[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, MO., COLO., WYO., CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

February 2




OHIO----female may face death penalty

Pilkington suppression decision coming soon



A decision on whether or not all or some of Brittany Pilkington’s confession 
will be admitted at trial could come early next week.

Presiding Judge Mark S. O’Connor has reviewed closing briefs from the defense 
team and Logan County Prosecutor Eric Stewart in the capital murder case and 
testimony presented Jan. 8 and 9.

Pilkington, 25, is accused of killing her 3 sons during a 13-month period 
starting in July 2014.

Authorities say she admitted during the recorded hours-long interview that she 
smothered the boys as they slept, starting with infant Niall in July 2014 
followed by Gavin, 4, on April 6, 2015, and infant Noah on Aug. 18, 2015.

If convicted, she could face a sentence of death. O’Connor has reopened a 2016 
suppression hearing to determine if a confession Pilkington gave Aug. 18, 2015, 
should be admitted as evidence in her capital murder trial slated to start 
March 18.

Pilkington’s team of Kort Gatterdam, Marc Triplett and Tina McFall have 
presented affidavits and testimony from psychologist Dr. Howard Fradkin and 
neuropsychologist Dr. Jeffrey D. Madden that Pilkington’s 2015 confession was 
not voluntary because of her brain damage; history of physical, emotional and 
sexual abuse; and mental illness.

They maintain she could not handle the pressure of more than six hours of 
questioning over a nine-hour period following Noah’s death and that she was 
deprived of food, water and restroom breaks.

Not only should O’Connor throw out the entire confession, they argued in 
briefs, he should also toss out the possibility Pilkington will face the death 
penalty.

“This court now has ample evidence in its possession that the imposition of the 
death penalty under these circumstances is improper,” they wrote. “The defense 
asks this court to exercise its inherent authority to find, after hearing 
testimony and receiving the exhibits from the recent hearing, that the death 
penalty specifications can no longer stand.”

(source: Bellefontaine Examiner)

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

Witness: Convicted murderer Kirkland has a 'psychopathic lifestyle'



A forensic psychologist said Feb. 1 the convicted murderer facing the death 
penalty for killing Jimmie Holland Jr. has a "psychopathic lifestyle."

The statement came on the final day of testimony in the mitigation hearing for 
Elliott Kirkland, 29, of Lorain, who was convicted by a Lorain County Common 
Pleas Court jury on Jan. 24 of shooting Holland.

Kirkland killed Holland on Aug. 29, 2016, while robbing the man’s Lorain 
apartment.

Dr. Robert Stinton, a consultant for prosecutors and the sole witness for the 
state in the hearing, stopped short of diagnosing Kirkland with psychopathy 
because he had not interviewed him personally.

Stinton said he could have made a diagnosis based on the more than 7,500 pages 
of records, dating from Kirkland’s childhood to the present day, which he 
reviewed for the case.

He said that when one deals with a psychopath, the person often is 
“superficially charming” and have a parasitic lifestyle.

“It was somewhat chilling that in the records, his girlfriend said he was 
charming (and) two of the (defense’s) evaluators said he comes across as 
charming,” Stinton said. “Well, superficial charm is a hallmark of psychopathy 
when it’s combined with the antisocial, when it’s combined with the lifestyle, 
when it’s combined with these other things that I’m talking about.”

Stinton also strongly disagreed with the defense’s forensic psychologist, Dr. 
Galit Askenazi, who claimed Kirkland did not have antisocial personality 
disorder and that he had avoidant tendencies.

“He’s not avoidant at all,” he said. “He’s kind of got the gift of gab and 
seems to, kind of, be able to sway people and draw them in.”

In his opinion, Stinton said he found that Kirkland was “born to ineffective 
parents,” and was raised by his grandmother who was in a “high risk” 
community.”

“He does not have any neuropsychological impairments, does not have an 
intellectual disability, does not have a mental illness,” the doctor said. 
“He’s had numerous, and appropriately graded, attempts at intervention. But 
nonetheless, he has persisted in his criminogenic thinking, attitudes and 
behavior.

“And he presents, in the end, with the classic signs of antisocial personality 
disorder and psychopathy.”

Earlier in the day, the jurors heard from Chiffon Barnette, the mother of 2 of 
Kirkland’s children; Cassandra Jones, his former neighbor at the King Kennedy 
Housing Projects in Cleveland; and Chanelle Kirkland-Whitfield; his aunt.

Their testimony, on behalf of the defense, echoed much of what was heard Jan. 
29 during the testimony of Askenazi describing the various problems Kirkland 
had growing up in the housing project and with his dysfunctional family.

The hearing resumes at 9 a.m. Feb. 4 before Common Pleas Judge James L. 
Miraldi.

(source: The Morning Journal)








MISSOURI:

Death penalty sought for inmate charged with killing 2 Wyandotte sheriff’s 
deputies



Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree filed notice Friday that he will 
seek the death penalty for the man charged with killing 2 sheriff’s deputies 
last summer.

Dupree said that he would pursue the death penalty for Antoine Fielder Friday 
at what was supposed to be Fielder’s preliminary hearing in Wyandotte County 
District Court.

A mental competency examination was also ordered for Fielder. His attorneys 
requested the exam to determine if he is competent to stand.

“We believe this is a delay tactic,” Dupree told District Judge Bill Klapper 
Friday.

Dupree said that Fielder had previously been found to be competent. He called 
Fielder “a major safety concern” who is seeking to delay justice as long as he 
can.

Defense attorney Jeff Dazey said the defense “strenuously” objected to Dupree 
saying it was an attempt to delay.

