[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, VA., GA., FLA., TENN., ID., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

March 30



TEXAS:

Good Friday is a time to consider what the death penalty is doing to our souls



Good Friday always beckons us to think deeply about our role in the execution.

Word spread quickly. The crime was unspeakable. The reward for his capture was 
great. The government was desperate to get him off the streets. Nobody knew 
what he was capable of next. Considering him to be exceedingly dangerous, law 
enforcement planned carefully. For some time, they'd practiced and discussed 
the take. When the moment arrived, one of the fugitive's confidantes revealed 
his location. As authorities made the arrest, those closest to him pushed back. 
It was no use. It was as if he knew his fate.

Government officials repeatedly declared that a monster had been taken off the 
streets. Everyone wanted justice. Believing some level of due process was 
necessary to keep from giving their power over to the mob, local officials 
restrained themselves. Everyone knew that this was a big one. Insult after 
insult flew. Then, the time came.

When the doors opened, he immediately became aware of how public his case was. 
Though he'd seen reports and heard rumblings, he just wasn't aware of the 
magnitude of the hate. The weight of it all was almost too much to carry. Weak 
in the knees, he determined to keep moving. The people kept calling him a 
monster. The words were painful. However, it was more painful to realize that 
they were calling everyone he loved monsters, too. When the walk didn't seem 
like it could get any longer, he was there.

There was no question what everyone wanted. Death was in the air. The 
authorities gave him a chance to save his life, but he didn't take it. Nobody 
could believe it. Who wouldn't take the opportunity to save his own life? He 
was subjected to further punishment and then offered the chance at life again. 
He declined. Death it was.

The path was long between the place of judgment and the place of execution. At 
every step, the cries of monster overwhelmed his brain. The religious people 
seemed to be the ones shouting the loudest. In the midst of it all, he stumbled 
a few times. I guess that's the nature of all difficult paths.

As the place of execution approached, the governor had one last chance. Citing 
his faith, the governor let the killing continue. Waiting for death, the man 
prayed. Slowly, he was strapped in. His great crime was raised up for all of 
the world to see. God felt so far away. How could he have been so forsaken? His 
final words echoed in the beings of all who heard them, "Into your hands I 
commend my spirit." Death came with a rush. In great agony, he took his last 
breath. It was finished.

The accounts of Jesus' sacrifice and death always move me deeply. But this 
narrative is not about Jesus. This is a narrative of Rosendo Rodriguez, 
convicted of killing 2 women and stuffing their bodies into suitcases. Texas 
executed him last Tuesday. God was there and so was I. Under the rain, I 
watched. While I cannot say what Rodriguez' crimes meant for his soul, I can 
say what his execution means for ours.

The message of God died on that gurney. We killed our neighbor. We damned our 
persecutor. Surely God hates what we have done. Like it or not, our death 
penalty makes killers of us all. How are we any different than he? Only 
abolition can save us. The offer of life is on the table. Will we take the 
deal?

(source: Opinion; Jeff Hood is a Baptist pastor and author----Dallas Morning 
News)








VIRGINIA----female may face death penalty

Suspect in Danville double slaying asks for capital defender



A Danville woman charged in a 2017 double homicide asked a capital defender to 
represent her case, following court proceedings Wednesday.

Amanda Lynn Willhite, 35, asked to be represented by a capital defender as her 
lead counsel and for a public defender to be her co-counsel as the case winds 
its way through Danville Circuit Court.

Prosecutors could seek the death penalty in the case.

Willhite is charged with capital murder, 1st-degree murder and robbery in 
connecting with the deaths of Kelly Fears Wrenn, 49, and Ashley Lauren Joy 
Jones, 35. She is being held in the Danville City Jail.

Wrenn and Jones were found dead on Jan. 8, 2017, in their home at 334 Wrenn 
Drive in Danville. They died of stab wounds, according to the Roanoke Medical 
Examiner's Office.

Whillhite had lived at the address and was reported missing by police at the 
time. Investigators found her at a Jacksonville, North Carolina, hotel after a 
2-day search.

The deaths of Wrenn and Jones were the first 2 homicides of 2017, a year in 
which 13 homicides were recorded in total. That number is 3 shy of the 16 
homicides logged in 2016, a record high for Danville.

