[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.H., N.Y., PENN., VA., N.C., GA., ALA., LA.

[Rick Halperin]

April 17



NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Keep the death penalty



To the Editor:

It would be a 2nd mistake for the State of New Hampshire to go with other 
states in repealing the death penalty. The 1st mistake was not making use of 
the penalty which is leading to its own demise.

Think about it. The opioid crises is getting out of control, and nobody thinks 
the death penalty is a deterrent. I ask you how many times will a dead drug 
dealer continue to make money on drugs. I would use the death penalty, reduce 
death row time and wipe the dealers off the face of this country. If we don’t, 
our county will die from within. Something to think about as New Hampshire 
votes to repeal the death penalty.

I am with our governor who wants to keep the death penalty.

Keep the death penalty governor, but you have to use it!

Louis J. Santucci, Rochester

(source: Letter to the Editor, forsters.com)








NEW YORK:

Former Death Row Inmate Speaks About Her Life After Being Exonerated



On Tuesday, former death row inmate and anti-death penalty advocate Debra Milke 
shared her story with the Cornell community. Milke was invited by Prof. John 
Blume to speak to his LAW 4051: Death Penalty in America class, and the event 
was open to the public.

In 1990, Milke was wrongfully convicted of 1st-degree murder of her 4-year-old 
son, Christopher, as well as conspiracy to commit 1st-degree murder, kidnapping 
and child abuse. After 22 years in prison, she won her appeal in the Ninth 
Circuit in March 2013 and was released from prison in September of the same 
year. She was exonerated in March 2015.

Her story is an “emotional” one, she said. In 1989, Milke was a 25-year-old 
single mother living near Phoenix, Arizona, struggling to get by after leaving 
a “bad marriage,” when she took up her friend James “Jim” Styers’s offer to 
move into his apartment.

On December 2, 1989, Milke’s son, Christopher, asked to go to the mall with 
Styers to see Santa Claus, and that was “the last time I saw my son alive,” 
said Milke.

Many hours later, she was escorted into an interrogation room at the Pinal 
County police department, where Detective Armando Saldate Jr. entered the room 
and delivered the truth that Milke was awaiting with “despair.”

“He just looked at me and he said, ‘We found your son. He was murdered and 
you’re under arrest.’ Just like that, in one breath,” Milke said.

After that, Milke was charged with “a whole slew of crimes” based on a 
confession that Saldate claimed he obtained from Milke in that interrogation 
room. “That cop lied,” Milke said. “The prosecutors were making up things.” She 
was ultimately convicted of all charges.

After being put into solitary confinement in prison and losing her first 
post-conviction appeal, Milke knew that she had to “figure out a way to help 
[herself].” She familiarized herself with legal language, learned how to read a 
brief, and got a new lawyer.

In the next three decades, she continually lost appeals. However, despite the 
occasional “scary moments,” Milke refused to give up.

“An innocent person doesn’t give up. You just don’t,” she said.

Eventually, her case reached the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and on 
March 14, 2013, the Ninth Circuit judges overruled her convictions on the basis 
of an unfair trial.

Throughout the entire 3-decade-long ordeal, Milke maintained her “cautious 
optimism” and sense of humor as a coping mechanism for her situation.

She remembered that during a practice run of her execution, a doctor was taking 
her blood to make sure she was healthy. “Well, check my cholesterol too,” she 
joked, adding that she probably made the doctor uncomfortable, but that she 
didn’t care.

Milke describes her experience as having to deal with two tragedies at the same 
time — first, the loss of her son and second, her unfair trial and the 
subsequent years in the capital appeals system.

“The win was bittersweet. The legal tragedy, I overcame, but then right at my 
doorstep was the reality that my son was gone,” she said, her voice catching. 
She had to put her pain “on a shelf because [she] couldn’t deal with both 
things at the same time.”

“My son’s been gone for 30 years but it doesn’t matter how many years he’s been 
gone,” she continued. “Pain is — it’s very raw and it lasts, and it seems like 
it just happened sometimes, even though it’s been three decades.”

Now, Milke is a member of Witness to Innocence, an advocacy organization 
composed of exonerated death row survivors, and travels the country to speak 
about her experiences.

“I like to speak to students because you guys are the future,” she said. “I 
don’t know if any of you want to be lawyers, but the message I want to get 
across is that there is a human being behind a case number.”

