Current News and Updates

This webpage will next be updated on May 29, 2013

MAY 20, 2013:

COLORADO:

CO's Death Penalty System Too Broken to Use: Commute Dunlap's Sentence

In the 20 years I spent with the Arapahoe County District Attorney's Office, I prosecuted dozens of homicides, including three death penalty cases. Based on my experiences, I believe that Colorado does not need and should not use capital punishment to maintain our public safety. I hope that Governor Hickenlooper commutes Nathan Dunlap's death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Having worked on many homicides, visited dozens of murder scenes, and, most importantly, spoken to many people who have committed violent actions against others, I understand from personal experience what so many studies show: that there is no evidence whatsoever that the death penalty deters crime and enhances public safety.

My work experience convinces me that the threat of a death sentence does not deter criminal activity. In my years as a prosecutor and in my subsequent private legal practice, I have observed that some of the most egregious crimes are committed due to mental illness, desperation, overwhelming emotions, and political extremism -- none of which are subject to rational cost/benefit calculations, like weighing potential criminal sentencing consequences.

Perhaps this understanding that capital punishment doesn't deter crime is the reason that in a 2010 poll, 500 police chiefs ranked the death penalty as the least effective use of taxpayer money for law enforcement purposes. I agree with those civil servants that there are far better uses for the exorbitant public resources spent on the death penalty, which are proven to enhance public safety and well-being.

One side of capital punishment that is rarely discussed is the terrible toll it takes on the people involved. I can only image the enormous burden placed on the Department of Corrections professionals who would have to carry out the actual execution itself. I believe it is too much for us to ask of these workers.

The death penalty is an ineffective and costly government program that diverts resources away from public safety and places an unfair burden on the Department of Corrections workers. When you add to this the serious and widespread concerns that exist about Colorado's use of the death penalty, it becomes clear that the upcoming execution of Nathan Dunlap, scheduled for the week of August 18 - 24, which would be Colorado's 1st execution in 17 years, should not go forward.

A recent academic study from the University of Denver showed that the death penalty in Colorado is broken. It is not handed down in the manner in which it was intended, to defendants who have committed the most egregious crimes. It's used in fewer than 1 percent of the cases where it could be used, and it is used in ways that reflect existing, systemic biases in our criminal justice system.

Our system is broken. Something is clearly wrong with our state when all the death sentences are coming out of one county. We are in a crisis when our state, which is 4.3 % African-American, has a death row that is 100 % African American. A broken system has produced flawed results.

One of these results is Nathan Dunlap's death sentence. That is why I join so many other individuals and groups speaking out to support clemency in this case. The crime he committed was horrific, and he should spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole, to ensure public safety and severe punishment for his crimes. Yet we cannot ignore that the system that sentenced Mr. Dunlap to die is a system in crisis. Colorado can do better; Colorado is better than that.

(source: Richard Bloch was a Chief Deputy District Attorney for the Arapahoe County District Attorney's Office from 1999 - 2004. He is now in private practice in Denver, CO.----Huffington Post)

ARIZONA:

Arias returns to court for penalty phase as jurors consider life in prison or death sentence

Jodi Arias returns to court Monday for the continuation of the penalty phase of her trial after being convicted of 1st-degree murder in the killing of her one-time lover as jurors consider a sentence of life in prison or execution.

Last week, jurors heard tearful comments from Travis Alexander's brother and sister as they described how his killing has torn their lives apart.

Monday begins a new phase of the trial as defence attorneys present witnesses to testify on Arias' behalf in hopes of saving her life.

Judge Sherry Stephens instructed jurors they could consider a handful of factors when deciding what sentence to impose, including Arias' lack of a prior criminal record and assertions that she was a good friend, had an abusive childhood and is a talented artist.

In opening statements, prosecutor Juan Martinez told the panel none of those factors should cause the jury to even consider a sentence other than death, given the brutal nature of the killing.

Defence attorney Kirk Nurmi explained to jurors that Arias herself would testify this week.

"When you understand who Ms. Arias is, you will understand that life is the appropriate sentence," Nurmi said.

Arias, 32, acknowledged killing Alexander at his suburban Phoenix home on June 4, 2008. She initially denied any involvement and later blamed the attack on masked intruders. 2 years after her arrest, Arias said she killed Alexander in self-defence.

The victim suffered nearly 30 knife wounds, had his throat slit from ear to ear and was shot in the forehead. Prosecutors say the attack was fueled by jealous rage after Alexander wanted to end his affair with Arias and prepared to take a trip to Mexico with another woman.

Jurors convicted Arias on May 8 of 1st-degree murder, with all 12 unanimously agreeing it was premeditated, after about 15 hours of deliberations over 4 days.

The panel later took less than 3 hours to determine the killing was especially cruel, meaning the death penalty would be a consideration for sentencing.

The ongoing penalty proceedings will be the final phase of the trial. Jurors are expected to begin deliberating Arias' ultimate fate this week.

Defence attorneys plan to call to testify an ex-boyfriend of Arias and the defendant herself, among others, as they work to convince the jury Arias' life should be spared.

The proceedings will play out like a mini-trial as the prosecutor will be allowed to cross-examine each witness, and both sides will offer closing arguments before the jury begins deliberations.

Under Arizona law, if the jury cannot reach a unanimous decision on sentencing, the panel will be dismissed and jury selection will begin anew. Another panel would then be seated to hear arguments in only the penalty phase to determine a sentence. If the 2nd panel cannot reach a unanimous agreement, the judge will then sentence Arias to either her entire life in prison or life in prison with the possibility of release after 25 years.

The most anticipated part of the penalty phase will be when Arias takes the witness stand, though exactly what she will say remains a mystery. Within minutes of her murder conviction, Arias complicated efforts for her defence when she gave an interview to Fox affiliate KSAZ, saying she preferred death over life in prison.

It wasn't clear whether the prosecutor would use those words against her in court, given some experts say it might not work in his favour aimed at securing a death sentence.

"Jodi Arias has proven herself to be a conniving manipulator so she may be saying something like this to get a reaction from the jury," said San Francisco criminal defence lawyer Michael Cardoza. "She may be hoping the jury says, 'We won't give her what she wants, and if she wants death, we're giving her life.'"

Cardoza noted that in Arias' case, with so much evidence against her, the defence can still claim some level of satisfaction is they can just keep her off death row.

Arizona defence attorney Thomas Gorman, who has handled dozens of death penalty cases, said Martinez may not need to mention Arias' comments in the television interview to jurors given they haven't been sequestered throughout the trial.

"They just can't avoid it," Gorman said. "If they're at a bar or a restaurant, they're going to see and hear things."

Arias also cannot choose the death penalty. It's up to the jury to determine a sentence. And while death penalty appeals are automatic in Arizona, she could choose not to pursue additional appeals if she indeed wanted to die for her crime.

Earlier this week, after Arias' was interviewed post-conviction, her attorneys asked to be allowed to step down from the case, but a judge denied the request. Legal experts say the decision was not a surprising one because the attorneys have a conflict of interest with their own efforts to try and save her life while Arias has said she'd rather die.

The motion to withdraw will have no impact on the penalty phase of the trial given jurors are not privy to the filing.

(source: Associated Press)

PAPUA NEW GUINEA:

UN Human Rights High Com concerned over PNG death penalty

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has voiced concern about the Papua New Guinea government's plan to reactivate the death penalty.

It says resuming the death penalty, which has been dormant in PNG since 1954, would be a major setback.

In 2007, the UN General Assembly called on states to establish a moratorium on the use of the death penalty with a view to abolition.

About 150 of the UN's 193 member states have either abolished the death penalty or no longer practise it.

The High Commissioner, Navi Pillay, has written to PNG's Prime Minister Peter O'Neill stating her concerns about the plan.

While recognising the challenge of overcoming high rates of violent crime in PNG, she says capital punishment has never been proved to be a more effective deterrent than other forms of punishment.

(source: Radio New Zealand International)

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Papua New Guinea's plans to resume death penalty 'major setback' - UN

The United Nations human rights office has expressed serious concern over Papua New Guinea's announcement that it will resume the death penalty more than half a century since it last carried out an execution, stressing this would represent "a major setback" for the country.

"The High Commissioner has written to the Prime Minister stating her concerns about the planned resumption of the death penalty, and is calling on the Government to maintain its moratorium and subsequently join the growing number of Member States that have abolished the practice altogether, including 11 States in the Pacific," said Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, during a press briefing in Geneva.

Papua New Guinea has maintained a long-standing de facto moratorium on the death penalty since 1954, which was subsequently passed into law in 1970.

"Resuming the death penalty again would be a major setback, especially after so many other States have subsequently abolished the death penalty or adopted moratoriums," Colville said.

"While recognizing the challenge presented by the recent alarming rise in violent crime in Papua New Guinea, including rape, torture and murder, the use of capital punishment has never been proved to be a more effective deterrent than other forms of punishment," he added.

In the same briefing, Mr. Colville also drew attention to the rise in executions in Indonesia, where 4 men have been executed since the country resumed the death penalty in March.

"It is a very unfortunate development as Indonesia was close to establishing a moratorium on executions."

Indonesia had not carried out any executions since 2008. In January, Pillay urged the authorities not to carry out any further executions following the Government's announcement that it would execute 10 convicted criminals.

Since 2007, the General Assembly has adopted 4 resolutions calling on States to establish a moratorium on the use of the death penalty with a view to its abolition. Today about 150 of the UN's 193 Member States have either abolished the death penalty or no longer practice it.

(source: Island Business)

ANTIGUA:

Reaction to Death Row Reprieve

Several individuals aired their views on the recent death row reprieve announcement via Observer Radio's Big Issues on Sunday.

Seven death row inmates were told that their sentence is scheduled for review when they appeared in the High Court before Justice Keith Thom last Friday.

Attorney-at-law Steadroy 'Cutie' Benjamin referred to the news as historic.

"It is the 1st time that a Trial Judge in Antigua has been asked to review sentences. It is not only historic but also very symbolic. The judge will now have to hear each individual and arrive at the appropriate sentence; and no-one can pre-judge the decision," Benjamin said, adding that Antigua's situation is in keeping with the Privy Council Ruling."

The council is of the view that it is cruel and inhumane to have someone spend more than five years on death row.

Benjamin also said that although many may see it as unfair, the judge is bound by the Privy Council's ruling.

Lawrence Daniel also weighed in on the recent development.

"The judge will have to consider the nature and gravity of the offence, and may want to look at other cases in the region. There is the example of Ronald Gederon, who served time and has now left our shores. He will also have to consider if the inmates have been properly rehabilitated to re-enter society. The issue of stigmatization will also have to be looked at. Questions concerning employment and the victims' families will have to be answered," Daniel said, adding that the judge will also want to think about the fear society may develop upon the release of the offenders.

Also giving her views was Malika Moffet, President of Women of Esteem.

She suggested that she was anxious to know why a case such as Atley Alexander's would need to be reviewed.

He was placed on death row following the killing of his pregnant ex-girlfriend and her 2 children.

Also speaking on the Big Issues was Chalkie Coulbourne who lost a brother in 2009.

"Linden Browne, my brother, was murdered in 2009 in Mock Pond. He was 41 and the father of 6. He worked at CLICO Insurance, and was very healthy. My family will never get over his death. I can just imagine how much pain he suffered. He was chopped and stabbed several times."

Colbourne said he is in total support of the death penalty; adding that when those who commit murder are executed, they won't have the chance to kill again.

Marvin Joseph, Atley Alexander, Steadroy 'Brier Fox' McDougal, Fitzroy Jarvis, Michael Mason Mellonson Harris and Lorriston Cornwall are scheduled to have their sentences reviewed on June 21.

(source: www.caribarena.com)

CHINA:

China sentences underground bank operator to death

A businesswoman in southern China has been sentenced to death on charges of defrauding investors as the government tightens controls on informal financing that is widely used by entrepreneurs.

Lin Haiyan was convicted of "illegal fundraising" for collecting 640 million yuan ($100 million) from investors by promising high returns and low risk, according to a statement by the Intermediate People's Court in Wenzhou, a center for private sector business. It said the scheme collapsed in October 2011 and 428 million yuan could not be recovered.

The case highlighted potential abuses in largely unregulated informal lending that supports entrepreneurs who generate China's new jobs and wealth but often cannot get loans from the state-owned banking industry. The government is tightening controls after the global economic downturn sparked a wave of defaults and protests by lenders.

Another businesswoman from Wenzhou also was sentenced to death last year on illegal fundraising charges. That penalty was overturned following an outcry on the Internet and she was sentenced to prison.

Communist leaders have promised more bank lending for entrepreneurs and announced a pilot project in 2012 in Wenzhou to allow closely supervised private sector lending. But business leaders in Wenzhou say it is harder for entrepreneurs to get loans because worsening economic conditions have made banks and private sources reluctant to lend.

The underground credit market is estimated by China's central bank and private sector analysts at 2 trillion to 4 trillion yuan ($325 billion to $650 billion), or as much as 7 % of total lending. In some areas, informal lending exceeds that of official banks.

Many households provide money for private lending in an effort to get a better return than the low deposit rates paid by Chinese banks, which effectively force depositors to subsidize low-interest loans to state industry.

Authorities have sentenced 1,449 people to prison terms of at least 5 years for involvement in underground lending since 2011, a police official, Du Jinfu, said last month.

Legal experts say loans between individuals are legal and the government has failed to make clear what lenders and borrowers are allowed to do.

"The distinction between illegal fundraising and private lending still remains unclear," said the Dui Hua Foundation, a San Francisco-based group that researches China's justice system, in a report in February.

Lin started raising money from friends, relatives and coworkers in 2007, according to a statement on the court website. It said Lin told investors the money was going into stock offerings and bank deposits but used it to speculate in stocks.

Even as losses mounted, Lin continued to raise money until the scheme collapsed, the court said.

The statement said the penalty still must be confirmed. All death sentences in China are automatically appealed to the country's highest court for review.

The court took the unusual step of issuing a 2nd statement to support sentencing Lin to death after a Chinese blogger questioned the penalty in a comment that included the phrase "killing the witness."

"Lin Haiyan's actions constituted financial fraud that caused huge losses and seriously damaged the people and the state," said the statement, which was several times the length of the original announcement. It criticized the blogger for challenging the court's decision.

Protests erupted in 2011 and early 2012 in cities and towns throughout central China and along the southeast coast, areas with large concentrations of small private businesses, after the downturn in global trade triggered a wave of defaults. Schoolteachers, retirees and others who had lent to entrepreneurs demanded authorities get back their money.

Regulators also worried banks and state companies had gotten involved in underground lending, exposing the official financial system to unreported risks.

In the earlier case in Wenzhou, an entrepreneur, Wu Ying, was sentenced to death for improperly raising 770 million yuan ($120 million) from investors in 2005-07. Wu, who started with a hair salon and built a business empire, had earlier been praised by state media as a role model for female entrepreneurs.

China's supreme court overturned Wu's death sentence following an outcry on the Internet over the severity of the penalty. She was re-sentenced to death with a 2-year reprieve, which usually is commuted to a long prison term.

A statement on the website of China's highest court, dated in 2011, says charges of "illegal fundraising" can be applied to an individual who receives more than 200,000 yuan ($32,000) of informal loans or causes losses to lenders of 100,000 yuan ($16,000). Enterprises can face charges if they receive 1 million yuan ($160,000) or causes losses of 2.5 million yuan ($400,000).

(source: Associated Press)

INDIA:

Verdict in torture case on June 9

The man sentenced to death for torturing his 8-year-old daughter to death has claimed in the Court of Appeal that his ex-wife cast a spell on him, which caused the demise of the young girl.

The court will give a verdict in the torture case involving 29-year-old Emirati H.S. and his 27-year-old compatriot girlfriend A. A. A. on June 9.

In Sunday's hearing, the court bench listened to the final pleas made by H. S., who claimed the spell his ex-wife cast on him affected his daughter Wadeema instead. H. S., an ex-security supervisor, has been appealing a death penalty given by the Court of First Instance for torturing and burying the body of Wadeema and inflicting permanent injuries on his other daughter, seven-year-old Mira. He earlier told the court that his conviction lacked 'concrete evidence'.

He admitted in court he inflicted some of the burns on Mira's body, claiming he only meant to discipline her. But he alleged his ex-wife was to blame for Mira's other injuries, which he claimed to be a vindictive act against him.

"The medical report said that Mira's burns were old except for 3. The old burns were inflicted by my ex-wife.

"She used to tell my daughters that I don't love them. This was shown in the report by the psychiatrist on Mira's condition which said she felt unloved."

Throughout the case, he faced charges of torturing and illegally confining and depriving his 2 daughters of their freedom, with the use of force. He admitted, however, that he hid Wadeema's body by burying it in a remote desert location in Al Badayer in Sharjah, without the proper official authorisation.

Defence lawyer Hamdi Al Shiwi argued in the court that his client did not mean to kill Wadeema, saying that he beat her to discipline her, but it went too far.

A. A. A., whom H. S. claimed to be his wife, has been appealing a life in prison sentence. The initial verdict convicted the duo of torturing H. S.'s 2 daughters mentally and physically for around 6 months by depriving them of their simplest rights of food and clothes and imprisoning them in his rented flat located in International City.

(source: Khaleej Times)

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Garo rebel outfit 'sentences' Congress legislator to death

The outlawed Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA) has again threatened to kill Meghalaya Congress legislator Limison D. Sangma for not complying with their extortion demands, police said Monday.

"We have been informed by the legislator that the GNLA has issued a 'death penalty' for not complying with their extortion demands," Mukesh Kumar Singh, the district police chief of West Garo Hills, told IANS.

In a text message to Sangma, the GNLA North Zone "area commander" P.D. Shira stated that the outfit declared that Sangma has been "awarded" the "death penalty" or that he should "compensate for the loss" by paying an amount of Rs.2 lakh.

"You (Sangma) had intentionally insulted and tarnished the image of the GNLA, in general, and our cadre Rangdat, and thereby committed an offence punishable under the various sections of GNLA penal code and within my cognizance," Shira stated in the text message.

Earlier, Sangma had received a text message in which the GNLA allegedly demanded Rs.5 lakh, and if not paid they would kidnap and kill him.

Though, the tribal Garo outfit denied sending the text message, Sangma, however, said it was the GNLA which had made the demand.

"It is the GNLA. They sent such demand notices twice - for Rs.10 lakh in May and Rs.50 lakh in October last year, and they demanded Rs.7 lakh over phone during the assembly elections," Sangma said.

"I have informed police about the GNLA making extortion demands. I hope they bring them to book," the Congress legislator said.

Intelligence officials said the outlawed GNLA had slapped extortion demands ranging from Rs.5 lakh to Rs.1 crore on petrol vend owners, coal dealers and businessmen in the coal-rich districts of Garo Hills in the western part of Meghalaya.

(source: Newstrack India)

MAY 19, 2013:

PENNSYLVANIA:

Kermit Gosnell and the death penalty

Imagine the scene in the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives as the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee calls the meeting to order with 3 decisive blows of the gavel:

A hush falls over the unusually large throng of observers as the presiding legislator greets the star witness and asks him to identify himself, stating his cause, that it may be noted in the official record.

As a barrage of flashbulbs and the rapid fire sound of clicking shutters emanates from the pool of photographers huddled in the media gallery, a voice rings out from the witness table, "I am Charles J. Chaput, Archbishop of Philadelphia, and I am here to plead for the life of Kermit Gosnell."

A spectacle such as this, depending upon who you ask, would either be a beautiful witness to Catholic teaching, or a regrettable distortion of the same.

Thanks to a plea deal, however, Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted of 3 counts of 1st-degree murder, one count of infanticide, and one count of involuntary manslaughter (among other things) was able to avoid a sentence of death, thereby averting any possibility that the scene just described might actually take place.

That doesn't mean that people aren't talking about it, however. On the contrary, the heinous nature of Gosnell's crimes has brought debate over the fittingness of capital punishment back into spotlight where it belongs.

Catholics are divided on the topic, generally falling into any number of "camps" which includes:

Those who embrace the John Paul II opinion that short of protecting society from imminent danger the death penalty it is always an affront to human dignity

Those who reject the death penalty with the belief that it is incompatible with the Christian duty to extend mercy and forgiveness

Those who believe that life imprisonment, as opposed to a death sentence, is the best, or only, way to allow for the perpetrator's repentance and conversion

Those who support the death penalty out of anger and vengeance, sometimes expressed in judgmental fits of rage

And then there is the smallest camp of all:

Those who have a good working knowledge and appreciation for the well-established Catholic doctrine concerning the State's right to administer the penalty of death

With this in mind, let's take a necessarily abbreviated look at the traditional doctrine of the Church on capital punishment, a teaching which remains entirely valid today.

The 1st thing one should know is that this teaching is founded upon the authority of Sacred Scripture and the witness of sacred Tradition as articulated throughout the centuries.

The Catechism of Trent offers the following concise presentation:

The power of life and death is permitted to certain civil magistrates because theirs is the responsibility under law to punish the guilty and protect the innocent. Far from being guilty of breaking this commandment [Thy shall not kill], such an execution of justice is precisely an act of obedience to it. For the purpose of the law is to protect and foster human life. This purpose is fulfilled when the legitimate authority of the State is exercised by taking the guilty lives of those who have taken innocent lives.

In the Psalms we find a vindication of this right: "Morning by morning I will destroy all the wicked in the land, cutting off all evildoers from the city of the Lord" (Ps. 101:8).

(Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent, 1566, Part III, 5, n. 4)

While the post-conciliar bishops tend to focus almost exclusively on the duty to protect human life (albeit extrapolated to include even the life of the guilty), the traditional approach charges the State also with "fostering" human life; that which cannot be confined to the purely physical alone, but also includes the spiritual life of man.

In overlooking this truth, one can easily lose sight of the reality that proportionate punishment justly rendered can have a purifying effect on the soul, thereby fostering the spiritual life of the guilty.

Also missing from the modern approach is the traditional awareness that the death penalty need not be considered an act of vengeance as so often alleged by its detractors.

The secular power can without mortal sin carry out a sentence of death, provided it proceeds in imposing the penalty not from hatred but with judgment, not carelessly, but with due solicitude. (Pope Innocent III, DS 795/425)

Even in the case of the death penalty the State does not dispose of the individual's right to life. Rather public authority limits itself to depriving the offender of the good of life in expiation for his guilt, after he, through his crime, deprived himself of his own right to life. (Pope Pius XII, Address given September 14, 1952)

In a (highly recommended) 2001 article for First Things, Catholicism & Capital Punishment, Cardinal Avery Dulles offered an in-depth treatment of the topic in which the eminent theologian stated:

Summarizing the verdict of Scripture and tradition, we can glean some settled points of doctrine. It is agreed that crime deserves punishment in this life and not only in the next. In addition, it is agreed that the State has authority to administer appropriate punishment to those judged guilty of crimes and that this punishment may, in serious cases, include the sentence of death ... The Catholic magisterium does not, and never has, advocated unqualified abolition of the death penalty.

Contrast this with the condescending comments offered by Tommaso Di Ruzza, a "desk officer" at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, who said in a recent Catholic News Service interview, "It is not a message that is immediately understood - that there is no room for supporting the death penalty in today's world."

This particular viewpoint, while a substantial departure from the authentic doctrine of the Church, also happens to be shared by many, including even the majority of bishops.

Archbishop Chaput, for example, wrote in a recent column:

Even when a defendant is well defended, properly tried and justly found guilty, experience shows that capital punishment simply doesn't work as a deterrent. Nor does it heal or redress any wounds, because only forgiveness can do that. It does succeed though in answering violence with violence - a violence wrapped in the piety of state approval, which implicates all of us as citizens in the taking of more lives.

Though well in keeping with the mindset of recent popes, the archbishop's remarks are at odds with the traditional teaching on a number of important points, including the fact that capital punishment is not best considered as an attempt by the State to deter the commission of similar crimes in the future.

Secondly, as a matter of proportionate punishment, the death penalty is properly understood in Catholic teaching as an attempt to redress and to heal spiritual wounds.

Thirdly, when the civil authority lawfully carries out the death penalty, it not a de facto act of violence, much less is it "wrapped in the piety of State approval" inasmuch as the authority to carry out such acts comes not from the State itself, nor from its people, but from God.

Lastly, "forgiveness" and capital punishment are not mutually exclusive as the archbishop implies. Forgiving those who trespass against us is indeed an occasion of healing for the forgiver, but not necessarily so for the forgiven, whereas just punishment, duly accepted by those who deserve it, is.

For instance, St. Thomas Aquinas affirmed that the death penalty, inasmuch as it is proportionate retribution justly rendered, can have a purgatorial effect on the guilty that carries with it a powerful impetus for conversion.

All of this said, one wonders what caused our churchmen to move so far away, so quickly, from well-established Catholic teaching on the matter.

The most common answer, it seems, lies in the assertion that modern man (understood as referring to those living in the age of post-conciliar enlightenment) has a deeper understanding of human dignity than did previous generations.

Cardinal Dulles, however, didn't believe it.

Arguments from the progress of ethical consciousness have been used to promote a number of alleged human rights that the Catholic Church consistently rejects in the name of Scripture and tradition. The magisterium appeals to these authorities as grounds for repudiating divorce, abortion, homosexual relations, and the ordination of women to the priesthood. If the Church feels herself bound by Scripture and tradition in these other areas, it seems inconsistent for Catholics to proclaim a "moral revolution" on the issue of capital punishment.

So, if not the product of a moral awakening, what then accounts for this rapid journey away from the traditional Catholic position on capital punishment?

In my estimation, the answer is twofold, relatively simple, and radically disturbing.

Throughout the post-conciliar period, the hierarchy's preaching has reflected a hyper-inflated sense of human dignity that has obscured a number of important truths that weigh heavily in the Church's traditional understanding of capital punishment as a matter of justice. Among them, the fact that human dignity can be diminished and even lost, and the very closely related understanding that human dignity is not possessed in equal measure by all. (A principle treated in greater detail in this column.)

As such, clergy and laity alike have largely fallen into the error of believing that when the State takes the life of a murderer, it is essentially repeating his crime, and this brings us to the second factor; namely, the distorted post-conciliar view of the State.

From the time of Vatican Council II and the promulgation of Dignitatis Humanae, the Church has refrained from preaching the immutable truth that the State derives its authority neither from constitutions nor the will of the people, but from Almighty God to whom the State is beholden, regardless of the particular form of government in which it operates.

Lost in the murkiness is the Catholic understanding of the civil authority as a representative of God, and whose authority is reflective of the hierarchical order that the Lord established within creation.

As such, it is no longer clear in the minds of moderns that the death penalty can indeed be visited upon the guilty, by the State, not simply as a means of protecting others, but as a means of visiting retributive justice upon the guilty in the name of God, thereby rendering a genuine and valuable service to the common good.

Needless to say, opinions will continue to vary as to whether or not the likes of Kermit Gosnell justly deserve the death penalty. I can accept that.

What I will not accept without protest, however, are opinions that are based upon a distorted representation of Catholic doctrine, especially when such are put forth by our bishops.

(source: Author and speaker Louie Verrecchio has been a columnist for Catholic News Agency; RenewAmerica.com)

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Jurors to mull death penalty in Pa. slayings of 12--Prosecutors seek the death penalty for Kaboni Savage. The case includes 12 homicides carried out or ordered by Savage, said an indictment handed up in 2009.

Jurors return to federal court in Philadelphia on Tuesday to hear arguments and evidence on whether a drug dealer convicted in the deaths of a dozen people should be sentenced to death or to life in prison without possibility of parole.

The panel last week convicted 38-year-old Kaboni Savage of the slayings, including a 2004 firebombing that killed 6 relatives of a man who was planning to testify against him. Court officials said penalty phase proceedings scheduled for Monday would be delayed a day.

Authorities said that although Savage has mostly been in prison since 2003, he gave orders through phone calls and prison visits and communicated with other inmates through prison plumbing pipes.

His 30-year-old sister, Kidada Savage, faces life in prison after being convicted in the firebombing the killed the mother of the prospective witness as well as another woman and four children.

Kaboni Savage, a former boxer who has denied any role in the attacks, is serving a 30-year drug trafficking sentence. Defense attorneys portrayed him as a drug dealer but not a kingpin and attacked the credibility of prosecution witnesses.

Co-defendant Steven Northington was convicted of 2 counts of murder in aid of racketeering and could face the death penalty in penalty phase deliberations.

Another defendant, 32-year-old Robert Merritt, was convicted of racketeering conspiracy but acquitted of charges in the firebombing.

(source: Philly.com)

OHIO:

Keith case has cost taxpayers more than $209,000; U.S. Supreme Court denied killer's latest appeal in April

Taxpayers have footed the bill for more than $209,000 in the prosecution and defense of triple murderer Kevin Keith.

According to records obtained by the Telegraph-Forum, the Office of the Ohio Public Defender has spent $85,890.38 defending the man who was convicted of killing 3 people on Feb. 13, 1994.

Prosecutors said Keith walked into a small apartment on Marion Road and opened gunfire, killing 3 people and wounding 3 others. Killed were Marichell Chatman, 24; her 4-year-old daughter, Marchae; and the child's aunt, Linda Chatman, 39.

The former Crestline resident has filed a series of appeals. The most recent action to the United States Supreme Court, which denied his bid for an appeal in April. Keith, 49, is serving a life sentence at the Trumbull Correctional Institution in northeast Ohio.

Then Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland reduced Keith's death sentence to life without parole in September 2010. The Ohio Parole Board voted 8-0 against commutation.

Initially, Keith retained Columbus attorney James Banks for his trial in Bucyrus. After his conviction, Keith began using the services of the Office of the Ohio Public Defender to appeal the case.

The Office of the Ohio Public Defender is the state agency responsible for providing legal representation and other services to people accused of a crime who cannot afford to hire their own attorney.

The department issued a statement regarding the case and the time it spent on it.

"An attorney from the Office of the Ohio Public Defender first entered an appearance on Kevin Keith's case on April 25, 2007, so OPD has been representing Kevin for about 6 years. In July 2007, after being on the case for just over 2 months, OPD attorneys uncovered incriminating material regarding an alternate suspect in the crime for which Kevin was sentenced to die."

The statement continued, "In this case, as in nearly all other death penalty cases in Ohio, far too few resources are invested in the early stages of the case - during the initial investigation, trial and mitigation and in the immediate post-trial efforts of direct appeal and post-conviction. It is during this time period closest to the crime that the money spent on death penalty cases can be most effective: while evidence is fresh and witnesses are available. But Ohio drastically shortchanges resources at this critical early stage.

"Because so little is invested in the early stages of death penalty cases, attorneys representing clients who face an execution date often find themselves scrambling to find evidence, hire experts, present claims to courts and develop the client's case for clemency. This was certainly true in Kevin Keith's case."

In addition to the OPD, Crawford County records show the case has cost $123,125.49. Total cost to the public is at least $209,294.87, according to records and research conducted by the newspaper.

Some costs remain unaccounted for. For example, no records exist for the time that investigators spent on the case in the early years, according to OPD spokesperson Amy Borror.

Records show fines alone total $105,000 owed to Crawford County Common Pleas Court.

Rachel G. Troutman, an assistant state public defender, has served as Keith's primary legal counsel for the past several years. The billable hours for his attorney fees add up to $29,525.

17 personal services contracts for Keith’s defense total another $45,154.68. The single biggest item is $11,652.50 for work done at the crime scene.

The remaining charges are for forensic audio, eyewitness identification, an innocence expert, scuba diving search and a tire track expert. These are for the years 1999 and 2007-10.

A court reporting charge of $3,566.25 for August 2010 also is included.

(source: Buycyrus Forum Telegraph)

FLORIDA:

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT ---- Gov. Rick Scott speeds up warrants for death row inmates

Gov. Rick Scott has signed 3 active death warrants in recent weeks, the most any governor has signed in more than 2 decades. They are:

-- ELMER LEON CARROLL, convicted of the rape and murder of a 10-year-old girl in Apopka in 1990. Execution scheduled May 29.

-- WILLIAM VAN POYCK, convicted of the murder of a Florida correctional officer in Raiford in 1987. Execution scheduled June 12.

-- MARSHALL LEE GORE, convicted of the rape and strangulation of a woman in Miami-Dade in 1988. Execution scheduled June 24.

[sources: Department of Corrections; Governor's Office]

Gov. Rick Scott has accelerated the pace of signing death warrants in Florida by lining up 3 executions over the next few weeks, the most in such a brief period of time in more than 2 decades.

Scott and his chief legal adviser say they are doing nothing unusual. But legal experts who oppose the death penalty wonder whether other factors are at work - such as Scott's desire to improve his standing with voters as he seeks re-election next year.

Not since 1989, when an unpopular Gov. Bob Martinez set a record by signing six death warrants in a single day, has a Florida governor been so eager to use the death penalty.

"In the past, governors wouldn't do multiple warrants at a time. It was a much more orderly process than this," said Martin McClain, an attorney who has defended many Florida death row inmates. "If appears that every 10 days, Gov. Scott is signing a death warrant."

Scott recently signed 3 death warrants in succession, for condemned murderers Elmer Leon Carroll, William Van Poyck and Marshall Lee Gore. All 3 have been on death row for longer than 20 years. Their executions, set over the next 6 weeks, will keep the death chamber at Florida State Prison in Starke unusually busy. 2 other recent death warrants have been blocked in federal court.

Scott had signed a total of 6 death warrants before the recent burst.

"I go through them when people have exhausted their appeals and they're finished with the clemency process," Scott said. "Then I continue to move the process along."

The timing of death warrant signings, and which inmates are chosen, has long been shrouded in mystery in Florida, and has been a subject of consternation among lawyers who represent death row inmates. Inmates are allowed to appeal their convictions in both the state and federal courts, and every case undergoes an investigation by the Florida Parole Commission before the governor can sign a death warrant.

But in case after case, the Florida Supreme Court has rejected claims that the death penalty selection process is arbitrary or without standards, and the court has upheld the governor's "unfettered discretion to select inmates for execution," as it noted last week in the case of Elmer Carroll, condemned to die for the rape and murder of a 10-year-old girl in Apopka in 1990.

Scott's current legal counsel - his 3rd since taking office - is Peter Antonacci, who has a much more extensive background in the criminal justice system than his predecessors.

Antonacci, 64, is a former deputy state attorney general, local prosecutor and statewide prosecutor, and he was Scott's choice to serve as the interim state attorney for Palm Beach County for most of last year. A longtime Democrat who became a Republican several years ago, Antonacci said he reached the conclusion that his views on crime and punishment were more in line with Republicans than with Democrats.

Antonacci said his own philosophy plays no role in Scott's decision to accelerate the pace of death warrants.

"I don't have a philosophy," Antonacci said. "The governor of this state gets elected, and you expect him to faithfully carry out the laws, and this is one of the ones that's in my bailiwick ... When I got here, I said, let's find out which ones are pending that have completed their 2 trips through the courts."

What the latest death warrant cases have in common, Antonacci said, is that all 3 inmates have been on death row for more than 20 years each.

"These cases tend to be among the oldest," he said. "That's the way the process has worked."

Scott's spurt of death warrant signings also parallels the Legislature's recent passage of a bill aimed at speeding up the death penalty appeals process. Dubbed the Timely Justice Act by legislators, the bill (HB 7083) passed both chambers by wide margins. It has not yet been sent to Scott for action.

"We'll review it and see what it does," Scott said of the bill.

One provision of the bill would require the governor to sign a death warrant within 30 days of a death row inmate's clemency review, a standard step in all death penalty cases.

Some legal experts have raised concerns that the bill could increase the possibility that an innocent person could be put to death.

Former state Supreme Court Justice Raoul Cantero recently co-authored an opinion column in which he said the Timely Justice Act should be viewed in a broader framework of Florida's death penalty system, "to minimize the risk that Florida might execute innocent people or others who shouldn't be subject to the death penalty."

Cantero's article was co-written by Mark Schlakman, senior program director for the Center for Advancement of Human Rights at Florida State University. He noted that the Supreme Court recently produced a list of 110 death row inmates whose appeals have been exhausted, which he said contradicts the perception that courts take too long to review death cases.

Florida is 1 of only 2 states to allow split juries to recommend a death sentence to a judge. The state also leads the nation with 24 cases of death row exonerations, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Florida is one of 33 states that has the death penalty, and it has 405 inmates on death row, more than any other state except California. The state has executed 75 people since 1976, when capital punishment was re-instituted after a long absence.

(source: Miami Herald)

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

Scott should veto 'Timely Justice Act' on the death penalty

In 2006, the American Bar Association showed Florida how to fix the state's death penalty system in the best way. Having ignored those ideas for 7 years, the Legislature now proposes to fix the system in the worst way.

Heading to Gov. Rick Scott is House Bill 7083, titled "The Timely Justice Act." Rather than seek to make sure that executions are carried out fairly, the legislation seeks to have executions happen sooner. In the state with the most exonerations from death row - 24 since 1979 - this would be like giving Bernie Madoff a new line of credit.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach, is the sponsor of HB 7083. As he put it, there are "problem judges" and lawyers who needlessly drag out Death Row appeals. It is true that of the 405 people awaiting execution, 16 committed their crimes before 1980. But as the legislative staff said in analyzing the bill, the average time between conviction and execution in Florida is 13.22 years, less than the national average.

HB 7083 rests on another faulty premise: All capital punishment cases are the same. A current case is the latest to debunk that premise.

Gov. Rick Scott has signed a death warrant for William Van Poyck. In 1987, as an inmate at Glades Correctional Institution, Van Poyck tried to escape from a doctor's office in West Palm Beach. Guard Fred Griffis was shot and killed. Van Poyck should be in prison for life. But last week, the wife of the other inmate in the incident backed up Van Poyck’s story that he didn't fire the fatal shot.

In Florida, juries use 11 exacerbating factors and seven mitigating factors to determine whether to recommend a sentence of death. We doubt that any state could write a death penalty law that would be fair across all cases.

Far more serious, though, is the risk that under HB 7083 Florida would kill an innocent person. In 2000, the Legislature passed the Death Penalty Reform Act. It set a 10-year limit for appeals. The Florida Supreme Court struck it down. Had the law been in place, at least seven innocent men might have died. HB 7083 would restore all of the provisions the court struck down.

Also, the legislation would remove from the governor sole power to issue a death warrant. The secretary of the Department of Corrections could issue as many as three warrants every 90 days if the Florida Supreme Court certifies that an inmate has exhausted his appeals. The clear intent is for the state prison chief to pressure a potentially reluctant governor. A warrant could be issued now for as many as 100 death row inmates.

7 years ago, the American Bar Association recommended that Florida require a 12-0 jury vote to recommend a death sentence, as is required for conviction. Currently, a simple majority is enough to recommend death. That inconsistency is only one reason why Florida has a flawed capital punishment system. Gov. Scott should veto HB 7083 because justice matters more than timeliness.

(source: Randy Schultz for The Post Editorial Board; Palm Beach Post)

MISSISSIPPI:

Death penalty process terribly cruel, unusual

Leaving any person on death row for longer than 6 months is cruel and unusual punishment, both for them and the families of their victims.

On the day of conviction, a board of professionals should be formed to verify every scrap of evidence on the case. This will cover legal malfeasance, unethical/perjured witnesses, lab results, everything pertaining to the case. This can be done in 90 days, but I am suggesting 180 to be on the safe side.

Depending on the ruling by this board, the defendant will either be executed the day following the ruling, or a new trial, if needed, will start immediately. The cost of this procedure is a fraction of the cost associated with numerous appeals and living costs over 10 to 30 years. Plus, the time of agony by all sides will be greatly reduced.

But, as long as the legal profession is populated by those desiring to live off the public dole through their machinations of the legal system regarding the death penalty, this will never change.

Mike Walker----Brandon

(source: Letter to the Editor, Clarion Ledger)

OKLAHOMA:

Decades on death row drive death penalty fight

Oklahoma is killing a man at midnight, and so as darkness falls, another man on H Block slips off his prison-issue shoes.

He sits crossed-legged in front of the open toilet in his cell. He grips a shoe in each hand. He begins.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

As far as Curtis McCarty can remember, it just happens.

Another inmate takes off his shoes, and Curtis does, too, and the drumbeat spreads up and down the hallway and through the dozens of 2-man cells commonly known as death row.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The visitors begin to arrive. The grieving family members of the victim who has been brutally murdered. State officials upholding the laws of the state of Oklahoma. News reporters bearing witness in their constitutionally protected role. And the men whose job it is to administer a lethal dose of drugs to a convicted murderer and then watch as he dies.

As the visitors wait for the clocks to strike midnight, the banging grows louder and louder until it reverberates all the way through the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. The pipes shake. The walls and the floors tremble. Louder and louder until it seems like the building might crumble. Until it seems like the world might end.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

As he sits cross-legged on the floor of CC Cell, Curtis McCarty doesn't much care about the tampered evidence and the DNA testing and the FBI investigation and the committed group of lawyers. He doesn't much care that one day he will walk free outside these walls, leave the state that mistakenly convicted him and sentenced him to death, and move to Nebraska.

Innocence, guilt - they don't much matter when you are holding shoes in both hands, bringing them together up to eye level and then smashing them down on both sides of your toilet. When your entire world is this drumbeat, this furious rhythmic protest, and nothing else.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

"For hours," Curtis says. "Until my forearms bled."

***

You cannot hear the banging as Curtis McCarty walks to the Creighton University podium. He is wearing a black-and-white stocking cap that covers gray hair and the look of a 50-year-old man sure he'd rather be somewhere else.

And sure enough, his girlfriend, Amy, practically had to grab him by the collar this morning, drag him from the basement of the house they share in Lincoln, and drive him to Creighton's Harper Center and this anti-death penalty event.

The day starts as you'd expect: many committed people in a room, convinced of the just nature of their cause, offering factual and moral evidence to sustain each other and prove the case. You could close your eyes and jumble the words around a little, and this could be an anti-abortion event or an anti-war event.

And then Curtis takes the stage. Quietly, he begins to tell a different story.

"We are a nation of laws, a Constitution meant to promote justice and equality before the law," Curtis says. "I believed that. I believed the judge and the jury would enforce this law. ... I was wrong."

And this.

"You have to understand that the (police) were frustrated. They were frustrated with how I was living my life. They were frustrated by the fact they couldn't bring any solace to the Willis family."

And this.

"I lost my family, my country. I didn't have anything to believe in anymore."

And this.

"Had I been asked at one time, I would have voiced support for capital punishment."

This story is related to the rest of the event because Curtis opposes the death penalty as vehemently as anyone.

This story is different because it's his own.

***

He starts by explaining to the Creighton audience, in great and discomforting detail, how he hurt everyone he ever loved before he lost everything he ever had.

His parents were salt-of-the-earth, hard-working, well-meaning people who taught him right from wrong. He chose wrong.

He was a junkie at 15. A high school dropout at 16. Part of a crew that robbed an Oklahoma City gas station at gunpoint at 17. Lost in drugs and booze, friends with dealers and thieves, estranged from his mother and father, barely employed, in and out of the county jail at 18.

"Every time I found myself in the back of a police car, I promised to reform," he says. "I kept promising this until I was 22."

He had angered the Oklahoma City police by sitting in the back of their patrol cars too many times. He had angered homicide detectives by lying to them as they investigated another crime.

He had become somebody it was hard to feel sorry for, no matter what befell him.

"You don't walk in front of the bull's-eye and then act surprised when they shoot you with an arrow," he says.

The third and final time Curtis saw a woman named Pamela Willis came just after Thanksgiving 1982. She, like Curtis, was into drugs. She hung with bad people, like Curtis.

They passed each other in the living room at a house party held by a mutual friend. Curtis remembers asking someone, "Who was that?"

"Just Pam."

Days after that party, on Dec. 10, 1982, a man found Pamela Willis in the living room of that same Oklahoma City house.

She was naked. She had been raped. Strangled. Someone had stabbed her so violently that a chunk of her sternum had collapsed the knife like an accordion.

She was 18 the night she died.

"Like me, she was from a good, middle-class white family, which meant she had every chance, like I did," Curtis tells the audience. "As badly as things turned out for me, they turned out so much worse for her."

At the crime scene, police discovered semen, hair, blood, a bloody footprint, a bloody handprint on the wall and the murder weapon: the knife that had collapsed like an accordion.

They rounded up any man who had seen Pam Willis in the days before her death - 42 in all.

Curtis was one of those men. He walked voluntarily into an Oklahoma City police station and gave up hair samples, blood samples, palm prints. He answered questions without a lawyer present, and left. As his lawyers later discovered, he was eliminated as a suspect that day.

3 years passed. Curtis kept getting high, getting into trouble, getting arrested. The hunt for Pam Willis' killer went cold. Pressure mounted on homicide detectives and on a new, tough-on-crime district attorney, and they started to re-examine the case.

They heard a rumor: Curtis had told someone he knew who killed Pam Willis.

They brought him in again, but this time they physically and psychologically abused him, Curtis says. They demanded again and again to know the name of Pam's killer.

Curtis told them over and over he didn't know. And he hadn't ever told anyone that he did. Rather, he says, he had simply repeated gossip that Pam's death was likely tied to her drug connections.

The police didn't believe him, or chose not to, and arrested him on suspicion of first-degree capital murder.

Curtis couldn't believe it, but he figured his lawyers would point out the obvious: He had no motive. His prints didn't match those on the murder weapon. He hadn't killed her, and the jury would believe that.

But Curtis didn't know Joyce Gilchrist.

In 1986, when the case came to trial, Gilchrist was an up-and-coming young forensic scientist who had so wowed police investigators with her ability to tie suspects to evidence that they had nicknamed her "Black Magic." The year before, the Oklahoma City Police Department had named her employee of the year.

She took the stand, and everything changed. Yes, she had found Curtis' hair at the scene. Yes, the blood and semen were consistent with his. Yes, he had been there that night. Yes, yes, yes.

"By the end of the trial, the jury wouldn't look at me," Curtis tells the audience. "They stared down at their feet."

The guilty verdict was quickly followed by a hearing to decide whether Curtis would be imprisoned for life or put to death.

Only 2 people took the stand on his behalf.

His father. And his mother.

"It is one of the most shameful things that ever happened to me. My mother, silently weeping and begging them not to kill me."

The verdict: death by lethal injection.

***

The inmates hate a prisoner named Fisher. They surround him in the hallway after exercise hour. They stab him with sharpened broomsticks. He falls into his cell, spilling blood all over the floor.

Curtis is given Fisher's cell, locked in before the blood on the floor dries. He watches out his tiny window as they drag Fisher, ranting and struggling, from the hospital to solitary confinement after he assaults a nurse. Curtis hears the screams as the guards beat on the psychotic prisoner.

This is Curtis McCarty's 1st day on death row. It is 1986. He is 22.

At first he counts the days, buoyed by the hope that someone will discover the trial's errors, and he will be set free.

But as the days turn to months, then years, the men around him are killed, one after another. Some are sadistic serial killers. Some are getaway drivers of drug robberies gone bad. Some seem mentally disabled.

Curtis reads his own court files and pores over evidence and testimony that make no sense to him. He reads the other inmates' case files - they ask him to, as soon as they realize he knows how to read.

He plays the death row version of chess, the board a piece of cardboard pulled back and forth across the floor between cells. He plays a guitar until the guards take it from him.

He joins a prison gang for protection. He feels himself slipping away.

"You can't even punch someone there. That's seen as weak. You have to stab. You become belligerent, aggressive, crazy. You lose your humanity. Everybody does. You can't stop it."

Were you ever violent, Curtis?

"Only when I had to be," he whispers.

In January 2001 - Curtis McCarty's 16th year on death row - Oklahoma executes 6 men and 1 woman. 7 times in 1 month, Curtis takes off his shoes and bangs them against his toilet.

1 of those 7 is Billy Ray Fox, convicted of felony murder and put to death despite his insistence that he was the getaway driver and didn't kill the 3 victims of a grocery store robbery turned murder.

Billy is Curtis' cellmate. His best friend.

By 2001, "I had completely come apart," Curtis tells the audience.

He decides to end his legal appeals, decides to forget the mistakes and untruths that gnaw at him whenever he reads his case file. He decides to die for a murder he didn't commit.

And then mail arrives from his mother. There is no note inside the envelope, just a newspaper story she had clipped out.

"Gilchrist under investigation for wrongdoing," the headline says.

***

At the lectern, Curtis' voice is getting louder. His voice begins to bounce off the auditorium walls. The room is completely, utterly silent. We can hear the banging now.

During Joyce Gilchrist's watch, inconclusive blood and DNA tests had somehow become positive tests. Evidence that might have exonerated murder and rape suspects disappeared.

"60 Minutes" and other national news heavy hitters did investigations showing that her success in court might be tied to something besides magic, black or otherwise. Other forensic chemists turned against her. She was sued, booted out of professional organizations, fired. Hundreds of cases she had worked on now flap in the legal breeze.

The FBI investigated eight cases of misconduct, which led to the release of three prisoners. One man who had spent 15 years in prison for a rape that DNA testing proved he didn't commit. Another man who spent 17 years on death row for a murder that a DNA test called into question.

And Curtis McCarty, whose own DNA test, when he got 1 after nearly 2 decades, showed that his didn't match the DNA found at the crime scene.

He is released in 2007 after serving more than 21 years in prison, almost all of it on death row.

He is 44 years old.

He moves back in with his parents. He takes care of his mother, who is dying of a lung disease. He plays Barbies with his niece, who is 3, and teaches her to say "I'm going to be a nuclear physicist when I grow up."

But he is not joyous. He is aimless. Depressed. Furious.

"My attorneys were worried about me because I was basically a recluse," he tells the audience. "They decided to give me something to do."

So they send him to Nebraska.

He passes the statue of Honest Abe, enters the State Capitol and walks into the rotunda. He is there in Lincoln to testify before the Legislature as it considers a bill to abolish the death penalty, and he does. But something else happens.

He turns, shakes the hand of the 1st person he is introduced to - and she becomes his girlfriend.

She is Amy Miller, the legal director of the Nebraska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Curtis says he admires her because she fights for people no one else will fight for, and because she is friendly with people who don't agree with her politics.

He tries to treat her kindly and cheer her up when she's down. She makes sure he gets to all his speaking engagements: Curtis doesn't have a car, and his short-term memory is shot.

He has a lot of appointments these days: He speaks at small-town Nebraska high schools. Auditoriums in Lincoln and Omaha. Events in Alaska and New York City. Japan. Rome. Paris.

Not long ago, he spoke to a committee of the United Nations.

Before every speech he is terrified, sure that he will sound silly, sure that professors and diplomats and activists don't want to hear from a man like him.

And if the speech at Creighton is any indication, when he is done the professors and diplomats and activists jump out of their seats and give him a standing ovation, because he has wowed them. And maybe because clapping is the only thing they can think to do.

Curtis McCarty, 1 of 142 men and women who have been exonerated while on death row, shakes hands and talks to well-wishers and returns to the house he and Amy share in Lincoln.

Most of those exonerated are, like Curtis, a product of the modern era. Many are spared by DNA testing.

When Curtis is by himself, he wonders: How many people on Oklahoma's death row died before a DNA test could prove their innocence?

How many Americans just like him has the death penalty killed?

He wonders this, and it drives him.

He says he will continue to accept all invitations in the 32 states that still allow the death penalty. (Iowa abolished capital punishment 48 years ago.)

He will continue to speak in Nebraska. Last week, the most successful effort at repealing the death penalty in decades narrowly failed because of a filibuster in the Nebraska Legislature. The bill will carry over to the 2014 session.

Curtis will continue to do what he does, and the whole time he will hear the sound. It is crystal clear, and it is in surround sound, and it is turned all the way up inside his head.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

For Curtis McCarty, the banging is the story. For Curtis McCarty, the banging won't ever go away.

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

Death penalty: for and against

3 arguments for

Closure: In some cases the family members of victims say capital punishment helps end a horrible chapter in their lives - a chapter that began when their loved one was killed by the person later put to death for the murder.

More accuracy now: Some pro-death penalty advocates acknowledge flaws in cases tried during the previous half-century, but say today's DNA testing makes it less likely the wrong person will be convicted.

Justice served: Death penalty proponents often argue that penalties for taking a life should include the government's ability to take the convicted murderer's life, noting that an eye for an eye is a centuries-old tradition embraced by different civilizations and different religions.

3 arguments against

Wrongfully executed: More than 300 Americans have been exonerated by DNA testing and released from prison, 1/4 of them after being convicted of murder. Which raises the question "How many innocent people have been put to death?"

Cost: Anti-death penalty advocates argue that the cost of the death penalty far outweighs the cost of a life spent in prison. California, for example, spent $137 million on death penalty cases between 2007 and 2009 and didn't execute a single prisoner during that time. Florida spends an estimated $24 million on death row for every one execution it carries out.

Stop the killing: Murder is wrong, and the nation shouldn't participate in a system sanctioning the killing of murderers, those opposed to the death penalty often argue.

[sources: Nebraska Legislature, the Innocence Project, Death Penalty Information Center, Focus on the Death Penalty, University of Alaska]

(source: Omaha World-Herald)

NEBRASKA:

Broken system

In 1975, my mother was murdered by Wesley Peery. She was bound and gagged and seated on the toilet in the back room of our family coin store; after they had finished ransacking the coin store, they had left the building. Peery returned and shot my mother 3 times in the head.

My mother was not the only person that he had murdered. A famous murder case in 1955 that just recently had come to fruition involved Nancy Parker who was raped and strangled by Peery. However, Parker's husband, Darrel, was badgered into saying he had been the one who murdered his wife, which he immediately recanted.

Peery was found guilty of murdering my mother and was sentenced to death. After all the appeals and open heart surgery he received, he eventually passed away on death row from natural causes. My mother was not given the same chance at appeals and surgery to keep her alive so she could undergo more appeals. She and the rest of my family did not receive closure on what had been an act of greed and in Peery's case the act of a serial killer.

I believe if we are going to have a death penalty, it should be one that works. The system that we have now is broken.

Louis Mitzner, Lincoln

(source: Journal World)

CALIFORNIA:

Galvan gets death penalty for murder

State prison inmate Robert Galvan was sentenced to death this week for the murder of his cellmate in 2010.

Galvan, 37, was found guilty by a jury in March for the 1st-degree murder of fellow cellmate Robert Johnson, 29, at Corcoran State Prison. Galvan was serving 4 consecutive life sentences at the time for robbery, kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon.

While the murder case was pending in 2012, he also got out of his handcuffs, assaulted his counsel and stabbed a correctional officer.

In his decision, Judge Peter Spinetta said the murder was vicious and preplanned. He said there was no motive for killing and that Johnson was defenseless during the attack. Considering Galvan's long history of criminal activity, Spinetta said he had no choice but to agree with the jury's verdicts and give Galvan the death penalty.

"The evidence shows that the danger he poses to others cannot be curbed by imprisonment, even for life," he said at the Wednesday hearing. "Under the circumstances, imposition of a death sentence is not only warranted, it is without viable alternative."

According to the county, a motion was filed to give Galvan life without the possibility of parole instead of the death penalty, but Spinetta denied it, again citing his conclusion that imprisonment wouldn't change his behavior.

After the sentencing, Galvan was transported to death row at San Quentin State Prison, where he will stay until the sentence is carried out. Galvan is the 1st person to get the death penalty in Kings County since 2010.

(source: Hanford Sentinel)

USA:

Boston bombing judge becomes target over Miranda rights

A Harvard Medical School research assistant who has served as a U.S. judge for 23 years now finds herself at the center of the Boston Marathon bombing case, and by extension the post-Sept. 11 issue of whether, and when, suspected terrorists deserve constitutional rights.

Marianne Bowler, who also freelanced for magazines before going to law school, became a civil litigator for the Justice Department in the late 1970s. She put her background to use, specializing in personal injury cases, medical malpractice, swine flu and asbestos litigation, before eventually rising to be the 2nd-most powerful federal prosecutor in Massachusetts.

Now 66 and a federal magistrate judge, her career as an attorney and jurist took on a new headline when, at a bedside court hearing in Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center last month, she advised bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of his rights under the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Miranda v. Arizona.

On May 30, she is scheduled to preside over the first full court hearing in Tsarnaev's prosecution, as the government seeks to show a trial is warranted on the two capital charges he faces. Tsarnaev, 19, is accused of carrying out the April 15 attack that killed 3 and injured 260 with his brother Tamerlan, 26, who died after a shootout with police. Bowler also presides over the prosecution in Boston federal court of three of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's friends accused of hindering the probe.

Bowler read Tsarnaev his rights to remain silent and seek legal counsel in the hospital room hearing April 22, three days after he was captured. During those three days, Tsarnaev, according to law enforcement officials, revealed details of the attack to investigators who were acting under a so-called public safety exception that allows pre-Miranda questioning if there is a reasonable belief there is imminent danger to the public.

While he answered their questions freely during that time, he stopped talking after Bowler read him his rights, said Republican lawmakers, who seized on this in the following days, making Bowler the issue with accusations that she chose to intervene in the investigation.

"I totally disagree with what she did," said Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican. "From talking to a number of FBI agents, this appears to be unprecedented for a judge to walk in and in effect stop the interrogation and provide Miranda rights."

Bowler's action was "highly unusual" and may have harmed the FBI probe, Rep. Mike Rogers, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview last month. "The problem in this case is you have a judge who hastily intervened" in the public safety exception.

"That cost us dearly in terms of valuable intelligence" about the bombing and other possible plots, Rep. Mike McCaul, a Texas Republican who leads the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee, said last month. "The FBI was cut short in their interrogation when the magistrate judge decided to Mirandize him."

Tsarnaev may have revealed more information if the judge hadn't stepped in, McCaul said. As an example, the lawmaker cited Tsarnaev's pre-Miranda revelation that he and Tamerlan had discussed going to Times Square in New York to detonate at least seven more explosives.

The problem with the lawmakers' criticisms of Bowler is that they are misplaced, because she was just doing her job, according to the Justice Department, the U.S. Attorney's Office and defense lawyers.

Authorities are required to notify courts of an arrest within 48 hours by supplying an affidavit showing there was probable cause for the detainment. Once that complaint is signed by a judge, an initial court appearance must be scheduled without "undue delay," according to court rules.

The Justice Department confirmed that, as required under rules of criminal procedure, Bowler didn't become involved in the case until April 21 when prosecutors filed a criminal complaint, which she signed that day.

"The court, that evening, scheduled an initial appearance for Monday, which it then coordinated with the prosecutors, federal defender, court reporter, U.S. Marshal Service and the hospital," said Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the government. Under those same rules, the judge is required to advise a defendant of his rights at the initial appearance.

Susan Phalen, a spokeswoman for Rogers, declined to comment on Bowler. Mike Rosen, a spokesman for McCaul, said the congressman had reversed his position since his April 26 statement, alleging that the FBI provided inaccurate information about the reading of Miranda rights to Tsarnaev.

King said the interrogation should have continued for as long as it took to get details about the planning of the attack, even if it meant the information couldn't be used against the suspect. There's enough evidence to prosecute Tsarnaev without that information, he said.

"Whether it was the FBI's fault or the judge's fault, the Miranda should not have been read," King said.

Jason Pack, an FBI spokesman, declined to comment on lawmakers' statements.

There was nothing unusual about Bowler reading the Miranda warning, said Christina DiIorio-Sterling, a spokeswoman for Boston U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, who is prosecuting Tsarnaev. "There have been claims that the judge abruptly entered the hospital room unannounced; that simply was not the case."

Brendan Garvin, Bowler's spokesman, declined to comment on the lawmakers' statements.

Friends of Bowler said that the sudden politicization of her role runs counter to her reputation.

"I was very glad to see that she didn't play to the critics, because she ran that initial appearance in the hospital in the same way it would have been conducted if it had taken place in a courtroom involving an anonymous defendant," said Mark Pearlstein, a defense lawyer who has known Bowler since the late 1980s and had an office next to hers when they were federal prosecutors. The criticism is "wildly misplaced," he said.

Bowler is evenhanded with both sides of the courtroom aisle, said Pearlstein, now a criminal defense lawyer who leads the Boston office of the law firm McDermott Will & Emery.

"I would not regard her as being reflexively liberal or conservative," Pearlstein said in a phone interview. "She's taken a baseball umpire's view of calling them as she sees them."

Tsarnaev is recovering from wounds sustained during the police manhunt following the bombing. U.S. authorities are also probing the activities of others, including Tamerlan's widow, and investigators have traveled to Russia and elsewhere in pursuit of leads on the genesis of the attack.

Lawmakers briefed by federal law enforcement officials have said the Tsarnaev brothers, ethnic Chechens who came to the United States with their parents as refugees from Russia's Caucasus region, were motivated by radical Islam they learned mostly over the internet.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, now held at a federal prison medical center west of Boston, is charged with using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction and may face the death penalty if convicted. He told investigators the original plan was to target the city's July 4 celebration and that the brothers attacked last month's race after building their bombs - pressure cookers filled with explosives - faster than expected, according to an official briefed on the matter.

Bowler may be replaced by a U.S. district judge if a grand jury indicts Tsarnaev. For now, she is the arbiter of the Obama administration's effort to bring the alleged bomber to justice in a case where prosecutors have yet to say whether they will seek the death penalty.

The day after Tsarnaev's May 30 hearing, Bowler is scheduled to preside over the next court appearance of his friend, Robel Phillipos, 19. He is accused of lying to investigators about how he and 2 other friends at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth reacted when they realized Tsarnaev might have been involved in the attack.

Phillipos, a U.S. citizen, has already sought to put distance between himself and the other 2 men, Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, saying he - unlike them - isn't accused of destroying evidence. Phillipos was released on bail and is under "strict house arrest," as ordered by Bowler.

Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov, both 19, are from Kazakhstan. They are accused of disposing of a backpack containing fireworks wrappings they found in Tsarnaev's dorm room April 18, after the FBI released pictures of the Tsarnaev brothers.

Both in the U.S. on student visas, Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov waived a probable cause hearing that Bowler had scheduled for this week because their lawyers wanted more time to see government evidence.

Bowler, whose list of citations on her resume includes as many medical journals as legal publications, was a pre-med student in Regis College in Weston, Mass., where she graduated in 1967. She focused on biochemistry while at Harvard, according to a biography supplied by the court, and as a writer on medical subjects before obtaining a law degree from Suffolk University in Boston.

Born in Boston, she became a judge there in 1990, after serving in various roles as an assistant U.S. attorney in Boston beginning in 1978, according to a biography on the federal court's website. As a government lawyer, she was part of a New England "strike force" against organized crime in 1979.

Bowler has a reputation for avoiding ideology and public pressure in high-profile cases, defense lawyers and former colleagues said.

She is known for a formal approach to interacting with litigants, said Michael Kendall, a formal federal prosecutor in Boston who has known Bowler since the early 1980s.

"I can't think of a person who would be less interested in injecting any predisposed views into a case than her," Kendall, who now leads the white-collar defense group at McDermott Will & Emery in Boston, said in a phone interview. "Whatever ideological viewpoint she has never comes into the courtroom."

Before ascending to the bench, Bowler was a trial lawyer for the civil division of the U.S. Attorney's Office - a role that required her to defend the U.S. in litigation.

Richard Egan, a retired FBI agent, said that when he was sued by a political activist in the 1980s, Bowler was given the job of defending him.

"I could not have had better representation if I had hired the most expensive law firm on Wall Street," Egan said in a phone interview. "She's practical, understands personalities, understands the process and doesn't overstep it."

An hour after Tsarnaev's bedside hearing last month, Bowler was back in her courtroom, presiding over an unrelated criminal case involving the illegal possession of drugs and firearms.

At that hearing, she displayed her propensity for formality in her courtroom. While Assistant U.S. Attorney Glenn MacKinlay questioned his primary witness, an officer from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, MacKinlay sat down briefly to review his notes, and then asked another question.

Bowler immediately asked him if he intended to continue questioning his witnesses from a seated position. MacKinlay said it wasn't his intention and hopped to his feet before continuing.

"Courts are the last bastion of procedure and form in this country - she protects that civility and formality," Robert Peabody, a former state and federal prosecutor in Boston who now practices at Collora in Boston, said in a phone interview.

(source: Concord Monitor)

JAPAN:

Book with Ikeda elementary killer's psych exam to challenge privacy law

A doctor who conducted a psychiatric evaluation of Mamoru Takuma, who was executed in 2004 for stabbing to death eight children at an Osaka school, will publish a book containing nearly the entire report, it has been learned.

The book - titled "Takuma Mamoru Seishin Kanteisho" ("Mamoru Takuma Psychiatric Evaluation Report") - contains statements made by the convict, such as "My life is weightier than those of hundreds of thousands of people," and "With only around 8 (deaths), (the death penalty) doesn't pay. I can't accept it."

Takuma barged into Ikeda Elementary School in the city of Ikeda, wielding a kitchen knife on June 8, 2001, and stabbed to death 8 children and injured 13 others and 2 teachers.

The release of the comprehensive psychiatric evaluation could spark controversy because it will be done through the 1st book of its kind to be published since the Personal Information Protection Law took effect in 2003.

A similar book containing a psychiatric evaluation of another executed criminal, Tsutomu Miyazaki, convicted of killing 4 girls in the late 1980s, was published in 2001.

The book on Takuma is written by Akira Okae, 66, who formerly served as the director of Rakunan Hospital in Kyoto Prefecture.

"The incident gravely shocked society," Okae said. "While I was concerned about issues over personal information and confidentiality obligation, I decided that a record should be left in an objective manner."

In the report, Takuma calls the case the "busubusu incident," using a Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound of stabbing. Looking back on his own life, he said it was "just a recurrence of feeling fatigued since being born."

Just before the rampage, he said he lost the desire to live and unsuccessfully tried to kill himself.

He then came up with the idea of committing a crime. Describing his state of mind at the time, he said, "When I started thinking about killing people, I felt increasingly empowered. I thought I would go berserk, like I'd take them as my companions, just doing it in passing."

Asked about what he was thinking during the stabbing, he said, "It was like I was waging a war on an order of the state. I was unperturbed. I felt vaguely like I was reaching an end."

The report examined his upbringing and mental state based on statements from him and concerned people. It said his odd behavior was noted during childhood and he went through 4 marriages and divorces. He committed rapes and assaults while changing jobs and going through multiple hospitalizations.

Takuma looked back on things that delighted him as well. They included becoming a city bus driver and his 3rd marriage. When prescription drugs worked, "I felt tremendously relieved," he said.

(source: Japan Times)

INDIA:

SIT to seek Supreme Court guidance on Maya Kodnani death penalty issue

After a U-turn by the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi government on the death penalty for former minister Maya Kodnani and 9 others, convicted in 2002 Naroda Patiya riot case, the SIT has decided to seek Supreme Court's guidance on the issue.

"Very soon, we are going to file an application before the special bench of the Supreme Court apprising it about the recent Gujarat government's decision to withdraw the sanction for filing appeal in the Naroda Patiya case," a top SIT official said.

He was responding to a query whether SIT has filed a petition in the apex court in this regard or not.

"We are not filing any petition because we are neither a party nor a respondent in the matter. But as we are Supreme Court appointed officers for the case we will file an application seeking judicial guidance on this matter," he said.

"We will file an application before the special bench of the apex court comprising Justices P Sathsivam, M Y Iqbal and Ranjana Desai," the SIT official said.

Under attack from right wing groups, the Gujarat government on Monday had said it has withheld its decision to seek death penalty for former minister Kodnani, Babu Bajrangi and eight others in the riot case.

Earlier, the state government had given its consent to Supreme Court-appointed SIT to file an appeal in the High Court seeking capital punishment for Kodnani, Bajrangi and others, who were awarded life term by a lower court.

State Finance Minister and spokesperson Nitin Patel had said they have kept on hold the decision as they have to take the opinion of State Advocate General.

"A final decision will be taken after advocate general gives his opinion," Patel had said.

Kodnani, who was a minister in the Modi government, was sentenced to 28 years in prison by a Special Court in August 2012 in connection with the post-Godhra riots case in which 96 people were killed.

Bajrang Dal activist Babu Bajrangi was sentenced to jail for his entire life, while eight others were given 31 years' jail term each in the same case.

The Modi government's decision to seek death penalty had come under severe criticism from right wing groups.

"There is a feeling that Modi is a protector of Hindus. Seeking death penalty for Kodnani and Bajrangi is a deadly attack on Hindus, who have different expectations from Modi," an editorial in Shiv Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' had said.

(source: Indian Express)

INDONESIA:

Bali 9 smuggler Myuran Sukumaran 'nervous, worried' after executions

1 of the Bali 9 drug smugglers facing execution has been left "very worried and nervous" after 3 prisoners in Indonesia were put to death by firing squad on Friday.

Myuran Sukumaran and fellow smuggler Andrew Chan remain on death row in Kerobokan Prison as Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono weighs up their bids for clemency.

The pair's lawyer Julian McMahon told News Limited yesterday that Sukumaran had heard of the executions of 3 Indonesian nationals convicted of murder.

"Myuran's response had been reliably confirmed to me, he said it made him feel 'very worried and nervous'," the Melbourne-based barrister said.

Mr McMahon said it was imperative the Australian government displayed "clear expressions of solidarity with my clients."

"The government either publicly or privately in meetings with Indonesia should speak strongly against the quota that is now being filled, and against the recent executions."

In March, Indonesia said it would meet a quota of ten executions this year after it resumed capital punishment for the first time since 2008.

The Friday deaths take the total this year to 4.

Sukumaran, 31, and Chan, 29, were arrested and jailed as part of the so-called Bali 9 in 2005 after attempting to courier 8.2 kilograms of heroin, worth around $4 million, from Bali to Australia.

Just this month the pair told News Limited of the chilling nightmares they were having of being shot dead by a firing squad.

They begged for a 2nd chance, but their situation has become even more dire after reports Indonesia's national narcotics board and a top judge recommended Chan's clemency plea be rejected.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr yesterday said the Australian Government was doing all it could to help the 2 men.

He said the issue had been raised 3 times in person and once in writing with the Indonesian government since March 2012.

"The Indonesian authorities are well aware of our views against the death penalty but we will continue to proactively raise the issue," Senator Carr's spokesman said.

Amnesty International said all future executions in Indonesia "must be stopped."

"They call into question many of the human rights reforms and commitments made by the Indonesian government in recent years," the group's Papang Hidayat said.

There are at least 130 people under sentence of death in Indonesia, including Chan and Sukumaran.

Executions in Indonesia are usually carried out by firing squad in the middle of the night in isolated locations. The prisoner is notified at least 72 hours beforehand.

(source: Herald Sun)

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

British woman on death row for drugs

A British woman could face the death penalty in Indonesia after being arrested for allegedly smuggling crystal methamphetamine into the country from China, an official said on Saturday.

The woman, identified only by her initials AR, was arrested at a hotel in the city of Surabaya, East Java province, last month with 1.47 kilograms of the drug, the national narcotics agency said.

"Because she smuggled drugs weighing more than 5 grams, she could face the death penalty," agency spokesman Sumirat Dwiyanto told journalists.

He declined to give further details about the woman, who is being held in Jakarta, or when she was likely to be charged.

A British embassy spokesman confirmed the news: "We are aware of the arrest of a British national... We are providing consular assistance."

The case comes just months after British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford was sentenced to death for attempting to smuggle $2.4 million of cocaine into the resort island of Bali.

In the latest case, AR, who lives in China, admitted after her arrest on April 29, that a Nigerian had asked her to bring the drugs to Indonesia, the agency said. The Nigerian was still at large, it added.

The woman also identified 2 other people she had been planning to pass the drugs to in Surabaya and Jakarta, and they were also detained, the agency said.

It did not say what their nationalities were. They are also being held in Jakarta.

Foreigners are regularly charged with drugs offences in Indonesia, which has some of the toughest anti-narcotics laws in the world, but most are caught in Bali.

Sandiford, 56, was sentenced to death in January after being caught with cocaine as she arrived at Bali airport, in a shock verdict after prosecutors recommended 15 years in jail.

She lost a 1st appeal against the sentence last month, and has since lodged a last-ditch appeal to Indonesia's top court.

Death row convicts in Indonesia rarely manage to get their sentences lifted. Most spend years in jail before being taken to an isolated location at night and executed by firing squad.

(source: Agence France-Presse)

IRAN----executions

2 prisoners were hanged in Evin prison

Mohammad Heydari and Kourosh Ahmadi have been hanged in Evin prison on charge of enmity against the God.

Mohammad Heydari and Kourosh Ahmadi, the 2 political prisoners who were known as the enemies of the God and sentenced to death by the revolutionary court, were hanged.

Fars News Agency claimed in his report that these 2 prisoners had relationship with the enemy governments and they were spying against the interests of the Islamic Republic.

This report adds that after the investigations were finished, the case was sent to the Tehran revolutionary court and after the trial they were known as the enemies of the God and sentenced to death. The sentences were confirmed by the Supreme Court.

No independent source confirms these claims and there is no news about their arrest and trial process.

(source: HRA News)

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

Iran hangs 2 spies working for Israel and U.S.: report

Iranian authorities executed 2 men on Sunday convicted of working for Israeli and U.S. spy agencies, Iran's Fars news agency reported.

Mohammad Heidari, accused of passing security-related information and secrets to Israeli Mossad agents in exchange for money, and Kourosh Ahmadi, accused of gathering information for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, were hanged at dawn, it said.

The sentence for their execution was handed down by Tehran's Revolutionary Court and confirmed by the country's Supreme Court. The report did not say when the pair were arrested nor when their trial took place.

Iran has in the past said it had successfully detected and dismantled spy networks operating inside the country. It has blamed the assassinations of scientists associated with its disputed nuclear program on Western spy agencies, especially Mossad.

The United States has denied any role in the killings. Israel has not commented.

(source: Reuters)

NIGERIA:

Lawyer Advocates Death Penalty For Rapists

A member of Forum of Legal Practitioners, otherwise known as 'Lex Fora', has advocated death penalty for rapists.

Mr Paul Eshiemomoh, a former Chairman of the forum in the FCT, made the suggestion in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Sunday.

Eshiemomoh described the act of rape as barbaric and animalistic.

"Because I don't see any sense in a man going to rape an underage, such people should not be allowed to leave among people in the society.

"Yes, I support imposition of death penalty for rapists because it will serve as deterrent to others," he said.

Eshiemomoh said that the law prescribes maximum sentence of 14 years imprisonment for rapists because it is a major crime.

"But you see, the truth is that the same man might come back to the society and commit another rape because the thing that pushed the man to rape is not on the superficial, it is something innate.

"Women are weak in nature and so, we urge every civilised society to stand for them against this barbaric act," the lawyer said.

He also decried the poor handling of rape cases by some prosecuting agencies, such as the police.

(source: Leadership Nigeria)

BANGLADESH:

4 to hang, 5 get life

A Chittagong court on Sunday handed down death sentence to four people and awarded life in prison to five more for the murder of the mother of a government law officer.

Third Additional District and Sessions Judge La Mong gave the verdict in the afternoon.

The plaintiff's lawyer Md Khorshedul Alam told bdnews24.com the judge read out the verdict after hearing 38 witnesses. He also acquitted 4 people.

Chemon Ara Khatun, 58, mother of Chittagong Metropolitan Court's Public Prosecutor Nazrul Islam Sentu, was murdered on Nov 10, 2009, at Chandanaish Upazila in Chittagong.

Those who were awarded death penalty are - Abu Mokarram, Shah Alam, Johra Khatun and Shahidul Islam Shahed. All of them were present in court when the verdict was delivered.

Md Arif, Mintu Das, Md Yunus, Jahangir Alam and Saiful Islam were given life in jail. Of them, only Yunus and Saiful are behind bars and the 3 others are on the run.

Case details say local healer Abu Mokarram and his associates managed to swindle a huge amount of money and gold jewellery from Chemon Ara. But as she came to understand what happened, she asked them to return the money and jewellery and threatened them saying she will tell her son everything about their fraud.

Then the accused had called and took her out on Nov 10, 2009. Her body was found on the following day in a swamp near the BG Trust University at Chandanaish Upazila.

Her son Sentu filed the murder case at the Chandanaish Police Station on the following day naming 7 people.

Police submitted chargesheet against 13 people on Aug 7 in 2010. The court also framed charges against the accused on Oct 18 same year.

The case details read that Shah Alam and Johra Khatun were also neighbours of Chemon Ara Khatun.

(source: bdnews24.com)

TRINIDAD:

The CCJ And The Death Penalty

Last week in the Senate an interesting exchange took place between Attorney General Anand Ramlogan and some PNM senators during the period set aside for questions to ministers. The essence of the argument was that the Attorney General indicated that he could prepare a draft bill within 48 hours on the death penalty.

