[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, GA., MISS., ILL., NEB., NEV., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 4



TEXAS:

Former Missouri City cop on death row denied federal appeal



Robert Fratta is a death row inmate who was convicted in the murder-for-hire 
slaying of his wife.

A former Missouri City police officer now on Texas death row lost out on a 
federal appeal Tuesday, bringing him 1 step closer to the death chamber.

Robert Fratta was sentenced to death by a Harris County court in 1996 after 
jurors found him guilty of hiring someone to murder his wife Farah Fratta. The 
hitman, Joseph Prystash, paid a 3rd man to carry out the killing, according to 
court records. All 3 ended up on death row.

Fratta has repeatedly professed his innocence in the slaying over the more than 
2 decades he's spent fighting the case.

(source: Houston Chronicle)

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

In 'Death Row,' Michelle Lyons Recalls 280 Executions - And a Life Marred by 
Trauma----Michelle Lyons' memoir tells the story of a traumatic life spent 
witnessing hundreds of people being executed in Texas' most infamous prison.



"What I remember most is the nothingness," Michelle Lyons writes in her new 
book, Death Row. "I can't remember his name, his crime or what Texas county he 
fell from, but the contours of his face are etched on my mind, as if he was 
executed yesterday."

As first a reporter and then a public information officer for the Texas 
Department of Criminal Justice, Lyons attended every execution - more than 280 
- carried out at the Huntsville, Texas penitentiary over 12 years. Her book, 
which was released in the U.K. on May 3 by Blink Publishing, is a portrait of 
what it's like to be surrounded by death in your life - to fill your days with 
irreverent, gallows-humor while you watch death-row inmates executed as a 
matter of routine.

"At first I was worried something was wrong with me, because I felt nothing," 
Lyons told The Daily Beast. "I was worried that was a statement about who I 
was. It is such a sterile environment. It is such a clinical experience. In the 
state of Texas, it goes like clockwork."

"I was so good, like journalists often are, at putting my feelings aside," said 
Lyons, her voice catching in her throat. "But over time, there is a cumulative 
effect. After a while, you hear inmates families' crying or see the anxiousness 
of the victims' families. I ended up feeling pulled in so many directions."

At first, she kept a journal.

"Earl Carl Heiselbetz Jr., 48, was the 1st person to be executed in the new 
millennium, and the 200th in Texas since Dec. 1982, when executions resumed," 
she wrote in a January 2000 entry. "You could hear him making these 
uncomfortable breathing noises, the same kinds I think I would make if it were 
me strapped to the gurney."

His last words were: "Love y'all - see you on the other side."

Lyons hopes her book illustrates the complexity of the death penalty, she told 
The Daily Beast. When she began working for the prison system, she was 
staunchly pro-capital punishment, but that opinion didn't hold for long.

"It's not that black and white," she said over the phone. "These are real 
people who are being executed."

"'In secret, I cry more than any of them would think. I have a pocket of inner 
darkness that sometimes consumes me and makes me want to shut out the world.'" 
- Michelle Lyons

Over the years, Lyons saw countless inmates' mothers plead and scream and pray 
and faint. She watched men die after killing children, after killing neighbors, 
after killing strangers. Robert Coulson, Gary Graham, William Kendrick Burns, 
James Edward Clayton, John Satterwhite, and Hilton Crawford all died in front 
of her eyes. Some men were still wearing their glasses when they stopped 
breathing. Some were apologetic. Some were stoic. Some were angry.

Cameron Todd Willingham - who was convicted of murdering his 3 daughters in a 
house fire - used his last breath in 2004 to lavish profanities on his ex-wife: 
"I hope you rot in hell, bitch. I hope you fucking rot in hell, bitch. You 
bitch. I hope you fucking rot, cunt. That's it."

David Martinez, who raped and murdered a student in Austin, said at his 
execution: "Only the sky and the green grass goes on forever, and today is a 
good day to die."

Napoleon Beazley was 25 years old when he was executed in 2001. A few weeks 
before his death - and 7 years after he'd murdered John Luttig - he told Lyons 
that death row "is like a cancer."

"It eats away at you piece by piece, and then you get to a point where you 
don't care if you live or die," he said.

In her book, Lyons describes Beazley as "the poster child for juvenile 
executions," since he was 17 years old when he committed the crime. There was 
considerable media coverage surrounding his controversial death.

"It was a heinous crime. His victims were in their home, where they thought 
they'd be safe," Lyons wrote. But she bonded with Beazley in his time on death 
row - and she truly believed he was a changed person. "Not only did I get the 
sense that he wouldn't have been in any more trouble, I thought he would have 
been a productive member of society, were he given a 2nd chance. He could have 
done great things."

In his final written statement, Beazley said, "The person that committed that 
act is no longer here - I am... I'm sorry that John Luttig died. And I'm sorry 
that it was something in me that caused all of this to happen to begin with."

"Tonight, we tell the world that there are no 2nd chances in the eyes of 
justice," he continued. "No one wins tonight. No one gets closure. No one walks 
away victorious."

After watching Beazley die, Lyons wept the whole way home.

"I'd gotten too close," she writes in her book.

Lyons refused to cry in front of anyone else, even if she was affected. Soon, 
she stopped taking such meticulous personal notes in her journal - about the 
executions and her carefully hidden feelings. It was too hard, she said.

