[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, CONN., N.C., TENN.

[Rick Halperin]

August 29



TEXAS----impending execution

Death Watch: Crutsinger Seeks Last-Ditch SCOTUS Appeal----Following the Aug. 21 
execution of Larry Swearingen, Crutsinger could be the fifth Texan killed this 
year

By all prior accounts, Billy Crutsinger confessed to the double homicide of 
Pearl Magouirk and her daughter Pat Syren shortly after he was arrested in 
Galveston. Though he consented to the DNA testing used to convict him at his 
2003 trial, Crutsinger has continued to fight his death sentence, even as his 
options dwindle and his Sept. 4 execution date nears.

On Aug. 26, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Crutsinger's 
requests for both an appeal and a stay of execution, with Circuit Judge James 
E. Graves dissenting in each case. Days earlier, the Texas Court of Criminal 
Appeals also denied Crutsinger a stay as well as his request to "adequately 
address what it means for a lawyer to be competent when representing a death 
row inmate," according to his attorney Lydia Brandt, who told the Chronicle 
that her client "never had a competent lawyer" throughout his initial state 
appeals.

Brandt, who first took Crutsinger's case in 2008, said his prior appellate 
counsel Richard Alley, who died in 2017, was "great as a word processor, who 
cut-and-pasted claims from one client's pleading into the next client's 
pleading and into the next, and the next, and the next." The question now 
before the U.S. Supreme Court, in a petition filed Aug. 27 (in response to the 
CCA ruling), is whether his appointment by the trial court violated 
Crutsinger's 14th Amendment rights. Brandt asserts that Alley had a 
"substantial history in the state and federal courts of a lack of 
professionalism, unethical behavior, and an inability to competently represent" 
death row clients, based on her review of numerous cases of Alley's from 1999 
to 2007. (The SCOTUS filing features several pages of charts outlining issues 
that had been "reproduced by Alley verbatim ... or were substantially similar" 
to the arguments made in Crutsinger's appeals.)

Under Texas law, those seeking relief from the death penalty are entitled to 
representation by "competent counsel," which Brandt now argues Crutsinger was 
denied in 2003, when Alley was appointed to his case; his rights are now 
further infringed because he has "no avenue to present documented evidence" of 
Alley's incompetence. Graves agreed in his dissent: "Crutsinger must prove his 
claim of ineffective assistance of counsel to ... establish that 
'investigative, expert, or other services are reasonably necessary' to then be 
able to prove his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. Such a circular 
application is illogical." On Aug. 27, Brandt confirmed that she's working on 
an additional request for relief from SCOTUS to be filed in response to the 
5CA's "adverse decision" Monday night.

Without such relief, Crutsinger will be the 5th man executed by the state this 
year, following the Aug. 21 death of Larry Swearingen, whose final motion, 
filed with SCOTUS that morning, claimed the Texas Department of Public Safety 
had "recanted and revised" "critical evidence" used to convict him. According 
to his co-counsel at the Innocence Project, DPS "provided inaccurate testimony" 
and has "conceded that its trace analyst should not have testified that the 2 
pieces of pantyhose entered into evidence" – one the murder weapon used to 
strangle 19-year-old Melissa Trotter in December 1998; the other allegedly 
found in Swearingen's residence – were a "'unique' match or a match 'to the 
exclusion of all other pantyhose.'" SCOTUS denied the motion that evening.

Earlier this month, however, the 5CA granted Dexter Johnson a last-minute stay 
based on new arguments that he is mentally unfit to be executed. It's the 
second stay Johnson's received this year; in April, a federal judge barred his 
execution to give his new counsel more time to review the case. Johnson was 
found guilty of capital murder in 2007 for the robbery, rape, and double 
homicide of Maria Aparece and Huy Ngo.

But Huntsville isn't seeing a lull any time soon; Mark Soliz is scheduled to 
die Sept. 10, with another 9 men set for lethal injection before the year ends.

