[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., FLA., ALA., NEB., S.DAK., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

July 20




PENNSYLVANIA:

4 irrefutable facts proving death penalty is always wrong



Look at that black and white photograph of George Stinney.

I mean stop and really look at the face of that 14-year-old boy who was 
executed in the electric chair by the state of South Carolina in 1944. He’s 
your son, your grandson, your nephew. He’s also the youngest person in American 
history to have been sentenced to death and to have been executed.

His murder trial involving the death of 2 white girls was not transcribed. The 
entire trial lasted only 2 hours. George’s white court-appointed “lawyer” 
presented no defense despite the fact that there was no physical evidence tying 
his client to the crime. All the spectators were white because Blacks were not 
allowed in the courtroom. The jury members were all-white. Those jurors 
“deliberated” for just 10 minutes before finding George guilty after which the 
white judge immediately sentenced the boy to death.

Because he was so short, the jailers had the child sit on the Bible he was 
carrying so his body could reach up to the electric chair’s hanging mask. Stop 
and think about that for a minute.

Because George’s racist and classist so-called trial was such a nightmarish 
travesty in that he received nothing remotely akin to due process, a South 
Carolina Circuit Court judge vacated his conviction and exonerated him- but the 
legal system waited 70 years to do so in 2014. As a result, that judge’s “too 
little, too late” ruling did absolutely nothing to save him after having been 
the victim of state-sanctioned premeditated murder.

Fast forward to 2019. At a news conference on July 16, progressive Philadelphia 
District Attorney Larry Krasner announced that his office the day before 
petitioned the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to declare the death penalty 
unconstitutional. And he said it was because such punishment is racist, 
classist, and arbitrary. He’s right, you know.

He’s also right when he stated, “The most jaw-dropping statistic is that out of 
155 Philadelphia death sentences [from 1978-2017], 72 %... have been 
overturned. What that means is that... [previous prosecutors], before we got 
here... argued for the execution of... people and were wrong... 72 % of the 
time. And actually, it’s worse than that. Because those other 28 % are not 
settled, you should expect that there will be even more of these that are 
overturned.”

And if you think he’s anti-death penalty because he’s some kind of “bleeding 
heart liberal,” you obviously haven’t read last year’s legislative report 
entitled “Capital Punishment in Pennsylvania,” written by the bipartisan Joint 
State Government Commission led by 4 Task Force Members consisting of 2 
Republicans.

That report cited, among other impeccable and objective sources, the 2003 Final 
Report of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in 
the Justice System, which concluded the following:

“[T]here are strong indications that Pennsylvania ‘s capital justice system 
does not operate in an evenhanded manner....[R]esearchers... found that 
African- American defendants were sentenced to death at a significantly higher 
rate than similarly situated non-African-Americans; researchers further 
concluded that 1/3 of African-Americans on death row in Philadelphia... would 
have received life sentences if they were not African-American. Race was also 
shown to be a major factor in capital jury selection, with the prosecution 
striking African-Americans from the jury twice as often as 
non-African-Americans....”

By the way, why do proponents of capital punishment even bother to deny its 
obvious racism and obvious classism? I guess they don’t know that about 98 % of 
the chief District Attorneys in death penalty states are white and only about 
one percent Black. And I also guess they don’t know that while the 
“impoverished” poor constitute approximately 15 % of the country’s population, 
they are about 90 % of the death row population?

Let’s start calling the death penalty/capital punishment exactly what it is: 
state-sanctioned premeditated murder. I call it that not because I’m into 
subjective hyperbole but because I’m into objective definitions. Since a 
governor approves these executions, they’re state-sanctioned. And since such 
killings are planned (i.e., scheduled well in advance) as well as unjustified 
(i.e., done in the absence of an imminent threat to life or limb)- especially 
when a deadly weapon (i.e., lethal injection or electric chair or gas chamber 
or hangman’s noose or firing squad) is used- they’re premeditated. Accordingly, 
just as you and I are not legally permitted to commit murder, premeditated or 
otherwise, neither should state governments be.

Here are the 4 irrefutable facts proving that the death penalty/capital 
punishment is always wrong:

1. It’s not a deterrent. If it was, why is it that the South, which has the 
highest murder rate in the country, also has the most death penalty executions 
at 80 percent, while the Northeast has the lowest murder rate but only one 
percent of the executions?

2. It’s not reasonable retribution. If it was, why do many, if not most, of the 
proponents constantly scream for revenge? Furthermore, aren’t we- i.e., the 
civilized members of society- better than the sociopathic killers who kill to 
get their way? And isn’t the notion of killing killers to show that killing is 
wrong rather hypocritical?

3. It’s not really religiously mandated. If it was (at least by the 3 faiths 
with the most adherents), how does a believer justify the destruction of what 
God, Allah, Jehovah, etc. created? In other words, since we as humans can only 
procreate- and not create- how can the killing of the Creator’s creation be 
justified, particularly in light of the fact that such killing is not the 
result of the sort of on-the-spot deadly self-defense that is necessary in 
response to an imminent threat? And because the death penalty/capital 
punishment is not the result of such immediate self-defense, isn’t a state 
execution sinful for believers and unethical or immoral for non-believers?

4. It’s not really founded on the fair notion of “an eye for an eye.” If it 
was, then why doesn’t society rob robbers or kidnap kidnappers? Even better, 
why doesn’t society rape rapists? Yeah, that’s it. In the very same way our tax 
dollars are used to pay a state employee to kill a convicted killer through 
lethal injection, why don’t we hire and pay a state employee to rape a 
convicted rapist through sexual penetration? Savage, you say? Barbaric, you 
say? Uncivilized, you say? Exactly, I say- just as savage and as barbaric and 
as uncivilized as the death penalty.

