[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.H., PENN., FLA., ALA.

[Rick Halperin]

May 1



TEXAS:

Death penalty possible for Laredo Border Patrol agent accused of murder



The testimony and evidence presented during the 2-day bond hearing of a 
suspended supervisory Border Patrol agent in Laredo accused of killing his 
27-year-old lover and their 21-month-old child shed more light on the way the 
homicide investigation initially unfolded.

After hearing over 15 hours worth of testimony, 406th District Court Judge 
Oscar J. Hale Jr. ruled last Monday that Ronald Anthony Burgos-Aviles, 28, will 
remain at the Webb County Jail until the outcome of his case is decided by a 
jury.

Hale said that due to the age of the child and the fact that there were 2 
victims, there was clear and strong evidence that this would be a capital 
murder case.

"Based on the evidence presented during these past 2 days, the evidence does 
show, by direct and circumstantial evidence, that the defendant committed these 
acts," he said. "The manner and means of how he committed these acts, does show 
a callous disregard for human life. By using a knife ... and how he calculated 
precisely where to insert the knife on the young baby.

"The evidence shows planning, calculation, deception, attempts at deceiving and 
tampering with evidence at the crime scene. It does show that the defendant 
utilized not only his training and expertise, but his knowledge of the area and 
his knowledge of the circumstances existing on that day."

The court found that based on the totality of the circumstances and the 
evidence, a jury could find that Burgos-Aviles should be sentenced to death.

Webb County District Attorney Isidro "Chilo" Alaniz had asked Hale to deny 
Burgos-Aviles bond, saying that he posed a flight risk and was a danger to the 
community. Burgos-Aviles used his law enforcement status to try to avoid 
detection after committing the heinous crimes, he added.

Alaniz predicted that Burgos-Aviles' fate would mirror that of Demond Bluntson, 
who was sentenced to death in Webb County in 2016 for the slaying of his 
21-month-old son and 6-year-old stepson in a hotel room.

"Laredo juries detest baby killers," Alaniz told the court. "(Burgos-Aviles) 
will be sentenced to death for killing his own child."

Police said they charged Burgos-Aviles with 2 counts of capital murder after 
their investigation into the double homicide of Grizelda "Grey" Hernandez and 
Dominic Alexander Hernandez pointed to him as the only suspect. Their bodies 
were found April 9 near Father Charles McNaboe Park in northwest Laredo.

The 2-day habeas corpus hearing was requested by Burgos-Aviles' attorney, 
Silverio Martinez. He asked the court to set a reasonable bond, saying that 
Burgos-Aviles, a married father of two, had no prior criminal history.

Martinez told Laredo Morning Times that his client is requesting a speedy 
trial. He said the testimony-packed hearing had armed the defense with new 
information that will help them start preparing their defense.

Although Burgos-Aviles is asserting his constitutional right to have the state 
take him to trial without delay, the definition of "speedy" is at the court's 
discretion, according to Martinez. He said his client will have to wait until 
the prosecution indicts him before they can start the discovery process. Until 
then, the defense will begin its own investigation.

If prosecutors fail to indict Burgos-Aviles within the 90 days following his 
arrest, Martinez said his client is entitled to request another bond hearing.

"In the last couple of days, the state argued that they had pretty much proven 
their case already," Martinez said. "And I wanted to clarify that this was a 
fact-finding mission on our side. Everything we heard ... the purported 
evidence presented, was being heard for the very first time. There was no 
defense on our side, there was no meaningful cross-examination from us. There 
was no way to rebut the facts that were presented during these last few days.

"To say that we lost or that it doesn't look good or anything of that nature 
would be completely premature because we are just learning the basics of what 
probable cause the state has."

Martinez said that once the formal discovery period begins, the defense will be 
able to test and scrutinize the state's evidence.

Until the case goes to trial, Martinez does not want public opinion to 
influence potential jurors, denying his client a fair trial, he said.

"People need to understand that under our constitutional system, everybody has 
a right to be presumed innocent until and unless the state proves guilt beyond 
a reasonable doubt," he said. "People need to keep themselves from convicting 
people before hearing all the evidence ... The jury pool is still out there in 
our community."

Investigation

Burgos-Aviles has an open child support case that named him as a non-custodial 
parent and Hernandez as the custodial parent, according to a couple of letters 
found in his office, said Adriana Escamilla, U.S. Customs and Border Protection 
internal affairs officer.

