[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., S.C., OHIO, ARIZ., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

July 23




PENNSYLVANIA:

Lawmakers Weigh In On Legal Effort To End Capital Punishment In Pennsylvania



A group of Republican state senators has urged the Pennsylvania Supreme Court 
to reject an attempt to overturn the death penalty. 2 death row inmates contend 
that the punishment is administered in an unconstitutional way, but the 
Republicans say that only the legislature can decide to repeal the death 
penalty.

State Sen. Camera Bartolotta (R-Monongahela) is one of the 13 legislators who 
made that argument in a friend-of-the-court brief filed earlier this month.

“The Supreme Court can only decide if something is constitutional or not,” 
Bartolotta said. “They’re not a branch of government that writes legislation or 
puts things in statute.”

Her position echoes that of the state attorney general's office, which said in 
its brief filed last week that action by the justices would be based on 
“factually unsettled matters of policy entrusted to the legislative branch, not 
constitutional issues to be resolved by courts.”

In addition, the office noted that both the state and U.S. Supreme Courts have 
upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty in the past.

But the inmates who brought the case argue that new evidence shows 
Pennsylvania’s capital punishment system is discriminatory and prone to error.

In a brief submitted in February, they cite a legislative report that was 
released last summer. It found that since 1972, 6 death row inmates have been 
exonerated while just 3 have been executed. And as of May 2018, 150 inmates 
sentenced to death since 1978 have had their convictions or sentences 
overturned due to ineffective assistance of counsel, according to the report.

Today, there are 131 Pennsylvania prisoners on death row, according to the 
inmates.

The legislative study found that whether defendants are sentenced to death 
depends on the county in which they are prosecuted. The race of the victim was 
also shown to be a factor. Cases involving white victims were more likely to 
result in a death sentence, regardless of the race of the accused perpetrator, 
the report said.

The Republican state senators write in their brief, however, that the report 
was meant to provide guidance to the legislature, not “to stand in for judicial 
fact-finding or to eliminate important policy debates.”

State Rep. Dan Miller (D-Mount Lebanon), who opposes capital punishment, said 
the report’s findings raise constitutional questions on which courts have the 
authority to rule.

“Just because the legislature refuses to review something doesn’t mean that the 
courts should be taking a blind eye to its constitutional ramifications,” 
Miller said.

But Bartolotta, who belongs to the Senate Judiciary Committee and co-chairs her 
chamber's criminal justice reform caucus, countered that lawmakers will address 
the issue.

“That’s exactly what we’ve been doing,” she said. “We only got the report back 
last year. So now, we go back in the fall, now that the budget was done in June 
... and I am sure the judiciary committee and other committees are going to be 
taking those findings ... and then moving forward.”

Miller, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, doubts the GOP-controlled 
legislature will follow through.

“I don’t know how long people need to control majorities, control committees, 
and then feign some sort of interest in these topics before people realize that 
they are not going to make any progress on it,” Miller said. “These things are 
not going to change. They have no interest in doing so.”

Nonetheless, state Rep. Frank Ryan (R-Lebanon County) has said he plans to 
introduce a bill to repeal the death penalty with state Rep. Chris Rabb 
(D-Philadelphia County) in the fall.

Former state Sen. Stewart Greenleaf (R-Montgomery County) was the chair of the 
Senate Judiciary Committee before retiring last year. He said he tried to bring 
the death penalty up for a committee vote, but could not get enough support to 
bring it up.

But, the former lawmaker believes the political climate has changed.

“It wasn’t long ago when there was overwhelming support for the death penalty 
among people in Pennsylvania,” Greenleaf said. “That has changed significantly. 
And of course … the number of other states that have repealed the death penalty 
is high as well. So things are going in that direction.”

21 states have outlawed capital punishment, according to the Death Penalty 
Information Center. Pennsylvania is 1 of 4 states where governors have halted 
all executions, even though the law permits them.

Bartolotta said Gov. Tom Wolf should stop his practice of granting reprieves to 
all death-row inmates, which he has done since 2015.

“We should honor the jury’s decision. We should honor the rule of law,” 
Bartolotta said. “If we don’t like the law, we should change the law. But you 
have to do it the right way.”

The Washington County lawmaker did not say whether she personally supports the 
death penalty.

If the state Supreme Court were to strike down capital punishment in the case 
at hand, it would be an “unusual” step, according to University of Pittsburgh 
law professor and 90.5 WESA legal analyst David Harris.