She also spoke out against the death penalty, stating that executing her son’s 
killer “won’t change anything. It’s not going to bring my son back.”

“There are so many wrongful convictions that there shouldn’t be a death 
penalty, because it just takes one time to execute an innocent person, and it’s 
irreversible,” Milke continued.

Following her talk, there was a Q&A session with the audience. Students 
generally asked about her life after 22 years of solitary confinement and her 
reintegration back into society.

Milke said that she had changed all the doorknobs in her house to remove the 
ability to lock the rooms. She also does not close any doors and has a clock in 
every room, as she was never told the time when she was in prison.

“In public, I need to know how to get out of a room,” she added. Milke 
recounted a story of a time she and her nephew, who served in Iraq and also has 
PTSD, went out to dinner. They both headed towards the same seat at the table, 
because “he needed to know who was coming in the door. I needed to know how to 
get out of it.”

When asked about whether people still perceive her to be a murderer, Milke 
said, “If you want to be judgmental, fine. But you didn’t have to walk in my 
shoes.”

She currently works as a legal assistant at the law firm of the attorney who 
helped her win the appeal. When asked about how her interest in law stemmed 
from the years she spent experiencing the justice system firsthand, Milke 
quipped that at the beginning of her appeals process, she naively left 
everything to her attorneys.

“I thought that if you went to law school, then you’re smart and you know what 
you’re doing,” she said, as the audience’s responded in laughter.

Cassandra Gologorsky ’21, a student in the course, said it was “eye-opening” to 
hear her story.

“We’ve read a lot of cases in this class, but it’s different to hear it from 
someone who’s actually experienced it,” Gologorsky said. “I knew it was going 
to be a very emotional story, but I was surprised — in a good way. She’s a 
powerful speaker.”

(source: The Cornell (University) Daily Sun)








PENNSYLVANIA----new death sentence

Philadelphia man gets death for teen’s rape, murder, dismemberment



A man who as part of a rape-murder fantasy he shared with the teenager’s mother 
was sentenced Thursday to death.

Jacob Sullivan, 46, had pleaded guilty to 1st-degree murder and related charges 
for killing Grace Packer in 2016.

After deliberating over parts of 3 days, a suburban Philadelphia jury imposed 
the death penalty. Sullivan had no reaction as the verdict was read. 
Pennsylvania has a moratorium on the death penalty, but juries can still impose 
the sentence.

“The butchery in this case was beyond my ability to describe,” Bucks County 
Judge Diane Gibbons told jurors, thanking them for their service. Imposing the 
jury’s sentence on Sullivan, she declared: “You have no soul.”

District Attorney Matthew Weintraub had asked the jury to send Sullivan to 
death row, reminding them that Grace’s life “ended in a house of horrors that 
became a hell on Earth.”

The defense asked for a life sentence, insisting that Grace’s mother, Sara 
Packer, masterminded the gruesome plot and controlled Sullivan. Sara Packer, 
who testified last week and admitted to jurors she wanted her daughter dead and 
took part in the plot, is expected to plead guilty Friday to first-degree 
murder in exchange for a life sentence.

Sullivan and Sara Packer took Grace to a sweltering attic and gave her what 
they intended to be a lethal overdose of medicine, authorities say. The couple 
bound her hands and feet with zip ties and stuffed a ball gag in her mouth, and 
Sullivan sexually assaulted her as Sara Packer watched.

The couple left Grace in the attic to die, but she managed to escape some of 
her bindings and spit the gag out, prosecutors say. Sullivan and Sara Packer 
returned to the vacant house 12 hours later, and Sullivan strangled her.

Sara Packer and Sullivan stored Grace’s body in cat litter for months, then 
hacked it up and dumped it in a remote area where hunters found it in October 
2016, authorities said.

“He met my expectation of a monster,” jury foreman Kevin McDermott said after 
the sentencing , according to The (Allentown) Morning Call.

Sara Packer and her husband at the time, David Packer, adopted Grace and 
Grace’s younger brother in 2007. The couple cared for dozens of foster children 
before David Packer was sent to prison for sexually assaulting Grace and a 
15-year-old foster daughter.

Sara Packer lost her job as a Northampton County adoptions supervisor in 2010 
and was barred from taking in any more foster children. But child welfare 
authorities did not remove Grace from the home, despite evidence of abuse.

