[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----LA., OHIO, ARK., S.DAK., USA

[Rick Halperin]

August 3



LOUISIANA----female to face death penalty

DA in Louisiana to seek death penalty for mother of baby burned to death



The Natchitoches District Attorney’s Office has confirmed the state’s intention 
to seek the death penalty in the case against a woman accused of burning her 
son to death.

Hanna Nicole Barker, 25, was indicted on a charge of 1st-degree murder in 
November 2018. A second woman, 27-year-old Felicia Smith, is also facing a 
1st-degree murder charge.

The body of Barker’s 6-month-old son, Levi Cole Ellerbe, was found on July 18, 
2018 off Breda Ave. after officers got a call about a fire. The infant was 
taken to Natchitoches Regional Medical Center with 2nd- and 3rd-degree burns 
over 90 % of his body. He and later airlifted to a hospital in Shreveport, 
where he died from his injuries.

Barker, who officials have said was in a relationship with Smith, is accused of 
asking Smith to kill the baby. According to the indictment, Smith said she took 
the baby from Barker’s home, poured gasoline on him and sent him on fire before 
going to work.

Barker initially claimed the baby had been kidnapped from her home in the 
Mayberry Trailer Park, prompting a search involving several law enforcement 
agencies.

Both Barker and Smith have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Barker’s trial date was set for January 13, 2020.

(source: KTAL news)








OHIO:

Man Indicted in 4 Family Slayings, Could Face Death Penalty----A man has been 
indicted on 4 counts of aggravated murder in the slayings of his wife, her 
parents and her aunt in an apartment home in southwest Ohio.



A man has been indicted on 4 counts of aggravated murder in the slayings of his 
wife, her parents and her aunt in an apartment home in southwest Ohio, court 
records showed Friday.

Grand jurors also specified in each count that Gurpreet Singh used a firearm 
and killed more than 1 person, meaning he would face the death penalty if 
convicted.

Butler County Jail records show that Singh, 37, was booked into the jail early 
Friday morning after his return from Connecticut. The grand jury indictments 
were made public nearly 8 hours later.

A message was left Friday for Singh's attorney, Charles H. Rittgers.

Singh had been arrested July 2 in a Walmart parking lot in Branford, 
Connecticut.

He had called 911 on April 28 to say he found the four "on the ground and 
bleeding" in a West Chester apartment where he also lived, some 20 miles (32.3 
kilometers) north of Cincinnati. Each of the 4 killed had at least 2 gunshot 
wounds in the head.

Police said there was food left on the stove, indicating the family was 
preparing dinner that evening when they were shot.

Police said repeatedly during the investigation that they didn't believe the 
community, where such violence is rare, was under threat or that the case was a 
hate crime. That indicated that investigators believed the motive for the 
crimes was personal.

West Chester Township Police Chief Joel Herzog called the slayings a "heinous 
crime" but didn't discuss details or possible motive when announcing the 
arrest.

Those killed were identified as Shalinderjit Kaur, 39; Amarjit Kaur, 58; 
Parmjit Kaur, 62, and Hakiakat Singh Pannag, 59.

Singh has said he and Shalinderjit Kaur had been married 17 years and had three 
children. Family members identified Parmjit and Hakiakat as his wife's parents, 
and Amarjit as Parmjit's sister.

Singh, a truck driver, told The Cincinnati Enquirer he was often away from 
home. Their three children were staying with other relatives at the time of the 
slayings, and police have said they are safe.

In a statement after Singh's arrest, relatives of those slain said they were 
thankful for the efforts of West Chester police, other law enforcement agencies 
and the Sikh community of the Cincinnati region, and that they were praying for 
Singh's conviction.

(source: Associated Press)








ARKANSAS:

Arkansas Supreme Court refuses to step down from case challenging its own 
ruling against anti-death penalty judge



Justices of the Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday refused to recuse themselves 
from a case claiming they improperly barred a Little Rock judge from hearing 
death penalty cases because he exercised his religious liberty by attending an 
execution vigil in his other role as a Baptist pastor.

The Supreme Court denied without comment Judge Wendell Griffen’s motion seeking 
their disqualification from his petition to restore his authority to hear and 
decide capital cases. Just 1 of the 7 members of the court, Associate Justice 
Josephine Hart, favored turning the case over to special justices.

The Supreme Court hastily removed Griffen from all capital punishment cases 
after he attended an anti-death penalty protest outside the governor’s mansion 
on Good Friday in 2017. Before attending the vigil, Griffen, pastor of New 
Millennium Church in Little Rock, signed an order temporarily blocking the use 
of an execution drug allegedly obtained by the state by fraud.

McKesson Medical Surgical lnc., a major U.S. pharmaceutical firm, sued Arkansas 
in 2017, claiming the Arkansas Department of Corrections intentionally sought 
to circumvent the company’s policies to procure Pfizer’s vecuronium bromide 
under the guise that it would be used for medical purposes.

