it.

Rebecca Woodman and Jessica Sutton, of the Death Penalty Litigation Clinic in 
Kansas City, Missouri, had sought to challenge Nebraska's sentencing method, 
which includes phases that rely on judges and not juries to determine if 
someone gets the ultimate punishment.

They started the challenge in U.S. District Court in Lincoln.

But in February, Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf refused and denied 
Lotter's habeas corpus petition, in part because the attorneys hadn't gotten 
permission from the 8th Circuit Court to file it.

He likened the filing to a Hail Mary pass.

Lotter is raising the same challenge in state court based on a U.S. Supreme 
Court decision in a Florida case in 2016. He also is appealing a Richardson 
County District judge's decision to deny him an evidentiary hearing.

Lotter was sentenced to death for his role in the 1993 killings of Brandon 
Teena and 2 witnesses, Lisa Lambert and Philip DeVine, at a rural Humboldt 
farmhouse.

(source: Lincoln Journal Star)








CALIFORNIA:

Luis Bracamontes' death penalty trial began Tuesday, Jan. 16, 3 years after he 
killed Sacramento Deputy Danny Oliver and Placer Detective Michael Davis, Jr.



Defense lawyers for confessed deputy killer Luis Bracamontes asked again for a 
mistrial Monday, arguing that their client is mentally ill and that his 
repeated outbursts have made it impossible for jurors to treat him fairly.

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Steve White ultimately rejected those efforts 
and the trial began its fourth day Monday, but he made it clear that one more 
outburst from Bracamontes will result in him being barred from the courtroom 
and forced to watch his trial on a video feed.

"If you disrupt these proceedings one more time you will be removed," White 
told Bracamontes.

One issue White had to deal with before jurors were allowed in Monday was 
Bracamontes' behavior on Thursday afternoon, when he directed a racist outburst 
at a witness and hurled the N-word and other racist slurs at African American 
jurors.

1 juror was seen outside the courtroom Thursday following the outburst 
appearing to be upset, lawyers said. The judge brought that man in for 
questioning out of the presence of the other jurors.

The juror assured White he could decide the case solely on the basis of 
evidence presented, and the judge then brought in the members of the 2 juries 
hearing the case.

Defense attorneys had argued that all jurors may have seen a campaign ad issued 
by President Trump's campaign over the weekend that said Democrats would be 
"complicit" in any murders committed by illegal immigrants. The ad featured 
video of Bracamontes swearing and saying he wished he had killed more law 
enforcement officers.

2 jurors told White that they had seen the ad but assured him it would not 
affect them.

Bracamontes, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, faces the death penalty if 
convicted in the October 2014 slayings of Sacramento sheriff's Deputy Danny 
Oliver and Placer sheriff's Deputy Michael Davis Jr. His wife, Janelle Monroy, 
faces up to life in prison if convicted in the murder of Davis.

Monroy has sat quietly since the trial began last Tuesday, but Bracamontes has 
disrupted proceedings each day with a slew of profanities, racist slurs and 
promises to kill more deputies.

White has ordered the defendant removed from court repeatedly, and allowed him 
back in after Bracamontes has agreed to behave. The judge has noted that 
Bracamontes has the right to be present, but made it clear Monday that he 
believes Bracamontes is acting out intentionally.

"Your conduct is entirely volitional, it is timed and targeted primarily at 
witnesses but also jurors," the judge said.

Prosecutor Rod Norgaard said he has watched Bracamontes make faces or hard 
stares at the jurors and that he should not be allowed to benefit from his own 
misconduct by winning a mistrial.

Bracamontes did not speak or make any outbursts during the morning portion of 
the trial, which focused on a woman who authorities say was carjacked by him 
after Oliver was shot to death.

But his previous outbursts - which date back to February 2015, when he 
announced in a court hearing that "I killed them cops" - have made it difficult 
for White as he tries to ensure a fair trial for the defendant in a case that 
will likely be the subject of numerous appeals.

The judge has had to contend with numerous requests from the defense that their 
client be found mentally incompetent to stand trial, a request they made again 
Monday as they claimed 4 doctors have found Bracamontes to be mentally ill.

That mental illness claim was the subject of previous hearings after which 
White found Bracamontes understands the nature of the proceedings and can 
assist his lawyers if he chooses to.

Public defenders Norm Dawson and Jeffrey Barbour also have argued that they 
should be allowed to enter a not guilty by reason of insanity plea, which the 
judge has rejected.