Dazey said competency is a “fluid” concept that waxes and wanes. He said that 
the defense has had concerns about the psychological effects that being in 
solitary confinement has had on Fielder.

“We have great concerns about our client’s competency,” Dazey said.

Fielder, 30, is charged with capital murder in the deaths of deputies Patrick 
Rohrer and Theresa King.

Fielder was one of two prisoners that Rohrer, 35, and King, 44, were 
transporting back to jail on June 15 after hearings in the court building a 
block north of the county courthouse when Fielder allegedly disarmed one of 
them.,P> He was wounded in the incident.

In order to be competent, a criminal defendant must be able to understand court 
proceedings and be able to assist in his own defense.

Klapper ordered that Fielder be transported to the Larned State Hospital for 
the examination.

Court proceedings will be stayed until a report from Larned doctors is 
completed. Klapper scheduled a hearing for March 22 to update the status of the 
case.

The scheduled preliminary hearing would have been the first time that details 
of the incident were made public. An affidavit outlining the evidence has been 
sealed.

(sourfe: The Kansas City Star)








COLORADO:

Friednash: I helped expand the Colorado death penalty; now I support its repeal



The death penalty is not a deterrent, Doug Friednash writes.

25 years ago, as a freshman House Democrat, I sponsored legislation to expand 
the death penalty. I was wrong.

My career has entwined me with Colorado’s executions and death row inmates in 
unexpected ways. Ultimately my mind has changed as I’ve witnessed the flaws of 
a system that has killed at least one innocent man; at best been applied with 
inconsistency and worst been applied with prejudice, and has wasted millions of 
taxpayer dollars.

The death penalty is not a deterrent. Colorado has only executed o1 person in 
the last 50 years — Gary Lee Davis.

In July 1986, Davis and his wife kidnapped their neighbor, Virginia May, in 
front of her children, and drove her to a secluded place where she was raped 
and shot 14 times.

I was a prosecutor in the Colorado Attorney General’s Office working in the 
criminal appeals division. My colleague, Bob Petrusak, had spent years 
prosecuting Davis. My curiosity was piqued and I offered to do some legal 
research. As I studied the legal grounds that triggered the use of the death 
penalty, I was struck by the fact that multiple killings during the same 
criminal episode couldn’t trigger a capital case.

It took a decade of costly state and federal court appeals billed to the 
taxpayers before Davis was executed.

A few years later when I was elected to the legislature, I approached the 
Colorado District Attorneys’ Council to ask for their support to expand the 
death penalty to include multiple killings. The DAs weren’t interested.

That changed in December 1993 when 19-year-old Nathan Dunlap killed four fellow 
employees at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Aurora. Suddenly, everyone it 
seemed, including the DAs, couldn’t rush fast enough to help.

House Bill 94-1144, which I sponsored, easily passed and added this factor as 
grounds for the death penalty. The law did not apply retroactively to Dunlap 
case, but the teen was put on death row by a jury.

Fast forward 20 years later, Dunlap, having exhausted all appeals, asked Gov. 
John Hickenlooper to spare his life.

Hickenlooper issued a controversial executive order granting Dunlap an 
indefinite stay of execution. Hickenlooper, who supported the death penalty 
when he was elected governor, called the state’s death penalty system flawed 
and inequitable. He said the decision would lead to a statewide conversation on 
Colorado’s use of the death penalty.

Fate would eventually bring me back to Dunlap. During Hickenlooper’s campaign 
for re-election, I helped the governor in debate prep by playing his opponent. 
Given the prominence of his executive order in the campaign, we spent 
considerable time sparring over the death penalty. I was left with this 
inescapable conclusion: the use of the death penalty had become rare and 
unfair.

It was a conclusion backed up when 2 Colorado juries had a robust conversation 
about the use of the death penalty in Hickenlooper’s 2nd term. The cases 
involved 2 of the most sickening multiple killings crimes in Colorado history.

In July 2012, James Holmes went into an Aurora Century 16 movie theatre during 
a midnight screening of the film The Dark Knight Rises and killed 12 people and 
injured 70 others.

After a 6-month trial that cost Colorado taxpayers an estimated $5 million, he 
was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. The jury rejected 
Holmes’ defense that he was not guilty by reason of insanity, but jurors were 
still concerned about the severity of his mental illness and they failed to 
reach a unanimous verdict.

A few months later, a Denver jury returned a life sentence in the trial of 
Dexter Lewis in the gruesome stabbing deaths of 5 people in a Denver bar in 
2012. In less than 3 hours, a 2nd jury rejected the death penalty.

The law didn’t deter Holmes or Lewis. The juries sent a message to our public 
officials that it was time to abolish the death penalty.

And it is time.

At least 1 Colorado jury has wrongfully executed someone.

Joe Arridy was a young man with an I.Q. of 46, when he was wrongfully executed 
for the 1936 rape and ax murder of a 15-year-old girl in Pueblo. Police secured 
a false and coerced confession from Arridy. The evidence showed that it was 
highly unlikely he was even in Pueblo at the time of the murder. Another man, 
who had the murder weapon at his house, confessed to the murder. He was also 
executed.

Gov. Bill Ritter, the former Denver DA, examined the case and granted a full 
and unconditional posthumous pardon to Arridy.

Since 1973, 164 people wrongly sentenced to death have been exonerated. We have 
no idea how many Americans we have wrongly executed. Joe Arridy was 1 too many.

Racial discrimination has also been a factor in the application of the death 
penalty. A 2015 University of Denver Law Review article demonstrated, through 
statistical research, that Colorado prosecutors were five times more likely to 
seek the death penalty against minorities than white defendants.

