[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----IND., ARK., MO., ARIZ.

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 25



INDIANA:

Trevor McDonald talks about returning to Death Row Trevor



5 years since Sir Trevor McDonald first visited Indiana State Prison, a 
follow-up ITV documentary sees the news veteran meet the inmates of the 
maximum-security facility once again.

Georgia Humphreys hears more about his eye-opening experience, plus his views 
on the changing world of journalism.

After interviewing Saddam Hussein, entering the secret world of the Mafia and 
reporting from war zones, you'd think nothing would shock Sir Trevor McDonald 
anymore. And yet, upon returning to Indiana State Prison's death row for his 
latest documentary, that was far from the case.

"I found the place more awful this time," he says sadly, before explaining: 
"The prison was on lockdown, for 5 weeks. "The concomitant of all that is the 
place is very grubby, and dirty and they're shouting and screaming because they 
don't want to be locked in for 24 hours a day.

"I did leave there desperately needing a drink," he admits, perhaps in an 
attempt to lighten the mood slightly.

It's 5 years since the news veteran first visited the maximum-security 
facility, one of America's most dangerous.

The follow-up, ITV's Death Row 2018 With Trevor McDonald, sees him talk to both 
new arrivals at the prison, and some familiar faces.

"I couldn't get these people quite out of my mind," the former newsreader 
confesses quietly, when asked why he wanted to go back.

"I think this is probably my last visit. They're getting on, and I'm getting 
on, and another 5 years, a lot of them wouldn't be there."

The programme shows how the future of the death penalty in the state of Indiana 
remains uncertain. While there have been no executions at the prison since Sir 
Trevor last visited, he arrives to find a new death chamber has been built. 
But, the Trinidad and Tobago-born presenter explains, the Europeans have 
stopped supplying the "killer drugs" needed for the executions - and so the 
prisoners are just left awaiting their fate.

It's clear how much meeting these men has impacted Sir Trevor, especially as he 
discusses the plight of one inmate, Paul McManus, at great length.

Once sentenced to death for killing his wife and children, Paul has now been 
given life without parole, and so must spend the rest of his life inside.

"Before, although he didn't particularly want to die, he knew that he would, at 
some stage," remarks Sir Trevor. "So, adjusting his mind to that difference was 
becoming a great psychological problem for him.

"We talked on a nice sunny day, and you could see the barbed-wire fences all 
around, and he was looking and thinking, 'Is this where I'm going to spend the 
rest of my life?' And he's not 50 yet.

"That's a new kind of storyline for us really, and a new take on the last 
adventure."

While all the inmates' stories are undeniably shocking, William Gibson is a 
particularly memorable face featured in the hour-long documentary.

Convicted of killing and mutilating 3 women, he had never spoken publicly about 
his crimes before. And, during his interview, he gloats that there might yet be 
more victims to be found. How did Sir Trevor feel listening to him talk so 
candidly?

"I mean, dirty," he muses. "Somebody boasting about killing people like that 
and saying, 'I may have killed even more', it's out of my mental range.

"I think shame is a very important part of the human condition; you must be 
ashamed, you must regret, you must have remorse," he continues.

"1 or 2 o'clock in the morning, when he's lying in his cell, what does he 
think?"

With a soft, bemused chuckle, he adds: "I thought he was very, very strange - 
and that's using a very kind word."

It seems there's a real hunger for programmes about crimes and prisons, 
particularly American ones, in the UK.

Asked why, Sir Trevor, who has 3 grown-up children and lives with his wife in 
London, says: "There is, in all our lives, a normality to which we all aspire. 
A civilised, dignified kind of life where you get up and go to work and you 
make money, you go home, you see your kids.

"Some of these people are just off the scale, and I think we get fascinated by 
the lives of these people. And we keep trying to find out why, why, why do they 
do this?"

The affable Sir Trevor has never shied away from asking difficult questions, 
having conducted some of the highest profile television interviews of all time 
- including Nelson Mandela days after his release from prison. His iconic 
career, which started in the West Indies, before moving to the UK in 1969, has 
spanned over 50 years - he became ITN's 1st black reporter in 1973 and later, 
was made the 1st sole reporter of News At Ten.