Bracamontes also has asked in the past to fire his lawyers so he can plead 
guilty, but White refused to allow that and the defense attorneys have said 
they cannot ethically agree to a plea that will lead to him being sentenced to 
death.

Instead, the defense lawyers asked White Monday to enter a guilty plea on 
Bracamontes' behalf, something the judge refused to do because, he said, it 
would be "contrary to law."

One legal observer who has been following the case said White's continued 
efforts to let Bracamontes be present for trial are part of an overall strategy 
of limiting grounds for appeal.

"I'm certain that the judge would like to just leave him in the other room so 
he can proceed with the trial in an orderly fashion," said Sacramento defense 
attorney William Portanova, a former federal and county prosecutor. "But the 
trial judge will be the subject of reviews who will 2nd guess every decision.

"In order to have a successful trial with a verdict that can withstand 
appellate scrutiny, judges at the trial level will put up with all kinds of 
nonsense to ensure that all appellate judges can see that a person's 
constitutional rights to a fair trial have been protected."

Different judges have different approaches. Portanova recalled the 1969 trial 
in Chicago of Black Panther leader Bobby Seale, during which a judge ordered 
Seale chained and gagged in front of the jury because of repeated outbursts by 
the defendant.

A similar case unfolded in Sacramento following the 1975 attempted 
assassination of President Gerald R. Ford in Capitol Park.

Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme was convicted in the case after a trial during which 
she disrupted proceedings - including throwing an apple toward the judge that 
instead struck the prosecutor. She ended up being removed from the courtroom 
and had to listen to court proceedings from another room.

Until Monday, White had indicated he would have deputies ask Bracamontes in the 
morning and after lunch each day if he planned to behave, and had allowed him 
back into court after receiving such assurances.

But Thursday's outbursts - which included Bracamontes shouting racial slurs 
toward a witness - who turned and shouted "F--- you" back at him as he left the 
courtroom - apparently were too much.

White made clear Monday that Bracamontes' next outburst will get him removed 
from the courtroom for good. Through the lunch break, the defendant remained 
quiet as testimony proceeded, although he appears to have given up the pretense 
of wearing street clothes as he appears before the juries.

Monday morning he appeared in court in a light pullover sweater and striped 
jail trousers.

As has been the case each day of trial, he was shackled at the waist and ankles 
and chained to his chair with 2 deputies seated directly behind him.

(source: sacbee.com)

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

California's death penalty law may hinge on outcome of Arizona case



After narrowly surviving voter initiatives in 2012 and 2016, California's death 
penalty law may soon be in jeopardy again, this time at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The court is being asked to take up a challenge to the death penalty in 
Arizona, where the law makes virtually every 1st-degree murderer subject to 
potential capital charges. According to a lawsuit on behalf of a condemned 
double murderer, the state is violating Supreme Court rulings dating from the 
1970s that limit capital punishment to specific categories of especially 
heinous killers - the "worst of the worst," in plain English.

If at least 4 of the 9 justices agree to hear the case, as numerous advocacy 
groups are urging, the court will schedule arguments and issue a ruling, most 
likely in the 2018-19 term that begins in October. If it strikes down Arizona's 
death penalty law, the ruling could also apply to the California law, which is 
nearly as broad.

And that could spare the lives of the 746 prisoners on the nation's largest 
death row.

California, like Arizona, has expanded its definition of capital crimes and 
"made the vast majority of murderers eligible for the death penalty," said 
Rudolph Gerber, a retired Arizona prosecutor and judge who drafted his state's 
death penalty law in 1973 at the request of state Sen. Sandra Day O'Connor, the 
future Supreme Court justice.

That law initially was relatively narrow, but Gerber, in a brief filed with the 
Supreme Court, says the state Legislature has since expanded it far beyond 
constitutional standards. He told The Chronicle that a crucial Supreme 
Court-mandated function of death penalty laws, narrowing their scope to apply 
only to the worst categories of murders, "has been diminished if not eliminated 
both in Arizona and in California."

Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in 
Sacramento and one of the authors of a November 2016 ballot initiative aimed at 
speeding up executions in California, said he thinks there's only a "remote" 
possibility that the Supreme Court will overturn the Arizona death penalty law. 
But he agreed that such a ruling "would probably apply to California."

State Attorney General Xavier Becerra, whose office would defend the California 
law in court, declined to comment on the case.

The Supreme Court struck down all state death penalty laws in 1972 and began 
upholding revised, narrower laws in 1976. Both rulings said the laws, to be 
constitutional, must not define capital crimes so broadly that they give 
prosecutors and jurors virtually unlimited discretion to decide which murders 
should be punished by death. Such an approach would open the door to decisions 
based on politics, geography and race, the court said.