The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services launched an investigation after 
Grace’s murder, but its findings have not been made public.

Sullivan joins 142 other inmates on the state’s death row. Pennsylvania last 
carried out an execution in 1999, and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf declared a 
moratorium on capital punishment in 2015.

(source: Glenwood Guardian)








VIRGINIA:

Prosecutors seek death penalty for suspect charged in fatal stabbing of elderly 
Danville couple



Danville prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Onis Donnell Moon, who is 
accused of stabbing an elderly married couple to death and wounding their adult 
daughter in November, court documents show.

The commonwealth filed a notice in Moon’s court file Tuesday, signaling 
intentions to seek the death penalty because of the severity of the charges.

“The conduct of the defendant in committing this offense was outrageously or 
wantonly vile, horrible, or inhuman,” the document states, “and said conduct 
involved torture, aggravated battery or depravity of the mind.”

Moon, 52, was originally charged with 2 counts of 1st-degree murder — since 
amended to one count of capital murder, covering both deaths — in connection to 
the stabbing deaths of Royal Douglas Barley, 83, and his wife, Valean Ferrell 
Barley, 87. He is also charged with maliciously wounding Sandra Faye Callands, 
the couple’s adult daughter. Both the Barleys were in wheelchairs, neighbors 
told the Danville Register & Bee.

In Virginia, murder charges must have aggravating factors associated with them 
to be elevated to capital status. Moon’s case was heightened because he is 
accused of killing multiple people in the same instance.

Police arrested Moon just a few houses down from the Barleys’ home at 122 
Lexington Ave., where they found three people suffering from “severe” stab 
wounds. The Barleys were pronounced dead there, and Callands was taken to a 
hospital.

An officer at the scene noticed Moon in the area and saw blood on his hands, 
according to a search warrant filed in Danville Circuit Court. There, Moon 
“made statements about the crime” to the officer and was promptly arrested, 
according to the warrant.

When police interviewed him later, court documents state, Moon admitted to 
drinking and “being around” drugs that day. His speech was slurred and 
investigators noted a strong smell of alcohol on him. A blood test was also 
taken, but its results are unknown.

A search of Moon’s truck turned up blunt wrappers and 2 metal grinders full of 
“plant material,” according to the warrants. On the Barleys’ property, police 
found red stains and a knife.

Callands told police that she saw Moon stab her parents. She also said she was 
in a relationship with the alleged attacker.

“While the caller was on the phone with the dispatchers, she began to scream 
‘he is stabbing her,’” court records state. “She screamed to dispatch that her 
mother and father had been stabbed.”

Moon will next appear in court for a scheduling hearing on April 23. He is 
being held without bail in the Danville City Jail.

(source: godanriver.com)








NORTH CAROLINA:

Carteret County death penalty trial halted as courthouse loses power



A Carteret County man’s life sits in limbo after being convicted of 1st degree 
murder in a Morehead City woman’s death.

David Godwin, of Newport, was tried and convicted of killing 37-year-old Wendy 
Tamagne.

Tamagne’s body was found in her apartment, cut into pieces and stuffed into 
trash bags in July 2016. The jury delivered Godwin’s guilty verdict on April 
12, 2019.

While there is no question at this point that Godwin killed Tamagne, what 
remains unknown is whether he will live out his sentence in prison or be given 
the death penalty.

Tuesday’s court proceedings were forced to an early end after the Carteret 
County courthouse lost power shortly before 11 a.m. As of 2 p.m. that day, 
power had still not been restored.

According to authorities, someone backed their car into a transformer, shutting 
off power to the entire building.

Tuesday's proceedings are expected to resume Wednesday.

Before the outage, it was revealed Godwin would not be testifying on his own 
behalf. Rather, his defense team would be bringing forth 8 witnesses on Tuesday 
and 7 on Wednesday.

Prosecutors presented no additional evidence.

The defense’s 1st witness, James Aiken, an expert in prison management, 
reviewed Godwin’s records while he’s been incarcerated leading up to the trial.

Aiken cited no unusual social behavior in prison, but did recall an incident 
where Godwin got into an altercation with another inmate. Aiken’s 
interpretation is the incident was no more than a gesture with no actual intent 
to kill.