A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin’s 
independent news source for almost 40 years, expressing the community’s 
political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. 
Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with 
independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider 
making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our 
journalism on stands.

(source: Austin Chronicle)

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

Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----44

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----562

Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #

45---------Sept. 4----------------Billy Crutsinger--------563

46---------Sept. 10---------------Mark Anthony Soliz------564

47---------Sept. 25---------------Robert Sparks-----------565

48---------Oct. 2-----------------Stephen Barbee----------566

49---------Oct. 10----------------Randy Halprin-----------567

50---------Oct. 16----------------Randall Mays------------568

51---------Oct. 30----------------Ruben Gutierrez---------569

52---------Nov. 6-----------------Justen Hall-------------570

53---------Nov. 13----------------Patrick Murphy----------571

54---------Nov. 20----------------Rodney Reed-------------572

55---------Dec. 11----------------Travis Runnels----------573

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)








CONNECTICUT:

Judge rules life sentence too “cruel” for former death row inmates



A federal court judge has ruled that Connecticut’s 11 former death row inmates 
can sue the state for causing them “cruel and unusual punishment” when they 
were resentenced to life terms.

In the case of Richard Reynolds, sentenced to death in 1995 for killing a 
Waterbury police officer in 1992, U.S. District Judge Stefan Underhill ruled 
that Reynolds confinement for the rest of his life violates his rights under 
the equal protection clause of the constitution.

In 2015, the state Supreme Court declared Connecticut’s death penalty to be 
unconstitutional and Gov. Dannel Malloy signed a law ordering the state’s 11 
death row inmates to be resentenced to life in prison without parole.

In his 57-page decision, Underhill relied partly on the comments of state 
legislators who spoke in support of abolishing the death penalty to support his 
conclusion.

“Life in prison is actually worse or even more punitive than being put to 
death,” said state Sen. Joe Crisco Jr. of Woodbridge at the time.

“How one retains his sanity in an environment like that is incomprehensible,” 
said Sen. Edith Prague of Columbia.

The judge ruled that the words from legislators, among others, showed 
“overwhelmingly a clear legislative intent to punish death row inmates through 
more restrictive conditions.”

Underhill issued a permanent injunction enjoining the state from placing 
Reynolds in high security status which includes having him alone in his cell 
for more than 21 hours a day, from being segregated from other inmates and not 
being able to have visitors.

The state has 30 days to submit a status report to the judge detailing how they 
have complied with his order.

Bridgeport State’s Attorney John Smriga, whose office prosecuted former death 
row inmates Russell Peeler and Richard Roszkowski, said he is still reviewing 
the decision.

(source: Connecticut Post)








NORTH CAROLINA:

Kirk Kovach: Abolish death penalty to prevent one from being wrongfully killed



Max Weber, a pre-eminent 19th-century political scientist, described the state 
as “a human community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate 
use of physical force within a given territory.”

In no way is that more clearly presented than in the exercise of capital 
punishment. The death penalty is an anachronism, a relic of the past that ought 
to be left in the past.

The United States stands alone in the West as the only nation to continue 
executing its own citizens. Many of the states within our nation have ended the 
practice, but those that continue it still execute inmates regularly.

But new revelations in separate cases last week in North Carolina should give 
us pause, as they are indicative of the inescapable flaw of the death penalty: 
innocent people die. In Raleigh, James Blackmon recently had all of his charges 
dismissed. He spent the past 30 years incarcerated for the 1979 murder of a 
college student. He didn’t do it.

The only evidence against him was his own confession, solicited while he sat as 
a mentally ill patient in a Raleigh hospital.

During interviews with police, “he was wearing a Superman cape,” while he “also 
spoke of being able to cause earthquakes and compared himself to Dracula.” The 
only thing James was guilty of was being “eager to please,” as his attorney put 
it.