Escamilla said the investigation showed that Burgos-Aviles reported finding a 
body at 11:20 a.m. on April 9. The call was the only radio transmission 
Burgos-Aviles made throughout the five-hour period since he first reported for 
duty, according to Escamilla. She said that this was "highly out of the norm," 
especially for someone in a supervisory role like Burgos-Aviles.

Sensors used by CBP had been removed recently near Father Charles McNaboe Park, 
where the bodies were found, according to Escamilla. She said Burgos-Aviles was 
aware of this. However, she said she could not recall whether the bodies were 
found in the sensor-free area or just very close to it.

Border Patrol agents Francisco Lara and Bradley Dennison, who responded to the 
scene on April 9, testified that Burgos-Aviles was acting strange and 
contaminating the crime scene. They said that Burgos-Aviles never told them he 
knew the slain woman.

Lara said he was the first agent to arrive at the scene after Burgos-Aviles 
called in Hernandez's body at 11:20 a.m. He said he put on a glove to check her 
pulse and determined that she had already died.

After Lara notified a supervisor over the radio, agents were instructed to 
preserve the crime scene as best possible, he said. Not long after, 
Burgos-Aviles told him he would try to see where the blood was coming from and 
proceeded to pick up the woman's body by the feet and shoulders before placing 
it back down, according to Lara.

Burgos-Aviles then told him: "this stuff makes me nervous," and walked away, 
Lara testified. He said that a few minutes later, Burgos-Aviles returned with a 
white tennis shoe, saying that he found it in the brush, and put it at the base 
of Hernandez's feet.

Burgos-Aviles then proceeded to drag his feet in the dirt near the body where 
there was blood splatter, Lara testified. He said he found Burgos-Aviles' 
actions "irregular" and "strange," and that as a supervisor, Burgos-Aviles 
should have been aware that he was not adhering to the basic principles of 
crime scene preservation that agents are supposed to follow.

Burgos-Aviles did not seem to have an urgency to look for the killer, search 
for other possible victims or conduct a sweep of the area, Lara said.

Dennison testified that when he got to the scene, he saw Hernandez lying on the 
floor. Upon observing the body, his initial concern was to find out where she 
came from, if there were any other victims and if the perpetrator was still in 
the area, he said.

He said he searched the nearby area. About 20 yards from the woman, Dennison 
said he found the body of the child. He was lying face up with his head turned 
to the right. He had a cut on the left side of his neck, Dennison said.

Dennison said the child's pants were covered in blood and there were flies 
flying over his body, which made him believe he had been dead for a while.

On the opposite side of the dirt road where he found the child, Dennison said 
he found a stroller. Burgos-Aviles said he had seen the stroller, but that he 
thought it was junk someone had left there, according to Dennison. He said he 
found Burgos-Aviles' remark odd since the stroller looked clean and like it had 
not been there for long.

Dennison said he also found a white tennis shoe that matched the one 
Burgos-Aviles had placed near Hernandez's body and that there were footprints 
that matched the pattern of the boots Border Patrol agents use.

LPD Detective Raymundo Garcia, the lead investigator in the case, said that he 
encountered Burgos-Aviles when he got to the scene and asked him for his 
driver's license and information to include in his report.

Garcia said he asked Burgos-Aviles if he had moved the body and the agent 
admitted that he had moved it to try to see the woman's face and confirm if she 
was still breathing. He testified that he noticed Burgos-Aviles was breathing 
heavily and kept on looking at the body while he was talking to him.

Burgos-Aviles did not disclose important pieces of information that would be 
relevant to the investigation, such as the shoe that he had moved and the 
victim's 2 cellphones that were later found in his vehicle, according to 
Garcia.

Garcia said they found a white Mercedes-Benz car in a parking lot near Father 
Charles McNaboe Park. After running the license plates, investigators found 
that the car was registered to Angelica Hernandez, Grizelda Hernandez's sister, 
Garcia said. He said Hernandez told LPD Detective Gilberto Benavides that her 
sister had borrowed her car to meet her son's biological father, whom she 
identified as Burgos-Aviles.

Dennison testified that he had seen a woman driving a white Mercedes in the 
area near the park at around 9 a.m. that morning.

