[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., OKLA., NEV., CALIF., ORE., USA, US MIL.

[Rick Halperin]

September 12




MISSOURI:

New St Louis prosecutor vows change in county still grieving from Michael 
Brown's death----Wesley Bell stunned Bob McCulloch, who held the post for 
nearly 3 decades, including during the police killing of an unarmed black teen



When Wesley Bell declared victory in the battle to become St Louis county 
prosecutor last month, it came just two days before the region came together 
once again to honor the life of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager killed 
by a white police officer, sparking months of protests in Ferguson, Missouri.

Bell's win was a stunning upset that has pushed the previous prosecutor and 
fellow Democrat, Bob McCulloch, from an office he had held for nearly three 
decades. With no Republican challenger, Bell is now a shoo-in for the post.

The vote, decided by a large margin, was seen as an indictment of McCulloch, on 
whose watch the Ferguson officer Darren Wilson was cleared of all charges in 
Brown's killing.

But it was also seen as an endorsement for a man who promised a different way 
of doing things, and energized voters.

Lawyer urged prosecutor after Ferguson shooting: 'Do the right thing' for 
police

"People with different politics came together, people were making phone calls 
around the clock, knocking on doors. It was an across-the-table effort," says 
St Louis native Tef Poe, a rapper, organizer and Harvard fellow. "I saw people 
who never vote go out and vote."

McCulloch had the financial and institutional advantage and, right up to the 
end, polls showed him ahead of Bell. McCulloch, even despite his infamy in the 
eyes of many, also had the advantage of looking like the majority of St Louis 
county and the majority of prosecutors nationwide. In 2015, a study found 95% 
of prosecutors are white and just under 80% are white men.

"I don't come from money like that," Bell told the Guardian after his victory. 
"I come from regular people."

Bell says he's proud of his campaign. "It was smaller donations, you know? I 
got a check for 5 dollars ... that's what they had and that's my constituency 
and I appreciated it. That???s who I represent."

Bell, an advocate of robust criminal justice reform, had already garnered 
national attention when he won a seat on Ferguson city council in 2015.

"I grew up, initially, in the projects in Alton, Illinois. I was seeing a lot 
of people on the other side of law enforcement," said Bell, who went to high 
school near Ferguson.

"Growing up in this area, I was being pulled over, car searched so often I 
didn't think anything of it - I thought it was normal," Bell said. "But then I 
got to law school and thought, 'Oh, so they weren't supposed to be doing 
that!'"

Bell won on a platform of progressive ideals such as reforming cash bail and 
mandatory minimum sentencing, as well as not pursuing the death penalty.

But he is also emblematic of a new wave of prosecutors who are aware of and 
against inequalities in the justice system, as well as the war on drugs and its 
resulting mass incarceration.

"One thing I learned then [in 2015], is the absolute need for public engagement 
from leaders," Bell said. "I went out to the streets for protests at the time 
because I wanted the people to see, to ask me questions. We have a trust 
deficit here and I saw my role as a bridge-builder."

But, as Poe says, Bell still has a great deal to prove to a skeptical community 
riven by grief for Brown and others.

"I had a real moment when I realized I was knocking doors on behalf of a 
prosecutor, you know? That's how wild the system is," Poe said. "St Louis 
county is still St Louis county - the budget is still there, folks still going 
to jail, getting these same traffic tickets as we speak."

"I don't see this as a big statement about democracy, honestly, or what can 
happen when people vote," he said. "This is what happens when you kill an 
unarmed teenager and leave him dead in the street for 4 1/2 hours. And we have 
a community and a generation that watched it happen and responded. Now here we 
are."

Many activists, like Poe, are holding their praise for Bell for now.

I don't put my faith in candidates, I place all of my faith in the people. And 
in the people's ability to push candidates to enact change Tef Poe, rapper, 
organizer, and Harvard fellow

"It's a chance now for us to engage with power differently than in the past," 
Poe said, "I don't put my faith in candidates, I place all of my faith in the 
people. And in the people's ability to push candidates to enact change."

"It's hard, though, to get too excited for someone in the same party as 
McCulloch. But we're in a long-term struggle here," he said. "I'm waiting to 
see. I can't give him credit for a game he hasn't played yet."