"If I had started exploring how the executions made me feel while I was seeing 
them, or gave too much thought to all the emotions that were in play, how would 
I have been able to go back into that room, month after month, year after 
year?" Lyons writes. "It was the numbness that preserved me and kept me going."

While Death Row is a deeply sad memoir of perseverance in the face of routine 
tragedy, the traumatic is sometimes buried in the banal - and vice versa. In 
the days and hours before executions, inmates are checked by guards every 15 
minutes, and their activities are documented, Lyons writes.

"It would be trivial things, like 'inmate sleeping,' 'inmate reading' or 
'inmate sitting on bunk,'" she says. "There were other things we'd leave off, 
because nobody wanted to know that an inmate had spent his final hours on earth 
furiously masturbating."

For years, Lyons had even confused which execution was the last one she 
witnessed.

"It tells you how shattered I was, that the memories weren't even going in, 
never mind disappearing," she wrote.

Before the hundreds of men (and a few women) she saw executed, Lyons simply 
wanted to be a reporter. She grew up in Galveston, where her father worked at 
the Galveston County Daily News. She went to bed with a view of the beach 
outside her window. She spent summers wearing flip-flops and working at tacky 
souvenir shops.

Even on the phone - while discussing years of trauma and death - Lyons radiates 
an ebullient persona born of that carefree environment. She's known by family 
and friends for a glowing optimism. But there's a crisp juxtaposition between 
her eager voice and the book's dark contents.

"In secret, I cry more than any of them would think. I have a pocket of inner 
darkness that sometimes consumes me and makes me want to shut out the world," 
she admits in the book. "I didn't want anybody to feel sorry for me, which is 
why I didn't even tell my husband when I cried all the way home after an 
execution."

Lyons began her journalism career as an obituary writer at The Bryan-College 
Station Eagle. She later moved to Huntsville, about 70 miles north of Houston, 
where she worked at The Huntsville Item. The Texas Department of Criminal 
Justice has its headquarters in Huntsville, where 5 prisons are located within 
the city limits. 4 others sit just minutes outside of town. Kate Winslet, who 
filmed The Life of David Gale in Huntsville, once called the city "1 giant 
prison" with a "pervasive sense of death."

Lyons was 22 years old when she saw her 1st execution, filling in for an absent 
coworker. She watched 41-year-old Javier Cruz put to death in 1998 while he 
repeated "I'm okay, I'm okay," to his family. He waived his right to make a 
last statement. Cruz was the 15th person executed that year. Soon afterward, 
Lyons left the Item to work for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in 
2001 and became the director of public information for 110 prisons across the 
state. She stayed there until 2012.

"I still live in Huntsville; I'm still surrounded by prisons," Lyons told The 
Daily Beast this week. "But it's a lovely community, and I have made it my 
home."

After meeting ex-Texas Monthly (and current New York Times Magazine) writer 
Pamela Colloff, Lyons began recounting the scenes that had haunted her for 
years - but that she had never processed.

She remembered everything: "The conversations she had shared with particular 
inmates in the hours before they were strapped to the gurney; of the mothers, 
dressed in their Sunday best, who had turned out to attend their sons' 
executions; of the victims' families, their faces hardened with grief; of the 
sudden stillness that came over the prisoners soon after the lethal drugs 
entered their bloodstreams," Colloff wrote, in her National Magazine 
Award-nominated piece "The Witness."

Lyons thought being away from the job would make it easier, but "it's been 
quite the opposite."

"I think about it all the time," she writes in her book. "Now that I'm gone, 
it's like I've taken the lid off Pandora's Box and I can't put it back on."

Even now, in her personal life, Lyons describes a hypervigilance common among 
those who've been exposed to prolonged trauma. It's all tinged with a genuine, 
bubbly, reporterly matter-of-factness.

"I'm not afraid to go anywhere, but I'm constantly looking behind me and 
locking doors," she writes. "When I arrive at a parking lot, you won't see me 
digging around in my bag for my car keys; they will already be in my hand."

In the end, she doesn't regret her career choice, she says, citing a famous 
unattributed quote:

"People always ask me, 'Why do you always take the hard road?' And I replied, 
'Why do you assume I see more than 1 road?'"

(source: thedailybeast.com)








GEORGIA----stay of execution lifted----impending execution

Murdered Georgia man's father thanks God inmate's execution is back on----Stay 
lifted; Robert Earl Butts Jr. set for lethal injection at 7 p.m. Friday



Not long after halting the scheduled execution of Georgia inmate Robert Earl 
Butts Jr., the State Board of Pardons and Paroles lifted its own stay, putting 
the death penalty wheels back in motion.

Butts is now scheduled to die by lethal injection Friday at 7 p.m. Before the 
parole board issued a stay Wednesday night, Butts was expected to get the 
needle Thursday evening for the 1996 murder of off-duty correctional officer 
Donovan Corey Parks.

"Oh Lord," said Freddie Parks, the victim's father. "I'm nervous. I'm really 
happy to hear the good news. I've been going through it 22 years. Nobody knows 
what I've been going through but me and the Lord. And I've been really talking 
to Him."