Learning that the state was potentially holding the product to use in lethal 
injections, McKesson immediately requested and was assured that the product 
would be returned. The company issued a full refund to the state and made 
several additional requests for the product, but it was never returned.

Griffen signed a temporary restraining order on April 14, 2017, citing a threat 
of imminent and irreparable harm and finding evidence that the drug company 
would likely win the case on the merits if it were to proceed to trial.

The next day the state’s Republican attorney general asked the Supreme Court to 
lift the temporary restraining order and remove Griffen from hearing the case. 
The Supreme Court gave Griffen until 9 a.m. the Monday after Easter to respond. 
When he didn’t meet the deadline, justices disqualified him not only from the 
property dispute but all cases involving the death penalty or the state’s 
execution protocol, whether criminal or civil.

In his July 10 motion asking the Supreme Court justices to disqualify 
themselves from his attempted reinstatement, Griffen said the court bypassed 
legal procedure – thereby not giving him enough time to respond — and that 
justices allowed political pressure to influence their rush to judgment.

He said a number of white legislators had voiced displeasure with Griffen, who 
is African-American, both for his participation in the death penalty protest 
and other “extra-judicial published writings and comments made in his capacity 
as an ordained Baptist pastor in the religion of Jesus.”

The state Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission dismissed an ethics 
complaint against Griffen on June 12.

Griffen said the Supreme Court ruled against him in retaliation “for exercising 
his religious freedom” and “out of discriminatory racial animus” based on his 
African-American ancestry and racial identity.

Because of that, he argued, it “might reasonably be questioned” whether the 
justices would rule impartially in his petition to have his judicial authority 
restored.

“It is ironic that the same justices who barred me for not recusing because of 
my general views on a topic which was not even before me at the time, will not 
recuse themselves despite their specific negative views of me — a litigant who 
is before them right now,” Griffen said in a statement quoted by the Associated 
Press.

(source: Baptist News)








SOUTH DAKOTA:

Deadline set for death penalty decision in Rapid City vehicle murder case



The Pennington County State’s Attorney Office will decide by Oct. 1 whether it 
intends to seek the death penalty if a Rapid City woman is convicted of murder 
for allegedly fatally hitting a woman with her car at a Walmart parking lot in 
May.

Lara Roetzel, deputy state's attorney, said in court Thursday, Aug. 1, that she 
needs more time to make a decision since the family of victim Kimberly Clifford 
is not yet emotionally ready to be consulted on the matter.

Rochelle Seminole, 48, is charged with premeditated first-degree murder for 
allegedly purposely killing Clifford by driving her SUV into her at the Walmart 
parking lot on North Lacrosse Street on May 26.

If Roetzel decides to ask for the death penalty and Seminole is convicted, a 
jury would decide whether to sentence Seminole to death or life in prison 
without parole. If capital punishment is not pursued and Seminole is convicted, 
she would spend the rest of her life in prison.

Many witnesses told police they saw Seminole and Clifford fighting in the 
parking lot before Seminole hit or attempted to hit Clifford with a SUV and 
then backed up before plowing into the woman, launching her into the air before 
she landed in a storm drain, according to police reports. Clifford, a 
37-year-old from Rapid City, was found unconscious and bleeding from the mouth 
with a tire track over her body. She died soon after she was taken to the 
hospital.

Seminole also faces 2 DUI-related charges that carry a maximum sentence of one 
year in jail. Seminole smelled like alcohol and had bloodshot eyes, incoherent 
speech and difficulty walking, the police reports say. A field test found she 
had a .270 blood alcohol content. The legal limit is .08.

Seminole is expected to return to court for a hearing at 10 a.m. on Aug. 29.

(source: inforum.com)








USA:

Is Trump Using the Death Penalty as an Election Strategy?



Attorney General William Barr’s decision to order the resumption of federal 
executions, presumably at the order of Donald Trump, was treated by most of the 
media as a one-day story. It seemed to come out of the blue, and to have no 
strategic thought behind it — just another nasty, impulsive conservative policy 
emanating from an administration that continually emits such unpleasant 
proposals.

But I believe there was nothing impulsive about it. This was the springing of a 
political trap intended to shore up the “law-and-order” credentials of an 
inherently lawless administration. The decision also appears aimed to force the 
hand of Democrats — to get them to go on record opposing the death penalty, and 
thus, by extension, be seen as “weak on crime” and somehow simpatico with the 
five men who now stand to be executed later this year.

On one level, this is simply “politics as usual.” U.S. politicians have a long 
and sordid tradition of politicizing the death penalty during election season. 
It’s low-hanging fruit, since, even though opposition to capital punishment has 
risen in recent years — some polls show it’s now at its highest level in 
decades — over the years, polling has shown that the U.S. public has 
consistently supported capital punishment.

George H.W. Bush similarly sought to play on pro-death-penalty fervor when 
running his infamously racist Willie Horton ad against his Democratic opponent, 
Michael Dukakis, during the 1988 presidential campaign — an ad that opened by 
touting Bush’s pro-death penalty credentials.