After Benavides told him the identity of the father, Garcia immediately told 
officers at the scene that Burgos-Aviles was the agent who had initially found 
the body. He said LPD officers near the scene took custody of Burgos-Aviles and 
transported him to LPD headquarters.

A family member of Hernandez, who is a police officer, identified her body, 
Garcia testified.

Garcia, who said he was present when the autopsies of both victims were 
performed in Nueces County, said Hernandez was stabbed approximately 30 times 
in the neck, face, behind the head and behind the shoulders. She also suffered 
many wounds around her hands and arms. Garcia said these were defensive wounds, 
which occur when a person tries to block the blows.

"She was ambushed ... she was stabbed repeatedly," Garcia said. "Whoever 
stabbed her was angry at her. And also after he finished her off, he went to 
the baby, who was not (going to) go anywhere because he was most likely 
strapped to the stroller, and killed the baby after."

Hernandez's son was stabbed in the neck and the heart, Garcia said. However, he 
noted that the child's shirt was not torn and did not have any cuts.

"That indicated to me that he might have lifted the shirt to make sure he was 
actually stabbing where he wanted to stab, which was the heart," he said.

Garcia said the perpetrator also went for the baby's front area of the neck, 
which has vital arteries and veins, including the carotid artery. He said it 
looks as if the killer then placed the baby in the brush.

Police never found the murder weapon, Garcia said.

Additionally, investigators found surveillance video that caught what they 
believe to be Burgos-Aviles' assigned Border Patrol truck at 10:10 a.m. in 
close proximity to where the bodies were found, according to Garcia.

Surveillance footage from a home nearby the scene of the crime placed 
Burgos-Aviles' vehicle leaving the park at around 10:13 a.m., Garcia added. He 
said that footage from Burgos-Aviles' neighbor place him arriving at his home 
in his marked Border Patrol truck at 10:26 a.m. The video showed Burgos-Aviles 
exiting his truck wearing shorts and a shirt, not his uniform, Garcia said.

At 10:37, the neighbor's camera shows Burgos-Aviles leaving his residence, but 
investigators could not make out how he was dressed, Garcia testified.

Benavides said that when he interviewed Hernandez's sister, she told him that 
Grizelda Hernandez had not been replying for 4 hours since she went to meet 
Burgos-Aviles at the park and that she was worried.

Cellphones

Hernandez's 2 cellphones were found inside Burgos-Aviles' Border Patrol unit, 
Benavides testified. He said that Burgos-Aviles did not initially mention 
anything about having recovered any cellphones at the scene, until late in the 
evening when investigators were interviewing him.

Burgos-Aviles and Hernandez had several interactions via different social media 
apps such as Facebook Messenger and Snapchat, according to the phone 
extractions conducted by Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Jeff 
Williams.

Williams, a digital forensics investigator, testified that he received three 
cellphones from LPD investigators: Burgos-Aviles' cellphone and Hernandez's two 
cellphones, which investigators found in Burgos-Aviles' marked unit.

In a particular message exchange from March 27, two weeks before the homicides, 
Hernandez tells Burgos-Aviles, "Dominic (will not) always be that little boy in 
the pictures, he'll soon be older and question me and want to know you. You 
can't do this to me."

Burgos-Aviles responds that he would be stopping by in a few weeks, according 
to the messages presented as evidence.

(source: Laredo Morning Times)

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

Corpus Christi man faces death penalty in fatal beating case of pregnant 
girlfriend



A Corpus Christi man who is facing the death penalty in the death of his 
pregnant girlfriend is expected to stand trial in the coming months.

Arturo Garza is accused of fatally beating Susanna Eguia, who was discovered 
dead, half naked in an abandoned building in 2015 on Cheyenne Street when she 
was 7 months pregnant.

It was announced Monday that the case is on track to be tried in August in 
319th District Judge David Stith's court.

Prosecutors announced they would seek the death penalty for Garza in March 
2017. He has confessed to the killing, police reports show.

Family members of Eguia sat in the courtroom Monday, watching as the man 
accused of killing their loved one stood before the judge.

Eguia's mother Patricia Gonzales told the Caller-Times she hopes this will all 
be over soon. It's been nearly 3 years since Garza was arrested in late May 
2015. "It's no fun seeing him and not seeing her," Gonzales said outside the 
courtroom after the brief hearing.

Garza, 32, remains behind bars in Nueces County Jail.