He then challenged the PNM senators to state for the record whether they would be willing to support the abolition of appeals to the Privy Council on criminal matters only and to substitute the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as the final court of appeal for criminal matters only. There was no response from the PNM senators on this point and so the issue ended in a stalemate.

However, what emerged was that the Government is still committed to the idea of having the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council replaced by the CCJ as the final court of appeal for criminal matters, while simultaneously moving forward with an amendment to the Constitution to oust the jurisdiction of the court from challenging the constitutionality of the death penalty.

In order to accomplish all of this, such legislation would require a 3/4 majority in the House and a 2/3 majority in the Senate. The last time that the capital punishment legislation was brought to the House, in February 2011, the Opposition PNM did not support it and the bill died at that stage.

The matter was recently revived by the Prime Minister when she indicated at a UNC Monday Night Forum in Barataria some weeks ago that she was prepared to bring that legislation back to Parliament. The Attorney General has now revived the earlier proposal for the substitution of criminal jurisdiction of the Privy Council with the CCJ. The heart of the story lies in the approach that has been adopted by the Privy Council over the years in respect of the death penalty in the Commonwealth Caribbean.

Since it was established that the death penalty is indeed a proper form of constitutional punishment in the case of De Freitas v Benny (1976)AC 239 where Michael de Freitas, also known as Michael Abdul Malik, had his death sentence confirmed on the ground that it was not "cruel and unusual punishment" to hang him for the murder of British socialite Gale Ann Benson at Christina Gardens in Arima, there have been twists and turns over the years.

Coming out of that same murder, Stanley Abbott had had his death sentence confirmed in the case of Abbott v Attorney General (1979)1WLR 1342 where Lord Diplock set aside the issue of delay of execution measured in months, owing to the transition of T&T from monarchical to republican status in 1976. However, he left open the issue of delay of execution measured in years and that would prove to be a game-changer for the death-penalty debate in years to come.

In 1982, the Privy Council divided 3-2 in favour of carrying out the death penalty in the Jamaican case of Riley and Others v Attorney General (1982)35 WIR 279 whereby the issue of delay of execution measured in years was not overcome by the human-rights issue of delay of execution rendering invalid the actual execution itself thereby making it "inhuman and degrading punishment."

Lords Diplock, Hailsham and Bridge were in the majority, while Lords Scarman and Brightman were in the minority. Some 11 years later, in the landmark case of Pratt and Another v Attorney General of Jamaica (1993)43 WIR 340 the Privy Council accepted the argument of delay of execution as rendering the death sentence unconstitutional if it is not carried out within 5 years of the sentencing date.

By this time, Lords Diplock and Hailsham had left the bench and some less-conservative judges had been appointed to the British House of Lords as Law Lords. This ushered in an era of abolitionist judges as members of judicial panels who were prepared to adopt an approach that placed them at loggerheads with Commonwealth Caribbean governments on the issue of the death penalty.

Several cases were quite controversially decided that raised issues of whether this was "judicial politics" at work as opposed to the application of existing law. One of them was the Guerra v Baptiste case (1996)1 AC 397 from T&T, which admonished the State for trying to carry out the execution of Lincoln Guerra too swiftly for the murder of Leslie Ann Girod and her baby in Wallerfield.

By 2000, the Jamaican case of Lewis v Attorney General (2001)2 AC 50 constructively abolished the death penalty in the region when the Privy Council held that the decisions of the Mercy Committee were now reviewable, which overturned the ruling in De Freitas v Benny, that states must now await the responses of international human-rights bodies on petitions of reprieve before carrying out executions, and that prison conditions must be taken into account.

Other controversies have arisen over mandatory and discretionary sentencing. However, the death penalty remains in limbo, with the Privy Council precedents holding firm.

(source: Column, Dr. Hamid Ghany, The Guardian)

MAY 18, 2013:

TEXAS:

Jurors hear more testimony before deciding punishment for Naim Muhammad

Jurors heard more heart wrenching testimony Friday as they prepare to decide the fate of Naim Rasool Muhammad, the Dallas man convicted of drowning 2 of his 3 children.

On Wednesday, it took the jury just 6 minutes to find him guilty of drowning his 2 sons. The murders happened on the boys' 1st day of school in August 2011.

Investigators say Muhammad was upset about the end of his turbulent relationship with the mother of his children, Kametra Sampson. He kidnapped 3-year-old Elijah and 5-year-old Naim and their mother as she was walking them to school.

She later escaped, but flagged down a constable. No Amber Alert was issued.

Sampson testified in the trial for a second time during the sentencing phase. Muhammad faces the death penalty or life in prison. She began her testimony detailing how she was molested at the age of 8 by one of her mother's boyfriends.

Despite reporting the abuse, Sampson said her mother did nothing and accused of her of making it up.

She told jurors how she met Naim Muhammad as a 15-year-old high school student. At 25, Muhammad was 10 years older. They quickly began an intimate relationship. Sampson said she believes Muhammad knew that she was underage.

She said Muhammad began physically abusing her about 2 weeks into the relationship. Sampson eventually dropped out of school and began spending more time with Muhammad.

She became pregnant with her 1st child, Naim at 16.

Sampson said Muhammad reacted violently when he learned she was pregnant, beating her savagely in an effort to force her to miscarry.

She says he asked her to get an abortion, but she refused. Later, she said he would try to force her to drink bleach or end the pregnancy with a wire clothes hanger.

While Muhammad stayed at home, Sampson said she worked full time and was forced to hand over her paychecks to him. She said he would often use the money to gamble and that arguments about money were common.

After prolonged abuse, including a beating she says she suffered because she burned rice, Sampson finally got the nerve to leave him in December 2010. That move forced her to drag her 3 sons from shelter to shelter because they had no place to live.

She eventually began working as a prostitute, placing ads on Craigslist in order to support herself and her sons. When asked by prosecutor Tammy Kemp if she could have done anything differently the day Muhammad drowned the 2 boys, she gave a chilling answer.

"I think if I had done something different that the outcome would have been worse." Sampson said breaking down in tears. "We'd all be dead right now."

Sampson has one surviving son, Jeremiah.

The defense has argued that Muhammad does not pose a further threat to society and that he does not deserve the death penalty.

Testimony will resume next week.

(source: WFAA)

PENNSYLVANIA:

Nun makes case against death penalty in Pittsburgh----'Dead Man Walking' author visits Shadyside's Rodef Shalom

When Sister Helen Prejean entered the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1957, she couldn't have dreamed that she would become the guardian angel of death row prisoners or that a Hollywood star would win an Oscar for portraying her.

The 1995 movie "Dead Man Walking" made her book a best-seller and put her in a position to influence Pope John Paul II on the death penalty. But she is still based in New Orleans, with a ministry to death row inmates and the families of their victims.

"That is the hub of the wheel, accompanying people on death row," she said in a thick Louisiana drawl during an interview.

She is also working to free Manuel Ortiz, convicted of 2 murders in 1994 despite another man's confession. Sister Helen, 74, spoke at Rodef Shalom Congregation in Shadyside on Thursday.

"I'm crisscrossing the country, waking people up, telling the story to help them deal with their own ambivalence about the death penalty," she said. "There is that outrage for the people who were killed, but what does it mean for us as citizens to decide who lives and who dies?"

She was the sheltered daughter of an attorney when she entered the convent at 18. When Vatican II inspired her community to move beyond the classroom to the streets, she was reluctant but went to live in one of New Orleans' poorest neighborhoods. Soon she noticed that black people didn't receive equal treatment from police or adequate legal representation. Killers of white people got the death penalty; killers of black people got away with it.

When someone asked her to become pen pals with a death row inmate, she agreed. Her relationship with Patrick Sonnier and the families of his victims was the basis of "Dead Man Walking."

Some in her own church have shied away from her, citing accusations that she condones abortion. She denies it, saying her words were twisted in a 1996 story. In 2006 her name was on an ad citing his opposition to abortion as a reason to remove President George W. Bush. She said the abortion clause wasn't in the draft she agreed to, and that she wouldn't have signed if it was.

"Of course I'm against abortion," she said. "I believe that children have a right to live. I speak at pro-life rallies and conferences and workshops. I embrace a consistent ethic of life, and I had a small role in helping the Catholic Church see that dignity of life applies to the guilty as well as to the innocent."

In the 20th century the Catholic Church became an opponent of the death penalty, but put it in a different category than abortion because those executed had been convicted of murder. By the 1990s authoritative church teaching said that other means of punishment were preferable, but that execution was permissible in cases of "absolute necessity" for crimes of "extreme gravity."

In a letter and meeting with Pope John Paul II, she argued that states could define those terms any way they wanted to.

"I told him that he needed to close those loopholes," she said. "And he did. He changed the catechism."

The 1997 revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church stops short of forbidding execution, but limits it to when there is no other way to protect society, noting that such cases are practically nonexistent.

In a 1999 visit to St. Louis, the pope called "for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary."

The U.S. Catholic bishops launched a campaign to end the death penalty, which she works with. Catholic support for execution has fallen faster and farther than the wider public's.

In 1999, she said, 78 % of American adults and 80 % of Catholics supported the death penalty. By 2005, that dropped to 64 % of the public and 59 % of Catholics.

"There is hope. I've been doing this for 20 years, I've been with the American public, and they get it," Sister Helen said. "It isn't that they're really invested in the death penalty, but they've never thought about it deeply.."

(source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

MARYLAND:

Judge Vacates Ropes Client's Double Murder Conviction

As Ropes & Gray counsel Ryan Malone got out of a cab and headed into the Washington, D.C., office of a client for a meeting on May 8, he felt his phone buzz. The call, it turned out, was one he'd been hoping to get since joining the firm in 2001 as a summer associate.

The caller was Ropes associate Michael Laufert, and he had news about a major development in a long-running pro bono case the 2 lawyers were working on: A Maryland state court judge, whose order had just arrived in the mail, had vacated firm client John Huffington's convictions for committing a pair of 1981 murders. After more than 30 years in prison, Huffington might soon be a free man.

For Malone, a white-collar litigator based in D.C., the order validated 12 years of work on an assignment he took on even before graduating from University of Virginia School of Law and becoming a Ropes associate in 2002. "I'm the one who has been leading this now for a long time," says Malone, who talks on the phone at least once a week with the now-50-year-old Huffington. "It's become quite personal."

Pro bono work on the case originated with David Stewart, a trial and appellate lawyer who sought it out in the mid-1980s while at now-defunct Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin to feed a desire to tackle a death penalty case. By 1988, Stewart had succeeded in having Huffington's death sentence commuted to life in prison, and he brought the case with him when he moved to Ropes the following year. The firm has worked to clear Huffington's name ever since.

In last week's order, Frederick County circuit court Judge G. Edward Dwyer Jr. - who presided over the 1983 trial that ended with a jury convicting Huffington on 2 counts of murder - granted the petition for a writ of actual innocence the Ropes lawyers had filed on their client's behalf in a maneuver made possible by a 2009 Maryland law allowing defendants to present fresh exculpatory evidence to reverse prior convictions. The Ropes team argued in its November 2010 petition that Huffington had been convicted of killing Joseph Hudson and Diane Becker, who were stabbed and shot to death following an apparently botched cocaine deal, based on faulty scientific evidence presented at trial by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In siding with the petitioners and granting the writ, Dwyer also vacated Huffington's convictions and ordered a new trial.

According to Dwyer's ruling, the convictions relied heavily on 2 pieces of forensic evidence: bullets found at 3 locations that an FBI expert testified had come from the same box, which was used to tie Huffington to the scene of Hudson's murder, and hairs found on the bed where Becker was slain that prosecutors said were "indistinguishable" from those on Huffington's head. In the years since Huffington's conviction, courts have ruled in other cases that the methods used to draw both conclusions are scientifically invalid.

The Ropes lawyers supplemented their petition in late 2011 after learning that the FBI had commissioned a report in 1999 that discredited agent Michael Malone, who presented the hair analysis at Huffington's trial, as using methods that were flawed and unreliable. Ryan Malone, no relation to the discredited FBI agent, says he learned of the FBI's report from a Washington Post reporter who wrote a 2012 story questioning why the FBI had failed to notify defendants and their counsel about the extensive doubts about Michael Malone's methods.

Dwyer concluded in his order that "there is a significant possibility that the outcome of [Huffington's] case may have been different had the State not utilized the microscopic hair analysis evidence and Agent Malone's testimony." Ryan Malone augmented the petition further in March by submitting DNA evidence showing that the hair found on Becker's bed did not belong to Huffington.

State's attorney Joseph Cassilly in Hartford County said Wednesday that his office has already asked Dwyer to reconsider the order, and has also appealed the decision. "I think the state's going to prevail," says Cassilly, who has prosecuted the case since its inception. And if Dwyer's order stands? "We'll try it again." Even without the hair and bullet evidence, he insists, the state has a strong case. "The evidence against Huffington was, is, and always has been very convincing and overwhelming evidence."

Malone says the case - like his work on a Ropes team that helped free the men known as the West Memphis Three, who were imprisoned for more than 18 years after being found guilty of the alleged ritual killing of 3 young boys - is a testament to sticking with an assignment "even when there are a lot of setbacks along the way." (Last July, sibling publication The National Law Journal highlighted Malone's work on the West Memphis 3 case and a series of voter rights cases, pointing to the between 500 and 600 hours he spends a year on pro bono work.)

Stewart - the intial lawyer on the case, who retired from the Ropes partnership in 2007 - takes a more pessimistic view. "The system is rotten," he says, pointing to what it took to prove the FBI's evidence was unreliable. Even so, he says, "It's wonderful to see justice in this case."

Malone adds: "When we first moved to test the evidence, the truth has never frightened us. It's just been a long time for the truth to come out."

(source: American Lawyer Daily)

SOUTH CAROLINA:

Wreck alerted officers to problems at S.C. mom's home----More than 200 people gathered for a prayer vigil outside Dacusville Elementary School in South Carolina, where Carly and Sawyer Simpson were students and their mom, now accused of killing them, was a classroom volunteer.

A neighbor who found a mother, now charged with killing her 2 children, after a truck crash near her house tried to knock on the woman's door to rouse her husband then called a county dispatcher to say, "Something's not right."

No sounds came from the house that 2 young children called home a little before 6 a.m. Tuesday, the neighbor said in a 911 recording released Thursday.

"The lady that wrecked is my neighbor, and I've never seen her this early in the morning," he said in 1 of 3 calls. "Her husband's truck and the other car is still in the yard. I can't get her husband or kids to the door. She's got 2 little kids, like 5 and 7.

"Something's not right and she can't tell me 'cause she don't know. She's talking away. She don't know what's going on, but we need somebody here to check this house."

When emergency medical technicians arrived at the wreck in this community of about 3,000 10 miles northwest of Greenville, S.C., they called the Pickens County Sheriff's Office.

Sheriff's deputies went inside the house and found Suzanna "Anna" Brown Simpson's children, Carly, 7, and Sawyer, 5, in their beds with fatal gunshot wounds. Her husband, Michael, 34, remained hospitalized Friday with life-threatening injuries from gunshot wounds, authorities said.

Anna Simpson also remained hospitalized under guard and is listed in fair condition, they said. Officials haven't disclosed the nature of her injuries.

"The lady's hurt. She's run off the road, run through the yard," the neighbor told the dispatcher in the first call. "She's took down some trees and now she's over here in the ditch. She don't know where she is. She don't know who she is. She's been knocked unconscious." The front of the truck Anna Simpson was driving showed significant damaged.

2 days later, more than 200 people gathered for a prayer vigil outside Dacusville Elementary School, where Carly and Sawyer Simpson were students and their mom was a classroom volunteer.

"We saw a need for us to gather quickly for us to express our heartfelt sympathy for the death of two beloved children, our concerns for a critically wounded father," said the Rev. Ashley McCoy-Bruce, one of the organizers of the event who also has a child at the elementary school. "This is what a community does: We rally together in the worst of times, the most difficult of times. And this is the most difficult of times."

Anna Simpson, 35, has been charged with two counts of murder, one count of attempted murder in connection with her husband's gunshot wounds, and 1 count of possession of a weapon during a violent crime. When she is well enough to be released, she will be jailed, sheriff's deputies said.

She could face the death penalty if convicted because the charges involve multiple homicides and children younger than 11. But 13th Circuit Solicitor Walt Wilkins said Thursday he has no timetable on when he might decide to seek the death penalty.

Less than 4% of all homicides in 2011, the most recent year available, were parents killing their children, according to FBI Uniform Crime Report data. In 1995 in a case that garnered national attention, Susan Smith of Union, S.C., was sentenced to life in prison for driving her car into a lake in October 1994 and drowning her 3-year-old and 14-month-old sons.

At Thursday evening's prayer vigil, Dacusville Elementary School's principal, Michael Fleming, quoted Jesus: "Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them. For to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.

"We take comfort tonight that Carly and Sawyer are claiming that promise and they're safely in the arms of our savior," he said.

Nancy Zeigler, Carly's 1st-grade teacher, said Anna Simpson was one of her parent volunteers.

"My students knew her to be loving and kind. She loved them and they loved her," Zeigler said. Now, "in room B-166 we are hugging a lot more often. We are telling each other 'I love you' more often. And we are helping each other get through this."

Carly's classmates have brought in flowers and trinkets to put in the 7-year-old's seat, she said.

"Her jacket is in her cubby and her nameplate is at her table," Zeigler said. "And for the rest of the year, those things will stay there because Carly is still part of us."

Amy Skipper read a poem called "Always," written by teacher Jama Freeman and her 4K students, Sawyer's classmates:

Sawyer was always very special to our classroom.

He was always enthusiastic, adventurous and creative.

Green was always his favorite color.

He was always excited and always ready to learn. He always did his personal best and always used his active listening at school.

He was always the first to go to the Lego center. He always loved to build things.

He always loved to run and play outside. He always loved his friends and his family.

He always made us laugh, and most of all he always had the most beautiful smile that made everyone happy.

We love you Sawyer, and we will always miss you.

(source: USA Today)

FLORIDA:

Death penalty system comes under fire as attorneys for condemned killer Van Poyck miss deadline to file appeal

A court-imposed deadline to launch the final round of appeals for condemned prison guard killer William Van Poyck came and went Friday without any papers being filed.

Instead, attorneys who were appointed under protest Monday to represent the 58-year-old who is to be executed June 12 for the 1987 shooting death of Glades Correctional Institution guard Fred Griffis, sent an unusual - if not unheard of - notice to the Florida Supreme Court.

Titled "Notice of Inability Ethically to Satisfy the Lower Court's and This Court's Schedule," the attorneys said they were unable to comply with the tight court deadlines without violating their professional obligation to give Van Poyck the vigorous representation he deserves.

While the attorneys could face contempt charges for failing to do what Palm Beach County Circuit Court Charles Burton ordered them to do, they also are getting some unexpected help from some of the state's top lawyers.

In a separate motion, the 1,700-member Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and revered former state legislator and law school dean Sandy D'Alemberte asked the high court for permission to file briefs on the attorneys' behalf.

"It's very unusual," Gainesville attorney Sonya Rudenstine said of the organization's request. "But we think this is an unusual case."

D'Alemberte, a former president and dean of Florida State University law school and one of Florida's most prominent attorneys, agreed.

He said he decided he wanted to file a friend of the court brief after learning that the three attorneys were appointed even though they said they lacked the time, resources and sufficient knowledge of the case to competently represent Van Poyck. Having represented 4 death row inmates, he said he knows how difficult, time consuming and emotionally draining it is to prepare appeals after a death warrant has been signed.

To tap 3 attorneys, who claim they are unqualified, is unconscionable, he said.

Rudenstine, who has also represented inmates after their warrants were signed, compared it to asking a general practitioner to perform heart surgery. "It's a very dangerous situation," she said.

In their motions filed Friday, Jeffrey Davis, a Wisconsin civil litigator, and Mark Olive, a noted Tallahassee death penalty defense attorney, said they are working around the clock to prepare Van Poyck's defense. They are researching case law, reviewing court records and interviewing people who know about the murder outside a West Palm Beach dermatologist's office, they said. Griffis was shot, and another guard injured, when Van Poyck and fellow ex-con Frank Valdes ambushed the prison van in a failed attempt to free convicted murderer James O'Brien, who was being taken to the doctor for skin cancer treatment. Valdes was killed in 1999 by prison guards.

Despite their ongoing efforts, Olive and Davis said, they need more time. "Counsel has found it impossible ethically to meet the court-imposed deadline," they wrote in identical motions. Gerald Bettman, a Jacksonville attorney, this week filed an appeal of Burton's order, appointing him to represent Van Poyck.

The notices filed with the state supreme court Friday capped a week of efforts on the part of all three attorneys to persuade Burton and the high court to either appoint more qualified lawyers or to delay Van Poyck's execution by 60 days to give them the time they need.

At the same time, state prosecutors have scoffed at their claims. In motions filed this week, Assistant Attorney General Celia Terenzio pointed out that Davis has represented Van Poyck in 10 of his 12 appeals. Olive has represented him in one.

Calling Davis' arguments "illogical and in bad faith," she urged the Florida Supreme Court to force the 3 lawyers to remain on the case. "This motion," she said, referring to Davis' request to withdraw, "is at best a veiled 'threat' to this court that unless a stay is granted, 'I will seek to withdraw.'"

As for Olive, she said, he was appointed to offer his considerable expertise to Davis and Bettman, who has represented Van Poyck in 3 of his appeals. As an experienced capital case litigator, he should be up to the task, she said.

But, all 3 counter, like roughly 10 other lawyers whose names appear on Van Poyck's appeals, they were never appointed to represent Van Poyck. Davis said he signed briefs that were prepared by the Volunteer Lawyers Resource Center, which helped prepare death penalty appeals until its federal funding dried up in the mid-1990s. Bettman said he represented Van Poyck on specific issues but doesn't know the entire scope of the case. Olive said his involvement was limited to walking to the courthouse to deliver papers that were prepared by other lawyers.

D'Alemberte said the case underscores the serious problems with the state's death penalty process, which has recently sped up with 5 inmates under active signed death warrants. 2 of the executions have been stayed by federal courts.

Over the years, get-tough-on-crime legislators gutted state agencies that once kept track of death penalty cases.

"There's an awful lot of chaos in the system and it's unnecessary chaos," he said. "My hope is that people will get tired of all this chaos we’re talking about and do something about it."

(source: The Palm Beach Post)

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see: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/628/191/633/save-billys-life/

(source: thepetitionsite.com)

ALABAMA:

Jury votes 11-1 to recommend death penalty in Midtown Mobile hammer attack

The jury in the capital murder trial of Carlos Edward Kennedy asked several questions and apparently spoiled the verdict form today before recommending that the defendant die by lethal injection for a brutal slaying in Midtown.

The 11-1 vote came after the jury appeared to struggle over the defendant's odd behavior on the witness stand and the combative tone he struck with the judge and his own court-appointed lawyers.

Mobile County Circuit Judge Joseph "Rusty" Johnston, who is not bound by the jury's recommendation, set a sentencing date for June 17.

"Now I get angry. Now I get angry that this man did what he did," said Laurie Miller, the daughter of victim Zoa White. "It's been proven. I've waited. I've done what I need to do. Now, I grieve."

Miller said she would work to make sure people remember her generous mother with an initiative she called the "Zoa White Challenge," a call on people to improve the lives of others on a person-to-person level.

Defense attorney Art Powell expressed frustration that their client would not allow him and co-counsel Jason Darley to put up a defense during the penalty phase of the trial.

"Once he took things over, there wasn't anything we could do but sit there," he said.

Darley said he respects the jury's verdict. "We wish we had been able to represent our client like we wanted to, but as he acknowledged on the stand, that was his fault."

The 7 women and 5 men on the jury heard a great deal of forensic evidence tying Kennedy, 27, to the June 2010 murder inside White's 2-story house on Spring Hill Avenue. Police found a palm print and fingerprint belong to him, as well as his DNA in blood.

White, who had been a popular real estate agent before getting active in politics, suffered multiple blows to her head form the claw end of a hammer. A medical examiner characterized injuries on her hands as defensive wounds. There indications of a sexual assault.

Despite the powerful evidence, Kennedy took the stand Thursday and insisted that the blood and fingerprints were not his. That, coupled with the fact that he refused to allow the presentation of any evidence during the penalty phase, appeared to trouble the jury.

10 to 15 minutes after beginning deliberations, the jury sent a list of questions to the judge. Jurors wanted to know if the defendant had undergone a mental health evaluation or had a history of mental health problems. They also asked if the defendant's parents could have testified without his permission.

Johnston told the jury that the defendant waived his right to testimony from witnesses or other evidence. But the judge said he could not answer questions about the defendant's mental health.

In fact, Kennedy did undergo a mental health evaluation, and Johnston deemed him competent to stand trial. A 2nd judge, Ben Brooks, met with Kennedy and his lawyers before testimony began Monday and reached the same conclusion.

The defendant's father, Carl Kennedy, declined to answer questions about whether he wanted to testify on his son's behalf. But he offered support for him as he left the courthouse.

"What my son said, I agree with," he said. "I don't believe he's guilty."

Kennedy might have an appeal issue based on Johnston's decision to deny him the right to represent himself. Defendants generally have a right to serve as their own lawyers in criminal cases. But Assistant District Attorney JoBeth Murphree said this afternoon that she believes the decision was justified based on Kennedy's inability to do so.

"I think the judge made a good decision," she said. "I think we'll be good on that."

Murphree praised the jury's work.

"We are very grateful. It was a very tough trial," she said. "The jury deliberated long and hard and had to look at things they did not want to look at. They had a very, very tough thing to do. And I commend them. I applaud them....They have truly delivered to justice today."

For Mobile County District Attorney Ashley Rich, this trial was different than the dozens of other murder cases her office prosecutes every year because she personally knew the victim. She went to elementary school with Miller.

"Carlos Kennedy is hopefully somebody that will never be coming back into our community," she said.

White, 69, worked as special projects director for the Alabama Department of Community and Economic Affairs after helping Bob Riley win re-election in 2006. It was one of a number of jobs she had in state government during the administration.

Her oldest daughter, Caryn White, noted that her mother also worked with ex-cons, helping them transition back to society.

"I find that very ironic," she said.

According to testimony at the trial, White had moved back to Mobile from Montgomery about 8 months before the attack. She had been to Miller's house the previous night and had plans to pick up her teenage grandson the next morning and spend the day on gardening projects.

When she did not arrived on the morning of June 28, 2010, the grandson rode over to her house on his bicycle and found a back window smashed. A police officer later found her partially clothed body in the kitchen.

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Convicted Mobile murderer forbids lawyers from offering defense in death penalty phase

Convicted murderer Carlos Edward Kennedy capped off an unorthodox defense strategy this afternoon by ordering his lawyers not to offer any defense or argument in the penalty phase.

Instead, Kennedy took the witness stand for the second time in two days and maintained his innocence in the beating death of retired Realtor Zoa White in June 2010.

"I didn't have anything to do with the crime. It wasn’t my blood. It wasn't my fingerprints," he said. "A simple re-analysis would have taken care of all that."

The Mobile County Circuit Court jury, which found Kennedy guilty of capital murder after almost 3 hours of deliberations earlier today, will re-convene Friday morning to hear a summation by the prosecution regarding the appropriate punishment. Then jurors will return to the deliberation room to decide whether Kennedy deserves the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Mobile County Circuit Judge Joseph "Rusty" Johnston will make the final decision at a later sentencing date.

Assistant District Attorney JoBeth Murphree confronted Kennedy regarding his assertion that the DNA and fingerprint analysis was flawed. She asked if he realized that his court-appointed attorneys did have an independent expert review the evidence and that he concurred with the state's experts.

Kennedy said that is what his lawyers told him. But he testified that he wanted to take charge of the matter and hire an out-of-state expert.

Defendant criticizes judge

Kennedy, 27, spent a great deal of time on the witness stand lambasting Johnston. He said the judge unfairly took away his right to defend himself and made other rulings that thwarted his case. He said that in pretrial hearings, the prosecutor often did not even have to say anything.

"In a way, the judge was kind of helping her out," he said.

Kennedy testified that he had no say in his lawyers' decisions and, therefore, worked to nullify his defense. That is why the defense presented at trial was so feeble, he said.

"They didn't have anything to work with due to my non-cooperation," he said. "I still maintain my innocence. I felt like what I was doing was adequate. I just wasn't allowed to do it."

Murphree accused Kennedy of trying to muck up the case in an effort to win a new trial on appeal.

"You know it was your blood, and you know it was your fingerprints," she said. "You know you were caught dead to rights."

Pointing to White's family in the courtroom, Murphree urged Kennedy to at least offer a description of what the victim's last minutes were like.

"I don't know what her last minutes were," he said.

Before the penalty phase began, defense attorney Art Powell told the judge that he and co-counsel Jason Darley were prepared to put on evidence in an attempt to avoid the death penalty. It would have included a plea for mercy, the defendant's strong education record, his relatively young age at the time of the murder, his lack of a significant criminal record and other factors.

Kennedy confirmed that he did not want his lawyers to present any of that evidence.

"You're not giving them a lot to work with," judge said.

Remembering Zoa White

3 of White's family members offered sometimes-tearful testimony about White and the impact her death has had. She helped coordinate then-Gov. Bob Riley's re-election efforts in the Mobile area in 2006 and then served in a variety of capacities in his administration, including special projects director at the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs.

Granddaughter Logan Miller, a 19-year-old Louisiana State University student, clutched her "snuggle bunny" and told jurors about how she as a child would visit her grandmother with the stuffed animal and read the newspaper and "Harry Potter" books, and watch black-and-white movies together.

"I didn't get to say she died in the middle of the night of old age," she said.

The victim's daughter, Laurie Miller, testified that she was inundated by well-wishers after news of her mother's death spread throughout Alabama.

"To know Zoa, once you met her, that's all there was. You couldn't let go," she said. "She commanded a room. She was a person like no other."

Miller's older sister, Caryn White, testified that she has other relatives who lived well into their 80s. She said she figured the defendant cost her family another 20 years with her 69-year-old mother.

Caryn White testified that on June 27, 2010, she was preparing for an interview for an education job in Washington, D.C. She said she called her mother, who calmed her down.

White said she got the job, one 23 hired out of 2,000 applicants. The next day, police found the victim's body inside her home on Spring Hill Avenue in Midtown Mobile.

"My biggest fear is that she'll be forgotten," she said. "Because she shouldn't be forgotten."

(source for both: al.com)

OHIO:

Ohio governor in future to inform victims' families when death sentences commuted

In the future Ohio Gov. John Kasich will call family members of murder victims when he decides to spare the lives of death row inmates, the governor's office said Friday.

Kasich's decision followed a meeting earlier this week with relatives of a homicide victim upset by the governor's decision to grant clemency last year.

At issue was Kasich's announcement on Dec. 17 he was sparing Ronald Post, sentenced to death for killing Elyria motel clerk Helen Vantz on Dec. 15, 1983.

Kasich followed a recommendation by the Ohio Parole Board that Post receive clemency because of poor legal representation he received at trial. The governor's decision was unrelated to a request for mercy by Post's attorneys because he was so obese that he could not be executed humanely.

Vantz' son, Michael Vantz, asked earlier this year for a meeting with Kasich for a chance to hear from the governor about his reasons for sparing Post and the decision to announce it so close to the anniversary of Helen Vantz' death.

The timing of Kasich's decision "was one major point of tension, and disrespect to the victim's family members, friends, survivors," Michael Vantz, of suburban Cleveland, said in an email Friday in which he described the meeting with the governor on Wednesday.

Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols declined to comment on the meeting, calling it a private event, but confirmed the governor's new policy on informing relatives if a death sentence is commuted. Nichols added that Kasich acknowledged the unfortunate timing of his clemency announcement for Post, who had been scheduled to die Jan. 16.

Kasich also promised to look into the issue of whether a judge could be required to remove a defense attorney from a trial if the attorney was deemed incompetent, according to Vantz.

During the meeting, Kasich related the story of his parents' 1987 death in a crash caused by a drunk driver and gave Vantz a signed copy of his book, "Every Other Monday," about faith and finding solace, Vantz said.

"His deeply sincere regret about the very timing of commuting the sentence of the murderer Ronald Post was extraordinary," Michael Vantz said in his email. "Kasich proved his humanity."

A friend of Vantz' murdered mother and one of her nephews also attended the meeting with Kasich.

Kasich has spared the lives of 4 death row inmates since taking office and denied clemency for 10 others.

Governors in Ohio and other states have struggled with the same issue.

Earlier this week in Colorado, records released by Gov. John Hickenlooper indicated he has spoken with 7 prosecutors and 2 defense attorneys as well as victims' families as he ponders whether to grant clemency to Nathan Dunlap, who faces execution in August for ambushing and killing 4 people in 1993.

In Illinois, former Gov. George Ryan set up a review structure so families could be heard while he considered the general commutation of death row, which he ultimately carried out.

In Missouri, former Gov. Mel Carnahan was criticized for not telling relatives of the victim of Darrell Mease of his intention to spare him. Carnahan commuted Mease's death sentence in 1999 at the urging of Pope John Paul II, who was visiting the U.S. at the time.

Carnahan later apologized for the "human error" in failing to notify the parents of shooting victim Willie Lawrence.

Former Ohio Gov. Dick Celeste has said he never regretted his decision to commute 8 inmates' death sentences on the eve of leaving office in 1991, but in later years acknowledged the mistake of not consulting more deeply with prosecutors and family members of the victims of the killers he freed from death row.

(source: Associated Press)

KANSAS:

The Kansas death penalty has cobwebs

It may be weeks before Kansans know if prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Kyle Flack, accused of killing 4 people in Franklin County this spring.

It will take far longer - 10 years or more - before anyone in the state is actually put to death for a crime.

And that time gap, advocates on both sides of the death penalty debate say, suggests the state remains deeply uneasy about the punishment - an ambivalence that muddies its value.

"When a law isn't applied, it isn't really a law," said David Muhlhausen, a death penalty supporter and expert with the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Capital punishment opponents aren't eager to speed up executions, of course. But they say the state's lengthy death penalty procedure is costing taxpayers millions of dollars in legal fees and other expenses without significantly improving public safety.

"Constituents have said to me, 'We have a theoretical death penalty, but we don't carry it out in practice,'" said Mary Sloan, executive director of the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty.

"So if we're not going to carry it out in practice, why do we pay all that cost?"

No one has been put to death in Kansas since 1965.

"Kansas is 10 years and $20 million away from its 1st execution," predicted lawyer and capital punishment opponent Sean O'Brien of Kansas City.

But death penalty supporters say the state's ultimate sanction shouldn't be judged solely by the number of times it's actually used. The mere threat of death - or decades locked in isolation, waiting for death - plays an important role, they say, in the state's justice system.

An uneven history

Kansas lawmakers reinstated the state's death penalty in 1994. Since then, 13 men have been condemned to death for murder. All remain alive. Only 9 sit on the state's death row, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections' website. The others' sentences were reduced after appeals and plea agreements, or have been vacated pending a new trial.

Since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court validated rewritten capital punishment laws, only 2 states with death penalty statutes - Kansas and New Hampshire - have not executed a single inmate.

The long gap between capital crime and capital punishment in Kansas is the result of several interlocking factors, experts say.

The state's death penalty law is narrow, providing a way for even the most brutal killers to escape the punishment. Some prosecutors use the death penalty more as a negotiating tool than a criminal sanction, and some politicians remain ambivalent about executions, as do many residents in the state.

And the courts play a critical role.

All death sentences in Kansas are automatically reviewed by the state's Supreme Court. It's uniquely allowed to "scour the record" for trial and sentencing errors in capital cases, even those not raised by defense lawyers. That further raises the chances for delays.

In January, the state Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Phillip Cheatham, who faced the death penalty for a 2003 double homicide in Topeka. Cheatham, the court found, was poorly defended by his lawyer.

Kansas Sen. Greg Smith of Overland Park - whose daughter Kelsey was murdered - holds the state's judges responsible for the lack of executions in Kansas.

"It's constitutional," he said. "It's just we have a lack of judicial will to use it."

The state's highest court delayed executions in the last decade by deciding the Kansas death sentencing procedure was constitutionally flawed. In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to overrule that opinion and reinstate capital punishment in Kansas.

"The American people have determined that the good to be derived from capital punishment...outweighs the risk of error," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the case. "It is no proper part of the business of this Court, or of its Justices, to 2nd-guess that judgment."

But the decision didn't entirely settle the matter.

This fall, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider Kansas death row inmate Scott Cheever's case - he claims his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination was violated during his trial and sentencing for killing a sheriff.

Lawyers who work with death penalty defendants say those multilevel appeal rights in state and federal courts are important and unavoidable, regardless of length.

"These cases are looked at closely, for due process," said Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. "If there's any problem, it has to be done over."

That means sharply higher legal costs, for investigations, defense lawyers and appeals arguments.

In 2003, a legislative audit examined the state's death penalty expenses in the previous decade. Kansas, the audit found, had spent or would spend almost $20 million on its 14 death penalty cases, including cases where the death penalty was sought but not granted.

By contrast, taxpayers spent $6.3 million on eight cases where the prosecutors did not ask for death in a murder case.

The most expensive death penalty case involved Johnson County's John E. Robinson Sr., convicted on 2 capital murder counts. 10 years ago, the state said Robinson's case would cost taxpayers $2.4 million, a bill that has continued to grow.

"Nobody in his right mind defends the death penalty because it saves money, anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances," O'Brien said.

"Because it doesn't."

Continued debate

Arguments over safety versus cost play out regularly in state legislatures across the country.

Earlier this month, Maryland repealed its death penalty statute. Nebraska's repeal effort fell short this spring because of a filibuster, even though a majority of the state's 1-house legislature indicated support for repeal.

Today, 32 states have a capital punishment statute, as does the federal government. 18 states and the District of Columbia do not.

Missouri has executed 68 people since 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Currently, 48 inmates face capital punishment in the state.

A bill abolishing the death penalty and replacing it with life without parole was introduced in the General Assembly this year, but it was not debated.

Kansas lawmakers also introduced death penalty repeal bills this session, but they went nowhere. The state's last serious debate on death penalty repeal came in 2010, when it fell a vote short in the Senate.

Gov. Sam Brownback said last week that his view on capital punishment has changed in recent years, putting him to the left of most in his Republican Party. He now believes it should be reserved for inmates who pose a future threat to society, using Osama bin Laden as an example.

"You're always looking to protect life," he said. "That's a very narrow definition of the use of the death penalty."

Brownback's views on capital punishment in Kansas, though, may be less important than they appear. Even if he is re-elected in 2014, it's unlikely he would still be in office when any death row clemency requests might be filed.

But they do suggest many Kansans, even some conservatives, remain uncomfortable with the ultimate sanction.

"It represents an ambivalence in the state about the death penalty," Dieter said. "It may be wanted on the books, but carrying it out is problematic. And so it's delayed."

Death's leverage

Some prosecutors and supporters, though, say keeping the death penalty on the Kansas books remains important.

Studies show the death penalty is still a deterrent, Heritage's Muhlhausen said, although the effect drops in states that don't actually carry it out. Other experts dispute his conclusion. The Kansas murder rate is 3.5 per 100,000 people, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. In Missouri, it's 7 murders per 100,000. Both have the death penalty, but only Missouri has carried it out in recent years.

Iowa has no death penalty. Its murder rate is 1.3 per 100,000 people.

But even the threat of capital punishment can focus a defendant's attention on plea agreements that spare victims' families from long trials, some lawyers say. In most agreements, almost all future appeals are waived, ending the trauma of court appearances and media stories about the crime. Additionally, death penalty defendants have more to worry about than death.

Paul Cramm represented Edwin Hall, now serving a sentence of life without parole after pleading guilty to murdering Kelsey Smith.

Clients, Cramm said, are often as worried about the conditions of death row as they are about the execution chamber itself, which encourages plea deals. Death row inmates are kept in El Dorado, Kan., in isolation from almost all other prisoners.

Most defendants realize "the likelihood of an acquittal or a finding of not guilty is not real high," Cramm said. "The likelihood of being executed in your lifetime is not real high. So I guess what we're negotiating for is, what sort of life do you want to have while you're incarcerated?"

Death penalty opponents also suggest the long wait for death is itself cruel. Supporters, though, say those complaints are misplaced. A prisoner can't take advantage of every delay the law allows, they say, and then complain about how long it takes to die.

If Kansas ever executes a condemned prisoner, it will take place in the state prison in Lansing. Only death by lethal injection is authorized. Asked if the gap between sentence and execution in Kansas is too long, Brownback hesitated for several seconds.

"I've been at the chambers in Lansing, where the death penalty would have to be administered," he said. "That's a very sobering place to see.

"But I think it's kind of actually worked for the state," he added. "Most Kansans would look at it as wanting this to be very, very, very sparingly used."

(source: Kansas City Star)

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

Kansas AG taking lead on quadruple homicide case

The Kansas Attorney General's Office is taking the lead on the prosecution of Kyle T. Flack, the man charged in a quadruple homicide in Franklin County.

Derek Schmidt, Kansas attorney general, announced Friday his office would lead the prosecution team in the case, which involved the killing of 4 Ottawa-area residents, including an 18-month-old child.

The Franklin County Attorney's office filed criminal charges May 10 against Flack, 27, Ottawa, including 2 counts of capital murder, 4 counts of murder in the 1st degree, 1 count of rape and 1 count of criminal possession of a firearm. The 2 capital murder charges make Flack eligible for the death penalty.

Stephen Hunting, Franklin County attorney, had been acting as the lead prosecutor in the Flack case. Earlier in Hunting's career, he served as an assistant attorney general for the Kansas Attorney General's Office as the domestic violence prosecutor, according to Herald archives.

The bodies of Kaylie Bailey, 21, Andrew Stout, 30, and Steve White, 31, were discovered May 6 and May 7 at 3197 Georgia Road, west of Ottawa. A 4th body, which is believed to be Lana Bailey, 18 months, the daughter of Kaylie Bailey, was found Saturday in Osage County.

Judge Thomas Sachse set a status conference for Flack for 1:15 p.m. July 8 in Franklin County District Court. A preliminary hearing or "preliminary examination" in the case is expected to be scheduled at the status conference.

(source: The Ottawa Herald)

ARIZONA:

Back in 2008, Arias said she wanted death penalty

There has been a lot of attention paid to Jodi Arias' recent comments about how she prefers the death penalty over life in prison, but it's a belief she's held for years.

In 2008, 48 Hours interviewed Arias about her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander's death. At the time, Arias denied killing him.

"If a conviction happens, I know that I won't be the 1st person to be wrongly convicted and possibly wrongly sentenced for either life in prison or the death penalty," stated Arias at the time.

"Personally, if I had my choice, I would take the death penalty because I don't want to spend the rest of my life in prison. But I'm not so much angry at that as I am thinking, 'What a waste because I did have my whole future ahead of me.' I had everything to lose and nothing to gain if I were to have killed Travis," she continued in the 2008 interview.

Arias is expected to take the stand Monday when the jury reconvenes for the sentencing part of her trial. Thursday, the jurors were inexplicably dismissed early. It's unclear what Arias will say Monday. Many wonder whether she will continue to ask for the death penalty.

(source: CBS News)

CALIFORNIA----new death sentence

Corcoran inmate gets death penalty

A lifer at Corcoran State Prison has been sentenced to death for murdering his cell mate, a Kings County judge ruled this week.

Judge Peter L. Spinetta handed down the sentence for Robert Galvan at a hearing Wednesday, said Kings County prosecutor Thom Snyder. Galvan was immediately taken to death row at San Quentin State Prison.

In March, a jury found Galvan guilty of 1st-degree murder with special circumstances of torture and lying in wait, and assault with a deadly weapon by a life prisoner causing death.

Snyder said Galvan murdered his cell mate, Robert Johnson, 28, of Clear Lake, in September 2010 by getting him drunk on inmate-made wine, then slitting his throat, strangling him with an electric cord, then smashing his head against the concrete bed several times. Johnson was 30 days away from release, Snyder said. They shared a cell in a high-security housing unit.

Galvan told investigators that he killed Johnson because his cell mate had "disrespected" him by calling him stupid, and that he was punishing Johnson for violating an unwritten rule not to complain to guards about disputes with cell mates, Snyder said.

After attacking his public defender in 2011 and breaking his nose, Galvan served as his own lawyer.

In July, while being taken back to Corcoran prison from court in Hanford, he slipped out of his handcuffs and stabbed a guard 5 times with an inmate-made weapon.

Galvan was in Corcoran serving four consecutive life terms. 2 were for a 1999 kidnapping, robbery and ransom when an evening at the movies turned into a night of terror for a young couple who were carjacked outside a Fresno theater.

The couple, both in their 20s, had just left Edwards Cinemas on North Blackstone Avenue when they were accosted by a man with a knife.

The woman was forced into the back seat and her companion ordered to drive to an ATM, where he took money out and handed it to the kidnapper.

Instead of letting the couple go, he forced them them to drive to several other ATMs, but they were unable to withdraw more money. The male victim said his mother would give them money, so they drove to her apartment in Clovis.

While the son went inside, the robber held the woman hostage in the car.

The mother telephoned Clovis police while her boyfriend, driving his own car, agreed to lead the robber and hostages to an ATM in Clovis, where officers surrounded the bank and arrested Galvan.

The young couple, now married, testified during the penalty phase, Snyder said.

While in the Fresno County jail, Galvan attacked a correctional officer, for which he got his 3rd life sentence. The 4th was for assaulting an inmate with a weapon at Salinas Valley State Prison.

"He's the absolute poster for the death penalty, " Snyder said in March.

(source: Fresno Bee)

USA:

Death of the death penalty

At great political peril, George Ryan did the right thing.

Not to canonize the man. After all, the then-governor of Illinois was later imprisoned on corruption charges.

But that doesn't change the fact that, in 2000, stung that 13 inmates had been exonerated and freed from death row in the previous 23 years, Ryan committed an act of profound moral courage, imposing a moratorium on capital punishment. In 2003, in the waning days of his term, he one-upped himself, commuting every death sentence in his state.

Recalling what Gov. George Ryan once did provides interesting context as Floridians and death penalty opponents around the country wait to see what Gov. Rick Scott will do.

Florida's chief executive has on his desk awaiting his signature - or, dare we hope, his veto - a piece of legislation called the Timely Justice Act, passed by his state legislature in the apparent belief Florida is not killing people fast enough.

There are 404 people awaiting execution in Florida. We learn from a report by my colleague, Mary Ellen Klas, that 155 of them have been there longer than 20 years, and 10 have been there longer than 35 years. The average wait: 13 years.

The act would require the governor to sign a death warrant within 30 days after a review by the state Supreme Court. Execution would have to take place within 180 days. Additionally, the bill bars attorneys from using certain defense strategies. Granted, it also contains provisions favorable to inmates, including one penalizing lawyers who provide ineffective counsel, but that fig leaf does not mitigate the danger of a bill that, in effect, creates a fast track to the death chamber.

This measure, I feel constrained to point out, is brought to you by the same legislative body that brought you the ill-conceived Stand Your Ground law that has lately led people to call Florida the "gunshine state." This latest sop to frontier justice is necessary, we're told, because, as an editorial by Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers puts it, delayed executions are "an affront to justice - especially for victims' families."

Beg pardon - and I know this will be controversial - but I'm tired of hearing what we owe victim's families. I speak from no deficit of compassion for them. I am, for goodness sake, a member of a victim's family, albeit his extended family. R.I.P., Ted McCoy, my brother-in-law, who was murdered 20 years ago in Los Angeles.

That said, there's something...uncomfortably barbarous in this idea that we as a society owe those families blood as recompense for the pain they have endured.

More to the point, there's this: Since the death penalty was reinstated in the mid-'70s, Florida has executed 75 people. But it has exonerated 24, many of whom spent more than a decade on death row. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Florida has the highest error rate in the country.

So how can a state that gets it wrong at least one time in every 4 want to speed up the process? Does no one care about the increased likelihood of executing someone who committed no crime?

We are always called upon to be solicitous of the pain suffered by victims' families. Where is our solicitude for innocent people, wrong place, wrong time, people - usually indigent people of color - who are rushed, perjured, bumbled, erred and "oopsed" onto death row? Why does their pain affect us less? Why are they less deserving of our compassion? Are they not victims, too?

To his lasting credit, Illinois’ former governor came to recognize capital punishment as the moral sinkhole it is. It is probably too much to hope Florida's governor will do the same. But at a minimum he must veto this mistake in waiting. The bill his legislature has sent him imposes something that may indeed be timely.

But it sure as hell is not justice.

(source: Opinion, Leonard Pitts, Jr., Battle Creek Enquirer)

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

Death penalty process terribly cruel, unusual

Leaving any person on death row for longer than 6 months is cruel and unusual punishment, both for them and the families of their victims.

On the day of conviction, a board of professionals should be formed to verify every scrap of evidence on the case. This will cover legal malfeasance, unethical/perjured witnesses, lab results, everything pertaining to the case. This can be done in 90 days, but I am suggesting 180 to be on the safe side.

Depending on the ruling by this board, the defendant will either be executed the day following the ruling, or a new trial, if needed, will start immediately. The cost of this procedure is a fraction of the cost associated with numerous appeals and living costs over 10 to 30 years.

Plus, the time of agony by all sides will be greatly reduced.

But, as long as the legal profession is populated by those desiring to live off the public dole through their machinations of the legal system regarding the death penalty, this will never change. Mike Walker----Brandon

(source: Letter to the Editor, Clarion Ledger)

INDIA:

Teen's rapist gets death penalty

A trial court here on Friday sentenced to death a 45-year-old motor mechanic, Mustafa, who was found guilty of raping and throttling to death a minor on the intervening night of September 28 and 29, 2012.

The prosecution case was that Mustafa, with whom the 16-year-old girl had close family acquaintance, took her in a car, raped and murdered her. He later dumped her body at Budhni ghat about 45km from Bhopal.

A search was launched by police after the girl's family had filed a missing complaint.

On September 29, Budhni police found the body and buried it as an 'unidentified' one. Later, when Bhopal got leads during interrogation of Mustafa, they exhumed the body and brought it to Bhopal.

Mustafa and his alleged accomplice Aziz were charged with rape, murder and destroying evidence.

After hearing the case, court of additional session judge Saeeda Bano Rahman held Mustafa guilty on all the charges and awarded death penalty for him. However, Aziz was acquitted for lack of evidence.

When the judge asked whether he had any reason to cite why he should not be given capital punishment, Mustafa said that he was the sole breadwinner of his family. His counsel argued that his offence did not fall under the 'rarest of rare' category of crimes, for a death sentence.

However, the public prosecutor argued for capital punishment on the ground that the crime was of a 'cruel' nature.

After hearing the argument, the judge stated she was unable to find any 'justifying circumstances' not to award death penalty for the accused. She stated that an exemplary punishment is required to put a check on such cases and also to ensure that fear of law remains among criminals in society.

It may be recalled that tension had gripped the Mansarovar complex area in Bhopal after people set on fire shops and damaged vehicles after the incident on September 29. The accused worked in a motor-repairing shop at the locality.

(source: The Times of India)

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

SIT to seek SC guidance on Maya Kodnani death penalty issue

After a U-turn by the Gujarat government on the death penalty for former minister Maya Kodnani and 9 others, convicted in 2002 Naroda Patiya riot case, the SIT has decided to seek Supreme Court's guidance on the issue.

"Very soon, we are going to file an application before the special bench of the Supreme Court apprising it about the recent Gujarat Government's decision to withdraw the sanction for filing appeal in the Naroda Patiya case," a top SIT official to PTI.

He was responding to a query whether SIT has filed a petition in the apex court in this regard or not.

"We are not filing any petition because we are neither a party nor a respondent in the matter. But as we are Supreme Court appointed officers for the case we will file an application seeking judicial guidance on this matter," he said.

"We will file an application before the special bench of the apex court comprising Justices P Sathsivam, M Y Iqbal and Ranjana Desai," the SIT official said.

Under attack from right wing groups, the Gujarat government on Monday had said it has withheld its decision to seek death penalty for former minister Kodnani, Babu Bajrangi and eight others in the riot case.

Earlier, the state government had given its consent to Supreme Court-appointed SIT to file an appeal in the High Court seeking capital punishment for Kodnani, Bajrangi and others, who were awarded life term by a lower court.

State Finance Minister and spokesperson Nitin Patel had said they have kept on hold the decision as they have to take the opinion of State Advocate General.

"A final decision will be taken after advocate general gives his opinion," Patel had said.

Kodnani, who was a minister in the Modi government, was sentenced to 28 years in prison by a Special Court in August 2012 in connection with the post-Godhra riots case in which 96 people were killed.

(source: The Economic Times)

SCOTLAND:

Gallows double as climbing frame at Jupiter Artland ---- The 51 ft-tall scaffold is deliberately sited at a high point in Jupiter Artland to command spectacular views.

A massive sculpture inspired by America's history of capital punishment is to become the latest feature at Scotland's multi-million-pound sculpture park.

Children and adults will be encouraged to clamber over Los Angeles artist Sam Durant's "eco-friendly climbing frame" at Jupiter Artland, near Edinburgh Airport.

A series of 5 reconstructed gallows are built on top of and into each other to form a single work of art, which the artist describes as his statement against the death penalty.

It has been installed to help mark the 5th season at Jupiter Artland, a sculpture park set up by Robert and Nicky Wilson in the grounds of their Jacobean mansion at Kirknewton.

The grounds have become home to works by Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor, Jim Lambie, Nathan Coley, Charles Jencks, Cornelia Parker and Ian Hamilton Finlay.

The new work, simply entitled Scaffold, has been sited at the highest point in the apple orchard to the east of Bonnington House, which commands spectacular views of the Pentland Hills.

Durant says the work has been deliberately constructed to resemble a 1970s adventure playground feature and to appeal to children, to address long-running concerns over the notorious "school-to-prison pipeline" in the United States.

Among the executions the various gallows are said to depict are those of John Brown, a militant abolitionist who was captured after leading an anti-slavery revolt in Virginia in 1859, and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, in 2006.

Scaffold, which is 51 ft tall and 14 ft wide, is the 1st major temporary work of art to go on display at Jupiter Artland since it opened in 2008.

More than a million people visited the piece last year when it was exhibited as part of German's vast Documenta arts festival, which is held every 5 years in the city of Kassel.

It took about 2 weeks to construct at Jupiter Artland after being shipped from Germany.

The work will be going on display beside the International Criminal Court at The Hague, in the Netherlands, in the autumn after its run in Edinburgh, from next Saturday until 15 September.

Seattle-born Durant, who has just launched a solo show in London, said: "It’s really a commentary on the whole history of the criminal justice system in the United States, and the fact that the death penalty still exists, unlike other parts of the world like Europe.

"That's part of the reason it's relevant to show it in Germany and Scotland, but I hope it can also be show in the US one day.

Susanna Beaumont, guest curator at the park, said: "I saw Scaffold in Documenta myself last year and just thought it would be perfect for Jupiter Artland."

(source: The Scotsman)

INDONESIA:

UK woman may face Indonesia death penalty

A British woman could face the death penalty in Indonesia after being arrested for allegedly smuggling crystal methamphetamine into the country from China, an official said.

The woman, identified only by her initials AR, was arrested at a hotel in the city of Surabaya, East Java province, last month with 1.47 kilograms of the drug, the Indonesian narcotics agency said.

"Because she smuggled drugs weighing more than five grams, she could face the death penalty," said agency spokesman Sumirat Dwiyanto.

He declined to give further details about the woman or when she was likely to be charged.

The case comes just months after British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford was sentenced to death for attempting to smuggle $US2.4 million of cocaine into the resort island of Bali.MP> In the latest case, AR, who lives in China, admitted after her arrest on April 29, that a Nigerian had asked her to bring the drugs to Indonesia, the agency said.

The Nigerian was still at large, it added.

The woman also identified 2 other people she had been planning to pass the drugs to in Surabaya and Jakarta, and they were also detained, the agency said.

The trio are being held at the agency's headquarters in Jakarta, it said.

Foreigners are regularly charged with drugs offences in Indonesia, which has some of the toughest anti-narcotics laws in the world, but most are caught in Bali.

Sandiford, 56, was sentenced to death in January after being caught with cocaine as she arrived at Bali airport, in a shock verdict after prosecutors recommended 15 years in jail.

She lost a 1st appeal against the sentence last month, and has since lodged a last-ditch appeal to Indonesia's top court.

Death row convicts in Indonesia rarely manage to get their sentences lifted.

Most spend years in jail before being taken to an isolated location at night and executed by firing squad.

(source: Herald Sun)

PAPUA NEW GUINEA:

Papua New Guinea Death Penalty Move Is A Setback - UN

The United Nations human rights office today expressed serious concern over Papua New Guinea's announcement that it will resume the death penalty more than half a century since it last carried out an execution, stressing this would represent "a major setback" for the country.

"The High Commissioner has written to the Prime Minister stating her concerns about the planned resumption of the death penalty, and is calling on the Government to maintain its moratorium and subsequently join the growing number of Member States that have abolished the practice altogether, including 11 States in the Pacific," said Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, during a press briefing in Geneva.

Papua New Guinea has maintained a long-standing de facto moratorium on the death penalty since 1954, which was subsequently passed into law in 1970.

"Resuming the death penalty again would be a major setback, especially after so many other States have subsequently abolished the death penalty or adopted moratoriums," Mr. Colville said.

"While recognizing the challenge presented by the recent alarming rise in violent crime in Papua New Guinea, including rape, torture and murder, the use of capital punishment has never been proved to be a more effective deterrent than other forms of punishment," he added.

In the same briefing, Mr. Colville also drew attention to the rise in executions in Indonesia, where 4 men have been executed since the country resumed the death penalty in March.

"It is a very unfortunate development as Indonesia was close to establishing a moratorium on executions."

Indonesia had not carried out any executions since 2008. In January, Ms. Pillay urged the authorities not to carry out any further executions following the Government's announcement that it would execute 10 convicted criminals.

Since 2007, the General Assembly has adopted 4 resolutions calling on States to establish a moratorium on the use of the death penalty with a view to its abolition. Today about 150 of the UN's 193 Member States have either abolished the death penalty or no longer practice it.

(source: SpyGhana.com)

MAY 17, 2013:

TEXAS:

State of Texas: The Road to 500 Executions

Texas will soon execute its 500th person since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. If the current schedule holds - barring any stays or reprieves - the 500th execution will take place in June. Texas uses the death penalty more than any state, and it isn't even close. No. 2 on the execution list is Virginia, which has killed just 110 people - and only 5 since 2010. Texas has executed more people than the next 6 states - Virginia, Oklahoma, Florida, Missouri, Alabama and Georgia - combined. It wasn’t always so. Texas executed fewer than 10 people a year until 1992, when executions spiked under then-Gov. Ann Richards. They peaked under George W. Bush, who sent 37 people to the death chamber in 1997 and 40 in 2000. The Texans put to death are disproportionately African-American.

(source: Texas Observer)

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

Prosecutors Push for Death Penalty in Muhammad Case

Prosecutors continue to press a North Texas jury to send a man to death row for drowning 2 of his sons in a creek.

The Dallas County jury is to hear more testimony in the penalty phase of Naim Rasool Muhammad's trial. The jury took less than 10 minutes Wednesday to find Muhammad guilty of capital murder for drowning his 5-year-old son Naim and 3-year-old son Elijah in August 2011.

Jurors must choose between death and life in prison without parole.

Defense attorney Paul Johnson urged jurors to spare Muhammad's life, saying his client drowned the children out of fear that they'd grow up to be just like him. Muhammad told police he drowned the children because he was mad at the children's mother for breaking up with him.

(source: Dallas Morning News)

PENNSYLVANIA:

Judge to stay on in Knight death penalty case

Westmoreland County Judge Rita Hathaway said on Thursday she will remain on the case to decide whether convicted killer Melvin Knight should get a new trial.

Knight's defense lawyers asked the judge to recuse herself so another judge could determine if jurors in Knight's penalty trial in August were properly sworn in before it began.

Knight, 23, formerly of Swissvale pleaded guilty last year to 1st-degree murder for his role in the February 2010 torture slaying of Jennifer Daugherty, a 30-year-old mentally disabled woman from Mt. Pleasant.

Following a 2-week trial, the jury condemned Knight to die by lethal injection. But defense attorneys contend he should get a new trial because Hathaway failed to swear in the jury.

"I know in my head I can be fair and unbiased to Mr. Knight," Hathaway said. "This is a death penalty case, and it doesn't get any more serious than that. If I thought for one minute I could not be fair to Mr. Knight, I would not hesitate to recuse myself."

Defense attorney Jeff Miller said courtroom staff and a trial transcript indicate the oath was never administered.

During a closed-door hearing a day after the jury verdict was returned, Hathaway recalled that jurors were sworn in, according to a court motion filed by Miller.

According to District Attorney John Peck, 11 of the 12 jurors recall that they were administered an oath before the start of testimony.

A hearing was to be held on Thursday, and some jurors were expected to testify, but that was delayed a week when defense lawyers formally filed court documents seeking to oust Hathaway from the case.

"A judge should not sit in judgment of his or her own actions. The court could well have to struggle with the court's own memory versus other evidence," Miller said.

Assistant District Attorney Leo Ciaramitaro said the judge should step aside only if the defense can positively establish there is a bias or prejudice.

"You need to evaluate and weigh the credibility of witnesses that appear before you, not weigh your own memory," Ciaramitaro argued.

The prosecution contends Knight was 1 of 6 Greensburg roommates who held Daugherty captive for more than 2 days, when she was beaten, tortured, raped and killed. Witnesses said Knight stabbed Daugherty in the heart with a steak knife.

According to trial testimony, Knight raped and stabbed Daugherty before her body was stuffed into a trash can and dragged down a snowy street and left in the parking lot of Greensburg Salem Middle School.

In February, another jury convicted Ricky Smyrnes, 27, formerly of North Huntingdon, of 1st-degree murder and sentenced him to death.

In May 2011, a jury convicted then 17-year-old Angela Marinucci of Greensburg of 1st-degree murder. Because she was a juvenile, she was ineligible for the death sentence.

Amber Meidinger, 23, of Greensburg testified for the prosecution in all three trials. Her lawyer is attempting to negotiate a plea bargain to keep Meidinger off death row.

2 other roommates, Peggy Miller, 30, and Robert Masters, 39, cooperated with prosecutors and are seeking plea bargains.

(source: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

OHIO:

Supreme Court rules trial court must consider postconviction DNA test's potential for new evidence

The Supreme Court of Ohio recently ruled that a trial court must consider any potential for new information that could be gained by a postconviction DNA test before it can reject an application for that test.

In the 5-2 majority opinion, the justices sustained Tyrone Noling’s argument that the Portage County Court of Common Pleas improperly denied his application for postconviction DNA testing of a cigarette butt found at a double murder scene.

The majority held that under Ohio's postconviction testing statutes enacted in 2010, the trial court should have considered progressions in DNA testing and the possibility of finding new evidence.

"The trial court failed to consider Noling's application in the context of the new statutory requirements - whether there is a possibility of discovering new biological material that is potentially from the perpetrator that the prior DNA test may have failed to discover," Ohio Supreme Court Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger wrote for the majority.

Case summary details that Noling was charged with the aggravated murders of Bearnhardt and Cora Hartig at their Portage County residence.

Police found a cigarette butt at the scene and DNA testing excluded Noling as a source of the saliva found on the cigarette.

Those results were submitted at trial but the trial court found Noling guilty and sentenced him to death on 2 counts.

An appellate court and the high court both affirmed his convictions and sentences.

In a postconviction application filed on Sept. 25, 2008, Noling requested postconviction DNA testing of the cigarette butt. Based on the prior test, the common pleas court rejected the application.

Noling filed another application for postconviction DNA testing of the cigarette in December 2010, claiming that the DNA could identify other suspects in the Hartig murders.

He argued that advances in DNA technology had resulted in the possibility to positively identify a previously undisclosed suspect, placing someone else at the scene and identifying "the true killer."

The trial court ruled that the Ohio Revised Code prevented a court from accepting an application for DNA testing filed after it has already rejected a previous application for the same.

It denied the application and Noling appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court.

On review, the justices found that the laws in place at the time of Noling's 1st application stated that it could only be accepted if there was no prior definitive DNA test and if Noling showed the new test could be outcome-determinative.

At that time, the law did not define "definitive DNA test" and the justices held that Noling's application was properly denied.

"The DNA-testing statutes were amended for a 4th time when 2010 Sub.S.B. No. 77 was enacted on July 6, 2010. The term 'definitive DNA test' was defined in this amendment," Lanzinger wrote.

The majority explained that under the new law, a prior test could be considered definitive if the applicant proved that advances to DNA technology could lead to new findings not uncovered by the previous test.

It held that because Noling's 2nd application was filed after SB 77's enactment, the trial court should have considered Noling's arguments that a new suspect could be identified.

"Therefore, the court erred by failing to apply the definition set forth in R.C. 2953.71(U) before dismissing Noling's 2nd application under R.C. 2953.72(A)(7). We reverse and remand to the trial court for consideration of the 2nd application under the current versions of the statutes,"

Lanzinger stated.

The majority also ruled that R.C. 2953.73(E)(1) was constitutional.

The law gave the high court exclusive jurisdiction to review rejections of postconviction DNA testing applications in death penalty cases.

In a separate opinion, justices Terrence O'Donnell and Judith French dissented from the majority.

The 2 held that the law in question was not constitutional because the Ohio Constitution gives the Supreme Court discretion to hear an appeal in a death penalty case only when the offender is directly appealing the sentence.

The dissent argued that the General Assembly did not have the proper authority to create a statute giving the high court discretion to review cases such as Noling's.

"Thus, R.C. 2953.73(E), which purports to grant authority to this court to review a direct appeal from the denial of postconviction DNA testing, is unconstitutional," O'Donnell wrote.

Tenth District Court of Appeals Judge William Klatt sat for Justice William O'Neill and joined the majority.

The case is cited State v. Noling, case No. 2013-Ohio-1764.

(source: The Daily Reporter)

NORTH CAROLINA:

Accused child killer presents no defense in death penalty trial

A Fayetteville man accused of raping and killing a 5-year-old girl more than three years ago has elected not to present any evidence in his death penalty trial.

Mario Andrette McNeill, 32, is charged with murder, kidnapping and rape in the death of Shaniya Davis. Her body was found on Nov. 16, 2009, in a kudzu patch off N.C. Highway 87 on the Lee-Harnett county line, 6 days after her mother reported her missing from their Fayetteville mobile home.

Closing arguments are scheduled for Tuesday morning. If the 8-man, 4-woman jury finds him guilty, they would then hear evidence before deciding whether to sentence him to life in prison without parole or death.

Prosecutors called 44 witnesses over the past three weeks before resting their case Thursday morning.

Retired Fayetteville police Sgt. Chris Corcione was the final state witness, summing up the more than 5 hours of McNeill's videotaped interview with police that jurors watched Wednesday.

McNeill had surrendered to police after they identified him from a security video as having taken Shaniya to a Sanford hotel shortly after she disappeared. They grilled him for nearly six hours as they clung to the hope that she was still alive.

"Early on in the interview, it was clear Mr. McNeill was in denial mode," said Corcione, who led the questioning of McNeill.

"At one point in the interview, I thought it would be a good idea to plant a seed in his mind that someone told him to take the child," Corcione said. "I wanted him to grab onto that story and use that to legitimize the fact that he had the child."

McNeill repeatedly denied even knowing Shaniya for about the first two hours of the interview, but he later told police that the girl's aunt asked him to take her to the Sanford hotel and hand her off to relatives who would ensure that she went to school.

Investigators told McNeill that his story sounded implausible and that a log of text messages to and from his cellphone didn't back him up.

"You killed that baby, didn't you?" Corcione asked during the interview.

"No, no, no," McNeill insisted.

"No reasonable person would take a strange 5-year-old person from the front porch," Corcione said. "You killed that little girl because you had to get rid of her because she's evidence of the crime."

"No, no, no," McNeill said.

A couple of days later, McNeill's attorney provided information that led investigators to Shaniya's body. An autopsy determined that she had been suffocated and had injuries "consistent with a sexual assault."

Defense attorney Terry Alford asked that all charges be dismissed against McNeill for insufficient evidence, but Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons denied the motion.

Ammons then advised McNeill of his right to remain silent.

"You should think about this long and hard before making this decision. It's your decision, not mine, not anybody else's," Ammons said.

McNeill said Thursday afternoon that he wouldn't testify, and his attorneys rested without offering any evidence.

(source: WRAL News)

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Mario McNeill won't testify during his capital murder trial in the 2009 death of Shaniya Davis

Mario McNeill will not testify in his own defense, and his lawyers plan to present no evidence as prosecutors rested their case Thursday in the murder of 5-year-old Shaniya Davis.

McNeill, 32, is charged with 1st-degree murder and 1st-degree rape of Shaniya. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

"One last time, court is of the impression ... from the defendant, that he has chosen of his own volition, own will, not to testify. Is that correct, Mr. McNeill?" asked Jim Ammons, Cumberland County's senior resident Superior Court judge.

"Yes," McNeill answered.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"This is the time to make that decision. Once Tuesday rolls around," Ammons said, "it's too late."

Before an extended lunch break Thursday, the judge told McNeill to think about it hard before returning to the courtroom and letting his decision be known. He advised McNeill of his right to remain silent and told him that he should listen closely to the advice of his counsel.

McNeill has not always heeded that advice.

On Wednesday, jurors were shown about 4 hours of unedited, unredacted video from a November 2009 McNeill interview with investigators before he was initially booked on kidnapping charges.

Though his lawyers objected in general to the video being shown, McNeill requested that it be presented in its entirety. The video included footage of him discussing his criminal record, including drug charges and serving time for shooting 3 people.

Jurors learned through the video how his story changed during the interview; how he initially denied knowing who Shaniya was; that he had picked her up from her home in the Sleepy Hollow Mobile Home Park; and that he had stayed in a hotel room with the child at the Comfort Suites in Sanford.

From the start of the case, McNeill's lawyers admitted their client took Shaniya to Sanford and booked the hotel room. But they say he did not harm the child.

Twice during the interview, the video shows McNeill attempting to poke a key in an electrical socket while he was alone in the police interrogation room.

The state rested its case following the final 15 minutes of testimony from retired Fayetteville police Detective Chris Corcione. Corcione was one of the lead interviewers in a taped 2009 interrogation of McNeill that was shown to jurors Wednesday.

During the interview, McNeill acknowledged to Corcione that he was a drug dealer and that he was "skied up" - high on cocaine.

Also Thursday morning, Ammons denied the defense's request to dismiss all seven charges against McNeill.

Since the trial started on April 8, 44 witnesses - including one outside the jury - have testified for the prosecution.

Proceedings are not scheduled today, and the jury has been ordered not to report back until 9:30 Tuesday morning.

"Go back to your regular lives," Ammons told them, adding that they should return with the expectation "to proceed with the conclusion of this case."

(source: Fayetteville Observer)

FLORIDA----female faces possible death sentence

Death penalty still an option in 2010 murder case against Hollywood mom

A woman accused of strangling the life out of her 3-year-old daughter in 2010 may face the death penalty if convicted, prosecutors said Thursday. Cheryl Arthur, 42, thought her lawyers had reached a deal with prosecutors who accused her of killing Makeda Naomi Grace Arthur near the Tri-Rail overpass on Sheridan Street in Hollywood on April 24, 2010. In exchange for a guilty plea, Arthur would be convicted of 2nd-degree murder and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

(source: Sun-Sentinel)

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Protect the Innocent: Florida's Governor Must Veto the 'Timely Justice Act'

When I was arrested for a murder I didn't commit, I had alibi witnesses placing me elsewhere at the time of the crime. There was no physical evidence tying me to the bloody crime scene. The only evidence that the state of Florida presented against me were two questionable witnesses: a paid police informant and another who falsely implicated me and others under the threat of the electric chair. In exchange for his testimony against me, he received 2 years' probation.

My trial took less than a week. I was sentenced to death. I spent nearly 18 years on death row, a traumatic and heartbreaking time for me and my family.

Although my mother prayed that my innocence would one day be proven and I would be released, she also saved money to take my body home to Puerto Rico and bury me there.

I never stopped fighting for my freedom. After 16 years on death row, the case against me finally fell apart when critical evidence was discovered, including a transcript of a taped confession by the real killer, along with other exculpatory evidence that the prosecutor had withheld from my attorneys.

Shockingly, up until this point, the Florida Supreme Court had upheld my conviction and death sentence three times on appeal. I was saved by the grace of God or, as some would say, "pure luck."

Finally, after almost 18 years on death row, the truth about my innocence came out. I was exonerated, and today I am a free man.

What happened to me has happened to many other people as well. Florida leads the nation in exonerations in death penalty cases. Twenty-four innocent people have been freed from our death row, including myself. There can be no question that mistakes have happened in our capital punishment system. It stands to reason that there may be more mistakes in the system still.

In Florida capital cases, the final decision rests with the executive. Governor Rick Scott has the discretion to determine which of the cases on death row should move forward and receive an execution date, and which may benefit from more time and consideration.

New legislation, recently passed by the Florida House and Senate, would change that. The so-called "Timely Justice Act" would remove the Governor's prerogative to set execution dates and replace it with an automatic timeline for all cases.

The "Timely Justice Act" would speed up a system we know has already sent innocent men, like myself, to death row. Some of these prisoners may be men like me, who have exhausted their legal appeals, yet keep trying to find a way to prove their innocence.

In multiple cases of current death row prisoners, we don't know exactly what the legal claims are. Some of the men on Florida's death row ran out of legal options simply because their attorneys missed filing deadlines.

In those instances, no court had the opportunity to evaluate the claims and determine whether they have merit. How can we possibly justify speeding up the execution of prisoners in those cases?

According to logic of the "Timely Justice Act," any prisoner who has exhausted his appeals and been through a clemency process has had every opportunity and is ready for an execution date, regardless of the specific questions and issues that surround his case.

I am living proof that each case is unique and that the system must allow ample time for the truth to emerge.

Given Florida's troubling track record on wrongful convictions, this legislation ensures the unthinkable -- the execution of an innocent person.

Governor Scott has the power to prevent the execution of the wrongfully convicted by vetoing the "Timely Justice Act." Because of my firsthand knowledge that mistakes do happen in our capital punishment system, I pray the governor uses his authority to do so.

(source: Juan Melendez was exonerated in 2002. A national and international speaker on the death penalty, he works with Witness to Innocence; Huffington Post)

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Riverview man who killed Seminole couple wins death row reprieve

A Riverview man won a reprieve from death row Thursday when the Florida Supreme Court ruled he had received poor legal representation during his 1998 sentencing for killing a Seminole couple during a warehouse robbery.

The court's decision means Michael J. Griffin will have to be resentenced for the execution-style murders of Thomas and Patricia McCallops on Oct. 6, 1995. He will be able to argue that several circumstances - including a childhood brain injury, cocaine addiction, his own history of depression and his family's history of mental illness and substance abuse - affected him enough that he should be sentenced to life in prison instead of death.

Griffin's convictions will stand, though. The Supreme Court did not agree with legal arguments that would have set those aside, including a claim that Griffin should have been able to withdraw his guilty pleas 9 years after he was sentenced.

Griffin, 42, and Juan Antonio Lopez, a drug dealer with whom he was living at the time, stole $11,300, mostly in coins, from the Service America warehouse in Oldsmar, where Griffin once had worked repairing refrigerators, court records show.

Thomas McCallops had volunteered to drive a delivery route for a sick co-worker that night, and his wife came along to keep him company.

The night of the murders, Griffin and Lopez waited at a bar across the street from the warehouse on Gim Gong Road, hoping an employee would show up and recognize Griffin. McCallops did and let Griffin and Lopez into the warehouse.

Armed with Griffin's .20-gauge shotgun and 9mm pistol, the men locked the McCallopses inside a cooler and ransacked the storage lockers where Service America kept the coins deposited in the vending machines it stocked with snacks, sandwiches and other items.

Then Griffin and Lopez went back to the cooler and executed Tom and Patricia McCallops, court records say. Detectives concluded Griffin shot McCallops once with the shotgun and Lopez shot him 4 times with the pistol and his wife twice - once in the head and once in the chest. Griffin, though, claimed Lopez shot them while he was collecting the money.

Griffin pleaded guilty to both murders in 1997, without a deal in place that would have spared him the death penalty. The following year, a judge sentenced him to be executed.