(source: godanriver.com)








GEORGIA:

Prosecutors' Racially Discriminatory Tactics May Lead to New Trial for Johnny 
Lee Gates----The prosecution labeled the white prospective jurors as "W" and 
the Black prospective jurors as "N" and singled out the Black prospective 
jurors by marking dots in the margins next to their names.



Researchers studied all-white jury pools in Florida and found that they were 16 
% more likely to convict a Black defendant than a white one, a gap that is all 
but eliminated when at least 1 of the jurors is Black.

Slow.

Old and ignorant.

Cocky. Con artist. Hostile. Fat.

Those are the words that prosecutor Doug Pullen and his colleague William Smith 
used to describe the Black jurors that they systematically removed from jury 
pools, apparently in order to ensure that Johnny Lee Gates - who stood accused 
of assaulting and murdering 19-year-old white woman Katharina Wright - would 
face an all-white jury.

Nearly 40 years after Gates was convicted and sentenced to death, his attorneys 
at the Southern Center for Human Rights and the Georgia Innocence Project have 
uncovered evidence that they say indicates systemic racial discrimination in 
Muscogee County, Georgia, in the late 1970s. This discrimination, they argue, 
led to a spate of Black defendants in capital cases facing all-white juries and 
being sent to death row.

When Black defendants face all-white juries, they are more likely to be 
convicted, according to a 2012 study from Duke University. Researchers studied 
all-white jury pools in Florida and found that they were 16 % more likely to 
convict a Black defendant than a white one, a gap that is all but eliminated 
when at least one of the jurors is Black.

In February, Gates' attorneys petitioned the Superior Court of Muscogee County 
to order the State of Georgia to hand over the prosecutors' jury selection 
notes from Gates' trials, as well as notes from other capital trials involving 
Black defendants in Muscogee County in the late 1970s. After reviewing those 
notes, a pattern began to emerge.

The notes reveal that the prosecution, Pullen and Smith among them, were 
blatantly racist in their jury selection process. The prosecution labeled the 
white prospective jurors as "W" and the Black prospective jurors as "N" and 
singled out the Black prospective jurors by marking dots in the margins next to 
their names, according to court documents. They would then use peremptory 
challenges to remove each Black juror from the jury pool.

Lawyers can use peremptory challenges, also sometimes called peremptory 
strikes, to remove a potential juror without stating a reason, though they may 
be required to do so later. The number of strikes allowed varies, but it's 
usually somewhere around 10. Prosecutors are not supposed to use peremptory 
challenges to exclude jurors based on race, but there are ways to do so. In 
fact, it's easy for prosecutors to come up with racially neutral reasons for 
striking a juror that operate as racially discriminatory reasons: All the U.S. 
Supreme Court requires is that any reason for excluding a particular juror be 
race neutral, under a 1986 case called Batson v. Kentucky.

The prosecutor can claim that a juror had a poor attitude, or seemed 
uninterested, nervous, indecisive, bewildered, or unintelligent, and that's a 
good enough reason to strike a juror. (All of these reasons have been accepted 
by federal courts across the country.) Hence Pullen and Smith's invocation of 
things like "cocky" and "hostile" as justifications for striking Black jurors.

Unless there is written proof that a prosecutor intentionally eliminated a 
juror based on race - such as a list of Black jurors with "N" written next to 
their names - prosecutors are, as Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote in his 
concurring opinion in Batson, "left free to discriminate against Blacks in jury 
selection provided that they hold the discrimination to an 'acceptable' level."

And this sort of racial discrimination wasn't limited to Gates' case. As Gates' 
motion for a new trial reads, "From 1976 to 1979, Pullen and Smith prosecuted 
Black defendants in 7 capital cases in Muscogee County. They used peremptory 
strikes to exclude qualified Black prospective jurors as a matter of policy, 
thereby ensuring that the Black defendants, including Gates, were tried by 
all-white juries."

In one case involving a 16-year-old Black defendant accused of killing a white 
victim, the Pullen and Smith-led prosecution identified a prospective white 
juror as a "top juror" because he "has to deal with 150 to 200 of these people 
that works for his construction co."

"These people." I mean, honestly.