Where the murder took place also matters. The data showed that defendants in 
the 18th Judicial District were four times more likely to face a death 
prosecution than elsewhere in the state.

All 3 of Colorado’s current death row inmates are black men that were 
prosecuted in the 18th Judicial District. Holmes, who is white, was also tried 
in Arapahoe County.

The race narrative also plays out nationally. According to the 2010 Census 
Bureau, about 72 % of the population is white and 13 % is black. The Death 
Penalty Information Center reports that 55 % of defendants executed have been 
white while 34 % were black, and 42 % of current death-row inmates are black 
and 42 % are white.

Justice, many supporters believe, can only occur through appropriate 
retribution; an eye for an eye. We don’t torture torturers, rape rapists or cut 
off the hands of those who steal. A society that respects life does not commit 
premeditated murder to show that killing is wrong. Nor should we tolerate the 
barbaric nature in which we kill people: from firing squads to electric chairs 
to lethal injections. There have been countless botched executions and drug 
companies have now even sued to prevent states from using their drugs to kill 
people.

It’s time to close this chapter in Colorado’s history books. The Colorado 
legislature should abolish the death penalty this session. And then Gov. Jared 
Polis should commute the death sentences of our three death-row inmates to life 
without the possibility of parole.

(source: Commentary; Doug Friednash is a Denver native, a partner with the law 
firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber and Schreck and the former chief of staff for Gov. 
John Hickenlooper----Denver Post)








WYOMING:

House backs death penalty repeal



Sen. Mike Gierau, D-Teton, is predicting the death penalty repeal bill could 
gain support in the Senate after passing the House.

“I think it might do well for the same reason it did well in the House, because 
of an interesting alliance between people who are against the death penalty for 
philosophical reasons, and hardcore conservative folks looking at it from a 
dollars and cents standpoint,” Gierau told the News&Guide Friday night.

House Bill 145 — the first of its kind to last so long in the Wyoming 
Legislature — is now on to the Senate, after the first chamber passed it by a 
healthy margin of 36-21. In 2018 a similar bill lost by a roughly reverse “no” 
vote, and the year before another died in committee.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Jared Olsen, R-Laramie, has become perhaps the most 
morally charged legislation of the session.

“It will, for generations to come, be a testament of where we stand and what we 
want our laws to say,” Olsen said.

Many arguments for and against the bill grew out of the legislators’ spiritual 
beliefs or their connections to incidents of violence.

Some pleaded with their colleagues to “remember the victims.” Rep. Roy Edwards, 
R-Campbell, argued the death penalty should remain as a means of retribution 
for them and their families.

“They’re not around anymore to be represented by anybody,” Edwards said. “They 
can’t have an appeal to a higher court to ask that their execution be stayed.”

But others countered that “eye-for-eye” justice, satisfying as it may initially 
seem, does little to assuage the suffering of those who have lost loved ones.

Rep. Danny Eyre, R-Uinta, grew up with Mark Hopkinson, who in 1992 was the last 
man to be executed in Wyoming. He knew Hopkinson’s family and the families of 
his 4 victims.

He recalled thinking the execution — which he supported at the time — would 
bring relief to him and his community.

“I felt just the opposite,” he said. “It was a dark, sad day, and it didn’t do 
anything to help relieve the pain of those family members who had had loved 
ones killed.”

Capital punishment is already rare in Wyoming. Hopkinson was the state’s 1st 
and last execution since the reinstatement of the death penalty nationwide in 
1976. The state currently has no one on death row.

Yet several legislators noted that, even without the costly appeals process 
that comes with a death sentence, the state spends $750,000 each year to keep 
the public defender’s office prepared for potential cases.

“We’re not using it,” said Rep. Tyler Lindholm, R-Crook/Weston. “It’s a waste 
of tax funds.”

Others pointed to the fallibility of forensic evidence and the innocent lives 
it can endanger in combination with the death penalty. In recent decades, DNA 
testing has exonerated hundreds of people wrongfully convicted of crimes they 
did not commit.

“The facts tell us that we’ve gotten it wrong,” Olsen said. “Over and over and 
over again.

“You can not guarantee,” he said, “that when it is used, it will be a guilty 
person and not an innocent person.”

(source: Jackson Hole News & Guide)

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

Wyoming House passes repeal of death penalty----Death penalty repeal heads to 
Wyoming House floor



A proposal to end the death penalty in Wyoming has been passed by the state 
House of Representatives.

House Bill 145 was approved on a 36-21 vote Friday and sent to the Senate for 
more debate.

Supporters of the bill say repealing the death penalty would save local and 
state government money by not having to hire staff attorneys and other experts 
for potential death penalty cases and other expenses.

In addition, they don't approve of government sanctioned killing.

Opponents say the death penalty is a deterrent and a just punishment for 
horrific crimes.

Wyoming is among 31 states that still has a death penalty. However, no one has 
been executed in Wyoming since 1992 and no one is currently on death row.

(source: Associated Press)








CALIFORNIA:

In Wyoming, Republicans are the ones moving to abolish the death penalty



The Wyoming House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Friday to repeal the 
state’s little-used death penalty and set the maximum sentence at life in 
prison without parole. And the vote was driven by Republicans.

The legislative move is the most recent step in a campaign by conservatives 
nationally to try to end the death penalty, a public policy position usually 
associated with the left.

We really ought to just be done with it.

For the right, the driving factors include a respect for life, a recognition 
that odds are too high that an easily manipulated criminal justice system can 
lead to the execution of the innocent, and an unwillingness to continue paying 
the absurdly high costs associated with trying to prevent that from happening 
(an impossible achievement).

Those are persuasive arguments.