Initially, Griffin and Lopez both were supposed to plead guilty together in exchange for life sentences. Lopez, though, was unable to take a plea because he was delusional; in 2003, after receiving psychiatric treatment, Lopez stood trial and was convicted of the murders. He is serving 2 life sentences for the killings.

The aborted deal, though, changed the way Griffin’s lawyer prepared for the sentencing, because the lawyer felt Griffin still would receive a life sentence. In its 42-page opinion, the Supreme Court concurred with the trial court judge who ruled in 2008 that Griffin should be resentenced, in part, because his lawyer based his legal strategy on a "hunch" that Griffin would not get the death penalty.

"Counsel's 'hunch' was no basis for an informed strategy as it limited his investigation of possible mitigating evidence," the court says in its opinion.

That lack of preparation meant Griffin's lawyer didn't know about his family history of drug and alcohol abuse or the severity of his cocaine problem leading up to the murders, the court concluded.

At a hearing where Griffin was arguing his convictions and sentence should be set aside, friends and family testified that he was using cocaine every day in the summer of 1995, behaving strangely and becoming mentally unstable.

Griffin's lawyer also didn't adequately investigate the effects of a brain injury Griffin sustained as a child, the court concluded. When he was 9, Griffin was shot in the head with a pellet gun and needed brain surgery to remove pieces of skull and hair from his brain.

Bruce Bartlett, the Pinellas-Pasco chief assistant state attorney, said a resentencing hearing would have to be scheduled. Prosecutors still want Griffin put to death for the double-homicide.

"We feel it's a serious offense, a senseless killing that didn't need to happen," Bartlett said.

(source: Tampa Tribune)

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Jacksonville killer avoids death sentence for 2009 murder; Prosecution has 1 more chance to execute DeShawn Leon Green

DeShawn Leon Green has avoided death row for a 2nd time. But prosecutors will have 1 more chance to execute him.

On Friday, Circuit Judge James Daniel sentenced Green, 28, to life without the possibility of parole for the murder 24-year-old Robert Kearney. The jury that convicted Green recommended he get the death penalty by a 7-5 vote, but Daniel rejected that recommendation.

Death Row and life without parole were the only 2 options Daniel had under Florida law. Prosecutors said Green shot Kearney at Confederate Point Apartments in March 2009 because 2 friends of his had been shot at earlier in the night, and he was out for revenge.

But Daniel expressed reluctance to impose the death penalty because of uncertainty over whether Green was the one who actually pulled the trigger. During trial defense attorneys argued that Bruce Brice Jr., really shot Kearney and blamed Green in order to get a lesser sentence.

Brice, 25, pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder and was sentenced to 7 years in prison this year. He testified against Green as part of his plea bargain and said he was with Green at the time of the murder and Green pulled the trigger.

The jury convicted Green of 1st-degree murder on the basis of premeditation or felony murder and found that Green possessed a firearm during the commission of the crime. But the jury did not find that Green discharged a gun.

"The sum total of the jury's verdict was that the defendant was guilty of 1st-degree murder on the basis that he was a principal to the crime," Daniel said.

A principal to a crime is someone who helps another person commit a crime. Daniel said the jury did not determine beyond a reasonable doubt that Green was the actual shooter.

Daniel said he has researched previous death penalty cases and couldn’t locate a case that was factually close to this one.

Defense attorney Gerry Shea said this was the correct ruling.

"This wasn't a premeditated murder," Shea said. "And there was evidence that Mr. Bryce matched the description of the shooter."

Green and Bryce both had long dreadlocks.

Green was previously convicted in the August 2009 shooting of Willie Golden, 28, in a home on West 26th Street. The prosecution withdrew seeking the death penalty because the jury said premeditation wasn’t proven.

Prosecutors said Green killed Golden in retaliation of a drive-by shooting on a drug house that Green ran just 2 streets over from the shooting. Green was also sentenced to life without parole in that case.

Green also faces a third trial for the murder of Bryan Clemons, 23, who was gunned down with an assault rifle in April 2009 as he sat in a chair in a home on West 13th Street. Assistant State Attorney Rich Mantei said the state would seek the death penalty again.

The Clemons killing was the result of an ongoing dispute between 2 groups of men from Green's Grand Park neighborhood and the nearby Flag Street area.

The dispute began in November 2008 when the 2 groups fought over a drink thrown at a nightclub.

On Friday, Daniel told lawyers for both sides that he wanted to try Green for killing Clemons in August. All 3 of these murders occurred during a 6-month stretch in 2009.

(source: Florida Times-Union)

ALABAMA:

Jury convicts Mobile man of capital murder in hammer attack on retired Realtor

A jury this afternoon found Carlos Edward Kennedy guilty of capital murder in the death of retired Realtor Zoa White, setting up showdown that could determine whether the defendant lives or dies.

Kennedy's lawyers and Mobile County prosecutors now will put on evidence in an attempt to sway the jury on the proper punishment - execution by lethal injection or life in prison with no chance of parole. The jury will make a recommendation, but Mobile County Circuit Judge Joseph "Rusty" Johnston will have the final say.

The prosecution will begin its case in the penalty phase this afternoon.

Kennedy, standing with hands in his pockets, showed no emotion as he listened to the verdict.

"We are very pleased with the jury's decision, that the defendant is, in fact, guilty of capital murder," Mobile County District Attorney Ashley Rich said.

Defense attorney Jason Darley declined to comment.

White's daughter, Laurie Miller, expressed relief and satisfaction after the jury's verdict. She said it was difficult to sit through the defendant's testimony Thursday, during which he claimed to have a relationship with the victim.

"But I think it was obvious that the answers he was giving were not believable," she said.

The jury of 7 women and 5 men deliberated for about 2 hours and 45 minutes before returning the verdict. Rich said she did not personally prosecute the case because she knows the family.

"This is a difficult case," she said. "I've spent the night in their house."

The trial, itself, was shorter than the 5 1/2 days it took to pick the jury, which heard evidence of a brutal attack. Testimony and pictures from White's bloody house and the autopsy table indicated that her head had been bashed with the claw end of a hammer in June 2010. Her pajama shorts had been yanked off and her top pulled above her breasts.

Over 3 days, prosecutors presented a slew of forensic evidence tying the 27-year-old defendant to the attack at White's home on Spring Hill Avenue in Midtown.

Police found blood with DNA matching the defendant, along with a palm print and a fingerprint. Investigators also found seminal fluid during an autopsy of White, although it lacked sperm and, therefore, did not contain DNA.

Kennedy, who lived about 2 blocks from White's home, initially told police he did not know White and never had been inside her home. When a detective told Kennedy that police had found his fingerprint in the house, the defendant said he had helped White move some lamps and other items to the 2nd floor.

Told police had found a fingerprint on the victim's thigh, Kennedy changed his story again. He told the detective that he and White had sex 2 or 3 times, but he could not correctly identify her name.

Jurors watched the interrogation, which took place roughly 2 months after the beating and lasted about 2 hours.

The defense seemed to focus on the factors distinguishing a regular murder from a capital offense, which requires an aggravating factor during in conjunction with a killing. One of those factors is burglary, and Kennedy's lawyers pointed to the detective's early theory that the burglary seemed to be "staged." Mobile police Detective Mac R. "Rusty" Hardeman testified that he changed his mind after learning more facts, including the presence of semen.

To confront allegations of a sexual assault, the defense pointed to a medical examiner's testimony that the victim did not have vaginal tearing or bruising. The attorneys argued that there was no evidence of sexual assault, and suggested that the 69-year-old victim had had sex with someone else.

White had a successful real estate career before becoming active in politics. She volunteered on the gubernatorial campaign of Bob Riley and later joined his administration at the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs.

According to testimony at the trial, she was visiting her daughter's house nearby on June 27, 2010, and went home that evening with plans to see her grandson the next day. When she did not show up, however, her daughter asked her son to ride his bicycle to his grandmother's home.

The grandson saw that a kitchen window had been smashed and then called his mother. A police officer summoned to the house found the lifeless body in the kitchen. Investigators determined that the attack had happened just before or after midnight.

News of the slaying roiled resident of Midtown who already were on edge from the then-unsolved home invasion shooting death of Christopher Keyser Miree, a young engineer originally from Birmingham.

(source: al.com)

MISSISSIPPI:

Manning's 2nd death penalty case pending

Willie Jerome Manning, who won a stay of execution in one capital case, waits to hear if an Oktibbeha County judge agrees he was denied a fair trial in 1996 when he was sentenced to death for the slayings of 2 women.

The judge has promised a decision by the end of June. The Mississippi Supreme Court will have the final say on whether the death sentence will stand.

On May 7, Manning was within hours of being executed for the fatal shootings of two Mississippi State University students when the state Supreme Court ordered a reprieve. The Supreme Court has not said why it issued the stay. Manning had argued DNA testing would prove him innocent.

The execution overshadowed the pending case in Oktibbeha County.

Manning was convicted in 1996 in the deaths of Emmoline Jimmerson, 90, and her daughter Alberta Jordan, 60, in Starkville. The women were beaten and their throats slashed during a robbery attempt in 1993 at their apartment. The Supreme Court upheld his 2 death sentences in 2000.

In 2004, the Mississippi court said Manning could pursue a post-conviction argument on whether prosecutors withheld certain evidence, whether prosecutors presented false evidence and whether Manning was denied effective assistance of counsel both at trial and on appeal.

Resolution of the post-conviction proceeding would not place Manning any closer to execution. He would have the right of appeal through the federal system should Mississippi courts rule against him.

The bodies of the women were found in their apartment on Jan. 18, 1993. Their deaths came only a few weeks after the bodies of Mississippi State students Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller were discovered in rural Oktibbeha County on Dec. 11, 1992.

By the time Manning was brought to trial in the women's deaths, he already had been convicted in the students' slayings and sentenced to death.

In his 1996 trial in the women's deaths, Kevin Lucious, a friend, testified he saw Manning at Brooksville Gardens apartments around 6:30 p.m. on the day of the killings. After their conversation, Lucious testified he returned to his apartment and saw Manning go to the women's apartment.

Lucious testified he watched Manning knock on the door, and when one of the women opened the door, he pushed the door open, went in and closed the door behind him. Other witnesses also testified they saw Manning at the apartments, but he denied he had been there.

The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld Manning's conviction and death sentences in 2000.

In 2004, the Supreme Court gave Manning limited approval to try to convince a judge he deserved a new trial. In his request to the Supreme Court to pursue a post-conviction claim, Manning cited 16 issues. The justices allowed 3 - whether prosecutors withheld certain evidence, whether prosecutors presented false evidence and whether Manning was denied effective assistance of counsel at trial and on appeal.

Oktibbeha County Circuit Judge Lee Howard conducted hearings on the post-conviction petition in January and April 2011.

In February 2013, the Supreme Court asked Howard why no ruling had been issued. In his response, the judge said his decision had been delayed because lawyers on both sides asked for more time to file briefs, which he had to review while continuing his own court schedule.

Howard asked the Supreme Court to give him until June 28 to file his ruling on Manning's post-conviction petition.

(source: Associated Press)

ARKANSAS:

Ark. correction agency loses drug company account----West-Ward Pharmaceuticals notified the Arkansas Department of Correction on Wednesday that the company was closing its account, prisons spokeswoman Shea Wilson told The Associated Press.

Weeks after Arkansas acknowledged buying an anti-seizure drug to use in executions, the state correction department said Wednesday it's losing its account with the pharmaceutical company that supplied the chemical.

West-Ward Pharmaceuticals notified the Arkansas Department of Correction on Wednesday that the company was closing its account, prisons spokeswoman Shea Wilson told The Associated Press.

Wilson said she didn't know why the drug company was closing the prison system's account, but West-Ward's London-based parent company, Hikma Pharmaceuticals, said Wednesday that it objects to its products' use in capital punishment.

Hikma also said it has halted direct sales of injectable phenobarbital to U.S. corrections departments after Arkansas' actions last month. However, Hikma spokesman Matthew Cole would not discuss specifics about Arkansas' account.

"More broadly, we're working to try to ensure that there's no unintended use of our product for capital punishment purposes," Cole said.

The AP first reported last month that Arkansas planned to use phenobarbital in executions, even though the barbiturate has never been used in U.S. lethal injections.

Arkansas and many of the more than 30 other death penalty states once used a virtually identical 3-drug process: The barbiturate sodium thiopental was administered to put an inmate to sleep, and 2 other drugs were administered to stop breathing and the heart.

As sodium thiopental supplies dried up, however, Arkansas and several other states initially turned their attention overseas, obtaining the drug from a different British supplier. But, in 2011, they lost their supplies to federal agents amid legal questions about how they got the drug.

So, as drugmakers have continued to object to their products' use in lethal injections, states have been looking for alternatives.

Arkansas this year said it was turning to phenobarbital, the drug it bought from West-Ward Pharmaceuticals.

However, lawyers for 9 death row inmates are challenging the use of the drug, contending that it could be inhumane.

Arkansas hasn't put a prisoner to death since 2005, and for now, the state doesn't have any pending executions.

That's expected to change, though, as Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel asked Gov. Mike Beebe to schedule execution dates for seven of the state's 37 death row inmates.

(source: Stuttgart Daily Leader)

KENTUCKY:

Man charged with murder faces death penalty; Grand jury also indicts Reed for violating domestic violence order from previous assault case

A Franklin County grand jury indicted 41-year-old Brian Reed Wednesday for murder in the beating death of Gypsy Reyes.

Reed is also charged with violating a Kentucky domestic violence order from an assault case involving Reyes in 2010, which means he faces the death penalty if convicted, Commonwealth's Attorney Larry Cleveland said.

Frankfort police found Reyes dead Friday morning in her apartment on Ewing Court from blunt force trauma to her head and face.

Photos of Reyes show her face swollen and bruised. She also sustained bruises on her back and neck.

Police seized items from Reed that appeared to have blood spots on them, including his jeans and shoes.

A friend told police Reed was at the apartment Thursday night and took Reyes to the back of the residence.

The friend heard Reyes scream and a noise that sounded like Reed assaulted her. Reed then kicked everyone out of the apartment.

Reed was intoxicated Thursday night, according to the arrest citation.

When the friend returned Friday morning, Reed answered the door, and the friend saw Reyes' body covered with a blanket.

Reed was previously found guilty of 4th-degree assault (domestic violence) for beating and choking Reyes in September 2010.

On Oct. 6, 2010, an order of protection was entered, which allowed nonviolent contact but prohibited Reed from committing further acts of abuse or threats of abuse and disposing of or damaging any property of Reyes.

That order was set to be in effect until Oct. 6, 2013.

Reed also has 3 other 4th-degree assault (domestic violence) guilty verdicts on his record dating back to 1996, and 2 other charges that were dismissed.

Reed is currently lodged in Franklin County Regional Jail on a $500,000 bond.

(source: The State Journal)

COLORADO:

Judge to hear insanity defense challenge in Colorado theater shooting case

The judge who will hear the capital murder case against accused Colorado theater gunman James Holmes has agreed to hear arguments on the constitutionality of Colorado's insanity defense law in death penalty cases.

Arapahoe County District Judge Carlos Samour Jr. ruled on Thursday that he will consider a defense motion that argues the law is unconstitutional because it bars Holmes from calling his own mental-health experts at sentencing if he refuses to cooperate with court-appointed psychiatrists.

Holmes, 25, faces multiple counts of first-degree murder and attempted murder for allegedly opening fire inside a suburban Denver cinema during a midnight screening of the Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises" last July.

The rampage killed 12 moviegoers and wounded 58 others, and another 12 people were hurt as they fled the theater.

Prosecutors announced last month that they would seek the death penalty for the California native if he was convicted, and defense attorneys are moving to change Holmes' standard not guilty plea to not guilty by reason of insanity.

Judge Samour ordered lawyers from both sides to present oral arguments on the issue at a hearing next week.

Earlier this year, public defenders had asked then-presiding Judge William Sylvester to declare the state's insanity defense law unconstitutional because it forces a defendant to cooperate with court-appointed psychiatrists.

They argued that compelling Holmes to possibly divulge information that could be used against him at trial and in sentencing violated his right against self-incrimination, especially in a death-penalty case.

Prosecutors countered that state and federal courts have upheld the legality of court-ordered mental health examinations for defendants who raise insanity defenses.

"It is well-established law in Colorado that submitting to court-ordered evaluation does not violate a defendant's Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination," they wrote in a court filing.

Sylvester declined to rule on the matter at the time because the insanity defense had not been raised, and prosecutors had not yet indicated if they would pursue capital punishment.

Samour, who was assigned the case last month, ruled on Monday that there was sufficient cause to allow Holmes to change his plea. The judge said he would not be able to advise Holmes of the consequences of an insanity plea until all the legal challenges were resolved.

Former Denver prosecutor and legal analyst Craig Silverman said the judge recognized the legal issues the defense raised.

"It is unusual that the law says you can't raise any mitigating factors in a death-penalty sentencing," he said. "It's not obvious that such a sanction is constitutional."

The Colorado theater attack ranks as one of the deadliest U.S. shootings. Along with the December 2012 shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which killed 20 children and 6 adults, it helped reignite a national debate on gun control.

(source: Imperial Valley Press)

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The fate of Aurora theater shooter James Holmes may hinge on a death row inmate

The fate of one Colorado mass murderer has become entwined with that of another as Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper struggles with whether to save the life of a notorious death row inmate.

Mr. Hickenlooper is considering a petition to grant clemency for 38-year-old Nathan Dunlap, convicted by a jury in 1996 of killing 4 employees at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Aurora. The execution, which would be the 1st in Colorado since 1997, has been set for the week of Aug.18.

Complicating the process is that any decision the governor makes could have a ripple effect on the case of James Eagan Holmes, 25, the suspect in the highly publicized Aurora theater shooting. The July 20 massacre left 12 dead and 58 injured.

Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler has announced that he will seek the death penalty for Mr. Holmes. If Dunlap's sentence is commuted to life in prison, however, critics say it would inevitably boost Mr. Holmes' chances of avoiding execution.

"The natural question that would flow to John Hickenlooper if he commutes the sentence of Nathan Dunlap is, 'Why aren't you doing that for everyone on death row or everyone facing the death penalty?'" said former Denver deputy district attorney Craig Silverman.

Leading the campaign against clemency is Mr. Brauchler, who was still in law school at the time of the Chuck E. Cheese shooting but was elected in November as district attorney for the 18th Judicial District. Both the Dunlap and Holmes cases are being handled by that office.

Mr. Brauchler declined to discuss the ongoing Holmes prosecution, but said that a clemency grant would have consequences that extend far beyond the Dunlap case. There are currently 2 inmates other than Dunlap on the state's death row.

"It would be precedential. I don't remember any governor overturning a death-penalty conviction in Colorado," said Mr. Brauchler. "I think the anti-death penalty people know this, and that's why they're pushing so hard for clemency."

Indeed, Mr. Hickenlooper is under intense pressure to spare Dunlap’s life from capital-punishment foes as well as members of his own party. His chief of staff, Roxane White, posted messages on Twitter earlier this month expressing her opposition to the Dunlap execution.

Meanwhile, Mr. Hickenlooper infuriated fellow Democrats in March when he snuffed a bill that would have banned capital punishment in Colorado. Granting clemency to Dunlap would help mend fences with his critics on the left, say analysts.

"I think he wants in the worst possible way to grant clemency to Dunlap," said former Colorado Republican Party chairman Dick Wadhams. "I don't think the chief of staff goes out there on her own with a view that's inconsistent with the governor's viewpoint. That's just not done."

In an interview last week with radio host Mike Rosen, the governor said he had spent the last several months meeting with dozens of stakeholders, including prosecutors, defense attorneys and family members of those killed.

"We've been working on this for a year, and working very focused for last 41/2 months, so I've met now with dozens and dozens and dozens, 60 to 70 family members of victims, not just of this tragedy but other capital punishment cases," Mr. Hickenlooper said on Mr. Rosen’s KOA-AM show.

When will he decide? "I'm not setting a timeline for myself, but there is an urgency to get this done in the coming weeks," he said.

In their May 6 clemency petition, Dunlap's attorneys attest that their client suffers from bipolar disorder, which was undiagnosed at the time of the 1996 trial, and that he was in the throes of a manic episode at the time of the shooting.

(source: Washington Times)

ARIZONA:

Arias prosecutor makes case for death penalty with dramatic statements from family of victim

Steven Alexander stood before the jury, looked up at a family picture and grimaced and cried as he ticked off the list of problems that have befallen him in the 5 years since his brother was murdered: ulcers, depression, a separation from his wife, nightmares.

The dreams consist of someone coming at him with a knife then going after his wife and daughter. Other times, he has nightmares about his brother, "curled up in a shower, thrown in there, left to rot for days, all alone." He feels like a child, unable to sleep alone in the dark.

"I don't want these nightmares anymore. I don't want to see my brother's murderer anymore," he said.

The gut-wrenching comments came as jurors began considering whether Jodi Arias should get a life sentence or be executed for the 2008 stabbing death of Travis Alexander. Jurors became visibly shaken as Steven Alexander and his sister spoke on deeply emotional levels in arguing for the death penalty. Arias sobbed throughout the hearing, with tears streaming down her face and landing on her black shirt.

Alexander's 2 siblings were the only witnesses for the prosecution. Trial will resume Monday with statements from an ex-boyfriend of Arias and the defendant herself, among others.

The same jury listening to the statements convicted Arias of 1st-degree murder last week after about 15 hours of deliberations.

In opening statements Thursday, prosecutor Juan Martinez said there are no factors that should cause the jury to even consider a sentence other than death. The judge had instructed jurors that they could take into account certain things that might help them make a decision, such as Arias' lack of a prior criminal record and assertions that she was a good friend, had an abusive childhood and is a talented artist.

Martinez said none of that matters in regard to the brutal killing.

"The only appropriate sentence ... is death."

Defense attorney Kirk Nurmi explained to jurors that their decision ultimately would be the final one, telling them that they each had to make their own "moral assessment on what verdict is correct."

"Your verdict, ladies and gentleman, will determine whether or not Jodi Arias spends the rest of her life in prison or if she is sentenced to be executed," Nurmi said.

He then told the panel they would later hear directly from Arias.

"When you understand who Ms. Arias is, you will understand that life is the appropriate sentence," Nurmi said.

Alexander's sister Samantha later described for the panel how their grandmother, who raised the victim, saw her health fail after the killing and died around the time of jury selection.

"Travis was our strength, our beacon of hope, our motivation," she said through tears. "Our lives will never be the same. ... We would give anything to have him back."

Steven Alexander recalled seeing his brother for the last time over the Christmas holiday in 2007.

"Now when I want to talk to or see my brother, I have to go to a ... 6-foot-deep hole in the ground," he said.

The trial was inexplicably delayed Thursday afternoon after the judge and attorneys met privately. It is set to resume Monday morning when other witnesses will include Arias' friends and an ex-boyfriend who lived with her for several years in California.

Earlier this week, Arias' attorneys asked to be allowed to step down from the case, but a judge denied the request.

Details about the motion were sealed, but legal experts said Arias complicated efforts for her defense when she gave an interview to Fox affiliate KSAZ minutes after her conviction, saying she preferred death over life in prison.

The interview prompted the judge to issue an order that the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office allow no more interviews with Arias. Less than a week later, Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Thursday gave reporters a tour of Arias' cinderblock jail cell. The messy cell had a mattress on a lower bunk and the upper bunk cluttered with files and papers.

During a closed-door meeting with the judge Tuesday, Nurmi and Jennifer Willmott sought permission to withdraw from the case, according to court minutes released Thursday. Legal experts say the decision was not a surprising one because the attorneys have a conflict of interest with their own efforts to try and save her life while Arias has said she'd rather die.

"It would be something I would do in my major felony cases if I found that a client was actually working against me and not working with her defense," Phoenix criminal defense lawyer Julio Laboy said.

Arias cannot choose the death penalty. It's up to the jury to determine a sentence. Her attorneys' motion to withdraw will have no impact on the penalty phase of the trial given jurors are not privy to the filing, and not even media have the details due to a court order sealing all such proceedings.

Arias, 32, acknowledged killing Alexander at his suburban Phoenix home after a day of sex on June 4, 2008. She initially denied any involvement and later blamed the attack on masked intruders. 2 years after her arrest, Arias said she killed Alexander in self-defense.

The victim suffered nearly 30 knife wounds, had his throat slit from ear to ear and was shot in the forehead. Prosecutors say the attack was fueled by jealous rage after Alexander wanted to end his affair with Arias and prepared to take a trip to Mexico with another woman.

(source: Fox News)

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Arias jurors hear from victim's family----Travis Alexander's brother, Steven Alexander, spoke out in court and describes having violent nightmares ever since his brother was brutally murdered.

For 4 1/2 months the trial has been about Jodi Arias and Travis Alexander, 2 attractive young people whose obsessive sexual relationship exploded into murder. One of the lovers is dead, the other may soon be sent to death row.

But on Thursday in Maricopa County Superior Court, it was about the people left behind.

2 of Alexander's 7 siblings addressed the jury to talk about the big brother they looked up to. They spoke through tears as they described their tragic childhoods, the deaths of parents who had abused them, their struggles to move ahead in life, and the wounds left by their brother's death.

Tears flowed in the courtroom - not just from the victims, but from spectators and even from Arias herself.

Arias, 32, has already been found guilty of 1st-degree murder for the brutal 2008 slaying of Alexander, 30.

On Wednesday, the jury found she had committed the murder in an especially cruel manner, an "aggravating factor" that, under Arizona law, makes Arias eligible for the death penalty.

On Thursday, the so-called penalty phase of the trial began. In it, the jury must decide if Arias is sentenced to death or to life in prison by weighing that aggravating factor against any mitigating evidence presented by the defense.

Arias' lead attorney, Kirk Nurmi, listed the mitigating factors: Arias was only 27 at the time of the murder. She had no prior criminal record. She had no support from her family. She was a good friend (but it was not specified to whom). She suffered abuse as a child and as an adult. She had tried to improve herself. And she is a talented artist.

"This isn't about an excuse or justification," Nurmi said. "Fairness and mercy come into play."

But prosecutor Juan Martinez disputed those mitigating factors point by point, asking what they had to do with the murder. He suggested that even if Arias had never been charged with a crime, she had committed criminal acts, he said, by lying in court during her testimony.

Victim-impact statements are standard elements of sentencing.

The victims are not allowed to directly ask the jury to impose a life or death sentence. But their feelings can go a long way toward convincing a jury one way or the other, and may serve as a counter to any evidence the defense attorneys present to convince the jury to spare Arias' life.

Thursday's statements were emotional.

"I thought my brother couldn't be knocked down or cut down," said Alexander's younger brother, Steven. "He was unbreakable."

His voice cracked as he described the day he heard the news. He said he still suffers from nightmares, not only about seeing Travis' body curled into the shower of his Mesa home, but also about attackers with knives chasing him and his ex-wife and child.

And he poignantly read the blog entry Travis had posted as an "affirmation" for 2008. "This year will be the best year of my life," Travis had written. "This year will eclipse all others."

Alexander's sister Samantha, a police officer in California, said the murder was the worst crime scene she had seen in her career.

She too described the shock of losing him.

"Travis was our strength, our constant beacon of hope, our motivation. His presence has been ripped from our lives," she said. "Our lives will never be the same. We're never getting him back."

After their testimony and Thursday's lunch break, the trial ground to a halt. The jury was sent out of the courtroom while the attorneys and the judge went into chambers, possibly to argue over speakers the defense planned to call on Arias' behalf. Shortly after 3 p.m., Judge Sherry Stephens called the jury back to the courtroom only to dismiss them until Monday.

The trial is nearly over. All that remains is for the defense to present its mitigation witnesses, for Martinez to present his rebuttal, and for Arias to address the jury directly.

Then it will be up to the jury to decide if she should live or die.

(source: USA Today)

IDAHO:

E. Idaho prosecutor to seek death penalty

An eastern Idaho man charged with 1st-degree murder in the death of a 21-year-old woman could face the death penalty.

The Post Register reports (http://bit.ly/12dCm26) Thursday that Bonneville County Prosecutor Bruce Pickett filed the notice of intent last week to seek the death penalty against 22-year-old Adan Arroyo of Blackfoot.

Arroyo was charged earlier this year with 1st-degree murder and a weapons enhancement. Prosecutors said he shot 21-year-old Kristy M. Aschliman 4 times on Jan. 19 and left her for dead on the side of the road near Ammon. Arroyo pleaded not guilty in March.

Pickett said the case met 3 aggravating circumstances to make the death penalty a possibility.

"By the murder, or circumstances surrounding its commission, the defendant exhibited utter disregard for human life," Picket wrote.

"The murder was committed in perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, kidnapping and the defendant killed, intended a killing, or acted with reckless indifference to human life," Pickett cited as a second reason for the death penalty.

"The defendant, by his conduct ... before, during or after the commission of the murder has exhibited a propensity to commit murder which will probably constitute a continuing threat to society," Pickett wrote as the third reason for seeking the death penalty.

At a probable cause hearing in March, witnesses testified that Arroyo chased Aschliman while shooting at her. Clay White testified Aschliman fell to her knees and Arroyo came up to her and shot her in the head.

White also testified that earlier that day, Arroyo and Aschliman had come to pick him up. After going to Aschliman's home, White said he overheard Arroyo calling Aschliman a "rat."

White said Arroyo told White and Aschliman that they were going for a drive to talk to someone. During the drive, White said, Arroyo pulled out a gun and ordered White to drive instead of Aschliman.

While White was driving, Aschliman jumped out of the moving car. White said Arroyo told him to turn around, but as he did, the car slid into a ditch. White said Arroyo started chasing Aschliman on foot and shooting.

Other witnesses who live along the road also identified Arroyo as the man they saw running away from Aschliman's body. Paramedics who arrived at the scene determined she was dead. Arroyo was later found at a residence and taken into custody.

(source: Associated Press)

CALIFORNIA:

Man convicted of 1983 murder through DNA evidence

Orange County prosecutors say a man who is already serving time for a 1985 murder has been convicted of a 1983 killing through DNA evidence.

Spokeswoman Farrah Emami says Richard Raymond Ramirez was convicted Wednesday of raping and murdering 22-year-old Kim Gonzalez in an alley behind a Garden Grove bar.

Authorities say Ramirez, now 53, met her at the bar that night and followed her to the parking lot when she left. There, he raped Gonzalez and stabbed her 19 times. Her body was found the next morning.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Ramirez was sentenced to death for his prior conviction, but the penalty was overturned.

He is not the same Richard Ramirez known as "The Night Stalker," who killed more than a dozen people in the 1980s.

(source: Associated Press)

WASHINGTON:

Serial killer Robert Yates Jr. seeks federal appeal of death sentence

Condemned serial killer Robert Lee Yates Jr., awaiting execution for the murders of 2 women in Pierce County in the late 1990s, is seeking an appeal of his death sentence in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

Yates, 60, a father of 5 and former Air National Guard helicopter pilot, has already had his death sentence upheld by the Washington State Supreme Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to reconsider that decision. Yates is now attempting to enter the federal district court system by seeking a petition for habeas corpus.

Even though Yates does not currently have an execution date, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez ordered a stay until September, pending the filing of the formal petition. Martinez said that Yates has raised at least 1 "nonfrivolous ground for relief." He also appointed 2 attorneys to represent him on appeal.

Yates, who has confessed and pleaded guilty to 13 other murders in Spokane, Walla Walla and Skagit counties, alleges in a petition filed Wednesday that he was denied effective counsel during his 2002 trial in Pierce County. He alleges his attorneys failed to adequately investigate and present to the jury evidence of mental illness or present "evidence of Yates's many positive relationships, his acts of caring and kindness, and his love he feels for his family and they feel for him."

"Robert Yates has repeatedly killed," the motion states. "Understanding and explaining why...is the most basic duty of competent capital counsel. "Trial counsel failed to meet that obligation in this case," the motion says.

The motion states that Yates is mentally ill and that, "through no fault of his own, Mr. Yates suffers from a severe paraphilic disorder" that predisposed him to commit sex-killings.

"I don't think Mr. Yates helps his cause by relying on the fact that he's a necrophiliac," said Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist.

Yates killed at least 15 people, mostly prostitutes, between 1996 and 1998. He received a plea deal and 408 years in prison in 2000 for confessing to 13 of the murders.

Prosecutors in Pierce County, where 2 of the women were killed, sought and obtained a death penalty in 2002 for the deaths of Melinda Mercer, 24, in 1997 and Connie LaFontaine Ellis, 35, in 1998.

(source: Seattle Times)

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Vengeance is not virtuous

Washington just sentenced a man to death. Byron Scherf was already serving life in prison when he strangled a guard to death with an electrical cord in 2011. Hurting for options on how to punish a man who was already serving a life sentence, the jury voted to execute him.

Scherf is a man beyond redemption, a repeat offender who would kill again if extreme measures are not taken. However, no matter how extreme the crime, capital punishment should never be an option. The reason is simple - it brings about no greater good.

What is the virtue of capital punishment? What could redeem the act of taking someone's life? A plethora of answers may be posed to these questions, but the truth is killing is unjustifiable, whether executed by a criminal or the state.

One argument is monetary. To house someone for a life term is expensive and killing the criminal would alleviate the financial burden. After all, why should taxpayers suffer from the crimes of the most depraved? Actually, life imprisonment is much cheaper than capital punishment - $540,000 cheaper at the trial level, $100,000 cheaper in appeals court and $137,000 cheaper when the defendant petitions to be allowed to leave jail while awaiting trial, according to the Washington State Bar Association. The appeals process during an inmate's stay on death row is lengthy and expensive. In light of the expensive trial and appeal process, some suggest the system ought to be expedited, but this is highly irresponsible. By creating an express lane to execution, the state would be increasing the likelihood of executing an innocent person - a crime so heinous it must be avoided at all cost. Clearly, the financial burden argument is flawed.

Looking beyond money, some argue the death penalty serves as punishment for those who commit severe crimes. However, the eye-for-an-eye mentality is reduced to absurdity when played out to its fullest extent. Take torture for example. When a criminal is guilty of torturing someone to death, the state is not permitted to torture the perpetrator in response. This is because torture is inhumane. We can't torture someone to death even if the punishment is in equal measure to the crime. The same can be said of the death penalty. It is wrong to kill, just as it is wrong to torture. That's why it's illegal. Killing someone in response to murder is as justifiable as torturing someone in response to torture. Both are wrong.

Punishment aside, some folks believe institutionalized killing is necessary to protect our society. This argument also falls short. Life in prison removes criminals from our sphere and, when properly carried out, eliminates the danger they pose to society. In Scherf's case, his supervision while serving a life sentence was not correctly administered, as was illustrated when three prison guards were fired following the incident - one for failing to guard his assigned area and another for falsely reporting he had cleared the area. If these oversights hadn't occurred, innocents would have remained safe from Scherf. Since society can be kept safe from these criminals without killing them, capital punishment becomes nothing more than an immoral whim.

So why give in to the whim to murder? If not to exact equal punishment and not to keep us safe, the remaining option is the attempt to bring about some sort of justice and consolation for the family. What can we do for the family to ease their pain? Sadly, the answer is nothing. The death of a family member is irrevocable and their pain will be unrelieved and unending. There is no way to bring justice to the horrible situation - nothing could ever justify such horrendous violence. All that capital punishment does is add a tally to the death toll and bloody our hands as well.

There is no way to justify the killing of an inmate, no matter how dreadful their crime. The only way to bring about something positive from the horrific acts that lead people to prison is to learn from them and take positive action against those crimes in the future. Increasing funding to state mental health services, anger management or crime prevention programs will do infinitely more good than murdering those who have wronged society.

Capital punishment will not help us sleep better at night. All we can do is choose not to further violence ourselves and instead fight for a more just society. This can only happen if our society, as a whole, forsakes the anger and vengeance that leads us to wrong those who have wronged us. Rather than advocating institutionalized murder, claim revenge on those life-sentence monsters by doing the thing they couldn't - live your life free and full of love.

(source: Opinions of the Editorial Board of the Western Front; The editorial board is comprised of Opinion Editor Nathan Dalla Santa, Editor-in-Chief James Kozanitis and Managing Editor Michael Lydon)

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Attorney: Money spent on Byron Scherf better spent on prison security

The state of Washington will spend millions of dollars carrying out Byron Scherf's death sentence. But, one attorney argues we could spend those millions improving the prison system.

"This is a crime that shouldn't have happened and should have been prevented," Jeffery Ellis told Seattle's Morning News. Ellis is the Director of Oregon Capital Resource Center and represents 2 convicts currently sitting on Washington's death row.

"Are we going to spend a million-plus dollars over the next decade increasing prison security, or are we going to spend a million-plus dollars attempting to execute Byron Scherf?" he asked.

Ellis doesn't believe that Scherf will ever see his execution day. He said by the time Scherf and his attorneys are done with all of the appeals his case will endure, often taking over 10 years, the death penalty will have been abolished in Washington, or abolished in the entirety of the United States.

Scherf was already spending a lifetime behind bars for rape and murder when he attacked and killed Monroe Correctional Facility officer Jayme Biendl.

"We need to keep prison safe - the question is - how do we do that?" asked Ellis. "Are we keeping prisons safer by spending millions of dollars to kill Mr. Scherf? Or do we make prisons safer by increasing staffing, by increasing security?"

While it may sound like Ellis represents death row inmates because he thinks the death penalty is fiscally irresponsible, it's certainly not the only reason. "I don't believe in the death penalty [...] I think it discriminates, " he said. "I think it's bad public policy."

Under Washington state law, Scherf will

(source: mynorthwest.com)

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Spokane serial killer appealing death sentence

Serial killer Robert Yates, whose death sentence has been upheld by the state Supreme Court, is seeking an appeal through the federal court system.

The Seattle Times reports he filed a petition Wednesday in Seattle that says his lawyers failed to present evidence of mental illness during his 2002 trial in Pierce County. He was convicted of killing 2 women in 1997 and 1998 and got the death penalty.

The 60-year-old former Air National Guard pilot from Spokane pleaded guilty in 2000 to 13 other murders in Spokane, Skagit and Walla Walla counties. He was given a sentence of more than 400 years in prison in a plea deal.

(source: Associated Press)

USA (NEW YORK):

David Renz's public defender wants death penalty lawyer to assist federal court defense

As prosecutors consider a federal death penalty charge against David Renz, the public defender's office this week asked the court to appoint a lawyer with experience in capital punishment cases.

The request for William T. Easton to serve as Renz's co-counsel came after prosecutors announced they might seek a carjacking charge against Renz in the slaying of Liverpool school librarian Lori Bresnahan. Since someone died as a result of the carjacking, Renz could face the death penalty under federal law.

Easton, of Rochester, who oversaw capital representation across Western New York in the state's Capital Defender Office until the mid-2000s, is by far the most qualified in the region to represent Renz, Federal Public Defender Lisa Peebles wrote. Renz would continue to be represented by Assistant Federal Defender Randi Bianco, as well.

Renz, 29, of Cicero, has been charged in state court with murder in Bresnahan's death, and with raping a 10-year-old girl after an attack in the parking lot of Great Northern Mall in Clay. He would need to be re-indicted in federal court on the carjacking charge to face the death penalty.

In the request, Peebles argued that a capital crimes lawyer should be assigned now as the defense tries to convince the government against seeking the death penalty. Once the decision is made to seek the death penalty, it is hard to reverse, she noted.

A second lawyer would also be able to seek additional funding from the court for defense experts and other expenses, covering more than the public defender's office would be able afford otherwise, Peebles wrote.

(source: The Post-Standard)

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Turning Away From Celebrating Death

LB 543, Nebraska's death penalty repeal bill, was successfully filibustered this week by a minority of the state's senators. During the course of 2 days of debate and occasional voting, it became clear that the votes to pass the bill might have been there, but the 2/3 majority needed to break a filibuster was not.

Nebraska's death penalty, like capital punishment elsewhere, suffers from arbitrariness, unfairness, and general uselessness, facts that are dawning on a lot of legislators in a lot of states. The defense of the death penalty in the Nebraska debate was not passionate, and relied on the citing of discredited deterrence studies and a vague sense the executions somehow equal justice.

Nebraska's embarrassing attempts to acquire lethal injection drugs may have been partially responsible for the sheepishness with which the pro-death penalty arguments seemed to be infused. But more likely it's just that the days of cheering for executions and celebrating the death penalty are over.

An op-ed from Nebraska's state Senator Colby Coash that appeared the day the debate began illustrates this transformation. Coash recounts how as a college freshman in 1994 he attended, and joined in, the celebration at Nebraska's death house of the midnight execution of a man named Willie Otey, a celebration he likens to a New Years' Eve party.

"That night, I partied, I chanted, chugged beer and at midnight, I celebrated someone's death."

That was almost 20 years ago, and this week Senator Coash was one of the leaders in convincing a majority of his fellow legislators to support abolition of Nebraska's death penalty. He writes:

"I made a decision during my shame that I would no longer be a part of someone's death."

This same decision, in one form or another, is being made by Americans all across this country. It has led to 6 state abolitions in 6 years, and to a dramatic drop in death sentences, including in places like Texas. Less than 60% of the public now finds the death penalty morally acceptable, and less than 1/2 support it when alternative punishments are suggested.

In Nebraska, this week's filibuster may have just delayed the inevitable. Perhaps we are losing our interest in endorsing death, and this is leading to the slow but sure demise of capital punishment.

(source: Brian Evans, blog, Amnesty International USA)

US MILITARY:

U.S. soldier gets life without parole in Iraq killings

An Army sergeant was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without parole for the 2009 killings of 5 fellow service members at a combat stress clinic in Iraq.

A military judge, Army Col. David Conn, found Sgt. John Russell guilty of premeditated murder on Monday and imposed the sentence Thursday morning. The only other possible penalty for Russell would have been life in prison with the possibility of release.

Russell will be transferred within the next several days to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, Army spokesman Lt. Col. Gary Dangerfield said late Thursday.

The 14-year veteran had previously pleaded guilty to unpremeditated murder in exchange for prosecutors taking the death penalty off the table. Under the agreement, prosecutors were allowed to try to prove to an Army judge at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state that the killings were premeditated. A streamlined court martial ended Saturday.

The shooting was one of the worst instances of soldier-on-soldier violence in the Iraq war and raised questions about the mental health problems for soldiers caused by repeated tours of duty.

Russell's lawyers argued that he was deluded by depression and despair at the time. An Army mental health board found that Russell suffered from severe depression with psychotic features and post-combat stress.

Russell had long sought help with sleep troubles and was stammering and crying for help in the days before the shooting. His commanders were so alarmed that they disarmed him and sent him for repeated visits to mental health clinics, said attorney James Culp.

However, prosecutors argued that Russell was trying to paint himself as mentally ill in an attempt to win early retirement - just as he was facing a sexual harassment complaint that could derail his career and his benefits.

The day before the killings, psychiatrist Michael Jones told him that a mental disability retirement would require "some kind of suicidal psychotic crisis," Maj. Daniel Mazzone said during closing arguments, according to the Los Angeles Times (http://is.gd/s087lg ).

But when Russell saw Jones again the next day, the psychiatrist said he had no intention of giving him "a golden ticket" out of the Army.

When Russell returned about an hour later, prosecutors say, he was looking for Jones, but wound up killing 2 patients, a bystander and 2 other mental health workers. Jones escaped injury by jumping out a window.

(source: Associated Press)

NIGERIA:

Abductors of Nigerian Supreme Court Justice's wife, daughter demand 300m naira ransom

The kidnappers of the wife, daughter and driver of Nigerian Supreme Court Justice Bode Rhodes-Vivour has demanded a ransom of 300 million naira (US$1.88 million) for their release, the local media reported Thursday.

The victims were kidnapped last Friday while travelling to Benin, capital of Edo state in southern Nigeria, for the wedding of the Justice's daughter.

In the meantime, the police and vigilance groups have been searching for the abducted people around the area where they were taken from their vehicle.

Kidnapping for ransom is rampant in southern Nigeria, despite the promulgation of tough laws, including the death penalty, by several states.

(source: AfriqueJet)

CANADA:

Return of death penalty is illogical

The letter writer advocating Canada's return to the death penalty must have had difficulty in reconciling the suggested consequences for the perpetrators in the senseless killing of Tim Bosma and, then, in dismissing the resulting "small percentage" of innocent persons who would have their lives taken when they had "taken" no lives themselves.

Coupled to the illogic of her suggestion is her statement that society's paying to incarcerate somebody constitutes "support" for them. Some support.

Al Wilkinson, Burlington

(source: Letter to the Editor, The Hamilton Spectator)

INDONESIA----executions

Indonesia Executes 3 Murderers

Indonesia executed 3 convicted murderers on Friday, an official said, the 2nd time that the country has done so since 2008 in a move that drew condemnation from rights groups.

Suryadi Swabhuana, Jurit, and Ibrahim, all Indonesians, were put to death by firing squad in Nusakambangan prison, on an island off the coast of the main island of Java.

"We executed the 3 men early Friday," said Mahfud Mannan, the deputy attorney general for criminal cases. "They were convicted in 2 separate cases of premeditated murder."

Swabhuana, 46, was convicted of murder and theft in 1991, according to government records.

Jurit and Ibrahim, who both go by 1 name like many Indonesians, were convicted of murder in a 2nd case. Further details were not available.

Indonesia resumed executions in March, when it put a Malawian drug trafficker to death. Prior to that, in 2008 it executed 3 men who played key roles in the 2002 Bali bombings.

Amnesty International slammed the latest executions as a "major regressive step."

"The executions set Indonesia against global trends towards abolition of the death penalty," said Josef Benedict, an Indonesia campaigner at Amnesty.

"Amnesty International calls on Indonesia to make [these] executions the last."

Andreas Harsono, from Human Rights Watch, added that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono "should immediately act to stop executions and practisce what he preaches - that Indonesia is a democracy that respects rights."

Mannan said that Indonesia plans to execute 6 more people this year to meet a target of 10. He declined to give further details.

A number of foreign nationals are jailed on the resort island of Bali, mainly on drugs offences, and several are on death row.

This includes British grandmother Lindsay Sandiford who was sentenced to death in January for cocaine smuggling and 2 men from the "Bali 9" group of Australians convicted of attempting to smuggle heroin.

Executions in Indonesia are usually carried out by firing squad in the middle of the night in isolated locations.

(source: Agence France-Presse)

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Indonesia steps up killing of death row prisoners

For almost 5 years Indonesia did not execute a prisoner on death row. But since a Malawian drug smuggler broke that drought on March 15, the floodgates have opened. In the early hours of Friday, 3 people - all Indonesians and all murderers - were removed from their cells and shot.

The news will cause further dismay to Australian drug smugglers Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan, who are on death row in Kerobokan prison. They lodged applications for clemency 9 months ago with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Friday's executions took place about 12.30am in the grounds of Nusakambangan island prison in Cilacap, Central Java, reporters said.

The prosecutor's office did not immediately confirm them, but ambulances were seen leaving the prison about 2am.

Those put to death were Suryadi Swabuana, Jurit bin Abdullah and Ibrahim bin Ujang. Suryadi was convicted of the premeditated murder of a family in Sumatra in 1991; Jurit and Ibrahim of a joint murder in Sekayu, South Sumatra, in 2003.

There are about 130 prisoners on death row in Indonesia, most for drug trafficking. Among the drug smugglers are 62 foreigners.

In March, after Malawian drug trafficker Adami Wilson was executed, the Attorney-General announced plans to execute at least 9 people this year.

The Australian prisoners are unlikely to be among them as long as their clemency pleas remain undecided.

Human rights activist Al Araf said the executions "cannot be separated from the 2014 elections".

"The death penalty in Indonesia has a strong flavour of building political popularity," Mr Araf, from the human rights group Imparsial, said.

Amnesty International said the executions were "a major setback...in a country that appeared to be moving away from the brutal practice". Spokesman Michael Hayworth called on the Australian government to "immediately and unabashedly condemn the execution".

"Just last week the Australian government restated its opposition to the death penalty. It is now time for the government to use its leadership role in the region to curb the practice of state-sanctioned killing," he said.

(source: Sydney Morning Herald)

AUSTRALIA:

Australia urged to speak out against Indonesia's death penalty

The Australian government has again been urged to speak out against the death penalty in Indonesia, after 3 local men were executed by firing squad early this morning.

Amnesty International says it's a shameful move by Australia's neighbour that the government should not ignore, and that further executions should be stopped.

The human rights group also points out the executions run contrary to Indonesia's efforts to seek clemency for its nationals on death row in countries like Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.

Presenter: Sen Lam

Speaker: Michael Hayworth, crisis campaigner (Australia) Amnesty International

HAYWORTH: It's critically important that Australia demonstrates a leadership role against the death penalty in our region. And by taking a consistent and principled approach against the death penalty, regardless of who's executed and speaking out publicly, we'll see the Australian government become more credible advocate against this horrendous practice.

LAM: Even if the Australian government does speak out, what are the chances that Jakarta will listen?

HAYWORTH: Australia has an important relationship with Indonesia, a relationship and a friendship. We have trade ties, tourism ties and aid ties. It's critical that the Australian government as a friend of Indonesia, speak up and say, "Executions are a human rights abuse, and we need to see them stopped in our region." It is surprising that any country still retains this horrendous practice of state-sanctioned killing. The overwhelming majority of countries in the global trend is towards abolishing state-sanctioned executions and moving towards a death penalty-free world.

LAM: How much public support does the death penalty have in Indonesia? Are there indications that perhaps it's politically-unpalatable?

HAYWORTH: That's a difficult question to answer, but what I can say is that we find no support for the death penalty in the international community. The overwhelming trend globally is towards abolition. When we see motions at the UN General Assembly to introduce moratoriums on executions, they're overwhelmingly supported by the number of countries. I can't give you specific data on the Indonesian population, but I can say that the global trend is towards abolishing this practice.

LAM: That may be so, but many Asia countries still hold on to the death penalty - what does your research tell you? Why are they reluctant to let it go?

HAYWORTH: There're a large number of stated reasons for retaining the death penalty. Some people say that it helps reduce crime, but there's no evidence of that. Some people say that it's important, and important to be tough on crime and tough on criminals.

Realistically, what the criminal justice system there is for, is for reform and the death penalty denies states the opportunity to reform offenders. Not to mention that it's the ultimate, cruel and inhumane punishment.

LAM: And for countries that have stopped executions of criminals - can you explain what led to the change?

HAYWORTH: Well, there're a number of things that lead to change, including recent states in America, like Connecticut has recently abolished the death penalty. There can be a number of different factors, depending on where the country is, but I think the critical realisation is, and it's common to many of them - is that taking a human life is not right. It's the wrong thing to do under any circumstances and the state should never be allowed to kill.

LAM: Where Indonesia is concerned, what crimes in Indonesia attract the death penalty, and do we know how many people are on death row?

HAYWORTH: There's approximately 130 people on death row in Indonesia and we know that there's a wide range of crimes, including drugs-related offences that do attract the death penalty. Realistically, we're opposed to the death penalty, regardless of the offence, regardless of the nature of the offender or when it was committed. And we also know that there're a number of Indonesian nationals on death row, that Indonesia has been advocating for commutation of their sentences to life overseas.

There is a group of eminent Indonesians who're devoted to advocating for clemency for Indonesians on death row overseas. In fact, Amnesty International Australia members have sent over 15-thousand appeals to the Saudi Arabian government, asking for Siti Zainab, an Indonesian national, not to be executed there.

(source: Radio Australia)

VIETNAM:

Lethal injection decree amended -- After the EU refused to sell Vietnam the drugs required to execute prisoners, the government is considering alternative sources, including local manufacture

Unable to import the 3 chemicals listed in the prison manual for capital punishment or execute death-row convicts for almost 2 years now, the government has amended its decree on lethal injection.

The decree, to take effect on June 27, will no longer mention the barbiturate anesthetic sodium thiopental, muscle relaxant pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride - the chemicals used for lethal injection in many countries.

It will stipulate generally "drugs that make a person lose consciousness, relax the muscles, and stop the heart."

The ministries of Health, Public Security, and National Defense will identify the chemicals required and their quantities.

The decree does not stipulate whether the drugs will be imported or bought locally.

A source from the Drug Administration of Vietnam, who wished to remain unnamed, told Vietweek that the ministry would identify the manufacturer and when the chemicals would be available.

"We are [also] waiting for more detailed instructions from relevant ministries for implementing the decree," the official said.

The Ministry of Public Security refused to comment on the issue. The other aspects of the execution manual remain the same.

During executions, the execution council must ensure the anesthetic has knocked out the convict; if it has not, more anesthetic has to be injected before continuing with the other two chemicals.

Vietnam shifted from the firing squad to lethal injection with the passage of the Law on Execution of Criminal Judgments that took effect on November 1, 2011.

But it has not been implemented even once since the chemicals have not been available, leaving more than 530 prisoners on death row.

Minister of Justice Ha Hung Cuong said recently that almost everything else has been completed, like facilities and staff training.

5 facilities have been built for the executions - in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Son La, Nghe An, and Dak Lak.

The Ministry of Public Security has trained police officers in all 63 cities and provinces to carry out the lethal injection process.

The earlier decree stipulated that the drugs would be imported from the European Union (EU). But the EU, which does not have capital punishment, has banned the sale of these drugs to countries that still have the death penalty.

News website VnExpress recently reported that many prisoners are demanding that their death sentence be carried out at once because of the terrible pressure of waiting on death row.

Tuan, a death-row prisoner at Nghi Kim Prison in Nghe An said he is not afraid of death, only the wait for it to come.

"To die? Boom, and it's done," he was quoted by the news site as saying.

"But I can't sleep a single night in prison. It's terrible to hear the footsteps and the sound of the cell lock being opened. The sooner [the execution] the better."

3 death-row prisoners have committed suicide since November 2011 due to the intolerable pressure.

In Vietnam, prisoners are not informed in advance about the date of execution.

In January, Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang said the decree on lethal injection should be amended to allow the use of locally made chemicals.

Fewer crimes get death

In 2009 Vietnam scrapped the death sentence for rape, bribery, counterfeiting of money and bonds, hijacking of ships and aircraft, vandalizing weapons and military equipment, "organized" use of drugs, and misappropriation of property by swindling.

Earlier, in 1999, Vietnam had reduced the number of capital crimes to 22.

Vietnam was among only 21 countries in the world to carry out executions in 2012, according to Amnesty International.

Instead of looking for new sources of lethal drugs, experts say Vietnam should delay and gradually abolish the death sentence.

Janice Beanland, Amnesty International's campaigner for Vietnam, said: "We urge the government to seize this opportunity, when the EU export ban has led to an involuntary halt in executions, to instead impose a moratorium with a view to eventually abolish[ing] the death penalty."

Beanland said that the global trend is moving away from the use of the death penalty, with the vast majority of the world's governments recognizing that it has no deterrent effect.

"97 countries have completely abolished the death penalty in law, while 140 in total are abolitionist in practice. Only 21 countries carried out executions in 2012, down from 28 a decade ago."

John Donohue, a professor of law at the Stanford Law School in the US who has studied the issue extensively, said there is no evidence the death penalty is a deterrent to crimes.

"Hong Kong experienced a drop in murder rates in the years after abolition [of death penalty] and with good policing, I predict Vietnam could enjoy a similar improvement. Well trained police are a better way to deter crime."

(source: Thanh Nien News)

CHINA:

Organ donor cards hard to implement in China, official says

A system of donor cards indicating consent for organ transplants will not work in China as families will insist on having the final say, and many people see nothing wrong in using organs from executed prisoners, an official said on Friday.

Nearly 1.5 million people in China need transplants every year, but only 10,000 can get organs, according to the Health Ministry.

Many of those organs are taken from executed criminals and rights groups say it is often done without their consent - something the government denies, even as it tries to move away from obtaining organs from death-row inmates.

"China has an obvious family hierarchy," Huang Jiefu, who oversees transplants for the ministry, told a news conference when asked whether China could adopt an organ donor card system as practiced in countries like the United States and Britain.

"Every Chinese family has a core figure - be it the grandfather, father or grandmother - and this person has the final say," he said.

In traditional Chinese thought, the body is a sacrosanct gift from your parents not to be defiled, Huang said.

"That's why it won't work without family consent," he said.

However, Huang was optimistic that attitudes were changing, citing a ministry survey that found 70 % of young people had no problem with organ donation.

China in 2007 banned organ transplants from living donors, except spouses, blood relatives and step or adopted family members, but launched a national system to coordinate donations after death in 2009. The organ shortage has driven a trade in illegal organ trafficking in the country.

Huang repeated that the goal was to reduce reliance on prisoners for organs by 2015, though he did not give any figures and China does not publish its death penalty numbers.

Still, many Chinese believe there is nothing wrong in using the organs of executed prisoners for transplants, he said.

"The legal philosophy of the death penalty is 'an eye for an eye' or 'a life for a life'. The public believes that saving a life is a worthy redemption of a dead prisoner.

"Every organ donation from executed prisoners has written consent from both the individual and the family," added Huang, who is an Australian-trained liver transplant surgeon.

But eventually, China will probably abolish the death penalty, so it will have to develop alternatives, he said.

"Depending on death row inmates for donations will lead China's organ transplants to a dead end."

(source: Reuters)

IRAN----executions

11 executions in 4 days

In the period between 13 to 16 May 2013, the mullahs' regime sent 11 prisoners to gallows in the cities of Rasht, Noshahr and Karaj (website of Gilan province judiciary--May 13).

Three other prisoners were hanged in Gohardasht prison in Karaj on May 15, and another one was hanged publicly in Noshahr at the dawn of May 16. Last week also, 15 prisoners were executed in Qezelhessar prison in Karaj, Shahroud and Semnan just in 2 days, May 8 and 9.

By resorting to waves of repression and executions, the mullahs' regime seeks to intensify the intimidation atmosphere in a bid to prevent the outburst of public anger on the brink of sham elections, particularly after the deadly schism in the Velayat-e faqih regime and unprecedented rise in power struggle among regime's leaders.

(source: Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran)

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

A 25 year old father of 2 children was hanged publicly in northern Iran

1 man was hanged publicly in Noshahr (northern Iran) Thursday May 16.

According to the state run Iranian news agency Mehr, the man who was not identified by name, was convicted of murdering another man identified as "Amir Arsalan Sheikh-Abbasi" with knife after a verbal argue in 2008.

The man was a 25 year old father of 2 children

The execution was carried out at 5.30 AM in public.

(source: Iran Human Rights)

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

7 executed in Iran

7 persons were executed in Gilan province of Iran. APA reports that the prisoners were accused of drug trafficking.

Their names have been publicized. They are Jahangir Gargid, Hashim Baharali, Shahran Hasanzadeh, Nemat Rajabi, Farhad Shirazi, Mohammad Zarei and Turaj Amini. Following Iranian Supreme Court's approval of death sentence passed by the lower instance court on prisoners, it was executed at Lakan Prison in the centre of Rasht.

Amnesty International reported that 314 people were executed in Iran in 2012. However, Iranian human rights organizations reported that 580 people were hanged in Iran which stands 2nd after China in Prisoner Execution List. Generally, Iran imposes death penalty for crimes such as drug smuggling, rape, murder and armed robbery.

According to official and non-official information, 4 people were hanged in Kermanshah, 3 in Isfahan, 3 in Shahrud and 1 in Semnan.

(source: APA)

MAY 16, 2013:

TEXAS:

Hearing ordered for Amarillo death row convict

A woman on death row for a gruesome Amarillo murder has hope for life after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a hearing on her behalf.

Now 40-year-old Brittany Holberg fatally stabbed an elderly Amarillo man 58 times in 1996, and has since been denied dozens of writs and appeals.

On November 13, 1996 80-year-old A. B. Towery was found dead in his apartment, stabbed 58 times with various items, hit with a hammer, and a lamp post shoved 6 inches down his throat.

3 months later, then 23-year-old, Holberg was arrested and charged with capital murder and robbery.

Randall County District Attorney James Farren had only been DA for about a year when the crime was committed, but he still believes Holberg got the punishment she deserves.

"I went to the crime scene when the Special Crimes Unit called me and said we've got a homicide and it looks bad," Farren said.

Today the Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a hearing for 4 of Holberg's Defense Attorney's to testify.

Holberg's current defense says if those original lawyers had presented all mitigating evidence, she wouldn't be on death row.

"The thing is they presented plenty of mitigating evidence about her childhood and how sad her life was. The jury still gave her the death penalty," Farren said.

Farren says cases reversed thanks to mitigating evidence are becoming increasingly common, but he doesn't see it excusing 58 stab wounds.

"She had kind of a crappy childhood and teenage years, but lots of people do and that doesn't make them go stab somebody 58 times," Farren said.

The hearing will take place within the next 3 months, likely at the Randall County Justice Center.

An official date has not been set.

(source: KFDA)

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

Defense urges jury to spare life of man who drowned children; prosecutors asking for death sentence

Naim Rasool Muhammad drowned his children because he feared they would grow up just like he did, his attorney said Wednesday.

Muhammad, 34, was found guilty of capital murder Wednesday by a Dallas County jury and prosecutors are now seeking a death sentence for a "horror unimaginable" - murdering his sons Elijah, 3, and Naim, 5. Muhammad's attorneys never disputed his guilt and are now trying to convince the jury to spare his life.

Defense attorney Paul Johnson told jurors that Muhammad grew up in a life of "abandonment" and "neglect." His mother was a crack-addicted prostitute. He didn't know who is father was.

In Muhammad's "deranged mind," he believed his boys would suffer a similar fate, Johnson told jurors. The boys' mother, Kametra Sampson, had sought treatment for cocaine addiction in the months before the boys' deaths and, Johnson said, had left her kids alone and was prostitute.

At times in Muhammad's childhood, Johnson said, no one can say to this day where Muhammad was or who was caring for him.

"His life history is not a photo album you open up," Johnson said.

Johnson acknowledged that while the August 2011 deaths of the boys are a "heartbreaking" and "horrendous crime," it didn't mean Muhammad should be sentenced to death.

Prosecutors Tammy Kemp and Sherre Sweet said Muhammad deserved the death penalty for drowning his sons in a smelly Glenn Heights creek and because he is a continuing danger to society. They said has had a 20-year criminal record that stretches back to when he was a juvenile.

Much of that criminal background involves stealing coins from a machine, evading arrest, breaking into a home and stealing candy, burglary of a vehicle and another burglary incident where candy was taken.

He also has a history of domestic violence, including assaulting his sister and Sampson.

Kemp said that while Muhammad and Sampson dated, he beat her after she did things such as burning rice. He controlled where she went and for how long. He let her have 2 female friends - his sisters.

"He had complete control of Kametra Sampson," Kemp said. They started dating when she was 15 and he was 25 and hid their relationship. They went on to have 3 children together. The youngest was not quite 1 when Naim and Elijah were killed. The baby was not harmed.

In December 2010, Sampson took her boys and left Muhammad. Prosecutors say she began using cocaine and sought treatment at a facility where she could live with her boys. She completed treatment and was living with her mother and waiting on an apartment when the boys were killed.

The control Muhammad tried to exert over Sampson culminated on the day Muhammad killed the boys. He abducted them and Sampson as they walked to school. She was able to escape and seek help from a county constable. Muhammad drowned the boys as police searched for them.

Kemp said Muhammad killed Elijah and Naim to get back at their Sampson. He was angry that she ended their relationship and was dating someone else.

Kemp reminded jurors how Muhammad led the boys down the creek and then walked away and thought about what to do. Muhammad then took the boys down to creek and told them to pretend like they were swimming. He held the kids' heads under water until they stopped moving.

Kemp told jurors that the punishment phase of the trial was their time to think about what to do to Muhammad.

"You gotta take him back down to the creek" and give Muhammad the death penalty, she said.

Johnson said that jurors needed to consider what made Muhammad the man who sits before them in a courtroom. Johnson told jurors that he will present evidence that Muhammad had been failed by the schools, "the system" and his family.

If jurors don't give Muhammad a death sentence, he will be sentenced to life without parole.

"He will pay with his life," Johnson said to jurors. "Either in the penitentiary or on a gurney."

(source: Dallas Morning News)

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

Death penalty film trip: 5,000 miles of flaws and false confessions One for Ten project comes to an end having filmed series of shorts highlighting injustice in US capital punishment system

The journey has taken them from Philadelphia to Albuquerque via false confession, unreliable witnesses, official misconduct and racism.

The One for Ten road trip comes to an end this week after a 5,200-mile cross-country trek to interview 10 death row exonerees and make a short film about each that highlights different flaws in the US capital punishment process.

The name of the project is inspired by the more than 1,300 executions and 142 exonerations since the death penalty was reinstated in the US in 1976 - a remarkably high number of errors considering the gravity of the punishment and avowed thoroughness of the system.

London-based film-makers Will Francome and Mark Pizzey and producers Laura Shacham and Megan Garner have shared a 30ft RV for the trip, editing footage as they travel in order to publish two films a week on their website, oneforten.com.

They have raised nearly 36,000 pounds to cover costs, including 19,500 pounds from individual donors via crowd-sourced funding. The main innovation of One for Ten is its interactivity, with viewers encouraged to participate through social media.

"By doing it in this way people can submit questions, give feedback on the films and give the project a sense of immediacy. No one had ever really tried anything like this. People have been donating, submitting questions for interviewees and we'll blog those back to them. We're tweeting out some answers while the interviews are going on," said Francome.

The film-makers are now in New Mexico to meet Juan Melendez. He spent more than 17 years on death row in Florida, convicted largely thanks to testimony from a convicted felon who held a grudge against him - even though another man had made a confession in a recorded interview that was never played at trial.

The Guardian met up with the team in Conroe, Texas, as they interviewed Clarence Brandley for a documentary themed on racism, which is now available on the website.

Brandley spent nearly 10 years on death row, twice coming within days of execution. His case was a notorious miscarriage of justice that garnered immense media attention after being taken up by civil rights activists.

Brandley worked as a custodian at Conroe high school. In August, 1980, he and another custodian, Henry Peace, found the body of Cheryl Fergeson in a loft above the school's auditorium. Visiting for a volleyball tournament, the 16-year-old had been raped and strangled.

Investigators immediately focused on Brandley. During their interrogation a police officer reportedly told Brandley and Peace, "One of you two is going to hang for this." He turned to Brandley, adding: "Since you're the nigger, you're elected."

There was no physical evidence linking Brandley to the crime, but he went on trial before an all-white jury in December, 1980. A hung jury resulted in a 2nd trial, which took place in 1981 before another all-white jury.

Months after Brandley was found guilty and sentenced to death, it emerged that evidence that might have proved his innocence had been withheld and then lost by the prosecution. Authorities subsequently failed to act on new information linking other men with the crime.

It was not until 1990 that Brandley was finally freed. He mounted an unsuccessful lawsuit for alleged civil rights violations and has been denied compensation because the court order that freed him did not explicitly state that he is innocent. He claims he is still being pursued for child support payments that the state says were due during his time in prison.

Texas is the most prolific capital punishment state and is on target to execute its 500th prisoner since 1982 next month. Brandley is 1 of only 12 Texas exonerees, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

"I think the scariest thing about Clarence's case...it's in its own time, right, but just how openly racist it could be and the lengths that people would go to frame him when it seems pretty clear that it was other people," said Francome.

According to 2010 Census figures, 11.8% of Texas' population is black. But 39.4% of the 284 people currently on Texas' death row are black.

Brandley said that he believes racism is still endemic in Conroe, a city of about 60,000 inhabitants 40 miles north of Houston and 30 miles south of Huntsville, the location of Texas' execution chamber. Now 61, he has let go of his anger: "I had to, because it was going to destroy me, make me do something that I would be guilty of."

Still, he will never forget the justice system's corruption and contempt. "They lied to my family, they lied to the victim's family," he said. "And the way [prison guards] treated my family when they came to visit ... One of the times, they opened up the windows when it was cold. Summertime, they closed up the windows."

Francome has observed recurring trends during the five-week trip. "I'm just shocked at how many of the same things come up in everyone's cases. So few of the people that we filmed with had adequate legal defence. Most people met their lawyers once, twice, for a few hours before their trial started. When you're facing death...that has shocked me," he said.

"And how much they all talk about how there are definitely still loads more innocent people on death row. From their experiences of being on there and knowing other people, they all say they know people on death row today who are innocent.

"America's never admitted to executing anyone innocent, but here we are in Texas and Cameron Todd Willingham and Carlos DeLuna are pretty clearly two guys that were executed and were innocent. So there's obviously many flaws. Hopefully this will do something to help raise awareness in coming to abolish the death penalty. In my eyes it's just too great a risk to have it."

As Brandley put it: "One mistake is too many". He is sure that America will one day abolish the death penalty. "There's no doubt in my mind, it's coming. When, I don't know. It might not be in my lifetime but who would have thought in my lifetime I'd have seen him?" he said, pointing to his T-shirt, which bore a picture of Barack Obama with the slogan, "The Dream Comes True".

(source: The Guardian)

PENNSYLVANIA:

The Face of Evil: Kermit Gosnell

Last week my wife asked whether I believed there was evil in the world. In just a short while we have experienced the Newtown shooting of grade school children, the terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon, the lurid and graphic trial of Jodie Arias, the equally graphic and horrifying trial of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, and the discovery of serial kidnapper and rapist Ariel Castro. Of course evil exists in the world.

Amongst all of these I would argue that the most evil is Kermit Gosnell. The descriptions of the filth of his clinics, the cavalier treatment of his patients, the proliferation of drugs by untrained personnel, and most importantly the routine execution of children born alive during illegal late term abortion procedures places Mr. Gosnell among the most vile creatures on earth.

Mr. Gosnell was charged with 4 instances of murder and convicted of three of them. Left for us to contemplate is the number of other babies that Mr. Gosnell executed in precisely the same way - using scissors or a scalpel to sever the spinal column - over a nearly 40 year career as an abortionist. And he did it for the money - not for some charitable concern, and not for some political belief in a woman's right to choose - it was for the money. The testimony in the case described a person indifferent to his patient, mechanical in his procedures and demanding of his employees.

His conviction of over 200 felony and misdemeanor counts, including the murder of the 3 infants, ensure his imprisonment for the rest of his life and puts him at risk for the death penalty. He is a monster. He will meet other monsters in prison and he will dwell for eternity with other monsters before him.

But evil has a corrosive effect and draws others into its malevolence. And that is true with the case of Mr. Gosnell. First, there is a mainstream media that declined to report the story initially because it drew attention to the ugly side of abortion. Abortion is the litmus test for liberalism which in turn dominates the Democratic Party and the mainstream media. The bias of the press is more apparent in what it chooses not to report than what it does report. To be fair, it was former Democratic strategist and Daily Beast columnist, Kirsten Powers that embarrassed her colleagues in the liberal media into eventually reporting the latter part of Mr. Gosnell's House of Horrors.

And then there is former Gov. Tom Ridge (R-PA) who decided unilaterally to stop inspections of abortion clinics - a decision that would have revealed the criminal activities of Mr. Gosnell more than a decade before his arrest, trial and conviction of murder and criminal abortion practices. Mr. Ridge is a pro-abortion Republican who chose to ignore the law in furtherance of his own political career. He will live - not in prison - but with burden of responsibility for failing to prevent this butchery.

Add to that Planned Parenthood who had received repeated reports of the abusive practices of Mr. Gosnell and also chose to remain silent. But then Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider and advocate in the nation. Criticism of abortion practices is simply not in its lexicon.

And finally, there is President Barack Obama who was the single vote opposing a bill in the Illinois legislature that makes precisely the practices of Mr. Gosnell illegal in Illinois. Despite Mr. Obama's latter day protestations, equivocations and prevarications to the contrary, Mr. Obama voted not once, not twice but 4 times in opposition to a bill that would have provided protection to children born during a botched abortion. Someday he may well have to explain to his children why he sided with the butchery of practitioners like Mr. Gosnell over the well being of innocent children.

Yes, there is evil in the world. It not only manifests itself in the actions of criminals like Mr. Gosnell, but it ensnares those who equivocate about human life in the name of political correctness.

Despite all of this - maybe, in fact, because of all of this, I still oppose the death penalty. Once the public safety has been secured by imprisoning people like Mr. Gosnell for life, the death penalty becomes more like revenge than like justice.

(source: Larry Russ, Oregon Catalyst)

FLORIDA:

Rape-murder suspect faces death penalty

A registered sex offender being held in the 2012 brutal rape and murder of a 29-year-old woman in Stanton will now face the possibility of a sentence of death.

Last Thursday Charles Patrick Drew, 63, a transient, was indicted for the special circumstances surrounding the death of the woman.

The Orange County Grand Jury issued indictments on 1 felony count of special circumstances murder in the commission of rape, sodomy, oral copulation and sexual penetration with a foreign object.

Additionally, he was indicted for the rape, sodomy, oral copulation and sexual penetration by foreign object of an unconscious person, as well as assault with a deadly weapon.

Drew has 2 previous convictions from 1995 for forcible rape and assault with a deadly weapon. If convicted, he faces a minimum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. The special circumstances make him eligible for execution.

He is being held without bail at Orange County Jail and is scheduled for a pre-trial trial-setting conference on June 7 at Central Justice Center.

Drew is accused of assaulting the victim while at a Motel 6 on Beach Boulevard in Stanton May 17-18, 2012. Authorities say the suspect asked a passerby to call 911 when the victim became unresponsive.

(source: The Garden Grove Journal)

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

Florida law would speed up executions; The ill-named Timely Justice Act would see 13 death row inmates immediately issued death warrants

A bill that has passed both the Florida House and Senate - and looks likely to be signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott in the coming days - would speed up the process that sees death row inmates executed in the state. It is, as the New York Times editorial board commented, grotesque,"

especially in a state that has seen 24 death row exonerations (leading the country in this regard) and should thus be weary of speedy executions.

The ill-named Timely Justice Act would require the governor to sign a death warrant within 30 days of a review of a capital conviction by the State Supreme Court. The state would then be required to execute the defendant within 180 days of the warrant. So if signed intolaw, 13 of Florida's 405 death row inmates will be immediately issued death warrants. The legislation aims to save money and time but, as Rania Khalek pointed out, at the possible expense of innocent lives:

Proponents of the Act argue that the appeals process is too lengthy, costly and delays justice. Indeed, the process can take decades and cost millions but that is to ensure justice not delay it. After all, several Florida exonerees were on death row for over a decade before proving their innocence. One example is Juan Melendez, who spent 18 years on death row and lost three appeals in front of the Florida Supreme Court before his release. Had the "streamline murder" Act been in place at the time there's a good chance Melendez and others like him would have been killed for crimes they did not commit.

In a most perverse admission, flagged by Khalek, Republican Senator Rob Bradley said "this is not about guilt or innocence, it's about timely justice." So long as proceedings through the Kangaroo court are swift, Bradley seems to admit, the lives of inmates are expendable.

For the past 2 years in a row, Florida has sentenced more people to death than any other state - owing to a number of issues in the state justice system including the fact that while a judge makes the sentencing decision, Florida is 1 of only 3 states that allows non-unanimous jury recommendations in capital sentencing.

The Florida Supreme Court and the Florida Bar have called for reviews of the death penalty process in the state in order to make recommendations to improve it; those studies have yet to be undertaken. In 2009, meanwhile, the American Bar Association did study capital punishment in Florida, none of which have been undertaken either. Capital punishment, especially when exacted through a flawed judicial process like Florida's, is already barbaric; it needs no acceleration.

(source: Natasha Lennard is an assistant news editor at Salon)

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

Kill, Kill, and Kill Again: Rushing to Execution Heightens Risks of Fatal Error in Florida

Florida will start this long, hot summer with a bang. The state has announced that in the coming months it intends to strap three separate men down, open their veins, paralyze them, and force deadly chemicals into their hearts until they die.

The men on Florida's current kill list are Elmer Carroll, scheduled to die on May 29th; William Van Poyk, scheduled to die on June 12th; and Marshal Gore, scheduled to die on June 24th.

Our hearts go out to the innocent victims. And certainly, before extinguishing these men's lives, you would think Florida would want to be sure that these men are not innocent as well.

If new legislation passed by the state's legislature is any indication, you would be wrong. The Timely Justice Act will speed up executions, leaving limited time to ascertain if the wrong man is to be executed.

Rushing to execution in Florida seems awfully dangerous, given the deeply troubling history of innocent people suffering for years on Florida's death row. Florida has already released 24 - TWENTY-FOUR - confirmed INNOCENT DEATH ROW prisoners. (It is important to yell, so we do not get numb to the reality that innocent people are put on death row and face certain death every year).