Just hours earlier, Parks, a 75-year-old retired prison guard, was angry and 
despondent at the same time over the stay of execution. "It wasn't fair the way 
it came out, putting it off. Another blow," he said at the time.

When the board issued its 90-day stay Wednesday night, its spokesman said the 
5-member panel needed time to review the "considerable amount of additional 
information" it received in a meeting with Butts' attorneys, as well as in a 
subsequent session with those who wanted to see the execution carried out.

"Knowing the gravity of its decisions, the board extended deliberations in 
order to consider supplemental information submitted during the meeting that 
members had not previously reviewed," spokesman Steve Hayes said. "Completing 
that process, the board voted to deny clemency."

While the parole board has the sole constitutional authority to grant clemency, 
the courts have the ultimate power to decide whether to spare an inmate's life. 
So Butts' attorneys continued to file appeals on Thursday.

If Butts, 40, is executed, he will be the 2nd man Georgia has put to death this 
year.

Meanwhile, Butts' criminal accomplice, Marion "Murdock" Wilson, is challenging 
his own death sentence in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The day after 
Butts' execution warrant was signed on April 16, the U.S. Supreme Court sent 
Wilson's case back to the federal appeals court in Atlanta with instructions 
that the judges take another look at it.

The Butts stay was only the 5th that this parole board has issued. 3 inmates 
whose punishments were postponed were eventually executed, while the board last 
year commuted Daniel Greene's death sentence to life without parole for 
murdering a former classmate in Taylor County in 1991.

According to testimony, Butts, 18 at the time, and Wilson were at a 
Milledgeville Walmart the evening of March 28, 1996, "shopping" for a victim, 
when they crossed paths with Parks, who had just left Bible study and was at 
the store to pick up cat food, soap and cocoa. Butts knew Parks because they 
both had worked at a local Burger King.

Butts asked Parks for a ride.

Witnesses said they saw Butts, wearing a black Colorado Rockies jacket, get in 
the front seat of the 1992 Acura and Wilson slide into the back.

According to testimony, 16 minutes later on Felton Road, Parks was shot in the 
back of the head with a sawed-off shotgun. District Attorney Stephen Bradley 
said authorities don't know who actually pulled the trigger, but said both men 
are murderers as parties to a crime.

Leaving Parks face-down in his own blood, Butts and Wilson drove off in the 
Acura, headed to Atlanta in hopes of selling the car for parts. When that plan 
failed, the 2 returned to Middle Georgia, where they set fire to the car behind 
a Macon Huddle House and called Butts' uncle for a ride back to Milledgeville.

Both were arrested 4 days later.

Baldwin County Sheriff's Office investigators found the sawed-off Mossberg 500 
12-gauge shotgun under the mattress of Wilson's bed. At Butts' house, where he 
lived with his mother, investigators found "nomenclature" for the FOLK Nation 
gang on his bedroom walls and the FOLK "book of knowledge," said Putnam County 
Sheriff Howard Sills, who was chief deputy in Baldwin County when Parks was 
killed.

Butts' lawyers, in their clemency petition and in a subsequent letter to the 
parole board, argue that Butts did not kill Parks. They say Wilson did.

"I know he did it," Freddie Parks said about suggestions that Butts is 
innocent. And Freddie Parks said he will witness the lethal injection of his 
son's killer.

Several years ago, Butts wrote to him, Freddie Parks said. He didn't open the 
letter. "I burned it up," he said.

(source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

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

Georgia inmate's request for clemency denied; execution rescheduled----The 
State Board of Pardons and Paroles has issued a stay of up to 90 days for 
Robert Earl Butts Jr. in order to continue consideration of the case.

A Georgia inmate on death row has had his request for clemency has been denied.

Robert Earl Butts Jr. had been sentenced to die back in November 1998 in 
Baldwin County for the 1996 murder of Donovan Corey Parks.

Butts was scheduled to die Thursday, May 3 at the state prison in Jackson, but 
the board held a clemency hearing Wednesday to hear arguments about commuting 
his sentence. That's where they issued a a stay of up to 90 days for in order 
to continue consideration of the case.

However, on Thursday, they denied Butt's request for clemency and his death 
sentence be commuted.

Butt's execution has been rescheduled for 7 p.m. on Friday, May 4 at the 
Jackson State Prison.

There have been 70 men and 1 woman executed in Georgia since the U.S. Supreme 
Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

If Butt's is executed, he will be the 49th inmate put to death by lethal 
injection.

(source: 11alive.com)








MISSISSIPPI:

Judge: Distant Jury Likely for 8 Killings in Mississippi----A judge says jurors 
will probably have to be chosen from another part of the state for the trial of 
a man charged with killing 8 people in south Mississippi.



A judge says jurors will probably have to be chosen from another part of the 
state for the trial of a man charged with killing 8 people in south 
Mississippi.

Willie Cory Godbolt appeared Thursday before Lincoln County Circuit Judge David 
Strong in a hearing to update the status of the case, the Clarion Ledger 
reported.

"Candidly, my thought is that there is no way that a jury can be selected 
anywhere south of Jackson," Strong said.

The judge also said the jury will more than likely have to be chosen from 
somewhere that does not receive coverage from Jackson news outlets. Brookhaven 
is about 70 miles (110 kilometers) south of Jackson.