The court reaffirmed that standard in a 5-4 ruling in 2005 barring death 
sentences against juveniles - who, in the words of the majority justices, could 
not be reasonably "classified among the worst offenders."

In the Arizona case, lawyers for Abel Hidalgo said studies show that over an 
11-year period in the state's most populous county, Maricopa - where Hidalgo 
was sentenced to death for 2 2001 murders - 99 % of all 1st-degree murders 
could have been prosecuted as capital crimes.

"Arizona's death penalty statute, once narrowly drawn, now provides prosecutors 
and jurors with unfettered discretion," Hidalgo's lawyers told the court. They 
said California, Colorado and Missouri have comparable laws.

In response, Arizona's lawyers said the law provides "clear, objective 
standards" for capital murders, and that Hidalgo, one of 120 current death row 
inmates, was sentenced under a narrower version of the law.

In California, the Legislature overrode Gov. Jerry Brown's veto and passed a 
death penalty law in 1977 that was limited to selected categories of 
intentional killings, such as murder of a police officer or witness, murder for 
financial gain and multiple murders.

But a prosecution-backed initiative approved by the voters in 1978 removed most 
of those limits. A later state Supreme Court ruling interpreted the death 
penalty law as also applying to some unintentional murders, if the defendant or 
an accomplice accidentally killed someone while committing another crime.

The 1978 initiative "was designed to reach virtually every 1st-degree murder so 
no one would escape a potential death sentence," said San Francisco attorney 
John Mills, who filed the Supreme Court arguments in the Arizona case on behalf 
of Gerber and other former judges and prosecutors.

A study by David Baldus, a University of Iowa law professor, of all California 
1st-degree murder convictions between 1978 and 2002 found that 95 % could have 
been charged under the current law as capital crimes, punishable by death or 
life without parole.

The California law is not directly before the Supreme Court. But that was also 
the case in 1972, when the court overturned Georgia's death penalty law for 
failing to set meaningful standards for prosecutors and jurors. The ruling was 
quickly applied to similar laws in California and other states, which were 
required to resentence their condemned inmates to life in prison.

If that happened again, the fate of the death penalty in California would be up 
to the voters, who could pass a new initiative that complied with the court's 
standards. Otherwise, life would become the maximum sentence for murder, as it 
is now in 18 other states and the District of Columbia.

While a new death penalty law would apply to future crimes, Scheidegger, of the 
Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, said past Supreme Court rulings indicate 
that a new law might also be used to retry current inmates and reinstate their 
death sentences.

Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, 
disagreed.

The Arizona case is comparable to the 1972 Georgia case, "a substantive 
decision that was applied retroactively to everyone on death row across the 
country," Dunham said.

The Supreme Court grants review in only a small fraction of the cases it 
considers. It has looked at the Arizona case in 6 previous closed-door 
conferences - an unusually long period of deliberation - without deciding 
whether to accept it for a hearing or to deny review, leaving in place a ruling 
by the state's Supreme Court that upheld the law.

(source: Bob Egelko; San Francisco Chronicle)








WASHINGTON:

Bill to ban the death penalty heard in committee----The hearing attracted 
passionate testimony from both sides of the issue.



For the 2nd year in a row, state lawmakers are pursuing legislation to ban the 
use of the death penalty in Washington.

As written, the bill - which was requested by state Attorney General Bob 
Ferguson and has bipartisan support - would prevent local prosecutors from 
seeking the death penalty in 1st-degree murder cases and instead mandate the 
use of life sentence without parole. The Senate bill got a hearing in the 
Senate Committee on Law and Justice today.

A different version of the bill was introduced in the Senate during last year's 
legislative session, but did not make it out of committee. In the state House, 
Rep. Tina Orwall, D-Des Moines is sponsoring an identical bill that was also 
introduced last year but stalled.

King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg, who joined Ferguson in speaking to the 
merits of the Senate bill at the beginning of the hearing, argued that death 
penalty cases are costly for local governments, are often repealed, and don't 
serve public safety goals.

"Our justice system would be stronger without the death penalty," said 
Satterberg. "It's not about what the killers deserve, it's about what we 
deserve. And after 38 years this law should undergo the same scrutiny."

"When a capital case comes in, it siphons off resources that we need for so 
many other priorities, such as domestic violence cases," he added. "I think it 
is far more expensive to hire teams of lawyers to litigate cases for 20 years 
than to simply pay for inmate costs."