The risk of killing the innocent really must give us pause as a nation, as a society. It should terrify us that the Governor of Florida, who had a hand in crafting the Timely Justice Act legislation, is poised to sign it very soon.

We have had decades and decades of state-sponsored killing to teach people that killing is wrong and it is not working. Murder rates remain highest in active death penalty jurisdictions. This fact, alongside the risk of executing innocent people, should motivate all of us to fight the Timely Justice Act before it is signed into law.

Seth Penalver, the most recent Florida death row exoneree, and Herman Lindsey, a Florida exoneree released in 2009, want to meet with Governor Scott to discuss these issues before the bill becomes law.

At the very least, the Governor should take this meeting. But what the people of Florida truly deserve is for Governor Scott to veto the Timely Justice Act. A broken justice system should not rush to execution, especially when questions about innocence remain.

(source: Tanya Greene, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU, blog)

ALABAMA:

In bizarre testimony -- against his lawyers' advice -- Mobile murder defendant mostly says nothing

Against the advice of his court-imposed lawyers, capital murder defendant Carlos Edward Kennedy took the witness stand this afternoon but said almost nothing about the charge against him.

Kennedy, 27, largely complained that Mobile County Circuit Judge Joseph "Rusty" Johnston took away his right to defend himself. He testified that he is not cooperating with court-appointed lawyer Jason Darley and, therefore, "I will not be answering any of your questions."

That left Darley only to ask an open-ended question about whether his client had anything he wanted to say about allegations that he broke into the Midtown Mobile house of Zoa White in June 2010, sexually assaulted her and then beat her to death with the claw end of a hammer.

Kennedy testified that he had a relationship with White but told jurors he would not elaborate.

"I feel it would be disrespectful on my part to divulge any information about that relationship without her consent," he said, as the victim's daughter and other relatives looked on from the courtroom.

Earlier today, jurors watched a videotaped interrogation in which Kennedy claimed he had sex with the 69-year-old retired Realtor 2 or 3 times. It was 1 of 3 different versions he gave that day.

For months, Johnston had allowed Kennedy to represent himself, with Darley assigned to give him assistance as needed. But Johnston last year reversed that decision, and ordered Darley and attorney Art Powell to take charge of the defense.

"That was taken away from me," the defendant testified.

Kennedy had a constitutional right not to testify, and the judge would have instructed jurors that they should draw no negative inference from that. Murder defendants usually do not take the stand.

Had Kennedy exercised that right, prosecutors would not have been able to bring up the defendant’s criminal past. That was allowed during cross-examination, though, and Assistant District Attorney JoBeth Murphree took the opportunity to confront Kennedy about a 2009 arrest in which authorities accused him of masturbating inside a woman's home where he was installing satellite equipment.

"You do sexual, weird things most people don't do, don't you?" she asked.

Murphree asked specifically about the September 2009 incident.

"Is she here?" Kennedy asked. "If she's not here, I'm not going to talk about that."

Murphree asked Kennedy if he had any explanation for how police found his blood inside White's house.

"In defending myself, I would have taken care of all that," he said.

Murphree pounded away, but Kennedy remained calm.

"You prey on defenseless women, don't you?" she asked.

With that, the defense rested, without calling another witness. Attorneys will deliver closing arguments Thursday morning, and then the case will be in the jury's hands.

Investigator doubted burglary

Earlier this afternoon, Powell used a police detective's own words in an attempt to poke holes in the burglary allegation.

Burglary is one of the aggravating factors that can bump a murder to a capital offense, punishable by the death penalty. But affidavits and a letter to the FBI suggest that Mobile police Detective Mac R. "Rusty" Hardeman doubted the burglary theory early in the investigation.

Powell confronted Hardeman with a pair of affidavits he filed on July 2, 2010, and one dated July 12 of that year, as well as a letter that same day requesting assistance from the FBI. In those documents, Hardeman laid out the reasons why he believed the scene had been "staged" to create the impression of a burglary.

Physical evidence suggested that the porch window at White's Spring Hill Avenue home had been broken after her death, Hardeman wrote. He wrote that he did not believe any of the furniture on that porch would support the weight of someone crawling through the window to gain entry into the house.

"I will not be answering any of your questions." -- defendant Carlos Kennedy, addressing defense lawyer Jason Darley.In addition, the detective wrote, nothing on the porch seemed disturbed except for the broken glass from the window.

Powell showed jurors a photograph taken of the window, with jagged glass around the frame. Hardeman previously wrote that it would have been difficult for a burglar to crawl past that glass without cutting himself. But there was no blood inside the window or on the kitchen counter inside, he wrote.

The detective also noted a lack of footprints or bloody fingerprints inside the house.

All of that evidence supported the conclusion that White may have invited her attacker into her home, according to Hardeman's sworn statements.

"That's what I believed at the time," he testified today.

Powell showed Hardeman his written narrative from October 2010, a month and a half after Kennedy's arrest, suggesting he had not changed his mind.

But Hardeman testified that he did not have all of the evidence when he made those statements. It was before he had learned semen was present on or in the victim's body.

According to earlier testimony, the semen did not contain sperm, which made it impossible to obtain DNA. The defense has argued that it is unlikely the semen came from their client.

The defense had hoped Johnston would allow jurors to consider convicting Kennedy of the lesser alternative of murder, which would spare him from the death penalty and make him eligible for parole one day. Murphree, though, argued that the murder would be a capital offense even if the attacker did not break into the house because the law makes it illegal to remain in someone's home without permission.

Johnston sided with the prosecution.

Powell cited another part of Hardeman's narrative in trying to cast doubt on the allegation against Kennedy. The detective wrote that it appeared the attacker used his left hand to strike White in the face, since the most severe injuries were on her right side. Powell played a portion of his client's videotaped interrogation in which he used his right hand to sign a form waiving his right to remain silent.

Questioned later by the prosecutor, Hardeman acknowledged this was speculation and that it would depend on the position of White's head, whether it was turned, during the attack.

Hardeman also defended his decision not to order tests of hair fibers found on White's pajama shorts and body. The detective said police already had DNA and fingerprint evidence pointing to Kennedy.

"My thoughts were that it would be redundant," he said. "I felt like there was enough evidence already."

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

Attorneys plan to seek dismissal in capital murder retrial of former Alabama death row inmate

Attorneys for a Jefferson County man, who had been on death row and was granted a new trial by an appeals court, plan to ask a judge to dismiss the cases against him entirely after a hearing this week in which the key witness in his 1st trial recanted her testimony and revealed she had received more than $10,000 in reward money.

The hearing before Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Stephen Wallace ended today in the capital murder case of Montez Spradley. The hearing had begun Monday.

While not ruling on any issues, Wallace set a status conference in the case for June 25.

Spradley had been convicted in 2008 of capital murder in the death of Marlene Jason, the 58-year-old lunchroom cashier at Mountain Brook Middle School who was shot and killed as she returned to her Center Point home from shopping for clothes for her grandchildren on Jan. 9, 2004.

The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, citing multiple errors committed during his capital murder trial, on Sept. 30, 2011 reversed Spradley's conviction and death sentence. The 1st trial was held before former Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Gloria Bahakel. A new trial date before Wallace has not been set.

Wallace did not rule on a Rule 32 motion appealing Spradley's conviction and 20-year sentence for intimidating a witness at the end of today's hearing. The appeals court did not reverse that conviction. The hearing also was held to discuss evidence regarding the receipt of reward money by a key witness - Spradley's girlfriend - in the case.

Spradley's attorneys during the hearing had told Wallace that they ultimately plan to file motions to dismiss the capital murder charge against Spradley.

Spradley's attorneys have maintained that his attorneys in the first trial should have been told that the key witness, Alisha Booker, was going to get reward money in the case from the Alabama governor's office and a Barber's Dairy program. Half of the $10,000 was paid before Spradley was sentenced and the remainder after that.

Booker also testified that she had gotten another $1,000 from Crime Stoppers, but there is a dispute about when that money was paid.

"We know from many cases that these sorts of incentives play a part in wrongful convictions, sometimes leading to the ultimate horror: an innocent man on death row," Anna Arceneaux, staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union Capital Punishment Project and an attorney in Spradley's retrial, said in a prepared statement. "Now that we have indisputable proof that the star witness was paid, the state wants to call her a liar. It seems a search for the truth is less important to the state than persisting in the accusation against Montez Spradley."

Booker had testified that she had told investigators before the trial that her statements to them that Spradley had confessed were not true. Defense attorneys in the first trial had been aware of her efforts to recant and changes to her story but were unaware of the reward money she was about to get, according to attorneys.

Booker also testified that investigators told her it was too late to change her story, threatened to prosecute her and take her children away, and told her to take the $10,000 in reward money to help her and her children. None of that information was revealed to defense attorneys at Spradley's original trial, according to the ACLU press release.

"The death penalty in Alabama is broken. I see it in this case and so many others," Birmingham attorney Richard Jaffe, who also represents Spradley. "Never should a person be sentenced to death on the uncorroborated word of informants. The amount of influence the state has to reward and punish those informants is simply too great."

Investigators this week denied threatening or coercing Booker.

Deputy Jefferson County District Attorney Mike Anderton declined comment today.

During this week's hearing, as well as previous hearings, Anderton insisted that he did not know Booker had been paid reward money in the case. No documents about the reward money were in the case file, he said.

Documents relating to the reward money, however, were found after inquiries by Spradley's attorneys in a separate file that had been maintained by an assistant in former Jefferson County District Attorney David Barber's office. Anderton told the judge he's inquired as to why a copy was not placed into the case file.

During the hearing this week Anderton questioned Booker about the different times she had told investigators about Spradley's involvement in Jason's death.

Anderton asked Booker a series of questions about domestic violence incidents. She admitted telling law enforcement in January 2006 that, while assaulting her, Spradley had stated he should have never told her about killing that woman and that she was trying to send him to prison.

Anderton also asked Booker if she had gotten help from Spradley's family to raise the children. She said she had.

(source for both: al.com)

ARKANSAS:

Jersey Bridgeman's Accused Killer Gets Mental Status Hearing

The results of a mental evaluation to determine whether the Bentonville man accused of raping and killing 6-year-old Jersey Bridgeman can competently stand trial are in court custody and have been sealed by a Benton County judge.

Zachary Holly's attorneys claimed earlier this year that the accused killer was unfit to stand trial, leading Circuit Judge Brad Karren to delay the murder case and grant the defense team a mental evaluation in February for Holly. The evaluation took place last month, according to Benton County Circuit Clerk records.

Karren's office has received the mental evaluation's results, but the judge sealed the report, according to Circuit Clerk records.

Karren has set a mental status hearing for 8:30 a.m. on May 29, according to the Circuit Clerk's Office.

In addition to determining whether Holly is mentally competent to stand trial, the evaluation also will "determine if he was able to appreciate the criminality of his alleged conduct at the time of the offense," said Benton County Prosecutor Van Stone in February.

That type of evaluation is standard in any death penalty case, Stone said

Holly's lawyers filed a motion Jan. 17 seeking a mental evaluation for their client, saying Holly may not be fit to stand trial. The motion also states that Holly's mental status may affect the case, records show.

Holly remains in the Benton County Jail, charged with capital murder, kidnapping, rape and burglary.

At his Jan. 7 arraignment, Holly pleaded not guilty to the charges. Stone said he will seek the death penalty against Holly in the case.

The suspect has been held in Benton County Jail without bond on an order by Judge Robin Green at the November bond hearing.

The Bentonville girl, who was found killed Nov. 20, died of asphyxiation, according to an affidavit of probable cause released by authorities.

Jersey lived at 608 S.E. A St. with her mother, who called the police early in the morning Nov. 20 to report her daughter was missing. Officers found Jersey's body fewer than 15 minutes later, in a nearby vacant house at 704 S.E. A St.

The probable cause affidavit states Holly and his wife babysat Jersey the night of her death while DesaRae Bridgeman and Bridgeman's boyfriend were working at a nearby convenience store. Holly later carried Jersey back to her house shortly after DesaRae Bridgeman returned around 11 p.m.. He told police he had nothing to do with Jersey's death, according to the report.

A swab test on Jersey's body showed traces of sperm, according to the affidavit. Holly consented to cheek swabs for DNA comparison. He also gave authorities clothes he had worn since going to bed the night of Jersey's death, the report states.

DesaRae Bridgeman called police at about 6:45 a.m. to report her daughter missing. Jersey and her younger sister shared a bed, but Jersey was nowhere to be seen, the report states. Police estimated her death to have been between midnight and 6:45 a.m.

While on the phone with police, Bridgeman became so upset that she had to hand the phone off to Holly's wife.

While searching for Jersey, an officer noticed the back door to 704 S.E. A St. was open. Jersey’s body was found minutes later inside the vacant house.

(source: KFSM News)

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

Ark. loses pharmaceutical company account after revealing plans to use its drug in executions

Weeks after Arkansas acknowledged buying an anti-seizure drug to use in executions, the state correction department said Wednesday it's losing its account with the pharmaceutical company that supplied the chemical.

West-Ward Pharmaceuticals notified the Arkansas Department of Correction on Wednesday that the company was closing its account, prisons spokeswoman Shea Wilson told The Associated Press.

Wilson said she didn't know why the drug company was closing the prison system's account, but West-Ward's London-based parent company, Hikma Pharmaceuticals, said Wednesday that it objects to its products' use in capital punishment.

Hikma also said it has halted direct sales of injectable phenobarbital to U.S. corrections departments after Arkansas' actions last month. However, Hikma spokesman Matthew Cole would not discuss specifics about Arkansas' account.

"More broadly, we're working to try to ensure that there's no unintended use of our product for capital punishment purposes," Cole said.

The AP first reported last month that Arkansas planned to use phenobarbital in executions, even though the barbiturate has never been used in U.S. lethal injections.

Arkansas and many of the more than 30 other death penalty states once used a virtually identical three-drug process: The barbiturate sodium thiopental was administered to put an inmate to sleep, and two other drugs were administered to stop breathing and the heart.

As sodium thiopental supplies dried up, however, Arkansas and several other states initially turned their attention overseas, obtaining the drug from a different British supplier. But, in 2011, they lost their supplies to federal agents amid legal questions about how they got the drug.

So, as drugmakers have continued to object to their products' use in lethal injections, states have been looking for alternatives.

Arkansas this year said it was turning to phenobarbital, the drug it bought from West-Ward Pharmaceuticals.

However, lawyers for 9 death row inmates are challenging the use of the drug, contending that it could be inhumane.

Arkansas hasn't put a prisoner to death since 2005, and for now, the state doesn't have any pending executions.

That's expected to change, though, as Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel asked Gov. Mike Beebe to schedule execution dates for seven of the state's 37 death row inmates.

(source: Associated Press)

OHIO:

State agrees, seeks death penalty; Randall Ross shot himself in the head after killing estranged wife; remains under guard at hospital.

A Fremont man accused of storming his sister-in-law's Carroll Township home to kill his wife faces the death penalty if he's convicted of aggravated murder.

Randall Ross, 47, remains in Magruder Hospital, where he's been since he was released May 8 from a Toledo hospital. Ross shot himself twice in the head after allegedly killing his wife, according to Ottawa County deputies.

An Ottawa County deputy has been posted at Ross' hospital room ever since.

Ross allegedly shot to death his wife of 12 years, Amy Ross, 42, on March 27. The incident came about a month after she moved into her sister's Carroll Township home.

Ross then turned the .40-caliber gun on himself, but he somehow survived both shots to the head. He was standing in the front yard of the North Leutz Road home when police arrived.

The indictment lists seven criminal charges against Ross, including 2 counts of aggravated murder, which carry multiple death specifications, 2 counts of murder, 2 counts of aggravated burglary, and kidnapping.

The indictment also includes weapons specifications that would add years to his prison sentence if he's convicted.

Other indictments an Ottawa County grand jury handed down:

-- Derek Thayer, no age given, Bono, failure to appear.

-- Johnathan Trunk, 26, Lorain, theft.

-- Dennis Saldusky, no age given, Fostoria, 2 counts election falsification.

(source: Sandusky Register)

INDIANA:

Indiana Legislators Debate Death Penalty

We told you about a local sister who serves a man on death row.

Now we hear from Valley resident Randy Steidl, who served on death row 17 years for a wrongful murder conviction.

This comes following the conclusion of the 2013 legislative session in Indiana, where a bill to abolish the death penalty was proposed.

NBC 2's Paige Preusse reports that lawmakers are torn on the topic.

"I went from the comfort of my home to death row on the word of a mentally ill woman and a town drunk," said Randy Steidl.

Randy Steidl is an example of how flawed the justice system can be, something Indiana State Representative Democrat Clyde Kersey says is the main reason legislators should support abolishing the death penalty.

"From the fairness issue, many people are executed who are not guilty of a crime," said Kersey.

Kersey says an appeal process is necessary to ensure that an innocent man isn't executed, but says, there's just one problem.

"It's very very expensive," said Kersey.

And it's the millions of taxpayer dollars that helped Randy Steidl convince Ill. to ban the death penalty last year.

"Illinois did a study, and they spent more than $3.5 million trying to execute me. Times that by 20 for the innocent people who sat on death row in Illinois, and that's more than $ 70 million that was taxpayer money wasted," said Steidl.

But Indiana lawmakers like Republican Alan Morrison firmly believe the death penalty is necessary to cut crime, Morrison says if cost is the issue, the solution is simple.

"We shouldn't hold them so long. If we could expedite the sentencing and the price they're going to pay, I think we'll save quite a bit of money," said Morrison.

Kersey says if we did that, we'd eliminate our most efficient approach to avoiding errors.

But We're dealing with a human life, so it's important that we go through all of those steps," said Kersey.

On the other hand, Kersey says if we abolish the death penalty.

"It'd save us millions and millions of dollars," said Kersey.

But Morrison says, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned state death penalty laws in 1972 crime rose significantly until Indiana reinstated the death penalty in 1977.

"It's a good deterrent to know that if I commit a crime, not only would I spend a lot of time in jail, but I could meet my maker," said Morrison.

"I believe an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth still rings true," said Morrison.

So what are the chances Indiana will eliminate the death penalty, maybe sometime in the future.

"This may just be the 1st time we deal with this, and if it comes up again next session we'll add to it, and again the next time, until eventually something will happen," said Kersey.

(source: mywabashvalley.com)

OKLAHOMA:

1 trial for man in deaths of Oklahoma girls, woman

A man charged in the 2008 shooting deaths of 2 young Oklahoma girls and the 2011 death of his 23-year-old girlfriend will be tried for the crimes at the same time in January, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Kevin Sweat, 27, was scheduled to face a 1st-degree murder trial next month in the death of his girlfriend, Ashley Taylor. He will instead be tried in January in Taylor's death as well as the shooting deaths 3 years earlier of 13-year-old Taylor Placker and 11-year-old Skyla Whitaker, Okfuskee County District Judge Lawrence Parish ruled.

Parish also ruled that the joint trial will be held in Creek County, where he previously said Sweat would face trial in Taylor's death.

Sweat has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Parish joined the cases in agreement with defense attorneys and prosecutors. Sweat's defense attorneys filed a motion to join the cases last month after Parish ruled evidence concerning the girls' deaths could be presented during Sweat's trial in Taylor's death.

"We believe that joinder is required," said defense attorney Gretchen Mosley of the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System.

The defense motion said that while prosecutors could have referred to the girls' deaths during Sweat's trial for Taylor's death, defense attorneys would have been limited in their ability to defend him against the evidence. The presentation of evidence concerning the girls' shootings in Weleetka essentially would be a "dry run" at prosecuting Sweat for those deaths, defense attorneys said.

"We believe the cases need to be joined so that the evidence will have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt," Mosley said.

Prosecutors suggested a possible connection between the three deaths while questioning witnesses at a January preliminary hearing. They questioned Sweat's mother and her cousin about statements Sweat made about his relationship with Taylor and his desire to break up with her.

Assistant District Attorney Maxey Reilly asked if Sweat had told them Taylor would spread lies about him if he broke off the relationship, including blaming him for the girls' deaths. Sweat's mother, Deborah Sweat, and cousin, James McClellan, said they did not remember Sweat claiming Taylor had threatened to tell authorities he shot the 2 girls.

At Wednesday's hearing, Reilly said prosecutors did not object to trying the cases simultaneously. But she expressed concern at the amount of time that elapsed between the 2 cases.

Riley said state law allows joinder of criminal cases that are similar in nature, occurred within the same general area and are close in time. The longest span of time between joined cases in state law previously was just eight months, Riley said.

"That is our main concern," Riley said.

Parish agreed to join the cases only after asking Sweat if he had discussed the legal strategy with his attorneys.

"Yes, I have, and I do agree with it," Sweat said as he stood at the defense table, shackled at the wrists and ankles and wearing a bullet-proof vest.

Following the hearing, Taylor's father, Michael Taylor, said he expected Sweat's trial for his daughter's death to be postponed and was not surprised prosecutors agreed to join Sweat's trials.

"They feel it's going to be beneficial to their case," Michael Taylor said. "We have to defer to their judgment."

(source: Associated Press)

NEBRASKA:

Give the death penalty the chair

It happens about this time every year: the Nebraska Legislature debates the wisdom of eliminating the death penalty. (Or not: the bill Tuesday was subject to filibuster and cannot return before the end of the session.)

It has been effectively rendered ineffective anyway - the death penalty, not the Legislature, although that could be discussed - but for purposes that are not all that mysterious to most of us, members of the Legislature make this annual attempt to mandate its removal as law.

Editorially we have supported eliminating the death sentence. It tends to raise eyebrows amongst conservatives and liberals alike. Conservatives generally applaud our positions and liberals tend to not applaud our positions. Our death penalty position runs contrary to those conservative leanings.

But frankly, it is difficult to understand how anyone who adamantly opposes abortion can accept killing an adult. I understand the revulsion of aborting an innocent. And the rationalization of executing a convicted murderer - an eye for an eye, so to speak.

But the fact remains that to honor life, we need to honor all life. It is doubtful the death penalty acts as a great deterrent to crime. It is debatable what it does to us as a society.

Regardless, the purposeful killing of a human can be rationalized from conception to old age. Perhaps we should stop rationalizing.

Time for the death penalty to die.

(source: Opinion; Peter Rogers is the publisher of the North Platte Telegraph)

COLORADO:

Governor Releases List Of Clemency Consultations

Gov. John Hickenlooper has spoken with seven prosecutors and 2 defense attorneys as well as victims' families as he ponders whether to grant clemency to Nathan Dunlap, who faces execution in August for ambushing and killing four people in 1993.

The governor's office provided a list to The Associated Press on Tuesday of 15 officials who were contacted. The list also includes three investigators and a victim-witness assistant in the prosecutor's office.

Hickenlooper has not said when he will make his decision.

Dunlap has been on death row since 1996, when a jury convicted him of murder and sentenced him to die for the shooting deaths of four employees who were cleaning a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in the Denver suburb of Aurora after-hours.

The victims were Ben Grant and Colleen O'Connor, both 17; Sylvia Crowell, 19; and Margaret Kohlberg, 50. Co-worker Bobby Stephens, then 20, was injured but survived.

Dunlap, then 19, had recently lost a job at the restaurant.

A judge has scheduled his execution for the week of Aug. 18, with the day to be set by the head of the Corrections Department. It would be the 1st execution in Colorado since 1997.

Hickenlooper had resisted releasing the list of people he spoke with, saying some did not want to be identified. A Colorado Open Records Act request by the AP for the names was denied on the grounds that no written list existed.

However, Hickenlooper did agree to release the names of public officials with whom he has consulted.

George Brauchler, district attorney for the 18th Judicial District, where the crime and the trial took place, said he told Hickenlooper he shouldn't intervene.

"20 years of trial work and post-conviction jurisprudence have said the same thing...the outcome was fair and just," Brauchler said.

Brauchler said Hickenlooper is acting like a "superjuror" who can overturn the verdict.

Hickenlooper's spokesman responded that the governor's role is defined by the state constitution and he is taking his duty seriously by listening to all sides.

Madeline Cohen, 1 of Dunlap's attorneys, said Dunlap should be spared because he had undiagnosed bipolar disorder at the time of the crime.

She also said Colorado's death penalty system is racially biased and that the sentence is imposed inconsistently across the state. All 3 people on death row are black, and all were convicted in the 18th District, which includes east and south Denver suburbs.

Brauchler dismissed claims of racial bias as "loose, wild and unsubstantiated."

Parents of 2 victims have confirmed they spoke with the governor - Bob and Marj Crowell, parents Sylvia Crowell, and Sandi Rogers, mother of Ben Grant.

Rogers said Wednesday that she told Hickenlooper to let the execution go on as planned.

"I know putting Nathan Dunlap to death is not going to bring my son back," Rogers said in a telephone interview from her home in Wisconsin. "I also know it is the right thing to do.

"He has outlived my child. He has been in prison longer than my child was on Earth," she said.

(source: Associated Press)

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

3,500 Potential Witnesses in Aurora Shooting Trial

Nearly one year ago, James Holmes entered a Century movie theater in Aurora, Colorado with tear gas and guns, killing 12 people and injuring over 60 others. The shooting took place during an opening weekend showing of The Dark Knight Rises, turning crowded summer movie blockbuster premieres into yet another place where Americans are now wary of guns (though at least one Missouri movie theater recently forgot this).

Now, Holmes' murder trial is about to begin, and prosecutors seem to have an incredible amount of evidence to demonstrate that he was the shooter. According to an Associated Press report, prosecutors this week filed a motion in court that states they have close to 3,500 potential witnesses that could be called on to testify. In addition, prosecutors estimated they have almost 40,000 pages of evidence that have been filed.

Holmes will be tried on multiple counts of 1st-degree murder. Prosecutors have turned down a plea offer from Holmes' defense for the suspect to plead guilty if they agree not to seek the death penalty, stating they do intend to seek the death penalty. Holmes’ lawyer recently requested the suspect's plea be changed to not guilty by reason of insanity, which the judge in the case is currently deciding whether or not to accept.

(source: webpronews)

ARIZONA:

Jodi Arias may get death sentence as Arizona murder trial concludes

Jodi Arias, facing the death penalty for murdering an ex-boyfriend in Arizona, was due back in court on Thursday for the final phase of a 4-month-long trial.

Arias was found guilty last week of murdering Travis Alexander, whose body was found slumped in the shower of his Phoenix-area home 5 years ago. He had been stabbed 27 times, had his throat slashed and been shot in the face.

The same jury that convicted Arias deliberated for about 3 hours on Wednesday, 1st day of the penalty phase, before ruling that she had acted with extreme cruelty in the 2008 killing, qualifying her for capital punishment.

On Thursday, prosecutors and defense lawyers will present additional testimony and arguments for the jury to weigh before one last round of deliberations to determine whether Arias is sentenced to death or to life in prison.

The defense is expected to revisit its claim that Arias acted out of fear, and that her relationship with Alexander, 30, was fraught with abuse and efforts by Alexander to control her.

The most relevant mitigating claim is likely to be that Arias acted under "unusual or substantial duress".

The jury rejected Arias' claims of self-defense when it found her guilty of premeditated murder.

It was not certain whether Arias, who took the witness stand to testify in her own defense, would opt to make any further statements in court before the jury delivers its sentence.

SUICIDE WATCH

Arias had been placed on suicide watch in a psychiatric ward after saying in a post-conviction television interview that she would prefer the death penalty to life in prison. She was returned to her jail cell on Monday.

Arias has admitted shooting Alexander and said she opened fire on him with his own pistol when he attacked her in a rage because she dropped his camera while taking snapshots of him in the shower. She said she did not remember stabbing him.

The case featured graphic testimony and photographs as well as a sex tape, which became a sensation on cable television news and unfolded in live Internet telecasts of the proceedings.

On Wednesday, prosecutors focused on details of the murder in their bid to cast the crime as especially cruel, a legal standard for aggravating factors that qualify for the death sentence.

Prosecutor Juan Martinez said Arias had repeatedly stabbed Alexander for 2 minutes as he tried to escape from the bathroom. She then followed the bleeding victim down a hallway and slashed his throat when he was too weak to get away.

Alexander knew he was going to die and was unable to resist his attacker at that point, Martinez said.

"Each and every time that blade went into his body, it hurt," Martinez told the jury. "It was only death that relieved that pain. It was only death that relieved that anguish, and that is especially cruel."

The defense argued that adrenaline would have prevented Alexander from feeling the pain of the knife blows. If he was shot in the forehead first, rendering him unconscious in seconds, he would not have suffered, attorney Kirk Nurmi said.

(source: Reuters)

WASHINGTON:

Jurors recommend Byron Scherf should be put to death

Jurors took just 3 hours Wednesday to decide Byron Scherf deserved to die for killing corrections officer Jayme Biendl. But the 54-year-old inmate may be in his 70s before he faces a possible execution.

It took jurors less than half an hour last week to find Scherf guilty of 1st-degree aggravated murder in Biendl's 2011 slaying. She was strangled with a cord inside the sanctuary of the prison chapel.

On Monday, jurors heard emotional testimony from Biendl's father.

"The worst part is the feeling of loss just doesn't seem to go away," said Biendl's father, James Hamm.

Hamm wasn't expecting the jury to recommend the death penalty for Scherf, but Wednesday, he was pleasantly surprised.

"It's so hard for someone to say, 'I'd like to see you die. I'd like to put somebody to death,'" said Hamm. "It's just immorally, it's hard to do. But I was hoping."

The jury was asked to decide if there were any mitigating factors that should spare Scherf from being executed. Jurors unanimously voted that the court should not show any leniency in sentencing Scherf to death.

"I've been waiting 837 days exactly to hear those words that he's got the death penalty," said Biendl's sister, Lisa Hamm. "And I'm going to continue to count, until he's finally dead."

Scherf, 54, is serving a life sentence for crimes against women, including rape.

His attorneys argued that Scherf's life was worth saving. Before the killing, he earned a high school diploma and enrolled in therapy.

"It is obvious that Byron is a damaged, broken man. But he is not beyond redemption. He is not evil," said Karen Halverson, Scherf's attorney.

Prosecutors said the programs did not work. They said Scherf completed an anger management class in 1989 and was released from prison, and raped a woman 6 years later. He then took an in-custody therapy class but killed Biendl 6 months later, they said.

The judge issued a death sentence for Scherf on Wednesday afternoon. He will be moved to a state prison in 10 days.

After the Snohomish County Judge hands down the official death sentence Wednesday afternoon, the Department of Corrections will move Scherf to a different facility; presumably the State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. But as with most death row cases, it could be years before Scherf is executed.

But Biendl's family will count months and years before Scherf faces the death penalty.

There are 8 men on death row in Walla Walla -- convicted child killer, Johnathan Lee Gentry, was sentenced nearly 22 years ago.

A death sentence is automatically reviewed by the state Supreme Court. Scherf's attorney said the convicted rapist and murderer will fight for his life.

"He will be filing his appeal so I think that speaks for itself. He will be appealing," said attorney Karen Halverson.

Biendl's friend, Lawrence Heiser, said he's ready for the court fight that is just beginning.

"It could be 20 to 30 years before they execute him. He got a fair trial. I'm sure he'll get a decent execution and that's more than he deserves," said Heiser.

(source: KIRO News)

PAPUA NEW GUINEA:

O'Neill apologises for violence faced by women in PNG

The Papua New Guinea Prime Minister, Peter O'Neill, has apologised for the violence faced by women in his country and pledged a crackdown on perpetrators including a return to the death penalty.

More than 1000 people - mostly women - gathered in Port Moresby's Sir John Guise Stadium for a national day of mourning, or "haus krai", over violence against women in Papua New Guinea.

PNG has been rocked in recent months by a series of internationally condemned attacks on women - including the burning murder of a young mother, the beheading of a former teacher, both women had been accused of sorcery, and the pack rape of an American academic.

Mr O'Neill said it is not acceptable in this day and age, and the Government stands with them.

He also expressed the Governments sympathy for all the victims of violence in communities throughout Papua New Guinea.

Mr O'Neill pledged to bring laws with tougher penalties, including the reintroduction of the death penalty, before the nation’s Parliament in coming weeks.

The reforms will include life without parole for rapists and tougher drug and alcohol penalties.

(source: Radio New Zealand International)

VIETNAM:

Vietnam to produce lethal injections

Vietnam has issued a new law allowing domestically produced chemicals to be used in lethal injections, a change that should enable it to resume the currently stalled executions of more than 530 people on death row.

The holdup was a result of a European Union ban on its factories exporting chemicals used in lethal injections. The ban was issued because the EU regards capital punishment as a human rights violation.

It has left Vietnam unable to execute a prisoner since November 2011, when the country decided to switch from firing squads to lethal injections on humanitarian grounds.

Vietnam's old law governing executions stipulated the names of the three chemicals produced in the EU that had to be used in lethal injection. The new law issued this week doesn't mention the chemicals by name, meaning local versions can be produced and used. The law will take effect on June 27.

In an interview earlier this year, European Union ambassador to Vietnam Franz Jessen said Vietnam might not have realised the practical implications of changing to lethal injections when it announced its plan to switch from the firing squad. He said the EU had hoped difficulties in sourcing the chemicals might have triggered a moratorium on the death penalty in the country.

Vietnam, a 1-party state that routinely sentences government critics to long prison terms, is under considerable international pressure to improve its human rights record, which most observers say has worsened over the last 2 years.

Jessen suggested that stopping executions would have earned Vietnam praise among the international community.

"A moratorium would have been a positive sign at a time when we need positive signs," he said.

EU factories are the main suppliers of drugs that can be used in executions. Several American states have also said objections from European factories were making it hard to find the chemicals.

(source: Bangkok Post)

CHINA:

Businesswoman sentenced to death

A court in the city of Wenzhou on Wednesday sentenced a businesswoman to death for illegal fundraising activities.

The case once again triggered discussion among the public over whether the death penalty should be applied to economic crimes.

Lin Haiyan, a 39-year-old woman from Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, received the death sentence for illegally raising 640 million yuan ($104.1 million) and misappropriating 428 million yuan of that sum, according to the verdict from Wenzhou's Intermediate People's Court.

The court said this was the biggest illegal fundraising case in the city so far.

Lin set up Wenzhou Xinfu Investment Consulting Co in May 2008, and raised money from more than 20 investors between 2007 and 2011 by promising to offer high returns, the court said.

However, she used all the money to buy stocks and futures, which resulted in huge losses, it added.

The verdict said Lin illegally acted as an agent for a trading platform for stocks and futures owned by the Hong Kong-based Quam Securities Co Ltd, without authorization from the appropriate government departments.

From 2008 onward, Lin opened stock and future accounts under 20 different names and use the raised funds for futures trading.

After suffering huge losses, she lied to the lenders, saying that she had obtained profits from the futures market so that she could raise more money from colleagues, friends and relatives, the court said.

Her behavior was exposed at the end of October 2011 when she eventually failed to pay back investors, the verdict said.

Wenzhou was hit by a severe credit crisis after many local entrepreneurs failed to repay their debts and fled the city due to the sudden tightening of lending policies among State-owned banks for small and medium-sized enterprises in September 2011.

"Lin is one of the many fundraisers who cheated too many people and failed to repay their debts. Meanwhile, we're also seeing many other smaller illegal fundraising cases in the city," said Zhou Dewen, chairman of the Wenzhou SME Development Association.

Lin's verdict will now be submitted to the country's top court as required by the Criminal Procedure Law.

(source: China Daily)

INDIA:

Right decision, wrong reason

The Narendra Modi government's decision to put on hold its earlier move to seek the death penalty for former minister Mayaben Kodnani and Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi may have been prompted by pressure from the sangh parivar but that does not mean it isn't the right thing to do. The 2 were sentenced last year to long jail terms for organising the Naroda-Patiya massacre during the anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002 in Gujarat. Although courts in India have tended to impose death sentences on those accused of terrorist crimes - and communal violence is simply terrorism in another form - the trial court judge sagely declared that “the use of death undermines human dignity." If the view she took was universalist, Mr. Modi's U-turn smacks of the particularist because he is otherwise a strong and even activist advocate of the death penalty. That Kodnani had led murderous mobs was no secret. Yet the Gujarat Chief Minister made her a minister in 2007. Her indictment and eventual conviction were the result of a Supreme Court-monitored investigation. The admirable administrative skills of Mr. Modi played no role. Last month, however, in a stand that was at least consistent with his strident advocacy of the death penalty for other terrorists, Mr. Modi gave the nod for an appeal to the High Court seeking death for Kodnani and Bajrangi. It is this nod towards the noose that is now being reconsidered.

Notwithstanding the role of politics in influencing this decision, any criticism of the Modi government's latest stand must be tempered with the view that the death penalty is no answer to heinous crimes. The moral and social imperative in criminal justice must always be on establishing guilt and awarding condign punishment, the worst of which should be a life-long prison term. Death sentences achieve little more than arithmetic equivalence. In the case of the Gujarat riots, there has been a campaign to characterise the violence as a "spontaneous reaction" to the Godhra train burning incident. The strongest rebuttal of this theory lies in the Naroda-Patiya verdict of August 2012, which laid bare the existence of a conspiracy involving BJP and sangh leaders. The Gujarat government, the Special Investigation Team and the prosecution should focus on sustaining such convictions in the higher courts instead of seeking the death penalty out of a misconception that only capital punishment is complete justice. And investigators and prosecutors throughout the country would do well to address the need to identify the culprits and establish their guilt in all cases involving organised mob terrorism rather than labouring for death sentences.

(source: Editorial, The Hindu)

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

Man gets death penalty for raping, killing minor

A 22-year-old man was today sentenced to death by a local court for raping and murdering an 8-year-old girl.

Thane Additional Sessions Judge A A Sayeed held Shekhar Gupta guilty under sections 376 (2)(1) of IPC and awarded life imprisonment, and section 302 (murder) of the IPC for which he has been sentenced to death.

According to the prosecution, Gupta had abducted the school girl, raped her and murdered her to destroy evidence in December 2009.

The accused, who was married and has 2 children, worked as a contract labour with a company in Thane city.

The victim's father, a resident of Lokmanya Nagar, told the court that on December 24, 2009, when he returned home in the evening from work, he was told that his daughter, a Class II student at Saint Ulai School, had not returned till then.

When he went out in search of her, Gupta met him on the way and told him that he had met the girl and gave her chocolate and biscuits.

The parents lodged a missing complaint with police and the next day her body was found under a hillock.

Additional Public Prosecutor Hemlata Deshmukh said this was a rarest of the rare case which deserved nothing less than death sentence.

The court, relying on the witnesses from the vicinity and circumstantial evidence, held that the accused was guilty of the charges levelled against him and sentenced him to death.

(source: Hindustan Times)

INDONESIA:

Human Rights Group Urges Indonesia Not to Execute 3 Criminals

Amnesty International has called for an immediate halt to the execution of three men, expected imminently. "If the men are executed it would be a major setback in the use of the death penalty, in a country that appeared to be moving away from the brutal practice in recent years," said a statement from the human rights organization obtained on Thursday night.

According to the Attorney General's Office, Suryadi Swabuana, Jurit bin Abdullah and Ibrahim bin Ujang, are set to be executed this month.

But Amnesty International said there are indications the executions could be carried out as soon as this evening. The 3 men are now being held in isolation cells in the Nusakambangan Prison in Central Java, where they are due to be executed by firing squad.

In the statement, Amnesty International said it opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception.

"In Indonesia's case, there is no clear indication why the country has decided to resume executions after a 4 year gap," the statement said, adding that the period was broken on March 14 when Malawian national Adami Wilson, 48, was put to death for drug-trafficking.

This execution - and the 3 that are imminent - appear to contradict previous statements and actions taken by government officials, Amnesty International said.

In October last year President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono commuted the death sentence of a drug trafficker. Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said the move was part of a wider push away from the use of the death penalty in Indonesia.

It also runs contrary to Indonesia's efforts to seek commutations for its nationals on death row overseas, in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, the human rights group said.

"More executions in Indonesia must be stopped. They call into question many of the human rights reforms and commitments made by the Indonesian government in recent years. Where it seemed that President Yudhoyono, who is due to step down next year, would leave a positive legacy relating to human rights, the opposite now appears to be the case," said Papang Hidayat, Amnesty International's Indonesia researcher. "These developments in relation of the death penalty also undermine the positive role Indonesia has played in Asean in promoting better respect for human rights."

Suryadi Swabuana was convicted and sentenced to death in 1992 for the murder of a family in South Sumatra province. His clemency application was rejected in 2003. Jurit bin Abdullah and Ibrahim bin Ujang were convicted and sentenced to death in 1998 for murder in Musi Banyuasin district, South Sumatra.

According to their lawyers, Jurit and Ibrahim re-filed clemency applications in 2006 and 2008 respectively, but have not received a reply from the President, the statement said.

In March, after the execution of Adami Wilson, the Attorney General announced plans to this year execute at least 9 other people who are currently under sentence of death.

The authorities did not reveal the names of the 9 or their execution dates.

There are at least 130 people under sentence of death in Indonesia.

Death sentences in the country are carried out by firing squad. The prisoner has the choice of standing or sitting, and can decide whether to have their eyes covered by a blindfold or hood. Firing squads are made up of 12 people, 3 of whose rifles are loaded with live ammunition, while the other 9 are loaded with blanks. The squad fires from a distance of between 5 and 10 meters.

(source: Jakarta Globe)

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

Soldier shooter accused of premeditated murder, might face death penalty

Palembang District Court prosecutors have indicted First Brig. Wijaya with premeditated murder and therefore could face a maximum sentence of the death penalty if proven guilty.

Prosecutor Syahri said that on Jan. 26, First Brig. Wijaya was on duty with his colleagues at a traffic police post located at the East Baturaja intersection when suddenly a man on motorbike drove by and screamed "crazy police" at him.

Wijaya then spontaneously went after the motorbike and shot the motorcyclist 2 times. The motorcyclist was identified as First Pvt. Heru Oktavianus and was later pronounced dead.

"The defendant had time to reconsider before he fired the shots, but he didn't. Therefore, there is enough reason and evidence to accuse Wijaya of premeditated murder," prosecutor Syahri said in the first hearing held on Monday.

(source: Jakarta Post)

NORTH KOREA:

The death penalty in North Korea: in the machinery of a totalitarian State

In a report published today, "The death penalty in North Korea: in the machinery of a totalitarian State", FIDH denounces the nature and scale of executions in North Korea. The report concludes that the death penalty remains, in North Korea, an essential part of the totalitarian system in place. Due to the lack of access to North Korea for independent human rights organizations to enter North Korea, and the difficulty to obtain any data from authorities, FIDH sent a fact-finding mission to Seoul in December 2012 to collect first-hand testimonies from a total of 12 North Korean asylum seekers

In the 90's, during the great famine, the regime extensively used the death penalty in order to maintain order through force and terror and thus dissuade any subversive act, including attempts to flee abroad. Over a thousand public executions would have been carried out in only a few years. Since then, the government has continued to use the death penalty on a large-scale as a repressive tool, executing individuals guilty of so-called "economical crimes", "treason" or other crimes vaguely defined, basically applying capital punishment for anyone considered as disturbing public order.

"In North Korea, insignificant acts, which according to the regime affect the State's legitimacy or ideology, including the cult of personality for the country's leaders, can lead you to a firing squad", declared Souhayr Belhassen, FIDH President.

Testimony

One of the persons FIDH met with witnessed the execution of a man in his thirties by firing squad in 2003. The latter was accused of cutting electric wires to sell them. The witness was told to attend the execution by the Party secretary working in his factory, in order to dissuade other workers from stealing electric wire. It happened in the South P'yong'an province, Sunchon city.

Kim Jong-un's coming to power at the beginning of 2012 did nothing to change the situation. On the contrary, 2 decrees, adopted in September, increased the number of offenses carrying the death penalty. They are respectively used to condemn to death anyone found guilty of trafficking foreign currencies or of revealing classified information.

FIDH's report stresses that the death penalty in North Korea is not only applied for crimes considered as non-serious under international law, but also in clear denial of the right to a fair trial. Charges are usually fabricated and sentences follow staged trials, if any trial at all. Public executions, which represent an extreme form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, are widespread. Moreover, the borderline between executions resulting from the death penalty and "extrajudicial" executions is close to nonexistent.

Testimony

Another person witnessed a women executed in a stadium in 2006 for human trafficking and smuggling. Later, the same person saw the execution of a man who had stolen a cow to feed his family. He was publicly executed by firing squad in the market place.

"All states that apply the death penalty are characterized by various forms of arbitrary, illegitimate, and illegal application. However, only in North Korea are all of these found in every executions", said Speedy Rice, professor at Washington & Lee University School of Law, and who took part in FIDH mission.

FIDH hopes that the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the situation of human rights in North Korea, whose members were nominated on May 7th, will shed light on the application of the death penalty and exhort the international community to place the issue of human rights at the heart of its interactions with North Korea.

(source: FIDH)

THAILAND:

Unshackling inmates 'not enough'

International organisations have welcomed Thailand's decision to remove the leg shackles from death row inmates, but say other forms of ill treatment still need to be addressed.

Matilda Bogner, regional representative of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Regional Office for Southeast Asia, said death row conditions in many countries fall far short of international norms that prohibit cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The OHCHR and the human rights mechanisms of the United Nations have regularly expressed concern over the shackling of inmates on death row, said Ms Bogner.

The practice of shackling undermined the dignity of the judicial process by seriously compromising the respectful treatment to which all prisoners were entitled, the Bangkok-based diplomat said.

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra views shackles used on prisoners at Bang Kwang central prison, Bangkok.

"The decision of the government of Thailand is therefore a significant development we very much welcome. It is an important step towards the improvement of the conditions of detention for all detainees in Thailand," said Ms Bogner.

This, she said, illustrated Thailand's efforts to comply with its international obligations under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

"We are confident that the government of Thailand will take additional steps in the near future to prevent any forms of ill-treatment," said the OHCHR regional representative.

Somchai Homlaor, chair of Amnesty International Thailand, said shackling the inmates was a form of torture and a violation of the 2007 constitution.

The unshackling of the first 400 inmates would be hopefully expanded to include other detainees nationwide, and should include when they attend court hearings, said Mr Somchai.

He also called for other integrated measures such as ending the problem of prison overcrowding, separating detainees of different levels of offences and stages of processing - especially those on trial and those already convicted - and ensuring provision of additional and timely medical and public health services inside prisons.

Amnesty International Thailand director Parinya Boonridrerthaikul said 2/3 of the world had already abolished capital punishment. Thailand should follow that trend by announcing an immediate moratorium on the death penalty, under the 2nd national human rights plan of action.

Ms Parinya said the 3rd human rights master plan being drafted now should also continue the effort to end capital punishment.

Eventually, Thailand should adopt the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, she said. The protocol commits signatories to the abolition of the death penalty within their borders.

(source: Bangkok Post)

IRAN----executions

3 executed in Iran

3 people were executed in Karaj, Iran. APA reports that the prisoners were convicted of murder.

Identities of the 2 prisoners were revealed (Hamid Shahrbari and Majid Shikhanlu) and the other's only surname (Nasiri) was announced. The death penalty, imposed by the lower court was fulfilled in Rajai Shahr prison of Karaj city after it was approved by the Supreme Court of Iran early on May 15.

Amnesty International reported that 314 people were executed in Iran in 2012. However, Iranian human rights organizations reported that 580 people were hanged in Iran which stands second after China in Prisoner Execution List. Generally, Iran imposes death penalty for crimes such as drug smuggling, rape, murder and armed robbery.

According to official and non-official information, 4 people were hanged in Kermanshah, 3 in Isfahan, 3 in Shahrud and 1 in Semnan.

(source: APA)

MAY 15, 2013:

TEXAS----execution

Texas executes man for fatal shooting of officer

A Houston man condemned for the slaying of a police officer shot while trying to handcuff him during a car theft arrest 14 years ago was put to death Wednesday evening.

Jeffrey Demond Williams, 37, received lethal injection just over an hour after his last-day appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court failed.

Williams said police are "clowns" and accused them of "killing all these kids." "Y'all are getting away with murder all the time."

He briefly picked up his head as the lethal drugs took effect, then took several deep breaths and gently snored.

Williams was pronounced dead at 6:36 p.m. CDT, 26 minutes after lethal drug began.

Williams' lawyers had appealed to the nation's highest court to block the punishment after lower courts rejected their arguments that Williams was failed by his previous attorneys.

Williams was convicted of fatally shooting 39-year-old Houston officer Troy Blando while Blando was handcuffing him on May 19, 1999. Williams shot Blando with a gun he had tucked under his shirt. Blando was watching a motel where car thefts were suspected when he saw Williams drive up in a Lexus that was reported stolen in a carjacking nine days earlier.

Prosecutors say that after shooting Blando, Williams fled the scene but only made it about a block before he was captured. Blando's cuffs were hanging from one of his wrists.

In their appeal, Williams' attorneys contended his execution should be postponed so that the courts can further review their claims that he received substandard legal help at his trial that influenced the jury's decision to sentence him to death. They also said he received "grossly deficient" counsel early on in the appeals process because his attorneys then didn't address the poor job his trial attorneys had done.

"Mr. Williams has never been afforded the guarantee of constitutionally effective counsel at the punishment phase and he for nine years has sought a remedy in the state and federal courts for the resulting deprivation of his right to one meaningful opportunity to challenge his death sentence," said Jonathan Sheldon, Williams lead attorney.

Attorneys for the state opposed any delay, contending Williams' arguments were rejected by the courts, including the Supreme Court, in earlier appeals.

"He raises the very same meritless claim," Edward Marshall, an assistant Texas attorney general, said in his filing to the justices. "Williams is simply hoping for another bite at the apple, to appeal the denial of his substantive claims which have not factually changed in the nine years since he first raised them."

Williams' fingerprints were found on the Lexus and also on Blando's vehicle, evidence showed. When arrested, Williams was carrying the 9 mm pistol determined to be the murder weapon.

At his trial, his lawyers tried to show Williams was unintelligent, had emotional problems and didn't deserve to die.

Evidence showed Williams gave investigators five taped confessions the day he was arrested. Williams said he fired in self-defense, feared Blando could have been a carjacker and didn't know Blando was an officer. In another confession, he acknowledged knowing he was shooting a policeman.

Court records show Blando, although in plain clothes, was carrying his badge around his neck.

Testimony and confessions also linked Williams to 4 robberies, another shooting and an attempted robbery.

Williams became the 6th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 498th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. At least 8 others have executions scheduled in the coming months.

Williams becomes the 259th condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas since Rick Perry became governor in 2001.

Williams becomes the 12th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1332nd overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

(sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin)

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

Executions under Rick Perry, 2001-present-----259

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982-present----498

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

260-------------June 12------------------Elroy Chester--------499

261------------June 26-------------------Kimberly McCarthy----500*****

262--------------July 10------------------Rigoberto Avila, Jr.----501

263-------------July 16-----------------John Quintanilla Jr.---502

264-------------July 18------------------Vaughn Ross----------503

265-------------July 31-------------------Douglas Feldman-----504

266-------------Sept. 19------------------Robert Garza--------505

267-------------Sept. 26------------------Arturo Diaz--------506

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)

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

Execution Delayed for Killer of McConnell Unit Guard

A state district judge has put off next week's scheduled execution of a Texas inmate condemned for the slaying of a corrections officer at a South Texas prison in 1999.

Robert Pruett faced lethal injection May 21 for the fatal stabbing of Dan Nagle, a corrections officer at the McConnell Unit prison near Beeville. Attorneys for Pruett want additional DNA testing in his case. Prosecutors agreed to a 60-day delay.

State District Judge Ronald Yeager in Bee County on Tuesday formally withdrew next week's execution date. The judge also set a hearing for June 3 to address questions about the forensic testing and a new execution setting.

Pruett has denied killing the officer. At the time of the attack, Pruett already was serving 99 years for a Harris County slaying.

(source: KRIS TV News)

OHIO:

Ariel Castro to plead not guilty

The man accused of holding 3 young US women captive for around a decade in a house in Cleveland will plead innocent to charges of rape and kidnapping, 1 of his lawyers said.

"There will be a plea of not guilty," lawyer Jaye Schlachet said.

He would not say on what grounds Ariel Castro will plead not guilty in the case that has shocked America, urging the public to refrain from a rush to judgment.

"He's not a monster and he shouldn't be demonised by the media," the lawyer said.

The 52-year-old Castro, who is being held on an $US8 million bond, has been charged with kidnapping and raping 3 women over around a 10-year period, one of whom bore his child in captivity.

Prosecutors say they also may charge him with the aggravated murder of unborn babies at least one of the women lost during beatings, a crime that could carry the death penalty.

Michelle Knight, 32, Gina DeJesus, 23, and Amanda Berry, 27, were freed on May 6 after a neighbour heard Ms Berry call for help and kicked in the door to Castro's house in a working-class Cleveland neighbourhood.

"All the evidence will be disclosed at the court proceedings," Ms Schlachet said.

"I would ask the community not to rush, to consider everything before expressing an opinion."

(source: Brisbane Times)

TEXAS----imminenet execution

Houston cop-killer denied last-day reprieve

A prisoner on Texas death row for killing a Houston police officer 14 years ago has lost an appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court less than an hour before his scheduled execution in Huntsville.

Attorneys for 37-year-old Jeffrey Demond Williams had asked the nation's highest court to halt the Wednesday evening lethal injection after lower courts rejected their arguments that Williams was failed by his previous attorneys.

He'd be the 6th Texas inmate executed this year.

Williams was convicted of fatally shooting 39-year-old Officer Troy Blando while Blando was handcuffing him.

Blando was watching a motel where car thefts were suspected when he saw Williams drive up in a Lexus that was reported stolen.

Williams was captured about a block away. Blando's cuffs were hanging from one of his wrists.

In their appeal, Williams' attorneys contend that his execution should be postponed so that the courts can further review their claims that he received substandard legal help at his trial that influenced the jury's decision to sentence him to death. They also say he received "grossly deficient" counsel early on in the appeals process because his attorneys then didn't address the poor job his trial attorneys had done.

"Mr. Williams has never been afforded the guarantee of constitutionally effective counsel at the punishment phase and he for 9 years has sought a remedy in the state and federal courts for the resulting deprivation of his right to one meaningful opportunity to challenge his death sentence," said Jonathan Sheldon, Williams lead attorney.

Attorneys for the state have opposed any delay, contending Williams' arguments were rejected by the courts, including the Supreme Court, in earlier appeals.

"He raises the very same meritless claim," Edward Marshall, an assistant Texas attorney general, said in his filing to the justices. "Williams is simply hoping for another bite at the apple, to appeal the denial of his substantive claims which have not factually changed in the nine years since he first raised them."

Williams' fingerprints were found on the Lexus and also on Blando's vehicle, evidence showed. When arrested, Williams was carrying the 9 mm pistol determined to be the murder weapon.

At his trial, his lawyers tried to show Williams was unintelligent, had emotional problems and didn't deserve to die.

Evidence showed Williams gave investigators five taped confessions the day he was arrested. Williams said he fired in self-defense, feared Blando could have been a carjacker and didn't know Blando was an officer. In another confession, he acknowledged knowing he was shooting a policeman.

Court records show Blando, although in plain clothes, was carrying his badge around his neck.

Testimony and confessions also linked Williams to 4 robberies, another shooting and an attempted robbery.

Williams would be the 498th Texas prisoner put to death since the state resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982. At least 8 others have executions scheduled in the coming months.

(source: Associated Press)

ARIZONA:

Jodi Arias jury weigh death penalty option; Jurors must decide whether killing was cruel and heinous

Jodi Arias says she wants death for murder convictionJurors in Jodi Arias' trial are deliberating whether the former waitress should be eligible for the death penalty after they convicted her last week of murdering her lover.

The jury got the case after a day of testimony Wednesday during which prosecutors tried to prove the murder was committed in an especially cruel and heinous manner.

The 32-year-old Arias admitted killing Travis Alexander in June 2008 at his suburban Phoenix home.

She first denied involvement. 2 years after her arrest, she said it was self-defense. Prosecutors say she planned the killing in a jealous rage.

The jury convicted her of 1st-degree murder last Wednesday.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Jodi Arias eligible for death penalty

After little more than 2 hours of argument and testimony, the jury in the Jodi Arias murder determined she is qualified for the death penalty. Under Arizona law, there must be at least one "aggravating factor" from a statutory list, in this case, a determination that the murder was "especially cruel." What that means is that the victim, Travis Alexander, suffered pain and/or mental anguish, and that Arias was aware that her actions could cause that pain or anguish.

Prosecutor Juan Martinez showed grisly autopsy photos to remind the jurors of the nearly 30 stab wounds Alexander suffered, the slit throat, the bullet wound to his forehead.

The medical examiner who performed the autopsy testified for the 4th time to talk about pain and suffering. He was the day's only witness.

And though an exact sequence of wounds was never determined -- and Arias claims not to remember -- Martinez created an elaborate and emotionally powerful narrative, postulating that Alexander was seated in the shower reaching up to fend off a knife attack and then staggered to the sink to look at himself in the mirror.

"He's still in pain," Martinez said as he showed a photograph of the blood-spattered sink and mirror. "He feels the shortness of breath... he sees himself in the mirror. He sees the defendant..."

"To see his face in the mirror: Was it contorted in pain? Did he scream?"

Then, Martinez said, Alexander must have tried to escape down a hallway, only to fall.

"The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was the defendant with that blade to his throat," Martinez said. And he averred that Alexander would have suffered grave mental anguish at the sight.

Defense attorney Jennifer Willmott argued that the attack was relatively brief, and that the adrenaline surge of a fight or flight response would have numbed the pain.

Martinez countered by asking the courtroom to stay still for 2 minutes, noting how long it seemed, especially if one were being stabbed.

In the end, Arias' other attorney, Kirk Nurmi, asked the jurors not to be swayed by emotion.

(source: USA Today)

TEXAS----impending execution

Texas death row inmate hopes for US Supreme Court reprieve, hours before scheduled execution

A Texas death row inmate who killed a Houston police officer 14 years ago was hoping for a reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court hours before his scheduled Wednesday execution.

Attorneys for Jeffrey Demond Williams, 37, appealed to the highest court in the land after lower courts rejected their arguments that Williams was failed by his previous attorneys. Barring a reprieve, Williams will be put to death by injection and become the 6th inmate executed in Texas this year.

Williams was convicted of fatally shooting 39-year-old Officer Troy Blando while Blando was handcuffing him on May 19, 1999. Williams shot Blando with a gun he had tucked under his shirt. Blando was watching a motel where stolen cars typically were spotted when he saw Williams drive up in a Lexus that was reported stolen in a carjacking 9 days earlier.

Prosecutors say that after shooting Blando, Williams fled the scene but only made it about a block before he was captured. Blando's cuffs were hanging from one of his wrists.

In their appeal, Williams' attorneys contend that his execution should be postponed so that the courts can further review their claims that he received substandard legal help at his trial that influenced the jury's decision to sentence him to death. They also say he received "grossly deficient" counsel early on in the appeals process because his attorneys then didn't address the poor job his trial attorneys had done.

"Mr. Williams has never been afforded the guarantee of constitutionally effective counsel at the punishment phase and he for nine years has sought a remedy in the state and federal courts for the resulting deprivation of his right to one meaningful opportunity to challenge his death sentence," said Jonathan Sheldon, Williams lead attorney.

Attorneys for the state have opposed any delay, contending Williams' arguments were rejected by the courts, including the Supreme Court, in earlier appeals.

"He raises the very same meritless claim," Edward Marshall, an assistant Texas attorney general, said in his filing to the justices. "Williams is simply hoping for another bite at the apple, to appeal the denial of his substantive claims which have not factually changed in the nine years since he first raised them."

Williams' fingerprints were found on the Lexus and also on Blando's vehicle, evidence showed. When arrested, Williams was carrying the 9 mm pistol determined to be the murder weapon.

At his trial, his lawyers tried to show Williams was unintelligent, had emotional problems and didn't deserve to die.

Evidence showed Williams gave investigators 5 taped confessions the day he was arrested. Williams said he fired in self-defense, feared Blando could have been a carjacker and didn't know Blando was an officer. In another confession, he acknowledged knowing he was shooting a policeman.

Court records show Blando, although in plain clothes, was carrying his badge around his neck.

Testimony and confessions also linked Williams to 4 robberies, another shooting and an attempted robbery.

Williams would be the 498th Texas prisoner put to death since the state resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982. At least 8 others have executions scheduled in the coming months.

(source: Associated Press)

SOUTH CAROLINA----female could face death sentence

S.C. mom charged in deaths of her 2 children

2 children were found dead in their beds, and their mother has been charged with shooting them to death.

Suzanna Brown Simpson, 35, a "model" volunteer at the children's elementary school, was charged Tuesday with 2 counts of murder, 1 count of attempted murder in connection with her husband's gunshot wounds, and 1 count of possession of a weapon during a violent crime, according to warrants signed by authorities.

Carly Simpson, 7, was "sweetness defined," said her 1st-grade teacher, Nancy Zeigler, at Dacusville Elementary School.

Her 5-year-old brother, Sawyer, was "enthusiastic, adventurous and creative" and loved to build things with Legos, said his 4K teacher, Jama Freeman.

Their father, Michael John Simpson, 34, was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries. He had been shot, authorities said.

Thirteenth Circuit Solicitor Walt Wilkins said the case could qualify for the death penalty if a conviction is reached because it involves multiple homicides and also because it involves children younger than 11.

On what otherwise might have seemed like a perfect spring day in a community of pastures swaying with bright yellow dandelions, Dacusville was in mourning Tuesday.

2 yellow ribbons adorned the front door of the school, as secretaries went through the sad business of calling parents of the children's classmates. Grief counselors were at the school Wednesday.

Principal Michael Fleming was hardly able to talk about the children.

"Precious children, always smiling, seemed to enjoy school, just really sweet kids," was all he could say by late afternoon. Life inside the school had gone on as normally as could be expected during the day, he said. Authorities had notified school officials of the tragedy but told them there was no need to lock the school down.

They said the danger had passed.

Tim O'Connor, who lives across the street from the Simpsons, was one of the first to realize something terrible had happened.

"I had just got out of bed," he said Tuesday. "I was sitting there watching TV and drinking my coffee, and I heard boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. At first it sounded like whenever somebody's dumping a dumpster. And then it kept going on."

He decided someone had had a car wreck.

He was right.

When authorities arrived around 6 a.m., they found Suzanna Simpson had been in a truck crash just outside the house and had injuries, officials said.

When they checked inside the house, they found the children and Simpson's husband, they said.

Pickens County Sheriff Rick Clark said he is focused on bringing justice for the victims and couldn't release many details about the present case.

He said he didn't know what precipitated the pre-dawn violence. Authorities were not aware of any domestic violence calls from the home, he said.

"Every community, no matter how great, has its tragedies, and Pickens County has experienced another one today," he said. "As always in Pickens County, we'll come together. We support our own, and we're here for the family of these victims, and we care for them very much."

Suzanna Simpson had no criminal record, as far as authorities had been able to determine late Tuesday.

Less than 4% of all homicides in 2011, the most recent year available, were parents killing their children, according to FBI Uniform Crime Report data. In 1995 in a case that garnered national attention, Susan Smith of Union, S.C., was sentenced to life in prison for driving her car into a lake in October 1994 and drowning her 3-year-old and 14-month-old sons.

The sheriff said he couldn't comment on Suzanna Simpson's condition although he said she is under guard at Greenville Memorial Hospital, about 10 miles southeast of this community of about 3,000.

Nor would he answer whether her husband and the children were asleep when they were shot. He also wouldn't say how the wreck happened or whether authorities believe that the mother was trying to flee.

The ages of the victims made the job that much more emotionally intense for investigators, Clark said.

"No matter how tough a cop you are, no matter how many people you've prosecuted, doesn't matter who you are, when kids are involved it's a whole different situation," he said.

The state Law Enforcement Division sent crime scene agents to assist in processing the scene, according to spokesman Thom Berry.

Glenn Abbott, who said he moved to the neighborhood within a few weeks of the time the Simpsons did n9 years ago, described them as a "very nice couple."

"They were a typical, ordinary middle-class family, worked hard. I never dreamed that would be even possible."

It had been a tough day since hearing the news, he said.

"Lot of tears and a lot of prayers, praying for Michael to pull through," he said.

The Simpsons lived in a modern-looking ranch house with a freshly mowed lawn and landscaping that included several magnolias.

"As far as I know they were pretty good people," said Harvey Alverson, whose property adjoins theirs. "I just don't understand what happened to them."

He's seen 7 fatal car crashes in his yard, along a curve in the road, during the 41 years he's lived there but never anything like this, he said.

James Brown, who has lived down the road just past the school for almost all of his 74 years, said the community recently has been stricken with burglaries - "people stealing lawnmowers and trailers, anything they can get money out of."

Otherwise, it's a very quiet neighborhood, he said.

He passed by the Simpson house often.

"I might see the lady come to the mailbox, but I couldn't say I really know them very good," Brown said. "Used to, you knew everybody who lived in every house everywhere. But now everybody works. You just don't socialize like you did 50 years ago."

(source: USA Today)

FLORIDA:

Ex-death row inmates: Veto Timely Justice Act

2 former death row inmates who have since been exonerated urged Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Wednesday to veto legislation that would expedite the state's capital punishment process, worrying it will condemn some innocent men to death.

"If (this bill) had been law, it would have ended my life. I am innocent," said Seth Penalver, who was exonerated after 18 years in prison.

Penalver and Herman Lindsey, who was freed after 3 years on death row, pleaded with the Republican governor to grant him a meeting, saying at least 13 people currently on death row have exhausted their post-conviction appeals and gone through the clemency process. They fear that if Scott signs the Timely Justice Act, the governor could be putting innocent inmates to death without ample time and adequate assurance that they truly are guilty. The 2 appeared at a news conference Wednesday.

The bill, which was recently passed by the Republican-led Legislature, essentially minimizes the time between sentencing and execution by creating tighter timeframes for appeals and post-conviction motions and by imposing reporting requirements on case progress. The measure also re-establishes a separate agency for north Florida to provide appellate-level legal representation to inmates sentenced to death, and requires them to "pursue all possible remedies in state court."

It would also require a governor to sign a death warrant within 30 days of a State Supreme Court review of a capital conviction. The state would be required to execute the defendant within 180 days of the warrant.

The law comes as Florida's capital punishment process has come under intense scrutiny and has been criticized for allowing some condemned inmates to languish for decades on death row. A New York Times editorial published Tuesday said the bill was "grotesquely named."

Florida has exonerated 24 men on death row since 1973, more than any other state, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Florida now has 405 inmates on death row, more than any other state except California. It takes an average of 13 years for an inmate to move from sentencing to execution.

Penalver hired a private investigator and found new evidence, which he said prosecutors had hid from him, that pointed to other suspects. He was freed in December 2012, after "crying like a baby" and dropping to his knees in prayer in the courtroom as jurors exonerated him on 3 1st-degree murder convictions, armed robbery and armed burglary. After 18 years in prison, the first thing he vowed to do was to find a church. It was 3:30 a.m. in downtown Fort Lauderdale, but Penalver, now 40, found a church and prayed. Then, he hit the beach, longing to see palm trees and the ocean.

Lindsey said many attorneys handling death row cases are underpaid and don't have the resources to conduct extensive investigations for new evidence.

Critics worry that DNA evidence might be introduced later that proves a condemned prisoner's innocence.

"You're willing to sign a bill for the death warrants, but you're not willing to take a look at what is really happening," Lindsey said, referring to Scott.

The governor has given little indication about where he stands on the bill, but his spokeswoman, Jackie Schutz, said Wednesday, "We want to hear from Floridians about the merits of this legislation, which our general counsel's office is currently reviewing."

Supporters of the measure say that numerous people have sat on Florida's death row for longer than 30 years, making a mockery of the justice system and further hurting the victims' families because they have to wait for years for closure.

Mark Schlackman, senior program director for Florida State University's Center for Advancement of Human Rights, said the bill was ill-conceived but has also been mischaracterized by some advocacy groups. He said it wouldn't necessarily mean immediate death warrants for a set number of inmates.

He also said the portion of the law requiring the governor to sign a death warrant within 30 days of review is moot because the governor's clemency powers cannot be abridged.

Schlackman hopes the governor will sign the bill as a signal that the state is open to more meaningful reforms going forward, including unanimous jury legislation. Under state law, a jury now only needs a majority, not a unanimous recommendation, for a death sentence. He pressed for similar reforms that were pointed out in a scathing 2006 report by the American Bar Association.

"The concerns about undue delay in the process shouldn't be ignored but they should be cast within the larger context of comprehensive review of Florida's entire death penalty process to minimize risk that innocent people be put to death and that was not the emphasis of this bill," he said.

(source: Associated Press)

COLORADO:

White House pushes media shield bill ---- Issa has administration in his crosshairs

Prosecutors in the Colorado theater shootings say laws on insanity and the death penalty are constitutional and don't need any of the explanations requested by the defense.

Attorneys for the state filed their response Wednesday to motions by James Holmes' lawyers saying the laws are vague. The defense also argues the laws violate Holmes' rights by possibly barring him from calling witnesses to testify about his mental health during the trial's penalty phase.

Holmes is charged with killing 12 at a movie theater in July. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

A judge entered a standard not guilty plea on Holmes' behalf. He wants to change that to not guilty by reason of insanity.

The judge must approve the change after ruling on defense objections to the laws.

(source: Associated Press)

WASHINGTON----new death sentence

Judge confirms death sentence for killer of Monroe prison guard

Snohomish County Superior Court Judge George F. Appel has confirmed the jury's death sentence for Byron Scherf for killing corrections Officer Jayme Biendl.

After Scherf declined to address the court this afternoon, Appel said to him: "Byron Scherf, I sentence you to death for the murder of Jayme Biendl." He will become the 9th man on Washington state's death row.

Under state law, the death sentence is subject to mandatory review by the state Supreme Court.

The state Department of Corrections also issued this statement on the verdict: "Today, our thoughts are with the family of Correctional Officer Jayme Biendl. We are grateful for the completion of the trial and penalty phase of this tragic case."

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

ORIGINAL POST: A Snohomish County jury has recommended the death penalty for a prison inmate convicted last week of killing corrections Officer Jayme Biendl in January 2011.

Byron Scherf, 54, was convicted Thursday of 1st-degree aggravated murder, setting in motion deliberations over whether he should face life in prison without parole or the death penalty. Jurors began deliberating his fate just before 11:30 a.m. Tuesday and returned with their verdict just after 9 a.m. this morning.

Members of Biendl's family hugged after the jury's verdict was announced in a packed courtroom that included numerous corrections officers.

Scherf had no noticeable reaction to the verdict.

Superior Court Judge George F. Appel will hold a hearing at 1 p.m. today to consider whether to formally impose the sentence. If Appel agrees with the jury's recommendation, Scherf will be the 1st person sentenced to death in Snohomish County since janitor James Elledge, 58, was condemned in 1998 for killing a woman in a Lynnwood church and raping a second. Elledge was executed in August 2001.

Deputy Prosecutor Paul Stern told reporters, "We're just very grateful," citing the work of investigators and the jury's deliberations. Biendl's family met with reporters outside the courthouse. Biendl's father, James Hamm, said, "A weight has been lifted off my shoulders." He wore a small replica of his daughter's corrections badge on his lapel. Reacting to the jury's verdict, Biendl's sister, Lisa Hamm, said, "I've been waiting 837 days, exactly, to hear those words that he got the death penalty."

Scherf is a convicted rapist who was serving a life sentence at the Washington State Reformatory in Monroe when he killed Biendl, 34, in the prison's chapel.

During Scherf's trial, the defense didn't dispute that he strangled Biendl with an amplifier cord. But his lawyers suggested he didn't plan to kill Biendl, and said he blacked out in the final minutes of her life.

The jury saw Scherf's video confession last week in which he said he first planned to ambush and beat up Biendl over something she said to him. He refused to say what set him off.

Scherf's DNA was found on Biendl's fingernails. His blood was found on her coat and the amplifier cord, forensic scientists from the state crime lab testified. Scherf's hands were bright red with an obvious mark across a palm, testified a Monroe police detective who saw him a few hours after the killing.

During the subsequent penalty phase of the trial, defense lawyers argued that Sherf had been a model prisoner over the years and had taken educational coursework, as well as self-improvement classes. He had spent all but 2 years of his adult life in prison. They noted he would likely serve out his sentence in 23-hour-a-day lockdown.

Prosecutors called just 1 witness, Biendl's father. "There is an enormous void in our lives that will never be filled," James Hamm said, according to a report in the Everett Herald.

3 state prison officers were fired, and 4 others, including 2 lieutenants, were disciplined for mistakes made before and after Biendl was killed.

(source: Seattle Times)

CHINA:

Beijing touts drop in capital crimes in annual human rights reports

The central government released its 10th white paper on human rights yesterday, highlighting a decrease in the number of crimes eligible for the death sentence as a sign of progress.

The paper published by the State Council Information Office said the mainland has enforced strict controls over use of the death penalty and has taken a prudent approach to it, while also protecting the rights of detainees.

Under a 2011 amendment to the Criminal Law, the death penalty was removed as a form of punishment for 13 economic and non-violent crimes, reducing the number of categories applied to death sentences by nearly one-fifth, said the annual "Progress in China's Human Rights" report.

But law experts said that China's party-ruled system could not effectively protect the human rights of its citizens, let alone criminal suspects and detainees.

"China has made progress in human rights protection in regard to the decreasing number of death sentences," said Wang Canfa , a law professor at China University of Political Science and Law. "But the government is not yet prepared to embrace the true rule of law to emphasise the protection of human rights.

"Only when a rule of law system is introduced could the human rights of Chinese citizens be protected properly and effectively," Wang said.

Last year, China's highest court spared the life of a 30-year-old millionaire after her death sentence by lower courts triggered an outpouring of protests online. Wu Ying was sentenced to death in 2009 for swindling 11 investors out of 380 million yuan (HK$475 million).

Last year, a phrase calling for "respecting and protecting human rights" was added to the amended Criminal Procedure Law, which, the white paper said, was milestone toward "in punishing criminals, protecting the public and safeguarding citizens' right to litigation".

As done previously, the white paper cited economic and social development as progress in terms of human rights. "China has combined its human rights endeavours with economic, political, cultural, social and ecological construction," it said.

(source: South China Morning Post)

VIETNAM:

Poison for lethal injection revealed

The poison that will be used for lethal injection in Vietnam from June 27, 2013 includes the sensory paralyzing drug, the drug that paralyzes the musculoskeletal system and the drug to stop the heart's activity.

The Government has issued Decree 47 on the implementation of the death penalty by lethal injection. Accordingly, 1 dose of poison includes 3 types of drugs as mentioned above. The poison will be provided by the Ministry of Health.

Decree 47 was signed by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and it will replace Decree 82 which was issued in 2011.

Previously, Decree 82 stipulated that the poison used for lethal injection includes Sodium thiopental (anesthesia,) Pancuronium bromide (the drug to paralyze the nervous and muscle system) and Potassium chloride (the drug used to stop the heart's activity).

However, Vietnam could not import the drug since other countries refused to sell it for the purpose of enforcing death penalty. The government had to ask the Ministry of Health to research and produce poison in Vietnam.

According to the Ministry of Public Security, preparation for the application of lethal injection has completed, with the construction and installation of equipment in 5 detention centers in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Son La, Nghe An and Dak Lak. The training on the implementation of lethal injection has also completed. Lethal injection will be applied immediately when the poison is available.

Currently, over 500 prisoners are waiting for the death penalty execution by lethal injection.

(source: VietnamNet)

BRITAIN:

British maker of death penalty drugs adds new restrictions for US buyers----Hikma Pharmaceuticals moves to avoid 'unintended purposes' for drugs amid growing European boycott on sale to the US

Arkansas has 38 death row prisoners, and has executed 27 since the death penalty restarted in 1976.

A drug manufacturer based in Britain has vowed to add new restrictions to sales of its products in the US after it was revealed that it sold a batch of barbiturate to the Arkansas department of corrections, which intended to use it in executions.

Hikma Pharmaceuticals has promised to put in place "concrete steps to restrict the supply of its products for unintended uses" following the disclosure by the legal action charity Reprieve that a wholly owned subsidiary in the US had sold injectable phenobarbital to the Arkansas prison service which was seeking to devise a new way of killing its death-row inmates.

"Hikma strongly objects to the use of any of its products in capital punishment," the company said in a statement.