And on the topic of the ever-changing world of journalism, the award-winning 
broadcaster says: "I would be a little bit more bold about fake news.

"Sometimes fake news is something which is said about somebody which they don't 
like, and so they call it fake news... We used to call it propaganda or 
misinformation in my day."

But, having stepped down from News At Ten in 2008, he admits the issues his 
colleagues have to deal with are a "little more complex these days".

"And the other thing is, I wouldn't go to Syria," he adds. "I was in the Middle 
East, and I went to Beirut...I would not go to Aleppo today. I don't know 
whether that's because I've got older, and, I hope, a little wiser.

"I think it's become much, much more dangerous and I admire the courage of 
people who do that now."

Watch Death Row 2018 With Trevor McDonald on ITV on Thursday February 1 at 9pm. 
(source: wakefieldexpress.co.uk)








ARKANSAS:

3 Arkansas inmates press challenges in death penalty cases



3 inmates whose lives were temporarily spared amid a flurry of executions last 
year are heading back to court, hoping to show that Arkansas officials would 
violate the rights of mentally ill death row prisoners if they end the men's 
lives.

Separate arguments are scheduled Thursday in the Arkansas Supreme Court for 
Bruce Ward and Don Davis, who came within hours of being put to death last 
April in what had been set as the 1st in a series of 4 double executions. 
Documents are also due next month in the case of Jack Greene, who had been 
scheduled to die last November.

Arkansas justices called off Ward's and Davis' executions as the U.S. Supreme 
Court looked into whether criminal defendants are entitled to independent 
mental health experts. They stopped Greene's to consider whether Arkansas' 
prison director is an adequate judge of the inmate's mental health. Ward makes 
a similar claim in another case.

It's possible, but unlikely, that Arkansas could execute anyone before its 
current full batch of lethal injection drugs expires March 1. 75 vials of the 
muscle relaxant vecuronium bromide must be tossed out after March 1; the state 
uses 5 per execution.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson's office said it wouldn't speculate on how quickly he might 
set an execution date if the men lose their appeals. The attorney general's 
office said only that it would give the governor the appropriate notice if the 
men's status changes.

Arkansas typically gives inmates 7 to 8 weeks' notice before an execution. 
March 1 is 5 weeks away.

Prison officials have not said whether they have a supplier standing by to 
replace its current stock of lethal injection drugs. Arkansas' potassium 
chloride supply expires Aug. 31 and its midazolam is good through Jan. 31, 
2019.

Midazolam sedates inmates, vecuronium bromide stops their lungs and potassium 
chloride stops their hearts.

Arkansas executed 4 prisoners in an 8-day period last spring, rushing to put 
the men to death before their existing supply of midazolam expired April 30. 
They had scheduled 8 executions in an 11-day period, but Ward and Davis 
received stays, 1 inmate was given more time to raise a claim of innocence and 
another won clemency.

Davis is closest to exhausting his appeals. Last April, public defenders argued 
he received inadequate assistance on his mental health claims. Arkansas 
justices stopped his execution because, at the time, the U.S. Supreme Court was 
considering a similar case from Alabama's death row. The nation's highest court 
ultimately ordered a new examination into whether the Alabama inmate, James 
McWilliams, was substantially harmed by the trial court's error.

Ward raises the same issue as Davis and in a separate case argues the director 
of the Arkansas Department of Correction is not qualified to assess whether he 
is mentally competent to understand his execution. His lawyers contend the 
decision would best be left to medical experts because Wendy Kelley's boss, 
Hutchinson, sets execution dates and her dual roles as both the executioner and 
the "arbiter of sanity" present a conflict of interest.

Lawyers for the state said Kelley is a "neutral state officer" who merely 
carries out sentences imposed by the courts.

Greene, who appeared before the state Parole Board last year with rolled-up 
tissues stuck in his ears, also argues that Kelley shouldn't assess his mental 
status.

Defense lawyers said Ward has a lifelong history of severe mental illness, 
including schizophrenia, and Davis has an IQ score indicating an intellectual 
disability.