No trial date has been set.

Godbolt has been jailed without bond since his May 28 arrest, hours after the 
killings in and around Brookhaven.

Deputy William Durr responded to a disturbance late May 27 at the home of 
Godbolt's in-laws. The 36-year-old deputy was killed there, as were Godbolt's 
mother-in-law, Barbara Mitchell, 55; Mitchell's sister, Brenda May, 53; and 
May's daughter, Tocarra May, 35.

2 cousins - 11-year-old Austin Edwards and 18-year-old Jordan Blackwell - were 
killed at a 2nd home. A husband and wife, Ferral Burage, 45, and Shelia Burage, 
46, were killed at a 3rd home.

Authorities are awaiting reports on four autopsies.

Godbolt was indicted in March on four counts of capital murder, four counts of 
murder, one count of attempted murder, two counts of kidnapping and one count 
of armed robbery. Days after the indictments, he pleaded not guilty to all 
counts. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty on the four counts of capital 
murder.

Godbolt's new attorney, Alison Steiner of the State Public Defender's office, 
asked the judge Thursday to let Godbolt wear civilian clothes during court 
hearings, which she said are likely to receive widespread media coverage. 
Strong said he would leave Godbolt's attire up to the sheriff.

(source: Associated Press)








ILLINOIS:

>From death row to Sycamore: Rolando Cruz speaks out on life after exoneration



Rolando Cruz was twice sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit, 
giving away more than 10 years of his life on death row. He's still giving. In 
fact, it's a common thread in his life. Cruz, 54, grew up in Aurora, and served 
more than 12 years behind bars - 12 years, 3 months, 3 days and an hour and a 
half, he'll tell you - after he was first taken into custody. He was twice 
wrongfully convicted of the 1983 rape and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine 
Nicarico, who was abducted from her Naperville home while she was home sick 
from school. Before he was imprisoned at age 20, he wanted to be a fender and 
body man, like his dad.

"My thing wasn't money," he said. "I can still work, and I'm blessed." Cruz has 
lived in Sycamore since September 2014 with his wife, Telma. He received 
millions in a wrongful conviction settlement, but his family lives in a modest 
home where he works to help both victims and defendants in criminal cases as a 
volunteer legal counselor through his business, In Pursuit of Justice.

His feelings about the death penalty aren't what you might expect from someone 
whose personal story was one of the key reasons cited by former Gov. George 
Ryan when he halted executions in Illinois. With 4 of his 10 children still 18 
or younger, he was drawn to Sycamore because of the school district. Cruz says 
he likes living in a small, quiet town. He throws numerous parties for 
children, most notably after the school year wraps up. He works full-time at 
Target Distribution Center in DeKalb, where he racks up a lot of overtime, he 
said - like it or not. "I've never wanted money," he said. "I gave away most of 
my money."

He's still giving. In fact, it's a common thread in his life.

Cruz, 54, grew up in Aurora, and served more than 12 years behind bars - 12 
years, three months, 3 days and an hour and a half, he'll tell you - after he 
was first taken into custody.

He was twice wrongfully convicted of the 1983 rape and murder of 10-year-old 
Jeanine Nicarico, who was abducted from her Naperville home while she was home 
sick from school.

Before he was imprisoned at age 20, he wanted to be a fender and body man, like 
his dad.

"My thing wasn't money," he said. "I can still work, and I'm blessed."

Cruz has lived in Sycamore since September 2014 with his wife, Telma.

He received millions in a wrongful conviction settlement, but his family lives 
in a modest home where he works to help both victims and defendants in criminal 
cases as a volunteer legal counselor through his business, In Pursuit of 
Justice.

His feelings about the death penalty aren't what you might expect from someone 
whose personal story was one of the key reasons cited by former Gov. George 
Ryan when he halted executions in Illinois.

With four of his 10 children still 18 or younger, he was drawn to Sycamore 
because of the school district. Cruz says he likes living in a small, quiet 
town.

He throws numerous parties for children, most notably after the school year 
wraps up. He works full-time at Target Distribution Center in DeKalb, where he 
racks up a lot of overtime, he said - like it or not.

"I've never wanted money," he said. "I gave away most of my money."

In Pursuit of Justice

Cruz's conviction resulted from his telling police a fabricated story in hopes 
of collecting a $10,000 reward for information leading to Nicarico's killer. He 
and 2 other men, Alejandro Hernandez and Stephen Buckley would be implicated in 
the crime. Hernandez also would be sentenced to death.

Brian Dugan would eventually confess to the crime, saying he acted alone, which 
led to Cruz's 1st conviction being overturned. But Dugan's confession was not 
admissible as evidence in Cruz's later trials. Cruz was later convicted and 
sentenced to death a 2nd time.

Cruz was finally freed from prison in November 1995, after he was acquitted in 
a 3rd trial. After his release, Cruz said he was essentially on tour with 
politicians for years.

"I guess that's what you'd call it," he said. "I felt like I was entertainment 
for people to come see, like going to the zoo. That brought me back to feeling 
like I was on death row."

Cruz spent a lot of time in Springfield and helping with the push for an 
elimination of the death penalty, which began with Ryan's decision to place a 
moratorium on executions in January 2000. Ryan eventually pardoned Cruz, and 
later commuted the sentences of all Illinois death row inmates to life in 
prison before he left office in 2003.