That’s because the death-row inmates have asked the state’s high court to 
exercise what’s called “king’s bench jurisdiction” and take up the case instead 
of waiting for lower courts to rule on it.

“The only way I see the death penalty writ large being overturned is if [the 
justices] pay attention to that [legislative] report,” which revealed systemic 
defects in how capital punishment is used in Pennsylvania, Harris said.

The court is set to hear oral arguments Sept. 11.

(source: WESA news)








SOUTH CAROLINA:

Judge denies request to delay death penalty trial in fatal 2017 bank robbery



A judge has denied a request to delay the death penalty trial of the man 
accused of a deadly South Carolina bank robbery.

Brandon Council is accused of killing two female CresCom Bank employees and 
taking approximately $15,000 in cash during a 2017 robbery in Conway.

Last week, a judge approved a request to seal certain documents. They include 
attorney-client communications and defense strategy.

Council is being held at the Darlington County Jail. He was moved from the 
maximum-security unit at the Florence County Jail after filing a motion to be 
moved into the general population.

Council claimed he needed to be moved to effectively communicate with his legal 
team.

(source: WCBD news)








OHIO:

Cleveland man faces death penalty in quadruple slayings of ex-girlfriend, 2 
children and neighbor



A Cleveland man accused of shooting his ex-girlfriend to death, setting a fire 
that killed his 6-year-old son and the boy’s 2-year-old sister and killing a 
neighbor could face the death penalty if he’s convicted of the crimes.

A grand jury on Monday handed up a 26-count indictment charging Armond Johnson 
Sr. with multiple counts of aggravated murder, aggravated burglary, aggravated 
arson, kidnapping and endangering children in the July 9 slayings of Takeyra 
Collins, Armond Johnson Jr., Aubree Stone and David Cousins.

Johnson, 26, is also charged with tampering with evidence and weapons charges. 
He is being held in the Cuyahoga County Jail on $5 million bond.

“Armond Johnson brutally murdered 4 people including his own son,” Cuyahoga 
County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley said in a statement. “His callous actions 
along with his extensive violent criminal history demands that he receive the 
ultimate punishment.”

Johnson shot Collins, his 25-year-old ex-girlfriend, in the stomach and back at 
her home on East 63rd Street near Fleet Avenue in the city’s Slavic Village 
neighborhood, court records say.

He set fire to the home using a yet-to-be determined accelerant in an attempt 
to cover up the slaying. He then ran from the house, leaving the 2 children 
inside, court records say.

Johnson later returned to the scene and encountered Cousin, a neighbor coming 
home from work who went to Collins’ house to see what was going on. Johnson 
shot Cousins in the head and chest in a field next to the house, police said.

Cousin had nothing to do with the family and was killed “simply for being 
there," Cleveland police Lt. Ali Pillow said at a news conference the day of 
the slayings.

Cleveland police were investigating Cousins’ killing when they smelled smoke 
coming from Collins’s house and discovered the fire, police said.

Investigators found the bodies of 6-year-old Armond Jr. and his 2-year-old 
sister, Aubree, in the house. Both died from smoke inhalation, the Cuyahoga 
County Medical Examiner’s Office said.

(source: cleveland.com)








ARIZONA:

Migrant should face death penalty in QuikTrip clerk's murder, prosecutors say



Prosecutors have asked an Arizona appeals court to let them pursue the death 
penalty against a Mexican immigrant charged with murder in the 2015 shooting 
death of a convenience store clerk in Mesa.

A lower-court judge ruled two weeks ago that prosecutors could no longer seek 
the death penalty against Apolinar Altamirano because of intellectual 
disabilities. They said Altamirano had completed only the 5th grade and needed 
special education courses, but none was offered in rural Mexico where he lived 
before moving to the United States.

/ In an appeal filed a week ago, prosecutors asked the Arizona Court of Appeals 
to reinstate their effort to seek the death penalty in the shooting death of 
21-year-old QuikTrip clerk Grant Ronnebeck, arguing the judge failed to make an 
overall assessment of Altamirano's ability to meet society's expectations of 
him.

The judge "did not give any consideration at all to Altamirano's ability (to) 
adapt and adjust to the requirements of daily life as an adult," prosecutors 
wrote in the appeal.

They noted Altamirano learned to drive at an early age, traveled on his own to 
the United States as teenager, operated rental properties in the United States, 
served as an elder in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and 
advised his mother on visas and exchange rates.