It’s unclear whether the 30-member state Senate (all but 3 of whom are 
Republicans) will go along, or what Wyoming’s new Republican Gov. Mark Gordon 
will do if a bill reaches his desk. He apparently has made no public comments 
about the death penalty one way or another.

But Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, which has been pushing for 
abolition, welcomed the vote:

"With only nine Democrats in the Wyoming House of Representatives, this vote 
was driven by Republicans who value life, who want to be fiscally responsible, 
and who believe in limiting the scope of government,” the group’s manager, 
Hannah Cox, said in a news release. “This active leadership of conservative 
state legislators wanting to end the death penalty reflects the trend we are 
seeing across the country. Wyoming is the latest signal that the death penalty 
is on its way out and that conservatives are leading the way.”

Wyoming is among 30 states — including California — that still have the death 
penalty, though 17 of them have not executed anyone in the last five years, 
according to statistics maintained by the Death Penalty Information Center. In 
fact, 11 of those states haven’t killed anyone in at least a decade.

California’s last execution came in 2006, just before a court-ordered freeze. 
Which is a good thing. State Assemblyman Marc Levine (D-San Rafael) is hoping 
to introduce a bill that would put yet another initiative on the 2020 ballot 
asking voters to end the death penalty.

Yes, the state just voted on that in 2016, rejecting a ban and approving a 
slate of measures aimed at speeding up executions. But legal challenges have 
watered that initiative down and it seems unlikely the “machinery of death,” as 
Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun so famously phrased it, will be 
starting up anytime soon.

So we really ought to just be done with it.

But it will be interesting to see if Wyoming and other red states wind up doing 
first what the bluest of blue states, California, has failed to do: recognize 
the inherent inhumanity of putting someone to death, and ending capital 
punishment.

(source: Opinion; Scott Martelle spent more than 30 years in newsrooms before 
moving to opinion writing. He has covered presidential elections, books and 
publishing, and countless other topics in a career given mostly to general 
assignment reporting----Los Angeles Times)

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

LAPD Security Officer Charged With Murder in Death of Wife, Son in Valley Glen: 
DA’s Office



A man was arrested and charged with murder Friday in the deaths of his wife and 
13-year-old son in Valley Glen, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s 
Office said.

The victims, Nataliya Glukhovskiy, 39, and Alexandr Glukhovskiy, 13, were found 
dead in their apartment on the 13800 block of Oxnard Boulevard on Dec. 26, 
2018, the Los Angeles Police Department said.

Viktor Glukhovskiy, a civilian employee at LAPD Security Services Division, was 
not considered a suspect at the time, according to detectives.

The father and husband alerted authorities to the killings at around 11 p.m., 
saying he found them after arriving home from work, detectives said. He was 
described as being cooperative during interviews.

The LAPD continued investigating the case and Glukhovskiy was arrested more 
than a month later.

Authorities have not released information on what led investigators to arrest 
Glukhovskiy.

Glukhovskiy was charged with 2 counts of murder as well as special circumstance 
allegations of multiple murders, lying in wait and murder for financial gain, 
making him eligible for the death penalty, according to the DA’s office.

The criminal complaint said a shotgun was used in the killings, the DA’s office 
said.

The suspect was being held on a $2,000,000 bail.

Glukhovskiy’s arraignment is set for Feb. 5 at a Los Angeles court.

If convicted as charged, Glukhovskiy faces a possible maximum sentence of life 
in prison without the possibility of parole, or the death penalty. A decision 
will later be made on whether to seek the death penalty, the DA’s office said.

The Los Angeles Police Department, which is investigating the case, released a 
statement calling the killings “incredibly disturbing.”

“No individual is above the law and this Department will work feverishly to 
bring anyone who commits such a violent act to justice,” the LAPD’s statement 
said.

(source: KTLA news)








USA:

Huge Four Corner Hustlers gang trial pushed back, possibly until September 
2020----The trial of reputed Four Corner Hustlers street gang boss Labar “Bro 
Man” Spann and 2 others identified as members of the gang was to begin in 
September. But lawyers for the 3 wanted more time to prepare because 
prosecutors might seek the death penalty.



The federal racketeering case against 11 members of the Four Corner Hustlers — 
one of the biggest gang trials in Chicago history — was supposed to begin this 
September, but a judge said Friday it could be pushed back by as much as a 
year.

That was after lawyers for 3 of the defendants — reputed gang boss Labar “Bro 
Man” Spann, Tremayne Thompson and Juhwun Foster — told U.S. District Judge 
Thomas Durkin they need more time to prepare. They noted that prosecutors 
haven’t said yet whether they will seek the death penalty for the three if they 
are convicted.

The trial had been scheduled to start Sept. 3.

“One way or the other, the death penalty-eligible defendants are not going to 
go to trial in September,” Durkin said, but he did not immediately set a new 
trial date.

A new trial date could be set Feb. 11. Durkin suggested the possibility of 
rescheduling the trial for September 2020. When he initially set the September 
2019 trial date, he had said having the trial begin in the fall might make it 
easier for jurors.

The move to delay the proceedings came as the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago 
weighs whether they would seek the death penalty against the three. The 
months-long process to decide to do so would require the attorney general’s 
approval.

Federal prosecutors have linked Spann, Thompson and Foster to 6 killings 
between 2000 and 2003, including the shooting death of Latin Kings boss Rudy 
“Kato” Rangel.

Complicating when the trial will take place is that the 8 other defendants are 
not eligible for the death penalty. Several of them are asking to split the 
case in 2 — with one trial for those who could get a death sentence if 
convicted and a separate trial for the others — but prosecutors oppose that.