What’s the solution? That’s easy. Support the bipartisan “death penalty 
abolition” legislation drafted by primary sponsors State Representative Chris 
Rabb, a Democrat from Philly and State Representative Frank Ryan, a Republican 
from Lebanon County. For more info, call Representative Rabb’s district office 
at (215) 242-7300.

(source: Michael Coard, The Philadelphia Tri bune)

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

Accused killer's attorney asks for delay pending death penalty ruling



The attorney for accused killer Jose Colon plans to file a motion to delay 
proceedings pending a decision by the state Supreme Court involving the death 
penalty in Pennsylvania.

During a hearing on Friday, attorney Jim Best informed Northumberland County 
President Judge Charles Saylor that he intends to file a motion to stay until 
the outcome of the court's decision whether to abolish the death penalty in 
Pennsylvania. The Commonwealth is seeking the death penalty for Colon, 43, of 
Shamokin, for the killing of Kasandra Ortiz, 23, on Feb. 26, 2018.

Best is working with a mitigation expert. Saylor rescheduled the trial for the 
October term.

Colon is charged with 65 criminal counts from 2 cases related to the fatal 
shooting of Ortiz. Colon is also facing charges related to a 7-hour standoff 
with police in which he fired 11 shots.

He allegedly confessed to the murder during an interview March 7 at the 
Stonington state police station, according to a criminal complaint. Colon 
admitted to striking Ortiz in the head and face outside her apartment on Rock 
Street, continuing the assault after she was knocked to the ground, according 
to documents. Colon told police he dragged the bloodied woman to a nearby dirt 
lot at Rock and Spurzheim streets where he shot her once and left her body 
before fleeing the scene, the complaint states.

Colon is charged with criminal homicide and 11 counts of attempted homicide of 
law enforcement officers, as well as 25 felony charges of aggravated assault, 
illegally possessing a firearm and assault of a law enforcement officer. The 
remaining charges are misdemeanor counts.

The legal effort to find the death penalty unconstitutional is tied to two 
death-row inmates: Jermont Cox, who was ordered to die for a murder from 1992 
in Philadelphia, and Kevin Marinelli, who was convicted in the 1994 torture 
death of Kulpmont resident Conrad Dumchock. The high court has set a Sept. 11 
hearing date for oral arguments on the petition by Cox and Marinelli.

On Feb. 13, 2015, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced a halt to all 
executions.

(source: The Daily Item)

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

Death penalty may have its day in court



The death penalty is a bundle of contradictions that promotes both support and 
opposition to its continued use.

The support for the death penalty as an effective deterrent has all but 
disappeared. The rarity of imposition and the handful of times each year that 
it is carried out mutes any impact the death penalty has on crime.

Pennsylvania may be the next major battleground for the death penalty. This 
week, in an extraordinary move by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, 
his office filed a brief with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in support of a 
claim by two death row inmates that the death penalty in Pennsylvania violates 
the Eighth Amendment to the United State Constitution.

Krasner, whose opposition to the death penalty was a major component of his 
2017 upset DA victory, now joins a small group of prosecutors from across the 
country - including the Boulder County, Colorado District Attorney, Orlando, 
Florida States Attorney and King County, Washington Prosecuting Attorney - who 
have called for their states to abolish the death penalty, reported the 
Huffington Post.

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office based its position on a review of 
every case where a Philadelphia defendant received a death sentence between 
1978 and 2017. The study found that 72 % of those 155 sentences were ultimately 
overturned - more than half of them for ineffective assistance counsel.

Pennsylvania is 1 of 30 states that has the death penalty, although Democratic 
Gov. Tom Wolf 4 years ago announced a temporary halt on executions in one of 
his first acts as governor. The moratorium still stands.

Since 1978, three men have been executed in Pennsylvania. Gary Heidnik, 
convicted of killing of two women he imprisoned in his Philadelphia home, was 
the last person put to death in the state, in 1999.

The current appeal has attracted support from groups like the Pennsylvania 
chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the NAACP Legal 
Defense Fund.

It is not just progressives who want to see the end to the death penalty in 
Pennsylvania. Hannah Cox, National Manager of Conservatives Concerned About the 
Death Penalty, suggested, “Conservatives in Pennsylvania and across the country 
increasingly realize the death penalty is a failed government program that 
threatens innocent people and is marred by racial disparities, as well as 
inconsistency in how it has been used.”

The Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association is alright with the death 
penalty. “If the death penalty is abolished, that would have a very real effect 
on a limited number of cases - which happen to be the most heinous cases,” said 
Greg Rowe, legislation and policy director for the PDAA. The Pennsylvania 
attorney general, the Philadelphia chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, 
and several groups of Republican state lawmakers filed briefs in support of the 
death penalty.

If racial disparities and poor lawyering are not enough to oppose the death 
penalty, those supporting the end to the death penalty have more to argue. In 
2016, The Reading Eagle reported that Pennsylvania paid an estimated $816 
million on the death penalty since 1978.

The Juvenile Law Center and Youth Sentencing and Reentry Project cites 
impetuosity and susceptibility to negative peer influences for 18- to 
25-year-olds - who make up over one third of Pennsylvania’s current death row - 
as evidence of the overall arbitrary and disproportionate nature of 
Pennsylvania’s death penalty.