Blake Strode, the executive director for the not-for-profit civil rights law 
firm ArchCity Defenders, agrees. "It's certainly a victory for the organizers 
who worked so hard on his campaign," he said. "But, for the community, it's an 
opportunity - and now Wesley has the chance to turn that opportunity into a 
victory."

"If there's a victory in it for me, as a community member," Poe added, "through 
the lens of retaliation for all the people I knew that were unjustly thrown 
away by Bob McCulloch."

Strode said: "Bell can now challenge these old notions around arresting and 
incarcerating people as a solution to all of our social problems in the 
region."

"This isn't a [power on] 'both-sides' situation," he added. "We all know about 
the tension, distrust and anger between law enforcement and communities most 
subjected to police power, but that tension exists in an asymmetrical fashion 
in that all of the power is on one side: law enforcement."

Strode continued: "They are empowered by virtue of the law, by virtue of their 
badge, their guns, their handcuffs, and their jails."

"And that's now the side that Wesley Bell will have an ability and a chance to 
rein in."

(source: The Guardian)








OKLAHOMA:

Oklahoma Man Seeks New Trial In White Supremacist Murder Case



An Oklahoma man sentenced to death for killing an Arkansas family in a plot to 
set up a whites-only wants a new trial.

Attorneys for 45-year-old Danny Lee of Yukon say in documents filed Monday that 
prosecutors illegally failed to tell defense attorneys that a witness, who 
testified that Lee admitted to the murders to him, also told investigators he 
believed Lee was lying.

Lee's attorneys say DNA tests in 2007 and the newly revealed witness testimony 
should result in a new trial.

Lee and 45-year-old Chevie Kehoe,of Colville, Washington, were convicted of 
killing gun dealer William Mueller, his wife Nancy Mueller and her 8-year-old 
daughter, Sarah Powell, of Russellville in 1996 and stealing guns and cash as 
part of the plot to set up a whites-only nation.

Kehoe, described by federal prosecutors at the time as the leader of the plot, 
was sentenced to life without parole days before Lee was sentenced to death.

Prosecutors, seeking the death penalty for both men, at the time described 
Kehoe as the ringleader and Lee as his henchman.

(source: KOAM news)








NEVADA:

Prisons chief: Supplier error got Nevada its execution drugs



Nevada's prisons chief testified Tuesday that after more than 200 drug 
companies refused to supply drugs for use in an execution, a supplier's mistake 
on a buyers' list gave the state an opening to obtain a sedative that officials 
want to use in a twice-postponed lethal injection.

Under questioning by drug company lawyers, Department of Corrections Director 
James Dzurenda said the top state pharmacy official jumped at the chance last 
May, and once Nevada had to the drugs Dzurenda felt no obligation to return 
them.

"If I didn't have any contract with them and did it legally, I would keep it," 
Dzurenda told Todd Bice, a lawyer representing Alvogen, maker of the sedative 
slated to be the 1st of 3 drugs in the execution of twice-convicted killer 
Scott Raymond Dozier.

State attorneys say the drugs came from a third-party supplier, Cardinal 
Health, and not the drug companies.

"Is that your definition of dealing with the public in good faith?" Bice asked 
after citing passages from Dzurenda's department's rules of ethics.

"I believe so, yes," Dzurenda replied.

The day of testimony provided a glimpse at the trouble Nevada and many of the 
other 30 death-penalty states in the U.S. have had identifying, obtaining and 
keeping drugs for executions. Nevada requires lethal injection and last put an 
inmate to death in 2006.

Drug companies Alvogen, Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA and Sandoz Inc. accuse the 
state of improperly obtaining their drugs for a use the companies don't allow, 
and deceiving the public in the process.

Dzurenda refused to identify state officials involved in execution planning by 
name or title, saying it was to avoid exposing them to harassment or threats by 
opponents of capital punishment.

He said he keeps confidential the names of prison employees who he said 
volunteer for the overtime job of taking part in an execution.

Nevada also tried to keep secret the drug company identities, although a court 
order in a last-minute American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit in July forced 
disclosure of the 3 company names.

"Once it goes public," Dzurenda said, "just like when you produce and publicize 
people's names, those companies and people get harassed, or could get harassed, 
or letters."

Dzurenda told the Clark County District Court Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez that the 
powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl, which has been blamed for illegal use 
overdose deaths nationwide, was added to Nevada's 3-drug lethal injection plan 
after the state pharmacy chief found a way to get the drug.