In addition to working with death-penalty foes, Cruz also served as a youth 
advocate for the Jane Addams Hull House Association.

(source: The Daily Chronicle)








NEBRASKA:

Nebraska AG sues to stop legislative committee from questioning prisons 
director



Nebraska's prisons director doesn't want to talk publicly about his 
department's lethal injection protocol - how he developed it or where he got 
the drugs to carry out the death penalty intended, so far, for 2 condemned 
prisoners.

Department of Correctional Services Director Scott Frakes is fighting lawsuits 
aimed at making him reveal what he knows. And now, he's filed one of his own 
against a legislative committee trying to force him to answer questions.

Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson and the Corrections director are suing 
state senators on the Judiciary Committee and Executive Board over a subpoena 
issued to Frakes.

The subpoena, dated April 24 and signed by Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Laura 
Ebke and Clerk of the the Legislature Patrick O'Donnell, would require Frakes 
to testify before the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday about the preparation, 
adoption and application of the department's lethal injection protocol, and its 
constitutionality.

Ebke had requested Frakes come to the hearing, but he told her he did not plan 
to attend, then sent a letter formally turning down the committee's invitation 
on the advice of Department of Correctional Services attorneys.

Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers filed a complaint with the Executive Board in March 
charging that the lethal injection protocol violates federal drug laws and 
constitutional prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment. It also 
violates Nebraska's Administrative Procedure Act, he said.

Peterson argues the subpoena is unlawful and should be rescinded, and the 
defendants should be stopped from requesting such a subpoena in the future. 
They have violated a provision of the Nebraska Constitution, Peterson said.

The May 8 hearing was not put in place by the body of senators, by state law or 
by a legislative resolution, as Peterson said is required.

The attorney general also claims that when the Executive Board referred 
Chambers' complaint to a legislative committee, it was the wrong committee. It 
should have gone to the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee, 
rather than the Judiciary Committee.

There has been much disagreement in recent years about where Department of 
Corrections-related bills should be sent for hearings and discussion, mostly 
because of the makeup of the committees. The Judiciary Committee is thought to 
have more progressive and moderate members, and the Government Committee a 
majority of more conservative members.

Ebke said in a letter to Frakes that the Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction 
over criminal penalties and sentencing, and specifically state law providing 
for a death sentence.

The Government Committee has jurisdiction over state departments and 
administrative rules and regulations.

The Executive Board voted 5-3 to give subpoena authority to the Judiciary 
Committee.

In 2013, the Legislature put into law the authority for all its committees - 
special and standing - to issue subpoenas. They would have to receive approval 
by a majority vote of the Executive Board to issue a subpoena with regard to a 
specific inquiry or investigation.

The committee could require any state agency, political subdivision or 
individual to provide information relevant to the investigation within 30 days 
of the initial request.

Named in the lawsuit are Ebke and Executive Board Chairman Dan Watermeier; 
O'Donnell; Judiciary Committee members Roy Baker, Matt Hansen, Bob Krist, Adam 
Morfeld, Patty Pansing Brooks, Steve Halloran and Chambers; and Executive Board 
members Kate Bolz, Sue Crawford, Dan Hughes, John Kuehn, Tyson Larson, John 
McCollister and Speaker Jim Scheer.

Peterson added in the lawsuit that Halloran was named only because he was a 
member of the Judiciary Committee, but noted he voted against the subpoena. On 
the Executive Board, Kuehn, Hughes and Scheer voted against the subpoena. 
Larson was absent for the vote.

Ebke, O'Donnell and Watermeier declined to comment on the lawsuit. Chambers 
could not be reached.

The Corrections Department's lethal injection protocol and its refusal to 
identify sources of the drugs it has specified for executions have been targets 
of several pending lawsuits.

The Journal Star and other media outlets have filed suit themselves, seeking to 
force the department to turn over public records on the execution drugs and the 
sources of those drugs. Other pending lawsuits were filed by ACLU of Nebraska, 
death row inmates, and Chambers and the Rev. Stephen Griffith.

(source: Lincoln Journal Star)



NEVADA:

Parents of starved 5-month-old could face death penalty



Hannibal Oceja only weighed 5 pounds at 5-months-old. Investigators say his 
parents starved him.

As the 8 News NOW I-Team learned, the boy starved to death even though his 
parents had a refrigerator full of food.

It doesn't happen often that jurors make outbursts in court. But when the grand 
jury considered charges against 2 Las Vegas parents and saw the photos of the 
child, a juror yelled, "Oh my God."

Reporter Vanessa Murphy: "Have you ever seen anything like that happen?"

Chief Deputy District Attorney Kristina Rhoades: "I have not. No."

The average weight for a 5-month-old boy is closer to 15 pounds. Loreana 
Martinez and Anthony Oceja are now accused of murder.

On Wednesday, Chief Deputy District Attorneys Dave Stanton and Kristina Rhoades 
revealed they are pushing for the death penalty. They point to torture. They 
say, the child died from hunger.

"Everyday leading up to the death, there was pain and suffering," Rhoades said.