Quinn Cozzens, an attorney with the Pennsylvania-based Abolitionist Law Center, 
argues that that the death penalty can be unfairly “used as a tool” in the plea 
bargaining process. “They’re able to hang that over the heads of defendants,” 
Cozzens said.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court may soon have a say whether the death penalty is 
fine as it is, needs repaired or ended.

(source: Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & 
George P.C. His book The Executioner’s Toll, 2010 was released by McFarland 
Publishing----Crestview News Bulletin)








FLORIDA:

Jury recommends death penalty for Lakeland mom who killed her father, daughter



A Lakeland mother could be sent to death row for killing her daughter and 
father.

A jury found 29-year-old Cheyanne Jessie guilty of 1st-degree murder earlier 
this week. On Friday, a jury unanimously recommended the death penalty for the 
29-year-old woman for killing her 6-year-old daughter, Meredith.

The jury also recommended life in the murder of her father, 50-year-old Mark 
Weekly, according to the State Attorney's Office.

Jessie stuffed their bodies into plastic bins then hid them behind a neighbor's 
shed.

A judge is considering the jury's decision of death penalty into consideration 
before making a final ruling.

(source: ABC News)

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

Dear Gov. DeSantis: Florida's death penalty is broken



Gov. Ron DeSantis has issued a death warrant for the execution of Gary Bowles 
on Aug. 22. This is the second warrant in less than a year by our new governor.

Since 1988, I have opposed the death penalty. I corresponded with Willie 
Darden, who was executed after 15 years on Florida’s death row. U.S. Supreme 
Court Justice Harry Blackmun said of that case: "If ever a man received an 
unfair trial, Darden did. He may be guilty, I don't know, but he got a 
runaround in that courtroom."

There are so many reasons to stop the death penalty in Florida. Currently, 1 in 
5 new death sentences nationwide originate in our state. Also, Florida has one 
of the highest exoneration rates in the country. So far, 29 people have been 
freed from our death row after evidence of innocence came to light.

Florida also displays some of the most alarming practices when it comes to the 
trial and execution of the mentally ill. It has chosen to ignore nationally 
applied standards of mental incompetency – that is, when the accused have no 
rational understanding of why they are being executed.

Mostly, the death penalty affects the poor. Almost all death row inmates are 
unable to afford their own attorney at trial. Court-appointed attorneys often 
lack the experience necessary. Capital punishment means, essentially, them 
without the capital get the punishment.

Furthermore, the cost of the death penalty is exorbitant. More than a dozen 
states have found that capital cases are up to 10 times more expensive than 
comparable non-death-penalty cases. These taxpayer dollars could be spent 
tending the needs of crime victims and addressing why people commit crimes in 
the first place.

Florida does not need the death penalty to maintain public safety. Life in 
prison without possibility of parole is a better sentence — and costs less.

Capital punishment is a broken, inhumane and unjust system. It doesn’t even 
necessarily bring healing to victims’ families. The governor needs to call a 
moratorium.

It is up to us, the people of Florida, to contact the governor and tell him: 
not in my name!

Shirley Poore is a member of Tallahassee Citizens Against the Death Penalty.

(source: Letter to the Editor, Tallahassee Democrat)








ALABAMA:

Capital murder charge in September death of good Samaritan



An Alabama man arrested in the stabbing death of a good Samaritan now faces a 
capital murder charge.

The Montgomery Advertiser reports that a grand jury recently indicted 
32-year-old Ronald Jason Mann, of Elmore County in the death of 47-year-old 
Davon Waldrep, also of Elmore County.

Waldrep came to Mann's aid at a car wreck in September and was stabbed when he 
refused to give the driver his cellphone, Elmore County Sheriff Bill Franklin 
said.

"This man just thought somebody had a wreck and he stopped to help," Franklin 
said. "He asked if he could call someone. That's when Mann said he wanted the 
good Samaritan's cell phone."

Authorities said Mann and a juvenile had earlier forced a man and woman to 
withdraw money from a convenience store ATM.

As Mann was driving away from the store, he struck a sign at a nearby railroad 
crossing, which disabled his vehicle shortly before Waldrep approached.

Authorities said Mann and the teenager fled into the woods after Waldrep was 
stabbed. They were captured hours later.

Waldrep died from his wounds several weeks later in a Montgomery hospital.

Mann is currently in the custody of the Alabama Department of Corrections on 
unrelated charges, Franklin said. It was unclear if he had an attorney who 
could speak for him.

The death penalty is on the table for Mann, said C.J. Robinson, chief assistant 
district attorney. The only other sentencing option in a capital murder 
conviction is life in prison without the possibility of parole. Capital murder 
charges were brought because Waldrep was killed during a robbery, Robinson 
said.

(source: Associated Press)








NEBRASKA:

In upholding Nikko Jenkins' death sentence, high court rejects notion that 
Jenkins is mentally ill



The Nebraska Supreme Court left little unturned as it upheld spree killer Nikko 
Jenkins' conviction and death sentence in the wicked 10-day rampage that left 4 
Omahans dead in August 2013.

In an exhaustive 53-page ruling, the high court sifted through professionals' 
often contradictory mental-health diagnoses of the troubled Omahan, delved into 
the state's repeal and later reinstatement of the death penalty, and explored 
the years that Jenkins spent in isolation prior the killings.

This won't end Jenkins' appeals. His attorney, Douglas County Public Defender 
Tom Riley, said Friday he will raise issues that he believes could result in 
the U.S. Supreme Court reviewing Jenkins' case, a rare occurrence even in 
death-penalty cases.