Later, the state's top doctor testified that although he's not licensed to 
practice medicine in the U.S. and doesn't prescribe or use painkillers or 
anesthetics, it seemed to him that the high doses of the sedative, the fentanyl 
and a muscle paralyzing drug that Dzurenda told him would be used would kill 
Dozier.

In Nevada, the prisons chief and top doctor are the only 2 officials who can 
sign off on the execution plan.

"He consulted with me if the proposed medication was appropriate and effective 
and I said yes," Ihsan Azzam told the judge.

Azzam even commented, "Yeah, it will kill a mammoth," he told David McElhinney, 
an attorney representing Hikma.

Azzam meets qualifications to be chief state medical officer under Nevada law. 
He has a master's degree and worked for several years in environmental public 
health and epidemiology before being named chief state medical officer last 
May. He is originally from Syria, became a doctor in Romania and practiced for 
several years as an obstetrics and gynecology physician in Africa before moving 
to the United States in the 1990s.

2 more days of hearings are slated Wednesday and Thursday ahead of oral 
arguments next week before the state Supreme Court on the state's bid to put 
Dozier's execution back on track for mid-November.

15 states are siding with Nevada in the state Supreme Court fight against the 
drug companies, led by Oklahoma and including Nebraska, where an inmate was put 
to death last month.

(source: Associated Press)








CALIFORNIA:

Police detail motive in Fresno double homicide. Prosecutors could seek death



A family disagreement appears to be the cause of a double homicide Sunday in 
which a man and his wife were shot and killed by their son-in-law's father, 
police chief Jerry Dyer said.

Darshan Singh Dhanjan, 65, has been charged with 2 counts of murder and 1 count 
of assault with a deadly weapon. Prosecutors said Tuesday they might seek the 
death penalty.

It is potentially a death penalty case because charges include the special 
circumstance of multiple murders. But a decision about whether to seek the 
death penalty will be made later, a statement from the Fresno County District 
Attorney's Office said.

Dhanjan is due to be arraigned Wednesday in Fresno County Superior Court.

Dyer said Dhanjan became upset because the victims he killed - Ravinder Pal 
Singh, 59, and Rajbir Kaur, 62 - had been living in the home, which is owned by 
their daughter and her husband (Dhanjan's son), and were supposed to move out 
but refused.

They had been living there 6 months and had just gotten their green cards 
allowing them to stay in the United States permanently, Dyer said. Also sharing 
the home in the 5300 block of East Tower Avenue were Dhanjan and his wife. All 
are originally from India, Dyer said.

"It's a very tragic case," Dyer said. "It's unfortunate because threats had 
been made" by Dhanjan toward his daughter-in-law.

However, "the family did not feel he was capable of carrying out those 
threats," Dyer added.

Saturday, the suspect confronted the couple about moving out. "The female 
victim said, 'No, we're not leaving. We're staying,'" Dyer said.

Dharjan legally owned the handgun he bought 3 months ago, and recently had been 
to a firing range, Dyer said. It's legal to keep a gun inside a home without 
possessing a concealed carry permit, he said.

The daughter of the victims was almost a victim herself, Dyer said. She was 
upstairs and heard loud noises and went downstairs, bringing her young daughter 
with her.

"She saw her mom and dad lying in the recliner" after they had been shot, Dyer 
said.

Dhanjan told her, "I'm going to kill you, too," and pointed the gun at her but 
it did not fire. It appears he had tried to get the gun to fire but "it may 
have jammed," Dyer said.

She ran upstairs and barricaded herself in a bedroom and called police. The 
attempt at shooting her is why Dhanjan is charged with assault with a deadly 
weapon.

The homicides were captured on the home's video surveillance camera.

After she went upstairs, Dhanjan called his wife and told her what he had done. 
He hid the gun inside his bedroom then got in a car and drove away. Based on 
the car description, he was pulled over a few miles away and arrested. He was 
cooperative, police said.

(source: Fresno Bee)








OREGON:

Jeremy Christian's lawyers don't want jury to see victims' families cry



Defense attorneys for accused MAX train killer Jeremy Christian don't want 
jurors to walk by the devastated family members of the men who died when he 
goes to trial next summer.

They filed 51 motions on proposed rules for the trial, but the 500 pages offer 
little insight -- save for a small hint -- into Christian's possible defense 
against charges that he fatally stabbed 2 men in the neck and seriously injured 
another.