According to a 2015 Seattle University study, the average death penalty case in 
Washington costs taxpayers roughly $3 million - over $1 million more than when 
the death penalty is not pursued by local prosecutors. These estimates include 
trial and post-conviction incarceration costs.

As for the public safety arguments, Satterberg held that the death penalty 
isn't an effective deterrent to crime and that life-without-parole sentences 
are essentially "death sentences" because inmates with such convictions die in 
prison.

Ferguson said that 75 % of death penalty cases in Washington state have been 
overturned since 1997.

In 2014, Democratic Governor Jay Inslee placed a moratorium on capital 
punishment. A year later, the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys 
endorsed putting capital punishment before voters. However, the issue has not 
been put on the ballot since.

Those who testified included prosecutors from counties across the state, law 
enforcement officials, clergy, and families of victims of homicide who lined up 
on both sides of the issue.

Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney, Mark Roe, argued that while he 
personally believes that the death penalty is warranted for the most heinous of 
violent crimes, capital punishment should be put before voters because it is a 
moral issue.

"It almost sounds like we would be saying 'executing people would be okay if it 
were cheaper'," he said. "Those people, those jurors, those Washington 
citizens, should be the ones making this decision."

Family members of murder victims testified on both sides of the issue.

Jessie Trapp, the daughter of a woman murdered in Pierce County in 1996, argued 
that her family will not get justice without the killer's execution. "I believe 
that he deserves the death penalty," she said. "He does not deserve to have TV, 
to have meals, to have medical, to have a computer, to have pen pals. He 
doesn't deserve to have visitors from his family."

Cecil Davis, who was convicted of killing Trapp's mother, is still alive due to 
Gov. Inslee's 2014 moratorium on capital punishment.

"My family does not get to visit my mother," Trapp said. "He is a monster and 
he sits there while our tax dollars go to him living. That's not fair to us."

Conversely, Teresa Mathis, whose brother was murdered in 1983, said she 
supports the repeal because of the financial resources required by local 
governments to prosecute death penalty cases.

"I want the money that we spend to do good and I want it to be spent well and I 
don't think that's the case with the death penalty," said Mathis. "Our family's 
case was resolved with a quick plea bargain. Once the case was done, we stopped 
thinking about that person and focused on our brother's life."

Members of the law enforcement community who testified at the hearing were 
unified in their opposition to the bill.

Kitsap County Sheriff Gary Simpson, whose own daughter was murdered 7 years 
ago, argued that without being able to use the death penalty as a threat, 
prosecutors won't be able to negotiate plea bargains for life imprisonment 
without parole. "Victims are changed forever and deserve some certainty, and 
this bill would take it away."

Simpson said his daughter's killer is currently in prison serving a 38-year 
sentence.

Bishop Daniel Mueggenborg of the Seattle Archdiocese testified in favor of 
abolishing the death penalty. "Catholics believe that all human life is sacred, 
from conception to natural death. ... Just a few months ago Pope Francis 
condemned the death penalty," he said.

Elisabeth Smith with the American Civil Liberties Union said that the death 
penalty has "failed Washington." "It is costly. It fails to provide swift and 
certain justice or deter crime, and it's not applied fairly," she said.

Sen. Maureen Walsh, R-Walla Walla, the sponsor of Ferguson's bill, spoke 
briefly as well. She emphasized financial costs of death penalty cases and 
cases where individuals were wrongly convicted as justifications for the bill.

"Though I'm a moderate Republican I'm pretty fiscally conservative," she said. 
"And when I look at the costs I wonder if it is worth dragging the victims' 
families through grief in the appeals process which can happen again and 
again."

There are currently 8 people on death row, according to the state Department of 
Corrections.

(source: Kirkland Reporter)

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

Kirkland father doesn't want death penalty abolished



A Kirkland man whose entire family was murdered in 2006 does not want the death 
penalty abolished.

Leonid Milkin is upset the King County prosecutor Dan Satterberg testified in 
favor of getting rid of the death penalty in Olympia on Monday.

"It's shameful, it's deplorable," Milkin said. "They're betraying victims and 
they're basically helping the murderers get away with murder."

Milkin was serving in Iraq with the National Guard in July 2006 when a neighbor 
murdered his wife and children and burned down his house to cover up the crime.

Olga Milkin was found with her sons, Justin, 5, and Andrew, 3, and her sister 
Lyuba Botvina, in the burned home. Investigators say they were stabbed to 
death.

Conner Schierman, who had recently moved into the duplex across the street, was 
tried for the killings and convicted.