“Godwin does not present an unusual risk to staff at corrections facility,” 
Aiken said while on the stand.

But while Aiken doesn’t think staff are at risk, Godwin is a different story.

The potential for bullying in prison is high for Godwin, according to Aiken’s 
expert opinion.

Prosecutors cross examined Aiken and it was revealed Godwin was serving a 
4-year enlistment when he left the military after only one and a half years of 
service.

They also noted an attempted escape in Godwin’s incarceration report. The 
documents said Godwin tried to escape his cell by wedging a piece of paper in 
the lock so it would not close all the way, to which Aiken said that is the 
“absolute minimum to be defined as an escape attempt.”

Prosecutors also noted an altered ink pen and razors were found in Godwin’s 
cell. Aiken couldn’t recall how the pen was modified though.

(source: WCTI news)








GEORGIA:

Gwinnett woman representing herself in capital case wins jury motion



Jury selection continued Tuesday in the death-penalty trial against Tiffany 
Moss, a Gwinnett County woman accused of starving her 10-year-old stepdaughter 
to death in 2013.

Moss, 35, has refused representation by 2 experienced attorneys from the state 
capital defender office and is serving as her own lawyer. On Tuesday, seven 
prospective jurors appeared in court to individually answer questions about 
their views to see if they can be qualified as fair and impartial.

As she most often does, Moss, with a smile, told Superior Court Judge George 
Hutchinson she had no questions for any of the prospective jurors. She did so 
after either District Attorney Danny Porter or Assistant District Attorney Lisa 
Jones had asked numerous questions to each of the jurors, exploring their views 
on capital punishment and their backgrounds.

Even though she asked no questions, Moss did win a motion to keep one woman in 
the pool of potential jurors when the jury is ultimately selected.

This woman, Juror No. 30, had acknowledged to Porter that she had signed 
petitions opposing capital punishment.

“I’m personally not a fan of it,” said the woman, a veterinary nurse. “… It’s 
hard to sleep at night making that decision.”

Porter then asked her if she believed she could consider all three sentencing 
options — life in prison with the possibility of parole, life without parole or 
the death penalty — if she was selected as a juror in the case.

“I would like to think I could,” she said.

Under the law, potential jurors are to be excused from service in a 
death-penalty trial if they say they cannot impose a death sentence. So Porter 
continued to question her.

As he did, the woman admitted to having bad experiences with the criminal 
justice system.

Once on her birthday when she was a teenager, she said, she shot a water pistol 
out of a car window and the water hit a taxi driver in the face. The taxi 
driver feared it was a terrorist assault, and the woman wound up handcuffed by 
police and threatened with an aggravated assault charge, she said.

“It was not my favorite birthday,” the woman said. “I was a dumb teenager.”

Even though she was never charged, it left a bad taste in her mouth, she said.

Juror No. 30 also told Porter she believed a friend of hers was wrongly 
convicted of a sexual assault, for which he received a 10-year prison sentence.

“I don’t have a lot of faith in it,” she said of the criminal justice system, 
citing a “lack of consistency.”

Porter then asked Juror No. 30, given her views and life experiences, whether 
she could truly vote for the death penalty.

“I’ve been against it for so long,” the woman said, equivocating.

After Juror No. 30 stepped out of the courtroom, Porter moved to have her 
excused. He cited her opposition to capital punishment and her problems with 
the criminal justice system.

When Hutchinson turned to Moss, she rose from the defense table and objected. 
Juror No. 30 had said if she were selected and heard all the evidence she could 
consider all 3 sentencing options, including the death penalty, Moss said.

Hutchinson agreed, granting Moss a small victory. “She will not be excused for 
cause,” the judge said.

So far, about two dozen potential jurors have been individually questioned and 
more than half of them have been qualified to be in the final pool. Opening 
statements and testimony are expected to begin early next week.

(source: Atlanta Journal Constitution)



ALABAMA:

Alabama seeks new execution date for man who stabbed pastor



Alabama on Monday sought a new execution date for an inmate spared last week 
when the clock struck midnight before a divided U.S. Supreme Court said his 
lethal injection could proceed.

Justices on Friday lifted a stay that had blocked the execution of 46-year-old 
Christopher Lee Price, but the order came about 90 minutes after the death 
warrant setting the execution date automatically expired at midnight.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall's office asked the state Supreme Court 
to quickly schedule a new lethal injection on April 25 or May 2 in the 
"interests of justice." The state asked to set aside a rule normally requiring 
30 days' notice.