Hikma is the latest pharmaceutical company to be caught selling death penalty drugs to the US amid a growing boycott across Europe and around the world of lethal injection drug sales to capital punishment states. It follows a line of firms, including the Danish company Lundbeck and the US manufacturer Hospira, to place legal or production hurdles in the way of such sales.

Ironically, Arkansas turned to the Hikma subsidiary, West-Ward Pharmaceuticals in Memphis, Tennessee, as a possible way of skirting the drug boycott. Since 2011 execution drugs have been in increasingly short supply after the European commission banned exports of listed chemicals to all US corrections departments.

With other options closed down, Arkansas decided to pioneer a new death penalty protocol untested by any other state: the use of phenobarbital, a barbiturate widely used medically as an anticonvulsant. This year the state adopted a new protocol that involves executing prisoners by injecting them with a relaxant, Lorazepam, followed by 12 grams of phenobarbital hydrochloride.

In April, West-Ward Pharmaceuticals shipped 2 batches of Phenobarbital to Arkansas department of corrections in Pine Bluff amounting to a total of almost 100 grams of the chemical - sufficient to kill 8 prisoners. A spokesman for Hikma said the order had been made as part of the regular automated request for drugs for the general prison hospital services and given that phenobarbital has never been used in executions before in the US, it raised no red flags with the company.

Hikma added that the quantity of the drug was small, though a spokeswoman for the Arkansas department of corrections said it was "enough to perform several executions".

Maya Foa, a death penalty expert with Reprieve, welcomed Hikma's pledge to cut off the supply route to US corrections departments in capital punishment states. "This shows that the pharmaceutical industry is not willing to have its products used in executions. The industry now understands that it can stop its drugs reaching death chambers."

Arkansas confirmed to the Guardian that it had been contacted by West-Ward and told that it was closing the account. That presents the state with a long-term problem, but in the short term it still has plenty of phenobarbital with a shelf life that will last until October 2015.

Arkansas has 38 death row prisoners, and has executed 27 since the death penalty restarted in 1976. There are no executions scheduled this year, though in anticipation of a warrant being issued, 6 death row inmates have challenged the use of phenobarbital potentially to kill them through the courts.

In their complaint, the condemned men say that Arkansas has chosen "a completely untried combination and quantity of drugs that will take hours to be injected and to reach their peak effect, that will produce agonising and degrading effects during the procedure, and that will severely and permanently injure - but may not kill - the prisoners".

(source: The Guardian)

INDIA:

VHP smells blood, wants all appeals for death penalty in riot cases withdrawn

After the Gujarat government's move to withhold its decision to seek death penalty for ex-minister Maya Kodnani in the Naroda Patiya case, the VHP has now demanded withdrawal of all appeals seeking death penalty in other riot cases as well. In a press statement, Gujarat VHP general secretary Ranchhod Bharvad said, "The VHP demands that the Gujarat government should give clear order to its law department not to seek any punishment for Hindus henceforth, and also to file an independent appeal against verdicts that have given harsh punishments in such cases."

Anti-Gujarati elements hindering growth: Modi

Attacking Congress, Chief Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday alleged that anti-Gujarat elements continued to hinder the state's progress despite being taught a befitting lesson by the people in the elections.

"Those who are mindlessly criticising Gujarat day and night will continue to do so. Instead of joining the journey of the state's development, they continue to spread lies," Modi said while addressing farmers at the launch of 9th Krishi Mahotsav 2013 in Radhanpur, Patan district.

He pointed out that the craze to be on television or in the news is such that anti-Gujarat elements have invented new ways of spreading lies and provoke farmers to stage protests against his government.

"The people of Gujarat know such people very well and have answered them on many occasions through the ballot," Modi said.

Claiming that neither they nor their party would gain by criticising Gujarat and allegedly blocking of the state's progress, Modi asked such "anti-state elements" to give up and join the development journey of Gujarat. "By opposing things, you will not gain. Neither will your party gain, and the question of Gujarat gaining does not arise," Modi said, in his speech.

He stressed on the need to embrace drip irrigation in Gujarat and said that from 1960-2000, only 12,000 hectares of land was under drip irrigation whereas today, over 9 lakh hectares in Gujarat is drip irrigated.

Taking a dig at Opposition Congress, Modi said "honour them if they embrace drip irrigation, even if they burn Modi's effigies, because drip irrigation is more important than Modi".

(source: Press Trust of India)

SAUDI ARABIA:

Saudi family urges approval of maid's execution for murder; Indonesian maid killed ageing Saudi man and fled before she was raped by 9 men

The family of an ageing Saudi man murdered by an Indonesian housemaid at his home urged King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to endorse her execution, rejecting persistent pleas by her embassy to pardon the woman under Islamic law.

The sons of Saud Al Otaibi said they had waited more than enough for the court to order the beheading of the maid after she was sentenced to death 3.5 years ago.

"We appeal for King Abdullah and the Minister of Interior Prince Mohammed bin Abdul Aziz to end this delay and order the quick execution of this killer...we will not feel any relief until the sentence is executed..we will not accept anything but right," his son, Muneef said, quoted by the Saudi Arabic language daily Sabq.

According to the paper, the maid waited for the other family members to leave home, picked a large wood stick and hit Saud on his head as he bent down to pray at his house in the western town of Taif.

She then stole around SR31,000 in cash and jewelry worth nearly SR100,000 and fled. On her way out, she was offered a lift by a Saudi man, who drove her to an abandoned rest house outside the city and raped her with his 8 friends.

They then stole all her money and drove her to nearby Makkah, where she was hosted by a friend.

Police later arrested the 9 rapists who led them to the maid's whereabouts. During investigation, she confessed to the murder, prompting court to sentence her to death.

Indonesian embassy officials, who were present in most court sessions, tried many times to persuade the victim's sons to pardon the maid in return for Islamic diya (blood money) but they refused. The maid was again sentenced to death by an appeals court.

(source: emirates247)

TEXAS:

Morton Act, DA Accountability Bill Head to Perry

After final approval in the House on Tuesday, the Michael Morton Act, which requires prosecutors to open their files to defense lawyers, and Senate Bill 825, which extends the statute of limitations for discipline against state lawyers who suppress evidence, are headed to Gov. Rick Perry for his signature.

"We aren't going to let the prosecutor off the hook for mistakes and errors they could have prevented," said state Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, the House sponsor of both bills.

On the 50th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brady v. Maryland, in which the justices ruled that prosecutors are obligated to provide defendants with exculpatory evidence "material either to guilt or to punishment," the Texas House tentatively approved 2 bills meant to prevent wrongful convictions.

State Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, said the measures, which she sponsored in the House, were designed "to improve the reliability of criminal convictions."

Both measures come in response to the high-profile exoneration of Michael Morton and the ongoing investigation and trials of the former prosecutor who oversaw his wrongful conviction, state District Judge Ken Anderson of Williamson County. Morton was convicted in 1987 of murdering his wife in Austin. He was exonerated and released from prison in 2011 after DNA testing linked another man to the crime. Morton's lawyers say that Anderson violated Brady rules by withholding crucial evidence that could have pointed to the real killer and prevented the innocent Morton from spending 25 years in prison. Anderson has denied wrongdoing.

"This is a huge 1st step," Morton said in an interview outside the House gallery. "It will prevent all sorts of abuse."

Morton and his wife, Cynthia, looked on as legislators unanimously approved the measures with little discussion. Lawmakers gave him a standing ovation when Thompson introduced him to the chamber. Since his release, Morton has lobbied lawmakers to enact reforms that would prevent his tragedy from befalling others.

In the 5 decades since the high court issued its Brady ruling, most states have approved laws that require both prosecutors and defense lawyers to exchange evidence. Texas state law, however, does not require prosecutors to provide evidence unless ordered by a court do so.

Under Senate Bill 1611, by state Sens. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, and Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, prosecutors would be required to turn over evidence both before trial and after it begins. Senate Bill 825, by state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, would extend the statute of limitations for offenses involving evidence suppression by district attorneys. Under current law, the four-year statute of limitations begins when such offenses occur. Whitmire's bill would start the clock on the statute of limitations at the time a wrongfully convicted defendant is released from prison.

"This is an incredible day for justice in Texas," Ellis said in a press release. "We must weigh all relevant evidence and ensure we bring all the relevant facts to light to safeguard the innocent, convict only the guilty, and provide justice the people of Texas can have faith in."

Legislators have proposed opening the discovery process in previous legislative sessions, but the Morton case and his efforts to promote reforms that would prevent wrongful convictions gave the effort momentum this year. SB 1611 aims to clear up legal gray areas that remain after the Brady ruling. Some prosecutors have interpreted the rule to require only the release of evidence that could change the outcome of a criminal trial. SB 1611 requires prosecutors to turn over all evidence, regardless of whether it could impact the outcome of the case.

Many Texas prosecutors currently have some form of open file policy, but the procedures vary by county and sometimes within a district attorney's office. In a February report based on a survey of more than 40 prosecutors' offices, Texas Appleseed and Texas Defender Service, two justice advocacy organizations, found that "lack of uniformity in discovery policies in Texas makes access to justice dependent, in part, on where a defendant is charged."

"I have long been an advocate for an efficient, effective and uniform court system across Texas. This legislation is a giant step forward in reaching that goal," Duncan said in a press release.

SB 1611 drew concerns from some prosecutors who worried it would endanger witnesses and victims by allowing the release of their information. Changes to the bill made in the Senate allow prosecutors to protect information about witnesses or victims.

After a rare court of inquiry hearing in February, a judge heard evidence about Anderson's role in Morton's wrongful conviction, and the former prosecutor now faces criminal charges. In emotional and indignant testimony during the court of inquiry, Anderson argued that he did nothing wrong and that he would have told Morton's lawyers about the evidence that pointed to a 3rd-party as the killer. But he said he was not required under Brady to turn it over.

The State Bar of Texas has also filed a disciplinary case against Anderson, alleging that he deliberately withheld evidence and made false statements to the court during the trial that led to Morton’s wrongful conviction.

In both the criminal case and the civil action by the State Bar, Anderson contends that the statute of limitations for any such offenses has long expired.

Whitmire's bill would ensure that in cases where prosecutors intentionally withhold information, they could face State Bar action after a wrongly convicted individual is released from prison. His measure would also mandates public sanctions - instead of a private reprimand - for a prosecutor who is found to have willfully withheld exculpatory evidence.

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House Panel OKs Parole After 40 Years for Young Murderers

A House panel Monday unanimously approved a measure that would allow defendants younger than 18 to receive life sentences and be eligible for parole after 40 years. The measure was approved in the Senate in March and passed through the House committee without discussion.

Prosecutors argue they need Senate Bill 187, by Joan Huffman, R-Southside Place, because currently 17-year-olds who commit capital murder cannot be charged with that crime. There is a gap between Texas law and a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that prohibits a life without parole sentence for those younger than 18.

"This bill would keep us in line with what has been handed down by the Supreme Court," Huffman said in March.

Opponents of the measure, though, argue that the mandatory sentence does not consider the many influences that lead children to commit serious crimes. They argue that judges should be given discretion to adjust sentences based on the circumstances of the crime.

In June 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in the case of Miller v. Alabama that anyone under 18 could not be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In that case, 14-year-old Evan Miller and a friend had taken drugs and then beat his neighbor and set fire to his trailer. The neighbor died in the blaze, and Miller was convicted of murder. Alabama laws mandated that he be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The nation's highest court had already decided in the 2005 Roper v. Simmons case that the death penalty could not be assigned to anyone under 18.

Writing for the majority in the Miller decision, Justice Elena Kagan explained that youths were not as culpable for their crimes, no matter how severe or brutal.

"Their 'lack of maturity' and 'underdeveloped sense of responsibility' lead to recklessness, impulsivity, and heedless risk-taking," Kagan wrote.

In Texas, though, 17-year-olds are considered adults when they are tried for capital murder. The Miller ruling means that prosecutors cannot charge a 17-year-old with capital murder, because there is no punishment for them, explained Justin Wood, a Harris County prosecutor. The only sentences now available for the charge of capital murder are the death penalty or life without parole.

"We have to go back and prosecute them for the underlying offense, whether murder or aggravated robbery, or whatever else," he said, noting that there are currently cases in which 17-year-old defendants are waiting in jail as prosecutors await the Legislature's decision on punishment for them.

Lauren Rose, a juvenile justice policy analyst at Texans Care for Children, said the Miller decision should be interpreted as a bar on any mandatory sentences for young people. Judges making decisions about sentencing "need to take into account all of these different factors," Rose said. "The brain is not fully developed until 25. The trigger mechanism of 'Oh, I shouldn't be doing this' isn't always there."

Rose's concerns were shared by state Sen. Jose Rodriguez, D-El Paso, who told Huffman at a Senate committee meeting in March: "I understand what you're trying to do, but does this consider the level of maturity of a particular juvenile? The Supreme Court acknowledged there might be a need to do that."

Huffman said that since the Supreme Court had never taken issue with parole after 40 years for 14- to 16-year-old defendants, which is currently permissible in Texas, the new law would be no different.

The bill now heads to the House floor.

(source for both: Texas Tribune)

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

Video Shows Dallas Dad Admits Drowning 2 Sons

A video showing a man confessing to drowning 2 of his sons in a creek has been played in his capital murder trial in Dallas.

Testimony continues Wednesday in the trial of Naim Rasool Muhammad. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Muhammad over the 2011 deaths of the boys - 5-year-old Naim and 3-year-old Elijah.

Muhammad in the video tells police he was mad at the children's mother for breaking up with him. Muhammad describes telling his sons to pretend they are swimming before he held their faces in the water.

Investigators say Muhammad forced his ex-girlfriend and 2 of their sons into his car. She escaped and asked a constable for help. The constable called police. Constables are mainly process servers.

The couple's youngest son was with relatives.

(source: KBTX News)

PENNSYLVANIA:

Philly drug lord Savage convicted of firebombing

A jury in Philadelphia found notorious drug lord Kaboni Savage and his sister guilty of a 2004 firebombing that killed 6, including 4 children.

Savage, who is already serving a 30-year sentence for drug trafficking, could face the death penalty. The same jury also convicted him of 6 other slayings between 1998 and 2004, the Philadelphia Daily News said Tuesday.

Savage and his sister Kidada, were convicted of murder in aid of racketeering after he instructed his sister to tell a 3rd man to bomb a home associated with a former gang associate who turned into a witness for federal prosecutors. The witness, Eugene Coleman, gave investigators enough evidence to warrant a drug trafficking indictment against Savage. The bombing -- which took place at Coleman's relative's house -- was in retaliation, prosecutors said.

Monday's conviction brings to an end the long string of prosecutions relating to the notoriously violent drug cartel Savage operated on Philly's north side from the late 1990s until 2010.

The Coleman bombing charge carries a mandatory minimum life sentence or the death penalty.

The sentencing portion of the case is scheduled to begin next week.

(source: United Press International)

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

News.Rep.: Gosnell deserved death penalty

State Rep. Margo Davidson, D-164, of Upper Darby, was willing to make an exception to her death penalty views for Kermit Gosnell.

With the convicted Philadelphia abortion doctor's decision Tuesday to waive his appeals in exchange for a sentence of life in prison, that won't be necessary.

"I never imagined that I would ever recommend the death penalty for anyone," she said Tuesday afternoon before the plea deal was made public. "But his crimes were so reprehensible, so dangerous, so heinous, with such an utterly reckless regard for human life that he deserves the death penalty or at the very least to serve the rest of his miserable existence un solitary confinement."

When her 22-year-old cousin, Semika Shaw, died from complications following an abortion in March 2000, Davidson knew nothing about the person who performed the procedure.

"It surprised me when I found out," she said. "I didn't know until the story broke about his (practice). Until then, I assumed it was some back-alley, unlicensed facility."

A Philadelphia jury convicted Gosnell on three counts of 1st-degree murder Monday for killing 3 babies born alive during illegal late-term abortions at his Women's Medical Society clinic. He was also convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the 2009 death of 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar, who died from a drug overdose at the clinic.

A single mother of 2, Shaw died of a perforated uterus and sepsis within a few days of leaving the clinic Gosnell operated in the Mantua section of Philadelphia for 31 years.

"The way my cousins described it, she was bleeding and then the bleeding became more heavy," Davidson said. "She was in a lot of pain, which increased as the days went on to the point where she was no longer able to walk or stand up. That was the scene my cousins described. It was horrible."

The family received $900,000 in insurance settlements and filed a formal complaint about Gosnell but the practice was never investigated and the clinic went inspected by Department of Health officials from 1993 until it was raided by authorities in February 2010.

"Attorneys for Pennsylvania's Department of State disregarded notices that numerous patients of Gosnell were hospitalized - infected, with fetal remains still inside them; and with perforated uteruses, cervixes, and bowels," stated the 2011 Philadelphia Grand Jury Report on the Gosnell case. "Incredibly, in 2004, 174 Department of State attorneys closed - without investigation - a case reported to the board involving the death of 22-year-old Semika Shaw."

In a 1-paragraph summary, a prosecutor for the state Board of Medicine wrote, "(T)he risk was inherent with the procedure performed by Respondent (Gosnell) and administrative action against respondent's license is not warranted."

According to the grand jury report, Shaw had received 4 prior abortions.

Though she cited her cousin's death on the House floor in 2011 before voting on legislation that placed stricter regulations on Pennsylvania abortion clinics, Davidson said her position would have been the same had Shaw and Gosnell never crossed paths.

"Given the circumstances that existed inside that licensed facility in the state of Pennsylvania, my vote would have been the same in order to protect the lives of women," she said.

The legislation, subsequently signed into law, requires abortion clinics to meet the same health and safety standards as other outpatient surgical clinics.

"I don't satisfy either side on this issue," Davidson said. "I consider myself a bold moderate. I am personally pro-life, but I don't agree with protesters who stand outside of abortion clinics with pictures of fetuses."

Davidson said she is not interested in seeing Roe v. Wade overturned and believes women should have access to safe abortion clinics.

"But there needs to be a standard of care in place," she said. "It's interesting that those on my side of the aisle support regulations for every industry except abortion clinics. We are talking about the lives of women and babies yet to be born."

Gosnell was also convicted on more than 200 counts of violating Pennsylvania's abortion law for performing third-term abortions and carrying out abortions without adhering to the law's 24-hour "informed consent" provision.

"If people want to protect choice in this country, they should make sure clinics like Gosnell's don't exist," Davidson said.

(source: delcotimes.com)

MARYLAND:

Brochin Gives Death Penalty Referendum '50-50 Chance' ---- The 3-term Democratic senator believes the death penalty should be placed on the 2014 ballot but finding voters to sign the petition might be a challenge.

Getting the signatures required to place the death penalty on the 2014 ballot is going to take a lot of work, according to Baltimore County State Sen. Jim Brochin.

"I give it a 50-50 chance," Brochin said during an interview with Jimmy Mathis on WBAL Radio.

The trouble, Brochin said, is finding a constituency to support the petition effort to re-instate capital punishment in Maryland.

"If you wanted to get same-sex marriage on the ballot, you went to the Catholic Church. If you want to get the gun issue on the ballot you can go get signatures in North County," Brochin said. "If you're gathering signatures for he death penalty, where do you go?"

Brochin, the 3-term Democratic Senator from Towson, is part of an effort to reinstate the death penalty by challenging the repeal at then ballot box in 2014.

The 3-term Democrat from Towson joins Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger and Washington County Republican Del. Neil Parrott in the effort to collect the signatures of 18,400 Maryland voters by May 31 and a total of 55,736 overall.

Parrott will use his MDPetitions.com to assist in collecting the signatures. The site was key to placing same-sex marriage and the Maryland DREAM Act on the 2012 ballot. Ultimately, voters approved those issues.

"We have some work to do," Brochin said. "We need to explain to people why it's a good idea to download your information on MDPolitics.com and sign [the petition]."

Brochin said most people in Maryland support having the death penalty on the books and that they should have an opportunity to vote on the issue.

"This isn't a Democratic or Republican issue," Brochin said. "It's a public policy issue."

(source: Towson Patch)

FLORIDA:

Grotesque Speed for Florida Capital Cases

The Timely Justice Act, a grotesquely named bill passed by the Florida Legislature, could get to Gov. Rick Scott as soon as this week for him to sign into law. The measure would require a governor to sign a death warrant within 30 days of a review of a capital conviction by the State Supreme Court, and the state would be required to execute the defendant within 180 days of the warrant.

Also this week, an inmate on Florida's death row, Clemente Javier Aguirre-Jarquin, presented DNA evidence that could exonerate him. He was convicted in 2006 of murdering 2 women, based largely on circumstantial evidence. On Monday, he was in court seeking a new trial because the DNA evidence showed that blood at the crime scene - none of it his - was that of a victim's daughter, who, his lawyers argue, likely committed the murders.

Mr. Aguirre-Jarquin's case offers good reason for Governor Scott to veto the bill. The state's indisputably defective death penalty system is made more horrifying by attempts to rush inmates to execution. There is a strong chance that Mr. Aguirre-Jarquin will become the 25th death-row inmate exonerated in Florida since it reinstated capital punishment in 1973. More death-row inmates have been exonerated in Florida than in any state.

As the American Bar Association explained in a scathing 2006 report on the state's death penalty system, Florida is one of the few states that allows a jury to recommend a sentence of death based on a majority vote rather than a unanimous one. Defendants charged with capital crimes often have woefully unqualified counsel, and are much more likely to be convicted and sentenced to death if the victim is white - a sign of racial disparity that is clearly unconstitutional. The flaws in Florida's system, which soaks up huge amounts of resources, cannot be fixed. It is long past time to abolish capital punishment.

(source: Editorial, New York Times)

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

Fast-Track Kill Bill Aside, Scott Speeds Death Warrants, Slating 3 Executions in 26 Days

Gov. Rick Scott is not waiting to sign a bill that would accelerate the pace of capital-punishment executions in Florida. Since that bill was making its way to his desk, he has signed the death warrants of 3 death row inmates, including 1 last week and 1 Monday. The 3 executions will take place in a span of 26 days starting on May 29. That's the fastest-paced series of executions since 4 inmates were killed in March 1998, when Lawton Chiles was governor.

On Monday, Scott signed the death warrant for Marshall Gore, who, absent a stay of execution, will be killed by lethal injection at the Florida state prison at Starke, where all executions are carried out, on June 24. All executions take place at 6 p.m. On May 3, Scott signed the death warrant for William van Poyck. That execution is set for June 12. On April 18, he signed the death warrant for Elmer Carroll who is scheduled to be killed on May 28. The 3 scheduled executions bring to 9 the total number of death warrants Scott has signed since becoming governor in January 2011. 2 inmates were killed in 2011, 3 in 2012. Larry Eugene Mann was the first inmate to be executed this year, on April 10.

In late April, the Legislature passed a bill that would significantly scale back the appeals process for individuals sentenced to death, even though the Florida Supreme Court is releasing a report in September on revising rules that may move death penalty cases more quickly through the system, and even though Florida has the highest rate of exonerations, off of its death row, of any state in the Union. Since 1976, when the state restored the death penalty, 24 death row inmates have been exonerated as the process - through additional trials, DNA evidence and other procedures proponents of fast-tracking the process call "delays" - revealed their convictions to have been faulty.

8 of those exonerated inmates were locked up for more than 10 years before they were exonerated. Those, as tabulated by the Death Penalty Information Center, included James Richardson (21 years), Juan Melendez (18), Rudolph Holton (16), Frank Lee Smith (14), Freddie Pitts (12), Wilbur Lee (12), Joseph Brown (13), and Seth Penalver (13). Florida has exonerated one inmate for every 3 executions it has carried out.

It isn't clear why Scott has not signed the so-called "Timely Justice Act" yet. It is possible that the governor is building a case against signing it - by himself accelerating the pace of death warrants he is signing.

Gore, who is 3 months short of 50, was sentenced to die on April 3, 1990, for the murder of Susan Roark, who picked up Marshall at a Cleveland, Tenn., convenience store on January 1, 1988, where Gore was waiting for a ride to travel to Florida. Roark and Gore traveled to Florida together, in Roark's Ford Mustang, instead. In a narrative prepared by the Commission on Capital Cases, Lisa Ingram testified that she was riding in a car with Gore on in mid-February, 1988, when she saw a woman's purse in the back seat. According to Ingram, Gore told her that the purse belonged to "a girl that he had killed last night."

By then Gore had arrived in Tampa, driving Roark's car. With a friend, he pawned Roark's belongings, then drove on to Miami, abandoning the car after it was involved in a 2-car crash. He was convicted of 1st-degree murder, kidnapping and armed robbery.

William E. Van Poyck, 58, was an ex-con (for armed robbery, among other things), when in 1987, he and fellow-ex-con Frank Valdez attempted to free another inmate who was being taken to a dermatologist's office for skin cancer treatment. The 2 ex-cons ambushed the van that was transporting the inmate. Valdez shot and killed officer and Vietnam veteran Fred Griffis, of Glades Correctional Institution. Van Poyck, in an attempt to free the prisoner, shot several times at a metal lock. One of the bullets ricocheted and struck another guard, wounding him. Though van Poyck has continuously argued that he was not responsible for the fatal shots that killed Griffis, he was found guilty of 1st-degree murder on Nov. 15, 1988, with a non-unanimous jury recommending the death penalty (on an 11-1 vote) 3 days later.

Since his conviction van Poyck has become a writer, self-publishing 3 books and maintaining a blog, through letters his sister then transcribes onto the web (inmates do not have access to the Internet), called Death Row Diary.

"Today Governor Scott signed my death warrant and my execution date has been scheduled for June 12th, at 6 p.m.," he wrote on May 3, an entry posted on May 11. "I wasn't really surprised when they showed up at me cell door with the chains and shackles; for the last month or so I've had a strong premonition that my warrant was about to be signed, but that wasn't something I wanted to share with you.

"Sis, you know I'm a straight shooter, I'm not into sugar coating things, so I don't want you to have any illusions about this. I do not expect any delays or stays. This is it. In 40 days these folks will take me into the room next door and kill me."

He adds: "After 40+ years of living in cages I am ready to leave this dead end existence and move on. I leave with many regrets over the people I have hurt, and those I've disappointed, and over a life squandered away. My spirit will fly away hugging all the life lessons learned over 58 years on Schoolhouse Earth and with an implacable determination not to repeat these mistakes the next time around."

Van Poyck had been represented by Gerald Bettman, an attorney who said he'd represented him as a favor and had not expected to take him through the maze of last-minute appeals. Bettman appealed to a circuit court judge to appoint a different lawyer and was rebuffed. The Florida Supreme Court did the same last week.

"If this court were to allow the last-minute substitution of counsel to create a situation in which the entire case could be re-litigated at the time the death warrant was signed," the Supreme Court wrote in a similar appeal in February, "this could become a standard delay tactic in any death warrant case."

Scott's detailed views on the death penalty are not known, though he addressed the matter when he signed his 1st death warrant, for Manuel Valle, in 2011. "For me, it's very rough. I've never done anything like that," Scott, a Methodist - a denomination that opposes the death penalty - told the Tampa Bay Times at the time. "It's not what I ran on, and I only learned about it during the race." Scott would not address a question about the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent, saying he is not a criminologist.

He added: "While I don't like this part of the job, it's part of the job of governor. I agreed to uphold the law of the land. It's not something that I like doing, but it's the law of the land."

(source: Flaglerlive.com)

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

Man faces death penalty in rape, murder of Seffner woman

Kenneth Ray Jackson could be sentenced to death Friday.

A jury recommended the death penalty in November for Jackson, who was convicted of raping and fatally stabbing a 50-year-old Seffner mother of 3 in 2007.

A week earlier, the same jury deliberated 2 hours before convicting 30-year-old Jackson of attacking Cuc Thu Tran, who had been among thousands of Vietnamese "boat people" who made their way to the United States after the Vietnam War.

She worked 6 days a week giving manicures at a Brandon mall. A mother of 3, she lived with her 2 youngest children in a small trailer. Her only time for jogging was before dawn.

That's when Jackson attacked her.

Tran's bloodstained jogging clothes and sneakers were found Sept. 13, 2007, on a grassy berm at the St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church on County Road 579 in Seffner.

Her body was found in a stolen van set on fire in a field 14 miles away in Gibsonton. Her throat had been slashed.

11 of the 12 jurors recommended the death penalty in November. Florida law states the judge must give "great weight" to their recommendation.

Circuit Judge William Fuente is scheduled to make his decision at Friday's hearing.

(source: Tampa Bay Times)

ALABAMA:

Convicted Huntsville cop killer Benito Albarran asks court to throw out conviction, death sentence

Benito Albarran, who was convicted in the 2005 shooting death of a Huntsville Police Department officer, is asking a Madison County court to overturn his conviction and death sentence.

The filing this morning argues Albarran's constitutional rights were violated. The filing argues the trial court did not have jurisdiction over the case in Madison County after it issued a January 2008 order moving the trial to Calhoun County. The filing argues while trial counsel waived the change of venue motion, the court never dismissed the order moving the case.

The filing was submitted by attorneys Joseph Flood of Virginia, Jennifer Giddings of Arizona and Skyla Olds of California.

Albarran's trial was presided over by Madison County Circuit Judge Karen Hall. He was represented at trial by Richard Jaffe and Derek Drennan of Birmingham and Huntsville attorney Bruce Gardner.

The case was prosecuted by now-Madison County District Attorney Rob Broussard and Assistant DA Jay Town.

The filing also argues that Albarran's attorneys were ineffective throughout the case, depriving him of his rights and he is entitled to a new trial. Among the grounds listed was Albarran's attorneys failure to litigate his "mental retardation" before the trial and in the penalty phase where the jury recommends a life or death sentence.

Albarran was convicted in 2008 of fatally shooting officer Daniel Golden, after Golden responded to a domestic disturbance call at the El Jalisco restaurant on Jordan Lane, where Albarran worked.

According to testimony at the trial, Albarran walked toward Golden pointing a .38-caliber revolver at him, prompting Golden to raise his arms. Albarran fired, and Golden returned fire until his pistol misfired. One of Albarran's shots hit Golden in the lower abdomen, and he fell to the ground.

As the officer lay on the ground pleading for his life, Albarran walked up to him and fired another gun at him. That bullet lodged in Golden's protective vest. As Golden yelled: "Wait!" Albarran fired two more shots into Golden's head, killing him.

Broussard said this afternoon that Albarran received a fair trial and criticism about the case was based on ideology.

"An appeal of this sort has absolutely nothing to do with reality or what actually happened in trial, or the fairness of the process," Broussard said. "It has everything to do with people who are anti-death penalty and they will concoct whatever they want in order to try to overturn something they don't believe in. But Benito Albarran, had as fine a set of lawyers as exist in this state and everything about his trial was conducted in accordance with the law.

"Mr. Albarran got a fair trial and the sentence he received is exactly what he deserves."

The filing was under Rule 32 of Alabama's Rules of Criminal Procedure, which addresses post-conviction issues, including ineffective assistance of counsel.

The filing argues there was evidence from doctors who examined Albarran that suggested he was incompetent to stand trial and incompetent to understand his rights at the time he was given a Miranda warning by police. The filing contends the defense did not hire a competency expert before the trial to address that question.

The filling argues that the U.S. Constitution's due process clause also requires the trial court to take reasonable steps to ensure a determination of competency is reached before proceeding to trial. It also argues Albarran's attorneys did not take sufficient steps to have a pre-trial competency hearing.

The filing argues his attorneys failures forced Albarran to stand trial even though he was mentally incompetent. The only appropriate remedy, Albarran's attorneys argue is to retry him after a pre-trial determination that he is currently competent to stand trial.

The filing also contends that through a "bizarre series of events that remain murky due to an incomplete record, a Madison County jury in a Huntsville courthouse tried Mr. Albarran five months after the court ordered a change of venue."

The widespread media attention given to the case, the efforts to raise money for Golden's family and commemorate Golden's death all suggest "presumed prejudice" toward Albarran and his right to get a fair trial, the filing argues. It also argues Albarran's attorneys failed to question each potential juror properly about the effect of pre-trial publicity.

The filing also argues the trial attorneys mishandled the approach to Albarran's defense of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.

The defense should not have argued Albarran was suffering from temporary psychosis because of his use of alcohol and cocaine, as a doctor who examined him found, the filing argues, because an "insanity plea cannot legally be proven by evidence of voluntary substance abuse."

The filing faults the defense attorneys for not doing more to argue against what it calls the court's unreasonable schedule for picking a jury. The jury selection process began on a Wednesday and the court wanted a jury seated by that Friday. The decision didn't allow the defense enough time, the filing contends, to eliminate more jurors for cause and forced them to use up strikes that should have also been used on people who were selected for the jury.

The filing also argues that the defense should not have called attention to Albarran's immigration status during jury selection. Records indicate he entered the U.S. illegally. The filing argues that references to his immigration status prejudiced the jury pool against him and as a result, Albarran should receive a new trial.

The new filing contends that 2 interpreters hired to translate English and Spanish were not up to the job, with Albarran's interpreter not able to provide word for word translation and the interpreter for the jury having no familiarity with the dialect spoken by Albarran's familly during their testimony. The juror's interpreter also grew up in the Canary Islands in Spain and the Spanish spoken there and in Mexico are different.

The filing says each Spanish-speaking witness had their testimony interrupted for issues of interpretation and clarification, making their remarks much harder to follow.

Albarran's new attorneys also argue that official records were not translated correctly or in a timely fashion before the trial.

The new filing also faults the defense for failing to use a visit to the crime scene to undermine testimony by a key state witness.

The filing argues the testimony of Chad Steele was the most damaging trial testimony. Steele testified he could hear Golden saying, "help me, help me ...," before he was shot. Steele was inside a break room at Furniture Warehouse, 340 feet from the crime scene, the filing argues.

"Taking the jury inside the break room would have demonstrated the impossibility of Mr. Steele's testimony," the filing argues.

The filing also argues that Albarran's Mexican heritage was often referred to in the trial in a way that was prejudicial to him. He was also prejudiced by the loud outburst in the courtroom after his verdict was read, the filing argues, noting that jurors who would still have to recommend a life or death sentence would consider that reaction as they deliberated later.

The filing questions why the defense didn't seek to remove one or more jurors who the court thought may have been sleeping during the trial.

The filing also argues Albarran should have been given a new trial after it was determined a juror didn't list that she was a victim of a domestic violence incident when asked on the juror questionnaire about being the victim of a crime.

(source: al.com)

OHIO:

Castro is not 'a monster,' attorney says--Attorneys for Ariel Castro, who was arrested on charges of kidnapping and raping 3 women, say that he is not the monster that the media has made him out to be.

Attorneys for Ariel Castro say he plans to plead not guilty if a Cuyahoga County grand jury indicts him on kidnapping and rape charges in connection with the decade-long disappearance of three women.

Speaking exclusively to WKYC-TV, attorneys Craig Weintraub and Jaye Schlachet say that Castro has been unjustly depicted in news accounts.

"The initial portrayal by the media has been one of a 'monster' and that's not the impression that I got when I talked to him for three hours," Weintraub said.

Castro, 52, is currently in Cuyahoga County Jail on charges of kidnapping and raping Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus in his Seymour Avenue house on Cleveland's near west side. Knight was reported missing in 2002, Berry in 2003 and DeJesus in 2004.

Weintraub said that Castro has not admitted anything to him, including the kidnappings.

When asked how the three women ended up in Castro's home, Weintraub said: "That fact will be disclosed as the case progresses. I am aware of how he came into contact with them."

DNA tests have also confirmed that Castro fathered a child with Berry, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has said.

"I can tell you that Mr. Castro is extremely committed to the well-being and positive future for his daughter, who he loves dearly," said Schlachet. "And if people find that to be a disconnect from what he's alleged to have done, then the people will just have to deal with it. We just know how he feels about his little girl."

The attorneys say they plan to mount the "best defense we can."

"I know the media wants to jump to conclusions and all the people in the community want to say terrible things about the person who's accused," Schlachet said. "We are not even at the beginning of the process. If this was a marathon race, we're not even at the starting line yet."

They may also seek a change of venue in an effort to make sure Castro gets a fair trial, given that "this happened in Cuyahoga County, (and) it's on the heels of the (Anthony) Sowell case," said Weintraub. Sowell was convicted of murdering 11 women whose bodies were found inside his house in 2009.

In the meantime, Castro is currently being held in isolation under suicide watch.

"He's watched completely," said Schlachet said. "He has a window through his door. He doesn't have a television, doesn't have radio, doesn't have magazines, no access to newspapers. He's completely isolated from society."

(source: USA Today)

KANSAS:

Trial for rape, murder of 8-year-old delayed to 2014; Trial delayed to allow defense more preparation time

The jury trial of Billy Frank Davis Jr., which was scheduled to start Oct. 7, was postponed Tuesday until April 2014 to allow defense attorneys more time to prepare.

Davis, 29, faces 2 alternative counts of capital murder in the killing of 8-year-old Ahliyah Nachelle Irvin.

Davis also is charged with an alternative count of premeditated 1st-degree murder, rape, aggravated kidnapping, 2 counts of aggravated burglary, 1 count of burglary and 2 counts of misdemeanor criminal damage to property, all in the March 2012 abduction and slaying.

"There is still a large amount of work to be done," defense attorney Mark Manna said in asking Shawnee County District Court Judge David Debenham for more time.

Defense attorneys continue to receive records about Davis' military service, schooling and hospitalizations, as well as information to compile social and family histories about Davis, Manna said.

Developing a social history for Davis is extremely important, Manna said, particularly in the penalty phase of the jury trial.

If a jury convicts a defendant of capital murder, jurors then must enter the penalty phase of the trial when they decide whether to recommend the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

If jurors pick the death penalty, the judge must examine the jury verdict imposing the death sentence to determine whether evidence supported the verdict. If it didn't, the judge could change the sentence to life in prison without parole.

District Attorney Chad Taylor said prosecutors didn’t object to the continuance.

Davis waived his right to a speedy trial within 90 days of his arraignment, which is a constitutional and statutory right. The judge asked Davis for his input on the trial continuance.

"That's fine with me," Davis said.

Debenham granted the continuance and scheduled the 4-week trial to start April 7, and the 4th week would end May 2. Orientation days for jurors would be March 24 and 25.

Tuesday was the 2nd continuance granted to Davis based on defense motions. On Jan. 14, Debenham granted a continuance from the March 4 trial date to the Oct. 7 date.

In January, Manna asked for more time because defense attorneys would be "fundamentally unprepared" to handle the guilt and sentencing phases of trial if the trial started in March.

Sherry Mason, an aunt of Ahliyah, cried when the postponement was discussed, saying she was upset because the trial is delayed until April 2014

"(But) if that's what it takes to get justice, then April 7 is what it takes," Mason said.

Debenham on Tuesday denied a defense motion seeking to suppress a statement Davis made to Topeka police during an interview on March 13, 2012. Debenham said Davis was told his Miranda rights, he understood them, he waived them, and he agreed to talk to police.

Davis made a knowing and voluntary statement to police, the judge said.

In seeking to suppress the statement, defense attorney Julia Spainhour earlier contended Davis was questioned by police for 6 hours, was suffering a mental disorder and distress, and was undergoing alcohol and cocaine withdrawal. That meant his statements weren't freely and voluntarily made but were a product of coercive actions of interrogating detectives, Spainhour said.

Chief deputy district attorney Jacqie Spradling responded during an earlier hearing that Davis' actions on the night Ahliyah was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and killed demonstrated "a clear thought process" during the crimes and his discussions with law enforcement.

Davis told police he kidnapped Ahliyah, sexually assaulted her and choked her in the basement at 2413 S.E. Belleview, Apt. F, a detective testified during Davis' preliminary hearing in June 2012.

When she wouldn't quiet down, Davis used a naked choke, she made a snoring noise and was alive when Davis placed her in a clothes dryer, the detective said Davis told him.

Davis told police he was suffering a flashback to his military service in Iraq and thought he was clearing a house in Iraq.

Jeffrey Dazey also is an attorney on the defense team.

(source: Topeka Capital-Journal)

NEBRASKA:

Filibuster Kills Death Penalty Repeal Bill

Nebraska lawmakers hoping to repeal Nebraska's death penalty have failed to overcome a filibuster by senators opposed to the repeal.

The Unicameral voted 28-21 to invoke cloture and end debate, but the vote needed 33 to pass. That effectively kills the bill for this session.

Senator Ernie Chambers, of Omaha, has attempted to repeal the death penalty in Nebraska more than 30 times and vows to bring the measure back again next session.

The bill would have replaced the death penalty with life imprisonment without parole.

(source: KLIN News)

SOUTH DAKOTA:

Death penalty decision looming in local case----Attorney general says family, defense being contacted

Prosecutors will likely decide this week whether to seek the death penalty for a man accused of killing a Mitchell woman in March, according to South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley.

At a hearing last week in Chamberlain, Judge Bruce Anderson asked prosecutors to decide this week whether to seek the death penalty against Kent Davidson.

Davidson, 36, is accused of fatally shooting 26-year-old Crystal Schulz in the head with a shotgun on March 11. Schulz's body was found March 14 in a shed at her mother’s residence in rural Chamberlain. Davidson and Schulz were engaged to be married, according to their Facebook pages.

Prosecutors have reviewed the investigation, listened to input from law enforcement and are continuing discussions with Schulz's family, Jackley said Tuesday in an interview with The Daily Republic.

"I anticipate we will make the announcement of our decision to seek or not to seek the death penalty this week," Jackley said, "once we have first conveyed that decision to defense counsel and the victim's family."

Davidson pleaded not guilty last month to 1st-degree murder, 2nd-degree murder, 1st-degree manslaughter and committing a felony while armed with a firearm. Judge Anderson set Davidson's trial for January.

1st-degree murder has a minimum punishment of life in prison with the option of a death sentence, which is a lethal injection. Prosecutors have also accused Davidson of being a habitual offender because of 5 prior felony convictions on his record.

Davidson has already been sentenced to 5 years in prison, which was reimposed by the South Dakota Board of Pardons and Paroles for his failure to return to a minimum-security facility where he was living while on parole last year.

(source: Mitchell Republic)

ARIZONA:

Jodi Arias returns to court as jurors weigh whether death penalty should be sentencing option

Jodi Arias heads back to court as jurors consider whether the death penalty should be an option for sentencing the former waitress after convicting her of 1st-degree murder last week.

The 32-year-old aspiring photographer admitted killing her onetime boyfriend Travis Alexander in June 2008, at his suburban Phoenix home. She initially denied involvement then later blamed masked intruders. 2 years after her arrest, she said it was self-defense when he attacked her after a day of sex.

Prosecutors said she planned the killing in a jealous rage as Alexander wanted to end their affair.

Testimony began in early January. The jury reached its verdict last Wednesday after about 15 hours of deliberations over 4 days.

Jurors on Wednesday will hear testimony before deciding whether the death penalty should be an option for sentencing Arias.

(source: Associated Press)

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Jodi Arias reportedly transferred back to jail after suicide watch in psychiatric unit

After being on suicide watch in another facility, convicted killer Jodi Arias has been transferred back to the all-female Estrella jail in Phoenix, Ariz., where she will be housed until the penalty phase of her trial has concluded.

Arias underwent a psychological evaluation at the Lower Buckeye Jail, which is routine for inmates under suicide watch, AZcentral.com reports. The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office transferred Arias back to Estrella after doctors determined she no longer needed to be under suicide watch, reports the website.

AZcentral.com reports that Arias spent five days in a psychiatric unit after telling a Phoenix Fox affiliate that she would rather die than spend her life in prison.

The 32-year-old was convicted last week of 1st-degree murder in the shooting and stabbing death of her on-again, off-again lover, Travis Alexander, at his suburban Phoenix home in 2008. The trial will enter a new phase on Wednesday, during which jurors will weigh whether or not she should be sentenced to death.

Arias' defense team argued that she killed Alexander in self-defense.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio told CBS affiliate KPHO that Arias will remain at Estrella "on closed custody status." Authorities say she is held alone in a cell and allowed out for 1 hour each day for phone calls and showers.

The jury will recommend a sentence to the judge, who will make the final determination on Arias' fate.

(source: CBS News)

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Montiel loses motion to dismiss or remand----Charged with murder of Jamie Treakle, could face death penalty

The defense for Joseph Montiel was told Monday that Montiel's case will not be dismissed or sent back to the Grand Jury for a new indictment.

Attorneys for Montiel originally filed a motion for dismissal or remand in December. Judge Michael Bluff held that motion until after the county attorney gave notice that the state would seek the death penalty for Montiel for the alleged murder of his estranged wife, Jamie Treakle Montiel, 28.

The defense maintained several issues which it disputed in the presentation of the evidence to the Grand Jury for the indictment.

Lead attorney Robyn Varcoe and Rita Gltsos contended that the grand jury was told of Montiel's felony release from jail on a charge related to the same victim that could be prejudicial. Montiel is said to have stabbed Jamie while he was released from jail on bond for a prior charge for assaulting her.

Judge Bluff said it was a "closer call" on the allegation of kidnapping. He said that evidence could be inferred of physical force or injury and evidence of threats to Jaime and her children.

After a search for the woman, who went missing after being released on bond from the county jail, Montiel's truck was found high-centered and stuck off the Old Cherry Road. A perimeter search found Jamie's body near, but not inside, a mineshaft, near milepost 9. The medical examiner says the cause of death was a stab wound to the chest.

The judge denied the dismissal of charges or remand to the Grand Jury.

At the request of defense, he set Montiel's next appearance for July 23 for a pre trial conference.

(source: The Bugle)

COLORADO:

Accused mass murderer James Holmes on Monday pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, in a hearing on the Colorado movie massacre.

Holmes is accused of killing 12 people and wounding 70 last July during a midnight premiere of the Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises" at the Century 16 theater in Aurora.

Holmes could face the death penalty if convicted of murder, but Colorado does not execute the criminally insane.

At the arraignment in March, an Arapahoe County judge entered a not guilty plea on Holmes' behalf after his attorneys said that they weren't prepared to enter a plea.

At Monday's status hearing, defense attorney Daniel King revealed what had changed in the last 2 months.

"We now have a diagnosis that is complete," King told Judge Carlos Samour, saying a mental health expert had evaluated Holmes and prepared an opinion on his mental state.

King did not disclose the diagnosis or who made it.

He said that though the defense had "hit the ground running" and had been "working on all cylinders, all the time," the arraignment came too soon for a medical evaluation that apparently had been going on behind the scenes for months.

Judge Samour, who had ordered the defense to show good cause for the plea change, found King's explanation adequate.

"I am persuaded and satisfied that the defense acted diligently once it had [Holmes' medical] information," the judge said.

The new plea will not be official until the end of the month. Samour delayed Holmes' advisement until May 31 to allow both sides to file arguments about the proposed change.

Prosecutors said they did not have a problem with the change of plea, only with the time that it took the defense to do it.

Prosecuting attorney Jacob Edson demanded a more specific accounting of the 2 months since Holmes' arraignment, including the date when the diagnosis was delivered. He asked how the defense counsel could make so little progress in the 294 days since they were appointed.

King countered: "I think it's remarkable that we have made the progress we have made. He cited the prosecution's statement that it had reviewed more than 40,000 pages of discovery and Samour's description of the case filed as "voluminous."

Samour said that that letting Holmes change his plea was "consistent with fairness and justice."

Samour denied requests from King and fellow public defender Tamara Brady to delay the advisement hearing until June, saying he was "very eager" to press on with the agreed-upon pretrial schedule.

The judge refused to extend a May 31 motions deadline by more than a day despite King's contention that his team was "burning the midnight oil."

Holmes' advisement hearing is scheduled for May 31 at 9:30 a.m. The next status hearing is June 4. The trial is slated to begin in February 2014.

(source: Courthouse News)

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Prosecution's document lists 3,500 potential witnesses for James Holmes trial James Holmes in court 5-13-13

Court documents say prosecutors in the Colorado theater shootings have listed about 3,500 potential witnesses they could call during the trial of defendant James Holmes.

The estimate was in a defense motion filed Tuesday, in which Holmes' lawyers requested more time to work through the list and perform a "complete and thorough conflict of interest check with respect to all named witnesses."

The number illustrates the complexity of the case. Lawyers also say nearly 40,000 pages of documents about evidence have been filed.

There is so much evidence, in fact, that a detective with the Aurora Police Department is assigned to work full-time managing the information.

The shooting, which occurred during a showing of the "The Dark Knight Rises," left 12 moviegoers dead and injured 70 people.

Holmes, a 25-year-old former University of Colorado graduate student in neuroscience, is charged with 166 counts in the July 20 shooting. The charges include multiple counts of murder and 1st-degree murder and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Holmes' lawyers have indicated a desire to change his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity, but the judge hasn't decided on that yet.

Another judge entered a standard not guilty plea on Holmes' behalf in March when his lawyers said he wasn't ready to plead.

Judge Carlos Samour has scheduled the Holmes trial to begin on February 3, 2014. Prosecutors suggested the trial might take 3 months, while the defense team said it would likely take 9 months. The judge scheduled the trial for 4 months.

(source: thedenverchannel.com)

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Shooting victim's mom to Hickenlooper: Execute Nathan Dunlap

In the face of their client's pending execution, Nathan Dunlap's lawyers are asking Gov. John Hickenlooper to grant clemency to the man convicted of killing four at an Aurora Chuck E. Cheese 17 years ago.

In a petition issued last week, the lawyers say Dunlap had undiagnosed bipolar disorder and the jury that convicted him did not know about his mental health issues.

In a letter addressed to the governor this week, the mother of 1 of Dunlap's 4 victims wrote a letter pleading with the governor to "make no decision."

"Sit back," wrote Sandi Rogers, who lost her 17-year-old son Benjamin Grant in the attack. "Allow the (decision) that 12 people made after listening to all the evidence 17 years ago stand."

It was a clear plea, asking Hickenlooper to ignore the political pressure some believe is being placed on his shoulders by several Democrats hoping to abolish the death penalty - and hoping to begin that push with Dunlap.

However, those same Democrats were unable to garner the necessary support to get House Bill 1264, a measure seeking to repeal Colorado's death penalty, past a House Judiciary Committee during the last legislative session. This was despite the fact that Democrats hold a majority in both the House and the Senate.

Though there was some speculation that Hickenlooper would have vetoed the bill if it has passed through the legislature, the governor is yet to take an official public stance on the death penalty.

Now faced with publicly declaring a decision on the issue for the 1st time, Hickenlooper is weighing the opinions of Dunlap's lawyers, the families of the Chuck E. Cheese victims and law enforcement officials. He has held private meetings with those groups over the course of the past 2 weeks.

Sandi Rogers is making sure her voice is heard loud and clear, issuing the public letter this week. She claims that if Hickenlooper had been given the chance to meet with her son, who was mourned by hoards of fellow Smoky Hill students at his funeral in 1993, the decision would be an easy one.

"I wish you could have ...listened to all of the things said about him after this act of planned murder - the amount of love that flowed," Sandi wrote, "I honestly think...you would have no doubt the decision for death."

Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler and Chief Deputy District Attorney Matt Maillaro wrote a joint letter to to Hickenlooper echoing Rogers' sentiments.

The 2 said they're "not asking John Hickenlooper to put Nathan Dunlap to death." Instead, they wrote, they're asking the governor to "defend the process that has lead us here."

(source: KDVR News)

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Carroll: Gov. Hickenlooper boxed in on Nathan Dunlap

"Because all three current death row inmates are African-American and were convicted in Arapahoe County (and were apparently all from the same high school)," declares the local district attorney in a letter to Gov. John Hickenlooper, "the anti-death penalty advocates claim that the prosecutors elected in Arapahoe County ... must be bloodthirsty racists who use the death penalty only against African-Americans.

"It is a vile, disgusting, and offensive argument ... ."

We are used to impassioned rhetoric by those who oppose the death penalty. But George Brauchler, district attorney for the 18th Judicial District that includes Arapahoe County, and Matt Maillaro, his senior chief deputy who co-signed the letter to the governor, have no trouble mustering indignation of their own against those who would spare Nathan Dunlap, whose execution has been set for the week of Aug. 18.

Brauchler and Maillaro's 32-page rebuttal to Dunlap's plea for clemency is a tour de force of controlled but heated - and occasionally sarcastic - argument. And nowhere are they more effective than on racial bias.

I say that as someone who in February argued that the governor should commute Dunlap's sentence to life in prison without parole, which is what his attorneys officially requested this month. The death penalty in Colorado is rarely pursued and even more rarely achieved (exactly one execution since 1967), giving it a random, peculiar quality that mocks our commitment to equality before the law.

But racist is another matter.

Dunlap's attorneys know that American history has been stained at times by horribly bigoted prosecutors and juries, and by disturbing death-row numbers. So they resort to a few bleak statistics, such as blacks comprising 41 % of death-row inmates nationally and 100 % of Colorado's, implying the latter is especially damning.

What they don't mention is that a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2002 overturned the death sentences in Colorado of two whites and a Latino. And as Brauchler and Maillaro point out, "since 1980, according to the appellate reported cases, the death penalty was sought against 12 whites, 7 blacks and 9 Hispanics" in numerous judicial districts.

The last time a black man was executed in Colorado was 1947. University of Colorado Professor Michael Radelet, in his study "Capital Punishment in Colorado, 1859 to 1972," concluded blacks accounted for 10 of 102 executions in that period and whites 77 (78 since 1997). Ethnic bias was pervasive in Colorado's early decades and can't be discounted as an influence, but it's hard to look at such data and argue the state has conspicuously targeted blacks for execution.

Nor was the decision to pursue the death penalty against Dunlap, who coldly murdered four at an Aurora Chuck E. Cheese in 1993, a strained interpretation of the law.

For that matter, how could the governor plausibly object to how the death penalty is applied when he stepped in a few weeks ago to stop the legislature from a repeal effort? By doing so, he didn't just undermine bad arguments for commutation but good arguments, too, such as the roulette-like process by which a killer such as Dunlap ever gets to the point of actually facing death.

Hickenlooper could of course base his commutation on the the theory that "Mr. Dunlap was not cold or cruel," as his lawyers argue. "He was sick. He was a teenager suffering from bipolar disorder and psychosis, in the grip of his first full-blown manic episode" - and the jury never knew it. Brauchler and Maillaro pour scorn on that claim, too, and maybe the governor can determine which side's experts are more credible.

And if not? Then our broken death-penalty system - the one the governor intervened to save - will stagger into action and execute someone for only the 2nd time in 46 years.

(source: Opinion, Vincent Carroll, Denver Post)

IDAHO:

Murder suspect granted extension to enter plea

A Boise man charged with murder was granted an extension to enter a plea at his Tuesday arraignment. Bruce William Macomb, 62, allegedly strangled his wife to death in February, before attempting to kill himself.

Macomb can enter a plea May 28, Judge Ronald J. Wilper ruled. Beba Macomb, 58, died at 5 a.m. on Feb. 16. Police did not find her body until 4 p.m. when they performed a welfare check at the home. Officers said Bruce Macomb had slashed his own neck and wrists in an attempt to commit suicide before police arrived.

Bruce Macomb is charged with a felony count of murder and a misdemeanor count of failing to report a death. If convicted, he could face the death penalty, or life in prison. Prosecutors have not yet said if they will seek the death penalty in the case. He is being held without bond.

(source: Idaho Statesman)

WASHINGTON:

Jury begins deliberating whether to impose death penalty in Washington prison guard killing

A jury has begun deliberating whether to impose the death penalty on a Washington prison inmate who strangled a corrections officer. The case went to the jury before noon Tuesday in Everett without any word from Byron Scherf.

The Daily Herald reports defense lawyer Karen Halverson asked jurors not to be swayed "by the voices of vengeance or retribution."

Prosecutor Paul Stern reminded jurors of something Scherf told detectives in his confession, "If you take a life, you give a life."

The jury took about an hour Thursday to convict Scherf of aggravated murder for strangling Jayme Biendl with an amplifier cord in January 2011 in the chapel at the Washington state Reformatory at Monroe.

The 54-year-old convicted rapist was already serving life in prison without parole.

(source: Associated Press)

USA:

US appeals court in Va. weighs conviction of Somali man called biggest US piracy catch

In the violent world of piracy, Mohammad Saaili Shibin was a multilingual negotiator based in lawless Somalia, working his cellphone to negotiate multimillion-dollar ransoms for merchant ships and sailors that dared to venture into pirate-infested international waters off Africa.

Does that make him guilty of piracy?

The question was the central argument Tuesday as a federal appeals court debated with an attorney seeking to overturn Shibin's piracy conviction and a government prosecutor arguing against it.

A 3-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to issue an opinion in several weeks or longer in a case that could ultimately end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

A federal judge sentenced Shibin last August to a dozen life sentences for his role in the hijacking of a German merchant vessel in 2010 that involved the torture of crewmembers to secure a higher ransom and the shooting deaths of four Americans aboard the yacht Quest in 2010.

Shibin has been called the top U.S. catch since it joined an international effort to combat piracy off Africa. That effort has brought nearly 20 bedraggled pirates for prosecution to Norfolk, where ships based at the huge naval base there have been deployed to combat the crimes.

James O. Broccoletti argued his client couldn't be convicted of piracy because he never set out on the high seas, a requirement set out by U.S. law. "He never left Somalia," he told the judges.

Define the "line, where does it cut off," for someone to be considered a pirate? asked Judge Paul V. Niemeyer. "I'm trying to find out what piracy is," he said.

Broccoletti responded that the crime must occur in international waters. "He never left the territorial water of Somalia," he said.

U.S. law governing piracy, which dates back nearly two centuries, defines piracy as boarding a ship at sea and robbing it. Since the U.S. began its crackdown in 2010, courts have come to conflicting conclusions on how the law should be interpreted.

The government maintains the U.S. statute incorporates broader international law and recognizes that piracy is an organized crime. That means it includes those who work onshore, such as Shibin, to research how much ransom a pirated vessel can come up with and to negotiate a payment for release.

"It's very difficult to get them," Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Hatch told the judges. "It was very difficult to get Mr. Shibin. But we got him."

Broccoletti and Hatch, a lead prosecutor in the U.S. piracy convictions, each could barely string 2 sentences together as Niemeyer, Judge Diana Gribbon Motz and Judge Henry F. Floyd fired question after question at the 2 attorneys. The questioning, though, didn't signal which way they were leaning on the appeal.

And it was occasionally light-hearted.

"These guys don't dress like pirates, do they? Niemeyer asked.

"No, your honor, they do not," Hatch said.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against the three men charged with shooting the Americans on the Quest.

11 other men who boarded the yacht have pleaded guilty and been sentenced to life terms.

Quest owners Jean and Scott Adam of Marina del Rey, Calif., and friends Bob Riggle and Phyllis Macay of Seattle were the 1st Americans to be killed in pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean.

Shibin also was involved in the piracy of the Marida Marguerite, a German-operated tanker carrying $10 million worth of fuel when it was hijacked in early May 2010.

Investigators said the Somali pirates tortured the 22 crewmembers "in indescribable ways" for hours at a time before receiving several million dollars' ransom and releasing the ship on Dec. 27, 2010.

(source: Associated Press)

PAPUA NEW GUINEA:

Papua New Guinea bishops speak out against death penalty

Amid increasing violence, including the brutal murders of suspected sorcerers, Papua New Guinea is considering restoring the use of the death penalty, which is legal but has not been used since 1954.

The nation's justice minister has called for capital punishment by hanging, life imprisonment without parole for rape, and a ban on alcohol sales for several hours each day.

The nation's bishops have urged Prime Minister Peter O'Neill not to restore the use of the death penalty; Father Giorgio Licini, spokesman for the bishops' conference, called for "life imprisonment joined to hard but redemptive labor."

(source: Catholic Culture)

VIETNAM:

Vietnam changes law to allow domestically produced poison in lethal injection, skirting EU ban

Vietnam has issued a new law allowing domestically produced chemicals to be used in lethal injections, a change that should enable it to resume the currently stalled executions of more than 530 people on death row.

The holdup was a result of an EU ban on its factories exporting chemicals used in lethal injections. The ban was issued because the EU regards capital punishment as a human rights violation. It has left Vietnam unable to execute a prisoner since November 2011, when the country decided to switch from firing squads to lethal injections on humanitarian grounds.

Vietnam's old law governing executions stipulated the names of the 3 chemicals produced in the EU that had to be used in lethal injection. The new law issued this week doesn't mention the chemicals by name, meaning local versions can be produced and used. The law will take effect on June 27.

In an interview earlier this year, European Union ambassador to Vietnam Franz Jessen said Vietnam might not have realized the practical implications of changing to lethal injections when it announced its plan to switch from the firing squad. He said the EU had hoped difficulties in sourcing the chemicals might have triggered a moratorium on the death penalty in the country.

Vietnam, a 1-party state that routinely sentences government critics to long prison terms, is under considerable international pressure to improve its human rights record, which most observers say has gotten worse over the last 2 years.

Jessen suggested that stopping executions would have earned Vietnam praise among the international community.

"A moratorium would have been a positive sign at a time when we need positive signs," he said.

EU factories are the main supplier of drugs that can be used in executions. Several American states have also said objections from European factories were making it hard to find the chemicals.

(source: Associated Press)

INDIA:

Modi govt does rethink on death penalty for Kodnani

The Gujarat government has withheld its earlier decision to seek death penalty for former minister Maya Kodnani, once a close aide of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi and 8 others in the 2002 Naroda Patiya riots case.

"Since we want to take the opinion of the Advocate General on the matter, we have withheld our earlier decision," said Gujarat Finance Minister and government spokesperson Nitin Patel. Asked if the Advocate General's opinion was not taken earlier, Patel did not reply.

Last month, the Modi government had decided to endorse the Supreme Court-appointed SIT's recommendation to seek death sentence for Kodnani, Babu Bajrangi and the others, and had given its nod for filing an appeal in this regard. But the state government has now asked the special public prosecutor not to file the appeal till further notice.

"We were already preparing to file an appeal in the case through the office of the government pleader. In fact, on May 6, we sent the petition with supporting documents to the government pleader's office for filing the appeal. But on May 10, the state government told the government pleader's office not to file the appeal till further notice. And yesterday, I received a fax with the same message," said Prashant Desai, the special public prosecutor in the case.

"I do not know under what ground the state government wants to take the Advocate General's opinion. After receipt of the fax, I have written to the government pleader's office to send me back the draft petition and relevant documents," said Desai.

While SIT chairman R K Raghavan could not be contacted, an SIT official said the state government's reversal of decision was illegal and the SIT may seek redressal from the Supreme Court.

Apart from seeking death for Kodnani and the rest, the state government had also given its consent for moving an appeal seeking enhancement of sentence of 22 other convicts in the case.

(source: The Indian Express)

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Don't seek death for any Hindus in riot cases: VHP

With Narendra Modi-led Gujarat government deciding to hold back its decision to seek death penalty for Naroda Patia massacre accused Maya Kodnani and Babu Bajrangi, Vishwa Hindu Parishad has demanded permanent withdrawal of the state's recommendation for death penalty for any Hindu accused in the riot cases.

VHP general secretary Ranchod Bharwad said, "After Hindu organizations like the VHP, Bajrang Dal and BJP allies like Shiv Sena strongly opposed the government decision to seek death for eight Hindus in Naroda Patia case and following the poll debacle in Karnataka due to loss of Hindu votes, the Gujarat government has asked its law department to 'temporarily halt its orders for appealing for death to Hindus.' This also means that the orders are not final yet."

He said, "As projected that it was the SIT that asked for this permission, there were sufficient legal pointers that the Gujarat government was free not to permit SIT to go in for an appeal seeking death for Hindus as the right to appeal is reserved for the state as per the code of criminal procedure. Even though the SIT could have moved the Supreme Court after this, the government could have fought the case taking the side of the Hindus."

(source: The Timse of India)

MAY 14, 2013:

TEXAS----impending execution

Texas to execute man for Houston officer's slaying

When Houston police arrested Jeffrey Demond Williams for gunning down a plainclothes officer working an auto theft assignment, the slain officer's handcuffs dangled from one of Williams' wrists.

Witnesses said they saw the officer, 39-year-old Troy Blando, start to cuff Williams, who then began struggling, grabbed a gun under his clothing with his free hand and shot the 19-year police veteran before running off on foot.

Williams, 37, was set for lethal injection Wednesday evening. He'd be the 6th Texas prisoner executed this year.

Officers found Williams a block from where he shot Blando on May 19, 1999. Besides the handcuff, he still was carrying the 9 mm pistol determined to be the weapon used to fatally shoot Blando in the chest.

Attorneys for Williams appealed Tuesday to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the execution, after lower courts refused to do so. They contend that he received poor legal help in earlier appeals, and that those lawyers should have argued that his trial lawyers had failed him. The trial lawyers should have provided jurors with more than superficial mitigating evidence of Williams' mental impairment to show he did not deserve a death sentence, they said.

"There is a reasonable probability, but for trial counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different," attorney Jonathan Sheldon told the high court.

State attorneys have said Williams' appeals were strategically filed with his execution imminent, that no federal law authorizes the court relief being sought and that arguments raised were "wholly unpersuasive on the merits," according to Georgette Oden, an assistant Texas attorney general.

Blando was in an unmarked vehicle, working surveillance at a southwest Houston motel where authorities suspected auto theft activity. Williams pulled into the parking lot about 9 a.m. driving a Lexus. A check of the license plate showed the car was reported stolen the previous week. His fingerprints were found on the Lexus and also on Blando's vehicle, evidence showed.

The mortally wounded Blando managed to radio his location and tell a dispatcher he'd been shot. He also provided a description of his attacker and exchanged gunfire with him.

"I don't know about you, but I know about me, and I want to get somebody there to save my life," Lyn McClellan, the former Harris County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Williams, said last week. "That's in my mind, I'm all about preservation."

Instead, Blando was focused on his job, McClellan said.

"Here's the guy, here's what he looks like and here's what he's wearing. And of course, one handcuff on his wrist. It ought to be easy to identify him," the former prosecutor said. "The fact he takes time to give a description of the person and the direction of travel, it's just beyond pale, beyond the line of duty. And that's what these guys do all the time."

At his trial, lawyers tried to show Williams was unintelligent, had emotional problems and didn't deserve to die.

Prosecutors said Williams had good parents and plenty of chances at help, even from the U.S. Navy, which discharged him after disciplinary problems. Evidence showed Williams gave investigators five taped confessions the day he was arrested.

Williams said he fired in self-defense, feared Blando could have been a carjacker and didn't know Blando was an officer. In another confession, he acknowledged knowing he was shooting a policeman.

Court records show Blando, although in plain clothes, was carrying his badge around his neck.

Testimony and confessions also linked Williams to four robberies, another shooting and an attempted robbery.

Williams would be the 498th Texas prisoner put to death since the state resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982. At least 8 others have executions scheduled in the coming months.

(source: Abilene Reporter-News)

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Convicted Houston cop killer set to die Wednesday

Attorneys for a 37-year-old Texas death row inmate are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stop his execution this week for the fatal shooting of a Houston police officer 14 years ago.

Jeffrey Demond Williams is set for lethal injection Wednesday evening in Huntsville for gunning down 39-year-old Troy Blando.

Blando was working as a plainclothes officer doing auto theft surveillance when he stopped Williams, who was driving a stolen Lexus. As Blando was putting handcuffs on Williams, he was shot.

Williams' lawyers argue his punishment should be halted while the high court reviews whether his legal help at his trial and in earlier stages of his appeals was deficient.

When Williams was arrested shortly after the shooting, he was still wearing the officer's handcuff on one of his wrists.

(source: Associated Press)

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Defense doesn't dispute man drowned his sons, ages 3 and 5; prosecutors seeking death sentence

Naim Rasool Muhammad murdered his 2 young sons. Of this, there is no question.

Muhammad, 34, is on trial this week in a Dallas County courtroom for capital murder and does not dispute that he drowned 5-year-old Naim and 3-year-old Elijah in a smelly, shallow creek by a dead end street in Glenn Heights. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Muhammad kidnapped the boys and drowned them in August 2011 in what may have been rage at their mother, Kametra Sampson. Muhammad's attorney, Paul Johnson, told jurors Monday that he expected they would find Muhammad guilty and conveyed that, for Muhammad, the trial is all about an attempt to spare his life.

The weekend before the boys were drowned was full of excitement about Naim's 1st day of kindergarten, Dallas County prosecutor Tammy Kemp said in opening statements. But the enthusiasm was tempered with fights between the children's parents.

Muhammad showed up uninvited to a barbecue celebrating the start of school. There, he argued with Sampson about her new boyfriend, Kemp said. He didn't want another man raising his children and wanted to see them more.

He left and came back, hoping to spend time with his boys. But they were gone with their mother and new boyfriend.

"I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to take care of it," Muhammad told his mother, according to Kemp.

The night before school began, Naim couldn't sleep because he was so excited. He had a new uniform and a Transformers backpack.

Elijah wanted to go to school, too, because everywhere Naim goes, Elijah goes, Kemp said. But he was too young. Then Elijah convinced their mother to at least let him see Julia C. Frazier Elementary near Fair Park in Dallas.

Their youngest brother, who was not quite 1, stayed home with family.

As mother and sons walked along the road "to a place where the sidewalk ends," they heard a car driving recklessly, Kemp said. The driver was Muhammad. He jumped out and picked up a rock to threaten them.

"Get in or I'll do it," Muhammad said, according to Kemp. "I'll beat your ass right here."

Sampson got in and Muhammad threw the boys in the back seat and drove off, according to Kemp. He had borrowed the car from a woman he was dating after telling her that he wanted to drive his son to his 1st day of school.

Elijah stood between the seats. Naim lay across a seat in the back of the Toyota Matrix.

Sampson, Kemp said, thought she would be able to get help at the school. But Muhammad drove by without stopping.

Muhammad alternately raged at and sweet-talked Sampson, Kemp said. He told her he wanted to get back together. And then he hit her, the prosecutor told jurors.

Sampson saw a Dallas County constable when the car stopped at a stop light. Sampson jumped out, Kemp said, and told the woman, "My babies' daddy says he's going to kill us all."

Muhammad sped off, jumping a curb and racing through a red light.

The constable did not have lights and sirens on her vehicle and could not chase Muhammad. But she called Dallas police.

200 police officers searched for them while Muhammad drowned them in 6- to 8-inches of water.

Naim seemed to understand what was happening.

"I wanna live, Daddy," Muhammad recalled Naim saying when he later confessed to police. "I wanna live."

Elijah, dressed in a Sponge Bob T-shirt, fortunately did not. At least not at first.

"Daddy, I want you to carry me," Elijah said.

And then, Elijah cried for his mother.

"Your mama don't want us no more," Muhammad told his sons, according to Kemp. "She ran off and left us."

Muhammad then smoked a cigarette and spent 5 minutes telling Naim and Elijah how much he loved them, he later told police.

Muhammad carried Elijah down to the creek. The boy was barefoot and the burrs might hurt his feet. He held Naim's hand be because he didn't want him to fall.

"Play like you're swimming," Kemp said Muhammad told the boys, her voice thick with emotion as she addressed jurors.

They listened to their father. He held their heads under the water until they stopped kicking.

After the boys' deaths, Muhammad went to the house where the boys and their mother lived. He tried to abduct their youngest son. Sampson's brother stopped him and shoved Muhammad out of the home through a window he tried to climb through, Kemp said.

Sampson came home not long after, Kemp said. Her brother told her that Muhammad told him something awful, something he didn't believe was true.

The brother told Sampson: "He said, 'Your nephews is dead.'"

Testimony is expected to continue Tuesday before visiting judge Quay Parker.

(source: Dallas Morning News)

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Dallas Prosecutors Seek Death Penalty In Slaying Of 2 Sons

Prosecutors in Dallas are seeking the death penalty against a man charged with drowning 2 of his sons in a creek.

Testimony is scheduled to begin Monday afternoon in the trial of Naim Muhammad. He faces 2 counts of capital murder in the 2011 deaths of his sons - 5-year-old Naim and 3-year-old Elijah.

Muhammad allegedly used a brick to force the boys and their mother into his vehicle as she walked the children to school. The older boy was starting kindergarten.

The woman jumped out at an intersection and alerted a nearby constable, who called police but didn't pursue the fleeing vehicle. Constables are mainly process servers in civil cases.

Muhammad's mother later called 911 to say her son had drowned the boys and she had the unresponsive bodies. Paramedics responded to the scene, performed CPR and took the kids to Children's Medical Center. Both children were pronounced dead at the hospital, and police later confirmed the boys were drowned.

Muhammad also attempted to take his 3rd child, a 1-year-old, from Sampson's grandmother's house. The grandmother was able to stop Muhammad from taking the child.

Relatives say that Muhammad had threatened Sampson and their children on a number of occasions.

(source: CBS News)

NEW YORK:

Rep. Bill Nojay wants to bring back death penalty for certain cases

A New York lawmaker wants to bring back the death penalty as an option for sentencing in certain cases.

Assemblyman Bill Nojay's proposal would allow a jury to impose that ruling. In cases where a police officer is the victim or a person dies in a terrorist attack.

Nojay says doing this would allow victim's families to have closure and know justice was served.

A New York State Court of Appeals struck down New York's death penalty statute in 2004.

(source: WHEC TV News)

PENNSYLVANIA:

Kermit Gosnell Avoids Death Row, Agrees to Life in Prison

Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell agreed today to serve 2 life sentences and waive his right to an appeal in order to avoid the possibility of being condemned to death.

Gosnell was convicted of 1st degree murder on Monday in the deaths of 3 babies who were born live and then killed by severing their spinal chords with scissors.

As part of the deal, Gosnell, 72, will serve 2 life sentences without the possibility of parole or the opportunity to appeal.

Prosecutors had sought the death penalty against Gosnell, but because of his advanced age it was deemed unlikely that he would live long enough for death penalty appeals which can last decades.

Gosnell is expected to be sentenced Wednesday. He will also be sentenced on a conviction of involuntary manslaughter in the death of a female patient who was given a lethal dose of sedatives and pain killers in 2009.

The guilty verdicts came on Monday, the jury's 10th day of deliberations.

Gosnell was accused of performing late-term abortions on 4 babies who were born alive, but were then allegedly killed by Gosnell. He was cleared in the death of one of the infants.

For 2 months, the jury heard often grisly testimony, including from members of Gosnell's staff. 8 staffers have pleaded guilty to several crimes. Prosecutors said none of the staff were licensed nurses or doctors.

Gosnell ran the Women's Medical Society in West Philadelphia for decades until February 2010, when FBI agents raided his clinic looking for evidence of prescription drug dealing.

Instead they found, as reported in a nearly 300-page grand jury report released in 2011, a filthy, decrepit "house of horrors."

Blood was on the floor, the clinic reeked of urine and bags of fetal remains were stacked in freezers. The clinic was shut down and Gosnell's medical license was suspended after the raid.

Despite repeated complaints to state officials over the years -- as well as 46 lawsuits filed against Gosnell -- investigators said in the report that state regulators had conducted five inspections since the clinic had opened in 1979.

The grand jury report in the case said there had been hundreds of "snippings," in which live babies were born and then killed.

"Gosnell had a simple solution for the unwanted babies he delivered. ... The way he ensured fetal demise was by sticking scissors into the back of the baby's neck and cutting the spinal cord. He called that 'snipping,'" the report alleged.

The report also said that many of the women patients were infected with sexually transmitted diseases from contaminated instruments, had suffered from botched procedures or had been given overdoses of dangerous drugs.

(source: ABC News)

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Philadelphia abortion doctor gets life in prison after deal

A Philadelphia doctor avoided the possibility of the death penalty for murdering babies during late-term abortions by agreeing not to appeal his convictions, and he was sentenced on Tuesday to life in prison, the city prosecutor said.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, was convicted on Monday on three counts of 1st-degree murder, which raised the possibility of the death penalty. The case focused on whether the infants were born alive and then killed.

In the agreement that spared his life, Gosnell waived his right to appeal his convictions and was immediately sentenced to life in prison on 2 murder counts, Philadelphia District Attorney R. Seth Williams said in a statement.

Gosnell is due to be sentenced on Wednesday on his other convictions, including the murder of a 3rd baby and the involuntary manslaughter of a patient who died after a late-term abortion, Williams said.

The 7-woman, 5-man jury that found Gosnell guilty after 10 days of deliberations had been scheduled to return to court next Tuesday to decide if he would face the death penalty or life in prison.

Gosnell was accused of delivering live babies during late-term abortions and then severing their spinal cords at the now-shuttered Women's Medical Society Clinic. The facility served a predominantly black and low-income community in West Philadelphia.

The trial in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court was punctuated by graphic testimony and cast a spotlight on the controversial practice of late-term abortions.