In addition, the prosecutors regularly ranked prospective Black jurors as "1" 
on a scale of 1 to 5 without explaining why. In Gates' case, for example, they 
ranked all 4 prospective Black jurors as "1" without providing a specific 
explanation. By way of contrast, they ranked only 1 prospective white juror as 
"1," noting that the juror was opposed to the death penalty as the reason.

As the court documents outline, between 1975 and 1979, William Smith was 
involved in 4 capital trials involving Black defendants. In 3 of those trials, 
the prosecution struck all the prospective Black jurors. In the 4th trial, 
there were simply too many Black citizens in the jury pool and the prosecutors 
didn't have enough peremptory strikes to get rid of them - but it wasn't for 
lack of trying.

Meanwhile, during that same period, Pullen prosecuted 5 capital cases involving 
Black defendants, 2 of which overlapped with Smith's. Across all of those 5 
cases, the prosecution struck 27 of 27 prospective Black jurors.

Pullen hadn't stopped there; his track record of disproportionately striking 
Black jurors has even gone before the nation's highest court. In 2016's Foster 
v. Chatman, the Supreme Court granted Timothy Foster, a Black defendant sitting 
on death row, a new trial - thanks, in part, to Pullen's racially 
discriminatory practices and his history of a "concerted effort to keep Black 
prospective jurors off the jury."

In that case, Pullen had systematically removed all prospective Black jurors 
from the jury pool in order to obtain an all-white jury. He then stood before 
the all-white jury and appealed to their racial biases in order to get his 
death penalty conviction, asking the jury to send Foster to his death in order 
to "deter other people out there in the projects."

That was in 1987. Nearly 20 years later, Foster's attorneys obtained copies of 
the prosecution's notes. They showed a similar pattern of racial discrimination 
as in Gates' case.

The notes contained 4 copies of a list of prospective jurors. On each of the 4 
copies, the names of the Black jurors were highlighted in green and marked with 
the letter "B." On the juror questionnaires, where prospective jurors had 
indicated their race, the prosecution had circled the word "Black." All of the 
Black jurors were listed on the prosecution's list of "Definite NOs." And the 
prosecution ranked the Black prospective jurors by favorability in case, 
according to a draft affidavit signed by the prosecution's investigator, "it 
comes down to having to pick 1 of the Black jurors."

Gates' attorneys note that Pullen???s discriminatory action in Foster is 
relevant to Gates' case: "The fact that Pullen has been found by the Supreme 
Court to have engaged in race discrimination elsewhere supports a finding of 
discriminatory intent in this case," Gates' attorneys argue in their motion 
seeking a new trial for their client. It is not clear yet when the court will 
rule.

The pattern Gates' attorneys uncovered in their client's case tracks the 
pattern uncovered in Foster v. Chatman: Pullen's policy was to denote Black 
jurors by race and do everything possible to exclude them from the jury unless 
he simply had to pick 1 of the Black jurors, in which case he would pick the 
least offensive one.

That's about as blatantly discriminatory as it gets.

(source: rewire.news)








FLORIDA:

Pinellas and Pasco faith leaders will ask State Attorney Bernie McCabe to stop 
death sentences



Several faith leaders from Pinellas and Pasco counties are expected to deliver 
a letter to State Attorney Bernie McCabe, asking him to stop seeking death 
sentences.

They are expecpted to gather in front of the Pinellas County Justice Center on 
Friday morning.

In the letter, the faith leaders ask to have a meetign with McCabe.

"We all believe there must be accountability and consequences for those who 
commit crimes. A true justice system can achieve these ends without denying 
dignity and respect to human lives," the letter reads. "With the death penalty, 
this dignity is denied and we commit the grave error of closing off hope to the 
possibility for redemption."

Among the signers is Bishop Gregory Parkes of the Roman Catholic Diocese of St. 
Petersburg, as well as dozens of other members of the diocese.

The letter also cites a recent poll conducted by North Carolina-based Public 
Policy Polling. According to that poll, 2/3 of Pinellas County voters preferred 
life in prison in murder cases as opposed to the death penalty.

"Pinellas residents are looking for life-affirming alternatives to the death 
penalty - that they no longer want to answer violence with more violence," said 
Rev. Bob Schneider, pastor of St. Cecelia Church in Clearwater, in a statement. 
"The death penalty is not a viable means to promote true healing for victims' 
families."

