[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.H., IND., TENN., ILL., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 27



NEW HAMPSHIRE:

The cost of execution



An open letter to Gov. Sununu: When you think about whether or not to keep the 
death penalty option in New Hampshire, please remember that Texas executes many 
prisoners. And the existence of the death penalty in Texas did not seem to 
deter the shooter in the recent killings at the school in Texas.

So, if the death penalty does not work as a deterrent, why do you want to go 
the expensive route of the death penalty? Don't you want to save New Hampshire 
money?

ROBERT B. WILLIAMS Jr.

Chichester

(source: Letter to the Editor, Concord Monitor)








INDIANA:

Can Indiana keep a secret about its executions?



In a court filing earlier this month, the state of Indiana continued to argue 
for secrecy in the details of the executions it carries out.

It's not surprising, given the white-hot heat surrounding the issue of the 
death penalty.

But it's also not right.

As we've said in previous comments, the public has a right to information about 
how the state is executing people. Such life and death decisions shouldn't be 
made in the dark. The issue has nothing to do with your position on the death 
penalty - and everything to do with government accountability and transparency.

The state of Indiana sees it differently. Last year, Republican lawmakers went 
so far as to quietly - stealthily - insert a last-minute provision into the 
budget bill authorizing the state to conceal details of the purchase of new 
lethal injection drugs. The measure, which bars the release of information that 
could reveal the identity of a manufacturer or supplier, wasn't debated in 
committee and became public when the budget was released on the last day of the 
session.

Both House Speaker Brian Bosma and the Indiana Department of Correction have 
said that anything less than anonymity would prevent companies from selling 
lethal drugs for executions.

A lawsuit challenging the state's secrecy sprang from a 4-year-old public 
records requests filed after the DOC refused to release information regarding 
the drugs used in executions and any correspondence related to execution 
procedure. Katherine Toomey, the Washington, D.C., attorney who filed the 
lawsuit, won a non-binding decision by the Public Access Counselor and summary 
judgment in the Circuit Court in 2016. Indiana appealed and lost. It asked the 
Supreme Court to hear the case and was denied.

After the secrecy law - which is, conveniently, retroactive - was passed, 
attorneys for the state went back to the judge, asking her to change her 
previous summary judgment.

An attorney for Toomey says the secrecy law snuck into last year's budget bill 
was a maneuver aimed squarely at thwarting Toomey's lawsuit. He argued that the 
state can't enact a statute aimed directly at his client.

The state doubled down on secrecy in an issue raised in the case that's now 
before the Court of Appeals: whether sealed evidence in the lethal injection 
case, obtained during discovery, should be made public. The state argued that 
it should not and said such material is "deliberative" and an exception to the 
public records law.

Earlier, the state had filed a motion to cancel the public hearing; the judge 
denied the request. A total of 5 people were in the audience for the May 15 
hearing.

That request, and Indiana's ongoing efforts to conceal its decisions and 
actions, ignore the state's responsibility to be accountable to Hoosiers about 
the executions it carries out in their name.

(source: Editorial, South Bend Tribune)








TENNESSEE:

Death row inmates in Nashville paint scenes of Jesus' crucifixion. Here's why.



Jesus is laying on the cross in the painting, his arms splayed wide as one of 
his executioners hammers a nail into his hand.

The artists who created it - selecting the caramel color of Christ's skin and 
the silver of the nail drawing the red pool of blood on his palm - are inmates 
on death row who, like Jesus, are facing their own state-sanctioned executions.

Those who visit with the prisoners in Unit 2 at Riverbend Maximum Security 
Institution in Nashville say the new Stations of the Cross artwork helps show 
the humanity of men often defined solely by their crimes.

Derrick Quintero, sentenced to death in 1991 for first degree murder, is one of 
the artists who collaborated on the new piece that depicts the biblical account 
of Jesus' trial, crucifixion and resurrection.

He explained, in a statement accompanying the artwork, why he and fellow 
prisoners created the piece as well as the open and honest dialogue that it 
inspired.

"This piece of art is a commentary on the continuing battle for our collective 
moral world view," Quintero said. "I asked my fellow community members to help 
me create this project to begin a conversation about what justice looks like."

It took more than two months to complete their piece. During the process, the 
religious and nonreligious artists talked about their own understandings of 
Jesus' death and appearance and welcomed feedback from other prisoners, 
correctional officers and volunteers.