“Nobody wants 2 4-month trials,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Salib, the lead 
prosecutor in the case, said Friday. “The evidence is going to be the same.”

The judge hasn’t ruled on that but also expressed concern about splitting the 
trial in two. “I don’t want to try 2 4-month trials with the same evidence,” 
Durkin said. “It’s going to be difficult to get jurors in every day for a 
4-month period.”

Listening in on Friday’s court proceedings was Grace Bauer, the daughter of 
slain Chicago police Cmdr. Paul Bauer and an “aspiring lawyer.” She was 
shadowing federal prosecutors.

(source: Chicago Sun-Times)

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

“Do We as a Society Have a Right to Kill?”: Chinonye Chukwu’s Film “Clemency” 
Examines Death Penalty



As the state of Texas this week carried out the nation’s 1st execution of the 
year, we look at “Clemency,” a new film starring Alfre Woodard that examines 
the death penalty from the perspective of those who have to carry out 
executions as well as the condemned. Woodard portrays prison warden Bernadine 
Williams as she prepares to oversee what would be her 12th execution as warden 
in the aftermath of one that was horribly botched. As her life seems to 
unravel, Williams, for the first time, grapples with what it means to be part 
of a system of state-sanctioned murder, as the execution date for Anthony 
Woods, played by Aldis Hodge, gets closer. The film premiered at the Sundance 
Film Festival. We speak with Nigerian-American writer-director Chinonye Chukwu, 
who says she was inspired to take on the subject after the execution of Troy 
Anthony Davis, who was put to death by the state of Georgia on September 21, 
2011. Davis’s execution was carried out despite major doubts about evidence 
used to convict him of killing police officer Mark MacPhail, and his death 
helped fuel the national movement to abolish the death penalty.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting from the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, 
Utah. As the state of Texas this week carried out the nation’s 1st execution of 
the year, we look at Clemency, a new film starring Alfre Woodard that examines 
the death penalty from the perspective of the executioners as well as the 
condemned. Woodard portrays prison warden Bernadine Williams as she prepares to 
oversee what would be her 12th execution as warden in the aftermath of one that 
was horribly botched. As her life seems to unravel, Williams, for the first 
time, grapples with what it means to be part of a system of state-sanctioned 
murder, as the execution date for Anthony Woods, played by Aldis Hodge, gets 
closer.

The Nigerian-American writer-director Chinonye Chukwu says she was inspired to 
take on the subject after the execution of Troy Anthony Davis, who was put to 
death by the state of Georgia September 21st, 2011. Davis’s execution was 
carried out despite major doubts about evidence used to convict him of the 
killing of police officer Mark MacPhail. His death helped fuel the national 
movement to abolish the death penalty.

Well, I sat down with Chinonye Chukwu Thursday, as the film continues to play 
before packed houses here at Sundance. She began by talking about why she made 
the film.

CHINONYE CHUKWU: Well, I was really inspired to write Clemency the morning 
after Troy Davis was executed. And I know that you have done a lot of work 
leading up to his execution. And hundreds of thousands of people around the 
world were protesting against his execution, including a handful of retired 
wardens and directors of corrections. And they band together, and they wrote a 
letter to the governor urging clemency, not just on the grounds of potential 
innocence, Troy’s potential innocence, but also because of the emotional and 
psychological consequences they knew killing Troy would have on the prison 
staff sanctioned to do so.

So, the morning after he was executed, so many of us were sad and frustrated 
and angry. And I thought, “If we’re all dealing with these emotions, what must 
it be like for the people who had to kill him? You know, what is it like for 
your livelihood to be tied to the taking of human life?” And so, that was the 
seed that was planted, and it was a way for me to enter an exploration of 
humanities that exist between prison walls.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, interestingly, the prison warden is played by Alfre Woodard, 
an African-American woman. How typical is it for a woman, or an 
African-American woman, to be a warden in this country, a prison warden?

CHINONYE CHUKWU: It’s more typical than you think. The problem is that media 
doesn’t represent a lot of wardens who aren’t white men. And so, in the state 
of Ohio, for example, the majority of the wardens there, in all the prisons, 
are black women specifically. I only met one or two male wardens in all the 
prisons that I visited there. The warden in San Quentin prison, which has the 
largest death row facility in the country, was a woman for like 20 years, until 
she retired. So, there’s a female wardens’ association, as well. So, it’s a lot 
more common than people might think.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the research you did for this film.

CHINONYE CHUKWU: I did a deep, deep 4-year dive into the research and advocacy 
required to tell this story. I started in 2013, where I just did secondary 
research, where I interviewed a lot of those retired wardens and directors of 
corrections and death row lawyers and men who were exonerated from death row. I 
visited prisons and read a lot of books and articles. And that was just 
scratching the surface. I was living in New York City at the time.

And then, in 2014, I moved to Ohio and volunteered on a clemency case for a 
woman named Tyra Patterson, who was serving a life sentence for crimes she 
didn’t commit. And I worked very closely with her legal team, and shooting a 
lot of video testimonials of her and her co-defendants in the prison, and 
traveling around the country videotaping a national PSA, featuring a lot of 
advocates and activists, urging the governor to grant Tyra clemency. I 
volunteered—

AMY GOODMAN: And she was in?

CHINONYE CHUKWU: She was in Dayton. She was incarcerated first in Dayton 
Correctional Institution, and then she moved to a facility in Cleveland. And 
she got out over a year ago.

