[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----IOWA, WIS., MO., OKLA., S. DAK.

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 31



IOWA:

Nothing to gain, much to lose from bringing back Iowa's death penalty



Iowa State Rep. Clel Bauder believes some crimes are so violent and vicious 
that "the perpetrators should not have the right to breathe." The only answer 
for them, he thinks, is death by lethal injection.

"It should send a message to society that we're not going to tolerate this kind 
of behavior," the Greenfield Republican who chairs the House Public Safety 
Committee told the Register.

I'm not questioning Baudler's outrage over killings like the 2016 ones of a Des 
Moines and an Urbandale police officer. I get it.

Some of what David and Louise Turpin allegedly did to their 13 children in 
their Southern California home has at times had me wishing the same on them, 
just to know what it felt like: To be locked in a basement, chained to the 
beds, starved while taunted with the presence of pies they weren't allowed to 
eat; forbidden to use the bathroom, bathe or wash above their wrists and 
deprived of medical and dental care.

But that's not rational thinking and I'm not proud of it. Tempting as such 
eye-for-an-eye vengeance may be at an emotional level, our criminal justice 
system isn't intended to get even. It's intended to punish, correct behavior 
and ensure it doesn't happen again. Debasing, shaming, torturing or killing 
offenders doesn't comfort the bereaved or make people practice the kinds of 
values we would hope for in society.

Baudler's bill, HSB 569, would apply to someone 18 or older and of sound mind 
who was a major participant in what would be a new offense of "capital murder." 
That's defined as 1st-degree premeditated murder or a killing committed during 
an attempt to escape custody, or during a forcible felony. It would apply to 
killing a peace officer as well as killing a child while endangering or abusing 
one, when "the death occurs under circumstances manifesting an extreme 
indifference to human life."

Interesting verbiage. Killing someone is an odd way to teach valuing life, 
especially when the state is the one doing the killing. And anyway, the death 
penalty been shown to be a poor deterrent, because most offenders aren't 
thinking about getting caught and executed when committing their crimes. The 
Senate version of the bill, SF 335, would only apply the death penalty for 
1st-degree murder along with kidnapping and sex abuse of a minor.

The death penalty is scientifically unsound in so many ways and Iowa doesn't 
need it. There were 27 Iowa homicides in 2017. Even 1 is too many, but so is 
even 1 death sentence for someone wrongfully convicted. Since 1973, 161 people 
have been released from death row because they were later acquitted or pardoned 
(because of evidence of their innocence) or had their charges dismissed, 
according to the Death Penalty Information Center. What if no one had spoken up 
for them? How many others have been wrongly put to death?

Data also show the death penalty costs a state more than life in prison and has 
a disparate impact on poor and minority people who lack access to the best 
lawyers.

But maybe the worst thing about it is the underlying premise that bad actors 
are unredeemable. Putting people to death negates any possibility of 
rehabilitation. Yet we have seen that process work to the benefit of both 
victims and offenders. South Africa's post-Apartheid Truth and Justice 
Reconciliation Commission brought victims of gross human rights violations 
together with perpetrators to hear and be heard. Iowa has also had successful 
restorative justice and victim-offender reconciliation programs. They're hard 
work but arguably offer more healing to crime victims by giving them a voice.

That's what former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar's sentencing hearings 
gave his victims.

Baudler actually brought up Nassar's 40-to-175 year sentence for multiple 
sexual assaults of female gymnasts to justify his death-penalty stance. Quoting 
that judge as saying she had signed Nassar's "death warrant," Baudler said: 
"Everybody thinks it's OK. But if you say the state has a law that allows the 
death penalty, people get all squeamish."

Yes, because the judge was using the term metaphorically. She didn't actually 
order Nassar to be killed.

The United States is the only Western industrialized nation to have the death 
penalty, which Iowa thankfully hasn't had since 1965. It seems we're going 
backwards now. At the same time the state is making it easier to kill people by 
permitting Iowans to go armed just about anywhere, and to fire if they so much 
as feel threatened, it would crack the whip harder on those who do kill.

Wouldn't it make more sense to make it harder to access the means to kill?