(source: tampabay.com)








TENNESSEE:

3 gang members charged for the 2016 death of Bianca Horton----54 local gang 
members indicted.

It's a large number representing the huge effort authorities are making in 
keeping the streets safe, and residents are glad to hear that work is being 
done.

"That's awesome, that's very good. We need more security here," one resident 
said.

"We just want to have a safe neighborhood, and hopefully, including those who 
were indicted, hopefully it's just a process that's educational and beneficial 
to get things back on track," another resident said.

Hamilton County and Chattanooga authorities spoke about the indictments in a 
press conference Wednesday.

Among those to speak was Derrick Shaw.

He's the brother of Bianca Horton. 3 of the gang members have been charged with 
murder for Horton's death.

"It was a great day. It was a great feeling, but at the end of the day, my 
family is not the only one that's hurting," Shaw said.

In 2016, Horton's body was found with multiple gun shot wounds.

"We take every crime, every act of violence very seriously, this one is very 
painful for the police department and the community," Former Chattanooga Police 
Chief Fred Fletcher said in 2016.

Officials said Horton was killed to prevent her from testifying at trial that 
she witnessed a murder from a gang related drive by shooting that also 
paralyzed her daughter.

Now, Andre Grier, Charles Shelton, and Courtney High could all face the death 
penalty for Horton's death.

(source: WDEF news)








IDAHO:

Otter says carrying out death penalty is toughest decision for governor; offers 
tour of execution chamber for top guv hopefuls



Gov. Butch Otter says the decision to carry out the death penalty is the 
toughest decision he's faced as governor, and he's already taken Lt. Gov. Brad 
Little out to the state's execution chamber to acquaint him with the process 
and the protocols. He said he's offered to do the same for both Tommy Ahlquist 
and Raul Labrador, who are vying against Little for the GOP nomination for 
governor, and he'd also be happy to take Democratic hopefuls A.J. Balukoff and 
Paulette Jordan on the same excursion. "Last count I think there's still 11 
people on death row," Otter said.

He said when he ran for governor, that role wasn't in his thoughts. "I thought 
about a lot of other things, including the great grand march down the steps, 
the 1st dance. I never, ever thought that my signature could save a life. And 
it was impactful, very impactful. I don't want 'em to be surprised. So I 
offered that, when they all came in and saw me or told me they were running for 
governor."

Otter said, "I wished somebody had done that for me. I think I would have 
understood a lot more about it."

(source: Spokesman-Review)








CALIFORNIA:

Tulare County's 'Pistol Pete' indicted on fresh homicide charges



A well-known Lindsay gang member already facing the death penalty was handed 
down a fresh list of felonies this week.

Alleged Norteno gang leader Pedro "Pistol Pete" Sanchez was arraigned on a 
grand jury indictment that included 16 felony counts, which could land him in 
San Quentin State Prison faster.

Among those serious accusations are 5 counts of 1st-degree murder with the 
special allegation that the slayings were committed for the benefit of a 
criminal street gang.

Sanchez is also charged with the special allegation that a firearm was used to 
kill in 4 of those 5 instances.

"Law enforcement and prosecutors have done a commendable job on this case and 
have never let up on their pursuit of justice for the families of the victims 
and for the safety of our communities against gang violence," said District 
Attorney Tim Ward.

The fresh indictment comes after a laundry list of crimes police have said 
Sanchez played a role in.

The string of deadly crimes came to a stop after the multi-agency gang sweep, 
Operation Red Sol. The 2015 gang sweep is the largest criminal case in Tulare 
County history, Ward said.

Sanchez and 11 other alleged gang members were indicted in 2016 by a criminal 
grand jury following the Red Sol sweep. The defendants face 65 counts, 
including homicide, prosecutors said.

Sanchez's criminal history has been traced back to the summer of 2014. The 
alleged high-ranking gang member is accused of killing Tonya Huff in July 2014, 
in Porterville.

Sanchez has also been connected to the homicides of Noe Martinez, just outside 
of Porterville, Matthew Villegas in Visalia, Manuel Gonzalez in Visalia, and 
Alfonso Pena in Porterville, police said.

All of the homicides took place in 2015, from January to May, prosecutors 
added.