Joel Brown, one of the lawyers representing Altamirano, didn't return an email 
Monday seeking comment on the appeal.

Trump invokes Ronnebeck killing

The case against Altamirano has been cited by President Donald Trump, who has 
railed against crimes committed against American citizens by immigrants who are 
the United States illegally. Trump, who has created a new office to serve 
victims of immigration crimes and their relatives, has invoked such crimes at 
rallies, pointing cases in which people were killed by immigrant assailants who 
slipped through the cracks.

(source: Associated Press)








CALIFORNIA:

We must stop sentencing people of color to death in Los Angeles County



Across the country, people of goodwill increasingly recognize that death 
penalty is a racist, immoral system that is broken beyond repair. Yet, it 
appears that Los Angeles County has yet to get the message.

Since 2012, 22 people have been sentenced to death and all of them are people 
of color. That is more than the amount of people sentenced to death in Georgia, 
Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Virginia combined, and higher than 
anywhere else in the country.

Indeed, our county has uncritically embraced capital punishment as a means of 
accountability while simultaneously costing taxpayers millions and failing to 
make us safer. Numerous studies have found that the death penalty has little to 
no deterrent effect on crime, is rife with racial inequality, and according to 
the Equal Justice Initiative, for every 9 people executed, 1 has been 
exonerated. That is why I and over 75 other legal professors and scholars have 
written an open letter demanding an end to this arbitrary and discriminatory 
practice in Los Angeles County.

Throughout the United States, a growing number of reform-minded prosecutors are 
rejecting the death penalty and embracing smart justice policies including 
rehabilitation programs and new approaches to reviewing and prosecuting serious 
crimes. Despite the growing movement towards meaningful and practical reforms, 
Los Angeles has taken a backseat to embracing forward-thinking policies. This 
approach has left us stuck in the past and disproportionately killing people of 
color.

California has historically been a leader when it comes to progressive policies 
and much-needed reforms. Our state led and continues to be at the forefront of 
minimum wage increases, Medicaid expansion, climate justice, LGBTQ rights, 
marijuana legalization, and other advancements. Why then is Los Angeles abusing 
the outdated and biased practice of capital punishment, especially when violent 
crime is at a historic low?

District Attorneys hold tremendous power in the justice system. District 
Attorneys decide who gets charged, what crimes to charge, and they have 
enormous influence over the punishment meted out. As officers of the court, 
they must pursue justice, not revenge. As elected officials, they have a duty 
to listen to the will of the people of Los Angeles County, who have rejected 
capital punishment in the last two elections. Most importantly, they have the 
power to end the abhorrent and anachronistic practice of state-sanctioned 
killing. That means that L.A. County’s reliance on the death penalty could end 
now if Jackie Lacey is courageous enough to implement meaningful criminal 
justice reform.

Use of discretion to oppose the death penalty is not without precedent. As the 
District Attorney of San Francisco, Kamala Harris refused to pursue the death 
penalty. In March, Governor Newsom issued a moratorium on the death penalty, 
putting a halt to all executions.

Nationally, capital punishment is becoming increasingly obsolete and death 
sentences are plummeting. Last year, juries returned death sentences in just 42 
murder cases, compared to 315 in 1996. Throughout the United States, more than 
21 jurisdictions have abolished the death penalty; 5 jurisdictions have issued 
a moratorium on executions, and 8 jurisdictions, including the federal 
government, have shown significant declines in death penalty sentencing.

Yet, District Attorney Lacey continues to seek the death penalty despite its 
many harms.

In Los Angeles County, the use of the death penalty actively targets and 
punishes those who are least able to afford a quality defense. A new report 
from the ACLU shows that out of the 22 death penalty verdicts during DA Lacey’s 
tenure, 8 defendants had lawyers who were previously or subsequently disbarred, 
suspended or charged with misconduct. And a ninth defendant had a lawyer who 
repeatedly fell asleep throughout his trial. According to numerous studies, the 
quality of defense counsel is the single biggest factor in determining whether 
someone will be sentenced to death. In the United States, whether you live or 
die should not turn on whether you can pay for a good lawyer.

In addition to class disparities, there are significant racial biases inherent 
in the death penalty. Across the country researchers have found that 
African-Americans are more likely than their white counterparts to be sentenced 
to death, even when controlling for other factors. As a result of the 
intersection of race and class, those who are non-white and poor face a greater 
risk of execution. Unsurprisingly, of the 2700 people on death row nationwide, 
46 % are black and 13 % are Latino.