Artwork travels from church to church

While they remain behind bars, the artwork, painted on 2 long scrolls, now is 
traveling to churches and other religious institutions in Middle Tennessee that 
want to display it.

"I think the hope is that the people who believe that death row is populated by 
unsaveable monsters see in this the work of human hands and people with 
faith."----Deacon W. James Booth

Deacon W. James Booth, of Holy Family Catholic Church in Brentwood, is helping 
facilitate the exhibition of the piece. He anticipates that it will eventually 
be put on permanent display, potentially at Holy Family.

He visits death row nearly every Saturday morning to help with a Catholic 
infused, but ecumenical service and study group. The weekly meeting is attended 
by Quintero, who was baptized Catholic in prison, and half dozen or so other 
inmates.

"I think the hope is that the people who believe that death row is populated by 
unsaveable monsters see in this the work of human hands and people with faith," 
Booth said. "Many of them have done very bad, terrible things, but our faith 
teaches us that forgiveness and redemption are always possibilities."

Those who see the artwork can take away what they will from it, but it is not 
meant to be a political statement or push policy, Booth said. The hope is that 
it can serve as a bridge of faith between the inmates and the outside world, he 
said.

State renews push to execute inmates

But the artwork is circulating at time when the state is renewing its push to 
execute inmates on death row. The state Supreme Court has set a handful of new 
execution dates for later this year, but legal debates on how inmates can be 
put to death are ongoing and not all efforts to delay some executions have been 
exhausted.

In Tennessee, 61 people, including one woman, are currently on death row. The 
last execution happened in 2009.

Capital punishment remains a controversial issue. 55 % of U.S adults support it 
for those convicted of murder, according to an October 2017 Gallup report. 
While still a majority, that is the lowest support in 45 years, Gallup said.

The Catholic church opposes the death penalty, but that does not mean the 
people who fill the pews all agree, said Booth, who does not support capital 
punishment.

But he avoids talking policy when he helps facilitate a showing of the Stations 
of the Cross piece, like he did at his own church. Instead, he talks about the 
men who created the artwork and asks those viewing it to reflect on the 
crucifixion of their savior Jesus.

Fostering conversation inside and out

"In my mind, it can be transformative in the way that a visit to death row can 
be," Booth said. "Taking those scrolls out, in a way does some of that work 
without some of those individuals having to leave the comfort of their 
neighborhoods and parishes."

The piece stirred healthy conversations about Jesus and justice behind bars, 
too. In his statement, Quintero said he did not know if any of his fellow 
prisoners changed their opinions as a result of it. But their open and honest 
dialogue is in keeping with the community model the prisoners have created on 
death row.

"We tackle all the positive and destructive social issues that were a part of 
our lives," said Quintero, who was convicted of the 1988 slayings of an elderly 
Stewart County couple that occurred during his escape from a Kentucky prison.

"How we got to today, finding healing, and making better overall decisions is 
critical to the security of the prison system and society at large."

They do so with the blessing and cooperation of corrections officials, Quintero 
said.

Neysa Taylor, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Correction, echoed that 
idea in her statement on art programs behind bars.

"The Tennessee Department of Correction embraces therapeutic programs that 
allow offenders to both process and work through their thoughts on their crime 
and how they can change their lives for the better," Taylor said.

'It's a powerful piece'

The prisoners' artwork impressed Alvaro Manrique Barrenechea. On May 20, the 
unfurled scrolls were laid out before him in a room at Christ Church Cathedral, 
an Episcopal church in downtown Nashville.

"It's a powerful piece," he said.

A handful of people, including his wife, were standing over them that Sunday 
morning, taking in the details and reading Quintero's statement. It was 
Manrique Barrenchea's 1st time seeing the piece. Although, he had heard about 
it from his friend and death row inmate Billy Ray Irick, who helped paint the 
landscape in the scenes.

Irick was convicted of the 1985 rape and murder of a 7-year-old girl. In 
January, the state Supreme Court set his execution date for Aug. 9.

Manrique Barrenchea, a foreign-trained attorney preparing for law school in the 
states, started visiting Irick in prison about a year ago. Before that, meeting 
with prisoners on death row had not been on his radar.

He does not think many people on the outside give much thought, if any to the 
men in Riverbend. He hopes the artwork might change that.