On Feb. 25, the mother called 9-1-1 after Hannibal was unresponsive. A doctor 
testified the baby was so dehydrated, it was too difficult to put an IV in his 
vein. The needle had to go directly into his bones instead. But the child could 
not be saved.

Investigators took photos of the messy home, a kitchen with food - both on the 
stove and in the fridge, and 2 other children described as socially delayed.

According to records, a daughter who a pediatrician previously noted as 
emaciated and diagnosed her with failure to thrive. Investigators say a son was 
also malnourished and dehydrated.

It turns out, there were also warning signs about baby Hannibal. Records show 
that during a visit to the pediatrician, Dr. Shazia Kirmani expressed concern 
about his weight and noted the mother was uncooperative with her medical 
recommendations. And after that, Martinez was a no show to three follow-up 
appointments.

It appears Dr. Kirmani, who by law must report suspected child abuse or 
neglect, did not contact Child Protective Services.

2 months after that appointment which another pediatrician testified was a 
"major, major problem, major red flag," baby Hannibal died.

The I-Team reached out to Dr. Kirmani for a statement and received no comment.

Loreana Martinez and Anthony Oceja are charged with murder, child abuse and 
animal cruelty.

Metro police say they found four dogs in their home also in poor health from 
not being fed enough. There were bottles, a breast pump, and food in the house 
for both the family and the pets and no other health issues identified for 
Hannibal so why was the baby boy skin and bones?

"I don't know that we have the answer and I don't know if the criminal trial is 
going to ever answer that, but that is going to be a significant aspect of this 
case," Stanton said.

According to transcripts, Martinez told detectives she suffered from postpartum 
depression after her first child, took medicine for less than a week and 
stopped. It is unclear what role that could play in the case.

"They never opened the door," said neighbor Margie Pena.

She says she didn't see the family much, but she remembers a haunting image of 
the mother pushing baby Hannibal in a stroller and how skinny he was.

"You could see the veins."

Rhoades points to the missed opportunities to help try to protect baby 
Hannibal.

"I mean there was a 5 month period where family members could have seen this 
child and could have intervened and something could have happened."

"This case can and should be a very big learning lesson to the citizens and to 
the government officials of Clark County," Stanton said.

Because Stanton says no child should starve to death.

(source: lasvegasnow.com)








CALIFORNIA:

California could restart executions. These counties are most likely to condemn 
murderers.



California's death row has ballooned to nearly 750 inmates and the state hasn't 
executed a murderer in more than 12 years.

That could change soon.

California voters in 2016 approved Proposition 66, which attempted to remove 
regulatory hurdles to executions. The California Supreme Court upheld much of 
the proposition last year. A judge in April lifted an order blocking the state 
from carrying out death sentences by lethal injection, though some legal 
challenges to resuming executions remain.

The state has executed 13 men since 1978. Condemned men are held at at San 
Quentin State Prison, and the 23 women on death row are held at Central 
California Women's Facility in Chowchilla.

Since the death penalty was reinstated in the late 1970s, California counties 
have condemned murderers to death at widely divergent rates.

The Bee compared the number of murderers on death row to the number of 
homicides in each county between 1985 and 2016. About 90 % of the current 
inmates on death row were sentenced during those years.

Among the 35 largest counties in the state, Kings, Riverside, Shasta and El 
Dorado counties have the highest rates of death row inmates per 1,000 
homicides. The lowest rates were in Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Merced and 
Solano counties.

Counties with low homicide rates tended to have a high rate of murderers on 
death row. Put another way, relatively safe communities tended to send a high 
rate of murderers to death row.

The death penalty is most often supported by political conservatives. Counties 
with a high proportion of Republican voters tended to send a high rate of 
murderers to death row.

The analysis did not find a significant correlation between population size and 
rates of inmates sent to death row - large and small counties condemned inmates 
at similar rates. Nor was there a significant correlation between poverty and 
rates of inmates sent to death row - counties with many or few poor residents 
sent murderers to death row at similar rates.

The Bee's analysis has limitations. It is based on reported homicides, not 
homicide convictions. It is also based on the state's current death row 
population, and does not include the 127 inmates who died (mostly due to 
suicide or natural causes) following their convictions.

(source: sacbee.com)

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

My innocent client spent 25 years on death row. How long will it take to 
realize our system is broken?



What ails our criminal justice system? Defense attorney Dean Strang, made 
famous in the Netflix documentary series "Making a Murderer," says it's a 
"tragic lack of humility" and an "unwarranted certitude on the part of police 
officers and prosecutors and defense lawyers and judges and jurors that they're 
getting it right."

Strang's diagnosis was confirmed in California two weeks ago, when my client 
Vicente Benavides walked out of San Quentin prison, exonerated after 
languishing on death row for more than a quarter-century. This was a victory 
for justice, but no one should take Benavides' release as an indication that 
the system works in California better than anywhere else.

i In 1993, Benavides was sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit: 
sexually assaulting his girlfriend's 21-month-old daughter so violently that 
she died. He always maintained his innocence. He had no prior criminal history, 
no history of violence or sexual deviance. By everyone's account, he had always 
been kind and caring toward the child and others.