In the penalty phase the jury recommended he be sentenced to death. The judge 
agreed, sentencing Schierman to death in 2010.

Milkin wants Schierman put to death.

"I will be relieved, I will be completely relieved and feel like justice has 
been served," Milkin said.

Now he's worried he won't get justice for his family.

"I'm very upset and disappointed and feel betrayed by Inslee and Ferguson. 
They're more concerned about keeping marijuana legal than protecting the 
victims and doing what's right," Milkin said.

He said if the system is broken, it should simply be fixed.

"The people who are sworn to uphold the law are not doing their job, quite 
frankly," Milkin said. "If everybody would have done their job, the system 
would not have been broken and it would not have taken this long."

"In my opinion you can't put a price on justice," Milkin added.

If the state is going to consider abolishing the death penalty, Milkin says it 
should be up to the voters to decide.

"I don't want some guy in Olympia who is clueless, who was not affected by this 
horrible tragedy to make such a decision. I want the people to decide."

If the voters did decide to abolish the death penalty, Milkin says Schierman 
and the other men on death row should still be put to death.

(source: KIRO news)

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

In testimony in Olympia, dozens urge abolition of death penalty----But others 
said it shouldn't be eliminated without putting it before the voters.



Lawmakers on Monday renewed their effort to eliminate the death penalty, which 
voters overwhelmingly embraced and their legislating predecessors put on the 
books nearly 40 years ago.

More than a dozen people testified before the Senate Law and Justice Committee 
on Senate Bill 6052, which would replace a death sentence with life in prison 
without the possibility of release or parole.

And they were nearly equally divided on the value of retaining the capital 
punishment law in place since 1981.

Attorney General Bob Ferguson, King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg 
and family members of murder victims urged lawmakers to get rid of it on 
grounds it is too costly, disproportionately applied and morally wrong.

"Our criminal justice system would be stronger without the death penalty," 
Satterberg said, adding life behind bars without parole "is a death sentence. 
They get sent to prison to die."

But Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Roe, Kitsap County Sheriff Gary 
Simpson and family members of murder victims said the death penalty can bring 
closure for families and should not be taken off the books without the approval 
of voters.

In 1976, 69 % of Washington voters endorsed a death penalty initiative.

Roe said there are people who do such horrible things they deserve to die. But, 
he said, it's not a question prosecutors and lawmakers should be deciding.

He spoke of his own experience as a deputy prosecutor who urged jurors to 
support death sentences for some defendants.

"I think those jurors - our citizens - should be the ones to make the 
decision," he said. "They would decide based on what's in their heart."

The state can only impose a death sentence against a person convicted of 
aggravated murder in the 1st degree, and only after a special sentencing 
proceeding is conducted to determine if capital punishment is warranted.

Of the 33 people sentenced to death since 1981, 5 have been executed, according 
to a staff report presented Monday.

A total of 8 people now are sentenced to die for crimes in Washington. The only 
case from Snohomish County is Byron Scherf, an inmate who received a death 
sentence for the 2011 strangling of Monroe corrections officer Jayme Biendl. 
Scherf already was serving a life sentence when he attacked Biendl.

At Monday's hearing, Roe read from a letter from Biendl's father in which he 
said the death penalty is a "viable alternative" to deal with "these monsters." 
Lisa and Deborah Hamm, Biendl's sisters, attended Monday's hearing but did not 
testify.

Gov. Jay Inslee supports getting rid of the death penalty and in 2014 put a 
moratorium on executions.

"Equal justice under the law is the state's primary responsibility. And in 
death penalty cases, I'm not convinced equal justice is being served," Inslee 
said at the time. "The use of the death penalty in this state is unequally 
applied, sometimes dependent on the budget of the county where the crime 
occurred."

As long as the death penalty is still the law, the governor is using his 
executive power to issue reprieves for those on death row who get an execution 
date.

He did that in December 2016, sparing the life of Clark Richard Elmore, who was 
convicted in 1995 of raping and killing his girlfriend's 14-year-old daughter. 
The crime occurred in Bellingham. Elmore will remain in prison for the rest of 
his life.

The measure discussed Monday is sponsored by Sen. Maureen Walsh, R-College 
Place, and co-sponsored by 16 other senators. It is identical to legislation 
carried last year by another Republican, Sen. Mark Miloscia, of Federal Way.

Miloscia's bill did not receive a hearing as Republicans controlled the Senate, 
and held a majority on the Law and Justice Committee.

Walsh might have a little more success this year. Democrats are now in the 
majority and are expected to advance the bill out of the committee Thursday.

(source: heraldnet.com)