Among the more unusual requests is the one asking Multnomah County Circuit 
Judge Cheryl Albrecht to order that jurors not be allowed to walk down the hall 
past the families or friends of Ricky Best and Talisein Namkai-Meche.

"This may cause the jurors to feel sympathy for the victim's family in the 
event they should see some of the family crying or upset," wrote attorneys Dean 
Smith and Gregory Scholl.

Smith and Scholl repeatedly wrote in the documents that jurors must reach a 
verdict based on the facts, not sympathy for the dead men.

The motions show the challenges Christian faces in a dramatic case bolstered by 
cellphone and TriMet videos of the scene and eyewitnesses who say Christian was 
berating 2 African American teenagers when fellow passengers stepped in. One of 
the girls was wearing a hijab.

The May 2017 killings of Best and Namkai-Meche and the near death of a 3rd -- 
Micah Fletcher -- generated public outrage across the country.

Christian could face the death penalty if a jury finds him guilty of aggravated 
murder. His lawyers have been assigned the role of providing him a vigorous 
defense. They are clearly trying to do all they can to rein in emotion and keep 
juror "outrage," as they phrase it, to a minimum.

In another unconventional request, the attorneys have asked the judge to 
prohibit the Best and Namkai-Meche families from testifying during the 1st 
phase of the trial to determine Christian's guilt and -- if Christian is found 
guilty -- the 2nd phase to determine if he should be sentenced to death.

In a more common request, Christian's attorneys also have asked that 
prosecutors be prevented from showing jurors any graphic autopsy photos or 
other detailed photos of the fatal injuries. Oregon judges in many aggravated 
murder cases have allowed some up-close photos but have capped the number 
jurors are allowed to see.

Prosecutors haven't yet filed any of their own motions with the judge. Albrecht 
is scheduled to consider both defense and prosecution motions during 3 days of 
hearings on Oct. 22-24.

Christian's attorneys haven't yet notified the court of any intention of 
presenting an insanity defense. It's unclear if they will pursue that course. 
Legal experts not associated with the case say it could be tough to prove 
Christian was so mentally ill he wasn't aware of what he was doing.

But among all the motions, his defense team did provide one hint of another 
possible defense: that Christian made a spur-of-the-moment decision based on 
his background and time previously spent in prison.

"The testimony will focus on how Mr. Christian's history and his reactions to 
certain things interacted with the events which led to the charges against 
(him)," Scholl and Smith wrote.

In a previous report filed with the court, a defense-hired psychologist wrote 
that Christian shows signs of post-traumatic stress disorder and it's possible 
that when confronted by so many others on the MAX train, his "survival 
responses" kicked in, developed over the 7 1/2 years he spent in prison for 
robbing a convenience store.

The defense attorneys also have asked the judge to allow them to argue that 
Christian was suffering from an "extreme emotional disturbance" during his 
interactions with others on the MAX train. But Oregon law doesn't allow such a 
defense to aggravated murder, and the motion will likely serve more as a 
placeholder for Christian's attorneys to appeal any guilty verdict to a higher 
court.

(source: oregonlive.com)








USA----female may face federal death sentence

Ex-wife indicted in Robert Caldwell murder conspiracy has trial delayed



The ex-wife of a Beavercreek man killed in front of their children had her 
trial delayed Tuesday in Dayton's U.S. District Court.

Tawnney (Thomas) Caldwell, 34, had a scheduling conference set for Nov. 1, at 
which time her attorneys and federal prosecutors may have a trial calendar, 
including a new trial date.

Tawnney Caldwell could face the death penalty if she is convicted of 6 counts 
related to the death of Robert "Bobby" Caldwell, who was allegedly shot by 
Tawnney Caldwell's boyfriend, Sterling Roberts.

5 total defendants face charges in an alleged conspiracy that included a bitter 
custody battle over Tawnney and Bobby's 3 sons who were present when their 
father was shot to death Aug. 15, 2017.

Jacob Caldwell, the middle son, was missing for about a year before being 
located recently in a Miami Twp. residence. Jacob, now 15, is being kept in 
custody.

About a dozen people showed up in Judge Thomas Rose's court on Tuesday to 
support Tawnney Caldwell, who was wearing orange Shelby County Jail clothing.