In the 2016 indictment, Sanchez was also charged with killing Rigoberto Santa 
Maria in September 2015, 8 counts of conspiracy to commit murder, and various 
gang-related crimes.

Ward announced that prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Sanchez 
for the 2016 grand jury indictment.

Sanchez was awaiting trial for this case when the new indictment was handed 
down this week. He has been denied bail.

(source: visaliatimesdelta.com)







USA:

Veterinarians Won't Use This Gas to Kill Animals, but 3 States Want to Use it 
on Prisoners



Undeterred by a shortage of drugs used for lethal injections and capital 
punishment's waning popularity, states that still practice the death penalty 
are seeking alternative ways to kill death row inmates. The latest suggestion? 
Death by nitrogen gas, a method that has never been used before.

After several international drug companies decided to stop sending drugs to 
prisons if they were to be used in executions, state officials began scrambling 
to find alternatives. Several states have mulled bringing back older methods 
such as the electric chair or firing squads. Recently, Nebraska and Nevada 
suggested fentanyl, a powerful opioid responsible for thousands of deaths in 
the United States. And in the last several months, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and 
Alabama have authorized nitrogen gas for executions.

But there may be a problem. "Nitrogen hypoxia, whatever that might be, is not a 
medical act," Dr. Joel Zivot, a professor of anesthesiology at Emory 
University, told Mother Jones.

The idea first came up in Oklahoma. After the botched execution of Clayton 
Lockett in 2014, Oklahoma placed a moratorium on capital punishment, but still 
searched for another way to kill inmates. According to the Marshall Project, 
state representative Mike Christian watched a documentary about killing humans 
which contained a segment on nitrogen inhalation. Inspired by the possible 
solution to some of the problems the state faced, he and 2 others with no 
scientific or medical knowledge presented Oklahoma lawmakers with a report on 
nitrogen. After holding hearings on the report, Christian and other members of 
the state legislature wrote a bill that passed. In 2015, Republican Gov. Mary 
Fallin signed the measure into law, allowing the state to use nitrogen gas if 
lethal injection supplies couldn't be acquired.

This month, Mike Hunter, Oklahoma's attorney general, announced that the state 
would seek to implement the plan, which involves having a mask flooded with 
nitrogen gas placed over an inmate's face. "We can no longer sit on the 
sidelines and wait to find drugs," he said at a press conference. Hunter said 
the method would be "effective, simple to administer, easy to obtain, and 
requires no complex medical procedures."

Shortly after Oklahoma's announcement, Alabama lawmakers voted to turn to the 
gas method should it run out of lethal injection drugs - or if lethal injection 
became unconstitutional. State senator Trip Pittman, who sponsored the bill, 
said the effects of the procedure would be akin to when passengers on an 
airplane pass out when the cabin loses pressure. "I believe it is [the] more 
humane option," he told the New York Times. Alabama's last execution by lethal 
injection occurred 1 week before the vote.

Mississippi's nitrogen gas law was passed in 2017, but the state hasn't 
executed an inmate since 2012.

Despite lawmakers' claims that this would involve inmate's just slipping into 
unconsciousness and then a painless death, the method has never been used in an 
execution anywhere in the world. In fact, the American Veterinary Medical 
Association has said that the procedure is inappropriate for euthanizing 
mammals, noting that a 70 pound pig that inhaled nitrogen gas would take seven 
minutes to die.

Dr. Zivot likens this form of execution to putting a bag over an inmates head 
"and imagining that they are going to be calm and agreeable while it happens." 
Not only will the inmate be uncomfortable, it's unlikely that death would be 
either easy or placid. Dr. Zivot says the more likely sequence of events would 
be the inmate would get a headache, followed by a rapid pattern of breathing, 
then fall into a stupor, may have a seizure, become unconscious, and then, 
finally, die. "But that death may take a while," he cautions.

Because the Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, states 
that carry out the death penalty must find a so-called humane option to perform 
executions. A combination of drugs to make a lethal cocktail is the current 
preferred method, but this too is backed by very little scientific research. 
Oklahoma has yet to release a detailed plan of how its new procedure using 
nitrogen would work, but Dr. Zivot, who has cared for patients who have trouble 
breathing, doesn't see how this method could be considered anything but cruel. 
"Even when we're short of breath," he says, "it's a very distressing 
experience."

(source: Mother Jones)