And I volunteered with different organizations for a mass clemency appeal for 
13 other women who are serving life sentences. I also created a film program in 
the same prison that Tyra was incarcerated in, where I taught women who are 
incarcerated to make their own short films and script to screen. I also talked 
to many, many more lawyers and wardens, and family and friends of people who 
have been directly impacted by incarceration, and activists and organizers and 
chaplains, and asked them to read drafts of the script. And they marked it up, 
word for word. I had wardens on speed dial, chaplains on speed dial, during 
production, who can really make sure I got the details right. We flew out Dr. 
Allen Ault, who was—who is a very ardent anti-death penalty activist. And—

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, Dr. Allen Ault was the warden of the—

CHINONYE CHUKWU: He was—yes.

AMY GOODMAN: —death row prison—

CHINONYE CHUKWU: Yep.

AMY GOODMAN: —where Troy Anthony Davis was executed.

CHINONYE CHUKWU: Exactly, exactly.

AMY GOODMAN: And he’s the one who, among others, appealed to Governor Nathan 
Deal to vacate the death sentence for Troy.

CHINONYE CHUKWU: And he was—I’ve been speaking with him for a couple years, 
throughout the whole writing and revising of the script. And we flew him out on 
set. And he walked actors through the blocking of execution scenes and how to 
strap a man onto the gurney. And, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about the conversations you had, for example, with the 
chaplains, then with—in this case, you have medics that are going to inject the 
three-drug cocktail into the arm of the prisoner. All of these are extremely 
controversial—doctors involved with this, chaplains involved with this. I mean, 
were doctors willing to talk to you? And I found it interesting that in the 
cases in the film Clemency, it was a medic.

CHINONYE CHUKWU: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Though they said they’d call a doctor if the prisoner didn’t die 
very soon.

CHINONYE CHUKWU: Yeah. So, I spoke to medical professionals who were not—these 
are medical professionals who knew about the process, but who did not—who were 
not directly involved in an execution. There are states where there are medical 
professionals who have carried out executions. And, yes, it is controversial.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it has to be. They’re violating the Hippocratic Oath.

CHINONYE CHUKWU: Exactly.

AMY GOODMAN: “Do no harm.”

CHINONYE CHUKWU: Exactly, exactly. And I know that in the state of Ohio that 
there is—there was a legislation that was trying to be passed where it would 
make the identities of the medical professionals who agree to do this 
anonymous—or, confidential, and so there isn’t that backlash. And the chaplains 
I spoke with, they no longer are chaplains, and they had to retire or move into 
a different path of corrections. One person who was a chaplain who oversaw—who 
was there during executions actually became a warden of a facility that doesn’t 
carry out the death penalty. But I know that it was a controversial choice. But 
I wanted to—I wanted to show how far—I wanted to show the different people who 
are implicated in this process.

AMY GOODMAN: Interestingly, just last week, a federal magistrate in—a 
magistrate judge issued an opinion likening Ohio’s current three-drug execution 
process to a combination of waterboarding and chemical fire. That opinion was 
used by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine to issue a 6-month reprieve to death row 
prisoner Warren Keith Henness. Talk about the use of lethal injection—and the 
chemicals. That’s the other part of it, increasingly drug companies saying, 
“You cannot use our chemicals, our drugs, to kill.”

CHINONYE CHUKWU: Yes. I mean, it was really—so, yes, so it’s becoming 
increasingly more difficult and controversial, how they get the cocktail—how 
they get the drugs. I mean, there are more—in my research, there are more and 
more prison facilities that are getting them off the black market. And I’ve 
talked to a lot of death row lawyers, who are using that as a way to—as part of 
their argument for cruel and unusual punishment. So, the lack of the drugs and 
the shadiness that’s involved in them getting the drugs, I found that that is 
starting to be incorporated into legal arguments for clemency.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the medics and the doctors who do this.

CHINONYE CHUKWU: In my research, I found, in some botched executions that I did 
a lot of research on and studied—

AMY GOODMAN: Like Oklahoma.

CHINONYE CHUKWU: Like Oklahoma.

AMY GOODMAN: Where the man’s head goes on fire.

CHINONYE CHUKWU: Yes. Clayton Lockett, I believe his name was. And I remember a 
conversation with Dr. Allen Ault, when he was giving me feedback on the script, 
and he was giving me notes on the opening execution scene. And Dr. Allen Ault, 
who had consulted on many executions, including in the state of Texas, he said 
that he was surprised that I had included a medical professional, because he 
had—he had worked in facilities where it was corrections officers that were 
inserting the needle. And they had—

AMY GOODMAN: Corrections officers inserting a needle. Nonmedical professionals.

CHINONYE CHUKWU: Nonmedical staff. And they would practice on oranges, leading 
up—

AMY GOODMAN: Before they stuck the needle in a prisoner’s arm.

CHINONYE CHUKWU: —leading up to the execution, because they practiced many, 
many, many, many, many, many, many times before the execution. I chose not to 
include that and have medical personnel, because that does happen in some 
facilities. But I was really struck by that.

AMY GOODMAN: Clemency director Chinonye Chukwu. We’ll be back with her after 
break.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: “Trouble So Hard.” This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The 
War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We’re broadcasting from the Sundance 
Film Festival in Park City, Utah, as we return to my conversation with Clemency 
director Chinonye Chukwu.

AMY GOODMAN: In Clemency, there are 2 executions. Talk about the first, a 
Latino man.

CHINONYE CHUKWU: So, as I’m sure you know, black and brown people are 
disproportionately incarcerated. And black and brown people are 
disproportionately put on death row. And black and brown people are 
disproportionately put to death, once they’re on death row. And so, I was very 
intentional about representing that in the film.

You know, the first botched execution, it was important to show what can 
happen, you know, and to show the layers of complexities in the process. And 
that is kind of this shadow that’s cast over the entire film as a possibility 
that can happen again and again and again. And that really is fueling 
Bernadine’s internal conflict throughout the whole story.