(source: ledger-enquirer.com)








MISSOURI:

Time for the barbarism to stop



I, and I hope many of you, were appalled when on Jan. 11 Judge Thomas Mountjoy 
sentenced Craig Wood to death, even though the jury had deadlocked and the 
victim's mother had emotionally pleaded that Mr. Wood be given life without 
parole.

This is the 2nd case in 2 months in which a judge imposed a death sentence when 
a jury deadlocked. In October, Marvin Rice was sentenced to death by a St. 
Charles County judge, even though 11 out of the 12 jurors wanted life without 
parole for him.

These were the first new death sentences in Missouri in 4 years, during which 
time no Missouri jury has chosen the death penalty.

Both of these death sentences raise serious questions about judicial override 
in Missouri and its constitutionality under the Sixth Amendment.

Missouri and Indiana are the only 2 states in which a judge can give a death 
sentence if a jury deadlocks. Most states that have retained the death penalty 
follow the federal procedure of an automatic sentence of life in prison without 
parole if a jury cannot reach a unanimous decision.

It is time that this barbarism stops of murdering persons as a way of declaring 
murder to be wrong.

Fr. W. Paul Jones, Pittsburg

(source: Letter to the Editor, bolivarmonews.com)








ARIZONA:

Supreme Court rejects appeal of longest-serving Arizona death-row inmate



The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear the appeal of a repeat rapist and 
murderer who has been on Arizona's death row for 40 years for a string of 
grisly crimes in Maricopa County.

The justices without comment Monday declined to hear Joseph Clarence Smith's 
claim that the jury that sentenced him to death was improperly instructed on 
how to weigh mitigating versus aggravating factors in the crimes.

It was the 4th time that Smith - the longest-serving death row inmate in 
Arizona, and one of the longest in the country - has had an appeal reach the 
Supreme Court. But it may not be his last, his attorney said Tuesday.

"There are legal avenues still available," said Dale Baich, a supervising 
attorney of the capital habeas unit in Arizona's Federal Public Defender's 
Office. He declined to discuss what those options might be.

Smith maintained his innocence throughout his trials.

The Arizona Attorney General's Office did not comment Tuesday.

Smith, who had been convicted of rape in 1973, was out on probation for that 
crime in 1976 when he brutally murdered 2 Arizona teens and raped a 3rd woman 
in separate incidents.

The mutilated, naked bodies of Sandy Spencer and Neva Lee were found in the 
desert outside Phoenix in January and February 1976, respectively.

Both appeared to have been tied up before being stabbed repeatedly; Spencer in 
the groin, chest and breasts, Lee in the chest, abdomen and breasts. Both died 
of asphyxiation after their mouths and noses were stuffed with sand and taped 
shut.

Dorothy Fortner, his third victim while he was out on probation, was 4 or 5 
months pregnant when Smith persuaded her to get in his car by telling her he 
was a friend of her boyfriend. Smith then drove her into the desert, according 
to court documents, running a knife up and down her torso and asking if she 
"would like to be killed fast or slow."

He repeatedly raped and brutalized Fortner, threatening to kill her throughout 
the ordeal while brandishing a knife and telling her he was a sadist.

However, Smith let Fortner go. She testified at his sentencing that he 
threatened to cut out her baby and let them both "die on the desert floor, and 
that he was going to watch this."

In a ruling 2 years ago, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Smith's 
claim that prosecutors had improperly used his defense of a diagnosis of 
"sexual sadism" to enter inflammatory evidence against him.

His latest appeal claimed that the Supreme Court's 2016 ruling in Hurst v. 
Florida required that he be given a new sentencing hearing because of the way 
the jury was instructed in his case.

Under Hurst v. Florida, Baich said in a statement, "the determination of 
whether there are insufficient mitigating circumstances to outweigh the 
aggravating circumstances at the penalty phase of a capital trial, is a fact 
necessary for the death penalty to be imposed.

"This determination must be made by a jury and beyond a reasonable doubt," the 
statement said. "The jury in Smith's case was not asked to make the finding 
beyond a reasonable doubt at sentencing."

Smith was convicted in 1977 in the murders of Spencer and Lee and sentenced to 
death for the 1st time that year.

(source: dcourier.com)