But Jenkins' conviction and placement on death row just passed one of its most 
important reviews — the state high court's rejection of appeals can be very 
difficult for a condemned convict to overcome.

"This ruling was very thorough," said Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine, who 
prosecuted the case along with his chief deputy, Brenda Beadle. "The criminal 
justice process really is completed, other than postconviction actions that may 
be filed later.

"I hate to use the word closure. But at least this tells the victims' families 
that they're not going to have to sit in the courtroom and relive the evidence 
anymore."

That fact wasn't lost on the mother of one of Jenkins' victims. Jenkins and his 
sister, Erica Jenkins, took turns shooting Curtis Bradford in the head after 
luring him to a house near 18th and Clark Streets in northeast Omaha.

"Oh my gosh, I'm glad it's over," Velita Glasgow said Friday. "This case has 
taken so much from us — it just doesn't hurt the one individual, it hurts the 
entire family.

"I don't ever want to have to come to court again. I don't ever want to see him 
again. I'm just glad that all this evil is over, and my life can move on."

While striking a major blow to his chances to succeed on appeal, the Supreme 
Court's ruling doesn't end the court actions on his behalf.

Riley recently filed a motion to have Jenkins removed from death row because 
state officials have declared him incompetent and in need of forced 
medications. This ruling didn’t address that request.

Riley noted a couple of ironies coming out of the Nebraska Supreme Court 
ruling. One, the high court noted that there was ample evidence to support the 
three-judge panel's conclusion that Jenkins was feigning mental illness for 
secondary gain, such as to try to get transferred to different prisons.

At the same time, Nebraska prison officials — including doctors and 
psychologists — have recently declared that Jenkins is psychotic and is in need 
of forced medication. In the past week, Jenkins cut his throat — the latest in 
a series of self-mutilations.

"The irony of this is the (professionals) who are now dealing with him in 
prison are unanimously saying he has a mental illness," Riley said. "Not only 
that, they are saying we need to be able to forcibly medicate him so that we 
can make him healthy enough to be executed.

"The word 'irony' doesn't even do justice to what that entails."

In Friday's ruling, the Nebraska Supreme Court addressed several of Riley and 
Jenkins' arguments about whether Jenkins truly is severely mentally ill, what 
effect his extensive stay in solitary confinement had on him, whether a 
mentally ill defendant can be executed and the legality of the death penalty.

Jenkins was convicted of: the Aug. 11, 2013 killiings of Jorge Cajiga-Ruiz and 
Juan Uribe-Pena after his sister and cousin lured them to an Omaha park on the 
pretense of sex; the Aug. 19, 2013, killing of Bradford, who served time in 
prison at the same time as Jenkins, after luring Bradford on the pretext of 
committing a robbery; and the Aug. 21, 2013, killing of Andrea Kruger, a wife 
and mother of 3, near 168th and Fort Streets.

Jenkins' court case was so wild, so unconventional and so long that Nebraska 
lawmakers repealed the death penalty, a ballot initiative was undertaken and 
Nebraska voters eventually restored it — all while Jenkins was awaiting his 
fate. Those twists and turns led Riley to challenge whether Jenkins should have 
even been eligible for the death penalty.

The Supreme Court rejected that argument.

"Less than 3 years ago, Nebraskans had the opportunity to eliminate the death 
penalty and 61 percent voted to retain capital punishment," Justice William 
Cassel wrote. "The judiciary bears no license to end a debate reserved for the 
people and their representatives. In Nebraska, the people have spoken."

The high court addressed several other issues that have dogged Jenkins' case.

Is he severely mentally ill?

The court spent dozens of pages addressing Jenkins' dueling diagnoses — and 
pointed to facts that seem to debunk the idea that he hears voices, including 
those of a serpent god.

In short: about half of the psychologists and psychiatrists who have examined 
Jenkins have diagnosed him as psychotic or schizophrenic. The other half have 
determined that he is faking those mental illnesses for secondary benefit, such 
as to excuse his criminal behavior, to obtain different placement in prison or, 
at one point, for his hope that he would receive government disability payments 
upon his release.

The high court noted that the 3-judge death-penalty panel — including the trial 
judge, Peter Bataillon — sided with psychiatrists who concluded that Jenkins 
was malingering. One notion that the high court took aim at: the defense's 
contention that Jenkins spoke of hearing voices when he was 8 years old. 
Defense experts have pointed to that psychiatrist's note as proof that Jenkins' 
psychosis is long-standing.

The problem: Questioned further, 8-year-old Nikko told the doctor that the 
voices he was talking about were actual voices of older neighborhood boys who 
told him to steal a bicycle.

"There is no doubt that Jenkins exhibited abnormal behaviors," the high court 
wrote. "A previous report had said (Jenkins) heard voices telling him to do bad 
things. On further inquiry, (Jenkins) said these are real voices of these older 
boys, and he only hears them when the boys are there with him. There was no 
evidence of psychosis or auditory hallucinations."

Did state prison officials, by keeping him in solitary confinement for years, 
create a monster that they're now trying to execute?

Riley argued that Jenkins should not have been put on death row because prison 
officials had improperly isolated Jenkins during his 1st prison stint after he 
committed two carjackings when he was 15 and 16. Riley noted that Jenkins 
killed these four Omahans within three weeks of his release from a prison term 
that saw him spend six of his 10 years in solitary confinement.

Jenkins himself has advanced this argument. In his eight-hour confession with 
detectives, he told them: "The Nebraska Department of Corrections is so 
responsible. This is equivalent to me being a pit bull that they pull off that 
chain and whoever it hurt, you’re responsible for it. Because you knew the 
danger of the animal, knew the danger that you created in that cell.”