Similar patterns exist in California, where individuals on death row are 36 % 
black and 24 % Latino. Moreover, a study of California’s death penalty found 
that although 27.6% of murder victims are white, 80% of those sentenced to 
death were convicted of killing a white victim. Given these trends, it’s no 
coincidence that since 1978, when California reinstituted the death penalty, 
all 5 people on death row who have been exonerated in California were people of 
color.

Beyond the death penalty being a moral failure, it is also extremely costly to 
taxpayers. Trials for death penalty cases can cost millions of dollars and it’s 
estimated that California death penalty expenses total at least $139 million 
per year.

I have spent years studying and teaching the effects of our criminal justice 
system and systems of punishment on people of color, women and those whose 
identities are at that intersection. I have seen firsthand how racial 
discrimination, gender stereotypes and class bias destroys lives and corrodes 
our system of justice. As a result, I know that true justice can only be 
achieved through sensible sentencing, violence-prevention education and 
counseling programs – not an overzealous use of capital punishment.

We still have an opportunity to course-correct and become leaders once again by 
demonstrating what responsible, safe and healthy communities can look like. We 
can do that by ending our use of the death penalty. District Attorney Lacey, 
the power is in your hands and we are counting on you.

(source: Opinion; Priscilla Ocen is a Professor of Law at Loyola Law School, 
where she teaches criminal law, family law and a seminar on race, gender and 
the law. She is also the Vice-Chair of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s 
Civilian Oversight Commission----Los Angeles Daily News)

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

Gavin Newsom’s death penalty moratorium isn’t saving California money. Here’s 
why



When Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order halting the death penalty in 
California, he argued the system has wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. But 
without cooperation from prosecutors, there’s no evidence his action is saving 
the state any money.

In general, death penalty trials are far more expensive than those for people 
facing a maximum sentence of life without possibility of parole. It’s also more 
expensive to house inmates on death row than in a regular prison unit.

Newsom’s moratorium granted temporary reprieves for death row inmates, closed 
the state’s execution chamber and withdrew the state’s lethal injection 
protocol. It doesn’t stop capital cases from proceeding. “The moratorium stops 
executions,” said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty 
Information Center. “It doesn’t stop the machinery of death from moving 
forward.”

That means the financial effect of the moratorium will be determined by 
district attorneys, who decide whether to pursue capital charges, said Dunham, 
whose organization is critical of the way the death penalty is administered in 
California but doesn’t have a position on the death penalty itself.

In the four months since Newsom halted executions, California prosecutors have 
continued to pursue capital cases, which can cost millions of dollars. Death 
penalty-related costs in the state budget also do not appear to have decreased.

Funding for the state-funded Habeas Corpus Resource Center, which helps people 
sentenced to death who can’t afford lawyers to appeal their cases, actually 
increased – from about $16.64 million to nearly $16.8 million.

Costs for keeping inmates on death row also have not changed, said corrections 
department spokeswoman Terry Thornton. California is housing 710 male inmates 
on death row at San Quentin State Prison and 24 female inmates sentenced to 
death at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla.

“We’re still housing them and feeding them and everything else,” Thornton said. 
“None of that has changed.”

2 days after Newsom signed the order, Merced County prosecutors announced they 
would pursue the death penalty for Santiago Martinez in connection with a 
jailhouse slaying.

The Los Angeles District Attorney’s office is still pursuing multiple existing 
death penalty cases. Newsom’s moratorium has not affected the office’s work, 
said Shiara Davila-Morales, a spokeswoman.

San Mateo District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe, who previously served as president 
of the California District Attorneys Association, said prosecutors across the 
state agree.

“We’ve all arrived at the same conclusion,” Wagstaffe said. “We need to 
continue to do our jobs. The law is still on the books.”

Newsom’s office pointed to a widely cited study in the Loyola of Los Angeles 
Law Review that found California taxpayers spent about $4.6 billion on the 
death penalty system between 1978 and 2011. During that time, the state 
executed just 13 people.

The study found the largest share of spending — roughly $2 billion — went to 
pre-trial and trial costs. Roughly $1.7 billion went to appeals and about $1 
billion covered incarceration costs.

Those costs could go down if California Supreme Court justices side with 
defense attorneys trying to block capital murder trials while Newsom’s 
moratorium is in effect.

In a petition filed with the court this month, lawyers for a man facing five 
capital murder charges argue jurors cannot fairly decide to put someone to 
death while the moratorium is in place.

Under Newsom’s order, the 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,” lawyers for Cleamon Johnson argued.