Opportunism on this issue easily crosses party boundaries, too. Four years 
after Dukakis’s mauling at the hands of Bush, Democratic candidate Bill Clinton 
sought to inoculate himself from charges of being a wishy-washy liberal by 
refusing a plea for clemency and instead signing a death warrant against Rickey 
Ray Rector, a man with a traumatic brain injury. Today, that opportunism runs 
in reverse at times, with Democrats seeking the presidential nomination also 
playing politics on the issue; candidates such as Joe Biden who in previous 
years went out of their way to establish their “tough-on-crime” credentials are 
now falling over themselves to align with progressive primary voters in their 
opposition to the death penalty.

And yet, because of the broader Trumpian moment, Barr’s announcement can’t be 
dismissed as simply cruel politics as usual, as a Republican hack pandering to 
a conservative GOP base in election season.

Trump isn’t simply opportunistic when it comes to executions — he has 
fetishized the state-sanctioned shedding of blood.

Trump isn’t simply opportunistic when it comes to executions — rather, he has 
long been utterly obsessed with capital punishment. He has fetishized the 
state-sanctioned shedding of blood. Back in the late 1980s, the real estate 
mogul took out ads in New York newspapers calling for the execution of the five 
young Black men whom the media dubbed the Central Park 5 — all youth who were 
wrongfully accused of attacking and raping a white jogger.

Even after a huge body of evidence emerged to exonerate the teens, showing that 
they had been framed for a crime they hadn’t committed, and even after the 
state settled a wrongful conviction lawsuit, Trump never apologized for his 
shameful role in this case.

If there’s a chance to stir the pot and contribute to the overheated rhetoric 
when it comes to executions, Trump has always wanted to take it. During his 
2016 election campaign, he made the horrendous claim that not only should those 
deemed “terrorists” be executed but that their families should also be killed. 
More recently, at campaign rallies he has called for the “swift” execution of 
people who kill police officers; presumably, in his understanding, this means 
doing away with all the time-consuming appeals that stand between a sentence 
being read out in court and actually being carried out.

At his rallies in 2016, Trump’s supporters frequently called for Hillary 
Clinton to be hanged or shot for treason. And while Trump himself didn’t 
directly embrace such calls, he also didn’t make any effort to distance himself 
from them. The frenzy and blood-lust was politically expedient, and so Trump 
let it run on.

Trump has made the horrendous claim that not only should “terrorists” be 
executed but that their families should also be killed.

Once it became seen as “acceptable” to call for one’s political opponents to be 
jailed or even executed, so it also became commonplace. Trump has repeatedly, 
in the years since, described his political opponents and those who have 
investigated him and his campaign as “traitors.” This is a very specific charge 
carrying with it the possibility of execution as a punishment. One doesn’t 
bandy about such allegations casually. They are designed to convince Trump’s 
base that he is surrounded by mortal enemies, and to similarly convince that 
base that any and all responses are politically and legally justified against 
them. That’s the base that now, routinely, physically threatens writers and 
politicians, TV reporters, journalists, entertainers, and anyone else who dares 
to call Trump out for his actions.

It is in this context that Barr’s embrace of the federal death penalty ought to 
be viewed.

As Trump has shown with his white nationalist rants over the past weeks, 
there’s no low that he won’t stoop to as he seeks to shore up his base in the 
run-up to next year’s elections. Combine the racism of Trump’s tweets about 
“the Squad”, Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings and now Al Sharpton, and the 
obsession with the meting out of state-sanctioned violence, and you have the 
likely tenor of the next year-and-a-half of politics in a nutshell.

The Department of Justice’s renewed embrace of capital punishment isn’t about 
“public safety” — it’s about pandering to the basest emotions. It’s all part of 
the cacophony of fury and blood-lust that passes for politics in Trump’s 
degraded vision of the United States.

(source: Op-Ed; Sasha Abramsky is a freelance journalist and a part-time 
lecturer at the University of California at Davis, Turthout.org)

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

Mississippi man charged with Kansas City murder will face federal death penalty



Federal prosecutors will seek the death penalty for two men charged in 2 Kansas 
City-area murders; 1 of the accused is from Mississippi.

The U.S. Attorney’s office said Wednesday the decision involves 30-year-old 
Shawn Burkhalter, of Kansas City, and 25-year-old Joshua Nesbitt, of Crowder, 
Mississippi.

The announcement comes after the U.S. Justice Department announced last week 
that it would resume executing federal death row inmates.

Both face several charges, including using a firearm to commit murder and 
murdering a potential witness.

The men are accused of killing Anthony Dwayne Johnson and Danny Lamont Dean in 
2015 while trying to steal drugs they intended to sell.

Prosecutors also allege Burkhalter and Nesbitt planned to kill or threaten 
Johnson to stop him from testifying in court or talking to law enforcement.

A superseding indictment on Tuesday contained additional charges against the 2 
men.

(source: Associated Press)