The high court agreed that expert studies have shown that "years on end of 
near-total isolation exact a terrible price."

"Here, Jenkins' own actions led to his disciplinary segregation," the court 
wrote. "The Department of Correctional Services must have some recourse to deal 
with an inmate who does such things as manufacture a weapon from a toilet 
brush...assault staff, attempt to escape...The sentencing panel acted 
reasonably in not rewarding such behavior."

The plea hearing

Jenkins' hearings were often described as circuses — in which Jenkins tried to 
dominate the proceedings and sometimes claimed to be speaking in tongues to an 
Egyptian serpent god.

In one hearing, he called County Attorney Kleine and a World-Herald reporter to 
the stand, which is unusual. Even more unusual, Judge Bataillon allowed him to 
call both witnesses. The lead prosecutor isn't a witness; and the shield law 
typically precludes a reporter from taking the stand.

Jenkins' plea hearing was the climactic example of business as unusual in 
Jenkins' case.

After Judge Bataillon allowed Jenkins to act as his own legal counsel, Jenkins 
declared that he wanted to plead no contest to the killings.

The judge informed him he would have to plead guilty rather than “no contest.” 
Jenkins initially pleaded guilty but said he couldn’t remember shooting each of 
the victims. He stopped short anytime he got close to describing the actual 
killings — sometimes bursting into garbled speech in which he claimed to be 
talking to his serpent god.

Faced with a defendant who wouldn’t describe his guilty actions, Bataillon 
rethought his original stance, relented and allowed Jenkins to plead no 
contest. Under no contest pleas, prosecutors give the factual basis of the 
murder charges.

Riley argued that the judge's changing conditions in which he would accept 
Jenkins' plea essentially robbed Jenkins of a fair hearing. Riley also argued 
that Jenkins never should have been allowed to represent himself.

The high court ruled that Bataillon properly informed Jenkins of his rights and 
properly ruled that Jenkins was able to understand the proceedings against him 
and represent himself.

What's next?

Beyond the appeal, Riley has filed a couple of motions to try to get Jenkins 
off of death row on the suggestion that he is severely mentally ill and, thus, 
incapable of being executed.

Riley noted that Corrections Department psychiatrists and psychologists have 
twice in the past year found that Jenkins is "psychotic, delusional, acting 
upon command hallucinations and is seriously mentally ill."

Jenkins has a history of cutting himself, including his private parts, 
tattooing his face and carving his skin with Satan, Hitler and 666 666 (though 
it came out backwards because he was looking into a mirror.)

Riley accused Corrections director Scott Frakes of failing to "carry out his 
statutory duty to notify the District Court of Douglas County of defendant's 
mental illness."

Under state law: "If any convicted person under sentence of death shall appear 
to be incompetent, the Director of Correctional Services shall forthwith give 
notice thereof to a judge of the district court of the judicial district in 
which the convicted person was tried and sentenced."

A hearing on Corrections' placement of Jenkins and use of forced medications is 
set for August.

(source: Omaha World-Herald)

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

NE Sup. Court says Nikko Jenkins' death sentence will stand



The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed the Douglas County District Court 
convictions and sentencings for Nikko Jenkins.

Jenkins is currently on death row for the murders of Jorge Ruiz, Juan Pena, 
Curtis Bradford, and Andrea Kruger in a 10-day span in August 2013 shortly 
after being released from prison.

Court documents indicate he argued that he was not competent to enter pleas of 
no contest on his own behalf, and that he shouldn't have been allowed to 
proceed in his own defense. Jenkins also said the death penalty is cruel and 
unusual punishment, and that the 3-judge panel did not give meaningful 
consideration to his claims of mental illness.

The Nebraska Supreme Court stated that testimony and evidence was given as to 
whether Jenkins had an actual mental illness or if he was faking.

"In light of the conflicting evidence, they gave weight to the expert evidence 
reflecting that Jenkins suffered from a personality disorder and was feigning 
mental illness. We find no error in that regard."

"We cannot say that the district court abused its discretion in finding Jenkins 
to be competent to waive counsel, to enter no contest pleas, to proceed to 
sentencing, and to be sentenced to death." The Supreme Court concluded."

Jenkins is currently housed at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution.

(source: KMTV news)








SOUTH DAKOTA:

The death penalty in SD



South Dakota has the death penalty just as 28 other states do. In order for the 
death penalty to be sought in South Dakota, one of 10 separate aggravating 
circumstances must be met. The first execution in South Dakota was in 1877 when 
Jack McCall was hanged for murdering Wild Bill Hickok. South Dakota has 
executed 18 murderers since then.

The death penalty is punishment for murder, not for any other reason. South 
Dakota used hanging until 1947, then the electric chair until 1984 and lethal 
injection since. Our death penalty was abolished in 1915 and reinstated in 1939 
and declared unconstitutional from 1972-1979. Since 1979, 4 executions have 
been conducted and 6 death penalties awarded, even though South Dakota has had 
over 200 reported murders since 1979.

Many folks wonder why the death penalty is so rarely sought, even though most 
murders in South Dakota meet the requirements for it. In fairness to our 
prosecutors, it should be pointed out that in many other states deals are made 
with murderers to avoid the death penalty. It also should be noted that South 
Dakota has never had a death row inmate found innocent prior to or after 
execution.