(source: Corpus Christi Caller-Times)








NEW HAMPSHIRE:

House sends death penalty repeal to governor's desk despite veto threat



The New Hampshire House approved a bill to repeal the state's death penalty 
Thursday, 223-116, sending the measure to the governor despite his vow to veto 
it.

The legislation, Senate Bill 593, would strike the words "may be punished by 
death" from the state's capital punishment statute, replacing them with "shall 
be sentenced to imprisonment for life without the possibility for parole." New 
Hampshire is 1 of 31 states to have the death penalty, according to the Death 
Penalty Information Center.

The measure passed the Senate 14-10 in March, but faces a veto from Gov. Chris 
Sununu, who said earlier this year that it would send the state "in exactly the 
wrong direction" and go against the wishes of law enforcement and victims.

In a floor debate ahead of the vote, representatives mulled the moral nuances 
of the punishment.

Rep. Jeanine Notter, R-Merrimack, invoked the case of New Hampshire's only 
death row inmate, Michael Addison, convicted for the 2006 killing of Manchester 
police officer Michael Briggs.

"What message are we sending our police officers and what we think of their 
life that we think people should be heroes in jail for being cop killers?" she 
said.

But others took philosophical issue with the practice of state executions, and 
cited the costs of keeping people on death row.

"I believe that vengeance has a cost," said Rep. Carol McGuire, R-Epsom. "And 
after a certain point it's not justice it's vengeance."

(source: Concord Monitor)

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A solid argument against the death penalty



The best argument I've ever heard against the death penalty was offered by the 
Rev. Jim Forest of the Fellowship of Reconciliation in Alkmaar, Holland, when 
he spoke at the College of Wooster (Ohio) in the 1980s.

Having been subjected to a smear by a Reagan-funded Young Republican in the 
student paper, claiming Forest was a communist and should not be allowed to 
speak, Jim invited the young man for coffee and told him about his father, a 
wonderful man who cared about the plight of unemployed and mistreated workers 
in the 1930s and joined the communist movement of the time.

Jim Forest Sr. had been interrogated by the House UnAmerican Activities 
Committee under Joseph McCarthy and jailed. I do not recall whether the young 
journalist knew that chapter of our history, but that evening, Jim Forest Jr. 
began his lecture by expressing gratitude for the fact that the young writer, 
by mistaking Jim for his father, had unwittingly provided the community with a 
far better argument against the death penalty than he could have come up with:

"You can just never be sure you've got the right person."

On April 26, the New Hampshire House voted, 223-115, and last month the Senate, 
14-10, to repeal the state's death penalty law. Every aspect of this difficult 
issue has been considered, thanks to countless witnesses and the N.H. Coalition 
to Abolish the Death Penalty.

The people have spoken. Gov. Sununu, it is incumbent on you to get out your pen 
and make it law.

NANCY LUKENS

Dover

(source: Letter to the Editor, Concord Monitor)

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

Abolish the death penalty



Recently, the N.H. Legislature voted to join the community of other civilized 
states and countries and abolish capital punishment. Unfortunately, Governor 
Sununu promised to veto this bill. We should encourage the governor to change 
his mind or, failing that, encourage our legislators to override any veto.

Since colonial times, New Hampshire has only used the ultimate penalty 
reluctantly and sparingly. Our last hanging was in 1939 and the condemned had 
committed a very horrible rape/murder. We currently have only one person under 
sentence of death. In N.H., ordinary murder will not get you the death penalty. 
To be sentenced to death, you must do something "beyond bad," like killing a 
police officer in the line of duty, murdering a judge, or committing murder for 
hire.

In fact, human rights organizations would categorize N.H. as "de facto 
abolitionist" when it comes to capital punishment: we have the death penalty on 
the books but hardly ever use it. So why not take it off the books?

This reluctance to execute people is growing in other states. It used to be 
that one could be sentenced to death for several crimes, including stealing a 
horse! Over the decades, the number of capital offenses have been reduced and 
according to Supreme Court rulings, today, the sentence normally cannot be 
given for any crime other than premeditated murder.

Except for a few like Texas, states use the death penalty very sparingly and 
only for the worst murders. It seems that even those who support it feel at 
least somewhat uncomfortable. Just as medieval executioners asked the condemned 
for forgiveness, today we want the condemned to have "no hard feelings" by 
treating them well the last week of their life, offering them their favorite 
last meal, and the warden and other staff telling the prisoner not to "take it 
personally" because killing him is "their job."