"Price has already had his execution set and erroneously delayed, he has been 
given more notice than other inmates in his position and more than enough 
notice to satisfy concerns of fairness and due process," the state wrote in the 
motion.

Price was convicted of murder in the 1991 stabbing death of pastor Bill Lynn.

A federal judge on Thursday stayed Price's execution scheduled for that evening 
to consider his challenge to the humaneness of the state's lethal injection 
procedure. Price had asked to be put to death by breathing nitrogen gas, a 
method the state has authorized but not yet used.

With a stay in place, Alabama announced about 30 minutes before midnight that 
it could not carry out the execution that night. The U.S. Supreme Court voted 
5-4 early Friday morning to vacate the stay, but the execution warrant had 
expired at midnight.

(source: Associated Press)








LOUISIANA:

Measure could make it easier for La. to carry out death penalty



Gov. John Bel Edwards said he might be willing to sign legislation that would 
keep the source of Louisiana’s lethal injection drugs a secret and out of the 
public record -- a move that could make executions easier to carry out in the 
state.

“I would suspect that if it comes to my desk I won’t have a problem with it, 
but I always reserve the right to look at it because [bills] typically get 
amended, they get changed and that sort of thing. But we will take a look at it 
when it gets there, if it gets there,” Edwards said in an interview Saturday, 
referring to House Bill 258.

Louisiana has 72 death row inmates but hasn’t executed anyone since 2010. A 
federal judge has ordered that all executions in Louisiana be delayed until 
July 2019 because the state hasn’t been able to obtain lethal injection 
ingredients.

Edwards, a Democrat, has also refused to say how he personally feels about the 
death penalty. As a legislator in 2014, he voted against a previous piece of 
legislation to keep the source of death penalty drugs secret.

Edwards was one of just seven lawmakers -- and two House members -- to vote 
against that bill five years ago. It was supported overwhelmingly, but didn’t 
end up getting enacted because its sponsor, former state representative and 
current Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joe Lopinto, pulled the bill over an unrelated 
dispute with then-Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Edwards’ reticence over the death penalty has led Republican Attorney General 
Jeff Landry and other conservatives to speculate that the governor is dragging 
his feet over executions, possibly because the governor might have moral 
objections to capital punishment.

The Department of Public Safety and Corrections, which Edwards oversees, have 
pushed back on that notion and says the governor’s personal views on the death 
penalty have nothing to do with the delay in executions. The problems carrying 
out the death penalty extend back to when Jindal was in office, officials say.

The agency is struggling to obtain lethal injection drugs for executions, in 
part, because Louisiana’s public records laws allow for the disclosure of the 
manufacturer and pharmacists that supply the substance, Corrections Secretary 
Jimmy LeBlanc has said in previous interviews.

Sources for the lethal injection drugs are unwilling to do business with the 
prison system over fear of the blowback from being involved in executions. Some 
drug manufacturers also refuse to sell products to the state if they are going 
to be used for executions, according to the prison system.

The new death penalty drug bill, sponsored by Rep. Nicholas Muscarello, 
R-Hammond, would exclude from the public record the identity and any 
identifying information of people, pharmacies, manufacturers and others who are 
responsible for getting Louisiana lethal injection drugs or “medical equipment” 
used to carry out an executions. Courts, boards, tribunals, commissions and 
agencies as well as individuals wouldn’t have access to this information, under 
this legislation.

It resembles draft state legislation that Landry started pushing last summer, 
when the attorney general said that a public records exemption might help get 
executions moving again. Several states, including Texas, have passed laws in 
recent years to keep the source of their execution drugs a secret. The Arkansas 
legislature just approved an updated version of their death penalty drug 
secrecy law earlier this month.

The stall in Louisiana’s executions upsets the families of victims of people 
sitting on death row. Many families have already been waiting decades to see 
the offender who killed their family member put to death, since appeals in 
death penalty cases can already take several years. A further delay because 
death penalty drugs can’t be obtained can be frustrating, according to recent 
testimony from families at a hearing on the death penalty.