David Hall, Box Elder

(source: Letter to the Editor, Rapid City Journal)








CALIFORNIA:

75 Law Professors and Scholars Call on LA County DA to Stop Seeking the Death 
Penalty



On Wednesday, a group of more than 75 law professors and other legal experts 
issued an open letter urging Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey to put 
a stop to the death penalty system in LA.

Months after California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a moratorium on the death 
penalty and dismantled the state’s execution chamber, Los Angeles District 
Attorney Jackie Lacey has continued to seek the death penalty in certain murder 
cases.

DA Lacey “seeks the death penalty with an enthusiasm and consistency unmatched 
by many of her counterparts across the country,” the letter said. “The nexus of 
capital punishment in this country resides not in Texas, Georgia, or Oklahoma, 
but in Los Angeles County, California.”

LA County has, in fact, been responsible for more death sentences per capita 
than any other large county in Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, 
Utah, or Washington, over the last 5 years, according to an ACLU white paper 
released last month. Nearly 1/3 of California’s more than 700 prisoners on 
death row were sentenced to die in LA County. And between 2014 and 2018, Los 
Angeles, neighboring Riverside, and Maricopa, Arizona were the only 3 counties 
in the nation that sentenced more than 10 people to death per year.

While Lacey has championed mental health diversion since her 2012 election, 
lately she has faced a growing chorus of accusations that she has not held law 
enforcement officers accountable for alleged excessive–fatal– uses of force, 
and is not the criminal justice reformer that many hoped to elect. (Lacey may 
soon face a challenge for her position from San Francisco District Attorney 
George Gascón, who is arguably one of the most reform-focused district 
attorneys of any large jurisdiction in California.)

Across the nation, Wednesday’s open letter stated, “we execute not the worst of 
the worst, as the Supreme Court has mandated, but society’s most vulnerable and 
least lucky”–people with severe intellectual disabilities, mental illnesses, 
histories of “unspeakable sexual or physical abuse,” or a combination of these 
circumstances.

Moreover, legal defense is often “ineffective”–and even “deplorable”–in capital 
cases, according to the professors and scholars. “In trial after trial, lawyers 
fail to provide effective representation for their clients,” the letter said. 
“They conduct no investigation into the case, spend little time with the client 
or their family, and often present little to no testimony at trial or during 
the sentencing phase.” Thus, mental illnesses, low IQs, extreme trauma, and 
other impairments can go “unacknowledged by counsel and, as a result, unknown 
by jurors deciding” defendants’ fates.

Even more troubling, is the fact that more than 165 innocent people have been 
freed from death row since 1973 after being wrongfully convicted. Substandard 
legal defense is often, at least partially, to blame, along with prosecutorial 
misconduct, faulty eyewitness testimony, and bad police work.

Out of the 22 people for whom the DA’s Office has procured death sentences 
since Lacey’s inauguration, five were represented by lawyers who had been 
suspended or disbarred. “One lawyer is currently under investigation by the 
state licensing agency, and two of the accused represented themselves, a 
frequent sign of a person with a defense team ill-equipped to handle mental 
illness or the seriousness of the work,” according to the legal experts. “Only 
three men received representation from institutional public defense 
organizations–offices with specialized training and staff dedicated to capital 
cases. Luck of the draw should not determine whether a person lives or dies–but 
in Los Angeles, it does.”

In her July newsletter, Lacey defended her stance on the death penalty.

“Dear Friends,” Lacey wrote, “This month, I would like to talk about the death 
penalty.”

Capital punishment, Lacey said, “should be reserved for the worst of the worst 
offenders.”

Among the people whom Lacey’s prosecutors have secured death penalty 
convictions, is Isauro Aguirre who, along with his girlfriend, Pearl Fernandez, 
subjected her 8-year-old son, Gabriel Fernandez, to long-term torture, before 
killing him. Lacey’s letter highlighted seven other LA County-prosecuted death 
row cases most of which involved horrible, multiple murders.

“These families grieve for their loved ones and look to me for justice,” Lacey 
said. “They, like every resident of Los Angeles County, expect their 
prosecutors to follow the law.” And voters have failed to abolish the death 
penalty twice in recent years, leaving the death penalty an option for 
prosecutors who continue to seek it. (Despite this, the state has not executed 
anyone since 2006 because of problems with lethal injection protocols.)

None of the 22 people whom the LA County DA’s Office has sentenced to death 
since Lacey’s election have been white, critics have also pointed out. Lacey, 
in her letter, argued that her “prosecutors make decisions based on the facts 
of the crime – not the race of the defendant or the victim,” adding that both 
defendants and victims in LA County’s capital cases have been racially diverse.

“We will continue to carefully review these cases and I will follow the law as 
prescribed by the people of California – whether that is seeking the death 
penalty for the most heinous crimes or, if the death penalty is abolished, life 
in prison without the possibility of parole.”

The law professors and scholars say that DA Lacey should follow the lead of 
Gov. Newsom and several other jurisdictions that have issued moratoriums on 
capital punishment, which so often reaches a level that is unconstitutionally 
cruel and unusual.

“A prosecutor’s job, first and foremost, is to seek justice and uphold the 
constitution,” the letter concludes. “By leading the nation in its use of the 
death penalty, the District Attorney’s office in Los Angeles violates its 
solemn oath. We call on the office to end the county’s experiment with the 
broken machinery of death.”