Nearly all "developed," democratic nations, have abolished capital punishment. 
Because of this, the U.S.A. gets a low rating by international human rights 
organizations. In fact, our continued use of the death sentence could prevent a 
criminal from facing any punishment. Indeed, there are countries which will not 
extradite a wanted criminal back to the U.S. unless the U.S. pledges the death 
penalty will not be sought.

This writer certainly does not feel sorry for those who are condemned to death. 
Most have committed unspeakable crimes. He is sure if someone murdered one of 
his loved ones, he would want revenge. He understands how angry the survivors 
must be. The desire for revenge is a normal human emotion but revenge is not 
the same as justice.

Perhaps the death penalty might possibly make some sense in a completely 
civilized, fair, and egalitarian society where everyone has a fair chance with 
the justice system and there was no police corruption, evidence was perfect, 
and an accused person had the best defense but we are "not there yet." As it 
is, those who have money and can afford a good legal team are rarely sent to 
death row. Death rows are full of people who are poor, people of color, and 
those who had to use a public defender.

Penologists point out that there are four major goals of the criminal justice 
system: rehabilitation, deterrence, protection of society, and justice for the 
victim. Of course, when you sentence someone to death, rehabilitation does not 
even come into the equation. When we sentence someone to death, we are 
basically saying this person is so bad they are beyond redemption. But, is this 
true? People stay on death row for years. They may have committed their murders 
when they were young and after a couple of decades are different people.

Many support the death penalty because they believe it is a deterrent to 
others. A number of studies show this is not the case. In fact, the states 
which impose capital punishment often have higher rates of violent crime. 
Others point out that a murderer can always escape from prison and commit other 
crimes. Or, they may kill someone while in prison. While that may have been 
true at one time, today we have modern, maximum security prisons which are 
virtually escape-proof can properly manage extremely violent and incorrigible 
inmates.

The only real justification for the death penalty is to achieve justice for the 
families of a murder victim. But, a life sentence is certainly justice and 
perhaps in many ways is worse than death. Throughout human history, although 
most cultures allow for killing under certain circumstances, all have some 
definition of, and laws against, cold-blooded, premeditated, unjustified 
homicide.

Human societies have usually dealt with such horrible crimes in 1 of 2 ways: 
they execute the murderer of they send him or her into exile. In the Biblical 
story, even God does not execute Cain for killing his brother; God sends Cain 
into exile. Today we do not have remote islands to exile people to but instead 
we exile them to maximum security prisons. It is society's way of saying "you 
have done something so bad that you do not belong with the rest of us."

There is also the fairness issue. People with money who can hire a team of 
lawyers and investigators rarely go to death row. It is usually the poor and 
minorities. Moreover, few women are sentenced to death. Some proponents of 
capital punishment wonder why their tax dollars should be used to keep a 
murderer in prison but if you are more concerned about money than justice, the 
fact is that it is cheaper to imprison people for life than to execute them.

While the desire for vengeance is human, justice can be achieved without 
killing the criminal. People who are family members of murder victim who have 
witnessed executions say that it brings no real peace or closure. They must 
re-live their trauma because the condemned remains on death row appealing for 
years and may become a public figure. Putting them behind bars for life would 
be a type of atoning with their life and others could get on with their lives 
if the criminal were just forgotten and went into the anonymity of a maximum 
security prison.

The death penalty lowers and brutalizes us as a culture.

(source: Opinion; Scott Cracraft, The Laconia Daily Sun)








PENNSYLVANIA:

DA to seek death penalty against inmate charged with killing Pa. prison guard



Somerset County District Attorney Lisa Lazzari-Strasiser announced Monday that 
her office will seek the death penalty against a state prison inmate accused of 
beating and kicking an SCI-Somerset corrections officer to death.

Paul Jawon Kendrick, 23, was formally arraigned Monday morning on charges of 
murder, criminal homicide, aggravated assault, assault by a life prisoner and 
simple assault in connection with the February attack that killed Sgt. Mark J. 
Baserman, 60.

During a press conference held on Monday afternoon at the Somerset County 
Courthouse, Lazzari-Strasiser listed several aggravating circumstances that she 
said made Kendrick's alleged crime worthy of capital punishment.