In response, prosecutors said that argument is a ploy to turn the moratorium 
“into a judicial abolition of the death penalty in California.” Concerns about 
the moratorium can be handled during jury selection for Johnson’s trial, 
prosecutors said.

“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,” they wrote.

Newsom has said he wants to end the death penalty permanently through a ballot 
initiative. He tried and failed to do that in 2016. Voters instead supported a 
counter-measure intended to speed up executions.

Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said the moratorium won’t stop 
her from filing capital charges against people suspected of egregious crimes. 
Schubert’s office is pursuing the death penalty against Golden State Killer 
suspect Joseph James DeAngelo.

“The voters of California have passed a law saying they want the death penalty. 
That’s the law,” she told The Sacramento Bee just after Newsom announced his 
action. “He cannot preclude a prosecutor or DA’s office from seeking it. 
There’s nothing stopping us from seeking capital punishment in a case where we 
feel it’s appropriate.”

Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, has introduced legislation that would 
put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot in November 2020 to end 
the death penalty. He said he worked closely with Newsom’s office on the 
proposal.

Levine said he thinks it will have a better shot than Newsom’s 2016 initiative, 
which failed by about 6 % points.

Although death penalty costs are significant, both Levine and Newsom say it’s 
not the main reason they oppose capital punishment.

“It’s not the primary factor that weighs on me,” Levine said. “I am overwhelmed 
by the possibility that we could execute an innocent person.”

On the other side, death penalty supporters argue the moratorium denies victims 
justice.

“Every one of the victims at the hands of these people had their life brought 
to an unfair ending… Many of them were clearly tortured in their final moments 
of life,” said Assemblyman Tom Lackey, R-Palmdale, a retired California Highway 
Patrol officer. “That sense of brutality needs to not be forgotten and 
dismissed.”

Wagstaffe from San Mateo County pointed to a capital case his office is 
pursuing against a man charged with sexually assaulting and murdering a 
17-month-old girl. Unless voters overturn the death penalty, Wagstaffe said 
it’s his duty to continue prosecuting the case, regardless of the governor’s 
moratorium.

If he stops pursuing the charges and executions resume under the next governor, 
he would have failed to uphold the law, Wagstaffe said.

“We then would have wasted all this time,” he said. “I don’t think I would have 
been doing my duty, and that’s what all the DAs are feeling.”

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

Does pausing the death penalty save money?----Gov. Gavin Newsom put a 
moratorium on the death penalty in California on March 13, 2019, sparing the 
lives of more than 700 death-row inmates.



Back in March, when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order that placed a 
moratorium on the death penalty in California, he cited the system as a 
multi-billion dollar waste of taxpayer dollars.

But per The Sacramento Bee’s Sophia Bollag, there’s no evidence that halting 
executions has saved the state money.

“In general, death penalty trials are far more expensive than those for people 
facing a maximum sentence of life without possibility of parole,” Bollag 
writes. “It’s also more expensive to house inmates on death row than in a 
regular prison unit.”

The executive order didn’t permanently end the death penalty in California, 
which is why capital cases can still proceed.

District attorneys told The Bee that they’re following the law “still on the 
books.” So prosecutors are still pursuing the death penalty, which “can cost 
millions of dollars.” And, according to Bollag’s reporting, the state budget 
still appears to allocate the same resources to capital punishment-related 
costs.

In fact ?— Dollars set aside for the state-funded Habeas Corpus Resource Center 
increased from about $16.64 million to nearly $16.8 million.

The temporary reprieve shut the state’s execution chambers and ended the lethal 
injection protocol. But Newsom is aiming for something more.

He said he hopes for a ballot initiative to permanently end the death penalty 
in California, which he failed to accomplish in 2016. Assemblyman Marc Levine, 
D-San Rafael, wrote legislation intended for the November 2020 ballot that, if 
approved by California voters, would enshrine in the California constitution a 
permanent end to capital punishment.

(source for both: Sacramento Bee)

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

State Supreme Court overturns death sentence for Kern sheriff’s deputy who 
killed 2 women



The California Supreme Court has overturned the death sentence of a Kern County 
sheriff’s deputy who killed 2 young women more than 30 years ago.

The court’s ruling said a prosecution witness falsely testified David Keith 
Rogers had sexually assaulted her.

The woman has expressed varying degrees of doubt in the years following her 
testimony that Rogers, now 72, was the man who assaulted her, according to 
court documents.