In a similar case in Greenville, Dontae Sharpe was released after serving 24 
years for a 1994 murder. A key witness in the trial recanted her testimony, 
throwing a wrench into the narrative of the crime. In these cases, the men were 
not slated for execution. It is a miracle that they weren’t.

In North Carolina, 142 people are on death row. Of them, 63% are minorities. 
That number alone should give us pause, but another questions arises: how did 
those convictions take place?

The Center for Death Penalty Litigation reports that an inordinate number of 
black jurors were struck than white jurors. That is to say, all things the 
same, if a juror was black, he was more likely removed than an equally 
qualified white juror.

The fundamental idea behind our criminal justice system, a jury of our peers, 
is often abridged.

The men recently released were not on death row, but plenty more are.

As a pure matter of statistics, there are people poised to be executed who did 
not commit a crime, and plenty more who have already died at the hands of the 
state.

The case for abolishing the death penalty is typically argued by 
liberal-leaning voices in American politics, but the tide seems to be changing 
in that regard.

In New Orleans, Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty is holding its 
first meeting. Criminal justice reform is becoming less of a third rail to 
discuss in both major parties. The thinking is clear: how can we execute 
someone with the prospect that he may be innocent?

For many, admission of guilt is enough to justify a sentence, but we see in the 
case of James Blackmon, for example, that these admissions are not always 
reliable. The primary concern of the state in this regard should be to protect 
its citizens.

Life behind bars keeps violent offenders out of communities, but it also gives 
technology time to advance and provides more ways to exonerate those imprisoned 
wrongfully.

One person wrongfully killed is one too many.

(asource: Opinion; Kirk Kovach is from Rowan County and writes for 
politicsnc.com----The Salisbury Post)








TENNESSEE:

How conservatives are making the best case against the death penalty----There 
are many reasons to oppose capital punishment. People of faith have reasons to 
be against it. So do people who see the inequities in the system.



Amy Lawrence is a conservative.

She has worked for Republican campaigns in Tennessee from the state legislature 
to Congress. She used to support the death penalty. She now does not.

“I had gone back and forth on it for years,” said Lawrence, who now heads up 
the Tennessee chapter of Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, “but 
when I started looking at whether it made practical sense, it just didn’t add 
up to my conservative values.”

Lawrence may seem to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Tennessee has 
executed five people in the last year with another scheduled in December and 2 
more in 2020.

Republican Gov. Bill Lee has shown no interest in intervening either to stop an 
execution or end the practice of capital punishment.

But conservatives who oppose the death penalty insist that they are on the 
rise. Republican-sponsored bills to abolish the death penalty came up in 11 
states this year, according to Hannah Cox, the national manager for 
Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty.

New Hampshire abolished the death penalty with Republican support, though over 
the objections of the state’s Republican governor.

There are many reasons to oppose capital punishment

Conservatives who oppose the death penalty do so for a multitude of reasons. 
Libertarians believe it is not the government’s place to kill people, social 
conservatives can’t square killing people on one hand and arguing against 
killing the unborn on the other, while uniting all of these strands is a basic 
distrust that the government can get it right.

Since 1973, 166 people across the country have been exonerated from death row, 
according to the Death Penalty Information Center, many of them decades after 
being sent there.

In addition to the well-documented racial inequities, the death penalty is 
increasingly geographically concentrated. A 2013 DPIC study found that 2% of 
the counties in the United States account for a majority of the country’s death 
sentences since 1976, due to applicable laws, prosecutorial discretion and 
other factors.

However, entire states are on the hook for the bill once that person moves onto 
death row, and that ends up more expensive than life without parole.

“It’s a failed big government program that does not use our tax dollars 
efficiently,” Cox said.

Attorney General Barr: Barr's Mueller report rollout was disgraceful. I can't 
believe I miss Jeff Sessions.