"We all know that they have a past that we can't erase," Manrique Barrenchea 
said. "I think it's a great way of showing that there is more in there than 
just the past or the previous story."

(source: The Tennessean)








ILLINOIS:

Conservative group slams effort to reinstate death penalty in Illinois



A national organization is criticizing Gov. Bruce Rauner's proposal to 
reinstate the death penalty for certain crimes in Illinois.

Heather Beaudoin is the coordinator of Conservatives Concerned About the Death 
Penalty, a network of political and social conservatives who question the 
alignment of capital punishment with conservative principles and values. She 
said arguments in favor of the death penalty often don't withstand scrutiny.

"The idea of the death penalty being a deterrent ... we've just not seen it to 
be true," Beaudoin said. "These situations are crimes of passion, often, where 
the person perpetrating the crime is not thinking about consequences. And I get 
sort of heated when I hear folks say, 'We have to have the death penalty for 
victim's family members,' because I've personally spoken with so many of them 
who say it was the opposite of helpful."

Beaudoin said the governor's plan to limit the punishment to specific cases 
doesn't make the idea any better.

"What that does is create a class of victims," Beaudoin said. "It's very 
difficult when you're talking to a mother who has lost a child to homicide and 
you're telling her your loved one's murder is not quite heinous enough. We've 
seen it's problematic when we pick-and-choose which are the most heinous crimes 
that receive a death sentence."

Rauner's proposal would allow the death penalty as potential punishment for 
mass killers and those who slay police officers.

There are at least 3 plans to reinstate the death penalty including Rauner's, 
which he added in an amendatory veto to legislation that originally sought to 
lengthen the waiting period for certain firearms from 1 day to 3 days.

State Rep. Jim Durkin, R-Western Springs, introduced a standalone bill to 
reinstate the death penalty late Thursday. Durkin also backed a slightly 
different death penalty bill introduced Thursday by state Rep. Jerry Costello, 
D-Smithton. Costello's bill included both police and firefighters and had 
bipartisan support.

All 3 proposals would set a higher standard of guilt - "beyond all doubt" 
rather than "beyond reasonable doubt" - for capital crimes.

"That's a really impossible standard," Beaudoin said. "You can't have a system 
that doesn't make mistakes because it's run by human beings. Even when there is 
DNA evidence available, that evidence is handled by human beings. So we've seen 
cases where a technician has made a mistake and we've also seen cases where 
there's been major fraud."

Some have argued Rauner's death penalty proposal is a political move designed 
to shore up support among conservative voters in an election year. Beaudoin 
said it might not work out that way.

"This is an old-school tactic - using the death penalty as a political 
football," Beaudoin said. "We're seeing that it just doesn't work. And it 
doesn't work because there are far more conservatives that are against the 
death penalty now than ever before."

Rauner's package of public safety proposals was detailed in the governor's 
amendatory veto of a gun control bill. In addition to bringing back the death 
penalty, Rauner proposed putting a 72-hour waiting period in place for all 
firearm purchases, banning bump stocks and trigger cranks, authorizing 
restraining orders to disarm dangerous people, and requiring judges and 
prosecutors to explain why charges are reduced in plea agreements for violent 
offenders in gun cases.

Rauner laid out his reasons for the death penalty in a veto message to the 
House of Representatives.

"Anyone who deliberately kills a law enforcement officer or is a mass murderer 
deserves the death penalty," the message said. "There are legitimate reasons 
for concern about the death penalty, reasons that I take seriously. Chief among 
those concerns is the alarming number of people who have been convicted by 
juries 'beyond a reasonable doubt' and sentenced to death, but were later 
exonerated based on DNA or other evidence, demonstrating that the jury 
convicted the wrong person. Consequently, the only morally justifiable standard 
of proof in a death penalty case is 'beyond all doubt.' This standard would 
apply not only at trial but also on appeal."

The death penalty has not been carried out in Illinois since 1999, when Andrew 
Kokoraleis was killed by lethal injection for the murder of Lorraine Ann 
Borkoski. In 2000, then-Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions in 
Illinois. 11 years later, then-Gov. Pat Quinn signed a bill abolishing the 
death penalty. 19 states have abolished the death penalty for all crimes. 13 
others have an official moratorium on the practice, or have not carried out an 
execution in more than a decade.

"I don't see that there's a way for us to have a system that's foolproof," 
Beaudoin said. "Wrongful convictions will absolutely happen and innocent people 
will be convicted and sentenced to death. That's a dream world to think we have 
a system that functions perfectly."