Nonetheless, he was convicted based on the testimony of several doctors who 
confidently concluded that the child had been sexually abused. One doctor 
testified that he believed it "without a doubt," claiming that this was the 
worst case of child sexual abuse he had ever seen. Another doctor showed the 
jury how he believed Benavides sodomized the child while she was sitting on his 
lap. A 3rd doctor told the jurors the child had been repeatedly sodomized. 
After viewing the graphic photos of the child's genitalia purportedly showing 
the effects of the abuse, the last holdout juror voted to condemn Benavides to 
death.

Benavides is the 5th death row inmate to be exonerated in California.

When my colleagues and I at the Habeas Corpus Resource Center were appointed to 
represent Benavides in 1999, he already had been on death row for 6 years. We 
began by obtaining every piece of paper related to the child's medical 
treatment during the 8 days she spent at 3 hospitals before she succumbed to 
her injuries. We tracked down the doctors who had testified and showed them the 
complete medical records, which they had not seen before they took the witness 
stand. These records unequivocally showed that the child had no signs of sexual 
abuse when she was admitted to the emergency room of the 1st hospital. The 
records also showed that the injuries observed at the 2nd and 3rd hospital, 
that were in the photographs shown to jurors, likely resulted from medical 
procedures undertaken in the emergency room of the 1st hospital and the child's 
deteriorating medical condition.

The doctors who previously had been so certain about their diagnosis realized 
they had made a grave mistake. They recanted their testimony. The prosecution's 
star witness, a child abuse pediatrician, proclaimed that the case was a 
"tremendous failing of the criminal justice system."

In March, the California Supreme Court unanimously reversed Benavides' 
conviction, finding that the false evidence presented at his trial was 
"extensive, pervasive and impactful." At oral argument, Justice Carol A. 
Corrigan, who is a former prosecutor, said the case was among the most 
"hair-raising false evidence" cases she had ever encountered. On April 19, 
prosecutors dismissed all charges and Benavides was released.

Benavides, 42 at the time of his conviction, is now 68. He can never regain the 
years he lost.

If Proposition 66 had been in place during his appeal, Benavides may well have 
been executed rather than exonerated. That law, which accelerates the death 
penalty review process and lowers the qualifications for defense attorneys, was 
passed by 51% of California voters in November 2016.

It took us almost two decades of unrelenting effort to overcome the 
"unwarranted certitude" of the police, the prosecutors and the medical experts 
in Benavides' case. The state attorney general did not admit the conviction was 
based on false evidence until 2015, even though we had presented proof that the 
testimony was false over a decade earlier.

Without providing sufficient time to adequately investigate capital cases, as 
well as additional resources to defense attorneys and the courts, Proposition 
66 will not fix California's dysfunctional death penalty system. According to 
the bipartisan California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, 
there are only 2 possible solutions: Provide almost $100 million more in 
funding a year to ensure that the system is fair, or eliminate the death 
penalty.

In 2012, Gov. Jerry Brown blithely dismissed the possibility that innocent 
people have been sentenced to death in California. He said, "I know people say, 
'Oh, there have been all these innocent people.' Well, I have not seen one name 
on death row that's been told to me."

He has been told one now. Benavides is, in fact, the 5th death row inmate to be 
exonerated in California.

Brown and the California Supreme Court should commute all death row sentences 
before the governor's term ends in January. They can no longer share in the 
unwarranted certitude that the criminal justice system is infallible.

(source: Op-Ed; Cristina Borde is a former Habeas Corpus Resource Center 
attorney for Vicente Benavides. She currently is the director of the Wisconsin 
Latino Exoneration Program at the Wisconsin Innocence Project----Los Angeles 
Times)








USA:

The Death Penalty in the United States, Explained----Capital punishment is on 
the decline, but that could change under the Trump administration.



After the 19-year-old Parkland shooter was formally indicted, the state 
attorney for Broward County, Michael J. Satz, announced on March 13 that he 
would seek the death penalty for the gunman. In a statement shared by The New 
York Times, Satz declared the attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High as being 
"...the type of case the death penalty was designed for."

Several days later (March 19), President Donald Trump announced, a new plan to 
combat the nation's ongoing opioid epidemic. While the plan contained several 
controversial components, it was Trump's goal to put high-volume drug dealers 
to death, which has resulted in the most public attention. "If we don't get 
tough on the drug dealers, we are wasting our time... And that toughness 
includes the death penalty," Trump said in comments recounted by NBC News.

Capital punishment is discussed regularly in the news: From Nebraska to Ohio, 
states are dealing with high-profile death penalty cases that are challenging 
the constitutionality of what the ACLU has deemed a "intolerable denial of 
civil liberties. With the death penalty now experiencing a broad resurgence in 
the public news consciousness, it's important to understand the origins and 
evolution of capital punishment in the United States."

The death penalty predates the birth of the United States itself.

It was an import brought over from Britain, with the first record of a 
government-sanctioned execution in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1608, when Captain 
George Kendall was tried for allegedly betraying Britain to Spain and met an 
untimely end by firing squad. (However, historians have questioned whether he 
was even guilty of the crimes for which he was accused and put to death).