Those factors, she said, include the fact that Baserman was a corrections 
officer performing his duties at the time of the attack; that Kendrick 
committed the homicide while in the process of committing another felony, 
aggravated assault; that Kendrick was serving a life sentence at the time of 
the attack; and that Kendrick had committed a previous murder.

"For those reasons, we have filed notice and intend to proceed, at least at 
this point, as if Mr. Kendrick, if convicted of 1st-degree murder, could then 
face the death penalty," she said.

Baserman was sitting at a desk in a housing unit's day room at around 7 p.m. 
Feb. 15 when Kendrick approached him and struck him in the face, knocking him 
to the floor, according to a statement issued by the Department of Corrections 
at the time of Baserman's death.

Kendrick, who is serving a life sentence for a 2014 Pittsburgh murder, then 
continued the attack, punching Baserman 8 to 10 times in the head, according to 
an affidavit filed just after the incident by Pennsylvania State Police Trooper 
Jordan Shaulis.

When a 2nd corrections officer tried to intervene, Kendrick allegedly struck 
him in the face several times, knocking him briefly unconscious.

Kendrick then turned his attention back to Baserman, walking over and kicking 
him in the head, Shaulis wrote. The kick reportedly rendered Baserman 
"completely unresponsive."

Baserman died of his injuries on Feb. 26, more than a week after the attack, at 
Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center in Johnstown. An autopsy revealed that the 
cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head and brain, Cambria County 
Coroner Jeffrey Lees said at the time.

Kendrick allegedly attacked Baserman because Baserman had earlier that day 
confiscated a towel that Kendrick had hung to block others' views of his bunk, 
according to Shaulis' affidavit.

Gov. Tom Wolf imposed a moratorium on the death penalty in Pennsylvania shortly 
after he took office in 2015, calling the capital punishment system 
"ineffective, unjust, and expensive" and expressing concerns about the fact 
that some death row inmates have been proven innocent. He said that the 
moratorium would remain in effect until a state commission could produce a 
study of the effectiveness of capital punishment in Pennsylvania.

Still, Lazzari-Strasiser said, "that doesn't mean that it's not the law in 
Pennsylvania."

Lazzari-Strasiser, who spent 18 years as a public defender before she was 
elected Somerset County's top prosecutor in 2011, indicated that she did not 
make the decision to seek the death penalty lightly.

"I understood the consequences of the system when it failed in addressing 
whether or not a person convicted of 1st-degree murder, then subjected to the 
death penalty, was actually the person who committed the crime," she said.

"That is certainly not the case here. There's no question Mr. Kendrick is the 
perpetrator."

Surveillance cameras captured footage of the assault, according to state 
police.

"Based on the circumstances of this case - and certainly not to insert my own 
personal opinion on the death penalty as it stands in Pennsylvania - this case, 
in my opinion, based on the facts, is an example of what the statute intended 
to address," Lazzari-Strasiser said.

Kendrick, she added, was "already convicted of taking another person's life and 
committed to a facility for life," while "the victim is a person who did 
service to the Commonwealth as a corrections officer."

Kendrick was sentenced in 2015 to life in prison after being convicted of 
1st-degree murder in the Aug. 1, 2014, shooting death of 21-year-old Maurice 
Freeman at a basketball court in Pittsburgh's Northview Heights neighborhood.

"Mr. Freeman was asked by a group of men, including Kendrick, where he was 
from, and Mr. Freeman replied that he was from Arlington. Someone in Kendrick's 
group responded that if he wasn't from Northview he would die," the Pittsburgh 
Post-Gazette reported when Kendrick was sentenced.

"As Mr. Freeman left the basketball court to buy cigarettes, witnesses said 
Kendrick and the others followed him and shot him."

Online records indicate that Kendrick is currently confined at SCI-Huntingdon 
in Huntingdon County. He is currently being represented by public defender 
Michael Kuhn.

(source: The Tribune-Democrat)








FLORIDA:

Difficult Positions: The Death Penalty and Nikolas Cruz



Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "The ultimate measure of a man is not where 
he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times 
of challenge and controversy."

I've been thinking about that quote a lot lately, and about the importance of 
holding positions that are particularly difficult. I live not 30 minutes from 
Parkland, Florida, where Nikolas Cruz murdered 17 people at Marjorie Stoneman 
Douglas High School on Valentines Day. Cruz left 17 others wounded and 
devastated not just the school but the entire community.