Rose granted a defense motion to continue the trial because he agreed that it 
is a complex case with possible capital sanctions, multiple defendants and 
voluminous discovery.

Defense attorneys estimated it could take a year to 18 months to get to trial, 
in part because the U.S. Attorney General may have to certify the case as 
death-penalty eligible. Federal prosecutors did not oppose the motion to 
continue.

(source: Dayton Daily News)








US MILITARY:

The death-penalty trial opened for an Army staff sergeant charged with killing 
his wife and a police officer



It began with an argument between husband and wife over whether she'd attend a 
male dance revue. It ended with the wife dead, a police officer fatally wounded 
and 2 other officers shot and bleeding on a suburban northern Virginia lawn.

Jurors heard opening statements Tuesday in the death-penalty trial of an Army 
staff sergeant charged with killing his wife and 1 of the officers, who 
responded to the scene on her very 1st shift. The 2 other officers survived, 
but suffered serious injuries.

Ronald Hamilton, 34, an Army staff sergeant from Woodbridge, is charged with 
capital murder and other counts in the deaths of his wife, Crystal Hamilton, 
and Officer Ashley Guindon, a former Marine Corps reservist.

On her 1st day on the job, Officer Ashley Guindon responded to a call that 
could have become routine, had she gone on to a long career in law enforcement: 
a domestic disturbance in a well-kept suburban neighborhood.

Prosecutor Brian Boyle told jurors in opening statements that Hamilton's 
actions reverberated beyond the Hamilton and Guindon families.

"By the time he was done unleashing his violence, a neighborhood was scarred, a 
police department was devastated, three police officers were on operating 
tables and only two would survive," Boyle said. "A son was left without a 
mother."

Boyle said Guindon and the other officers arrived just a few minutes after 
Crystal made her 911 call. Officer Jesse Hempen arrived first, and asked Ronald 
Hamilton to let him in to check on the welfare of his wife. As Hamilton shut 
the door, a 2nd officer, David McKeown, arrived with Guindon and tried to use 
his foot to force his way into the home. It was then that Hamilton began 
shooting at the officers with a military-style rifle. One of the officers, 
despite his wounds, was able to radio his colleagues a "signal one," meaning an 
officer was down. That prompted a massive police response.

Boyle said that when officers arrived, "bodies are littered across the front 
yard of the Hamilton residence. ... As the officers come in all they see are 
heaps of bright blue" from the officers' uniforms.

Defense attorneys acknowledged that Hamilton committed the shootings. Indeed, 
they offered shortly after Hamilton's arrest to plead guilty and accept a life 
sentence if prosecutors took the death penalty off the table. The prosecutors 
declined.

What is in dispute is Hamilton's state of mind at the time of the shootings, 
said defense lawyer Edward Ungvarsky, who told jurors that Hamilton lacked 
premeditation necessary to be convicted of capital murder.

Ungvarsky said the Hamiltons' marriage had long been troubled, and that a fight 
that day was precipitated by Ronald Hamilton's anger at his wife's plans to 
attend a Chippendales-style dance revue with her girlfriends. Ronald Hamilton 
struck his wife during the argument, and Crystal Hamilton called 911 for help. 
At that point, he knew that his military career, which depended on maintaining 
a security clearance, and his marriage could be over.

"He felt his world was crashing down around him," Ungvarsky said. "Passions 
erupted."

Ungvarsky said Hamilton fired indiscriminately at the officers as they tried to 
enter his home, but that he lacked any intention of killing them.

Jurors heard the 911 call Crystal Hamilton made, in which she said through sobs 
that her husband had slammed her onto the floor. That last thing heard before 
the call disconnected was her screaming "Stop!"

Jurors also heard a written statement from the Hamiltons' 13-year-old son, 
Tyriq, who was home at the time of the shootings. Both sides agreed to let him 
provide a written statement so he wouldn't have to testify in person.

The statement was read to jurors by Tyriq's maternal grandmother.

"I heard like 3 shots," Tyriq wrote in the statement. "Then my mom went 
silent."

Hamilton, dressed in his military dress uniform, did not speak during Tuesday's 
proceedings and often hung his head as his actions were described to the jury.

The trial is expected to last several weeks. Among those scheduled to testify 
are the 2 officers who survived the shootings, McKeown and Hempen.

(source: armytimes.com)