Some of the most powerful arguments against the death penalty have come from 
the spiritual world, from Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to Sister Helen Prejean. 
Back in 1998 when Terry Branstad, as governor, proposed bringing back the death 
penalty, the nun who wrote "Dead Man Walking" was in Iowa to receive an 
honorary doctorate from St. Ambrose University. She wasn't pleased. Prejean's 
anti-death-penalty activism began after she became a spiritual counselor to a 
Louisiana man on death row in 1982 for killing 2 teen-agers.

"There are some human rights so deep," she told me in a 1998 interview, "they 
cannot be given by governments for good behavior or taken away for bad 
behavior."

Yes. You don't teach people to love by showing them nothing but hatred. And you 
don???t teach someone to value life by telling him his life has no redeeming 
value. Don't go down this road, Iowa. There's little to be gained and much of 
our humanity to be lost.

(source: Rekha Basu is an opinion columnist for The Des Moines Register)








WISCONISN:

State Rep. Chuck Wichgers Promotes Event for Extremist Group That Endorses 
Death Penalty for Women Who Have Abortions----Radical Extremists Openly Promote 
Lawlessness and Violence to Achieve Total Abortion Ban



In an email obtained by One Wisconsin Now, a Republican State Representative is 
inviting his colleagues to join him at a meeting in the State Capitol sponsored 
by an organization that believes elected officials should defy federal courts 
to ban all abortions and women who get abortions should be subject to capital 
punishment. The group, Abolish Abortion Wisconsin, is affiliated with the 
radical activist Matt Trewhella and plans to host an event in the State Capitol 
on February 7, according to the message to legislators from Rep. Chuck 
Wichgers.

"This is appalling," said One Wisconsin Now Research Director Joanna 
Beilman-Dulin. "The people behind this event are extremists with dangerous 
views about women and who advocate for violence as a means to impose their 
radical views on us."

The goal of the group is to ban all abortions, without exception. On their 
website they are promoting a petition in which they declare, "... public 
officials in Wisconsin are bound by solemn oath and moral duty to oppose the 
Supreme Court's perversion of the Constitution ..." and they, " ... hereby 
direct every public official in Wisconsin, including, but not limited, to 
sheriffs, district attorneys, judges and justices, the Attorney General, and 
the Governor, to exercise their authority as appropriate in their respective 
jurisdictions ..." to ban abortion.

The group also advocates for criminal sanctions, including executions, for 
women who have abortions. In an article posted on the website they write, "When 
we are asked what the punishment should be for women who have illegal 
abortions, we should unashamedly respond - whatever the penalty is for murder 
in the state where it takes place."

A page soliciting donations indicates contributions will go to "Missionaries to 
the Preborn/Abolish Abortion WI'. Matthew Trewhella is the founder of 
Missionaries to the Preborn. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center 
research on hate groups Trewhella, "... was one of the first anti-abortion 
leaders to publicly call for militias ... After telling congregants to do 'the 
most loving thing' by buying their children 'an SKS rifle and 500 rounds of 
ammunition,' he said he was teaching his own 16-month-old the location of his 
'trigger finger.'"

Beilman-Dulin concluded, "Rep. Wichgers is not advertising a meeting to have a 
rational discussion of public policy. Instead he is promoting a repugnant hate 
group that advocates for lawlessness and violence against women."

(source: One Wisconsin Now)








MISSOURI:

Trial in officer's killing set to begin



Jurors will be taken to a New Florence area home next week to view the scene 
where St. Clair Township police Officer Lloyd Reed Jr. was gunned down in 2015.

The process of finding a jury for his killer's 1st-degree murder trial is set 
to begin Monday in Westmoreland County.

County Judge Meagan Bilik-DeFazio approved the Westmoreland County District 
Attorney's Office's request to show jurors the site of the Ligonier Street 
gunfight that claimed Reed, and locations his accused killer, Ray Shetler, fled 
to afterward.

It was one of a number of pretrial motions filed by attorneys on both sides of 
the case this past week, which DeFazio is expected to address prior to trial.

Shetler's attorney, Marc Daffner, has asked the court to exclude Shetler's 
prior history of violent criminal behavior.