(source: Illinois News Network)

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

Prosecutors question quick return to death penalty



The organization that represents top state prosecutors in Illinois' 102 
counties is expressing caution about any quick moves to reinstate the death 
penalty in Illinois.

While the death penalty hasn't been carried out in Illinois since 1999 and was 
abolished by the General Assembly in 2011, Gov. Bruce Rauner injected a 
reinstatement of the penalty in specific cases - multiple murder or murder of a 
police officer - via an amendatory veto on May 14, less than 3 weeks before 
Thursday's scheduled end of the legislative session. And, Rauner said, because 
of problems with sentencing innocent people to death in Illinois in the past, 
he would call for the penalty only in cases where convictions were "beyond all 
doubt."

For the several changes the governor inserted into the bill to become law, both 
houses of the legislature would have to accept his rewrite.

The "beyond all doubt" standard was one of the problems mentioned in a letter 
on the governor's rewrite from Sangamon County State's Attorney John Milhiser 
penned in his role as president of the Illinois State's Attorneys Association. 
He started a 1-year stint in that post in December.

Republican Milhiser also happens to be on the short list of people that 
Illinois members of Congress have recommended to President Donald Trump to be 
the next U.S. attorney for the central district of Illinois. The president has 
not nominated a permanent federal prosecutor for the 46-county district, and 
John Childress is serving as interim U.S attorney.

The 3-page letter from Milhiser noted that the statement grew from a meeting of 
the statewide group of state's attorneys in response to Rauner's amendatory 
veto of House Bill 4618 - which originally extended a 72-hour waiting period to 
purchase of "assault" weapons.

"Reinstating the death penalty for a narrow category of violent criminals is a 
matter of significant public interest," states the letter, which was presented 
to the House's judiciary committee that handles criminal law. "The proposed 
standard of beyond all doubt, however, is unprecedented and untested in 
American jurisprudence. For more than 240 years the burden of proof in criminal 
cases has been beyond a reasonable doubt. It must be ensured that no innocent 
person is executed. However, changing the burden of proof to a 'beyond all 
doubt' standard is complex and involves constitutional and legal concerns that 
cannot be evaluated in the brief time thus far allotted."

The letter noted that there is "no consensus of opinion' on the death penalty 
among the state's attorneys, but the group recognizes the gravity of the issue.

"Regardless of where our individual members stand on death penalty 
reinstatement, any new legislative scheme arguably comes with pitfalls and must 
be properly and thoughtfully weighed," the letter adds. "Any attempt to 
simplify this process fails to acknowledge the significance of such an 
important and grave act."

Rachel Bold, spokeswoman for Rauner, responded to the letter in part by noting 
that lawmakers introduced 2 new bills, House Bill 5886 and House Bill 5891, in 
recent days to reinstate the death penalty along the lines called for by the 
governor. One of those bills would also include the penalty for murder of a 
firefighter.

"As we've seen this week, there is growing, bipartisan support for a 'beyond 
all doubt' death penalty for the most serious offenders - mass murderers and 
cop killers," Bold said. "This isn't something that has been proposed lightly. 
The standard is aimed only at those who clearly deserve the death penalty in 
cases where there is no room for any doubt about innocence or guilt."

Another point of contention between the governor's amendatory veto and the 
statewide association of prosecutors is in the governor's call, in his rewrite, 
that if a plea agreement is entered into with someone originally charged with a 
firearms offense, prosecutors and judges would both have to produce written 
statements, available to the public, on reasons for that plea agreement.

"The vast majority of cases are resolved through a plea of guilty," the 
Milhiser letter stated, adding that 95 % of cases nationwide end that way.

"Plea agreements benefit the victim, the defendant and the community," the 
letter said. "Plea agreements conserve public resources and provide certainty 
for victims and their family members."

"Imposing a duty to disclose reasons for a plea agreement, however, will 
interfere with the resolution of criminal cases and is not in the interest of 
justice," the letter states. "Finally, imposing an obligation of disclosure on 
the judicial branch of government raises significant constitutional and 
separation of powers issues, and for these reasons we have serious concerns 
with this provision."