AMY GOODMAN: Bernadine is played by Alfre Woodard. What was it like to direct 
her?

CHINONYE CHUKWU: Alfre Woodard is one of our greatest living actors. Watching 
her—watching her perform on set was a master class in acting. She channeled 
something in this role. And I was really excited to give her space to tap into 
her brilliance, and just give her time and let the camera sit with her as she 
really—as she really taps into her craft.

AMY GOODMAN: After the premiere, Alfre Woodard talked about her experience 
making the film.

ALFRE WOODARD: When I did my research, I went with her to prisons in Ohio. I 
met with condemned men, with women in medium-security prisons, men in maximum 
security and the people that work there, most importantly, the people that we 
ask to step into the breach, where we don’t want to go, while we hammer out 
whether we believe in capital punishment or not. Meanwhile, the people who are 
sanctioned with carrying those executions out, they have a higher—well, they 
have the highest degree of PTSD, that is comparable to our troops that do 6 and 
7 tours of duty in Afghanistan.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s actress Alfre Woodard, the star of Clemency. After the 
premiere of Clemency here at Sundance, in the Q&A, one member of the audience 
said, “Why did you focus on the warden?”

CHINONYE CHUKWU: I focused on the warden because—for a couple reasons. I wanted 
to explore and challenge the system of incarceration, of capital punishment, of 
the prison-industrial complex, through the gaze of the perpetrator, of a 
perpetrator of the system. I thought that doing so would widen the reach and 
widen the impact of the film beyond other progressive-minded people. And I 
think it would really complicate people’s thinking around the death penalty and 
around incarceration and the humanities that are tied to incarceration, if it’s 
not told through the lawyer, through the defense attorney or through a 
protester, but somebody who is a part of the system, somebody who might embody 
the values that, you know, somebody who’s for the death penalty might embody. 
And so, that was my biggest reason. We’ve never seen this perspective before, 
and it expands the humanities that are tied to incarceration.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the lawyer who represents Anthony Woods, the death row 
prisoner. He’s constantly challenging the warden. Richard Schiff is the actor, 
well known for West Wing and other TV and films. That role, and who you talked 
to, to understand this position?

CHINONYE CHUKWU: Yeah, so, the lawyer—what I have observed, what I’ve found, is 
that the lawyer—particularly for people who have been incarcerated for a long 
time, for many people on death row, their lawyer is their one kind of link to 
the outside world. And there’s almost kind of like a chosen family relationship 
sometimes. And that is kind of what Richard’s character embodies. And that is 
one way that we enter the—enter Anthony and get into who he is, because 
that’s—when Richard’s character comes into the story, Anthony lets his guard 
down a little bit for the first time. And so, I thought that was really 
important, so he can help—his character helps us see Anthony’s humanity. I also 
didn’t want this film to be about litigation or about the facts of the case or 
about guilt or innocence, so we never go with the lawyer beyond prison walls, 
because it’s not important. Especially it’s not important to the humanities of 
the story. And so, his character is really kind of a combination of what I’ve 
observed in all the many lawyers that I worked closely with in the different 
clemency cases I volunteered for and the different lawyers I spoke with in the 
research.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Richard Schiff, who plays death row prisoner Anthony 
Woods’ lawyer.

RICHARD SCHIFF: And one of the great things about what Chinonye has created 
here is a story that’s about people that are deeply affected by the processes 
of the state that decides to execute people. And they are the ones that 
literally pull the lever. They’re the ones that accompany, chaperone people who 
are going to their deaths. And that’s what’s phenomenal about the story.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Richard Schiff on the red carpet. Chinonye, as your film 
premiered here at Sundance, the state of Texas executed 61-year-old Robert 
Jennings by lethal injection. It was the first of the year in the state and 
nation, in the state of Texas, that leads the country in executions. Your 
thoughts?

CHINONYE CHUKWU: I mean, I don’t—it’s hard. I mean, I hope that I—I hope that 
this film can challenge that. I hope that this film can really encourage people 
to ask the question, “Do we, as a society, have the right to kill?” And not 
ask, “Should this person die or not?” but, “Do we, as a society, have the right 
to kill?” And so, when I hear that, when I read about that, that’s the first 
thing that pops in my head.

AMY GOODMAN: Were these discussions you were having on the set?

CHINONYE CHUKWU: Absolutely. Throughout the writing and the revising of the 
script, throughout pre-production, I talked about this with the cast. And, you 
know, some of the cast had complicated views, you know? And one of the things 
that makes it complicated is when we personalize: “Well, you know, I’m against 
the death penalty, but if anybody ever did anything to my mother or my, you 
know, whatever”—you know, or when I read about the man in Texas who was 
executed, the first thing: “Well, what did he do? I need to know what he did 
first, before I can determine how I feel about his execution.” And, you know, I 
had to challenge them. And I said, “Well, you’re against it, or you’re not.” 
You know, and when—and once again, it’s not necessarily about determining 
whether or not—who has the right to be seen as human. But do we, as a society, 
have the right to kill in the name of so-called justice? And so, we did have 
those conversations.

AMY GOODMAN: Hollywood still is the land of white male directors. Talk about 
really challenging all of this and what your experience here at Sundance means, 
and what it means to you to be an African-American woman director, really 
crashing through that ceiling.

CHINONYE CHUKWU: I don’t think about it until Nigerians, black people, black 
women and black girls reach out to me and tell me that they can see themselves 
in me, that me being here, me having made this film expands their 
possibilities. And that’s when the magnitude of this really hits me.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about your background.