Online court records show Shetler was on probation for reckless endangerment 
when Reed was slain.

A veteran police officer in the area, Reed, 54, was a Somerset County resident 
who was patrolling the area for St. Clair Township the night he died.

Police said Reed was responding to a domestic disturbance between Shetler and 
his girlfriend at their Ligonier Street residence. Shetler was aware police 
were on their way and went outside with a rifle, prosecutors have said.

After Reed arrived, he issued calls for Shetler to drop the weapon - and then 
shots were fired by both men, police have said.

1 round struck Reed in the torso, causing fatal chest injuries that claimed him 
just hours later, state police reported in 2015.

Shetler was shot in the shoulder and left the scene, allegedly ditching his gun 
near the bank of the Conemaugh River before he was found by police near the 
Conemaugh Generating Station.

Shetler, a Laurel Valley High School graduate and standout running back, has 
pleaded not guilty to all of his charges, including homicide, theft and 
assault.

His attorney, Marc Daffner, has said Shetler does not dispute that he fired his 
gun toward Reed, but maintains his client had no idea the man pointing a weapon 
at him was a police officer and only discharged his rifle after Reed fired 
first.

If convicted of his most serious charge - 1st-degree murder - Shetler would 
face a separate hearing for the death penalty.

(source: Associated Press)








OKLAHOMA:

Jury trial set for defendant in Tecumseh officer's murder



A special session jury trial has been scheduled in Pottawatomie County District 
Court this summer for the defendant charged in the murder of Tecumseh Police 
Officer Justin Terney.

Byron James Shepard, 36, is charged with 1st-degree murder in the officer's 
death that occurred in March 2017.

Shepard, who is jailed without bond in the Pottawatomie County Public Safety 
Center, now has a jury trial date scheduled to begin June 18 during the special 
session jury term.

District Attorney Richard Smothermon also has filed a Bill of Particulars 
seeking the death penalty in this case.

In that filing, he said Shepard meets 5 of 8 aggravating circumstances that 
warrant the death penalty, including having previous felony convictions, 
committing a murder to avoid arrest, being a threat to society and the fact 
that Terney was a peace officer in the performance of his duties.

Officer Terney, 22, died March 27, 2017 from gunshot wounds he suffered in an 
alleged shootout with Shepard, a passenger who allegedly fled from a traffic 
stop.

The driver of the vehicle in that stop, Brooklyn Danielle Williams, 23, is 
charged with 2nd-degree murder. She also has pleaded not guilty and her next 
court date is scheduled Feb. 27.

Shepard is accused of causing the death of Officer Terney by inflicting mortal 
wounds when firing a Springfield XD semi-automatic 9 mm pistol into the abdomen 
and leg of the officer during the traffic stop.

Terney's dash cam video captured the traffic stop before Shepard fled, then 
audio of events and gunshots going on in the nearby treeline.

In addition to the murder charge, Shepard also faces charges of knowingly 
concealing stolen property relating to the stolen firearm used in the homicide, 
along with a charge of possession of controlled dangerous substance, 
methamphetamine, which officers found on his person that night en route to the 
hospital.

(source: Shawnee News-Star)








SOUTH DAKOTA:

Testimony in Robert Berget's intellectual disability hearing continues----Day 2 
of Berget's intellectual disability hearing



Testimony continued Tuesday in a hearing to determine whether South Dakota 
death row inmate Rodney Berget has an intellectual disability.

Berget was sentenced to death for the 2011 murder of senior corrections officer 
Ronald "RJ" Johnson.

The hearing was the result of a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the death 
penalty is unconstitutional for someone with an intellectual disability. In 
other death penalty cases across the country the same issues arise when the 
defendant's IQ scores are right on the border of an intellectual disability.

"If they (defendants) have an IQ in the range of 75 or below that's generally 
regarded as qualifying for a diagnosis of intellectual disability. So if they 
(attorneys) saw any test scores in that range they would have an ethical 
obligation to raise the issue," Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death 
Penalty Information Center, said.

The non-partisan nonprofit organization Death Penalty Information Center 
reports that roughly 8 % of death row cases since 2002 have had similar 
hearings over intellectual disabilities. About 55 % of those hearings have been 
successful in overturning a death penalty verdict.