Witness testimony described the babies as born breathing, moving and making sounds. Testimony also depicted a filthy clinic, and prosecutors called it a "house of horrors."

Gosnell also was found guilty of performing 21 abortions after 24 weeks of pregnancy at his clinic.

It is legal in Pennsylvania to abort a fetus up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy.

9 states ban abortions after 20 weeks, according to the pro-choice organization NARAL. Other states recently put new restrictions on abortions, with Arkansas banning them at 12 weeks and North Dakota at 6 weeks.

92 % of abortions are performed before 14 weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 1.3 % are performed beyond 20 weeks.

Gosnell was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the case of Karnamaya Mongar, 41, of Virginia, who died from a drug overdose after going to him for an abortion.

He also was convicted of infanticide and conspiracy in the babies' deaths and found guilty of 211 counts of failing to comply with a state law that requires a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion is performed.

Gosnell has been in jail since his arrest in January 2011.

The jury cleared him of one charge of first-degree murder related to one of the babies he was accused of killing.

He was sentenced on Tuesday for the murders of infants identified only as Babies C and D, the prosecutor said.

He is due to be sentenced on Wednesday for the murder of a 3rd baby, known as Baby A, the prosecutor said.

A clinic worker testified during the trial that Gosnell had cut the spinal cords of babies born breathing including Baby A, which she said the doctor had described as "big enough to walk me to the bus stop."

Gosnell's defense had claimed there was no evidence that the babies were alive after they were aborted and that any noise or movement would have been involuntary spasms.

Eight other defendants have pleaded guilty to a variety of charges and are in jail awaiting sentencing later this month. They include Gosnell's wife, Pearl, a cosmetologist who helped perform abortions.

(source: Retuers)

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Putting the Brakes on Philly's Death Penalty

The followings are remarks I gave on May 4 at the kickoff rally of the Philadelphia Moratorium Campaign at the First United Methodist Church of Germantown:

Witness to Innocence is a national organization originally founded as a project of Sister Helen Prejean of the book Dead Man Walking. Our mission is to empower exonerated death row survivors and their loved ones to become leaders in the death penalty abolition movement. We provide a support network for our members, each of whom spent an average of 10 years on death row for a crime they did not commit.

WTI members speak to audiences throughout the country about their experiences on death row, testify before state legislatures, work with state abolition groups and change hearts and minds in the process. WTI has been involved in successful death penalty repeal efforts in 6 states over 6 years.

In Maryland, my advocacy director Kirk Bloodsworth and I stood with Gov. Martin O'Malley as he signed the state's death penalty repeal bill into law. We stood with abolitionists and Democratic and Republican lawmakers in Annapolis who realize the death penalty doesn't work. The government should not be in the business of killing people, and we oppose executions under any circumstances. Capital punishment is expensive, and discriminates against the poor and people of color. And most of all, innocent people are put to death.

So, why are we here? WTI decided to convene the Philadelphia Moratorium Campaign, a diverse coalition of religious leaders, human rights and civil liberties organizations, prisoners' rights groups, legal defense organizations, community groups and others.

We are calling on Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams to place a moratorium on death penalty prosecutions in this city. In addition, we are planning a public outreach campaign, in which death row exonerees will go out to the communities in this city, talk to the people and to lawmakers and educate them about the problems with the death penalty.

Once again, why are we here today? We are here because Pennsylvania is a leader in the death penalty. About 200 people are on death row, fourth behind California, Florida and Texas. And although Maryland was the 1st state south of the Mason-Dixon line to abolish capital punishment, Pennsylvania is worse than many Southern states.

Philly contributes the lion's share of Pennsylvania's death row, nearly half. And the vast majority of these people are poor, black and Latino. They couldn't afford the best justice money can buy.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams came into office proclaiming it was "a new day" for the death penalty, garnering support from progressives, communities of color and others. Williams is better than his predecessor, Lynn Abraham, to be sure, but under the prosecutor once known as "America's deadliest D.A.," the bar was already pitifully low. The bottom line is we are not seeing the progress we expected. When you seek the death penalty in 101 cases as the current D.A. has, yet only one comes back in a conviction, it is time to reevaluate. Something is simply not working here.

But in the end, this is not about personalities, this is about policies. But for exonerated death row survivors, this is personal. For example, Harold Wilson, a Philadelphia native and a member of Witness to Innocence, spent 16 years behind bars -- most of it on Pennsylvania death row -- for a triple murder he did not commit. The prosecutor in the case, former Assistant D.A. Jack McMahon, illegally struck black jurors because of their race. And McMahon was known for a training video which instructed jurors on the use of race in jury selection.

Certainly, this is personal for Philadelphia resident Kirk Bloodsworth, who spent nine years in the Maryland Penitentiary, two years on death row before DNA evidence cleared his name. And Ronald Kitchen, also a Philadelphia resident and death row survivor, spent 21 years in prison in Illinois, including 13 on death row.

For far too long, elected officials have utilized executions for political gain, and exploited the lives of prisoners as political ping-pong balls. We say put the brakes on the death penalty in Philadelphia. Cool it down so we can study this, and work towards policies that promote human rights and dignity, fairness and justice, not torture chambers.

(source: David A. Love is the executive director of Witness to Innocence, a national nonprofit organization that empowers exonerated death row prisoners and their family members to become effective leaders in the movement to abolish the death penalty----Hufington Post)

VIRGINIA:

Convicted murderer of 7 people appeals death penalty

The lawyers defending a convicted murder are putting together a case to keep him off death row. Ricky Gray killed 7 people, including the Harvey family, who had 2 little girls.

For 7 years, the convicted murderer has sat on death row for a killing spree that included 2 children.

Lawyers say they will try to prove that Gray's lawyers were insufficient when it came to defending him during the trial and appeal process.

Even though this is Gray's last attempt, he won't be in the courthouse as his lawyers make their arguments in front of a 3-judge panel.

"State and federal law requires that appellate court review the process by which they were sentenced to death, to ensure minimum safeguards that are in place have been satisfied," said NBC12 legal analyst Steve Benjamin.

It's a series of murders that grabbed national attention because of the brutality and number of victims. The youngest were sisters Stella and Ruby Harvey.

Ricky Gray, with the help of Ray Dandridge, also killed the girls' parents, Bryan and Kathryn. Then they set the Woodland Heights home on fire.

A week later, Percyell Tucker, his wife Mary and their daughter, Ashley Baskerville - who was an accomplice in the Harveys' murder - were also killed.

Gray was sentenced to death for the girls' murders.

Benjamin says if he loses this appeal, it would take an action by the U.S. supreme court or governor to prevent it - but such action would be rare.

"In this case, there is no claim of innocence. There is no presentation of the mitigating factors, such as mental illness," said Benjamin.

Benjamin predicts if Gray's lawyers can't make their case, the execution could happen by the end of the year.

Gray's case is expected to be heard in the Court of Appeals this Wednesday. Ray Dandridge, the other man convicted for the murders, is serving a life sentence.

(source: WWBT News)

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Prince William man charged with murder in son's death

A man accused of drowning his 15-month-old son was indicted on a murder charge last week, and his trial will begin Aug. 5.

Joaquin S. Rams, 40, had taken out more than $500,000 in life insurance on his son, Prince McLeod Rams, according to court documents. Prince, who had been the subject of a custody dispute between his mother, Hera McLeod, and Rams, was rushed to the hospital Oct. 20 after an emergency call. He died a day later.

Prince arrived at the hospital with injuries to his face and body, and was naked, wet and cold, according to court testimony and a hospital report. Prince had a history of fever-induced seizures, and Rams told investigators that he had splashed ice water on the boy to bring down a fever, according to documents.

Rams faces the possibility of life in prison if convicted, Commonwealth's Attorney Paul B. Ebert (D) said. Ebert said he has not decided whether to seek a capital murder charge, for which Rams could face the death penalty if convicted.

"When the investigation is finished, that decision will be made," Ebert said.

McLeod, who has spoken up for her son and on issues of parental rights, said Monday in an interview that she was "happy that the wheels of justice are turning" and that she was "confident in the prosecution. That gives me some comfort."

Timothy M. Olmstead, Rams’s attorney, said during a recent preliminary hearing that Prince was sick and that his death "was likely an accident."

"It's going to be up to the jury to determine what they believe of that medical evidence in that regard," Ebert said.

A Prince William medical examiner, Constance DiAngelo, testified that water was found in Prince's sinuses, lungs and intestines. She determined that he had drowned. DiAngelo also testified that she found bruises on the boy's face, head, chest and back. She did not rule the death a homicide, however.

"We're going to put together a good case and a vigorous defense as best we can," Olmstead said last week.

(source: Washington Post)

NORTH CAROLINA:

Trial draws visitors to Shaniya Davis' gravesite

As jurors in the Mario McNeill murder trial continue to hear from SBI lab agents about evidence they processed, visitor after visitor are stopping by the granite marker that identifies Shaniya Davis' grave.

McNeill, 33, is being tried in Cumberland County Superior Court on 7 charges, including the 1st-degree murder and rape of the 5-year-old Fayetteville girl. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

Prosecutors have said Shaniya's mother, Antoniette Nicole Davis, 28, gave her daughter to McNeill in November 2009 to settle a drug debt. Davis will be tried on similar charges but doesn't face death.

McNeill allegedly took Shaniya to a Sanford hotel.

Surveillance photos from the hotel show McNeill carrying the girl towards an elevator. Prosecutors said he raped her in the room and then took her out to kill her and dispose of the body.

SBI hair examiner Jennifer Remy told the courtroom Monday that hair from a hotel comforter was microscopically inconclusive with McNeill's hair -- meaning it showcased similarities and differences from his hair sample and could not be tied to him 100 %, which has been the case with most of the hair testing.

However, all of the hair is undergoing another stage of DNA testing, but the results have not yet been revealed.

Since the trial began 5 weeks ago, visitors to Shaniya's grave have become more common, with people leaving stuffed animals, flowers and other items.

According to the staff at Fayetteville Memorial Cemetery, where Shaniya was laid to rest, her father calls the office to ask them to order flowers for his daughter's grave on special occasions.

Bradley Lockhart moved to Alabama a couple of months after his Shaniya's death. He returned to town for McNeill's trial.

(source: ABC News)

GEORGIA:

Alday Murders: 40 years later

Tuesday marks the anniversary of one of the worst crimes in the history of Georgia; the Alday family murders in Seminole County.

6 members of the Alday family were brutally murdered by a trio of prison escapees, on May 14, 1973.

9 days after 3 inmates escaped from a Maryland prison they would end up at the home of Jerry Alday looking for money and guns. The men fatally shot Jerry, his father Ned, brothers Chester and Jimmy, and Uncle Aubrey. His wife, Mary was brutally raped and killed. Her body found 2 days later in a wooded area.

The suspects were quickly identified as Wayne Coleman, George Dungee, and ring leader Carl Isaacs, who following their escape picked up his half brother, 15 year old Billy in a car stolen from a Pennsylvania man later found shot dead.

4 days after the killings, the men were caught hiding out in West Virginia. Years later, Dungee, Coleman, and Carl Isaacs were convicted and sentenced to death. The younger Isaacs testified against the trio. But more than a decade later, a re-trial was ordered due pre-trial publicity.

Only Carl Isaacs would again receive the death penalty. In an interview from death row, Isaacs was asked the question if he had to do it over, would he have acted differently.

Nearly 30 years after the Alday murders, Carl Isaacs, the nation longest surviving death row inmate, was put to death. He died by lethal injection at the state prison in Jackson. It was process that left many bitter at the legal system questioning whether justice was ever really served.

Billy Isaacs served 20 years in prison and died a free man in 2009. George Dungee died in prison in 2006.

Wayne Coleman is the only surviving Alday killer. He's serving a life sentence at Georgia State Prison in Reidsville.

(source: WALB News)

FLORIDA----new exectuion date

Miami-Dade killer Marshall Lee Gore to be executed next month, Gov. Rick Scott's office says

A death row inmate has been scheduled to be executed next month for the murder of an exotic dancer whose nude body was discovered in a South Miami-Dade trash heap, Gov. Rick Scott's office said Monday.

The killer: Marshall Lee Gore, 49, who raped, stabbed and strangled 30-year-old Robyn Novick in March 1988.

He will be executed at 6 p.m. June 24 at the Florida State Prison in Starke.

Gore is also on death row for the 1990 murder of a Tennessee woman, Susan Roark, whose body was found upstate in Columbia County.

He is also serving 5 life sentences and 3 30-year prison terms for an attack on another Miami-Dade exotic dancer whom he also beat, raped and stabbed in 1988. She survived - after Gore dumped her near the same spot where he discarded Novick's body.

Gore's 1995 trial in Miami was marked by disruptive behavior. He cursed, laughed and howled during the trial, angering the victim's family and frustrating his own lawyer.

The Florida Supreme Court, in 1998, overturned the conviction after ruling that the prosecutor on the case "exceeded the proper conduct and professionalism" in taunting Gore and telling a jury "he deserves to die."

In 1999, Gore was re-tried, convicted and sentenced to death.

Novick, a native of Ohio who drove a 1987 Corvette convertible, had worked as a credit representative for a car loan company. The woman later turned to nude dancing at Fort Lauderdale's Solid Gold but disappeared after going to meet a mysterious man named Tony.

Miami-Dade police said that man was Gore, then 24 and just out of federal prison. Gore was later captured in Kentucky after kidnapping the son of the dancer who survived.

(source: Miami Herald)

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Innocent Men Previously on Death Row Ask for Meeting with Governor Scott

At least 13 people currently on death row have exhausted their post-conviction appeals and gone through the clemency process. Should Governor Scott sign HB 7083 into law today, he could effectively be putting them all to death without ample time and adequate assurance that they truly are guilty of the crimes they are accused of.

Juan Melendez was on Florida's death row for almost 18 years for a crime he did not commit. A "lost" confession by the real perpetrator, which was in the possession of the prosecution, was presented some 16 years after his conviction. Melendez was exonerated and freed.

"Under the Timely Justice Act, innocent men like me would have been executed," said Melendez. "No one knows how many more innocent people are now awaiting execution on Florida's death row - and will be executed, if the Legislature places limits on their appeals."

The Governor has 15 days to act on this bill. Were he to sign it, he would be the Governor to execute more people during his tenure than any other Governor in Florida's history. 2 former death row inmates both of whom were exonerated have reached out to Governor Scott privately to ask for a meeting to plead their case. Ultimately, they would like the Governor to consider vetoing this bill that would increase the likelihood of killing innocent people.

"A veto of this bill does not abolish the death penalty; but a veto will hopefully reduce the chance that Florida executes innocent people. I was a supporter of the death penalty," says Penalver. "Until I saw so many others like me, innocent on death row, who only wanted another chance to prove their innocence and ask the state to consider new evidence.

In 2012 Florida led the nation in new death sentences and death row exonerations. Time to execution in Florida is already 18 months less than the national average.

(source: Mark Elliott, Executive Director----Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, FADP)

OHIO:

Defendant still faces possible death sentence, judge rules

Aubrey F. Toney will still face a potential death sentence when he goes on trial for the Sept. 25, 2010, shooting death of Thomas Repchic, a judge has ruled.

On Monday, Judge Maureen A. Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court overruled a motion by Toney's lawyers to dismiss the death-penalty specification against their client. The jury trial for Toney, 32, of West Judson Avenue, who is charged with aggravated murder, attempted murder and 2 counts of felonious assault with firearm specifications, is to begin July 15.

The defense lawyers, John B. Juhasz and Paul C. Conn, argued that Ohio's death penalty is racially discriminatory, violates the equal-protection clause of the U.S. Constitution and imposes cruel and unusual punishment.

In her judgment entry, Judge Sweeney wrote that she agrees with the defense that she "has an obligation to act as a constitutional backstop and make sure that there is no risk of discriminatory imposition of the death penalty."

She added that defense counsel has a duty "to question any aspect of a death-penalty case in a proper motion to make the court aware of a possible error," so she has not and will not limit the number or length of defense motions.

The defense lawyers said there are "2 separate penalty systems in America, one for those accused of killing blacks, and another for those accused of killing whites." The defense lawyers also said: "A person who kills a white person, rather than a black or minority, is almost twice as likely to receive the death penalty."

But Judge Sweeney said the defense has failed "to present any statistical data regarding the percentage of crime committed by the various ethnic races." For example, if 90 % of defendants charged with aggravated murder were black, "then it would logically follow that a greater percentage of African Americans would be indicted with a death-penalty specification," the judge wrote.

Repchic was white, and Toney is black.

The death specification says Toney killed Repchic while trying to kill 2 or more people.

Repchic, 74, of Trenton Avenue, was the victim of a drive-by shooting at Market Street and Southern Boulevard in the city's Uptown district.

His wife, Jacqueline, then also 74, suffered a gunshot wound to her leg, which required that it be amputated.

Toney's co-defendant, Kevin D. Agee Jr., 28, of Garfield Avenue, was convicted by a jury last year of murder, attempted murder, and two counts of felonious assault with firearm specifications. Judge Sweeney sentenced him to 39 years to life in prison.

Police said the shooting was a case of mistaken identity, and that the defendants were looking to shoot 2 other men who drove a car similar to that of the Repchics.

(source: Youngstown Vindicator)

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

With Ariel Castro, Precedent Suggests No Death Penalty

The lawyer for freed Cleveland captives Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Gina DeJesus said last week that he may seek the death penalty against Ariel Castro on the grounds of his alleged forced abortions. After repeatedly raping and impregnating Knight, police sources said, Castro would starve and beat her until she miscarried. Pro-life types have already been using the possible murder charge to suggest abortion is immoral, but most states, including Ohio, recognize forced miscarriage as a crime (though the laws are increasingly used to prosecute women who lose fetuses in suicide attempts and due to drug addictions). Legal experts told Reuters that the case would be hard to prove without medical records, meaning Castro's brother Onil, who told ABC he hopes "he rots in that jail," might get his way after all. Indeed, Castro would be the 1st of his kind - men, with a history of sexual violence and religious delusions, who abduct young women and hold them as captives and wives for years on end - to receive the death penalty. Although their crimes stand out for their duration, cruelty, and often insanity, their trials end quietly, with life sentences in maximum security prisons, as their victims, like Jaycee Dugard and Elizabeth Smart, go on to cover People and write memoirs. Here's what happened to other Ariel Castros.

Phillip Garrido

Crime: In 1991, Garrido, then a convicted rapist, abducted 11-year-old Jaycee Dugard on her way to the schoolbus stop. He raped and held her captive for more than eighteen years, fathering two children with her and employing her as a graphic designer for his print shop while penning a manifesto on how other sex offenders could be cured through his "God's Desire" church.

Punishment: Garrido and his wife pleaded guilty to kidnapping and rape. An earlier rape victim of Garrido's appeared in the court room, but did not speak. Phillip was sentenced to 431 years imprisonment; Nancy got 36 to life. Additionally, Dugard was awarded $20 million by the State of California for the lapses by the parole officers assigned to Garrido. Dugard did not appear at the sentencing, but had her mother read a written statement. "I chose not to be here today because I refuse to waste another second of my life in your presence," it read, in part. "Both of you can save your apologies and empty words. For all the crimes you have both committed I hope you have as many sleepless nights as I did."

Wolfgang Priklopil

Crime: Austrian Priklopil kidnapped 10-year-old Natascha Kampusch on her way to school in 1998. He kept her in a cellar beneath his garage and, later, his home until she escaped in 2006, when he left her alone to take a phone call. (In light of Cleveland, the Guardian has extracted her 2010 book about the aftermath.)

Punishment: When Priklopil, 44, found out the police were after him, he threw himself in front of a train outside Vienna.

Josef Fritzl

Crime: Fritzl kept his daughter Elisabeth imprisoned in his basement for 24 years, starting in 1984, when she was 18. He had 7 children with her, one of which died in infancy. Fritzl brought 3 upstairs and presented them to his unwitting wife as children Elisabeth had abandoned at the house before returning to the religious cult she had joined.

Punishment: Fritzl, 73, was charged with incest, rape, coercion, false imprisonment, enslavement, and negligent homicide. Before trial, he spoke with a local news magazine about his Nazi upbringing and abusive mother - possibly with the hopes of laying down the groundwork for an insanity plea. He pleaded guilty to all charges except murder, but changed his plea after spotting Elisabeth, who had given her testimony over video, sitting in court in disguise. In 2009, he was sentenced to life in a prison for the criminally insane, with the possibility of parole after 15 years. His wife Rosemarie was never charged.

Brian David Mitchell

Crime: In 2002, Mitchell abducted 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart, whose family had employed him for odd jobs. He repeatedly drugged and raped her over 9 months.

Punishment: After Smart was recognized in public, Mitchell and wife Wanda Barzee were arrested and charged with aggravated kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault, and aggravated burglary. Barzee pleaded guilty to her part in Smart's kidnapping - after having her trial delayed twice due to incompetence and being forcibly medicated with antipsychotics - and was sentenced to 15 years in prison, which she is still serving. After 3 competency hearings, during which he sang Mormon hymns, Mitchell was deemed an "effectively misleading psychopath," found guilty, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Despite attempts by his lawyer to have him placed in a mental health facility, he is currently serving his sentence in a high-security federal prison in Tucson.

Marc Dutroux

Crime: Belgium's most famous serial killer, Dutroux had already served 3 years of a 15-year sentence for rape and abduction and was on parole when he kidnapped and molested 6 more girls, between the ages of 8 and 19, in 1995 and 1996, only 2 of which survived. Julie Lejeune and Melissa Russo, both 8, starved to death in his basement. Another 2, An Marchal, 17, and Eefje Lambrecks, 19, he drugged and buried alive. He was finally arrested again in 1996, for the kidnapping of 14-year-old Laetitia Delhez. When she was rescued, another girl, Sabine Dardenne, 12, was discovered in his basement.

Punishment: At trial in 2004 - and after briefly escaping his guards in 1998 - Dutroux admitted to the abductions, but pleaded not guilty to the killings. His wife, Michelle Martin, was tried as an accomplice. Both were found guilty on all counts. Dutroux was was given the maximum sentence, life in prison, while Martin was sentenced to 25 years. Her early release last year was protested by thousands in Brussels.

(source: New York Magazine)

INDIANA:

Death penalty recommended for accused Clark County rapist, murderer

The Clark County Prosecutor's Office is seeking the death penalty against a convicted sex offender accused of raping and murdering his teenage neighbor.

Richard Hooten is accused of raping and strangling Tara Willenborg, at her Cambridge Square apartment in Clarksville this past March.

Hooten did not appear in court Monday for a pretrial conference set before Judge Vicki Carmichael. Instead, Clark County Prosecuting Attorney Jeremy Mull met with defense attorneys for Hooten. The brief meeting ended with Mull recommending the death penalty in the case.

"We're going to take the next few days and the parties are going to submit the paperwork to the court as far as when some deadlines ought to be in the case," said Mull. "We're going to try to keep the case moving as efficiently and quickly as possible."

In April, Hooten confessed to WAVE 3 News he raped Willenborg along with at least 4 other women. He maintained, however, that Willenborg was the only victim he ever murdered.

Despite the recorded confession, Mull said Hooten's case won't be a cake walk.

"Any death penalty case is a challenge. There are a lot of requirements that the state is required to go through to do one of those properly," said Mull. "We will just move forward carefully and follow the law on all points and hopefully at the end of it that the jury comes back with a decision for death in the case."

Mull expects a decision in the timeframe of Hooten's case to be made within the next 30 days.

(source: WAVE)

KANSAS:

Flack represented by death penalty attorney at hearing----Next appearance set for July 8

In a roughly 3-minute hearing, Kyle Trevor Flack declined to have capital murder charges and allegations he killed 4 people read to him Monday afternoon in Franklin County District Court.

Flack, whose hands were cuffed and legs shackled, was escorted by 5 law enforcement officers into a small and crowded courtroom minutes before the hearing started.

The difference between the hearings Friday and Monday was Flack, 27, was represented Monday by attorney Ron Evans, head of the state death penalty defense unit. Evans was appointed to represent Flack by the state of Kansas.

On Friday, Flack didn't have a defense attorney representing him.

Flack next will appear in court July 8 so Judge Thomas H. Sachse can determine the status of the case and the judge can schedule Flack's preliminary hearing.

Flack is charged in Franklin County with:

-- Capital murder in the slayings between April 28 and May 6 of Andrew Adam Stout, Kaylie Bailey and Lana Leigh Bailey, 18 months old.

-- 3 alternative counts of premeditated 1st-degree murder of Stout and the Baileys.

-- Premeditated 1st-degree murder between April 20 and 28 of Steven White.

-- Capital murder in the killing of Kaylie Bailey during or after she was raped.

-- Rape of Kaylie Bailey.

-- Criminal possession of a firearm by a felon.

Franklin County Sheriff Jeff Richards fielded reporters' questions after the hearing.

The sheriff declined to talk about the motive in the 4 slayings but did say Flack knew the victims.

Richards talked about the impact the discovery of the youngest victim had on his deputies.

Lana-Leigh Bailey, an 18-month-old toddler, was the last of the 4 victims to be found. After several days of searching by hundreds of law enforcement officials and volunteers, the search ended late Saturday in Osage County, where a deputy found what authorities said were the remains of the toddler. That is tough to deal with, the sheriff said.

"It takes a toll," Richards said. When it came time to recover the child's body, "it became very quiet."

The hours were long during the early part of the investigation when the sheriff said he worked 38 hours, slept 2 hours, then worked another 30-plus hours.

Everyone in the sheriff's office of 64 deputies and civilian employees worked on the case.

Richards earlier said authorities think Lana-Leigh was killed at the Franklin County farm, then moved to Osage County. But on Monday, Richards declined to expand on where in Osage County the toddler was found by a deputy.

The bodies of Lana-Leigh Bailey's mother, Kaylie Bailey, 21, of Olathe, and the 2 men - White, 31, and Stout, 30 - were discovered May 6 and 7 at 3197 Georgia Road. Stout and Bailey reportedly had been dating.

The 3197 Georgia address is 7 miles northwest of Ottawa, 5 miles northeast of the town of Pomona, and 6 miles east of the Franklin- Osage County line.

Richards declined to comment Monday on whether two sheriff's deputies had mishandled an initial call to the farm on May 5 when a friend of the residents complained there was a foul odor emanating from the house and a garage. The deputies said the odor was trash.

Richards said Monday wasn't the time to deal with it, that it wasn't in the public domain, and that it was for the sheriff to handle.

Flack was apprehended at 2:30 a.m. May 8 in Emporia on an Osage County warrant. Flack, who resided in Quenemo when he lived in Osage County, was charged with failure to register as a violent offender.

Kaylie Bailey's vehicle also was found in Emporia on May 7.

(source: Topeka Capital-Journal)

MISSOURI:

MO Senate defeats study of death penalty costs

The Missouri Senate has rejected a proposal to study the costs of the state's death penalty.

The measure by Democratic Sen. Joe Keaveny, of St. Louis, would have required the state auditor to analyze the costs of convicting, housing and executing people sentenced to death for murder.

That would have been compared to the costs of cases in which the death sentence was sought but not given, and to murder cases in which the death penalty was never sought.

Senators defeated the measure 20-10 on Monday.

The study itself was estimated to cost nearly $170,000 over 2 years.

Some opponents said the study seemed designed to show the death penalty is more costly than life prison sentences, but that such a finding wouldn't change their support for the death penalty.

(source: Associated Press)

NEBRASKA:

Nebraska death penalty repeal bill dead for year

A proposal to abolish the death penalty in Nebraska died on Tuesday after supporters failed to win a two-thirds majority required to quash a legislative filibuster.

Lawmakers voted 28-21 to end the filibuster, which was 5 votes short of what they needed. The failure to reach a vote pushes the bill to the bottom of the Legislature's agenda, effectively killing it for the rest of the session.

The measure was introduced by longtime Sen. Ernie Chambers, who has fought for nearly 4 decades to end capital punishment. Chambers, of Omaha, said he will try again next year, as he has done every year from 1973 through 2008, when he was forced from office due to term limits. He was re-elected last year after a 4-year hiatus.

"I have been down this path so many times, and I'm prepared to continue walking this path," Chambers said before the vote. "If the 33 votes are not there, the world does not end for me."

The vote after an eight-hour debate suggested that a growing number of lawmakers oppose capital punishment, most likely because of an influx of 10 freshman senators who have pulled the Legislature in a more moderate direction. The Legislature has only passed one of Chambers' death penalty bills once, in 1979, but then-Gov. Charles Thone vetoed it.

Among the reasons death penalty opponents give for wanting to outlaw capital punishment is a concern that it is applied arbitrarily. Nebraska has had 260 1st-degree murder convictions since 1973, and 33 of those offenders were sentenced to death. Of that number, three have been executed.

Lawmakers who support the death penalty say Nebraska's system affords inmates numerous chances to appeal their sentences, often over decades. They also contend that improved DNA identification and evidence-gathering have reduced the chances of the state executing an innocent person.

Sen. Scott Lautenbaugh of Omaha said Nebraska's death-row convicts have all committed crimes so heinous that he won't regret any of their executions.

"I won't shed a tear and I won't mourn, except for the passage of time," Lautenbaugh said. "I cannot have sympathy for these men on death row. They have forfeited their right to be part of the human race."

Sen. Charlie Janssen of Fremont argued that the death penalty gives prosecutors additional leverage to force plea-bargains in murder cases.

"Murderers are cowards by their very nature, and they will cave if they've got something to lose," Janssen said.

Nebraska has 11 men currently sitting on death row. The last inmate executed in Nebraska was Robert E. Williams, who was electrocuted in 1997. Williams confessed to killing 3 women and trying to kill a 4th during a 3-day rampage in 1977 that crossed into 3 states.

Earlier this month, Maryland became the 6th state in the last 6 years to repeal the death penalty. Like the other 5 states - New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois and New Mexico - Maryland is less conservative than Nebraska. 32 states have the death penalty.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Supporters need more votes as Unicameral debates death penalty -- Lawmakers debate, but don't take a vote on abolishing the death penalty.

Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha sponsors LB 543, which would replace the death penalty with a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Chambers told colleagues during legislative floor debate Monday that he understood the opposition he faces and the uncertainty of success. Opponents have promised a filibuster and so far have kept their word.

Chambers said he welcomed an opportunity to gauge his support, even if it came from the other side.

"At the earliest opportunity when the other side wants a test vote, we ought to take it so that we don't waste time," Chambers stated. "If the bill is going to be killed, kill it."

Kill it with kindness seems to be the approach favored by opponent Beau McCoy, a senator from Omaha.

"People in Nebraska, in my opinion, deserve a full and fair debate on this issue," McCoy said.

His stance frustrated Sen. Brad Ashford, chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

Ashford pressed McCoy on whether he thought the Unicameral should have a final vote on the measure. McCoy refused to answer his question directly.

Opponents continued to discuss the matter, chewing up time on Monday and marching the legislature closer to the unofficial 8 hour limit that would trigger a cloture vote. Debate will resume today.

Ashford grew tired of the tactic.

"This bill deserves a final vote; yea or nay," He stated.

Debate hasn't reached that stage, yet. A test vote, of sorts, was taken. It indicated 26 senators are ready to throw out the death penalty. That won't be enough. Supporters need 33 votes to end the filibuster, cut off debate and force a vote. They will need 30 to stick with them to override a gubernatorial veto.

(source: Nebraska Radio Network)

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

Push to end death penalty in Nebraska probably will fall short

The Nebraska Legislature has shifted on the death penalty, but perhaps not far enough to end capital punishment this year.

A test vote during floor debate Monday suggested that Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha may have 26 votes, 1 more than necessary, to pass his bill repealing the death penalty. But he will need 33 votes to end a filibuster by those who want to keep capital punishment on the books.

If death penalty supporters successfully extend debate, they can ensure that the bill doesn't come up for a vote this session. It was a strategy decried by Sen. Brad Ashford of Omaha, who supports repealing the death penalty.

"These are the bills that define us as an institution, as a people," he said. "Please give us an up or down vote."

Omaha Sen. Scott Lautenbaugh, one of the Legislature's staunchest death penalty supporters, said he is unconvinced by arguments that capital punishment doesn't deter crime or that it's fraught with racial disparity. "I won't apologize for doing everything I can within the rules to prevent the repeal," he said.

Opponents of capital punishment were not giving up the fight as the bill headed into a second day of debate today. If they manage to pass the repeal bill, however, they likely would face the governor's veto. They would then need at least 30 votes for an override.

Still, lawmakers who oppose the death penalty were pleased when a motion to kill the bill failed by a vote of 26 to 18. As recently as 2009, only 13 senators voted in favor of abolishing executions.

Legislative Bill 543 would make life in prison without the possibility of parole the state's harshest penalty for murder.

Nebraska is 1 of 32 states that have the death penalty. 3 men have been executed since capital punishment was reinstated in 1973.

The roughly 6 hours of floor debate on Monday included speeches from senators whose views on the death penalty have changed.

Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln told of going to the State Penitentiary the night that Harold Lamont Otey was executed in 1994 and seeing the spectacle of people cheering. But he also expressed a common view that years spent appealing death penalty cases can turn killers into celebrities.

"Let the perpetrators of these crimes walk a little 5-by-10 track in their cell until they die, and let us speak of them no more," he said.

Lincoln Sen. Kathy Campbell said that in years past she could justify the high cost of death penalty cases if "fair and equitable justice" resulted. But it hasn't, she said, including for the victims' families, who must endure the horror of their losses over and over. "We can't take the grief away with the death penalty," Campbell said.

The supporters of repeal hoped that other key conservative senators would join their effort, including Sen. Mark Christensen of Imperial and Sen. Mike Gloor of Grand Island.

Both voted for the motion to bracket the bill, which would have killed it for the session.

Christensen said he was more open-minded about the issue this year than he has been in the past. But his constituents in southwest Nebraska who overwhelming favor capital punishment prompted him to oppose the repeal, Christensen said.

While the debate was mostly respectful, it did produce some tense exchanges.

Ashford harshly questioned tactics employed by Omaha Sen. Beau McCoy to divide debate into three parts, which would prolong the discussion.

Ashford, a legislative veteran, said he was growing tired of lawmakers using the rules to avoid a vote on controversial measures. He described McCoy's tactics as trying to "show them that the minority will win out." He said the repeal bill "deserves a final vote, yea or nay."

McCoy, a leading supporter of the death penalty, denied that that was his intent. He said his move to divide the question would provide several votes on the issue.

Chambers, a master at blocking votes on bills, said that was a lie and called McCoy "gutless" for trying to derail the bill.

Repealing the death penalty is a top priority for Chambers, who has offered similar bills throughout his 39-year legislative career.

On Monday, he talked about spending the final hours with death row inmate John Joubert, who kidnapped, tortured and killed 2 Sarpy County boys in 1983 and later admitted to killing a 3rd boy in Maine. Joubert was executed in the electric chair in 1996.

"People who say from a distance they love the death penalty don't know what a grotesque ceremony it is," Chambers said.

Sen. Charlie Janssen of Fremont also brought up Joubert, saying that he recalls how afraid he was as a child because of the slayings of boys who were about his age. He asked his colleagues to consider what those boys might have done with their lives had they lived.

Sen. Tom Carlson of Holdrege offered an amendment that added language about the value of human life, "born and unborn." The amendment passed 26-6.

Carlson, who opposes the repeal effort, later withdrew the amendment. He said he wanted to make a point about protecting the lives of the unborn on a day when the discussion centered on preventing the executions of the guilty.

Debate also focused on the higher cost to the state of death penalty cases compared with killers sentenced to life in prison.

Death penalty supporters argued that the cost of justice can't be counted.

"Justice is not up for sale to the lowest bidder," Sen. Bill Kintner of Papillion said.

(source: Omaha World-Herald)

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

Bill abolishing the death penalty could be in peril

For the 1st time in 34 years, a majority of Nebraska lawmakers seems to support abolishing the state's death penalty.

But a bill they considered Monday to do so appears to be going nowhere since a "test vote" showed there probably is not enough support to stop a filibuster.

Lawmakers began debate on the bill (LB543) by Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha to change the death penalty to life in prison without the possibility of parole -- Chambers' 37th attempt to do so.

Custom dictates 1st-round debate on a bill can last as long as eight hours. At that point, it takes 33 of the 49 senators' votes to end debate and move to a vote.

But after Omaha Sen. Beau McCoy launched a filibuster against the measure, Sen. Brad Ashford of Omaha decided to float a trial balloon by filing a motion to kill the bill and then asking for a vote to gauge support.

A vote against killing the bill was, in essence, a vote in support of abolishing the death penalty. The tally was 18 for killing the bill and 26 against -- more than the 25 needed to advance the bill to 2nd-round debate but not the 33 needed to end the filibuster or even the 30 required to override an expected veto by Gov. Dave Heineman.

Lawmakers will reach the 8-hour limit Tuesday. Speaker Greg Adams usually will not bring a bill back for further debate at that point unless supporters can prove they have the 33 votes to end the filibuster.

Earlier, Chambers said "there is randomness, arbitrariness and no standard for applying" the death penalty.

The most ardent death penalty opponent in the Legislature, Chambers was re-elected to his North Omaha seat in November after sitting out four years because of term limits. Each year from 1973 to 2008, he introduced a bill to abolish the death penalty. In 1979, his bill passed but was vetoed by then-Gov. Charles Thone.

Noting that supporters of the death penalty say capital punishment is justified for the most heinous murders, Chambers offered details of several cases in which killers did not get the death penalty, including one where a man drove a car through a bedroom wall and shot his wife six times in front of their children.

He said Nebraska's 93 county prosecutors decide whether to seek the death penalty.

"They have absolute discretion as to what charge will be filed and whether or not the death penalty will be sought," he said.

Chambers quoted U.S. Supreme Court William J. Brennan, who said in a 1976 opinion: "Death is not only an unusually severe punishment, unusual in its pain, in its finality, and in its enormity, but it serves no penal purpose more effectively than a less severe punishment. … The fatal constitutional infirmity in the punishment of death is that it treats members of the human race as non-humans, as objects to be toyed with and discarded. It is thus inconsistent with the fundamental premise of the clause that even the vilest criminal remains a human being possessed of common human dignity."

Opposition to the bill was led by McCoy.

"I plan to make the case...that the death penalty is appropriate for certain crimes," McCoy said. "I believe that the individuals that are currently on death row belong there.

"I don't need a poll to guide my vote on this issue. Because there are communities that have experienced the most heinous crimes that you can imagine."

Ashford, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, expressed disdain for McCoy's attempt to jam up debate and delay or prevent a vote on the bill, as McCoy and his allies have done on a bill that would expand Medicaid coverage to more people.

"This body is getting far into that sense of avoidance," Ashford said. "This bill deserves a final vote. Stopping votes is ludicrous. And it is contrary to our mission since 1937," when the one-house Legislature was established.

Sen. Mark Christensen of Imperial said feedback he got from his constituents showed overwhelming support for the death penalty.

Sen. Galen Hadley of Kearney said he no longer supported the death penalty.

"I've been pro-death penalty pretty much all my life, but I've come to the conclusion that I don't think it works.

"People that are in favor of the death penalty talk in terms of deterrence. Those who are against it talk about it either from a moral standpoint or the fact that it's arbitrary and capricious," Hadley said. "I think most studies have shown that it is not a deterrent. For something to be a deterrent, it should be meaningful swift and certain. That certainly is not the death penalty."

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told the Legislature's Judiciary Committee earlier this year that studies have shown the average death penalty case costs $3 million to prosecute, compared to $1.1 million for cases of life without parole.

Since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of capital punishment, Nebraska has spent an estimated $100 million on death penalty cases and executed 3 people.

"Why do we have something on our books that is so inefficient? So costly?" asked Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln, who also once supported the death penalty.

Coash said Nebraska would never again carry out an execution because it was becoming increasingly difficult to get lethal injection drugs.

"There isn't going to be another execution in this state," he said. "It's not gonna happen.

"What good has the death penalty done for our citizens? What good has been done?" Coash asked. "Without an execution, the death penalty is pretty meaningless. It hasn't saved money. It hasn't deterred any crime."

(source: Fremont Tribune)

COLORADO:

'Dark Knight' Shooter ---- I'm Not Guilty ... Because I'm Insane

James Holmes -- the monster behind the gruesome "Dark Knight" massacre last year -- has just entered a not guilty plea ... by reason of insanity.

A plea of not guilty had previously been entered on Holmes' behalf back in March by the judge because Holmes' lawyers weren't prepared to plead for him at the time.

The judge will decide whether to accept Holmes' new plea by May 28th.

Holmes killed 12 people and injured an additional 58 during the Aurora, Colorado shooting last July. He is charged with 142 crimes, including 24 1st degree murder counts, and 116 counts of attempted murder.

Prosecutors announced last month they would be seeking the death penalty.

(source: TMZ)

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

Colorado judge allows James Holmes to move toward insanity defense

The judge in the Aurora movie theater massacre case paved the way Monday for James E. Holmes to plead not guilty by reason of insanity but did not formally accept that plea, delaying that decision until later this month.

Judge Carlos Samour Jr. of Colorado's 18th Judicial District, ruled that the defense had made its case that the plea should be changed from a traditional not guilty plea to an insanity plea. He said his decision was "consistent with fairness and justice" for Holmes.

In March, Chief District Judge William Sylvester, who has since stepped aside in the case, entered a not guilty plea on Holmes' behalf because the defense said it was not prepared to "intelligently and effectively" advise its clients on how to plea.

Under Colorado law a plea can be changed to not guilty by reason of insanity if there is a compelling reason.

Public Defender Daniel King revealed for the 1st time Monday that the defense has a diagnosis and "qualified opinion" on Holmes' mental state. "We now have a diagnosis that is complete," King said.

He did not disclose what the diagnosis was, when it was rendered or by whom.

The prosecution questioned the defense contention that it only now is able to render an insanity plea.

"When did the diagnosis come about?" asked Deputy Dist. Atty. Jacob Edson. He said his office polled victims in the deadly shooting and 19 objected to the change of plea. 3 victims had no opinion and another 6 did not object to the plea change.

Holmes, 25, is accused of opening fire in a packed movie theater on July 20, killing 12 and injuring 70. He faces the death penalty if convicted.

But by law a person found to be insane or suffer from a mental defect cannot be put to death. The defense has long said Holmes is deeply mentally ill.

Holmes, as in previous hearings, appeared in court shackled and sat quietly, mostly staring straight ahead. He did not appear to make eye contact with his mother, Arlene Holmes, who sat in the audience.

Samour said he was "persuaded and satisfied" that the defense had shown cause to change the plea and that its actions had not unnecessarily delayed the proceedings. That was the issue before the judge Monday -- next is whether to accept the plea.

If the judge accepts the plea change, a hearing will be held to make sure Holmes is fully advised and understands the consequences of pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. A trial is scheduled for February 2014 but most legal experts say the combination of an insanity plea and the death penalty will probably delay it for months, if not years.

(source: Los Angeles Times)

NEVADA:

Las Vegas Strip shooting suspect pleads not guilty to murder, attempted murder

Ammar Harris, a 27-year-old self-described pimp accused of killing 3 people in a shooting and fiery crash on the Las Vegas Strip in February, has been arraigned on 11 counts against him.

Harris appeared Monday in Clark County District Court on murder and attempted murder charges in the Feb. 21 shooting and crash.

He initially told the judge Monday he wanted to plead guilty, but his lawyer said that would be a mistake, so Harris returned to court and entered not guilty pleas.

The pre-dawn shooting and crash killed the driver of a Maserati and 2 people in a taxi that exploded in flames.

Harris was arrested a week later in Los Angeles.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the case.

The trial is scheduled for Sept. 9.

(source: CBS News)

ARIZONA:

Jodi Arias taken off suicide watch

Ever since her verdict and interview with FOX 10's Troy Hayden, Jodi Arias has been on suicide watch. She was unable to see guests during that period.

After her conviction in an exclusive interview, Arias told FOX 10's Troy Hayden that she would prefer to die.

She said, "I said years ago that I'd rather get death than life and that's still true today. I believe death is the ultimate freedom so I'd rather just have my freedom as soon as we get it."

Monday afternoon, doctors released Arias from a psychiatric ward. She has been transferred back to Estrella Jail where she will be housed alone in a cell under "closed custody status."

She will be allowed out of her cell 1 hour each day for access to phone calls and showers, MCSO said. It's a lot like what she'll find if she's sent to death row.

Wednesday, jurors will consider whether a death sentence should be an option for the former waitress. She will be back in court then.

They'll decide is there are aggravating or mitigating factors in her case.

(source: myfoxphoenix.com)

CALIFORNIA:

Ex-Marine denies ordering double killing in Calif.

A former Marine testified in his murder trial Monday that he did not order the killings of a colleague and his wife in their Southern California home nearly 5 years ago.Tyrone Miller, 25, gave jurors a firsthand account of what he recalled the night Marine Sgt. Jan Pietzrak and his wife, Quiana, were killed in October 2008. He apologized for his involvement but maintained he never ordered a friend and fellow Marine to shoot the couple.

"I feel beyond bad," Miller said. "It was a mistake that spiraled out of control."Miller, Kevin Cox, 25 and Emrys John, 23, have pleaded not guilty to murder and allegations of burglary, robbery and sexual assault. All 3 men worked with Pietrzak at one time while stationed at Camp Pendleton.

A 4th suspect, also an ex-Marine, had his case severed and is awaiting trial. If convicted, each man could face the death penalty.

Miller, who grew up in North Carolina, said he planned a long career in the military and was just months away of becoming a corporal. However, the day before the slayings, Pietrzak told Miller he would never get that promotion but didn't give an explanation, according to Miller.

"He pretty much brushed me off," Miller said. "I never did anything to this man that he would snatch that from me."

Miller said he went home that evening and drank a bottle of brandy and tequila. Drunk and angry, Miller said he wanted to confront Pietrzak about the situation.

"I guess you could say it affected my pride," he said. "For me, I couldn't just sit there for another minute."

Joined by the 3 other then-Marines, Miller went to Pietrzak's house where he was met by the sergeant who was armed with a kitchen knife and angrily told Miller to go home. Miller said he had a handgun but tossed it aside when challenged by Pietrzak, he added.

Miller said the 2 men began brawling and he was able to subdue Pietrzak. Miller said he was unsure what the other men were doing around the house, but he went upstairs and saw one of the men with Pietrzak's wife. Miller denied he ever sexually assaulted Pietrzak's wife.

Miller said he found a can of spray paint and wrote racial slurs on the walls. Pietzrak's wife was black.

"Initially I knew it would hurt Sgt. P's feelings," said Miller, who also is black. "It was one last gut punch."

Eventually the group was together downstairs and Miller continued to hit Pietrzak in order for him to give up his ATM pin number.

Prosecutors contend that robbery was the motive for the crime. They also said Miller told another Marine after the shooting that he handed the gun to John the night of the murders and said, "Do them."

Prosecutors said John shot the couple through couch cushions to muffle the noise.

Miller maintained that he went to Pietrzak's home only to confront him."To me that was my agenda," Miller said. "I wasn't there for anything else."

Miller said he never remembers giving John a gun and didn't see who fired the fatal shots.

Pietrzak's wife, Quiana, had her wrists bound with red duct tape and was found lying against a living room couch. Pietrzak was bloodied and was in his underwear.

A fire had been set in an apparent attempt to destroy evidence, but Miller denied doing so.

Authorities were led to the 4 men after receiving tips from fellow Marines.

Jewelry, including the couple's wedding rings, and Pietrzak's dress uniform was found at the suspects' homes, authorities said.

Pietrzak, 24, who was born in Poland and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., joined the Marines in 2003 and served in Iraq from July 2005 to February 2006.

Miller said he knew he would likely be caught, and if he had to do it over again, he would still have sought out Pietrzak.

"I would still have to confront him but not in that way," he said.

(source: San Luis Obispo Tribune)

WASHINGTON:

Prosecutors push for death penalty for corrections officer's killer

For the 1st time, the family of slain corrections officer Jayme Biendl's family is speaking as prosecutors try to put her killer, Byron Scherf to death.

Biendl’s father took the stand and immediately struggled to describe how the loss has affected his family.

"This is the most difficult thing I've ever had to do," said James Hamm.

He told jurors his daughter loved horses, gardening and her family. She hoped to have children of her own one day.

"The worst part is the feeling of loss just doesn't seem to go away,” said Hamm.

Scherf is facing the death penalty for strangling the Biendl at the Monroe Corrections Facility in 2011.

The jury that convicted him on Friday of 1st-degree murder must now decide if he deserves death or life in prison.

Scherf was already serving a life term and his attorneys are arguing that should continue, although he would be moved to maximum security. They say his life is worth saving. Before the killing, he earned a high school diploma and enrolled in therapy.

"It is obvious that Byron is a damaged, broken man. But he is not beyond redemption. He is not evil," said Karen Halverson, Scherf's attorney.

Prosecutors said the programs did not work. Scherf completed an anger management class in 1989 and was released from prison. He raped a woman 6 years later. He then took an in-custody therapy class but murdered Biendl 6 months later.

"There's nothing we can do except sit here helplessly grieving," said Hamm.

Scherf has the right to make a statement at the sentencing hearing and could take the stand Tuesday.

Prosecutors expect the jury will start their deliberations Tuesday afternoon.

(source: KIRO TV News)

USA:

Exonerated Prisoners Are Winning the Fight Against the Death Penalty

Earlier this month, I was at the State House in Annapolis when Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley made history, erasing a centuries-old practice with the stroke of the pen. On May 2, O'Malley signed a law repealing the death penalty, making it the 18th state to abolish capital punishment, and the 6th state in 6 years, after New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Illinois and Connecticut.

Standing with me were two men who had a very personal stake in the governor's actions: Kirk Bloodsworth and Shujaa Graham, both of whom were exonerated from death row. They are just two of the 142 death row prisoners who have been released due to their innocence over the past 40 years. Shujaa was number 20, and Kirk was number 48. Along with organizers and lawmakers, such exonerated death row survivors - who spent an average of 10 years on death row for crimes they did not commit - are leading the charge to halt executions throughout America.

"I killed the thing that almost killed me," proclaimed Kirk Bloodsworth after O'Malley signed the bill. For Bloodsworth, ending the death penalty has been a 28-year mission. In 1985, Bloodsworth, an honorably discharged former Marine with a clean record, was convicted of the brutal rape and murder of 9-year-old Dawn Hamilton in Baltimore County. His conviction was overturned in 1986 amid news that the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence and he was retried and sentenced to life. Ultimately, DNA evidence freed Bloodsworth, but not before he spent 9 years in Baltimore's infamous Maryland Penitentiary, including 2 years on death row before. (The real killer had occupied a prison cell 1 floor beneath his own cell.) He was the 1st death row inmate in the US exonerated by genetic fingerprinting technology. Today, he is the advocacy director of Witness to Innocence, a national organization of exonerated death row survivors, and the group I lead.

Meanwhile, Shujaa Graham and co-defendant Eugene Allen, who are black, were framed for the murder of a white correctional officer in Deuel Vocational Institute in Stockton, California. Graham, who grew up on a plantation in Jim Crow-era Louisiana, later moved to California with his family and became entangled in a gang and in the juvenile justice system, landing in Soledad Prison at 18. While institutionalized, Graham taught himself to read and write. He was mentored by the Black Panthers and became a political activist in the Black Prison movement. For that, he was framed for murder.

In 1976 - after a mistrial 3 years earlier - Graham and Allen were sentenced to death by an all-white jury and sent to San Quentin's death house. In 1979, the California Supreme Court overturned his death sentence because the prosecutor had excluded African-Americans from the jury. Shujaa was acquitted and released in 1981 - "in spite of the system" as he emphasizes.

Now a resident of Tacoma Park, Maryland and the vice-chairman of Witness to Innocence, Shujaa tempered his approval of the bill signing. "I view this as a partial victory," said Graham, noting that although the death penalty has been abolished, the inherent problems of the criminal justice system remain. The death penalty is only the tip of the iceberg.

But abolition in Maryland, which has executed more than 300 people, is important. It is the 1st state below the Mason-Dixon line to abolish the death penalty. With its troubled history of violence and racism, the South accounts for 80 % of the executions in the US.

Innocence, of course, is just one reason to end executions. The death penalty is punishment for the poor, disproportionately of color, reserved for those who cannot afford the best justice money can buy. Often, they are represented by incompetent, inexperienced and overworked attorneys who cannot properly represent them. A "McJustice" system prioritizes expediency and finality over fairness and resolving questions of guilt or innocence by encouraging plea bargains. The stakes are high yet the standards are so low.

Encouragingly, death penalty sentencing is on the decline. Last year saw the 2nd lowest number of new death sentences since 1976, with Florida, California, Texas and Alabama accounting for 65 % of the total. Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia had no executions at all in 2012. And in 2012, 9 US states executed people, with merely 4 - Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Arizona - accounting for roughly 3/4 of the executions.

Meanwhile, in the midst of a global trend towards death penalty abolition, in which 1 in 10 countries performs executions the United States claims membership in a small cadre of nations carrying out capital punishment. The US is surpassed only by China, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia in the number of state-sponsored killings.

Faced with the inherent brutality of the death penalty, its violation of human rights, exorbitant cost, ineffectiveness, dysfunction and incessant risk of killing innocent people, other states will follow Maryland's example. At a time of so many unjust laws that degrade human personality, as Dr. King would say, Maryland lawmakers, influenced by the power of innocence, have chosen a policy that promotes human dignity.

(source: The Nation)

CHINA:

Death penalty prudently applied, declares white paper

China has enforced strict controls over and prudently applied the death penalty while protecting the rights of detainees, according to the white paper released on Tuesday detailing the country's progress in human rights in 2012.

The paper, published by the State Council Information Office, notes that in 2011, the death penalty was removed for 13 economic and non-violent crimes, reducing the number of death penalty charges by nearly 20 %.

Among the new progress related to human rights protection in the judicial field, the Basic Standards for the Establishment of Clinics in Detention Centers were also issued to improve living and medical conditions for detainees.

By 2012, a detainee security risk assessment and ranking mechanism had been established in 2,391 detention centers, or 89.1 % of all such centers in the country.

The formation of a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics was also a milestone. The system, which was completely established by the end of 2010, "ensures that the country's human rights protection is done within the framework of the law."

In 2012, "respecting and protecting human rights" was added to the amended Criminal Procedure Law, a major progress in China's human rights and of great significance in punishing criminals, protecting the public and safeguarding citizens' right to litigation.

The paper points out that the country has made efforts to promote the citizens' civil and political rights.

Practical measures have been taken to ensure citizens' right to know and right to be heard, as deepened reform and the rapid development of information technology have given the public greater power to acquire information and express their opinions.

Also the Regulations on Government Information Disclosure have helped establish a system for disclosing information, the paper says.

The Internet has become an important channel for citizens to exercise their rights to know, participate, be heard and supervise, as well as a crucial way for the government to hear public opinions.

Furthermore, democracy building at the grass-roots level expanded citizens' right to participate. As by the end of 2012, direct elections had been held for over 98 % of village committees across the country, with participation reaching 95 %.

(source: Global Times)

PAPUA NEW GUINEA:

Death penalty move expected in Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea's Justice Minister is expected to table legislation this week to apply the death penalty and introduce a raft of tougher sentences.

The country is grappling with a string of gruesome murders and increased violent offending.

ONE News Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver told TV ONE's Breakfast that sorcery in PNG is one of the reasons behind the planned legislation.

The Government is looking at repealing the Sorcery Act, 1970 for a start, she said.

"They've had a terrible raft of violence. And the Sorcery Act, 1970 means that someone can murder someone else and burn them to death, and under the Sorcery Act if they say 'Well, I thought they were a witch or a sorcerer', that gives them a defence in court."

Dreaver recalled recent cases where a 20-year-old mother of one died after being tortured and set alight in front of a big crowd, and another woman was beheaded in front of police.

"It's because of those types of cases which have come to the fore in recent months that the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea said, 'I know this is going to seem draconian to some people but we need to do something about this'."

While 97 countries around the world are against the death penalty, PNG will join countries like Japan, Pakistan and India which support it, Dreaver said.

PNG actually has the death penalty but it has not been enforced since 1954, she said.

"And so they're saying 'We're going to bring it in now and we believe that these tougher penalties will make a difference'," she said.

For rape, the penalty will be life imprisonment with no parole, and there will be "huge" penalties for other violence, Dreaver said. Sale of alcohol will be banned between the hours of 2am and midday.

The Prime Minister is even talking of setting up a prison on an island and sending the bad offenders to that island where there will be no one else around, she said.

There has been huge opposition to the death penalty plan, Dreaver said.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who was in PNG last week, said Australia was against the death penalty anywhere and PNG was no exception. But Gillard also said Australia would not tie its aid to PNG of nearly $A500 million to policy on the death penalty.

Amnesty International said the death penalty is "sanctioned violence" and that PNG needs to look at the problems underlying violence rather than introducing a death penalty.

Dreaver said hefty debate on the death penalty could be expected this week.

"Some of the opposition have come out and said they're against it as have some of the churches."

PNG's Justice Minister, who is also the Attorney-General, has been put in charge of the logistics of the legislation which is expected to be tabled in Parliament this week.

The proposal is for the death penalty to be carried out by hanging, but the Prime Minister had mentioned he wants it done by shooting, Dreaver said.

(source: TVNZ)

INDIA:

We are also victims of the system, says death row convict Bhullar's wife

We expect the wife of a death row convict to be a prisoner of the past, for whom, the future holds no relevance. She may cry every time her husband is mentioned before her, remembering the goodness of her man and the days they spent together. Ignorant of the nuances of criminal jurisprudence, she may insist on her husband's release.

Navneet Kaur, wife of death row convict, Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar, is not such a woman. Her body language is that of a surgeon who discusses matters of life and death with detachment.

"How much sugar?" are her 1st words as we settle down in a room in Gurudwara Bangla Sahab in New Delhi. While serving tea, her searching gaze assesses the understanding you have of the case, measuring the usefulness of discussing her case history with you.

In August 2001, a trial court in Delhi sentenced awarded capital punishment to Bhullar under the Terrorist & Disruptive Activities Act (Tada). He is the key accused in the 1993 bomb blast case outside the Indian Youth Congress office in Delhi in which nine people were killed. Since then, Kaur has met politicians, religious leaders, journalists, human right activists and lawyers, in a push to convert the death sentence into life imprisonment.

Kaur, on her part, maintains that her family and that of Bhullar, were themselves victims of insurgency. More than 40 college students had gone missing in Punjab. When Bhullar spoke for them, police fabricated him in the bomb blast case, says Kaur. "That was a very bad time. Police tortured my father. They beat him mercilessly. My father-in-law got disappeared," she says, adding that so far, police have not recovered any piece of evidence to prove its claim of Bhullar being a Khalistani terrorist.

The mercy petition filed in 2003 was rejected by former president Pratibha Patil in May 2011. Kaur moved the Supreme Court (SC) seeking that Bhullar's death penalty should be commuted to life as there was an inordinate delay by the President's office in deciding his petition. But in April this year, the SC rejected the plea, ruling that delay cannot be a ground for mercy in terrorism cases. She filed a review plea challenging the SC order. She then moved the apex court, asking it to stay the execution till it decides on her review plea.

Kaur's urgency in filing the latest 2 applications reflects her understanding that the decision on his fate will be a political one. She has connected the dots. After a Pakistani (Ajmal Kasab) and a Kashmiri (Afzal Guru), the state would execute a Sikh to show that it does not have a soft corner for people of certain community, she says. And that is her grudge with the system. "Why do we have review mechanism when ultimately the decision has to be taken by political leaders?" she wonders.

Kaur is fighting for a man she married 21 years ago. But she could never live with him like a couple. She has seen him aging in the brief intervals they got to meet. Except the initial three months of his marriage to Kaur, Bhullar either remained underground or in prison. In 1994, after he had been hiding for three years, they decided to relocate to Canada. While Kaur went ahead, Bhullar was detained in transit in Germany for traveling on a false passport. He was deported to India the following year.

Kaur returned to India in 2001- the year Bhullar was sentenced to death. She left behind her parents, sister and nursing job in Vancouver hospital.

Since December 2010, Bhullar, a former professor of mechanical engineering has been living in the Institute of Behavourial & Allied Sciences, New Delhi where he is being treated for acute depression. Twice a week, Kaur goes to see the 'mareez' (patient) – a 48 year old skinny, tall sardaar who looks lost and does not recognise people around him. Their meetings do not last for more than 15 minutes.

Not all such meetings are planned though. She is constantly hounded by phone calls by people claiming that they are shifting her husband to Tihar prison - an indication that he will be secretly hanged. After every such call, she rushes to the Institute.

The formation of a medical board in April this year to regularly examine Bhullar's mental fitness has reduced the probability of his secret execution, says Kaur. "They can hang him only if the medical board concludes that he is mentally fit. No country executes a convict who is mentally unsound."

She blames and thanks the German government at the same time. She is hopeful that the conduct of the German government will go in her husband's favour. A Frankfurt court has termed Bhullar's deportation to India 'illegal.' In 2010, German ambassador in India wrote to the Ministry of Home Affairs against Bhullar's execution. Earlier in May this year, German President and Foreign Minister wrote to their Indian counterparts demanding clemency for Bhullar.

But she wishes that Germany had not allowed the deportation in the 1st place- the only time Kaur turns emotional during our conversation. "We are facing the consequences of their mistakes. They say they regret it and did not know that India will award him capital punishment without any evidence. Had we got stay in that country 18 years ago, our lives would have been different," she says.

Confident that Bhullar will not be executed anytime soon due to her recent petitions and the formation of medical board, she plans to return to Canada in the interim. Besides, she is now also part of a bigger battle.

A phone call interrupts her flow of thoughts. "Hello?" she says with a frown on forehead. On the other end, is the coordinator of a seminar on 'abolishment of capital punishment' in which Kaur is one of the panelists.

(source: FirstPost)

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

Maya Kodnani: Gujarat 'rethinks' appeal for death penalty

India's Gujarat state has put on hold its decision to seek the death penalty for ex-minister Maya Kodnani, who was convicted over the 2002 Gujarat religious riots, media reports say.

She was given 28 years in jail last year for her part in the killing of 97 people in Naroda Patiya.

Last month, the state's legal department said it would seek the death penalty for Kodnani and others.

The riots left more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead.

The rioting began after 60 Hindu pilgrims died in a train fire blamed on Muslims in the town of Godhra. The violence was among India's worst outbreaks of unrest.

It is not known why the Gujarat state legal department has decided to withhold its decision to appeal, but correspondents say the state's Bharatiya Janata Party-led government had been severely criticised by its Hindu allies for seeking the death penalty.

An aide to Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Kodnani was not a minister at the time of the riots but was appointed junior minister for women and child development by Mr Modi in 2007.

She quit her post when she was arrested in 2009 in connection with the massacre but remained a member of the state assembly.

She was convicted of murder, attempted murder and conspiracy with the judge naming her as "a kingpin of riots" in the Naroda Patiya area. So far, she is the most senior figure convicted over the riots.

Following her conviction in August last year, Mr Modi's government distanced itself from her saying that she had not been a state minister at the time.

Babu Bajrangi, a former leader of the hardline Hindu group Bajrang Dal, was found guilty on the same charges as Ms Kodnani and was sentenced to remain in jail until he died.

Mr Modi, touted by some as a future prime minister, has been accused of not doing anything to stop the riots - a charge he has always denied.

95 bodies were found after the Naroda Patiya massacre - the worst of the Gujarat riots cases - on 28 February 2002. The bodies of two other people missing after the massacre and presumed dead were never found.

The trial began in August 2009 and charges were brought against 62 people. One of the accused died during the trial.

(source: BBC News)

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

After DMK, PDP, CPM says no to death penalty

The CPM on Monday became the 1st national-level political party to seek abolition of the "arbitrarily implemented" death penalty in India, advocating an indefinite jail term in the rarest of the rare cases.

The CPM joins the DMK in Tamil Nadu and the PDP in J&K that have argued that India join 97 countries that have already abolished death penalty.

CPM has been debating the issue since last year. The manner in which Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru was executed, however, appears to have been the clincher.

CPM general secretary Prakash Karat said Afzal Guru was denied the right to appeal provided in the law after the mercy petition was rejected.

"Afzal was denied this opportunity and his family was not informed also," he said, briefing reporters about the decisions taken at the party's central committee meeting.

(source: Hindustan Times)

AUSTRALIA:

Australia's PM says her country opposed to death penalty

Australia's Prime Minister has indicated that while her country is opposed to the death penalty, any decision by Papuan New Guinea on whether to implement it won't affect Australian Aid to that country.

This assurance was given by the Julia Gillard at the end of her 1st visit to PNG.

PNG's national executive council is working on legislation to reactivate PNG’s death penalty which has been dormant since the 1950s.

Ms Gillard says that Australia is not questioning PNG's right to implement the death penalty but rather openly expressing its universal opposition to the death penalty.

She says Australia will continue its aid relationship in PNG, focussing on areas such as education and health, and increasingly in empowering females by improving their access to educational opportunities and to maternal health.

(source: Radio New Zealand International)

SAUDI ARABIA----execution

Saudi Arabia executions toll hits 40----In 2012, the kingdom executed 76 people

A Saudi convicted of murder was beheaded on Tuesday, the interior ministry announced, raising to 40 the number of people executed in the kingdom this year.

Maneh Al Daen was found guilty of stabbing to death a fellow tribesman, Nasher Al Daen, the ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

He was beheaded in the southwestern city of Najran.

His beheading brings to 40 the number of people executed in Saudi Arabia since the start of the year, according to an AFP tally.

In 2012, the kingdom executed 76 people, according to a count based on official figures.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia's strict version of sharia.

(source: Gulf News)

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

Terrorism trials open in Saudi Arabia

A criminal court in Riyadh on Sunday began the trials of 11 men accused of carrying out terrorist acts and belonging to al-Qaeda, alarabiya.net reported.

The court held a number of hearings to try the men, who are accused of belonging to cells that include dozens of men who are also on trial.

The defendants face charges that include belonging to al-Qaeda, planning and carrying out an attack on a foreign consulate in Jeddah, holding Western hostages, attempting to kidnap and assassinate officials and security officers, and targeting security and other facilities.

They could face the death penalty if convicted.

(source: Al-Shorfa)

MAY 13, 2013:

TEXAS----impending execution

Houston Policeman's Killer Set to Die Loses Appeal

A federal appeals court has refused to stop the scheduled execution this week of a man convicted of killing a Houston police officer 14 years ago this week.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Monday rejected an appeal from 37-year-old Jeffrey Demond Williams.

Williams is set to die Wednesday evening in Huntsville for fatally shooting 39-year-old Troy Blando as the officer was trying to handcuff him the morning of May 19, 1999, in a Houston motel parking lot.

Williams was driving a stolen car and Blando was in plain clothes working an auto theft assignment. Blando managed to radio a description of his attacker and police arrested Williams a short time later.

Williams' lawyers still could appeal the 5th Circuit ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

(source: Associated Press)

EUROPE/IRAN:

How European taxpayers are fueling executions in Iran

This is a guest post by Gissou Nia, executive director of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, in response to our May 2 post, "The unlikely winner in the war on drugs? Iran."

When it comes to the death penalty, European governments are ardently abolitionist. Yet the European taxpayer may in fact be unwittingly fueling executions for drug-related offenses in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In a recent post on Iran's war on drugs, Marya Hannun mentions the "steep price" of the country's drug war -- namely the execution of hundreds of individuals annually for the possession, use, and trafficking of narcotics.

While Hannun referenced the praise that the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has bestowed on Iran's anti-narcotics program despite the high execution rate for drug-related offenses, what is not discussed is the funding provided by European nations for these efforts. Countries such as France and Germany provide funds to the UNODC's integrated program of technical cooperation on drugs and crime in Iran, which ultimately results in gross human rights violations perpetrated by Iranian authorities.

According to the UNODC website, the integrated program was launched in March 2011 thanks to a "generous financial contribution" from the government of Norway. The program "aims to support national efforts on drugs and crime" and consists of three sub-programs: 1) illicit trafficking and border management; 2) drug demand reduction and HIV control; and 3) crime, justice and corruption.

There are counter-narratives to UNODC's high regard for Iran's anti-narcotics efforts, including allegations that law enforcement personnel in Iran are in fact partaking in and facilitating the sale of illicit drugs for profit on the black market. Regardless of government complicity, the fact remains that thousands of individuals are arrested each year with the technical and material support provided by sub-program 1, including body scanners, drug-detection kits, sniffer dogs, vehicles, and night-vision devices.

Of those arrested, hundreds will subsequently be sentenced to death by Iran's judiciary on drug allegations. Iran is a global leader in executions, with only China exceeding it in number of people put to death annually. According to Iran Human Rights, a Norway-based group that documents executions in Iran, at least 580 people were executed in the country in 2012. In these documented cases, at least 76 percent of executions were due to drug-related charges.

Since news of the frequency with which Iran puts individuals to death for drug-related offenses has come to light, UNODC and donor countries have come under fire for their support of the program, and human rights groups have encouraged donors to request greater transparency from the Iranian government about how their money is spent in this joint initiative.

While the Norwegian government provided the initial cash infusion to the integrated program, it has since ceased funding sub-program 1 and requested that its support only be applied to sub-programs 2 and 3. The Danish government, meanwhile, announced last month that it would no longer provide financial support to the program following revelations that its donations were indirectly sponsoring the death penalty in Iran. At the time of the decision, the Danish government had provided about 5 million Danish kroner (or $875,000) annually in the previous 2 years to the program and was expected to provide about 7 million Danish kroner ($1.2 million) over the next 2 years.

While Denmark's decision to cut the funding has been welcomed by human rights groups, there's more work to be done. Questions remain over the transparency of the program -- specifically UNODC's ability to ensure that donor countries who have restricted their support to only sub-programs 2 and 3 will indeed have that money applied to the intended targets.

To this end, the France-based anti-death penalty group Together Against the Death Penalty (Ensemble contre le peine de mort, or ECPM) has started a petition calling on other European Union member states to follow the Danish example. Short of governments cutting off funding altogether, ECPM and its organizational co-signers are requesting that funding from donor countries be conditioned on an immediate moratorium on death sentences for drug-related offenses in Iran and that contribution amounts be made public and solely allocated to prevention programs.

Given that abolition of the death penalty is a pre-condition for entry of any nation into the European Union, it is time the EU call on its member states to apply more scrutiny of its support for such activities abroad as well. The case of Iran is a fine place to start.

(source: Foreign Policy)

TEXAS:

Testimony to begin Monday in trial of man accused of drowning sons; prosecutors seeking death penalty

Testimony is expected to begin Monday in the capital murder trial of a 34-year-old man accused of kidnapping and drowning his 2 sons in August 2011.

Dallas County prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty if Naim Rasool Muhammad is convicted by a jury. He is accused of killing 5-year-old Naim and 3-year-old Elijah. A younger son, who was 1 at the time, was not harmed.

Authorities say Muhammad drove alongside the boys' mother, Kametra Sampson, about 7:15 a.m. on Aug. 22, 2011, as she was walking their sons to Julia C. Frazier Elementary, where the older boy was starting kindergarten that day.

Muhammad got out of the car with a brick in his hand and ordered them into his car, police have said. Sampson was able to jump out a short time later when she saw a deputy constable. Sampson told the constable that Muhammad was going to kill the children. But the woman contacted Dallas police and said she could not chase the car because she did not have lights and sirens on her vehicle.

Hours later, a woman called police to say that her son had drowned her grandchildren. The grandmother was not present when the boys were killed.

(source: Dallas Morning News)

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

Prospective jurors summoned for Love capital murder trial

Williamson County officials have summoned 1,200 potential jurors in hopes of getting at least 400 to show up Wednesday to fill out questionnaires as the capital murder trial of Albert Leslie Love Jr. enters its initial stage.

Love's trial was moved to Georgetown after his co-defendant, Rickey Cummings, received the death penalty in November following his conviction in Waco.

Love, 26, also faces the death penalty if convicted in the March 2011 ambush-style slayings of Tyus Sneed, 17, and Keenan Hubert, 20, at the Lakewood Villas apartment complex in Waco.

Judge Ralph Strother of Waco's 19th State District Court, who will preside over Love's trial in Georgetown, said testimony is set to begin July 8.

The prospective jurors who report Wednesday will be asked to fill out a 21-page questionnaire with 119 questions that prosecutors Michael Jarrett and Greg Davis and defense attorneys John Donahue and Jon Evans will use to help determine if potential ?jurors are suited to the case.

Strother said Williamson County officials summon so many jurors because the county has a poor track record getting jurors to honor court notices.

"Their response is not as good as ours here in McLennan County, and we are trying to make sure we don’t have to go back and summon a supplemental panel like we had to do in Rickey Cummings' case," the judge said.

In Cummings' case, attorneys questioned about 180 potential jurors before selecting 12 jurors and 2 alternate jurors.

Prospective jurors are questioned individually instead of together in a large panel in capital murder cases in which the prosecution is seeking the death penalty.

Individual questioning of jurors will begin June 3 and is expected to take about three weeks, Strother said.

The judge said testimony should last from 2 to 3 weeks.

Strother placed the attorneys in the case under a gag order, preventing them from talking to the media.

The questionnaire for potential jurors covers a variety of issues, from their views on capital punishment to their favorite TV shows.

It includes personal information about their families, their religious and political affiliations, their knowledge of the criminal justice system and if they or family members have had dealings with law enforcement.

The questionnaire also asks which is the greater wrong: for a jury to find a guilty person not guilty or for a jury to find an innocent person guilty.

It also lists the names of about 100 prospective witnesses and asks potential jurors if they know any of them.

Alleged shootings

Sneed and Hubert were sitting in the back seat of a car at the apartment complex at 1601 Spring St. when multiple suspects opened fire on the car. Deontrae Majors and Marion Bible, who were in the front seat, were wounded but managed to escape.

Waco police arrested Cummings, Love, Darvis Tyrell Cummings, Kennedy Wayne Hardway and Tyrece Edwards Richards and charged them all with capital murder in the shootings.

District Attorney Abel Reyna since has dismissed the capital murder charges against Hardway and Richards.

(source: Waco Tribune)

FLORIDA:

Altamonte Springs cook sent to death row hopes new DNA clears him; 2-week hearing begins Monday in Sanford for Clemente "Shorty" Aguirre, convicted in 2 brutal knife murders.

DNA helped send Clemente Javier "Shorty" Aguirre to death row in 2006 for murdering an Altamonte Springs neighbor and her wheelchair-bound mother. Now a team of attorneys hopes to use a new round of DNA tests to set him free.

Aguirre, 33, returns to a Sanford courtroom Monday for a 2-week trial-like hearing at which he will ask Circuit Judge Jessica Recksiedler to throw out his conviction.

According to defense attorneys - including those for the Innocence Project - new evidence suggests Aguirre is innocent.

It points to a member of the victims' family, a woman with a history of mental problems who told a neighbor 3 years ago that demons in her head caused her to kill her family, according to defense pleadings.

Prosecutors on Friday would not discuss the new evidence. They oppose Aguirre's attempt to overturn his conviction. In a prepared statement, State Attorney Phil Archer said, "These are extremely important questions that need to be fully explored in open court."

Stabbed 129 times

On June 17, 2004, the body of 47-year-old Cheryl A. Williams was found on the floor near the front door of her mobile home. She had been stabbed 129 times. The deepest wounds were to her back.

The body of her partially paralyzed mother, 68-year-old Carol Bareis, was a short distance away. She had been stabbed twice - once in the heart - and had toppled from her wheelchair.

A bloody 10-inch knife was found in the backyard. Aguirre lived next door. A crime lab found the victims' blood on his shorts, shirt and shoes.

He initially told Seminole County deputies that he knew nothing about what happened but later changed his account.

He had been drinking with friends, went home, then walked to the victims' home about 6 a.m., looking for beer, when he stumbled across their bodies, he told them.

He lifted Williams' head, pulled her close and discovered she had no pulse. He then walked through several other rooms, found her mother and exited, taking the knife outside and throwing it in the back yard, he said. He did not call for help.

He discovered blood on his clothes, so he put them in a bag and tossed it onto the roof of the shed where he lived, he said.

Someone else discovered the bodies a few hours later and called the authorities.

Aguirre later explained to deputies that he lied initially because he was a Honduran national in the U.S. illegally, working at a Lake Mary restaurant as a cook and dishwasher, and was afraid he'd be deported.

Assistant State Attorney Jim Carter told jurors that the victims' blood - their DNA - found on Aguirre's clothes proved he was guilty.