While some lawmakers are seeking to resume executions, others are hoping to 
abolish the death penalty. Two legislators -- State Rep. Terry Landry, D-New 
Iberia, and state Sen. Dan Claitor, R-Baton Rouge -- have introduced bills to 
end the death penalty for people facing criminal charges moving forward. The 72 
people on death row would still be subject to executions, but people who face 
criminal charges in the future couldn’t join them on death row.

(source: Daily Comet)

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

State executions should not be shrouded in secrecy



Arizona prison officials estimated it would take 10 to 20 minutes to execute 
convicted double murderer Joseph Wood using an experimental two-drug cocktail 
of the sedative midazolam and the painkiller hydromorphone.

Instead, Wood coughed and wheezed for almost 2 hours — so long that his lawyer 
had time to file an emergency appeal in federal court — before he finally died.

“I counted about 660 times he gasped,” an Arizona Republic reporter who 
witnessed the execution said in July 2014.

Then-Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer issued a statement expressing concern for “the 
length of time it took for the administered drug protocol” to work but little 
sympathy for Wood, who had gunned down his girlfriend and her father.

“One thing is certain, however, inmate Wood died in a lawful manner and by 
eyewitness and medical accounts he did not suffer," Brewer said. "This is in 
stark comparison to the gruesome, vicious suffering that he inflicted on his 2 
victims – and the lifetime of suffering he has caused their family.”

Cold-blooded killers do not evoke much compassion but we should avoid 
jettisoning the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment protection against a “cruel and 
unusual punishment” in which execution becomes torture. Woods’ death was just 
one in a series of botched executions across the United States in 2014.

The New Orleans mayor is going the extra mile to alert illegal bus operators. 
Why didn't she do that for regular motorists?

In January, Ohio executed Dennis McGuire using the same unproven drug 
combination that was given to Wood. A pastor who watched the execution wrote 
that McGuire had died “gasping for air.” A Columbus Dispatch reporter said it 
was a “kind of a rattling, guttural sound. ... A couple of times, he definitely 
appeared to be choking.”

In Oklahoma, convicted killer Clayton Lockett, 38, died of a massive heart 
attack almost 30 minutes after prison officials had called off the execution 
because untrained technicians had made what the warden described as “a bloody 
mess” trying to insert needles for an IV to carry the lethal drugs into 
Lockett’s system.

The Oklahoma prison officials were using an experimental three-part drug 
cocktail obtained from a source kept secret from the public. State witnesses 
did not get to observe Lockett’s final minutes because a prison official pulled 
the blinds as the supposedly unconscious inmate struggled against his 
restraints.

Lethal injection became the primary means of execution in the United States 
over the past four decades. The process was seen as more humane than hanging, 
firing squad or electrocution as the combination of drugs used proved to be 
effective.

That changed in the first decade of the 2000s, when pharmaceutical 
manufacturers, under pressure from death penalty opponents, began to refuse to 
sell the drugs for executions and to ban their distributors from doing so.

That sent the states scrambling to purchase new drugs from other markets or to 
contract with pharmacies to compound the required chemicals.

This has raised questions from opponents about the science of the concoctions 
and the purity of the drugs being used. They also have continued political 
pressure against any entity involved in the process.

Death penalty proponents have responded to these legal and political challenges 
by trying to make the state’s process — source, science and suppliers — a 
secret.

This is where it stands in Louisiana, which hasn't executed anyone since 2010 
and is barred from doing so until July when a court rules on its lethal 
injection protocols.

Attorney General Jeff Landry and others believe that the lack of executions are 
evidence of delayed justice and are supporting legislation, House Bill 258, to 
exclude from the public record any identifying information of people, 
pharmacies, manufacturers and others who are responsible for providing the 
state with lethal injection drugs or the “medical equipment” used to carry out 
executions.

That is the wrong approach. It is subverting the people’s right to know to gain 
a political objective. It is secrecy designed to thwart legitimate protest and 
to shroud in darkness one of the greatest powers wielded by government: the 
power over life and death.

Gov. John Bel Edwards, an anti-abortion Catholic who won’t publicly state his 
position on the death penalty, recently said that he would likely sign the bill 
if it makes it to his desk. This is essentially the same measure he voted 
against as a state representative 5 years ago. He was right then.

This is a law that says that the only way for the state to carry out the 
people’s will is to keep the people in the dark.

(source: Tim Morris; columnist, The Times-Picayune)