Rauner spokeswoman Bold, defending the provision about pleas, said: "Gun crime 
charging and sentencing accountability is entirely about transparency. Victims, 
their families, and the public deserve to know why serious gun offense charges 
are reduced to lesser offenses in plea agreements, especially when those 
agreements result in the release of repeat gun offenders. If violent offenders 
are going to be allowed back on our streets, we deserve to know why."

(source: Opinion, Bernard Schoenburg; The State Journal-Register)








CALIFORNIA:

Triple Homicide Suspect Formally Charged With Killing Leimert Park Family



The houseguest who is a suspect in a triple homicide in Leimert Park was 
formally charged with the crime Friday.

The DA announced Nancy Amelia Jackson, 55, could face the death penalty in the 
triple murder of disabled man Phillip White and his elderly parents.

Jackson's arraignment was postponed but police still held a news conference to 
talk about a possible motive and the charges Jackson faces.

A family living through triple heartbreak stood beside police Friday. And they 
want the public to remember 65-year-old Phillip White, his 83-year-old mom, 
Orsie Carter and her husband, 79-year-old William Carter. His age has also been 
given as 83.

"They were beautiful, loving, gracious generous people," said one family 
member.

Police say Jackson had been down on her luck when White took her in, but she 
was stealing and using White. Police also believe she wanted to stay in the 
home at all costs.

And when White's mother intervened police believe Jackson shot all 3 of them in 
White's Leimert Park home.

Their bodies were found by family members on Tuesday. They believe the 3 were 
murdered on Monday.

Of Jackson, police believe she is literally 2-faced.

"That smile is nothing but deceiving," said Capt. Peter Whittingham of the 
LAPD. "What I saw is pure evil in that individual and that is what she is."

Police say they found Jackson in Culver City and made the arrest. They won't go 
into detail about the case but say the motive likely comes down to greed.

"She had, in my view, determined that she had a good thing [going] and no one 
was going to get between her and a good thing," Whittingham said.

(source: CBS News)








USA:

Steiker receives 2018 Sacks-Freund Award



The Harvard Law School Class of 2018 selected Carol Steiker '86 for the 
prestigious Albert M. Sacks-Paul A. Freund Award for Teaching Excellence.

In her introduction, Class Marshal Alejandra Huerta Gutierrez described Steiker 
as "a professor that students dream of and that others professors seek to 
emulate." She "does not shy away from the tough conversations," Gutierrez said.

Steiker thanked the class for the award, noting that it was "especially 
well-timed," as she was about to attend her 35th Harvard College reunion. 
Steiker encouraged graduates to recognize and nurture 2 issues that she has 
appreciated more as time passes: They should not close themselves off to those 
who see the world differently; and they should always ask what is right and 
best for society when considering legal arguments.

Steiker closed with an analogy borrowed from paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. 
Knowledge, she said, is an expanding balloon, in which the volume of knowledge 
is contained by the unknown. "As the sphere expands, so does the boundary of 
what we don't know," she said, "but that ratio is not constant. Volume grows 
faster, and always outpaces the growth of ignorance. May your spheres be ever 
expanding."

Steiker is the Henry J. Friendly Professor of Law and faculty co-director of 
the Criminal Justice Policy Program at HLS. Her expertise in the criminal 
justice field ranges from substantive criminal law to criminal procedure to 
institutional design, with a focus on capital punishment. She co-wrote her most 
recent book, "Courting Death: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment," with 
her brother, Jordan Steiker '88, a professor at the University of Texas School 
of Law.

As an HLS student, Steiker was the 2nd woman to be president of the Harvard Law 
Review. Prior to joining the HLS faculty, Steiker clerked for Judge J. Skelly 
Wright of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Thurgood Marshall of 
the U.S. Supreme Court, and was a staff attorney for the Public Defender 
Service for the District of Columbia. She has worked on pro bono litigation 
projects on behalf of indigent criminal defendants, including death penalty 
cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Class of 2018 also selected Steiker to give a Last Lecture, a talk 
organized by 3L and LL.M. Class Marshals.

The Sacks-Freund Award recognizes a single faculty member each year for 
teaching ability, attentiveness to student concerns, and general contributions 
to student life at the law school. It was established in 1992 and is named in 
honor of the late Harvard Law School Professors Albert Sacks '48 and Paul 
Freund S.J. D. '32. Recent recipients include Mark Wu, Jeanne Suk '02, Jon 
Hanson, Tyler Giannini and Benjamin Sachs.

(source: Harvard law Today)