CHINONYE CHUKWU: I am Nigerian-American. I was born in Nigeria.

AMY GOODMAN: Where in Nigeria?

CHINONYE CHUKWU: I was born in Rivers State, Nigeria, which is southeast 
Nigeria, in a city called Port Harcourt. My parents still live in Nigeria. Most 
of my family live in Nigeria. I grew up in a very traditional Nigerian 
household, very connected to my culture. And then I grew up predominantly in 
Fairbanks, Alaska.

AMY GOODMAN: How did you end up there?

CHINONYE CHUKWU: So, my parents are petroleum engineers. So, when I was a baby, 
after I was born in Nigeria, we had a short stint in Oklahoma. And then, when I 
was 6, 7 years old, we moved to Alaska, and I was there ’til I was 18. And 
then, when I was in school, in college and grad school, my parents—

AMY GOODMAN: Where did you go to grad school?

CHINONYE CHUKWU: I went to Temple University. I earned my MFA in film, focusing 
on screenwriting and directing. And that’s when my parents moved back to 
Nigeria. They were like, “All right, the baby is good.” And so they moved back, 
and they’ve been there ever since.

AMY GOODMAN: So, especially for young women and young women of color to hear 
the trajectory of your life—this is your first Sundance, and you’re directing 
Alfre Woodard and Wendell Pierce and Aldis Hodge, who plays Anthony Woods, who 
is the death row prisoner—talk about how you broke through to this point. Where 
did you go from graduate school?

CHINONYE CHUKWU: So, I just—one of the most impactful things to my filmmaking 
career was when I was awarded a Princess Grace Foundation grant in grad school, 
which was a $25,000 scholarship.

AMY GOODMAN: Princess Grace of Monaco?

CHINONYE CHUKWU: Princess Grace Foundation, yeah, Princess Grace of Monaco. 
There’s a foundation, a lovely foundation, where they award a handful of film 
students this amazing $25,000 award to make a film, their thesis film. And that 
is what helped me make my thesis film. And that thesis film helped me make my 
first feature. And that first feature is what helped me get a fellowship at 
Princeton. And that fellowship is where I wrote Clemency. And it goes on and on 
and on. And then I got another award through the Princess Grace Foundation, 
after the first one, that helped me make a short film called A Long Walk, 
which—and it’s that short film that really impressed some of the actors who 
eventually signed on, and along with the script.

And so, it was that award and continuing to make as many short films—and I made 
a first feature, and just—and teaching also helped me become a better 
filmmaker. And I just kept pushing. And I had a lot of rejection. I had a lot 
of rejection. But throughout the rejection, I think the biggest, the most 
useful thing that helped me get to where I am is that I had to learn how to not 
define my worth and my joy by external success or rejection. And once I 
detached from the ego of filmmaking, I became a better filmmaker, and I became 
more engaged in the craft of it and detached from outcome.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, you broke new ground in so many ways. The cast is almost 
all African-American.

CHINONYE CHUKWU: Yeah. I love it. And it was just—you know, they’re amazing. 
They’re amazing talent, you know. And we need more stories where characters of 
color don’t have to explain their existence in the narrative, where they have 
these full, rich, nuanced emotional arcs that are not solely defined by their 
race and their gender.

AMY GOODMAN: And your activism in prisons, I mean, this is also unusual for a 
director of a film, that you have spent so much time as a teacher inside 
prisons, working with women. Explain more what you’ve done.

CHINONYE CHUKWU: So, I’ve been a film professor for over a decade, and I’ve 
been teaching college students how to tell their own stories. So when I started 
spending a lot of time in the prisons talking to different women incarcerated 
there connected to the first clemency case that I volunteered for, I realized 
that me helping people tell their stories shouldn’t be confined to the 
privileged walls of a college classroom. And I just had this idea: Well, why 
don’t I just bring my curriculum to the prison? These are stories that need to 
be told. And there are voices there. I don’t believe in giving a voice to the 
voiceless. That there are so many voices here, and people need to tell their 
stories. So, I created a 1-year curriculum—screenwriting, directing, 
production, post-production—and connected them to community artists, who helped 
them edit their films and do a sound mix. They had rehearsals in the prison. 
And once the films were done, we screened the films all over the country. And 
now that all the ladies in the inaugural class are out, they still continue to 
screen their films. So—

AMY GOODMAN: And why are they in—more often than not, in prison? Can you 
generalize?

CHINONYE CHUKWU: I think abuse. Abuse.

AMY GOODMAN: They are abused women.

CHINONYE CHUKWU: Abused women. Sexual violence, physical violence, that can 
lead to other issues, that lead to other issues, that lead to incarceration. 
The abuse-to-prison pipeline, I would say, is one of the biggest reasons.

AMY GOODMAN: What most surprised you, doing this film?

CHINONYE CHUKWU: How emotionally and psychologically similar I am to the 
characters, especially in terms of their navigating loneliness and isolation. 
You know, growing up, I struggled with depression and deep, deep, penetrating 
loneliness, and almost at 14, wanted to take my own life, and, thankfully, did 
not. But I have navigated my own kinds of darkness and had to transform my 
relationship to living and death, through almost dying. And I think that that’s 
something that Bernadine and Anthony, in the film, are also navigating. And I 
was surprised at how I didn’t know that, I didn’t make that connection, until 
we were shooting the film. And I realized that I see myself in these 
characters, and that is why I’m bringing—that is how they came out of me.

AMY GOODMAN: Chinonye Chukwu, the director of the new dramatic film Clemency. 
Special thanks to Park City Television and Conrad Iacobellis. This is Democracy 
Now!, democracynow.org.

(source: Democracy Now!)