(source: witnessla.com)

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

California Supreme Court to Consider Petition to Halt Capital Prosecutions



Calling Governor Gavin Newsom’s moratorium on executions a “paradigm shift” in 
the death-penalty landscape, a defendant facing the death penalty in Los 
Angeles has petitioned the California Supreme Court to halt capital 
prosecutions in the state. On July 1, 2019, lawyers for Cleamon Johnson—whose 
death penalty trial is scheduled to begin in January 2020—have filed a pretrial 
petition for review, arguing that capital juries “cannot be expected to provide 
a fair and reasoned penalty-phase determination free from speculation” about 
whether a death sentence would ever be carried out.

The petition is based on the 1985 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Caldwell v. 
Mississippi, which held that “It is constitutionally impermissible to rest a 
death sentence on a determination made by a sentencer who has been led to 
believe that the responsibility for determining the appropriateness of the 
defendant’s death rests elsewhere.” It argues that because of the moratorium, 
jurors will “be unable to assume a death sentence will result in an execution 
and be unable to comprehend fully the gravity of their decision.” This, it 
argues, creates a constitutionally unacceptable risk that jurors might impose a 
death sentence merely to “send a message,” delegating to the courts the 
ultimate responsibility for whether a defendant should live or be condemned to 
die.

Robert Sanger, Johnson’s lead defense attorney, said the decision is important 
not only for Johnson but for other defendants facing potential death-penalty 
charges. “If the courts don’t take a serious look at it before we have a whole 
slew of additional trials,” he told the Sacramento Bee, “we’re not only going 
to spend a whole lot of money now, they may have to be redone.” Prosecutors 
filed their response to the petition on July 16, arguing that standard jury 
instructions are adequate to address Johnson’s concerns. “Jurors are routinely 
asked to set aside these types of things in order to reach a just verdict based 
on the evidence and the law,” prosecutors wrote. “The real goal of this 
petition is to turn Governor Newsom’s moratorium, which is nominally a 
‘reprieve,’ into a judicial abolition of the death penalty in California.”

Johnson’s lawyers are seeking expedited review of the petition, to avoid any 
prejudice that could result if his case went to trial before the issue is 
resolved. “This important issue of law should be decided now,” they wrote. 
“Otherwise, this case will proceed to trial with the time-consuming and 
expensive task of death qualifying the jury. This not only wastes government 
resources and those of all of the participants, but it consumes a tremendous 
amount of time for prospective jurors.” The petition argues that empaneling a 
jury before the court decides this issue would be especially prejudicial to 
Johnson and other capital defendants because of the unique 
“death-qualification” process for selecting death-penalty juries, which 
excludes jurors from service unless they swear under oath that they are willing 
to impose a death sentence. Johnson’s petition contends that 
“death-qualification, if it is not necessary, violates equal protection in that 
it eliminates a disproportionate number of women and African Americans. It also 
violates due process in that it skews a jury in the guilt and innocence phase 
in favor of conviction, and against due process itself, as well as women, 
racial minorities, gays, the elderly, and the physically disabled.”

San Mateo District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe, a former head of the California 
District Attorneys Association, said the issue is “a smart point for them to 
bring up.” However, he said, “we think the answer is one that has been dealt 
with before.”

Although California has not had an execution since 2006, it has the largest 
death row in the United States and has imposed more death sentences than any 
other state in 4 of the last 5 years. The high number of death sentences has 
been driven largely by five southern California counties, including Los Angeles 
County, where Johnson is being tried. A recent study by the ACLU showed that, 
like Johnson, all 22 people sentenced to death in Los Angeles under the 
administration of the current District Attorney have been people of color.

(source: Death Penalty Information Center)

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



The attorneys were about two weeks into choosing a jury in an upcoming 
triple-murder trial when they had to toss out the work they’d done and send the 
potential jurors home.

The California Supreme Court essentially froze the death penalty trial of Jade 
Douglas Harris, which was set to start this month, as it decides whether it 
will consider an argument by his defense attorney that he can’t get a fair 
trial in light of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s moratorium on executions in the state.

The court has until Aug. 30 to decide whether to take up a matter that could 
result in essentially blocking death penalty trials in California while the 
moratorium is in effect during Newsom’s term.

Public defenders representing Harris, who is accused in a shooting rampage that 
left 3 people dead and 2 others wounded, argue that jurors must believe that 
when they hand down a death sentence, it will be carried out.

Harris is charged with killing 3 people in Downey after responding to a 
Craigslist ad from a family selling their Chevy Camaro. He has pleaded not 
guilty.

The attorneys say a fair decision is impossible given that Newsom granted a 
reprieve to the more than 700 prisoners on death row and had the state’s 
execution chamber dismantled — with much fanfare in front of cameras.

“It’s just really impossible for a jury to go into a jury room and say, ‘We’re 
going to ignore that,’” said Robert Sanger, a defense attorney who first made 
this argument on behalf of a defendant in a separate, unrelated capital case in 
Los Angeles County.

Sanger’s client is Cleamon Johnson, a gang leader known as “Big Evil” who is 
charged with 5 counts of murder in a case coming up for trial in January.

“The jury making that order has to really believe it because if they don’t, 
they could be cavalier about it and just say, ‘Well, let’s send a message.… We 
know [the death sentence] is never going to happen, but let’s do it anyway,’” 
Sanger said.

Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School, said there’s a real risk to 
the accused if that is the mindset of jurors.

“The question is likely to be is there any kind of instruction or precautionary 
steps that a trial judge can take to prevent that from occurring,” she said.

It’s hard to predict what the court will decide, Levenson said, but its stay in 
the Harris case signals that the state’s highest justices are taking his 
petition seriously.

“It’s not a frivolous issue,” she said.