Despite the horrors that Cruz levied, I still do not want to see him executed. 
I universally oppose the death penalty. That is not a particularly easy 
position to hold right now, in this case, but I believe it is the right one. It 
is for me, at least.

I oppose the death penalty for many reasons, but will highlight just a few 
here, briefly.

1st, as much as people want to believe, no credible studies show it to be a 
deterrent.

2nd, it costs far more than does incarcerating someone for life without parole, 
money that could be better used to help victims and to support violence 
prevention programs.

3rd, it is rife with racial bias. The Death Penalty Information Center reports 
that 297 black defendants have been executed for killing a white victim while 
only 31 white murderers have been executed for killing black individuals (and 
black defendants are wrongfully convictedat a rate seven times that of white 
defendants).

4th, it is arbitrary, with death sentences varying wildly from county to 
county.

5th, we get it wrong way too often and no one can fix a wrongful execution. 162 
people have been exonerated from death row since 1973. Florida has exonerated 
27 individuals.

6th, a vast majority of the people on death row have significant mental issues, 
and a 2014 poll showed that Americans oppose executing the mentally ill more 
than 2 to 1.

But, perhaps most importantly, I reject the death penalty because it is morally 
repugnant. The state should simply not have the right to kill if we want to 
teach people that killing is wrong.

In the case of Cruz, his attorneys have offered that he would plead guilty and 
accept multiple life sentences with no chance of parole in exchange for 
dropping the capital charges. This would ensure he cannot commit any other 
offenses, save taxpayer dollars, and it would spare the families of victims a 
long wait for a lengthy and difficult trial, followed by many years of appeals. 
By some estimates, it could take 10 years for Cruz to face trial and another 20 
of appeals. I don't speak for all the victims or their families, but at least 
some have been on record saying they???d prefer prosecutors to accept Cruz's 
guilty plea so they can move on.

Just like the case of Dylan Roof, who received a death sentence for the murder 
of nine African-American parishioners in South Carolina in 2015, Cruz is 
clearly guilty and there is no racial bias given that he is Caucasian. So, some 
assert the system "works" in these cases. That is far from the truth. Executing 
Cruz furthers a system that is desperately broken and that is, most often, not 
used against people like him. Death row is filled with poor, uneducated men of 
color and individuals who suffer from serious mental issues. Pretending that 2 
supposedly "slam dunk" cases fixes the rot that is the death penalty is no more 
accurate than announcing success for saving one berry in a moldy batch.

Yes, Cruz's actions were horrendous. Yes, the community is still grieving. 
Adding one more body to the list of fatalities can hardly help, though.

(source: Laura Finley teaches in the Barry University Department of Sociology & 
Criminology and is syndicated by PeaceVoice----Bainbridge Island Review)

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

Death penalty case ends with 42 years' prison for West Palm Beach man



A 42-year prison plea deal ended Monday what would have been a death penalty 
trial for a 49-year-old man who stabbed his estranged girlfriend to death and 
left the woman's body for her 9-year-old daughter to find after she returned 
from playing outside their West Palm Beach apartment.

Louis Crawford accepted the plea deal for 42 years and 6 months behind bars on 
what was supposed to be the 1st day of jury selection in his trial, where 
prosecutors would have asked jurors to give him the death penalty if they 
convicted him as charged of 1st degree murder.

Instead, he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of second degree murder as part 
of an agreement between Assistant State Attorney Aleathea McRoberts and his 
attorneys, Edward Reagan and Robert Gershman. Circuit Judge John Kastrenakes 
accepted Crawford's plea and also granted a defense request to send him to the 
Blackwater River Correctional Institution in Florida's panhandle.

The deal comes more than 5 years after the death of Shandreka Wilkerson, 36, 
who 2 days before her death had talked to police about getting a restraining 
order against Crawford after he threatened her on Facebook. She and her 
daughter had moved into an apartment on 20th Street hoping to escape Crawford, 
who Wilkerson said had become increasingly violent with her when they lived 
together.

On the day she died, Wilkerson called police and told them that someone in the 
apartment leasing office had unwittingly given Crawford her address when he 
called posing as someone from the Urban League of Palm Beach County.