A Seminole County jury convicted Aguirre of 2 counts of murder April 30, 2006, and later recommended the death penalty. Circuit Judge O.H. Eaton Jr. imposed it 2 months later.

New evidence

The new hearing will focus on two things: new DNA found at the murder scene and 30-year-old Samantha Lee Williams - Williams' daughter and Bareis' granddaughter. She lived in the mobile home with them but had spent the night they were killed with her boyfriend.

There was an enormous amount of blood at the murder scene. After Aguirre's conviction and with the help of the Innocence Project, a New York-based nonprofit that works to exonerate the wrongfully convicted, defense attorneys hired scientists to test more of it.

They're expected to testify that they've found eight drops of Samantha Williams' blood at the house but none from Aguirre.

They're also expected to testify that the blood found on Aguirre's clothes all consisted of "contact" stains, those that happen when someone touches something already bloody - not spatter stains, the kind caused by a blow.

Defense attorneys also are expected to offer evidence about Samantha Williams' long record of mental illness.

2 years ago she tried to set herself on fire, and a neighbor then told authorities that "Williams has been saying that demons are in her head and the demons caused her to kill her family," according to defense pleadings in the court file.

Since the murders, she's been taken to a mental institution at least twice for observation to determine whether she's a danger to herself or others. In 2012, she was found mentally incompetent by a judge but with treatment got better, according to court records.

Defense attorneys also are expected to present evidence that Samantha and her mother, the victim with 129 stab wounds, had an argument the night the women were killed.

Williams did not return phone calls Friday from the Orlando Sentinel. Neither did her attorney, Kenneth Hamburg.

In court pleadings, Carter, the prosecutor, wrote that Williams has an alibi for the time period when the victims were killed: her boyfriend.

Aguirre is represented by Maria DeLiberato and Marie Louise Samuels-Parmer, who work for Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, the state law firm that works on behalf of indigent death-row inmates. They're to be joined during the two-week hearing by Nina Morrison, a staff lawyer with the Innocence Project in New York.

If they are successful, the judge will vacate Aguirre's convictions and order a new trial.

(source: Orlando Sentinel)

MISSISSIPPI:

Damien Echols of the "West Memphis 3" to sign books in Oxford this week

Damien Echols' story is one even a fiction writer couldn't dream up.

Echols is one of a trio of men known as the "West Memphis 3," who were convicted of killing 3 boys in West Memphis, Ark., in 1993. He was given the death penalty, but with the help of documentaries like "Paradise Lost" and celebrities taking up his cause, Echols was released in 2011. He spent nearly 20 years on death row.

He now lives in Salem, Mass., and his memoir, "Life After Death," was just released in paperback this week. He'll sign copies of it at 5 p.m. Tuesday at Off Square Books.

"Life After Death" recounts Echols' tumultuous childhood and what it was like being on death row, full of abusive guards, filthy conditions and the struggle to hope for his release.

"I hope (readers) come away from it feeling inspired," Echols said in a phone interview with the Daily Journal. "In a lot of ways, this could be a very dark, depressing story. I want people to come away from it knowing it's possible to go through horrible circumstances and come out the other side a better person, a stronger person."

Echols' childhood was marked by poverty, and his family moved a lot while he was growing up.

The family lived in Tupelo for 2 brief periods when Echols was about 8 or 9.

"I remember a small duplex, and it would've been in a run down part of town because we were always really, really poor. It was behind an abandoned factory," he said.

Back to the South, and beyond

Since his release from death row, Echols has not returned to Arkansas. He has visited only Memphis and Nashville briefly to promote "West of Memphis," a documentary he produced about the case and his story with "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson. Returning to the South isn't easy, he said, but he's looking forward to it.

"(Being in Nashville) was so traumatic that it made me literally very sick," he said. "It was like a tar pit that closes over you and you think you'll never get out of it. But it's been more than a year since then, and with every day that passes I grow a little stronger and a little stronger and now I think I'm ready for it."

"Life After Death" is a New York Times Bestseller, with blurbs on the jacket from the likes of John Grisham, Johnny Depp and Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder.

"When I was released, we had to hit the ground running. I had nothing, nowhere to go, no money, so the 1st year was all about basic survival needs. I didn't stop and think about how things would be received, but it snowballed. The 1st thing was this amazing review from the New York Times. That's like the top of the top. Then it hit me, this is real now," he said.

While in prison, Echols learned about Reiki, a Japanese style of energy work that heals the body. He's opened Hermetic Reiki, in which he offers sessions and classes, in Salem.

"In prison there's really no medical or dental care; they're not going to put a lot of time and money to take care of someone they plan on killing. I had to learn energy work, reiki," he said. "That's what I love doing. Not talking about the case over and over."

Echols thrives on his work, art and writing, and he said he's a happy man these days.

He's currently working on a new book with his wife, Lorri Davis, who was instrumental in getting Echols released from prison.

"It's going to revolve around our correspondence. We have 120 pounds worth of letters, over 5,000 letters that we wrote back and forth," Echols said. "We're combing through them now to tell our story. Not the story of me going through the trial and being on death row, but the story of our life, and our relationship."

(source: Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal)

LOUISIANA:

US Supreme Court attacks right to a speedy trial

On April 29, the US Supreme Court, ruling in the case Boyer v. Louisiana, denied an appeal by Jonathan Edward Boyer, who asserted that Louisiana's 7-year failure to provide funds for his court-appointed attorney violated his constitutional right to a speedy trial.

The State of Louisiana indicted Boyer for the murder of Bradlee Marsh in 2002 and announced that it would seek the death penalty. Boyer was provided a court-appointed attorney, but over the ensuing 5 years no funds were provided for his lawyer. During this 5-year period, various branches of the state government indicated that they did not have the funds or they were not responsible for funding Boyer's defense.

In 2007, this impasse was resolved when the state announced it would no longer seek the death penalty. This reduced the complexity and costs of Boyer's defense and funds thereafter became available. Boyer was tried and convicted of murder in 2009.

Boyer appealed his conviction on the basis that the state's failure to fund his defense deprived him of his constitutional right to a speedy trial. He further asserted that as a consequence of the 7-year delay, he suffered mental deterioration (having been declared mentally incompetent for 9 months) and was legally handicapped by a loss of witnesses, including one who had identified 2 other individuals as the killers. As a result, he asserted, his defense had been prejudiced.

The Supreme Court in its 5-4 decision dismissed the appeal as "improvidently granted," i.e., that the Supreme Court had been mistaken in its initial granting of review of the issue. To justify this rarely used finding, the right-wing majority, consisting of Chief Justice John Roberts and associate justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy, declared that after having reviewed the record, it concluded that the state court had erred factually in concluding that the delay in Boyer's case was caused by lack of funding. The Supreme Court majority chose instead to make its own, independent factual determination and concluded that the delay had been caused by the defense, thus voiding the need to decide the speedy trial issue.

The dissent, written by Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor and joined by justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan, first noted that the Court as a rule defers in regard to factual conclusions to the lower courts, and on this basis had, in accord with precedent, accepted the Louisiana court's finding that the "majority of the 7 year delay" was caused by "lack of funding."

Sotomayor then addressed the issue that the majority had maneuvered to evade. "The court's failure to resolve this case is especially regrettable," she wrote, "because it does not seem to be an isolated one. Rather, Boyer's case appears to be illustrative of larger, systemic problems in Louisiana. The Louisiana Supreme Court has suggested on multiple occasions that the state's failure to provide funding for indigent defense contributes to extended pretrial detentions."

The public defender system "seems to be significantly understaffed," Sotomayor added. She cited a report that found the caseload of New Orleans public defenders is about twice the number recommended by American Bar Association (ABA) standards. She also noted an estimate that in one parish, the public defender caseload is 528 % of the ABA standard.

"Against this backdrop," Sotomayor wrote, "the court's silence in this case is particularly unfortunate. Conditions of this kind cannot persist without endangering constitutional rights."

The Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees all persons accused of criminal wrongdoing the right to a speedy trial. This fundamental democratic right is derived from a long and ancient legal legacy.

The right to a speedy trial was 1st recognized during the reign of Henry II (1154 - 1189), when the English crown promulgated the Assize of Clarendon, a legal code comprised of 22 articles, one of which promised speedy justice to all litigants. In 1215, the Magna Carta prohibited the king from delaying justice to any person in the realm. In colonial America, several of the colony's charters protected the right to a speedy trial, as did most of the constitutions of the original 13 states.

The Founding Fathers included the right to speedy trial in the Sixth Amendment for 2 purposes. First, they sought to prevent defendants from languishing in jail for an indefinite period before trial. Pre-trial incarceration is a deprivation of liberty no less serious than post-conviction imprisonment. In some cases, pretrial incarceration may be more serious because public scrutiny is often heightened, employment is interrupted, financial resources are diminished, family relations are strained, and innocent persons are forced to suffer prolonged injury to their reputation.

Second, they sought to ensure a defendant's right to a fair trial. The longer the commencement of trial is postponed, the more likely witnesses will disappear, memories will fade, and evidence will be lost or destroyed.

The issue of the state's duty to provide funding for lawyers representing indigent defendants arises from the landmark US Supreme Court case of Gideon v. Wainwright. In this 1963 case, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that state courts are required under the Fourteenth Amendment to provide counsel in criminal cases for defendants who are unable to pay for their own attorneys, extending the identical requirement made on the federal government under the Sixth Amendment.

Funding for indigent defense services, which has never been adequate, has been significantly reduced throughout the country because of budget cuts. As a result, attorneys for impoverished criminal defendants often have overwhelming caseloads and grossly inadequate resources.

The Court's decision in Boyer v. Louisiana serves to subvert both the right to a speedy trial and the right to counsel.

(source: World Socialist Web Site)

INDIANA:

Death penalty recommended for accused Clark County rapist, murderer

The Clark County Prosecutor's Office is seeking the death penalty against a convicted sex offender accused of raping and murdering his teenage neighbor.

Richard Hooten is accused of raping and strangling Tara Willenborg, at her Cambridge Square apartment in Clarksville this past March.

Hooten did not appear in court Monday for a pretrial conference set before Judge Vicki Carmichael. Instead, Clark County Prosecuting Attorney Jeremy Mull met with defense attorneys for Hooten. The brief meeting ended with Mull recommending the death penalty in the case.

"We're going to take the next few days and the parties are going to submit the paperwork to the court as far as when some deadlines ought to be in the case," said Mull. "We're going to try to keep the case moving as efficiently and quickly as possible."

In April, Hooten confessed to WAVE 3 News he raped Willenborg along with at least four other women. He maintained, however, that Willenborg was the only victim he ever murdered.

Despite the recorded confession, Mull said Hooten's case won't be a cake walk.

"Any death penalty case is a challenge. There are a lot of requirements that the state is required to go through to do one of those properly," said Mull. "We will just move forward carefully and follow the law on all points and hopefully at the end of it that the jury comes back with a decision for death in the case."

Mull expects a decision in the timeframe of Hooten's case to be made within the next 30 days.

(source: WAVE News)

KANSAS:

Focus shifts to funerals, court appearance in Ottawa murders

After a week of fast-moving developments in an Ottawa, Kan., quadruple homicide, the pace slowed mercifully Sunday, allowing those closest to the tragedy to prepare for the next grim steps.

Family members of the dead planned commemorations, investigators worked to positively identify a small body they recovered late Saturday, and a man charged in four deaths waited for his next court hearing in a case that shocked the small Kansas community.

Investigators said Sunday they believe 18-month-old Lana-Leigh Bailey was killed at the Franklin County farm where the bodies of her mother, Kaylie Bailey, and 2 men were found, and then her body was left in Osage County. The men were identified as Andrew Stout, 30, and Steven E. White, 31.

A member of the Bailey family said Sunday that a celebration of life was being planned for later this week at an Ottawa funeral home. A visitation for mother and daughter will be from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Dengel & Son Mortuary, 235 S. Hickory St. in Ottawa. The funeral will begin at 2 p.m. Thursday.

The search for Lana-Leigh ended late Saturday when a deputy from neighboring Osage County found human remains, Franklin County Sheriff Jeff Richards said early Sunday. He did not say how or where the body was found. Investigators had not yet made a positive identification, but Richards said that the body likely was that of Lana-Leigh because of evidence recovered at the scene that confirmed information investigators had gathered previously.

"The family needed to have this so they can move on," Richards said at a Sunday news conference. "This helps bring some closure to them. It helps bring closure to all of this investigative team. A crime like this takes an emotional toll, especially when it's a child."

Kyle Trevor Flack, 27, remained in custody Sunday with bond set at $10 million.

Flack faces capital charges that could bring a death sentence. He also is charged with rape and criminally possessing a firearm. He is scheduled to appear again in Franklin County District Court at 1:30 p.m. today.

Flack previously had been convicted of attempted murder in Franklin County, and a January 2006 order in that case noted that he "has a history of mental health issues." Such issues usually are a critical concern for both prosecutors and defense lawyers in capital cases.

Flack made his 1st court appearance late Friday afternoon and asked to meet quickly with his court-appointed lawyer, a Topeka death penalty specialist. Flack then made a comment that suggested today's hearing could be anything but routine.

"The sooner I see him the sooner we can wrap this up," Flack said.

(source: Kansas City Star)

NEBRASKA:

Man on death row in 'Boys Don't Cry' case is engaged to be married

A Nebraska death row inmate whose killings were depicted in the movie "Boys Don't Cry" is engaged to be married.

John Lotter and a woman from Washington state recently applied for a marriage license at the courthouse in Tecumseh, Neb., the community closest to the state prison where death row inmates are housed.

Lotter, 41, said in an interview last week that he has not yet gotten married. But he otherwise declined to discuss his plans or his relationship with Jeanne Bissonnette, 50, of Lakewood, Wash.

"I'd really like to keep this part of me as private as I can," he said.

Phone messages left with Bissonnette were not returned.

State prison officials do not keep records of inmate weddings, but they were unaware of any previous marriage involving a death row inmate.

The marriage license is valid for 1 year.

Lotter was convicted by a jury of 1st-degree murder in the 1993 killings of 3 people at a rented farmhouse near Humboldt, Neb.

Lotter and Marvin Thomas Nissen targeted Brandon Teena, 21, of Lincoln, who was born female but lived as a man and dated women. They sought to silence Teena because he reported to authorities that he was raped by the men after they learned his biological gender. They also killed 2 others staying in the house: Lisa Lambert, 24, and Phillip DeVine, 22.

The case inspired a 1999 film that won actress Hilary Swank an Academy Award for her portrayal of Brandon Teena.

Lotter has always maintained his innocence, but he has failed in several appeals to persuade a court to overturn his convictions.

At trial in 1995, Nissen testified that Lotter fired the gun that killed all 3 victims. Nissen downplayed his involvement, saying he only stabbed Teena.

Nissen's cooperation with authorities earned him a life sentence, which would have to be commuted by the Nebraska Board of Pardons for him to be released.

In 2007, Nissen recanted and said that he both fired the gun and wielded the knife. But he maintained that Lotter was present during the killings. Under Nebraska's felony murder law, Lotter's presence in the farmhouse at the time of the killings was enough to result in 1st-degree murder convictions.

In 2006, Nissen became engaged to a Chicago woman who started writing letters to him in prison. They did not follow through with the marriage.

The Nebraska Department of Correctional Services does not track the number of weddings that take place in state institutions each year, said Dawn Renee Smith, the department's spokeswoman. But there have been weddings of inmates serving life terms.

Prison weddings follow a strict policy that allows only 2 witnesses and someone to perform the ceremony. The inmate is allowed to receive a ring and photos of the ceremony, but there can be no refreshments or decorations.

Nebraska does not allow the couple to consummate the union, nor does the state permit conjugal visits for married inmates.

During last week's interview, Lotter was more willing to talk about a bill to repeal the death penalty in Nebraska. The Legislature is scheduled to begin debating the measure this week.

Lotter said he does not think most people behind bars are deterred by the death penalty, or even think about it before they act.

While he hopes lawmakers will repeal the death penalty, he said he will continue his fight to prove his innocence.

He and others will watch the debate on public television.

"I'm not going to get my hopes up," he said. "I'm just not going to put myself through that roller coaster."

(source: Omaha World-Herald)

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

Report: Nebraska death penalty is costly, inefficient

As Nebraska lawmakers prepare to debate whether to abolish the death penalty, a new report says the state has spent an exorbitant amount of time and money on capital punishment -- with few results.

"The average delay for appeals more than doubles for death sentences: 13.3 years versus 5.8 years for life sentences," attorney and long-time death-penalty opponent Alan Peterson said in a report given to lawmakers. "The number of appeals for death cases averages 7.76, and the number of appeals for life sentences averages only 1.64 filings."

The report quotes Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, who told the Legislature's Judiciary Committee earlier this year that studies have shown the average death penalty case costs $3 million to prosecute, compared to $1.1 million for life without parole cases.

Since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of capital punishment, Dieter said, Nebraska has spent an estimated $100 million on death-penalty cases.

"It has resulted in 3 executions," he said.

According to the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, it costs an average of about $36,000 a year to keep a person in a maximum-security prison. That means that over 25 years, the state would spend $900,000 to house an inmate.

Lawmakers will begin debate Monday on a bill by Sen. Ernie Chambers, of Omaha, to change the death penalty to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Chambers, the most ardent death penalty opponent in the Legislature, was re-elected to his North Omaha seat in November after sitting out four years because of term limits. Each year from 1973 to 2008, he introduced a bill to abolish the death penalty. In 1979, his bill passed but was vetoed by then-Gov. Charles Thone.

Last week, Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley, of Maryland, signed a law making that state the 6th in as many years to abolish the death penalty and the 18th overall to abandon capital punishment.

And some observers sense this could be the year Nebraska lawmakers follow suit.

Peterson's report also quotes Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, a project of Equal Justice USA, a national organization working to end the death penalty in the United States.

"Capital punishment is a bloated government program that has clogged our courts, delayed justice for victims' families and devoured millions of crime-fighting dollars," the group says on its website.

"For fiscal conservatives, the cost of the death penalty is indefensible."

Before a death sentence may be imposed in Nebraska, a capital case essentially goes through three trials: the guilt/innocence phase; a hearing to prove aggravating circumstances -- such as whether the killing was particularly heinous; and a sentencing hearing.

"Without the death penalty, the costs involved in these two additional trials are eliminated" Peterson said. "Subsequent appellate litigation to correct serious error and constitutional defect that occurred in phases two and three are also eliminated."

Among those supporting Chambers' bill is the Nebraska Innocence Project, which is part of a national network that gives free legal representation to people wrongly convicted of crimes. It was founded in 1992 to help prisoners who could be proved innocent through DNA testing.

To date, 306 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 18 who served time on death row. They spent an average of 13 years in prison before exoneration and release.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, its use is in sharp decline.

9 states executed people in 2012, compared with 13 the year before. The 43 executions in 2012 were 56 % fewer than at the peak in 1999. The 78 people sentenced to death in 2012 represented a 75 % decline since 1996, when 315 death sentences were handed down.

A comprehensive study of the death penalty in Nebraska done by the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy found these details from the 1,450 murder cases in Nebraska from 1973 to 2013.

-- 235 1st-degree murder convictions, or 16 % of all murder cases

-- Death penalty sought in 103 cases, or 7 % of all murder cases

-- 31 death sentences given, 2 % of all murder cases

-- 3 executions, less than 1 % of all murder cases

Nebraska has 11 men on death row. The last execution in Nebraska was in 1997, when Robert E. Williams was electrocuted. He confessed to killing 3 women and trying to kill a 4th during a 3-day rampage in 1977 that crossed into 3 states.

(source: Sioux City Journal)

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

Local View: Why I support repeal of death penalty

My stance on the use of the death penalty has gone through changes. I found it easy to have a pro-death penalty stance until faced with the option of having a voice in the policy.

Before my policymaking role, I had never given much consideration to the matter. It seemed reasonable. It felt right to be on the side of justice for the victim. An "eye for an eye" had a nice ring to it. The phrase appealed to my sense of justice.

That sense of justice, however, changed when I began to meet the relatives of actual victims.

More than my experiences as a senator, however, one event changed my heart, mind and my outlook on capital punishment. On Sept. 3, 1994, as a college freshman, I took a short trip to the Nebraska Penitentiary to bear witness in the parking lot of the execution of Willie Otey.

I can only describe what I saw there as ugly. If you didn't know where you were, you might have thought you were at a New Year's Eve party. There was a band playing music, a barbecue, coolers of beer and an official countdown to midnight when he would be executed. There was a genuine celebratory nature of the event. There were people banging pots and pans and chanting "fry him, fry him."

A snow fence was erected to separate this group from another consisting of quiet, praying observers.

That night, I partied, I chanted, chugged beer and at midnight I celebrated someone's death. Along with hundreds of others, I toasted a midnight clock stroke of justice.

That was the event that changed my view. I attempt no persuasion of others on this issue. My position is the result of my experience. I made a decision during my shame that I would no longer be a part of someone's death. Thankfully, I don't think anyone else will have the opportunity to play a role in a similar way.

My changed sense of justice has been further reinforced by my frequent conversations with Merriam Thimm-Kelle. Her brother's killer sits on death row. Every time an execution date is set, she feels she will have justice. When that date comes and goes her family is again forced to relive her brother's murder with attention going to the condemned.

As she stated in our hearing: "Our sentence has been going on for over 25 years and there's been no execution. ... Every appeal and on and on, everything about the horrible death again, year in, year out. If execution ever comes, it will be another day about Michael Ryan and nothing about (my brother) Jim. ... Death penalty supporters say that carrying out the death penalty is family closure. Closure is a myth. The death penalty does absolutely nothing for families except more pain."

I ask, "Where is the justice?" I didn't find it as a young college student, and find no justice as a senator.

(source: Opinion; Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln is serving his 2nd term representing legislative District 27--Lincoln Journal Star)

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

New faces in Nebraska's Legislature may turn tide on capital punishment

The most ardent supporter of capital punishment has left the Nebraska Legislature.

The harshest critic is back.

And some newly elected state senators oppose the death penalty, unlike the folks they replaced.

As lawmakers gird for an emotional debate Monday on a death penalty bill, supporters voice hopes that a repeal could happen this year. They say some unlikely conservatives may join their cause because of the higher legal and emotional costs of prosecuting such cases.

"This may be the 1st time in a long time that we have enough senators to repeal it," said State Sen. Sara Howard of Omaha, who was elected in November.

"I'm optimistic, in a freshman way," she said.

That might be overly optimistic.

Gov. Dave Heineman still supports the death penalty and would likely veto any move to repeal it.

And a leading proponent of capital punishment, Sen. Scott Lautenbaugh of Omaha, indicated Friday he would likely mount a filibuster to thwart any repeal attempt.

Halting a filibuster requires a supermajority of senators, 33 of the 49 lawmakers, a high bar even for less emotional issues.

"I'll do whatever it takes to stop it," Lautenbaugh said.

That death penalty opponents envision a majority of senators, 25, will support an end to capital punishment represents a dramatic shift at the State Capitol. The last time capital punishment came to a formal vote, in 2009, only 13 senators voted in support of repeal.

But things have changed since then.

Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk, a leading proponent of the death penalty and former speaker of the Legislature, has departed because of term limits.

Meanwhile, Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, who has mounted annual assaults on capital punishment during his 39 years in office, is back. He is promising another all-out effort to repeal it. His proposal, Legislative Bill 543, would replace the death penalty with a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

There's some momentum nationally. 3 states - Maryland, Connecticut and Illinois - have repealed the death penalty since 2009.

Nebraska is now 1 of 32 states that retain capital punishment. Neighboring Iowa dropped the death penalty in 1965.

If Nebraska repealed the death penalty, it would be an exception. The other states are much less conservative, and had governors who supported an end to capital punishment.

But death penalty foes think that the exoneration of several convicted murderers because of DNA tests is helping change some opinions. Also, they say, the added expense and additional years of litigation is leading even past supporters of the death penalty to question if it's worth it when so many cases get reduced to life sentences anyway.

"The policy just doesn't work," said Stacey Anderson, executive director of Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. "We've tinkered with it for 30 years, to make it better, more efficient. But it's produced 3 executions (in Nebraska) and a whole lot of frustration, and wasted a whole lot of taxpayer money."

How much has been spent is the subject of fierce disagreement.

Richard Dieter of the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center told Nebraska lawmakers earlier this year that all studies agree that prosecuting death penalty cases was "far more expensive," though the costs vary by state.

A Maryland study, Dieter said, estimated the costs of a death sentence at about $3 million, 3 times the cost of sending an inmate to life in prison. A Kansas study indicated that a death penalty trial costs 16 times more than a murder trial carrying only the possibility of a life sentence.

Death penalty foes say the high cost needs to be weighed against the results. In Nebraska, there have been 33 men sent to death row since capital punishment was reinstated in 1973. But 14 had their sentences reduced, and 5 either died of natural causes or suicide.

The state has seen only three executions in 40 years. The last was in 1997. 11 men now sit on death row. One, Michael Ryan, convicted of 2 murders related to a Rulo, Neb., cult, has been there for 34 years.

"Is this really the best use of our resources?" said Sen. Steve Lathrop of Omaha, a leading death penalty opponent.

A report released Friday by the American Civil Liberties Union concluded that death penalty cases require nearly 5 times as many appeals as life sentence cases and take an average of 13 years to resolve.

Lathrop said Nebraska has another problem. The state's supplies of sodium thiopental, 1 of 3 drugs required to carry out a lethal injection, will expire in December.

Because pharmaceutical companies have stopped selling that drug for use in executions, that would force Nebraska to change its execution protocol to utilize another drug, an administrative process that could take a year. Lathrop said that also would open up a whole new round of legal challenges, further delaying any executions.

Anderson, head of the Nebraska death penalty opposition group, is the first Republican to head that organization. She said conservatives are realizing the death penalty doesn't reduce violent crime but is instead another "wasteful and inefficient" government program that needs to end.

But the Nebraska Attorney General's Office has long contended that the costs of handling death penalty cases are overstated and are part of normal office operations. Death cases involve 1 % or less of the office's total prosecution costs, said spokeswoman Shannon Kingery.

And plenty of death penalty proponents say any extra cost is worth it, because certain especially heinous crimes warrant the ultimate penalty.

"Our whole corrections system is very expensive," said Sen. John Nelson of Omaha. "But if a person chooses to murder someone, with premeditation ... then the state has the right and authority to carry out (an execution)."

Sen. Jim Scheer of Norfolk, elected in November to replace Flood, said the cost of the death penalty "is not important. It's the justice."

His district experienced 1 of the most shocking murder cases in state history. Three gunmen walked into a Norfolk bank in 2002. In about 60 seconds, they shot and killed 3 bank employees and 2 customers. They fled without taking a dime.

"I believe that in some instances, that being one of them, there should be the ultimate penalty," Scheer said.

He noted that in the Norfolk bank case, a videotape taken by surveillance cameras left no doubt about the identity of the killers, who are all now on death row.

But other newly elected lawmakers have brought new views on the issue.

Howard replaced a senator whose last vote on the death penalty was in support - her mother, former Sen. Gwen Howard.

Sara Howard said her mother had a personal reason for voting against repealing the death penalty in 2009: a murder in their central Omaha district occurred at a convenience store that she had allowed Sara and her sister to walk to alone as young children to buy slushies.

The new Sen. Howard said she believes the death penalty costs too much to prosecute and defend and that the justice system is flawed to the point that an innocent person could be executed.

"In my mind, I don't think a civil society encourages the death penalty," Howard said. "I think Nebraska can do better."

Another shift has come from Nebraska's Sandhills, a bastion of conservatism. Freshman Sen. Al Davis, a Hyannis rancher, is an opponent of the death penalty, unlike the former representative of District 49, Deb Fischer, now a U.S. senator.

Davis, a Catholic, said he adheres to his church's belief that the death penalty is wrong in a civilized society.

He said he's also concerned that an innocent person could be executed, citing the recent exoneration via new DNA tests of evidence of several people convicted of murder.

Davis said he was compelled by testimony earlier this year by the sister of murder victim James Thimm. Miriam Thimm Kelle told the Legislature's Judiciary Committee that the 34-year effort to execute her brother's killer, cult leader Ryan, had only prolonged her family's suffering.

Said Davis, "I think it's time we looked at something else."

(source: The Star Herald)

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

Lawmakers prepare to debate LB 543

Nebraska is 1 of 32 states that have the death penalty.

Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers has fought this for years.

Chambers introduced LB 543 back in March. The bill would eliminate the death penalty in the state, life in prison would be the alternate charge.

Lawmakers are set to debate the bill Monday.

Some say the touchy subject will likely bring a somber and thoughtful debate.

"I realize my strongly held religious beliefs," said Dist. 34 Sen. Annette Dubas. "I consider myself pro-life and I take that all the way from conception to natural death and for me I just couldn't go against that personally held conviction that I have."

Senator Chambers has introduced a bill to abolish the death penalty every year from 1973 to 2008.

He was successful in getting the bill passed in 1979; but was vetoed by then Governor Charles Thone.

(source: KHAS TV News)

COLORADO:

Holmes asking judge to change plea to insanity

The long journey toward a verdict in the deadly Colorado theater shootings enters a new and critical phase Monday when suspect James Holmes asks a judge to change his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity.

The plea is widely seen as Holmes' best hope, and perhaps his only hope, of avoiding the death penalty. But his lawyers have held off until now, fearing a wrinkle in the law could cripple their ability to raise his mental health as a mitigating factor during the sentencing phase.

2 judges have refused to rule on the constitutionality of the law, saying the attorneys' objections were hypothetical because Holmes had not pleaded insanity. The defense had little choice but to have Holmes enter the plea and then challenge the law.

Holmes' lawyers announced last week that Holmes would ask to change his plea at Monday's hearing.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. They say Holmes, a former neuroscience graduate student, spent months acquiring weapons and ammunition, scouting a theater in the Denver suburb of Aurora and booby-trapping his apartment.

Then on July 20, dressed in a police-style helmet and body armor, he opened fire during a packed midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises," prosecutors say. 12 people died and 70 were injured.

No motive has emerged in nearly 10 months of hearings, but Holmes' attorneys have repeatedly said their client is mentally ill. He was being treated by a psychiatrist before the attack.

The insanity plea carries risks for both sides. Holmes will have to submit to a mental evaluation by state-employed doctors, and prosecutors could use the findings against him.

"It's literally a life-and-death situation with the government seeking to execute him and the government, the same government, evaluating him with regard to whether he was sane or insane at the time he was in that movie theater," said attorney Dan Recht, a past president of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar.

Among the risks for prosecutors: They must convince jurors beyond a reasonable doubt that Holmes was sane. If they don't, state law requires the jury to find him not guilty by reason of insanity.

"That's a significant burden on the prosecution," Recht said.

If acquitted, Holmes would be committed to the state mental hospital indefinitely.

A judge entered a standard not guilty plea on Holmes' behalf in March, and he needs court permission to change it. Recht said it's a foregone conclusion the judge will accept the new plea to preclude appeals later.

The mental evaluation could take weeks or months. Evaluators will interview Holmes, his friends and family, and if Holmes permits it, they'll also speak with mental health professionals who treated him in the past, said Dr. Howard Zonana, a professor of psychiatry and adjunct professor of law at Yale University.

Evaluators may give Holmes standardized personality tests and compare his results to those of people with documented mental illness. They will also look for any physical brain problems.

Zonana estimates he has conducted around 200 mental evaluations of criminal defendants, including some death penalty cases.

"All cases are tough," he said.

Meticulous planning, as in the scenario prosecutors laid out against Holmes, doesn't necessarily mean a defendant is sane, Zonana said.

Zonana said he helped evaluate Stephen Morgan, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the 2009 shooting death of Johanna Justin-Jinich in Middletown, Conn., where she was attending college.

Evidence showed Morgan planned the shooting, "but he was delusional as hell," Zonana said.

(source" Associated Press)

WASHINGTON:

Scherf jury begins considering death or life in prison; The jury in confessed killer Byron Scherf's trial now decides if he is to be executed or remain in prison for the rest of his life.

Last week jurors needed less than an hour to convict confessed killer Byron Scherf, but starting today the jury will be asked a more complicated question: Should Byron Scherf live or die for murdering a Monroe corrections officer?

Prosecutors are expected to begin today trying to convince jurors the inmate doesn't deserve leniency.

An aggravated murder conviction carries only 2 possible punishments in Washington -- life in prison without the chance of release, or execution.

Scherf, 54, already was serving a life sentence when he strangled Jayme Biendl on Jan. 29, 2011 at her post in the chapel at the Washington State Reformatory.

In this next phase of the trial jurors are required by law to answer this question: "Having in mind the crime of which the defendant has been found guilty, are you convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that there are not sufficient mitigating circumstances to merit leniency?"

It will be up to the prosecutors to prove that there aren't reasons Scherf deserves mercy.

The law spells out some of the relevant factors that the jury may consider, including Scherf's past criminal history. However, jurors likely won't be allowed to hear the details of his prior crimes. The state Supreme Court has overturned death sentences because jurors were given too much information about a person's past crimes.

Before Scherf's trial began, lawyers argued over whether jurors should know that he was serving a life sentence when he killed Biendl. Prosecutors said they should be allowed to prove Scherf's prior convictions by giving the jurors a certified copy of the judgment and sentence for each of his offenses.

Scherf's defense team argued that their client would be unfairly prejudiced if jurors know he was already serving a life sentence.

Telling jurors about Scherf's prior life sentence "allows the jury to wrongly weigh whether the sentence of life without possibility of parole in this case would be punishment at all because he was already serving a life sentence," they wrote.

Snohomish County Superior Court Judge George Appel ruled against the defense, saying case law clearly allows prosecutors to provide juries with certified copies of the judgment and sentence of the defendant's past convictions.

Jurors heard testimony during the week-long trial that Scherf was serving life. Prosecutors also were allowed to enter into evidence a message Scherf wrote to prosecutors not long after the murder.

He noted that he was already serving a life sentence. He urged prosecutors to charge him with aggravated murder and to seek the death penalty.

"I WILL plead guilty!" Scherf wrote at the time. "I have a moral obligation to do so. The Biendl family deserves no less. I will not put them through any more suffering than they are already enduring. They deserve swift justice and closure."

Byron Scherf's criminal history:

1978 -- 2nd-degree assault: Scherf, then 19, and two friends picked up a 16-year-old hitchhiker. Scherf threw the girl to the ground, cut off her shirt with a large knife and threatened to kill her. One of his friends intervened, stopping the attack. Scherf later admitted to prison officials that he intended to rape the girl.

1981 -- First-degree assault and rape: Scherf, then 22, stalked and kidnapped a waitress in Pierce County. He drove her to an abandoned house, bound her, raped her and lit her on fire. The woman, who jumped out a 2nd-story window, survived the attack. At the time Scherf was on parole for his 1978 conviction. He said he planned the attack while in prison. Scherf was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Under the laws at the time, he was paroled after 12 years.

1997 -- 1st-degree rape, kidnapping and illegal firearm possession: In 1995, Scherf arranged to meet a Spokane real estate agent at a home for sale. Scherf, then 37, choked the woman and forced her into the trunk of his car. He drove her to a wooded area, where he raped her. He was armed with a butcher knife and rifle. Scherf was sentenced to life without the chance of release under the state's persistent offender law.

2013 -- Aggravated 1st-degree murder: Scherf ambushed a Monroe corrections officer in 2011 at the Washington State Reformatory. He strangled Jayme Biendl with an amplifier cord inside the prison chapel. There was no evidence that Scherf sexually assaulted Biendl.

(source: Everett Herald)

US MILITARY:

Defense next up in Calif Marine slaying trial

The scene inside the French Valley home was horrific.

Marine Sgt. Jan Pietrzak and his wife were found gagged, tied and shot in the head. She was naked and sexually assaulted, he had been beaten. Racial slurs were spray-painted in the house and fires had been set in an apparent attempt to destroy evidence.

Prosecutors have spent the last several weeks presenting their case against 3 of the 4 Marines charged in the double murder who face the death penalty if convicted. A 4th suspect, also an ex-Marine, had his case severed and is awaiting trial.

On Monday, defense attorneys will get to present their side of the story to jurors.

Emrys John, 23 and Tyrone Miller and Kevin Cox, both 25, have pleaded not guilty to murder and allegations of burglary, robbery and sexual assault. All three men worked with Pietrzak at one time while stationed at Camp Pendleton.

The Pietrzaks were newlyweds and had been living in the home for only a few months when the incident occurred in October 2008. Prosecutors said robbery was the motive for the crime.

Pietrzak's wife, Quiana, had her wrists bound with red duct tape and laying against a living room couch. Pietrzak was bloodied and found in his underwear.

During opening statements, prosecutor Daniel DeLimon said the ordeal may have lasted more than an hour.

"It wasn't pretty and it wasn't fast," he said.

Prosecutors said John shot the couple through couch cushions to muffle the noise. The racial slurs were used to throw investigators off, according to court records.

Authorities were led to the 4 men after receiving tips from fellow Marines. DeLimon said Miller told another Marine after the shooting that he handed the gun to John the night of the murders and said, "Do them."

Marine Justin Weissinger testified at a preliminary hearing that Miller and John had boasted about the killings

Jewelry, including the couple's wedding rings, and Pietrzak's dress uniform was found at the suspects' homes, authorities said.

Pietrzak, 24, who was born in Poland and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., joined the Marines in 2003 and served in Iraq from July 2005 to February 2006.

(source: Associated Press)

USA:

Lawyers worry new measure of mental retardation could prompt more executions

A new standard from the country's leading psychiatric association to diagnose mental retardation could allow courts to execute convicted criminals with IQ scores below 70 more easily, say death penalty lawyers.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), is the standard guidebook of psychiatric disorders and is used by clinicians to identify and diagnose psychiatric illnesses.

Each new edition is scrutinized by mental healthcare providers and the pharmaceutical industry for changes in definitions as well as new categories of illnesses. Such shifts can have enormous economic, social and legal implications and often are the subject of controversy.

The 5th edition of the book since it was first published in 1952, or DSM-V, is due to be released May 22. Already it has prompted concern from death penalty lawyers because of the change in the way the manual defines mental illness, or intellectual disability, the new name given in DSM-V.

Earlier editions of the DSM defined mental retardation as an IQ score below 70 accompanied by an inability to meet certain developmental norms, such as bathing regularly or maintaining work. Based on that IQ benchmark, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia in 2002 that it is illegal to execute a mentally handicapped person.

But the editors of DSM-V have dropped the 70 IQ score as an indicator of mental retardation and instead recommend that clinicians consider IQ scores while analyzing an individual's behavior to determine if he or she meets the developmental standards.

VARYING STATE LAWS

Making the definition of mental retardation more subjective could prompt more courts to subvert Atkins, said David Dow, a death penalty lawyer in Houston whose client Marvin Wilson was executed in Texas last summer despite his IQ score of 61.

"There are a lot of courts that are hostile to the basic legal doctrine the Atkins case established," Dow said. "When you replace a test that is one part objective, one part subjective with a solely subjective test, it becomes easier for courts that are hostile to the constitutional principle of Atkins to evade that criterion."

While it is illegal under Atkins to execute someone who was diagnosed mentally handicapped, states have the leeway to determine what criteria are used and who makes the diagnosis, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Consequently, states like Texas, Georgia and others have their own statutes outlining criteria to diagnose a convicted criminal as mentally retarded.

From 2002 to 2012, only a quarter of the death row inmates who claimed to have mental retardation were granted stays of execution, according to research by John Blume, director of Cornell University Law School's Death Penalty Project. This included cases that had exhausted all appeals from the time of the Atkins decision to the end of 2012.

"Judges and jurors have stereotypes of what it means to be mentally retarded," Blume said. "There is a problem with people who have lower than 70 IQ scores getting executed in spite of the Atkins ruling, and under the new DSM guidance, that problem is only going to get worse."

IGNORING DSM-V

According to Darrel Regier, vice chairman of the task force that produced the DSM-V revisions, the DSM is developed to provide guidelines for diagnosing mental illnesses for clinicians, not to provide treatment or judicial guidelines, and the test scores are only useful when interpreted by a clinical expert.

The DSM-IV's reliance on an IQ score led, in some cases, to jurors sentencing people with IQ scores of 71 or 72 to death, in spite of the test's 5-point margin of error, Regier said.

"A single IQ point on a test can have profound implications for life and death without (clinical) interpretation," he said.

James Harris, the founding director of the Developmental Neuropsychiatry Program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a member of the DSM-V work group, said the criteria focus on 3 areas of adaptive functioning: academic, social and practical.

Looking at a death row inmate's social adaptive area, an expert can examine how gullibility may have led the inmate into a crime, which could support a claim of mental retardation, Harris said in an email.

"We believe that we are providing the courts with a more fine-grained means to consider adaptive functioning more comprehensively and more meaningfully," Harris said.

Lawyer Susan Orlansky of Feldman Orlansky & Sanders said Texas's individualized statutes are the reason her client, Elroy Chester, will be executed even though he meets the lower-then-70-IQ standard. Chester was convicted in 1998 of fatally shooting a firefighter and confessed to killing 4 other people in the south Texas town of Port Arthur. He is scheduled to be executed June 12. Orlansky does not think changes in the reliance on IQ scores would impact the decision in Elroy's case.

"Personally, I think if the Texas court system is willing to ignore the DSM-IV, I don't know why they wouldn't be just as willing to ignore the DSM-V," she said.

(source: Reuters)

PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY:

Palestinian collaborators sentenced to death; Many informants handed themselves in during the 2 month amnesty that ended on Sunday, says Hamas

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) has condemned the death sentence passed by the Gaza Military Court on a Palestinian who was found guilty of collaborating with Israel, demanding an immediate suspension of death verdicts executed in Gaza without presidential approval.

PCHR said in a statement that the military court sentenced a Palestinian civilian identified as M.A.N from Al Sha'af neighbourhood, east of Gaza, to death under the Revolutionary Penalty Law, 1979.

The centre said this was the 2nd verdict of its kind since the beginning of the year and that a total of 134 death verdicts had been passed in the Palestinian territories since the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was set up in 1994.

Of these, 107 death verdicts had been issued in the Gaza Strip and 27 other death verdicts passed in the West Bank.

The centre said that since the Islamist movement Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, a total of 46 death verdicts had been passed.

The centre added that a total of 27 death sentences had already been executed in the Palestinian territories, 25 of which had been executed in Gaza and the other 2 in the West Bank. The centre said that there had been 14 executions in Gaza since 2007 and that these had occurred without the approval of the PNA President Mahmoud Abbas, contrary to the terms of the Palestinian Basic Law which enjoys constitutional status.

The 2 months amnesty announced by the Hamas Ministry of Interior on March 12 giving collaborators with Israel the chance to turn themselves in ended on Sunday with the ministry announcing that a large number of collaborators have already surrendered to the authorities.

Hamas' Ministry of Interior said the Israeli security service had suffered from the amnesty despite the massive efforts the security service had put in to secure their collaborators.

The ministry said the Hamas campaign had introduced the Palestinian public in Gaza to the sophisticated tactics which the Israelis use to recruit collaborators through hundreds of lectures, workshops and seminars to arm the Palestinian public with the necessary knowledge to resist the Israeli attempts.

The ministry said that only collaborators with blood on their hands will be sentenced to death, but none of the others will be, and those who turn themselves in and show genuine repentance will be spared and the individual's offence would not be disclosed.

(source: Gulf News)

INDIA:

CPI(M) demands abolition of death penalty

Decribing executions as "inhuman", CPI(M) on Monday said it stands for abolition of death penalty in the country as it is "arbitrarily implemented" and advocated imprisonment till death in rarest of the rare cases.

Decribing executions as "inhuman", CPI(M) on Monday said it stands for abolition of death penalty in the country as it is "arbitrarily implemented" and advocated imprisonment till death in rarest of the rare cases.

A decision on the party's position was taken at a 2-day Central Committee meeting of CPI(M) that ended here yesterday.

Addressing a press conference here, CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat said the Central Committee discussed a note presented by the Polit Bureau on the abolition of the death penalty and decided that it will advocate the abolition of capital punishment.

"In India, death penalty, as it is in practice is arbitrarily implemented. It is inhuman...Instead of capital punishment, the party wants in rarest of the rare cases and most heinous crimes, life imprisonment should be extended for the entire life of the person convicted with no scope for remission," Karat said.

He said the Politburo had been discussing the issue since last year.

Referring to the controversy surrounding the execution of Parliament attack case convict Afzal Guru, Karat said he was denied what was provided in the law about right to appeal after the mercy petition was rejected.

"Afzal was denied this opportunity and his family was not informed also," he said.

The CPI(M) leader said 97 countries have abolished death penalty and it was time for India to change its statute.

Last month, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury had said that the party were willing to discuss and consider death penalty for rapists.

(source: Daily News & Analysis)

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

High Court admits Mane plea against death penalty

Santosh Mane, the state transport bus driver who was awarded death penalty in a road rage case, has moved the Bombay High Court challenging the sessions court verdict. A plea filed by lawyer Jaideep Mane on the convict's behalf was admitted by the high court on May 9.

A bench of Justice V K Tahilramani and Justice P D Kode will hear the case.

"The hearings in the high court will start in July. We were not happy with the outcome of the trial in the sessions court. The accused was not even given an opportunity to present his side as per the provision before he was awarded the death penalty. We are hoping that the high court will take a lenient view on account of the mental unsoundness of the accused," said advocate Jaideep Mane.

On April 8, Mane was awarded the death sentence by an additional sessions judge who declared his crime as rarest of the rare. He was convicted under Sections 381, 302, 307, 324 and 427 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

On January 25 last year, Mane hijacked an ST bus from Swargate depot and went on a rampage, killing 9 people and injuring 37 besides damaging over 25 vehicles.

During the course of trial while the prosecution maintained that Mane was in a complete sound state of mind when he committed the crime, the defence had claimed that Mane was suffering from a psychiatric disorder when he committed the act and should be given advantage under Section 84 of the IPC. The defence had also produced a Solapur-based psychiatrist Dr Dilip Burte before the court who claimed to have treated Mane for 'mania' for a period of over 1 year.

However, the court held that Mane visited Burte's clinic just once and that Burte falsified the records to help the defence. The court had also served a notice on Burte for misleading the court.

Burte's lawyer recently submitted in the court that whatever he said and the documents he submitted were true and bore his signatures.

(source: Indian Express)

BANGLADESH:

Bangla war militia leader arrested

A senior Jamaat-e-Islami leader and founder of the dreaded 'Razakar' force that operated as an auxiliary group of the Pakistan Army during Bangladesh's independence war in 1971 was arrested on Sunday on the orders of the International Crimes Tribunal.

AKM Yusuf, a former MP, is accused in 15 cases of genocide, arson, sabotage and crimes against women. He is the 10th Jamaat leader to be put in the dock by the tribunal, which was set up the Sheikh Hasina regime to try 1971 war criminals. His arrest comes close on the heels of the tribunal handing the death penalty to another senior Jamat leader, Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, last week. So far, 3 Jamaat leaders have been sentenced to death while another has been awarded life imprisonment.

Yusuf was picked up from his Dhaka residence on Sunday in the middle of a violent 'hartal' called by Jamat activists and remanded in jail custody. The septuagenarian, who hails from Khulna district, earned notoriety as the founder of the Razakar force that is accused of killing thousands of its own countrymen during the war. His bail petition will be heard on Monday.

Investigators say Yusuf joined Jamat in 1952, headed the party's Khulna chapter and was acting chief of the outfit in the 70s. The prosecution charged him with the killing of 700 people and training 96 armed miscreants under the banner of Jamat, said Hannan Khan, a spokesperson of the probe agency. On Sunday the tribunal took cognizance of the charges and asked the investigating authority to arrest and bring Yusuf before the tribunal by May 26.

Like in the case of other verdicts against their leaders, Jamat and alliance partner BNP activists went on the rampage in Dhaka and other Bangladeshi cities after the arrest order against Yusuf. They also called a nationwide shutdown on Tuesday in protest.

Political experts in Bangladesh saw in Yusuf's arrest a stern message from the government that it would not blink before the Jamaat-BNP combine. "There were chances of a major backlash from the Jamaat camp. So, we took preventive measures by deploying the Rapid Action Battalion," said an officer of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

(source: The Times of India)

SAUDI ARABIA----execution

Saudi executes latest, bringing total to 39 this year

Saudi Arabia has beheaded a man after he was convicted of killing a relative in the kingdom's north, the interior ministry said. Awad Rawili stabbed to death Jazaa Rawili, a relative, during an argument, said the statement carried by the official SPA news agency, on Sunday announcing the execution.

He was executed in the northern city of Araar.

His beheading brings to 39 the number of people executed in Saudi Arabia since the beginning of the year.

The United Nations human rights office in April called on governments to establish an official moratorium on all executions with a long term goal of abolishing the death penalty worldwide.

"In many cases, the death penalty involves clear violations of international norms and standards," the spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Rupert Colville, told journalists in Geneva. These violations include disrespect for fair trial guarantees and due process, and when executions of juvenile offenders take place in violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Other violations include alleged crimes that do not meet the threshold of "most serious crimes," execution after a very long period on death row, and a failure to ensure consular services are provided to foreign nationals.

Speaking on behalf of OHCHR, Mr. Colville said the office is "deeply concerned that a number of countries in the Middle East and Asia have recently started reapplying the death penalty after several years of moratorium, and despite the overwhelming global trend towards abolishing the death penalty."

Last month, 3 men were executed in Kuwait - the 1st time since May 2007 that Kuwait has carried out death sentences.

"Over 40 detainees remain on death row in Kuwait, and we urge the Government to commute all death sentences," Mr. Colville said.

OHCHR noted that Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Yemen are among other countries in the Middle East region which regularly carry out the death penalty.

"We are particularly concerned at the continued high rate of implementation of the death penalty in Iraq," Mr. Colville said, adding that at least 12 executions have been carried out this year, four in April alone. Hundreds of additional people in Iraq are on death row.

The number of people executed in Iraq last year totaled 123, including 5 women, which was a massive increase over previous years, OHCHR said, and "deeply worrying" in a country where there are persisting serious concerns about compliance with fair trial standards.

(source: Bikya News)

MAY 12, 2013:

PENNSYLVANIA:

Jury to resume mulling Philly murder trial Monday

Federal court jurors resume deliberations next week in the murder and racketeering trial of a convicted Philadelphia drug kingpin.

The panel deliberated all last week without reaching a verdict in the case of Kaboni Savage, 38, and members are to resume deliberations Monday.

Savage is charged in the deaths of 12 people, including the 2004 firebombing of the home of a man who planned to testify against him that killed the man's mother, another woman and four children.

The Philadelphia Inquirer says the panel had only a few requests to review evidence last week, seeking a transcript of a man who testified that Savage ordered the firebombing.

Prosecutors, who are seeking the death penalty, said that although Savage has mostly been in prison since 2003, he gave orders through phone calls and prison visits and communicated with other inmates through prison plumbing pipes, and he ordered the Coleman arson through a relative.

Savage, a former boxer who has denied any role in the attacks, is currently serving a 30-year drug-trafficking sentence.

His attorney says that Savage never ran a criminal "racketeering enterprise" and has challenged the credibility of prosecution witnesses.

Defense attorney Christian Hoey said in closing arguments of the trial, which began in February, that "there is no such thing as a Kaboni Savage organization."

"He didn't make a pretty penny," Hoey said. "He lived with his mother on Darien Street. He was a drug dealer. He drove a Subaru."

(source: Associated Press)

MARYLAND:

Escaping death: Exonerated man vindicated as Maryland repeals death penalty

When Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley signed a bill repealing the death penalty in the state, it must have felt like vindication to Kirk Bloodsworth.

In 1985, Bloodsworth was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Maryland. That was until 8 years later when he became the 1st U.S. death row prisoner to be exonerated by DNA evidence. In Bloodsworth's initial trial, 5 eyewitnesses positively identified him for allegedly killing and assaulting a 9-year-old girl. He successfully appealed his conviction but was sentenced to life in prison at a new trial; he later received a full pardon in December of 1993.

Since 1973, 142 people have been exonerated and freed from death row. More than 1,300 have been put to death since 1976, and there are currently more than 3,000 people awaiting execution.

The Mississippi State Supreme Court issued a stay of execution Tuesday for Willie Manning a mere 4 hours before he was scheduled to be killed due to serious questions over the validity of the case's evidence. The Department of Justice sent 3 letters to that case's prosecutors, an unprecedented step that could save Manning's life and force death penalty supporters to consider the number of innocent people that have been put to death in error.

As debate rages over whether to seek the death penalty in cases of Jodi Arias, the Cleveland kidnapping, and that of Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Bloodsworth's experience is a stark reminder that punishing guilt can have horrific consequences. On Saturday's Up with Steve Kornacki, he brought a perspective the panel's discussion of the death penalty that few people have.

"The policy has failed us in large part. This is the time when we have to think. When crimes of this nature happen, it's a real heady thing and people are going to make choices. We need not make too hasty a choice," he said on the show. "You cannot climb over an innocent man to kill the guilty."

(source: MSNBC)

OHIO:

Church of the Resurrection in Solon welcomes Sister Helen Prejean May 17

Sister Helen Prejean, a leading American advocate for the abolition of the death penalty, will speak at 7 p.m. May 17 at Church of the Resurrection, 32001 Cannon Road, Solon.

The free presentation is sponsored by the church's Social Justice commission. A good will offering will be taken to support her work.

Sister Prejean's numerous visits with death row inmate Patrick Sonnier served as the basis for her book, "Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty." The book became a best seller and was developed into the movie "Dead Man Walking" in 1996, with Susan Sarandon earning an Oscar for her portrayal of Sister Prejean.

Refreshments will be served following the presentation and attendees will have the chance to purchase her books. Members of organizations that oppose the death penalty will also be on hand.

For more information, contact Lisa Frey at ebfrey@churchofresurrection.org or 440-248-0980, ext. 24.

(source: Cleveland.com)

KANSAS:

Man charged in deaths of woman, toddler, 2 men in Kansas

A 27-year-old convicted felon was charged Friday in the deaths of a woman and 2 men whose bodies were found at an eastern Kansas farm home earlier this week, according to a criminal complaint.

Kyle Flack also faces charges in the death of the woman's young daughter, whose body hasn't been found. Authorities say they presume 18-month-old Lana Leigh Bailey is dead based on evidence they have and that the search for her remains continues.

Flack was charged with capital murder in the deaths of 21-year-old Kaylie Bailey, Lana Bailey and 30-year-old Andrew Stout, according to the complaint. He was charged with multiple counts of 1st-degree murder in the deaths of those 3 as well as 31-year-old Steven White.

Franklin County Attorney Stephen Hunting said prosecutors haven't determined whether to seek the death penalty in the case. Hunting said the decision is not something that authorities "take lightly."

Flack also faces charges of rape and criminal possession of a firearm. The rape charge is related to Kaylie Bailey.

He remained jailed on a $10 million bond Friday after an afternoon court appearance in which he was formally charged. Another hearing is scheduled for next week. He was appointed an attorney, Ronald Evans of Topeka, in court. Evans' office was closed late Friday afternoon.

Flack was arrested earlier this week and was being held on suspicion of 1st-degree murder in the deaths. He previously served prison time for shooting a former employer in 2005 after being fired, according to court records.

Authorities still are not commenting on a motive in the deaths. Hunting said doing so "could jeopardize" the ongoing investigation.

The body of Kaylie Bailey of Olathe was discovered Monday at the Ottawa-area farm where she had gone to drop off her daughter with her friend, Stout.

Friends who went to check on Stout found Bailey's body and called 911. Authorities later found Stout's body as well as White's. Stout and White both lived on the farm.

White was killed between April 20 and April 28, and Bailey, her daughter and Stout were killed between April 28 and Monday, according to the criminal complaint.

Authorities haven't said how they died. Hunting would only say that a firearm was used against all the victims, but didn't elaborate on whether that meant they all were fatally shot.

Crews on foot, horseback and all-terrain vehicles resumed their search Friday for 18-month-old Lana Bailey. A dive team also searched a pond on the farm.

Franklin County Sheriff Jeffrey Richards has said the girl is presumed dead, but has not released any details. On Friday, he said more than 150 investigators were following up on leads.

"We plan to continue until we get a full resolution to this case," Richards said.

(source: The News Star)

NEBRASKA:

New faces may turn tide on capital punishment

The most ardent supporter of capital punishment has left the Nebraska Legislature.

The harshest critic is back.

And some newly elected state senators oppose the death penalty, unlike the folks they replaced.

As lawmakers gird for an emotional debate Monday on a death penalty bill, supporters voice hopes that a repeal could happen this year. They say some unlikely conservatives may join their cause due to the higher legal and emotional costs of prosecuting such cases.

"This may be the 1st time in a long time that we have enough senators to repeal it," said State Sen. Sara Howard of Omaha, who was elected in November.

"I'm optimistic, in a freshman way," she said.

That might be overly optimistic.

Gov. Dave Heineman still supports the death penalty and would likely veto any move to repeal it.

And a leading proponent of capital punishment, Sen. Scott Lautenbaugh of Omaha, indicated Friday he would likely mount a filibuster to thwart any repeal attempt.

Halting a filibuster requires a supermajority of senators, 33 of the 49 lawmakers, a high bar even for less emotional issues.

"I'll do whatever it takes to stop it," Lautenbaugh said.

That death penalty opponents envision a majority of senators, 25, will support an end to capital punishment represents a dramatic shift at the State Capitol. The last time capital punishment came to a formal vote, in 2009, only 13 senators voted in support of repeal.

But things have changed since then.

Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk, a leading proponent of the death penalty and former speaker of the Legislature, has departed due to term limits.

Meanwhile, Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, who has mounted annual assaults on capital punishment during his 39 years in office, is back. He is promising another all-out effort to repeal it. His proposal, Legislative Bill 543, would replace the death penalty with a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

There's some momentum nationally. 3 states - Maryland, Connecticut and Illinois - have repealed the death penalty since 2009.

Nebraska is now one of 32 states that retain capital punishment. Neighboring Iowa dropped the death penalty in 1965.

If Nebraska repealed the death penalty, it would be an exception. The other states are much less conservative, and had governors who supported an end to capital punishment.

But death penalty foes think that the exoneration of several convicted murderers due to DNA tests is helping change some opinions. Also, they say, the added expense and additional years of litigation is leading even past supporters of the death penalty to question if it's worth it when so many cases get reduced to life sentences anyway.

"The policy just doesn't work," said Stacey Anderson, executive director of Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. "We've tinkered with it for 30 years, to make it better, more efficient. But it's produced 3 executions (in Nebraska) and a whole lot of frustration, and wasted a whole lot of taxpayer money."

How much has been spent is the subject of fierce disagreement.

Richard Dieter of the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center told Nebraska lawmakers earlier this year that all studies agree that prosecuting death penalty cases was "far more expensive," though the costs vary by state.

A Maryland study, Dieter said, estimated the costs of a death sentence at about $3 million, 3 times the cost of sending an inmate to life in prison. A Kansas study indicated that a death penalty trial costs 16 times more than a murder trial carrying only the possibility of a life sentence.

Death penalty foes say the high cost needs to be weighed against the results. In Nebraska, there have been 33 men sent to death row since capital punishment was reinstated in 1973. But 14 had their sentences reduced, and 5 either died of natural causes or suicide.

The state has seen only 3 executions in 40 years. The last was in 1997. 11 men now sit on death row. One, Michael Ryan, convicted of 2 murders related to a Rulo, Neb., cult, has been there for 34 years.

"Is this really the best use of our resources?" said Sen. Steve Lathrop of Omaha, a leading death penalty opponent.

A report released Friday by the American Civil Liberties Union concluded that death penalty cases require nearly 5 times as many appeals as life sentence cases and take an average of 13 years to resolve.

Lathrop said Nebraska has another problem. The state's supplies of sodium thiopental, 1 of 3 drugs required to carry out a lethal injection, will expire in December.

Because pharmaceutical companies have stopped selling that drug for use in executions, that would force Nebraska to change its execution protocol to utilize another drug, an administrative process that could take a year. Lathrop said that also would open up a whole new round of legal challenges, further delaying any executions.

Anderson, head of the Nebraska death penalty opposition group, is the first Republican to head that organization. She said conservatives are realizing the death penalty doesn't reduce violent crime but is instead another "wasteful and inefficient" government program that needs to end.

But the Nebraska Attorney General's Office has long contended that the costs of handling death penalty cases are overstated and are part of normal office operations. Death cases involve 1 % or less of the office's total prosecution costs, said spokeswoman Shannon Kingery.

And plenty of death penalty proponents say any extra cost is worth it, because certain especially heinous crimes warrant the ultimate penalty. "Our whole corrections system is very expensive," said Sen. John Nelson of Omaha. "But if a person chooses to murder someone, with premeditation ... then the state has the right and authority to carry out (an execution)."

Sen. Jim Scheer of Norfolk, elected in November to replace Flood, said the cost of the death penalty "is not important. It's the justice."

His district experienced one of the most shocking murder cases in state history. 3 gunmen walked into a Norfolk bank in 2002. In about 60 seconds, they shot and killed 3 bank employees and 2 customers. They fled without taking a dime.

"I believe that in some instances, that being one of them, there should be the ultimate penalty," Scheer said.

He noted that in the Norfolk bank case, a videotape taken by surveillance cameras left no doubt about the identity of the killers, who are all now on death row.

But other newly elected lawmakers have brought new views on the issue.

Howard replaced a senator whose last vote on the death penalty was in support - her mother, former Sen. Gwen Howard.

Sara Howard said her mother had a personal reason for voting against repealing the death penalty in 2009: a murder in their central Omaha district occurred at a convenience store that she had allowed Sara and her sister to walk to alone as young children to buy slushies.

The new Sen. Howard said she believes the death penalty costs too much to prosecute and defend and that the justice system is flawed to the point that an innocent person could be executed.

"In my mind, I don't think a civil society encourages the death penalty," Howard said. "I think Nebraska can do better."

Another shift has come from Nebraska's Sand Hills, a bastion of conservatism. Freshman Sen. Al Davis, a Hyannis rancher, is an opponent of the death penalty, unlike the former representative of District 49, Deb Fischer, now a U.S. senator.

Davis, a Catholic, said he adheres to his church's belief that the death penalty is wrong in a civilized society.

He said he's also concerned that an innocent person could be executed, citing the recent exoneration via new DNA tests of evidence of several people convicted of murder.

Davis said he was compelled by testimony earlier this year by the sister of murder victim James Thimm. Miriam Thimm Kelle told the Legislature's Judiciary Committee that the 34-year effort to execute her brother's killer, cult leader Ryan, had only prolonged her family's suffering.

Said Davis, "I think it's time we looked at something else."

(source: Omaha World-Herald)

ARIZONA----death row inmate commits suicide

Arizona death row inmate commits suicide

An Arizona death row inmate who murdered his wife and young daughter has died in what the Department of Corrections is calling an apparent suicide.

The department says the death Friday of 50-year-old Milo Stanley will be investigated by the department and medical examiners.

Details on how Stanley died weren't immediately available.

Stanley was convicted in Yavapai County of murdering his wife, Susan, and 5-year-old daughter, Seleste, in 1986 during an argument with his wife over his drinking.

Stanley dumped the bodies in a remote area, returned to his Clarkdale home and put his 1-year-old son to bed and then called police to report his wife and daughter missing.

He was sentenced to death for the daughter's death and to life in prison for killing his wife.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Justice never served for Milo Stanley

It all began as a missing person's report.

A young mother and her 5-year-old daughter had gone for a walk along the Verde River and never returned to their home in Clarkdale's Patio Town.

That was the story Milo Stanley told police June 20, 1986. It launched a massive search along the Verde River with divers scouring the river's channel.

Yavapai County Sheriff's Deputy Chuck Devine managed the ground search. Devine would go on to become the first town marshal and manager of Camp Verde. Devine was the primary architect of municipal government in the community.

Meanwhile, former Clarkdale Police Chief and Town Manager Pat Spence was questioning Stanley. Within hours, Spence smelled a rat. His suspicions were confirmed later in the day when members of Susan Stanley's family alerted authorities to a suspicious vehicle in an auto shop where Stanley worked on Sixth Street in Cottonwood.

The car was saturated with blood.

Before the day was over, Stanley admitted that he had shot and killed his wife and young daughter and dumped the bodies in a ravine off Allen Springs Road.

Former Yavapai County Attorney Charles "Chick" Hastings personally prosecuted the Stanley case. He made legal mincemeat of the defendant's insanity defense claim.

That would be the only justice Spence and Devine would ever see for Milo Stanley. Stanley was convicted of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder. He had been sitting on death row in the state prison in Florence since Oct. 6, 1987.

Both Spence and Devine would die before they could witness Stanley's execution.

The Milo Stanley case is a textbook example of everything that is wrong with death penalty cases in Arizona. For most convicted murderers, decades can go by before the ultimate punishment and legally ordered execution is carried out.

In a case such as Stanley's, he had been sitting on death row for nearly three decades. The primary lawmen who investigated the case had long died and there are few folks in Clarkdale and the Verde Valley who even remember Milo Stanley.

It's all a moot point now. Stanley committed suicide Friday morning in his cell on death row.

It's not justice.

But it's finally over with.

(source: The Bugle)

COLORADO:

Mr. Smirky deserves death penalty

I am, I suppose, a liberal. Born in Massachusetts. As a child, I sat with my family behind President John F. Kennedy and his family in a church in Hyannisport. I eventually forgave Ted Kennedy for Chappaquiddick. I voted twice for Obama. I don't think James Madison had AR-15 rifles in mind when he wrote the Second Amendment.

Oh, and I lived for 16 years in - gasp - Los Angeles. You know ... California.

So today we face another long go-round about the morality of the death penalty and whether Chuck E. Cheese killer Nathan Dunlap deserves to be given an injection of drugs and sent to the big sleep. Here now, my 2 cents: When Dunlap is dead and that silly smirk fades from his face, hand me the shovel and let me dig the hole.

For years, I've read and listened to the arguments from those who oppose capital punishment. Former ABC News correspondent Greg Dobbs of Evergreen summed it up nicely in the Post's editorial pages earlier this year.

"It is inhumane," he wrote. "It is inequitably applied; it doesn't deter murderers; it is outlawed in a growing number of states; it leaves Colorado in a league with distastefully barbarous nations like Iran and North Korea; and, maybe most appalling, it has surely led innocent people to their deaths in other states, if not Colorado."

Then he wrote: "But I'm for it anyway."

Me, too.

First, Nathan Dunlap is not an innocent person. Of that we are absolutely, positively certain. And if we are going to end his lousy, worthless life, let's be reminded always of what he did. In December 1993, he returned to the pizza restaurant in Aurora where he once worked - he was fire - and hid in the bathroom until the place closed for the night. Then he shot and killed employees Ben Grant and Colleen O'Connor, both 17; Sylvia Crowell, 19; and 50-year-old Margaret Kohlberg. He shot another worker, Bobby Stephens, in the face at point-blank range. Stephens lived.

Then, because he had a really lousy childhood, Dunlap stuffed his pockets with Chuck E. Cheese giveaway key chains, game tokens and about $1,500 in cash and walked away, leaving 5 people in gigantic, growing pools of blood.

From the day he was arrested - which took police all of 24 hours because they weren't exactly dealing with Einstein — Dunlap mocked it all. He smiled when a human being would cry. He laughed when an actual person would feel remorse. When family members of the people he killed showed their grief in court, Dunlap smirked.

He was found guilty by a Colorado Springs jury in 1996 and he laughed some more. I was in the courtroom in March of that year when the same jury sentenced him to death and I watched the same goofy smirk again.

He kept up the taunting for some 17 years as our finely tuned judicial system wallowed in its own paperwork and appeals processes.

The appeals failed to stem the tide. Recently, Arapahoe District Judge William Sylvester set an execution date for the week of Aug. 18. And Dunlap, through his lawyers, suddenly began crawling and groveling, begging Gov. John Hickenlooper to spare his poor, sad, misunderstood life.

From Mr. Smirky himself, in a neat little video prepared by his attorneys: "I regret what I did. I regret what I did to those victims' families and Bobby Stephens."

What he regrets - the only thing he regrets - is the end of the appeals process and a slow, shackled walk to the death chamber.

Here's part of a letter to the governor that Dunlap "wrote" by himself with, I am sure, no help from his legal squad: "I can complain about the process and the situation I'm in but after everything is said and done, I killed four people and tried to kill a fifth, in cold blood knowing the pain I would cause."

Awww. Now Nathan is sorry.

With any luck at all, on a warm summer day or cool Colorado evening this August, he will have a lethal drug pumped into a vein and he will die.

I hope the door to hell hits him in the rear end on his way in.

(source: Rich Tosches, Denver Post)

USA:

Issue should not be decided by a poll

Contrary to Jeff Jacoby's contention ("Tsarnaev and the death penalty," Op-ed, May 8), the adoption or abolition of the death penalty is not a popularity poll. It is an issue that hinges on the definition of what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, which our Constitution prohibits.

What punishment can be more cruel than the societal murder of another human being? If polls were taken in the Deep South during the 1950s, they would have shown overwhelming approval for vicious segregation laws. That did not make them right or constitutional.

A society that exercises revenge as its ultimate legal principle is a society that rejects the possibility of redemption in the human condition. Nothing can be more cynical.

Larry Green ---- Swampscott

(source: Letter to the Editor, Boston Globe)

THAILAND:

Shackles off on Bang Kwang death row

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has been invited to preside over a ceremony to remove the shackles from convicts on death row at the Bang Kwang Prison in Nonthaburi province on Wednesday, according to Pol Col Suchart Wong-anantachai, director-general of the Corrections Department.

Pol Col Suchart said the ceremony will begin at 4pm to mark a pilot project to remove the shackles from about 500 inmates out of the 800 convicts on death row.

After the ceremony, the prisoners will not be shackled while being in prison. However, they will continued to fettered while being taken to court because the Corrections Department cannot yet acquire a suitable device to control them according an international standards.

Some of the convicts to be unshackled at the ceremony are well-known to the public such as Maj Chalermchai Majchaklam, convicted over the murder of Yasothon governor, Wisit Puengrassamee, a former Forestry Department official, ex-senator Sukhum Cherdchuen, and Pol Lt-Gen Chalor Kerdthes, who was convicted of the murders of members of the Srithanakhan family in connection with the Saudi jewellery theft.

Ukrit Mongkolnavil, chairman of the independent committee on the promotion of the rule of law, and Kanit Na Nakorn, chairman of the independent committee for truth and reconciliation, had earlier proposed that the Corrections Department review the rule requiring inmates to be put in shackles while in detention.

They proposed that shackles be removed from inmates on death row pending their appeals or for convicts nearing their execution.

(source: Bangkok Post)

SAUDI ARABIA:

Human Rights Watch urges fair trial of Saudi cleric

'Human Rights Watch has called on Saudi Arabia to hold a fair trial for a prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who is an outspoken critic of the Al Saud regime.

The rights organization issued a statement on Saturday calling on Saudi authorities to provide Sheikh Nimr with "immediate access to adequate medical care for gunshot wounds received during his arrest 10 months ago."

The rights group also said that the Saudi regime should "conduct an immediate bail review (for Sheikh Nimr), as international law requires."

Sheikh Nimr was attacked, injured and arrested by Saudi security forces en route to his house in the Qatif region of Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province on July 8, 2012.

The arrest sparked protests in the oil-rich province. The cleric appeared before court on March 26 for the 1st time since his arrest.

Saudi prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Sheikh Nimr.

Sarah Leah Whitson, the Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said on Saturday, "As a court debates whether to kill Nimr al-Nimr and string his corpse to a pole, he is suffering from the gunshot wounds he sustained when security forces arrested him."

"It is outrageous that a man of his standing has been targeted in this way and that authorities have ignored his family's repeated pleas for adequate medical care."

There have been numerous demonstrations in Eastern Province since February 2011, with protesters primarily calling for political reform and an end to widespread discrimination.

Anti-regime protests intensified, however, since November 2011, when security forces opened fire on protesters in Qatif, killing 5 people and leaving scores more injured.

In October 2012, Amnesty International called on Saudi authorities to stop using excessive force against the protesters.

(source: Press Tv)

INDIA:

Human Rights Activists and Death Penalty

The morality of death penalty has again come to the forefront by the latest Supreme Court judgment rejecting Bhullar's plea for mercy. I am against death penalty as such for anyone. But politicians like Badal, Karunanidhi, Jaya-lalithaa only invoke mercy to suit their political exigencies.

Badal obviously is feeling pressurised by the SGPC and extremist elements in the Akali Dal - if not, then why does he not also ask for mercy for all prisoners on the death-roll? If Badal is genuine and his plea to the Centre is not a political ploy, why does he not amend the Penal Code and abolish death penalty in Punjab by invoking Article 254(2) of the Constitution? The result will be no more hangings in Punjab including that of Bhullar.

The same course could be followed in Tamil Nadu where, for a change, Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi, sworn political enemies, are asking for mercy for the same set of accused. This legislative initiative alone will show the genuine concern of Punjab and Tamil Nadu legislators against hangings.

Bhullar's plea was rejected first in 2005. But the file was sent to President Abdul Kalam, who sent it back to the Home Ministry seeking some clarifications. The matter however remained smugly in the Home Ministry till Chidambaram, the Home Minister, sent it to the President in 2011 - this long gap did not however result in presidential mercy. The Supreme Court has affirmed the President's decision though many feel that because of some of the earlier judgments and the number of cases which may be affected by this judgment, it would have helped in better clarification of the law, if the matter had been heard by a Constitution Bench.

The Court, while accepting that the long delay in hanging may be one of the grounds for commutation of death sentence to life imprisonment, however has held that the same cannot be invoked for offences under TADA or similar statutes - because these persons "do not show any respect for human lives, the terrorists do not think even for a second about parents, and dear ones of the victims ... the families of those killed suffer the agony for their entire life".

The Court has rightly condemned the beastly and dastardly acts of the terrorists, which must evoke anger and condemnation in every person. But then the Court went on to make observations against the human rights activists by ignoring the self-imposed rule of restraint wisely imposed by courts on themselves in "not making any remarks or observations with regard to those who are not before them". Further, cautioning that "sweeping generalisations defeat their own purpose", the judgment said: "Many others join the bandwagon to espouse the cause of terrorists involved in gruesome killing and mass murder of innocent civilians and raise the bogey of human rights." (emphasis added) The judgment, unfortunately, seems to have ignored the concern of human right defenders and possibly did not have the relevant material before it when it repeated the usual bazaar gossip that those who advocate abolition of capital punishment by observing that they were doing it in "the bogey of human rights". With respect, these observations ignored that established human rights bodies, like the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), have unequivocally condemned the killings and taking of hostages by terrorists, whether in Jammu and Kashmir or by the Army under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. the North-East, or the Maoists though at the same time emphasising the culpability of the state agencies. Every activist feels the pain and anguish of the family, friends of victims of the terrorists - all will agree in calling terrorists the worst specimen of humanity. But then the state, which is the ultimate repository of law, cannot deviate from the path of civilised and humane conduct.

Certain principles of humanism, legality, even in the cases of worst excesses by terrorists have still to be dealt with under the law. It may be relevant to note that notwithstanding that, in the USA, which is also the target of terrorists, there is no move to restore death penalty in various States which had abolished it long time back.

The judgment also ignored the previous decisions of the Supreme Court which expressed its anguish even while upholding TADA against violation of human rights thus: "It is heart-rending to note that day in and day out we come across news of blood-curdling incidents of police brutality and atrocities alleged to have been committed in utter disregard and in all breaches of humanitarian law and universal human rights as well as in total negation of the constitutional guarantees and human decency....."

Similarly the Court reiterated its concern even when upholding POTA: "The protection and promotion of human rights under the rule of law is essential in the prevention of terrorism. If human rights are violated in the process of combating terrorism, it will be self-defeating ....... the lack of hope for justice provides breeding grounds for terrorism. In all cases, the fight against terrorism must be respectful to the human rights. Our Constitution laid down clear limitations on state actions within the context of the fight against terrorism."

It needs to be emphasised that when human rights activists oppose death penalty it is on the larger principle of human rights, which must be applicable to all cases.

In support of the human rights activists' plea against death penalty, let me remind everyone what some of our greatest leaders of the country have said. Gandhiji said: "I cannot in all conscience agree to anyone being sent to the gallows, God alone can take life because he alone gives it." Similarly Dr Ambedkar, the architect of the Constitution, said: "I think that having regard to this fact, the proper thing for this country to do is to abolish the death sentence altogether." Similarly the socialist leader, Jayaprakash Narayan, said that ".....death sentence is no remedy for such crimes".