Tennessee is no exception to the rule. Of the 56 people presently on the 
state’s death row, 33 were convicted in West Tennessee and 26 are from Shelby 
County. Nine were convicted in Middle Tennessee and 5 are from Davidson County. 
14 were convicted in East Tennessee and 7 are from Knox and Hamilton counties.

This, Cox points out, while the violent crime rate in the state remains above 
the national average, according to the latest statistics.

The argument that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime has always been 
shaky at best.

Tennessee had no executions during a 40-year period

“I have a list of executions in Cook County beginning in 1840,” the legendary 
defense lawyer Clarence Darrow said in 1924. “… Ninety poor unfortunate men 
have given up their lives to stop murder in Chicago. Ninety men have been 
hanged by the neck until dead, because of the ancient superstition that in some 
way hanging one man keeps another from committing a crime.”

Darrow is hardly a conservative, for the purposes of this column, but he 
nevertheless authored perhaps the best argument against the death penalty in 
American history in the Leopold and Loeb trial.

Tennessee has nearly turned against the death penalty before. Gov. Frank 
Clement attempted to push for the abolition of executions in 1965, mostly on 
religious grounds, saying, “Can anyone deny that human judgment is inadequate?”

The effort failed by 1 vote in the legislature, and Clement subsequently 
commuted the sentences of the 5 prisoners on death row. The state didn’t hold a 
single execution from 1960 until 2000. To my knowledge, no one missed it.

Support for the death penalty was something I was taught as a child, and I 
didn’t question it. It only seemed fair and right that people who were capable 
of doing the worst to other human beings pay that price themselves.

I have not been comfortable with that sentence for a number of years, though, 
and this recent burst of executions has made it impossible for me to avoid.

My faith as I have come to understand it — that Jesus died so we don’t have to 
— has served as a guide. But as a person who believes deeply in drawing 
conclusions from the available facts no matter where they lead, I have decided 
there is nothing fair about the death penalty at all. It is shot through with 
arbitrary variables that guarantee misfires, mistakes and miscarriages of 
justice.

Anyone who would maintain a system that kills an innocent person in order to 
make way for the probability that it will kill the guilty even most of the time 
should challenge their own priorities.

Support for the death penalty is a feeling. It feels right. But feelings are no 
way to make government policy.

I was wrong, and so is the state of Tennessee.

(source: Opinion; Alex Hubbard is assistant opinion editor for The Tennessean, 
where this column originally appeared----USA Today)

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

DA Glenn Funk Seeks to Drop Death Penalty in Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman Case ---- 
Funk says 'overt racial bias has no place in the justice system' and 
prosecutors must never mislead



Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk stood in a courtroom Wednesday 
morning and told Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins that Nashville death row 
prisoner Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman should not be executed next year because of 
misconduct by the prosecutor in his 1987 case, including racial discrimination 
in jury selection.

Funk submitted a proposed order that would vacate Abdur'Rahman's death sentence 
but keep him in prison for the rest of his life. Abdur'Rahman and his attorney, 
Bradley MacLean, signed the proposed order in court and Watkins will likely 
rule on whether to accept it by tomorrow.

“Overt racial bias has no place in the justice system,” Funk told the court, 
adding that “the pursuit of justice is incompatible with deception. Prosecutors 
must never be dishonest to or mislead defense attorneys, courts or juries.”

Abdur’Rahman, a black man, has been on death row for 32 years, since he and an 
accomplice were convicted of killing Patrick Daniels and stabbing Norma Jean 
Norman during a robbery. Norman survived, and her 2 daughters — both of whom 
were present during the attack — sat in the front row of the court gallery on 
Wednesday. The remarkable development comes less than 2 weeks after the state 
of Tennessee executed its fifth prisoner in just over a year. Abdur'Rahman was 
scheduled to be executed on April 16, 2020.