According otarrest reports, Wilkerson also warned her daughter to be careful 
that morning when she went to play outside, because Crawford, who they called 
"Justin," may have found them. When the girl returned home, police said, she 
found her mother bleeding from multiple stab wounds to her chest and also saw 
Crawford running away.

Crawford, who told police he stabbed Wilkerson in the kitchen after they 
argued, had been set to stand trial at least 2 previous times this year, but 
the case was postponed both times.

The last time his trial was set to begin, jail deputies had to take him to the 
hospital after he complained of chest pains. Days earlier, he had rejected a 
plea offer of 45 years in prison.

(source: Palm Beach Post)

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Fewer attorneys practicing death penalty cases in Orange and Osceola counties



The number of death penalty-qualified defense attorneys in Orange and Osceola 
counties is the smallest it has ever been at a time when an influx of cases is 
returning to courthouses because of a U.S. Supreme Court decision.

(source: Orlando Sentinel)








ALABAMA:

Court of Criminal Appeals Upholds Death Sentence for Man Convicted of Murdering 
Montgomery Police Officer



Attorney General Steve Marshall announced the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals 
has upheld the capital murder conviction and death sentence of Mario Dion 
Woodward for the murder of Montgomery Police Officer Keith Houts in 2006. 
Woodward was convicted in Montgomery County Circuit Court in 2008.

"This case is a tragic reminder of the debt we owe to law enforcement officers 
who put their lives on the line every day," said Attorney General Marshall. 
"Officer Houts was carrying out his routine duties and during the course of a 
simple traffic stop, he was viciously murdered. Even after the killer's 1st 
shot cut down his victim, he proceeded to shoot the fallen officer 4 more 
times. The death penalty is a fitting punishment for Mario Woodward's evil 
actions."

Evidence was presented at trial regarding the crime. During his patrol in north 
Montgomery on September 28, 2006, Officer Houts conducted a traffic stop at 
about 12:30 p.m. He entered the license tag of a gray Impala vehicle into a 
mobile data terminal, and a video camera in his patrol car recorded the events 
that followed. Officer Houts walked toward the car and when he got there, 
Woodward shot him in the jaw, with the bullet entering his neck and severing 
his spine so that he instantly collapsed. Still, Woodward shot Officer Houts 4 
more times before fleeing the scene and eventually, the state.

The Impala was registered to the father of Woodward's girlfriend, and the 
evidence at trial showed that Woodward had been using her car, that he had the 
keys, and that he and the car were gone the morning of the shooting. After the 
shooting, Woodward asked his girlfriend and a friend of hers to take him to 
Birmingham. As the 3 were traveling together to Birmingham, Woodward told them 
he had messed up and shot a police officer who had pulled him over. He made a 
cell phone call telling someone to get rid of the girlfriend's Impala, and 
threw something from the vehicle they were riding in, which the friend 
identified as a gun. In Birmingham, Woodward met up with another friend and 
continued his flight from the state, destroying evidence and confessing to one 
other person along the way.

In the meantime, an investigation by Montgomery police determined that Woodward 
had confessed to witnesses that he had shot the officer, and that he had gone 
to Atlanta. A deputy federal marshal saw Woodward at a gas station in Atlanta, 
and when he arrested Woodward, Woodward said, "What's going on? I didn't shoot 
anybody." Records from cell phone towers verified calls placed from Woodward's 
cell phone at various locations, including that he was in north Montgomery at 
the time and area where Officer Houts was murdered.

The case was prosecuted at trial by the Montgomery County District Attorney's 
Office in 2008, and Woodward was convicted of murder made capital because he 
had killed an on-duty law enforcement officer and because the murder was done 
by shooting from inside a vehicle. After Woodward's conviction and sentence 
were upheld on appeal, Woodward raised new claims in state court. He primarily 
argued that his attorneys were ineffective for failing to present certain 
evidence during the guilt and penalty phases of his trial. The Attorney 
General's Capital Litigation Division handled Woodward's case in the Circuit 
Court of Montgomery County and during the appeals process, establishing that 
Woodward received effective counsel and a fair trial. The Circuit Court 
rejected Woodward's claims and the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals agreed, 
affirming the Montgomery County Circuit Court's decision on Friday, April 27.

Attorney General Marshall commended Assistant Attorney Rich Anderson of the 
Attorney General's Capital Litigation Division for his successful work in this 
case.

(source: alabamanews.net)