She said, “I am now more concerned than ever that I wrongly identified David 
Rogers as the man who attacked me.”

The court’s decision overturns the death sentence, but lets stand the two 
first-degree murder convictions. Rogers will serve life without parole.

The prosecution used the woman’s testimony during its closing argument in the 
penalty phase. The justices found that, although it was only briefly mentioned, 
the prosecutor’s “dramatic invocation of (the woman’s) terror” added to the 
impact of her testimony on the jury.

The court found the woman had a propensity to change her story and add 
“significant details bolstering her accusations against (Rogers),” the 
documents says. She gave inconsistent versions of incidents in which she 
claimed Rogers molested her in jail.

The Attorney General has argued the jury would have sentenced Rogers to death 
regardless of whether the woman testified. The justices disagreed in the 
unanimous ruling authored by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye.

“Contrary to the Attorney General’s contention, false testimony likely had a 
significant effect on the outcome of the penalty phase,” Cantil-Sakauye wrote.

Rogers was convicted in 1988 of two counts of murder in the deaths of Janine 
Benintende, 20, and Tracie Clark, 15. Benintende was killed in early 1986, and 
Clark a year later.

Both women had been working as prostitutes. Their bodies were found in the 
Arvin-Edison Canal, and both had been shot multiple times with bullets from a 
.38-caliber gun.

Bullets, tire tracks, shoe prints, and eyewitness testimony led to Rogers being 
identified as a suspect.

When confronted by sheriff’s detectives — his colleagues — Rogers admitted to 
killing Clark but denied involvement in Benintende’s death. His defense 
centered around claims he was mentally disturbed due to physical and sexual 
abuse as a child.

“3 mental health professionals testified (Rogers) suffered from a dissociative 
disorder involving memory loss and possible multiple personality disorder 
stemming from severe childhood sexual and physical abuse,” according to court 
documents.

(source: KGET news)

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

Calif. Supreme Court to Consider Freezing Death Penalty Trials----In March, 
Gov. Newsom announced a moratorium on the execution of California's death row 
inmates



In the wake of Governor Gavin Newsom's (D.) moratorium on the death penalty, 
the California Supreme Court is now weighing whether to order a halt on capital 
litigation in the state.

The state high court ordered a temporary stop to the sentencing trial of Jade 
Douglas Harris, the Los Angeles Times reports, as it weighs whether Newsom's 
moratorium means Harris, charged with 3 murders, cannot receive a fair trial.

In March, Newsom announced an indefinite moratorium on the execution of 
California's 737 death row inmates. The moratorium — which flew in the face of 
the regularly expressed will of California voters at the polls — saw the 
state's death chamber closed, which Newsom has promised will remain true so 
long as he is governor.

But while executions have been halted, death penalty prosecutions continue, at 
least in the jurisdictions of some state attorneys. Harris's attorneys pose the 
question of whether their client can receive a just sentence, given the 
uncertainty now shrouding the death penalty's future.

Thanks to Supreme Court precedent, death penalty cases have 2 phases: one in 
which the defendant is found factually guilty or innocent, and a 2nd in which a 
separate jury weighs "aggravating" and "mitigating" facts about the crime and 
the defendant to determine if the death penalty is merited. Harris's lawyers 
have argued that in order for this 2nd phase to be fair, jurors have to believe 
that if they hand down a death sentence, it will actually be carried out.

Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation and a 
death penalty expert, told the Times that this concern was overwrought.

"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," 
Scheidegger said. "And everybody pretty much knows that."

Still, the state Supreme Court seems to think the issue is at least serious 
enough to merit further hearing. It has until August 30th to decide whether to 
take the case in full.

Meanwhile, the continuation of capital prosecutions has thrown a wrench into 
one of Newsom's justifications for the moratorium: not having to pay the 
exorbitant costs of death penalty trials. The promised savings have failed to 
materialize, the Sacramento Bee reports.

That is because executions themselves are exceedingly cheap — drugs like 
thiopental, pentobarbital, and midazolam just do not cost much. What is 
expensive is prosecuting death penalty cases, thanks largely to the two-phase 
process, and to the efforts of abolitionists to drag out cases. It also costs a 
great deal to house California's death row inmates, who are now de facto 
life-without-parole convicts as long as Newsom is in office.

"The moratorium stops executions," Robert Dunham, executive director of the 
Death Penalty Information Center, told the SacBee. "It doesn't stop the 
machinery of death from moving forward."

(source: The Washington Free Beacon)