So far in Berget's hearing, the psychologist for the defense has based his 
diagnosis on 4 IQ scores Berget took from the age of nine to 17:

- 1971: IQ score of 70, Berget was 9 years old

- 1971: IQ score or 72

- 1972: IQ score of 74

- 1979: IQ score of 83, Berget was 17 years old

Those scores range from 70 --the state cutoff for the definition of an 
intellectual disability-- to 83, above the federal standard of 75.

"Most people who are intellectually disabled are close to the borderline," 
Dunham said. "It's very rare that you have people whose IQ scores are in the 
low 60s, 50s or 40s. So we don't typically see those cases. The cases you see 
the most are cases where the defendant has IQ scores in the upper 60s or 
low-to-mid 70s."

Much of Tuesday's testimony centered around the accuracy of Berget's scores and 
the tests that were administered back in the 1970s.

"There are certain things that happen in administering tests that can affect 
those scores. There is one phenomenon that is known as the practice 
effect...the more you are exposed to a test the better you will do on it," 
Dunham said. "Then on some of these tests especially the ones that a school 
district administers, they often use the wrong IQ test or an old IQ test which 
has the effect of inflating the IQ score."

While much of the focus has been on IQ scores, the court must also consider 
Berget's adaptive behavior or ability to carry on in everyday life. All of 
those characteristics must have appeared before the age of 18 to be considered 
to ensure an intellectual disability has not been faked.

All factors KSFY continued to learn about throughout the hearing.

Tuesday wrapped up testimony from the defense's psychologist, Dr. J. Gregory 
Olley from the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities. Dunham 
referred to Dr. Olley as a nationally renowned doctor on the diagnosis of 
intellectual abilities. Dr. Olley testified that he has worked on 31 cases 
across the country for the diagnosis of an intellectual disability. He has 
worked on behalf of the prosecution twice.

Dr. Olley has diagnosed Berget with an intellectual disability, citing practice 
and the Flynn Effect -- a gradual increase of IQ scores over time -- for why 
Berget's scores increased, but did not negate the fact that an intellectual 
disability exists.

However, the state spent much of Tuesday debating the validity of the Flynn 
Effect as well as the state of Berget's intellectual ability at the time of the 
murder.

The state also argued Dr. Olley's diagnosis was made without ever meeting or 
speaking with Berget. Dr. Olley testified that he tried to interview Berget 
twice but was unable to.

Berget is not participating in this hearing. He wrote a letter to the court 
last year saying he is ready for his sentence to be carried out and will not 
appear in any further court hearings.

South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley began presenting the state's case 
late Tuesday afternoon with testimony from Berget's former elementary school 
special education teacher Mary Jo Bottum. She testified that she did not 
consider Berget mentally retarded. She said Berget was behind in reading and 
math for his age.

The judge followed up with his own question, asking why she felt Berget was not 
mentally retarded.

"The ability he had when being worked with 1-on-1 or in small groups. It was 
not difficult for him to catch onto the ideas or concepts of what I was trying 
to teach as long as he was in a small group and get immoderate feedback," his 
former teacher Mary Jo Bottom said.

Testimony is expected Wednesday from the state's psychologist, Dr. Thomas 
Schacht, a professor emeritus with East Tennessee State University. The state 
has already said Dr. Thomas has an opposing diagnosis, finding Berget does not 
have an intellectual disability. Dr. Schacht was introduced to go over his 
background late Tuesday.

Dr. Schact also briefly discussed additional intelligence test scores the state 
is considering in its diagnosis. Jackley said those tests include 2 group tests 
and a 3rd IQ test Berget took at age 36. Jackley argues on those tests, Berget 
scores were up to a 102.

"There are 7 different IQ tests, all of which are above a 70 which is kind of 
the cut off, he's also taken and passed a GED," Jackley said.

The state's case appears to focus on Berget's issues as a matter of poor 
conduct vs. intellectual ability. The state will present its full case on 
Wednesday, but has already hinted that an audio recording between Berget and a 
biographer may be a key part of its case against an intellectual disability 
diagnosis.

(source: KSFY news)