Kent S. Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, 
said he was disappointed the court was seriously considering what he called a 
“meritless argument.”

“Newsom’s moratorium only lasts for the duration of his term as governor. 
Nobody sentenced today would be executed within the next 7 years anyway,” said 
Scheidegger, whose organization backed a measure to speed up executions in 
California. “And everybody pretty much knows that.”

Prosecutors in Johnson’s case said in court papers that any of his concerns can 
be handled through appropriate jury instructions and during voir dire, when 
jurors are questioned before the trial to determine their fitness. They argued 
that concerns about fairness can also be assessed on appeal.

“Jurors are routinely asked to set aside these types of things in order to 
reach a just verdict based on the evidence and the law,” prosecutors wrote.

A Los Angeles County district attorney’s office spokeswoman said in a statement 
that the law hasn’t changed, and until it does, prosecutors will “continue to 
fairly evaluate all special circumstance cases and seek death against the worst 
of the worst offenders, including child murderers and serial killers.”

Newsom’s office did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

California has not had an execution since 2006. In March, Newsom issued his 
controversial moratorium on death row executions in the state, which has the 
largest death row in the nation.

“The law is the law and this is crystal clear: The Constitution of the state of 
California provides the governor the ability to reprieve, the ability do this 
moratorium,” Newsom said at the time. “My ultimate goal is to end the death 
penalty in California.”

Critics said he was defying the will of voters who in 2016 approved Proposition 
66, a statewide ballot measure to fast-track executions in California. During 
that same election, voters rejected a separate ballot measure — Proposition 62 
— to abolish the death penalty, marking the second time since 2012 that 
Californians voted against repealing capital punishment.

Newsom had argued that the death penalty discriminates against people of color 
and defendants who are poor or mentally ill, a point that has been echoed by 
civil rights advocates.

The American Civil Liberties Union recently published a report that said all of 
the 22 people sentenced to death in L.A. County since Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey 
took office in December 2012 are people of color.

(source: Los Angeles Times)

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

Officials: Dad may face death penalty for driving sons with severe autism off 
pier, killing them



The California father whose 2 sons with autism died after he drove off a wharf 
in the Port of Los Angeles has been charged with capital murder, the Los 
Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced.

Ali Elmezayen, 45, of Hawthorne, California, was charged Wednesday with 2 
counts of murder and 1 count of attempted murder, the DA's office said.

On April 9, 2015, Elmezayen drove a vehicle -- with his wife and 2 sons inside 
-- off the LA port into San Pedro Bay. The defendant escaped the submerged car 
through his open window. His wife, Rabab Diab, could not swim but survived when 
a nearby fisherman threw her a life preserver. The couple's sons, 13-year-old 
Elhassan and 8-year-old Abdelkrim, drowned, according to the US Attorney's 
Office of the Central District of California.

Court documents describe the 2 sons as "suffer[ing] from severe autism." 
Elmezayen and Diab also have a 3rd son, Elhussein. He "was also diagnosed with 
autism but was high functioning" and "was away at an overnight camp through his 
high school" when the family car plummeted into the water, according to the 
legal documents.

When questioned following the incident, Elmezayen told police that he may have 
accidentally pressed the accelerator or that he may have passed out as a result 
of medication he took 2 days earlier related to his medical condition, 
Thalassemia Minor, according to official testimony cited in the case. (Some 
patients with this inherited blood disorder that causes fatigue are treated 
with deferasirox, a medicine known to cause side effects, though fainting is 
not a common one.)

Couple files suit

About a year later, in May 2016, Elmezayen and Diab filed a lawsuit against the 
city of Los Angeles and several government entities, according to CNN affiliate 
KCAL-TV.

The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, sought unspecified damages on 
allegations of wrongful death, dangerous condition of a public property, and 
negligence, among other charges, KCAL-TV reported. The lawsuit also made 
allegations against the car manufacturer and an auto maintenance store. The 
court ruled in favor of the defendants in October, a later statement from the 
court noted.

In November 2018, Elmezayen was arrested by the FBI and charged with four 
counts of mail fraud, four counts of wire fraud, one count of aggravated 
identity theft (for posing as his wife in calls to the insurance companies) and 
five counts of money laundering, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office of the 
Central District of California. The district attorney's office alleges that 
Elmezayen had schemed to collect proceeds of life insurance policies he had 
purchased on the lives of his wife and sons.

Elmezayen allegedly purchased several life and accidental death insurance 
policies providing coverage on himself, his wife and their three children in 
2012 and 2013, according to the grand jury indictment, which also claims that 
Elmezayen collected more than $260,000 from accidental death insurance policies 
he had taken out on the children's lives.

"This case alleges a calculated and cold-hearted scheme to profit off the 
deaths of two helpless children," U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna said in a statement. 
"The alleged conduct shocks the conscience, and we will use every tool 
available to us to ensure that justice is done."

He could face the death penalty if convicted

Currently, Elmezayen is in federal custody on the insurance fraud charges and 
his trial is scheduled to begin on September 3. Once that case is completed, he 
will be tried on the murder charges with the special circumstance allegations 
that the crimes were carried out for financial gain.

If convicted, he faces a possible maximum sentence of life in state prison 
without the possibility of parole or death. A decision on whether to seek the 
death penalty will be made at a later date, according to the DA's office.

The district attorney's office, which declined a previous case against 
Elmezayen in December 2017, would not comment on the new charges against the 
defendant.

Diab and the public defenders listed on court documents for Elmezayen's case 
have not responded to CNN's request for comment.

(source: KOAT news)