In a 2016 motion, MacLean argues that then-Nashville Assistant District 
Attorney John Zimmerman — who is now a prosecutor in Rutherford County — had 
discriminatory intent during jury selection when he struck 2 prospective 
African American jurors. Pointing to contradictions between the prosecution’s 
stated reasons for striking those jurors and “the truth derived from the record 
and the prosecution’s own notes,” MacLean argues that Zimmerman was relying on 
“false, racist stereotyping” of black people. MacLean argues that in the case 
of one prospective black male juror, Zimmerman falsely claimed the man 
“appeared uneducated” and “had a reduced intellect.”

MacLean reiterated those details in court on Wednesday, adding that Zimmerman's 
notes from the trial further exposed a racist strategy. In a filing from this 
week, MacLean notes that prosecutors identified each prospective juror by race 
and, using their own ranking system, "ranked the African American jurors whom 
they struck as equal to or higher than most of the White jurors whom they did 
not strike."

But the problems with Abdur'Rahman's case don't end there. His defense attorney 
has since admitted that he failed to do his job in 1987 and told the ABA 
Journal in 2011 that “Abu-Ali is on death row because of me." Zimmerman also 
suppressed evidence the defense was entitled to see.

As MacLean noted in court Wednesday, Funk himself is already on record 
condemning Zimmerman for racist comments about jury selection. In a November 
2015 letter to the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference, Davidson 
County District Attorney Glenn Funk highlights and disavows comments Zimmerman 
made at an annual conference. In one instance, Funk writes, Zimmerman said “he 
would strike jurors with a 37215 area code, an affluent part of town, if the 
case involved people from ‘the inner city’ because ‘in Nashville, rich people 
don’t care about what happens in East Nashville.’”

Funk goes on: “While the racial implications in the previous comment were 
inferential, his next statements were blatant advice to use race in jury 
selection. Specifically, Mr. Zimmerman described prosecuting a conspiracy case 
with all Hispanic defendants. He stated he wanted an all African-American jury, 
because ‘all Blacks hate Mexicans.’”

More recently, Zimmerman — who is now a prosecutor in Rutherford County — was 
accused in a lawsuit of targeting Egyptian business owners, falsely claiming 
they were selling illegal “marijuana derivatives.” All charges related to the 
bogus busts — known as “Operation Candy Crush” — were later dropped.

On Wednesday morning, Funk emphasized that Abdur'Rahman's guilt was not in 
question and said he'd spoken to the victims and their family members before 
the hearing.

"Last week and yesterday I spoke with George Daniels, the brother of murder 
victim Patrick Daniels," Funk said. "He advised that he would still like to 
'burn his ass' and in a separate comment he stated that he wants this case to 
be over to finally have closure. He vowed 32 years ago to honor his brother by 
seeing this case to the end. I also spoke with Norma Jean Norman last weekend 
and yesterday who was the victim, in count 2, of the stabbing. Her position is 
that she is at peace and has forgiven Mr. Abdur'Rahman but she does not want 
him to ever be released from prison. I spoke with [Norman's 2 daughters] and 
they still bear the emotional scars of being children cowering in a bedroom and 
hearing the murder of Patrick Daniels and then having to see their mother crawl 
into their bedroom with the butcher knife still stuck in her back ... These 
women do not exactly share their mother's forgiveness of Mr. Abdur'Rahman but 
they are supportive of her position."

He went on to say, however, that "a prosecutor's job is to pursue justice and 
to do so" with honesty and integrity. With his proposed order, Funk conceded 
that Zimmerman had fallen far short of that standard and refused to stand by 
his conduct.

Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom, MacLean said the murder of 
Daniels, the attack on Norman and the trauma done to her daughters as well as 
other family members "cannot be mitigated." He praised Funk's move to vacate 
the death penalty.

“Fortunately today, the district attorney general performed his rightful 
function," MacLean said. "It takes moral courage to correct a 32-year-old 
wrong. It takes political courage to correct a wrong for which you are not 
responsible. For that kind of courage, Mr. Abdur’Rahman and his entire legal 
team are eternally grateful.”

(source: Nashville Scene)