The modern understanding of capital punishment can perhaps be traced to 1972, 
when the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in the criminal case Furman v. Georgia. The 
ruling declared "capital punishment, as it is currently employed on the state 
and federal level, as unconstitutional" and ultimately, in violation of the 
Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusal punishment. While the ruling 
resulted in a de facto 4-year nationwide ban on capital punishment, the terms 
of the ruling also suggested that states draft their own standardized laws to 
approach the death penalty in the future so it would not be administered in a 
discriminatory way. In the following years, 37 states would eventually follow 
that directive.

Today, it's on the decline, but that could change.

As of 2017, the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) reports that 
capital punishment is currently authorized in 31 states and that states like 
New Mexico (2009), Illinois (2011), Connecticut (2012), and Maryland (2013) 
have opted to abolish capital punishment in listed years, choosing to replace 
the practice with "life imprisonment with no possibility for parole." But for 
the states that continue to practice capital punishment, most choose to utilize 
lethal injection in the form of a 3-drug cocktail as their primary method of 
execution.

But this often-used form of execution hasn't been without controversy, either, 
as many pharmaceutical companies are no longer producing the drugs needed for 
the cocktail for fear of them being used in an execution - a point reiterated 
in The Council of State Governments newsletter. 15 states - including Alabama, 
Florida, Missouri, South Carolina, Virginia, and Washington - have secondary 
methods of execution, which include death by "electrocution, lethal gas, 
hanging, and firing squad," according to NCSL.

But the practice is on the decline in the U.S. Use of the death penalty has 
steadily declined since the 1970s, and though a majority of states have 
retained capital punishment as an option, a growing number of states have also 
increasingly opted to not use it. According to The Marshall Project, 16 states 
have not executed a single prisoner since 1976.

But with capital punishment being approved in every state that had it on a 
ballot in 2016 and the recent April 18 decision by the Ohio Supreme Court to 
uphold the constitutionality of the state's death-penalty practices, all signs 
point toward capital punishment remaining an issue that will likely continue 
being debated on a state-by-state level for the immediate future with no easy 
solution in sight.

With such an entrenched history, it's hardly surprising that capital punishment 
remains a contentious political issue.

While the issue somewhat faded from the political spotlight after 1994, when 
former President Bill Clinton signed a law allowing for the execution of drug 
dealers who direct high-volume enterprises, a New York Times report noted that 
the issue experienced a resurgence during the 2016 election cycle thanks in 
part to then-candidate Trump.

In December 2015, Trump promised a law enforcement group in New Hampshire that 
he would write an executive order enabling capital punishment for anyone who 
killed a police officer. This action would be a legislative and legal quagmire, 
as pointed out by The Atlantic's Matt Ford, who said the president "doesn't 
have the lawful power to unilaterally impose a criminal punishment on anyone, 
whether it be a fine, a prison sentence, or death." Trump's declaration still 
made waves, as it was in direct opposition to the Democratic candidates in the 
race at the time, including Hillary Clinton, who expressed skepticism of 
capital punishment and also cautioned that the death penalty should only be 
used in extreme cases.

What does this mean for Trump's opioid plan and the current political climate?

In terms of Trump's declaration against drug dealers, Teen Vogue pointed out in 
March that using capital punishment to combat the opioid epidemic arguably only 
adds to the very problem it is attempting to solve. As assistant federal public 
defender Dale A. Baich explained, "Instead of trying to expand the death 
penalty - and bring all the constitutional challenges and costs into the mix - 
isn't it better to deal with the problems of addiction?"

This sentiment was echoed by Atlanta-based physician Ford Vox in an March op-ed 
for CNN, in which he asserted that "the death of those deemed to be problematic 
is how some strongmen leaders that President Donald Trump has embraced keep 
their hold on power," adding, "But adding to the number of lives lost at the 
hands of the opioid crisis is not what the United States needs." Vox believes 
that Trump is turning to solutions more appropriate for the 1980s, when he 
debuted on the national stage and where initiatives like Nancy Reagan's Just 
Say No initiative and President's Reagan's 1982 declaration of a "war on drugs" 
occupied much of the national consciousness. Trump's stated intent to conduct a 
war on drugs via the death penalty is a continuation of that mentality, he 
argues.

But as Vox further posits, "It's not just drug dealers who kill people; drugs 
kill people." The writer makes the case that a better solution for the opioid 
crisis would be to address not only the drugmakers, but "research on 
nonaddictive painkillers deserves far more federal funding and should be the 
centerpiece of any effort to end this problem for good." The multipronged 
approach to the opioid crisis is supported by Dr. Jonathan I. Groner in an 
editorial for NBC News, in which he states: "The opioid epidemic is a public 
health emergency and requires a public health response. The response must 
include not only legislation, but also funding of prevention and an expansion 
of treatment programs."

For now, the Trump Administration appears to be committed to its plans to 
pursue capital punishment for certain drug dealers. A memo released by Attorney 
General Jeff Sessions on March 21 outlines the guidance for federal prosecutors 
to do so, including cases involving "murder related to racketeering crimes, gun 
deaths occurring during drug trafficking crimes and murder related to criminal 
enterprise," according to CNBC. The Sessions memo was released following 
additional measures from the administration, including a planned advertising 
campaign and then a push for Congress to take further action.

But with public condemnation of the plan from addiction experts and the Trump 
Administration's track record for reversing policy, it is unclear how far this 
plan will progress and what impact it might eventually have on the opioid 
crisis.

(source: teenvogue.com)