All that is suggested is that instead of death penalty, let all such killers be sentenced to whole life and even without parole—many discerning persons would consider such life term to be more severe than even death penalty.

(source: Rajinday Sachar--The author is a former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court; Mainstream Weekly)

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

Officials deny execution plan despite procurement of hanging ropes by Tihar jail

The Tihar jail procuring 2 hanging ropes from Buxar in Bihar has set off speculation over who is the next in line to be hanged.

Officials, however, deny any execution plan.

The last time such a hanging rope was brought to Tihar jail was when Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru was to be hanged.

The execution took place 3 months after the rope was procured.

The man most likely to be hanged if an execution is ordered is Youth Congress office blast case convict Devender Pal Singh Bhullar.

His mercy petition has been rejected by the president, and the Supreme Court refused to interfere with the decision recently.

Other than Bhullar, there are 25 prisoners lodged in Tihar who face the death penalty.

However, their appeals are pending before the judiciary.

A manila rope made by inmates of Buxar Central Jail is generally used for hanging.

Buxar is the place where such ropes are made because the humidity owing to the Ganga in the north and the Thora to the west of the jail provides ideal conditions for the J-34 cotton yarn to be processed.

Buxar jail is the only jail in India which makes hanging rope.

According to the jail manual, the manila rope used in executions needs to be 1 inch in thickness.

The rope should be 19 feet in length, well-twisted and fully stretched.

It should be of equal thickness, capable of passing readily through the noose-ring and sufficiently strong to bear a strain of 127 kg with a 7 feet drop.

The drop is the most important factor in an execution.

The slightest error in deciding the length of the drop may lead to a painful death for the condemned man.

"The rope's weight also depends on the height of the person to be hanged, which is why it is tested twice before the actual execution. A jail superintendent is present at the time of testing the rope. Ropes that have been tested are kept in safe custody," explained a jail officer.

At least 2 Manila ropes in serviceable condition are kept ready before an execution.

(source: The Daily Mail)

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

Aadesh: A film on the lawyer who secured Kasab's death penalty

Director Svaddan Angrre is bringing to the silver screen the story of Ujjwal Nikam, the tenacious, poetry-quoting lawyer who secured the death penalty for Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab for the 26/11 Mumbai attack. He says the Marathi biopic will reveal some unknown facts about the legal eagle.

Nikam, from the boondocks of Jalgaon who rose to become one of the most renowned and high-profile public prosecutors in the country, has inspired 'Aadesh', to be released in September.

The Pune-based Svaddan said that while Nikam will not act in the film, it is entirely inspired by his life and the 4 most sensational cases of his career - the 1993 Bombay blasts, the 2006 Kherlanji massacre, the cooperative societies scam and the 26/11 trial.

Nikam is from Jalgaon and is one of the most renowned and high-profile public prosecutors in the country.

"Most people know only about the lawyer that Nikam sir is. But the film also explores other aspects of his personality," Svaddan told IANS.

Nikam's curriculum vitae would be the envy of the best of India's lawyers. In 1994, he handled the Mumbai blasts case, followed by cases relating to the sensational murders of music baron Gulshan Kumar and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Pramod Mahajan. But the biggest one yet was without a doubt the Ajmal Kasab trial, which finally culminated in the Supreme Court upholding the death by hanging awarded by the trial court, where Nikam laid out the incriminating evidence with his robust, almost dramatic style.

The movie begins with the success of the Kasab trial.

"I have used a narrative style in the movie, which begins with the central character talking to a journalist about his life just after the Kasab trial," Svaddan said, adding that the movie would be released in September.

The director said that he met Nikam several times to dig out details of his life that haven't been documented by the media, which gravitates to the TV-savvy lawyer for confident bytes, when he holds the biggie legal government briefs.

"During my interactions with him, Nikam sir mentioned that a moviemaker had offered him the role of a lawyer. Nikam asked him, 'how can a lawyer act'? To which the producer said: 'Lawyers are often the best actors.'" Svaddan said, adding that the movie, however, did not take off.

'Aadesh', he said contains several anecdotes from Nikam's life, especially the parts where he was threatened by powerful politicians as well as businessmen while handing sensitive cases as a state prosecutor.

Svaddan, however, said that Marathi cinema was going through a crisis of sorts and that he had turned producer after several production houses turned down the biopic.

"I believe in the story. The story of a man who has stood by India against the enemies of the state. As a film it will work," Svaddan asserted.

(source: IBN Live)

ENGLAND:

Birmingham pupils make film on world's longest-serving death row prisoner

2 school pupils from Birmingham's King Edward's School have made a hard-hitting new film about a prisoner in Japan who has been on death row for 45 years - longer than anyone else in the world.

The 9-minute film, which has already been watched hundreds of times on video-hosting site Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/61635615), tells the story of Hakamada Iwao, a former professional boxer sentenced to death in Japan in 1968.

There are longstanding doubts about the fairness of Hakamada's original trial and he is currently waiting to hear whether he will be granted a retrial. During his trial he testified that police had beaten and forced him to sign a "confession" after he was interrogated - without a lawyer present - for 20 days. He was convicted of the 1966 murder of four people

Hakamada now suffers from a mental illness after spending 28 years of his time on Japan's notoriously harsh death row in solitary confinement. The Guinness Book of World Records recently confirmed that the 77-year-old Hakamada Iwao has been under a death sentence for longer than anyone else in the world.

The King Edward's film was created by 2 of the Edgbaston school's lower-6th pupils - Rohan Jain and Tom Haynes - and features numerous pupils as well as many members of staff at the school. The film shows staff and students speaking about notable events in their own lives, with each of the 45 years Hakamada has been on death row represented.

Rohan and Tom are both members of the Amnesty International Society at the school and the film emerged from their Monday lunchtime meetings, with the production and filming being done at lunchtimes and during after-school hours, taking three months to complete.

Rohan Jain, Head of King Edward's Amnesty Society, said: "I was inspired by a Jeremy Irons short film about Hakamada. It was the idea of having people talk about an important thing that had happened in their lives in the last 45 years that seemed like a really powerful - and deeply emotional - way to tell Hakamada's story."

Tom Haynes said: "The reaction has been totally positive. Many teachers have approached us saying how powerful they found the film. We've had new students joining our Amnesty society and the existing ones have really bonded around the film."

Gill Hudson, who teaches religion and philosophy at the school, said: "The students were totally dedicated to making the film. Along with the other members of the school's Amnesty group, they care deeply about the plight of Hakamada and they believe that young people working together can make a difference."

The film has been shown at King Edward's School assembly, emailed to parents of students at the school and publicised via social media. Amnesty staff in the London headquarters of the human rights organisation are also helping to publicise the film.

Amnesty International UK Campaigner on the Death Penalty Kim Manning Cooper said: "This is a fantastic film with a simple but really powerful year-by-year concept.

"Thankfully capital punishment is slowly being abolished around the world, but films like this remind us that a small hard-core of countries still persist in using this cruel and unnecessary punishment."

So far this year Japan has carried out 5 hangings and last year it executed 7 people. Japan was one of only 21 countries to execute prisoners in 2012, while 140 countries have either formally abolished capital punishment or no longer use it.

(source: Ekklesia)

JAPAN:

Death penalty: Systemic failings add to risk of wrongful executions

Japan's continued resort to the death penalty raises a number of troubling questions. In recent years a cascade of revelations about forced confessions, faked evidence and prosecutors withholding exculpatory evidence indicates that a number of people have been wrongly convicted for crimes they didn't commit.

In some of these cases the incarcerated victim has been freed and found not guilty in a retrial. They have lost many years of their lives and for this there is no adequate compensation.

It is equally disturbing that prosecutors have failed to apologize for their wrongdoings and nobody in the judiciary has been jailed for abuse of power and infringement on civil liberties in securing wrongful convictions.

It is repugnant and tragic that in cases where the death penalty has been carried out, there is no second chance nor any possibility of undoing such mistakes.

In Japan, the state reserves the right to execute its citizens or others who commit certain crimes within its jurisdiction despite growing awareness of prosecutorial excesses and coerced convictions.

This means there is a risk that innocent people could be hanged, and it is this reasonable doubt about the possibility of error that is so alarming. Given Japan's chilling 99 % conviction rate, the odds of an irreversible miscarriage of justice are much higher than should be acceptable in any society.

However, the fact that in Japan many people confess to crimes they didn't commit isn't so surprising as it may appear. This is because people can be kept in detention and interrogated incessantly for 23 days without being charged. They have access to legal counsel, but it is not mandatory during interrogations.

Even more problematically, prosecutors can apply to a court to extend the initial 23-day detention multiple times, and in almost all cases judges approve.

Hence, knowing that the only way out of endless detention is to sign a confession drawn up by prosecutors, many browbeaten detainees finally capitulate.

In 2010, there was a case in which prosecutors held a government official, Atsuko Muraki, for 163 days, pressuring her to confess to crimes she did not commit. She heroically held her ground, denying the allegations until it came to light that the "ace" prosecutor in her case had doctored the evidence and witnesses had been forced to implicate her. Her lengthy detention and grilling demonstrates just how much pressure a suspect faces once in the maws of the justice system.

In March 2013, the British Embassy hosted a conference on the death penalty at which it was emphasized how Japan is in violation of its international treaty obligations and human rights norms. Presenters were authors of the highly recommended report titled "The Death Penalty in Japan," sponsored by the Death Penalty Project and downloadable from the Internet.

Tokyo is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which came into force in 1979. Consequently, it is obliged to submit regular reports to the U.N. Human Rights Committee (UNHRC), but it has repeatedly failed to address issues raised by that body. Back in 1998, the UNHRC rebuked Japan over "conditions of detention and treatment on death row, the lack of procedural guarantees concerning pretrial detention, the high number of capital convictions based on confessions, and the limited recourse to habeas corpus."

Since then, a succession of Japanese governments have failed to reform death penalty laws and practices and conform to minimum international legal standards that apply to all ICCPR signatories.

In 2007, the U.N. Committee against Torture reiterated concerns about the heavy reliance in Japan on confessions in securing convictions in criminal trials; "the lack of means for verifying the proper conduct of interrogations of detainees while in police custody"; and the absence of time limits on interrogations where, problematically, the presence of defense counsel is left to the authorities' discretion.

In 2008, the UNHRC recommended full recording of interrogations and reliance on modern scientific evidence rather than confessions.

In fact both U.N. bodies, and legal scholars in Japan and overseas, assert that criminals here are denied due process and are not getting fair trials - and also that lengthy pretrial detention undermines the presumption of innocence. Moreover, detainees are not accorded the right to remain silent, nor the right not to self-incriminate or confess guilt.

"The Death Penalty in Japan" report recommends that Japan, inter alia, eliminates capital punishment for crimes that do not involve a deliberate intent to kill, does away with the opaque system of daiy0 kangoku (police-cell detention) and institutes effective judicial monitoring of pretrial detention - with strict limits on duration.

Until such reforms are effected, and as long as the rights of those facing the death penalty are inadequately protected, Japan is called on to declare a moratorium on further executions.

This year, Amnesty International has slammed Japan for resuming executions in 2012 after a 20-month hiatus. In fact, since March 2012, there have been 12 hangings, including five since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe formed his government in December 2012.

Nonetheless, based on extensive scholarly research, Amnesty International asserts that there is no evidence that the death penalty deters serious crimes and concludes that it is the ultimate denial of human rights and a stain on Japan's justice system.

The Japanese Federation of Bar Associations also calls for abolition.

Although the Japanese government defends retention by pointing to polls indicating 86 % of Japanese of voting age support the death penalty, this is misleading.

Mai Sato, a researcher at Oxford University who is one of the authors of "The Death Penalty in Japan," has conducted her own surveys, from which she found that the way questions are asked makes a big difference.

A 2009 government survey asked people whether: 1) The death penalty should be abolished under all circumstances; 2) it is unavoidable in some cases; 3) Don't know/difficult to say. This wording, Sato argues, creates a bias in favor of the death penalty.

She tested her hypothesis in three empirical surveys that she conducted between 2008 and 2010. In contrast to the government survey, she gave respondents an additional "retentionist" option in order to get a better sense of the degree of public support.

So, they could choose between: 1) The death penalty should definitely be kept; 2) it should probably be kept; 3) it should probably be abolished; and, 4) it should definitely be abolished.

She found that 55 % were undecided or had qualified views on retention, while 44 % supported retention without qualification.

Sato also found that those who believed murder rates are on the increase (they are not) were more likely to support retention, suggesting that attitudes in favor might be influenced by misinformation about crime. She tested this hypothesis by conducting a survey among people who were provided accurate information about crime rates. Her results showed that 30 % of such people favored abolition - while retention support dropped to 36 %.

Sato concludes that public support is much weaker and more nuanced than the government suggests, and hence it is a shaky basis for justifying state executions - especially given the inquisitorial detention system and coerced confessions.

(source: Commentary; Jeff Kingston is Director of Asian Studies, Temple University Japan----Japan Times)

MAY 11, 2013:

TEXAS:

Racism in a Texas Death Case

In the annals of racism in the Texas criminal justice system, 7 death penalty cases are in a class by themselves. In 2000, after the Supreme Court ordered a new sentencing hearing in 1 of them, Senator John Cornyn, who was then the state attorney general, called for new sentencing hearings in the other cases for the same reason: because race was improperly and explicitly considered as a factor in determining the sentence.

Duane Buck, who was convicted of 2 murders, is the only one among the defendants who was not granted a new sentencing hearing. His post-conviction lawyers have uncovered a lot of mitigating evidence that his trial counsel did not present to the jury that sentenced him to death. He is seeking life without parole and is awaiting a decision on this matter by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Texas has long fought his request for resentencing because it insists that Mr. Buck is responsible for introducing race into his case. A psychologist called by the defense testified at the hearing that being black increased Mr. Buck's "future dangerousness." But this statement was elicited by the prosecutor on cross-examination and was used by the prosecutor in his closing argument to the jury. This egregious error clearly violated Mr. Buck's constitutional rights. One of the prosecutors in the case has been campaigning for years against Mr. Buck's execution.

The racial bias in this case reflects a wide and disturbing pattern in death penalty prosecutions in Harris County, Tex., where Mr. Buck was tried. A recent study found that from 1992 to 1999 the county prosecutor was 3 times as likely to seek the death penalty for blacks in murder cases as they were for whites, and juries were twice as likely to impose capital punishment. The Buck case is yet more evidence that capital punishment should be abolished.

(source: Editorial, New York Times)

PENNSYLVANIA:

Waynesboro man accused of triple murder to enter guilty plea today

A prosecutor says the man accused in a Franklin County triple murder is expected to enter guilty pleas.

36-year-old Kevin Cleeves of Waynesboro is charged in the July 2012 shooting deaths of his estranged wife, her boyfriend and her boyfriend's mother.

The prosecutor also says Cleeves will be sentenced to consecutive life terms. He had pleaded not guilty and the District Attorney said he intended to seek the death penalty.

The District Attorney also said a major factor in agreeing to the proposed sentences was the potential trauma to the victim's daughter if she had to testify.

Cleeves' attorney had no comment.

(source: WHP-TV News)

OHIO:

Ohio prosecutors face hurdles in Ariel Castro death penalty pursuit----Experts say Ohio laws governing fetal homicides could be open to constitutional challenge as prosecutors look to press charges

Ohio prosecutors will face a struggle to press death penalty charges against the Cleveland kidnapping suspect in relation to any miscarriages suffered by the three women he allegedly held captive for a decade, legal experts said on Friday.

If Ariel Castro is handed a death sentence for "aggravated murder", he would become the 1st person in the US to be put on death row under the country's proliferating and controversial fetal homicide laws. The provisions extend legal rights to unborn babies, in some cases - including Ohio - as early as conception.

The prosecutor for Cuyahoga County, that covers Cleveland, indicated on Thursday that he would pursue a possible death sentence against Castro, who is being held on $8m bail having been accused of kidnapping 3 young women for 9 to 11 years each. Timothy McGinty said there would be a count for "each act of aggravated murders he committed by terminating pregnancies".

The women escaped from Castro's house in the west side of Cleveland on Monday. Michelle Knight had been missing since 2002, Amanda Berry since 2003 and Gina DeJesus since 2004.

Castro has been charged with kidnapping and raping the 3 women, as well as kidnapping a 6-year-old girl born to Berry in captivity. He was confirmed as the father on Friday. Castro will now go before a grand jury, at which point prosecutors say they will press the more serious death penalty charges relating to the multiple miscarriages that took place within the house.

Ohio is 1 of at least 38 states that have some form of fetal homicide law on their statute books. In Ohio's case, protection for the fetus against violent attack has been incorporated into the state's general criminal laws since 1996, with the fetus being defined as a legal entity right from conception.

Anyone can be prosecuted in Ohio for aggravated murder - which carries the death penalty - if they are proved to have "purposely, and with prior calculation and design, caused...the unlawful termination of another's pregnancy". That could be applied to a miscarriage by any of the 3 women at any stage of pre-natal development - the law states that murder charges can be brought if an "unborn member of the species homo sapiens, who is or was carried in the womb of another" is killed.

Fetal homicide laws are controversial because they are seen by pro-abortion campaigners as a back-door attempt by anti-abortionists to overturn Roe v Wade, the US supreme court judgment that set a constitutional right to a medical termination before the fetus reaches the age of viability. Delivering that ruling, the court defined a "person" as beginning at birth.

Richard Dieter, the director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said that were Castro put on death row for "aggravated murder" of a fetus, the verdict would almost certainly be open to constitutional challenge. "There is no one on death row for fetal homicide, and it raises some fundamental questions about whether a person has been killed. It may be in Ohio statute, but that doesn't make it constitutional."

Legal experts say that a decision to enhance Castro's prosecution into a capital case would pose both the prosecution and defense with large challenges. Katherine Federle, a law professor at Ohio State University, said that the prosecution would have to prove that Castro not only intended to terminate the pregnancies but also that his actions were to blame for the miscarriages - which might be hard to do where incidents occurred several years ago.

"We don't know what evidence the FBI and police have managed to assemble, so it's difficult to assess the case they will bring. But it could be quite a challenge for them to prove that the defendant was the cause of the terminations," Federle said.

Michael Benza, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, who has defended several death penalty cases, said Castro's legal team would also face daunting hurdles. "In this case there is certain to be huge sympathy for these 3 young women - they have been a regular part of the public discussion in Cleveland for the past 10 years. So it's going to be hard to get the jury to go past that and pay attention just to what's happening in the courtroom."

McGinty's announcement that prosecutors may seek the death penalty is not an idle threat. Ohio has one of the highest rates of execution outside the south.

Last year, Ohio executed 3 prisoners, more than any other state outside Texas, Arizona and Oklahoma and equal to Florida. Since the reintroduction of the death penalty in the modern era in 1976, Ohio has put to death 51 prisoners; it has the 7th largest death row in the country, with 147 inmates.

Fetal homicide was incorporated into the state's homicide laws in 1996. The 1st case prosecuted under the law was that of Gregory Robbins, a member of the US air force who battered his wife causing her to lose her unborn baby.

(source: The Guardian)

NORTH CAROLINA:

Winston-Salem man is ruled to be mentally disabled, will not face death penalty in 2009 fatal shooting

A Forsyth County judge ruled Friday that a Winston-Salem man facing 1st-degree murder charges in a 2009 fatal shooting cannot face the death penalty because he is mentally retarded as defined under state law.

Judge Edgar Gregory of Forsyth Superior Court made the ruling in the case of Jose Merlin Henriquez Portillo after a week-long hearing that featured testimony from experts who had evaluated Portillo and had looked into his childhood growing up in El Salvador.

Because of Gregory's ruling, Portillo, 28, now faces life in prison without the possibility of parole, if he is convicted of 1st-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Cirilo Laredo Avila on Dec. 16, 2009.

Avila, 35, was selling snacks from a truck for El Jarocho, a grocery store on Waughtown Street, in an apartment complex off Cole Road in Winston-Salem. Prosecutors allege that Portillo shot Avila four times during an attempted robbery. Authorities say Avila also shot Portillo, once in the stomach, once in the back near the spine and once in the hand. Avila had been carrying a gun for protection because he had been robbed before.

Gregory said in his ruling that one of the most significant pieces of evidence was that Portillo had an IQ of 60. Under state law, defendants are considered mentally retarded if their IQ is below 70, they have significant difficulty in performing basic functions, such as taking care of themselves, and that their mental retardation began before the age of 18.

State law and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling prohibit executing defendants who are determined to be mentally retarded.

David Botchin and Mark Rabil, Portillo's attorneys, presented evidence that Portillo failed the 3rd grade 3 times while he lived in his native El Salvador and that he grew up in a traumatic environment marked by violence in the war-torn country.

When Portillo came to the United States to be with one of his sisters and her husband, he was unable to pay his bills or hold down a job without help from his family, Botchin and Rabil argued.

Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O'Neill and Assistant District Attorney Patrick Weede presented evidence that Portillo was able to manage his money, buy a car and hold down a job at a pizza restaurant.

Portillo was also able to make requests about his medical care while he was in jail awaiting trial, O'Neill and Weede argued.

Gregory also denied motions to suppress statements that Portillo gave to Winston-Salem police on Dec. 17 and Dec. 23, 2009. Botchin and Rabil argued that Winston-Salem police detectives violated Portillo's constitutional rights and that they used deception in getting those statements.

Portillo was recovering from surgery at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center on Dec. 17, 2009, when detectives interviewed him. They interviewed him again on Dec. 23, 2009, after he had been released from the hospital.

Gregory ruled that Portillo gave both statements voluntarily and that before the second interview, he was advised of his rights. He also ruled that Portillo was not in custody or otherwise restrained during the 1st interview on Dec. 17 and police had no obligation to advise Portillo of his rights at that time.

Gregory also denied a motion to suppress DNA that was taken from Portillo.

Portillo is scheduled to go on trial for 1st-degree murder starting the week of July 15.

(source: Winston-Salem Journal)

FLORIDA:

St. Pete man faces death penalty in love triangle killings

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for a convicted felon accused of killing his sometime girlfriend and a man she dated while he was behind bars, according to court documents made available today.

Jamaal Jenkins, 25, was booked into the Pinellas County Jail Thursday after he was extradited from Louisiana, where he was arrested in February. He faces 2-counts of 1st-degree murder in the deaths of Destynee Nekole Burkes, 24, of Gulfport, and Tieyannie D. Hollis, 31, of St. Petersburg.

Documents unsealed today provide the most detailed chronicle yet of the sequence of events leading up to the 2 fatal shootings and of investigators' efforts to find Jenkins.

After he was released from jail in July, after serving 6 months on an obstruction charge, Jenkins apparently became upset that Burkes still sometimes saw Hollis, investigators have said.

During their on-again, off-again relationship, Jenkins on Dec. 26 rammed the car Burkes was driving in Pinellas Park. Ten days later, on Jan. 5, Jenkins told an inmate in a telephone conversation that was recorded that if Burkes testified against him "there was no point in her life continuing," court documents state. Inmates' calls are routinely recorded.

2 days later, Jenkins and Burkes, apparently back together, checked into the La Quinta Inn at 4999 34th St. N. shortly after 1 a.m. Less than 30 minutes later, Jenkins left Room 120 after shooting Burkes in the back of the head with a small-caliber handgun, according to court documents. She was found on the floor clutching a large purse.

A video surveillance camera captured Jenkins leaving and getting into a 2012 Chrysler 200 Burkes had rented. Later, Jenkins' mother, Yulonda Jenkins, identified the man as her son, court documents state. A confidential informant told detectives that word on the street was she was distressed over what he had done to his girlfriend.

Jenkins also called both her son's cell phone and Burkes' within hours of her death; Jenkins had both phones with him as he drove the Chrysler to the Orlando area, the documents say. As a result, investigators were able to determine Jenkins' path of escape.

While in the Orlando area, Jenkins took the license plate off the Chrysler and put it on another 2012 Chrysler 200. Then he abandoned the one stolen from Burkes and returned to Pinellas County in a different vehicle, according to court documents.

On Jan. 14, a week after Burkes' death, Jenkins shot Hollis outside the Mariner's Pointe apartments at 1175 Pinellas Point Drive, about 12:25 p.m., the documents say. Hollis was on his way to a friend's apartment to pick up some photographs of Burkes and a rose from her funeral.

(source: St. Petersburg Tribune)

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

High court reverses ruling on Palm Beach County death row case lawyers

Facing execution next month for the 1987 murder of a prison guard outside a West Palm Beach doctor's office, William Van Poyck's stable of attorneys on Friday grew from 1 to more than a dozen.

The question remains: Do any of them know what they're doing?

In a surprise move, the Florida Supreme Court reversed itself and said Jacksonville attorney Gerald Bettman should not have to represent Van Poyck alone in the high-pressure, high-stakes appeals that lead up to any execution. Possibly, he won't have to represent him at all.

The high court ordered Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Charles Burton to review the qualifications of more than a dozen lawyers who have filed appeals on Van Poyck's behalf since he was convicted of killing Glades Correctional Institution guard Fred Griffis in a failed attempt to free a buddy from prison.

The attorneys Burton ordered to attend a hearing on Monday include 2 of the top death penalty lawyers in the state. It includes out-of-state civil litigators who took on Van Poyck's cause to win pro bono points and could now find themselves saddled with handling the complex, time-consuming and expensive appeals.

One of the attorneys on the list was arrested for cocaine possession in 1993, let his Florida Bar membership lapse and can no longer practice law in the state.

"I'm a little surprised by the turn of events," renowned death penalty attorney Martin McClain said after learning he could be part of Van Poyck's defense team. "On one hand, there seems to be a recognition that there's a problem with the case, but I'm not sure casting a wide net will solve it."

He suspects some of the attorneys, like him, know little about the case. He said he was involved tangentially in a 2007 appeal that was handled primarily by out-of-state lawyers.

The high court's wide-ranging order violates its own rulings, he said.

In similar cases, it allowed volunteer lawyers such as like Bettman to withdraw after a death warrant was signed. State-funded death penalty lawyers were then appointed to handle the appeals. Lawyers who represented Van Poyck for free have no obligation to remain on the case, he said.

"They are trying to create an obligation that should offend every defense lawyer in the state. It flies in the face of public policy to encourage pro bono work," he said. What lawyer, he asked, would volunteer to help out the state by representing a death row inmate for free if they are faced with the prospect of handling the flurry of appeals after a death warrant is signed?

It also highlights problems with a law the Legislature passed this month that would speed up death penalty appeals. Over the years, the Legislature has eliminated agencies, such as the Commission on Capital Cases, which tracked which of the state's 405 death row inmates were eligible for execution and what the impediments were.

"This underscores the chaos in the governor's office," McClain said. "They didn't know this (the uncertainty about Van Poyck's legal representation) was a problem. Nobody is keeping track."

Whether the uproar will derail Van Pocyk's June 12 execution is unclear, he said. It depends on how the matter is resolved.

As for Bettman, he's breathing a sigh of relief. Since Gov. Rick Scott signed Van Poyck's death warrant May 3, he has been insisting his two-lawyer office had neither the expertise nor the resources to launch Van Poyck's appeals. He failed to persuade Burton to relieve him of his duties at a hearing Thursday. The high court’s ruling Friday was in response to his appeal of that decision.

"It all worked out," he said. "If you're going to kill someone, you better be sure you're doing things right."

(source: Palm Beach Post)

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

Jury votes 11-1 for death penalty

By a vote of 11-1 a Key West jury on Friday recommended to Monroe County Circuit Court Judge Mark Jones that Jonathan Leo LeBaron should face the death penalty.

Last week, the same jury found LeBaron guilty of premeditated murder in the Feb. 10, 2009, beating death of 57-year-old Richard Gardner aboard the latter's boat, Flo to Me, at a Stock Island marina.

The jury's recommendation is advisory and Jones has set a sentencing hearing for June 28 at the Freeman Justice Center.

Before the jury left for deliberations, Jones told them their decision would be "given great weight."

This week attorneys on both sides argued whether the defendant should spend the rest of his life in Florida prison or die from lethal injection.

Prosecutors opted to ground their closing arguments to the jury in terms of hard evidence speaking directly to the "heinous, atrocious and cruel" manner of the murder, whereas defense counsel spoke in more abstract terms of morality and how LeBaron's life went off course.

Kellie Peterson, defense counsel from the Regional Office of Civil and Conflict Counsel, described a pattern of various abuses that began when LeBaron, now 36, was just 3 years old.

Testimony from LeBaron's brother and sister described mother Melba as a devout Jehovah's Witness and strict disciplinarian who regularly abused the siblings.

"The problem is," Peterson said, "we all get so wrapped up in this process that everyone has to point a finger. Don't do that. Look at why this happened and what our system of justice stands for.

"I would say our system of justice failed those kids. Was that Jonathan's fault? Would he still be here today? Those are the kinds of questions you need to answer.

"I would ask to look at Jonathan LeBaron and the path that he was given and know that there's no gift here, there's no free pass. Either way he dies in prison and it becomes less about him and more about the morality of what happened and what failed. Then I would ask you not to kill him."

A crime that a jury decides is "heinous, atrocious and cruel," is considered an aggravating factor in the penalty phase where life or death is deliberated.

"There were a minimum of four, distinct blunt force wounds to Richard Gardner's head," Assistant Monroe County State Attorney Val Winter told jurors. "The blunt object struck Richard Gardner's head with such sheer strength and wickedness, Richard Gardner avulsed 7 teeth."

The victim's "upper jaw was broken and his lower jaw shattered," Winter said, going on to describe a total of 12 stab wounds to Gardner's body, evidenced by a graphic photograph projected in the courtroom.

"Heinous," Winter said, displaying a new photo of plastic wire ties LeBaron planned to bind Gardner with during a robbery or kidnapping. "Atrocious."

Finally, a photo of Gardner's body so badly beaten it was difficult to ascertain the exact anatomy. "Cruel. Did Richard Gardner die because of Jonathan LeBaron's greed or because the defendant was hit with a switch as a child?"

(source: Keysnet.com)

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

Inmate's sister struggles to save brother who killed CO; Lisa Van Poyck starts petitions for brother who killed CO Fred Griffis

A day after Gov. Rick Scott signed a death warrant for William Van Poyck for the 1987 killing of a prison guard outside a West Palm Beach doctor's office, his sister on Saturday launched an appeal to spare her 58-year-old brother's life.

In petitions posted on Facebook and her brother's death row Diary website, Lisa Van Poyck urged people to help her stay the execution now scheduled for June 12.

"We are not giving up hope that Bill's sentence can be commuted to a life sentence where he could be released for time served (26 years), getting him off death row," she wrote.

Van Poyck, 59, who lives in Richmond, Va., said her brother didn't kill Glades Correctional Institution guard Fred Griffis, a decorated Vietnam veteran. While Van Poyck masterminded the plot to ambush Griffis and another guard in an attempt to free his best friend, he didn't pull the trigger, she said in a phone interview Saturday.

"Billy didn't want anyone to get hurt or anyone to get shot," she insisted.

Like her brother, she blamed the shooting on fellow ex-con Frank Valdes, who was by Van Poyck's side for the botched attempt to free convicted murderer James O'Brien.

The 2 surrounded the prison van when it arrived at a dermatologist's office on North Olive Avenue, where O'Brien was being treated for skin cancer.

When Griffis, 40, threw the keys to the van in the bushes, he was shot 3 times and died instantly. Another guard, Steven Turner, was shot and recovered.

Lisa Van Poyck blamed her brother's predicament on poorly trained defense attorneys, blood-thirsty jurors and a Florida law that holds everyone involved responsible for a murder.

"He didn't kill anyone," she said. "He deserves to be released. He's served enough time in prison for trying to break someone out of a prison transport van."

She said she was "hysterical" when she heard Scott on Friday signed her brother's death warrant.

But she said she is hopeful that attorneys now working to block the execution can win him a new trial in front of jurors who will see he didn't fire the fatal shots and will agree to a life sentence.

"I've always had a vision of my brother walking out of there a free man," she said. "I believe miracles can happen."

However, most of the typical appeals, such as ineffective assistance of counsel, have been heard and rejected by the Florida Supreme Court.

Last year, it again rejected the notion that Van Poyck deserves mercy because he wasn't the triggerman.

In a previous appeal, it said it was unclear whether Van Poyck or Valdes killed Griffis. But justices upheld Van Poyck's death sentence. Valdes was killed by prison guards in 1999.

By Saturday evening, 37 people had signed the petition on Death Row Diary, a website where Lisa Van Poyck posts letters that her brother, an award-winning author of three books, writes her from prison.

Nicholas Francisolas Francis, the husband of William Van Poyck's former girlfriend, called the planned execution unfair.

"We are not talking Ted Bundy or Timothy McVeigh here," he wrote. "We are talking about a man being put to death for killing someone when he did not. We're talking about executing a man based upon a technicality. We all get disgusted and indignant when a guilty person gets off on a technicality. Should we not then be at least equally appalled when it goes the other way?"

As for Van Poyck, he is taking the news of his looming death calmly, his sister said.

Now on death watch he is allowed to call friends and family. When she talked to him Friday afternoon, she said he urged her to be strong.

"Lisa, I've been preparing for this for a long time," she said he told her. "I'm totally at peace with God."

(source: Palm Beach Post)

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

Against a rush to kill Florida prisoners

The News-Press has lent its support to recently passed Florida House Bill 7083, also known as "The Timely Justice Act." I could not agree less, and urge Governor Scott to veto this piece of shoddy legislation as a perversion of justice.

This proposed law would limit the number of appeals a death row prisoner could file, so they could be killed quicker in Florida in order to "get closure" for victim families, who, according to The News-Press "are hurt" by long delays in killing a particular prisoner and would help "people who want ultimate justice for their lost loved ones."

Some of the more important newspapers in Florida have vociferously opposed this measure, citing the 24 wrongfully convicted death row inmates who have been released on proper post-conviction appeals since the death penalty was reinstated in 1973 - the highest number of any American state still killing their prisoners.

But the reason to oppose "The Timely Justice Act" runs a lot deeper than the Florida Legislature and The News-Press rush to kill persons who no longer present a threat to the public. This flawed law is a serious distortion of the very word "justice" and a grievous misapplication of the very purpose of law itself.

The purpose of every proper law in general, and criminal law in particular, is to protect the public. Sentences are imposed to deter future would-be perpetrators of crimes and to remove dangerous persons from the population by incarcerating them for appropriate lengths of time.

The purpose of the law must never be revenge in order to gain some ephemeral emotional satisfaction for the victims of crime and their families. These persons have been hurt and are often in need of constructive psychological and spiritual counseling and support far more than they need bloody revenge.

Persons who have been fairly and properly convicted of murder are rendered harmless to the public through lengthy incarceration in high-security penal facilities. Killing them serves no further public purpose, since there is no evidence whatsoever that executions deter future murders.

There is no democratic nation founded on Judeo-Christian principles that still kills its prisoners except for the United States. Even Russia has indefinitely suspended executions, leaving us in the unsavory company of Saudi Arabia, North Korea and Iran when it comes to capital punishment. Even within our country, 18 states have stopped killing their prisoners. That is why Florida House Bill is wrong: it is swimming against the tide of 21st century justice.

As Dr. King famously said: "The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice." I would hope The News-Press would join the great newspapers of our nation in following that "arc of justice" and not content itself to being a cheerleader for quicker state-sponsored killings.

(source: Guest Opinion, Bruce Diamond----News-Press)

LOUISIANA:

Angola 5 trial delayed again

Over the objections of a prosecutor, the last defendant awaiting trial in the 1999 beating death of a Louisiana State Penitentiary security officer won his 4th trial delay Thursday.

Steven Lemoine and Nick Trenticosta, attorneys for Angola inmate Barry S. Edge, earlier this week requested postponement of the May 20 trial because Trenticosta's father is facing open heart surgery at about the same time.

Potential jurors were scheduled to appear in court May 16 in Covington to fill out questionnaires for state and defense attorneys.

No date was set Thursday for trying the case.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Edge, 53, in the slaying of Capt. David C. Knapps during a foiled escape attempt from Angola's Camp D.

Lemoine told Judge Jerome M. Winsberg that Nick Trenticosta is "a tough guy" used to working under pressure, but he has lost his focus in recent days because of the illnesses of his father and mother.

"In the last 10 days, he's been somewhere else. He's not the same person," Lemoine told the retired Orleans Parish judge presiding over the case.

Lemoine said other members of his colleague's family will be able to tend to the elderly Trenticostas later this summer, but not this month.

Prosecutor Tommy Block, of Jefferson Parish, said he is sympathetic to Trenticosta's family situation, but "these cases are personally, professionally and emotionally demanding on each and every one of us."

After taking office in January 2003, 20th Judicial District Attorney Sam D'Aquilla arranged for Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick to take over prosecution of the so-called Angola 5 inmates accused of killing Knapps.

D'Aquilla recused himself from the case because he briefly represented Edge while serving as a public defense attorney.

Block, Mike Futrell, Lea Hall and Hugo Holland have prosecuted the other four defendants, obtaining 2 death sentences and 2 convictions resulting in life sentences.

Block said he and the others are working in nine parishes across the state on cases involving murder and aggravated rape and will have to rearrange their schedules again to proceed with Edge's trial.

Block also asked Winsberg to consider the Knapps family, some of whom were in the courtroom Thursday, as well as two officers held hostage and traumatized by the incident.

Winsberg said the court's concern for the victims in the case, including the two hostages, is "extremely important," as is Edge's legal situation if he is convicted and appellate lawyers later contend he did not receive adequate representation at trial.

In granting the motion, Winsberg referred to Trenticosta's affidavit in which he says he is going through a very emotional time because of his family obligations.

"It is becoming increasingly clear to me that I do not have the capacity to provide the zealous representation to Mr. Edge during this trying time," Trenticosta said in the affidavit.

Lemoine and Trenticosta took over Edge's defense last year after 1 of his attorneys was arrested with marijuana in his pocket at Angola and the other lost his certification to handle capital cases.

(source: The Advocate)

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Sister Helen Prejean's passion to end the death penalty is a challenge to others

For 2 decades, Sister Helen Prejean has traveled around the country and the world, speaking out against capital punishment. She tells audiences about being a spiritual adviser to inmates on death row and talks about what it means to accompany a man to his death. She tells of meeting the families of the doomed men and the families of their victims. She talks about how the court system works, and how it doesn't. She speaks of forgiveness.

She calls her passion to end the death penalty "a journey that's still happening."

During an interview many years ago, she took me back to the beginning of that journey, when her audiences were considerably smaller than they are now. "I had my smallest crowd right here in New Orleans, at the St. Christopher Home," she said. "3 people showed up, and 2 of them nodded off."

That was before her book "Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States," was published in 1993, and before Susan Sarandon won an Oscar portraying her in the movie.

Since then, Sister Helen has given hundreds and hundreds of talks and filled countless auditoriums. She wrote a 2nd book, "The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions," which came out in 2004. In it, she takes readers with her as she witnesses the executions of 2 men she believes were innocent, and she shows them evidence the juries never saw.

The 1st time I heard Sister Helen speak was at Sacred Heart Academy in 1995, and she held the crowd of high school girls spellbound with her tales of death and pain and forgiveness. I've heard her several times since then. She always makes me think, and makes me question what I think I know. The stories she tells are always different, but her message is the same: Before you decide how you feel about the death penalty, learn everything you can about it.

"I believe a lot of the people who say they support the death penalty have never reflected on it," she said Tuesday when we sat down to talk.

A national award for social justice

Sister Helen was in New Orleans to receive the Robert M. Holstein Faith That Does Justice Award from the Ignatian Solidarity Network, a national social justice advocacy organization. We shared a quiet corner at Cafe Reconcile before the reception in her honor began.

The award is given each year to a person "who has demonstrated a significant commitment to leadership for social justice grounded in the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus." Sister Helen is the 1st woman to receive the award and the 1st non-Jesuit.

When I asked her what she has learned in the 20 years since "Dead Man Walking" was published, she said, "I've learned I can be on the road a lot. I never give a 'canned' talk, so it's always fresh for me. I never get tired of it."

She's preparing for a busy summer because Random House is going to reissue a 20th anniversary edition of her moving best-seller, which will mean a book tour, television and newspaper interviews, and lots of speaking engagements. She's looking forward to all of it.

"The book does good, honest work, and this is going to give it new life, get it out there all over again," she said.

Her story has also spread through the Dead Man Walking Opera, which premiered in 2000, and through the Dead Man Walking School Theater Project, which has brought the story into schools across the country since 2003.

Tim Robbins, who wrote, produced and directed the film adaptation of the book, also wrote a stage play with the idea of bringing it to high school and college theater arts and academic classes. He has said he wants young people to learn about capital punishment and understand all its ramifications.

"He doesn't get a penny for it," Sister Helen said. "It's in 230 high schools and universities, and he feels good about doing it."

Making her way in the world

Sister Helen still marvels at the path her life has taken. She grew up in Baton Rouge in the 1950s, a Catholic schoolgirl, the daughter of a lawyer, a child of privilege. She became a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille and a Catholic school teacher. When she heard that nuns should be involved with social justice, she didn't think that meant her.

"But I woke up in 1980," she said. "The people of St. Thomas educated me."

That was the year she started teaching GED classes at Hope House in the St. Thomas public housing development. She learned a little bit about what it was like to grow up poor and black in New Orleans, and she decided to dedicate her life to helping the poor.

In 1981, she began corresponding with Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killer of 2 teenagers who was sentenced to die in the electric chair at Angola. She offered to become his spiritual adviser, and so she began to learn about the Louisiana prison system. She was with Sonnier when he was executed in 1984, and she has been speaking out against the death penalty ever since.

"Before that, I had never stood up for something," she said.

Tuesday evening, she was honored for standing up.

Before the reception began, the courtyard of the recently renovated Cafe Reconcile was full of people, and so was the beautiful new Emeril Lagasse Foundation banquet area on the 2nd floor. Everyone wanted to see Sister Helen and congratulate her.

Cafe Reconcile was the perfect venue for the celebration. The faith-based organization teaches life skills and job training to the neediest young people of New Orleans and gives them a future. Guests ate delicious hors d'oeuvres prepared and served by students in the program.

When it was time to begin the award presentation, Chris Kerr, director of the Ignatian Solidarity Network, tried to steer Sister Helen to the front of the room. It wasn't easy, because there was always 1 more person to greet, 1 more friend to hug. She was still giving hugs when Bill Hobbs, the Ignatian Solidarity Network board president, began his introduction: "Tonight, we are celebrating Sister Helen and all the amazing work she has done," he said.

He told the audience that the Faith That Does Justice Award was named for the late Robert (Bob) M. Holstein, a fierce advocate for social justice and one of the founders of the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice.

He explained that Sister Helen had initially connected with the the Ignatian Solidarity Network in 2003, when she spoke to thousands of young people at the group's annual Teach-in for Justice and introduced those young people to the Dead Man Walking School Theater Project. She spoke again at the 2010 Teach-In.

'One wild and precious life'

When Kerr handed the award to Sister Helen, she told the audience that it was not really about her. "One thing about getting an award is you know it's a servant role, in the sense that (I'm) like a prism, and you shoot the light through me, and it brings you right to death row," she said.

She reminded the audience that everyone has an obligation "to give ourselves over to something bigger than us."

"As (poet) Mary Oliver said, 'We've been given one wild and precious life, and what are we going to do with it?'" she said, challenging everyone in the room. "To be blessed with passion is maybe the greatest gift God could ever give us."

At the end of her remarks, she received a standing ovation, and Kerr told her that whenever he asked students which speaker was most inspirational at the Teach-Ins, they always have the same answer: "Sister Helen."

Then it was time for a toast. While board members of the the Ignatian Solidarity Network passed through the audience handing out shot glasses filled with scotch -- Sister Helen's favorite drink -- Kerr raised his glass and began to speak: "For her passionate voice for justice, her care and concern for human dignity and for being a person who calls on each of us and challenges each of us ..."

Finally, Sister Helen grew impatient, raised her own glass, and called out, "C'mon Chris!"

Everyone laughed, including Kerr. "So, let's drink to Sister Helen," he said.

And we raised our glasses and drank to her passionate voice for justice and to all that she has done with her one wild and precious life.

(source: The Times-Picayune)

TENNESSEE:

Knoxville torture-murder case to be retried with Nashville jury

The Davidson County Criminal Court has summoned 480 people as potential jurors in a notorious Knoxville murder case.

This will be the 2nd trial for George Thomas, who was convicted in 2009 in the torture and slaying of 21-year-old Channon Christian and her boyfriend, 23-year-old Christopher Newsom. Thomas, of Lebanon, Ky., was originally sentenced to life without parole. He won a retrial in January. That came after Judge Richard Baumgartner, who had overseen the case, abruptly left the bench without having affirmed the verdict. An investigation found Baumgartner was addicted to prescription painkillers that he obtained from a felon in his drug court.

Thomas was 1 of 4 defendants in the slayings whose conviction was called into question by Baumgartner's drug use.

A specially appointed judge denied retrials for Lemaricus Davidson and Letalvis Cobbins, saying that there was physical evidence tying them to the killings. Davidson received the death penalty and Cobbins is serving a life sentence. Vanessa Coleman was granted a retrial. She was sentenced in February to 35 years in prison for helping the 3 men in the attack that killed Christian, who investigators said was kidnapped, raped, tortured and left to die.

The sentence was less than her original sentence of 53 years.

In her 1st trial, she was acquitted of any crimes against Newsom, who was raped and shot before his body was set on fire.

Thomas has maintained he is innocent, saying he was inside the home where the couple was held but took no part in crimes against them.

Potential jurors were summoned to Davidson County Criminal Court on Thursday to fill out questionnaires designed to help attorneys narrow the jury pool. Once jurors are selected, they will be bused to Knoxville on Sunday. The retrial begins Monday.

(source: The Tennessean)

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"The Ballad of Angie Awry" at TheatreWorks

If you want entertainment, go see Miss Saigon or Brighton Beach Memoirs. If you want to experience a harrowing slice of life from the perspective of a disadvantaged, mentally ill woman who's committed murders she can't begin to comprehend, you won't want to miss The Ballad of Angie Awry, presented by Our Own Voice Theater Troupe.

"In the past, I've avoided doing any kind of play where a mentally ill person does something bad, because the stereotype is that they're all a bunch of serial killers," Bill Baker says cautiously. As the founding director of Our Own Voice, Baker works with like-minded artists to explore issues and ideas related to mental health. With his new play, The Ballad of Angie Awry - a play on the not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity legal plea (NGRI, get it?) - Baker is simultaneously exploring new territory and getting back to basics.

"Basically, I've tried to get inside of a person who commits a horrible crime," Baker says. "In the first act, all of her hallucinations are experienced by the audience. We get this extra information, the voices, the paranoia, the heightened trepidation. In the second act, I take that away so the audience is no longer subjectively inside the character. They are looking at things from the outside, as most of us do when we're watching someone with a mental illness on trial."

Baker isn't excusing the crime. "We will certainly recognize that what she's done is wrong," he says. "We'll also understand the obstacles and judgments that led her to these actions, and, hopefully, there will be some compassion for her."

Baker describes Angie Awry as a Brechtian tragedy at the crossroads of the justice and mental-health-care systems, inspired by Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and legislation that would prevent the use of the death penalty in cases where a defendant has a severe and persistent mental illness.

What do we mean when we say Brechtian? In this case it's a deemphasization of traditional theatrical elements like spectacle, fancy dress, and slick acting. Although Baker says the aim of his teaching play is compassion, that may be an over simplification. The audience, being exposed to information the characters don't always have, is shown why compassion is appropriate, even in the midst of horror, when the blood is calling out for vengeance.

OOVs work is fascinating, but it simply isn't going to appeal to everyone. I hate making that disclaimer when I review the group's work, and only do so because the company values a completely different set of theatrical principles than what most people are accustomed to. It's my sincere wish that more people would try a sample, and Angie Awry, with its relatively straightforward narrative, seems like a good place to start. Although it's not a musical, a folk trio has been incorporated into the story, narrating, and commenting on Angie's pitiful circumstances with an extended acoustic ballad that, contemporary references aside, could have been penned a hundred or more years ago. It's this ballad that most firmly connects Angie Awry to something more than a single moment in history, and implants her story deeply in our consciousness.

Our Own Voice Theatre Company presents The Ballad of Angie Awry at TheatreWorks, Through May 11th. $10.

(source: Memphis Flyer)

KANSAS:

Ottawa killings could bring death penalty

A Kansas man suspected of killing 3 adults and a young child on a farm near Ottawa now faces a bevy of murder charges, 2 of which could bring the death penalty.

As the search for the youngest victim's body continued miles away, Kyle Trevor Flack, 27, made his 1st court appearance late Friday afternoon. Franklin County District Judge Eric W. Godderz appointed death penalty specialist Ronald Evans of Topeka to represent Flack, who suggested he wanted to meet his attorney quickly.

"Will I have a chance to talk to my attorney before my next court date?" Flack asked.

The judge said he would try to arrange it.

"The sooner I see him the sooner we can wrap this up," Flack responded, without elaborating.

A host of developments in the case emerged Friday. Authorities revealed that one of the homicide victims had been raped before her death.

The search for that victim's 18-month-old daughter remained fruitless, but authorities acknowledge that her body could be anywhere between Ottawa, where the killings happened, and Emporia, where her mother's car was found. Searches were underway at multiple locations, investigators said, including in ponds, streams and fields.

And authorities declined to discuss a possible motive for the killings. Investigators revealed they had received more than 300 tips in the case this week.

Citing the nature of the charges and Flack's prior conviction for attempted murder, prosecutors asked that he be held in lieu of a $10 million bond. Before the hearing, Flack, wearing shackles and a striped jumpsuit, flashed an obscene gesture to reporters who shouted questions to him as officers escorted him to court.

He did not enter pleas, but he has another court appearance scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on Monday.

Investigators emphasized that they remained focused on finding the body of 18-month-old Lana-Leigh Bailey of Olathe.

Her mother and 2 men were killed on a farm near Ottawa, and although Lana-Leigh hasn't been found, evidence indicates she is dead, authorities have said without elaborating. Early Friday afternoon, several investigators on horseback checked both sides of K-68 near the Marais des Cygnes River. A squad car followed closely behind them.

The bodies of Kaylie Bailey, 21, Andrew Stout, 30, and Steven E. White, 31, were found earlier this week. Friends looking for Stout discovered Bailey's body under a tarp in the home's garage Monday. Officials found a 2nd body Monday and the 3rd Tuesday.

Flack faces two charges that carry a possible death penalty. One accuses him of killing Stout, Bailey and Lana-Leigh as part of 1 course of action sometime between April 28 and May 6. The 2nd capital charge accused Flack of killing Bailey while he raped her or afterward.

Prosecutors also included a conventional rape count in their charges.

White's death allegedly occurred earlier than the others, sometime between April 20 and April 28. His death is charged as a conventional 1st-degree murder, court records said.

Flack also is accused of criminally possessing a firearm.

At a news conference after Flack's court appearance, Franklin County Attorney Stephen Hunting said his office has not made a final decision about whether it will seek the death penalty.

Kansas corrections records showed that Flack was released on parole from a state prison in Hutchinson in July 2009 after serving part of a 5-year sentence for attempted 2nd-degree murder.

Flack completed his parole in April 2012, according to the records.

Earlier he had pleaded guilty to attempting to kill Steve Free by shooting him on May 2, 2005, in a work dispute. Free died from cancer in December 2011.

Members of Free's family said Thursday that they'd been told that Flack was to have been under parole supervision for 15 years.

A transcript of Flack's Sept. 12, 2005, sentencing hearing showed, however, that he received a 59-month prison sentence as part of a plea agreement with Franklin County prosecutors and was ordered to be supervised for 36 months after his release from custody.

The prison sentence was midway between 55 to 61 months, which was the recommended term for a crime of that severity and for a defendant with Flack's criminal history, the transcript showed.

"He served the time the Legislature thought was appropriate," Hunting said Friday.

And, with Franklin County Sheriff Jeff Richards, Hunting addressed the search for Lana-Leigh. "Mr. Flack has not indicated where Lana is," Hunting said.

Richards said searchers have used horses, all-terrain vehicles, an FBI aircraft and a Kansas Highway Patrol helicopter. And an Overland Park police dive team searched a farm pond but found nothing, Richards said.

The sheriff noted that authorities arrested Flack about 60 miles away from Ottawa and reiterated that the search area could be quite large. "We are going to put every effort to bring her home," Richards said.

(source: The Wichita Eagle)

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

Suspect in Kansas farm killings appears in court

A man suspected of killing 3 adults and a toddler on a Kansas farm made a brief court appearance Friday.

Kyle Flack, 27, did not enter a plea, the Kansas City Star reported. He was charged with 4 counts of murder, 2 of capital murder, and 1 of rape.

The bodies of Andrew Stout, 30, and Steven White, 31, who lived on the farm near Ottawa, and Kaylie Baylie, 21, who was visiting, were found earlier this week. Lana-Leigh Baylie, Kaylie's 18-month-old daughter, is missing and believed dead.

Franklin County District Judge Eric W. Godderz appointed Ronald Evans, a Topeka lawyer who specializes in death penalty cases, to represent Flack. Another court hearing was scheduled for Monday, and Godderz told Flack he would try to arrange for him to meet his lawyer before his appearance.

The search for Lana-Leigh's body continued Friday. Franklin County Attorney Stephen Hunting said Flack has not told investigators anything, and the body could have been dumped anywhere between the farm and Emporia, Kansas, where Kaylie's car was discovered.

Flack used to live on the farm but had been ordered to leave by Stout. He served a prison term for attempted murder.

(source: United Press International)

MISSOURI:

A Mother Speaks: "I Don't Want To Lose My Son to the Death Penalty"

When my son was young, he would say, "When I grow up I want to invent things." Reggie as a young boy was always a people person. Almost 30 years later, he sits on death row, and I'm waiting to see whether or not the state of Missouri will take my son's life. This is a parent's worst nightmare.

My son's name is Reginald Clemons, but we call him Reggie. He has been on Missouri's death row for 21 years. No mother can truly imagine that there may come a day where she may have to watch her son take his last breath, listen to his last words and watch him executed. Last year, Reggie was granted an opportunity where his case would be reviewed by a judge who would then recommend to the Missouri Supreme Court whether or not my son should live or die. As we await the judge's recommendations - expected to be announced by June 1st - I want you to understand a few things about my son, his case and just how flawed the death penalty system is.

Then I hope you will take action to stop Reggie's execution and join the movement to abolish the death penalty in the state of Missouri and beyond.

The state of Missouri charged and convicted my son of killing 2 young women - pushing them off a bridge into the Mississippi River in April 1991. The pain the family of these 2 girls has suffered after such a tragic loss is unimaginable. But from the beginning, the case against Reggie has been full of blatant problems:

First - My son's face was so swollen after his interrogation by St. Louis police that the judge arraigning him sent him to the emergency room. More recently, bail investigator Warren Weeks has come forward stating that he saw the injuries on Reggie's face and that he submitted a written report of this observation.

Second - Not 1, not 2, but 4 federal judges have agreed that the prosecutor's conduct during Reggie's trial was "abusive and boorish." This prosecutor compared my son, who at 19 years old never had a criminal record, to 2 convicted serial killers.

Third - I wish race weren't a factor, but it is a fact that the single most reliable predictor of whether someone will be sentenced to death is the race of the victim. My son is a black man. The 2 young women who were killed were white. Add that to the disproportionate dismissal of blacks during jury selection, and you get a perfect storm of racial discrimination.

How can my son be about to lose his life when there is evidence of both prosecutorial misconduct and police brutality involved with his case? The judicial system is meant to be fair, however many of those who sit on death row are up against a flawed judicial system where justice for many lives has yet to prevail.

Over the years, many of you have joined our family in advocating against the death penalty, for justice, for what's right. It's kept us strong, even when fighting for so many years against such an unjust system has been tiring.

We must continue. For justice and for Reggie.

Thank you.

(source: Guest Commentary By Vera Thomas, Reggie Clemons' Mother----Amnesty International USA blog)

NEBRASKA:

Lawmakers advance Neb. wrongful-conviction payout

A man who spent nearly 14 years in a Nebraska prison after he was wrongly convicted of murdering his wife came one step closer Friday to a $500,000 settlement that will pay for his dream home.

Lawmakers gave first-round approval to a $450,000 payment for Darrel Parker, more than four decades after a federal appeals court overturned his conviction on grounds that his confession to police was coerced.

The State Claims Board has already approved $50,000 in compensation, but lawmakers are required to approve the rest. Reached by phone earlier this week, the 81-year-old said the money would help cover the final payments on a house that he shares with his current wife in Moline, Ill.

"It's been a long time coming, but we're happy that the bill is moving along," Parker said. "This will make things much easier for us. At least we'll have some security in our old age."

The payout came after state officials decided to stop fighting a lawsuit and give him $500,000 in compensation -- the maximum amount permitted under state law.

Parker was convicted in 1956 of 1st-degree murder in the death of his wife, Nancy, who was found raped, bound and strangled in their Lincoln home.

He was released from prison in 1970 and received a full pardon in 1991, after another man, Wesley Peery, confessed while sitting on death row for a similar slaying. Peery's confession to his lawyer was protected by attorney-client privilege, but became public after he died of a heart attack in 1988.

Last year, Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning publicly conceded Parker's innocence and announced that his office would not fight the claim.

The payout to Parker was included in the Legislature's annual state claims bill, which is required to pay for major legal settlements against the state.

The measure comes as lawmakers prepare to debate a death-penalty repeal bill on Monday. Sen. Steve Lathrop of Omaha, a lawyer who presented the claims bill, said Parker's case illustrates flaws with the death penalty.

"Our system is not perfect enough, in my opinion, to impose death as a form of punishment," Lathrop said. "This is an example, and for us to pay this Mr. Parker fellow, the attorney general's office had to come to the conclusion that it was obvious in hindsight."

Peery had worked around the Parkers' home in 1955, and was questioned during the initial murder investigation but released. Earlier this year, the Lancaster County attorney's office discovered 14 witness reports of a vehicle near the murder site that matched the description of a vehicle Peery owned at the time.

Parker was 24 when he returned home to find his wife dead in their bed. Her feet and hands were bound, handkerchiefs had been stuffed in her mouth and her face was badly bruised. The medical examiner concluded she had been raped, then strangled with a cord knotted around her neck.

Hours after his wife's funeral in Iowa, Parker was summoned to Lincoln police headquarters and subjected to a 12-hour polygraph test, according to his lawsuit. He confessed during the police interrogation, but soon recanted. The lawsuit alleged the investigator who administered the polygraph coerced him into the false confession.

He was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. In 1969, a federal appeals court overturned the conviction, saying the confession was forced, and Parker was released. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed that ruling a few months later and, according to the lawsuit, Parker was offered a deal by the county attorney that would allow him to remain free on parole if he would drop his objections to the confession.

Nebraska passed its 2009 wrongful convictions law in an effort to compensate the so-called "Beatrice 6" and others wrongly imprisoned in Nebraska. 6 people were convicted in the 1985 rape and murder of 68-year-old Helen Wilson, of Beatrice. They spent a combined total of more than 90 years in prison, until DNA evidence exonerated them all in 2008.

Some later brokered settlements with the state over their convictions, including at least 1 for the maximum $500,000.

Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha said Friday that he plans to introduce a bill next year that would eliminate the $500,000 cap on compensation for prison inmates who are wrongly convicted.

(source: Associated Press)

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

Opponents analyze death penalty costs ahead of repeal debate

A new analysis by opponents of the death penalty indicates that capital punishment cases in Nebraska are appealed nearly 5 times more and take more than twice as long to litigate as cases in which life in prison is the maximum sentence.

The study, its author said Friday, is intended to provide "hard evidence" that the added expense and extra court time involving death penalty cases is not worth it because it has resulted in only 3 executions in 40 years.

"Capital punishment is a bloated government program that has clogged our courts, delayed justice for victims' families and devoured millions of crime-fighting dollars," stated the report, authored by Alan Peterson, a Lincoln attorney who has defended death-row inmates.

A proponent of the death penalty, meanwhile, said that the additional cost and litigation involving death cases is worth it because the most heinous murderers deserve the ultimate punishment.

"Justice should not be dictated by cost," said State Sen. Jim Scheer of Norfolk. "A lot of things we do (in government) cost too much."

Omaha Sen. Scott Lautenbaugh added that if the death penalty was repealed, it would just shift more court appeals to the new maximum sentence, life in prison without parole.

The study comes as the Nebraska Legislature prepares Monday to debate a bill to repeal the death penalty.

Legislative Bill 543 was introduced by State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, a leading death-penalty opponent.

Capital punishment is nearly an annual issue for the State Legislature but hasn't gotten to a vote for several years.

Nebraska is 1 of 32 states that have a death penalty. In the past 6 years, however, 6 states have repealed capital punishment.

Peterson, who is a registered lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union, said he undertook the study to refute the notion that murder cases that don't involve the death penalty require just as much time and effort as cases that do.

In cases where life in prison was the maximum punishment, the study found that the average number of appeals was 1.64 and it took an average of 5.8 years to resolve all appeals.

That compares to an average of 7.76 appeals per death penalty case and an average appeals time of 13.3 years. Those figures came from capital punishment cases dating back to 1973, when the state reinstituted the death penalty. Peterson said that comparable statistics for life sentence cases extend back to 1982.

A spokeswoman for Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said the study had an inaccurate number of appeals: The report said cases were closed on 2 murderers convicted of life in prison when in fact they still have appeals pending. Shannon Kingery, the spokeswoman, also criticized a contributor to the report, Lincoln defense attorney Jerry Soucie, for filing "multiple meritless appeals" in death penalty cases and now declaring there are too many.

"Nebraskans deserve an honest debate about the death penalty, not the barrage of misinformation and distortions offered in the past or present by groups like the ACLU," Kingery said, adding that cost of capital case appeals account is 1 % or less of the appeals handled by the office.

In response, Soucie said that he is ethically obliged, as a defense attorney, to pursue all legal appeals on behalf of those convicted to death. To do otherwise, he said, would prolong a death penalty case by affording a new appeal: ineffective counsel.

Peterson could not be reached immediately to respond to the inaccuracies. The report states that the information on appeals by inmates came from court records and reports filed by county attorneys to the state on homicide cases.

Death-penalty cases offer at least 44 more avenues for appeal, the report stated. They also require 3 "trials" - 1 to determine guilt; one to prove if the crime qualifies for the death penalty because of aggravating circumstances, such as an especially heinous slaying; and a 3rd to determine if death should be the sentence.

Peterson noted that the study did not look at federal court appeals afforded to those convicted to die, which would add several more appeals and years in court.

Such delays, he said, are an emotional burden for victims' families and siphon resources that could be used better elsewhere to solve crime.

In 2009, Nebraska changed its method of execution from the electric chair to lethal injection, which has opened up a whole new family of appeals. Executions in the state are on hold as a federal court weighs whether Nebraska has to surrender its supply of sodium thiopental, one of the three drugs used in an execution.

11 men now sit on Nebraska death row. Carey Dean Moore, convicted of murdering 2 Omaha taxi cab drivers, has been there the longest: 34 years.

Since 1973, the study said, about 1,125 people have been charged with murder in Nebraska, about 260 have been convicted of 1st-degree murder, and 33 have been sentenced to die.

In only about 7 % of the murder cases between 1973 and 2007 was capital punishment sought, and of those, less than 1/3 result in a death sentence.

Of all murders in Nebraska in that time period, less than 1 % result in an execution, the study said.

(source: Omaha World-Herald)

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

Report says death penalty is slow, expensive

As Nebraska lawmakers prepare to debate whether to abolish the death penalty, a new report says the state has spent an exorbitant amount of time and money on capital punishment - with few results.

"The average delay for appeals more than doubles for death sentences: 13.3 years versus 5.8 years for life sentences," attorney and longtime death penalty opponent Alan Peterson said in a report given to lawmakers Friday. "The number of appeals for death cases averages 7.76, and the number of appeals for life sentences averages only 1.64 filings."

The report quotes Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, who told the Legislature's Judiciary Committee earlier this year that studies have shown the average death penalty case costs $3 million to prosecute, compared to $1.1 million for cases of life without parole.

Since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of capital punishment, Dieter said, Nebraska has spent an estimated $100 million on death penalty cases.

"It has resulted in 3 executions," he said.

According to the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, it costs an average of about $36,000 per year to keep a person in a maximum-security prison. That means that over 25 years, the state would spend $900,000 to house an inmate.

Lawmakers will begin debate Monday on a bill (LB543) by Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha to change the death penalty to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Chambers, the most ardent death penalty opponent in the Legislature, was re-elected to his North Omaha seat in November after sitting out 4 years because of term limits. Each year from 1973 to 2008, he introduced a bill to abolish the death penalty. In 1979, his bill passed but was vetoed by then-Gov. Charles Thone.

Last week, Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley of Maryland signed a law making that state the 6th in as many years to abolish the death penalty and the 18th overall to abandon capital punishment.

And some observers sense this could be the year Nebraska lawmakers follow suit.

Peterson's report also quotes Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, a project of Equal Justice USA, a national organization working to end the death penalty in the United States.

"Capital punishment is a bloated government program that has clogged our courts, delayed justice for victims' families and devoured millions of crime-fighting dollars," the group says on its website.

"For fiscal conservatives, the cost of the death penalty is indefensible."

Before a death sentence may be imposed in Nebraska, a capital case essentially goes through three trials: the guilt/innocence phase; a hearing to prove aggravating circumstances, such as whether the killing was particularly heinous; and a sentencing hearing.

"Without the death penalty, the costs involved in these 2 additional trials are eliminated," Peterson said. "Subsequent appellate litigation to correct serious error and constitutional defect that occurred in phases 2 and 3 are also eliminated."

Among those supporting Chambers' bill is the Nebraska Innocence Project, which is part of a national network that gives free legal representation to people wrongly convicted of crimes. It was founded in 1992 to help prisoners who could be proved innocent through DNA testing.

To date, 306 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 18 who served time on death row. They spent an average of 13 years in prison before exoneration and release.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, its use is in sharp decline.

9 states executed people in 2012, compared with 13 the year before. The 43 executions in 2012 were 56 % fewer than at the peak in 1999. The 78 people sentenced to death in 2012 represented a 75 % decline since 1996, when 315 death sentences were handed down.

A comprehensive study of the death penalty in Nebraska done by the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy found these details from the 1,450 murder cases in Nebraska from 1973 to 2013:

* 235 1st-degree murder convictions, or 16 % of all murder cases.

* Death penalty sought in 103 cases, or 7 % of all murder cases.

* 31 death sentences given, or 2 % of all murder cases.

* 3 executions, less than 1 % of all murder cases.

Nebraska has 11 men on death row. The last execution in Nebraska was in 1997, when Robert E. Williams was electrocuted. He confessed to killing 3 women and trying to kill a 4th during a 3-day rampage in 1977 that crossed into 3 states.

(source: Columbus Telegram)

COLORADO:

Judge will allow James Holmes' attorneys to argue for 'heightened standards of fairness'

The judge overseeing the movie theater shooting case has granted a defense motion to add a hearing about fairness to next week's court schedule.

Accused shooter James Holmes and his defense were already expected to argue that they be allowed to change the current not guilty plea to not guilty by reason of insanity. That hearing is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Monday.

Judge Carlos Samour wrote Friday that he would add to the scheduled appearance the defense's requested hearing about "heightened standards of fairness and reliability to all aspects of this capital case."

Samour noted that the prosecution had objected to the defense's motion, but had not filed a written response. The response, however, is posted on the site hosting the case's public documents.

Samour had offered to delay the hearing if the prosecution wanted to file a response, but that doesn't appear to be necessary.

Holmes, a 25-year-old former University of Colorado graduate student, is charged with 166 counts in the July 20 massacre. The shooting, which occurred during a showing of the "The Dark Knight Rises," left 12 moviegoers dead and injured 70 people.

Prosecutors declared on April 1 they would seek the death penalty.

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Letters urge governor to deny clemency for Nathan Dunlap, sentenced to death for 4 murders

Gov. John Hickenlooper is being asked to "show courage" by denying clemency for Nathan Dunlap, sentenced to death for killing four employees of an Aurora Chuck E. Cheese during a robbery in 1993.

Letters to the governor from the Arapahoe County District Attorney and his deputy district attorney, the jury foreman on the last Colorado death penalty case from State Representative Rhonda Fields and from a former co-worker were made public Friday. All of them argued that Nathan Dunlap deserves the death penalty for his crime because he admitted killing all four employees to eliminate witnesses in the case.

The only other inmates on Colorado's death row were also convicted of killing a witness in a criminal case, the son of Rep. Fields, who was scheduled to testify against them.

The jury foreman on the Robert Ray case, who did not want his name released, wrote Hickenlooper, telling him "Mr. Dunlap, as he stated himself, killed people because they would be witnesses. Freedom, peace and justice are all values worth more than any one of our individual lives."

The foreman called the Chuck E. Cheese murders as "Aurora's original mass shooting." He also addressed augments that racism played a part in placing Dunlap on death row.

"You must trust that your citizens are not racists or ignorant fools," the jury foreman wrote. "Show the nation that Colorado does not tolerate cowardly acts of mass murder."

Rep. Rhonda Fields wrote the governor about her personal experience in the death penalty trials of Robert Ray and Sir Mario Owens -- the two men convicted of killing her son and his fiancee

Fields also argued that racism did not play a part in any of the 3 death penalty verdicts -- all rendered in Arapahoe County.

"It was not the fault of the DA back in 1993 or the DA in 2005 that Dunlap, Ray and Owens all chose to commit their murders in Arapahoe County. It was the nature of the murders, not their locations, that cause the death penalty decisions."

She called it "offensive" to suggest that race played a part in any of the cases.

Regarding the Ray and Owens death penalty verdicts, Fields wrote, "...the jurors believed that the killing of witnesses was the main factor that required the death penalty." She added, "I know that Dunlap, when asked why he killed his victims, answered that it was because they were witnesses to his crime."

She concluded her letter to the governor by saying, "I think that granting clemency would send the wrong message to criminals and to witnesses."

District Attorney George Brauchler and Chief Deputy District Attorney Matt Maillaro wrote a joint letter to to Hickenlooper, stating, "He (Dunlap) took the lives of four Colorado citizens and justice requires he now pays with his own."

"We ask you to take the courageous stop of not granting his request for executive clemency," the 2 also wrote.

A former Chuck E. Cheese co-worker and high school acquaintance of Nathan Dunlap also wrote Gov. Hickenlooper, urging him to not grant clemency for the condemned murderer.

The woman, who did not want to publicly identified, told Hickenlooper, "(Dunlap) was always a vindictive, evil and mean dark person."

She said Dunlap is a "bad person, he always has been and I believe he always will be...His actions did not just happen to occur on this one horrible night, it was from the monster that he always was."

The woman relates personal interactions with Dunlap at school and at work where she said he used "intimidation and fear."

The woman said she was scheduled to work the night of the murders but had changed her schedule in order to babysit. She said that decision saved her life. She is now a nurse.

-- DA's response: http://ch7ne.ws/11Z9LxB

-- Ray jury foreman and Rep. Fields responses: http://ch7ne.ws/16niHmb

-- Letter from co-worker who was supposed to work the night of the shooting: http://ch7ne.ws/10odAtF

Dunlap has been sentenced to die by lethal injection during the week of Aug. 18. The last person executed in Colorado was Gary Lee Davis in 1997.

Before that, the last person executed in Colorado was Luis Monge in 1967. Monge was executed in the gas chamber for murdering his wife and 3 children. Prior to his death, Colorado averaged 1 execution per year for the years the gas chamber replaced hanging in the state, which was 1934.

(source for both: thedenverchannel.com)

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DA seeks no clemency for death row inmate Dunlap

The district attorney of the office that prosecuted a death-row inmate who killed 4 employees at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant a 1993 is among those asking Gov. John Hickenlooper to take the "courageous step" of rejecting his clemency petition.

Nathan Dunlap's lawyers are seeking clemency while also fighting in court to try to spare him from execution for the Aurora slayings, which happened during a robbery. They say their client had undiagnosed bipolar disorder at the time.

Several letters to Hickenlooper that were released Friday say Dunlap's death sentence should be carried out. They were from Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler and Senior Chief Deputy District Attorney Matt Maillaro; the jury foreman in a separate Colorado death penalty case; and state Rep. Rhonda Fields.

A judge has scheduled Dunlap's execution for the week of Aug. 18. Dunlap would be the 1st person Colorado has executed since 1997.

He is among 3 men on Colorado's death row. The other 2 were convicted in the death of Fields' son, who was to testify against them in another case. The jury foreman who wrote to Hickenlooper had served at the trial of one of the men, Robert Ray. The foreman's name was redacted from the letter.

Brauchler and Maillaro wrote that the Colorado Legislature, the courts and the jury in Dunlap's case already have resolved moral and legal questions surrounding his death sentence.

"In short, to commute Nathan Dunlap's death sentence after almost 20 years would be a cruel and unjust slap in the face to those family members who have been waiting so long for justice, and it would disregard the facts of the case and the law of the land," they wrote.

In a letter more than 30 pages long, the prosecutors outline why Hickenlooper should allow the jury's decision to sentence Dunlap to death to be carried out.

"We ask you to take the courageous step of not granting his petition for executive clemency, as Mr. Dunlap and his lawyers have presented you with nothing that should cause you to believe his punishment is not just when balanced against the gravity of his crimes," they wrote.

Dunlap's lawyers have said he is remorseful. They also argue that Colorado's death penalty law, which mandates execution by lethal injection, could cause excruciating pain in violation of the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, partly because it doesn't list required qualifications for executioners and doesn't include medical safeguards.

They also plan to argue that Dunlap cannot be executed until after he finishes a 75-year prison term for robbery and that making him wait on death row for a decade and a half is cruel and unusual punishment.

(source: Associated Press)

ARIZONA:

Arias murder trial: Death penalty for women is rare; Last female execution in Arizona: Gruesome 1930 hanging

If a jury finds Jodi Arias eligible for the death penalty, she would join only a handful of women on Arizona's death row.

Only 3 of the 125 inmates on death row in Arizona are women, and one of them, Debra Milke, recently had her conviction overturned. A woman hasn't been executed in Arizona since 1930. And that execution didn't go very well. Eva Dugan, convicted of killing a Tucson chicken farmer, was hanged and accidentally decapitated.

Arias was convicted Wednesday of the premeditated murder of her former boyfriend, Travis Alexander. Next week jurors will start deliberating whether the 32-year-old should get the death penalty or life in prison.

Killing unlikely

"Statistically ... it's very unlikely that she will be sentenced to death," said Victor Streib, a retired law professor at Ohio Northern University who has researched the death penalty since the 1970s. "If she's sentenced to death, it's extremely unlikely she'll be put to death. But predicting what a jury will do is difficult."

Streib and other experts point to 2 factors leading to the low number of women on death row:

-- Women commit far fewer 1st-degree murders than men.

-- Jurors may have a gender bias, viewing women as mothers and caregivers, traits that make it harder to impose the death penalty, they say.

Still not treated equally

"Even though we've come a long way in trying to treat women and men equally, as we know, we aren't there," said Andy Silverman, an attorney who has worked on capital cases and a professor at the University of Arizona's James E. Rogers College of Law.

Nationally, women commit about 10 % of murders but account for only about 2 % of death sentences. In a given year, 3 to 5 women receive the death penalty, a number that has stayed about the same over the past 40 years, Streib said.

It's even more rare for a state to execute a woman. Since 1973, women have accounted for only 12 executions, less than 1 %.

Women are also more likely to kill someone close to them - a husband, lover or a child - than strangers, the experts say. Crimes of passion are many times not premeditated, so they don't end up being capital cases.

Killing those they know well

In Arias' case, she knew her victim well. Travis Alexander was her former boyfriend, and they had an on-again, off-again relationship. They would split up, but then he would invite her over for sex.

Arias admitted killing Alexander on June 4, 2008. 5 days later, friends found Alexander in the shower of his Mesa home. He had 27 stab wounds, a slashed throat and a bullet in his head.

The jury will look at what are called "aggravating factors" in determining whether she deserves the death penalty.

The prosecution has alleged cruelty as an aggravating factor in Arias' case. For a finding of cruelty, the jury must agree that the victim, while conscious, experienced mental and physical pain and that the defendant knew or should have known that the victim would suffer.

The jury has to find an aggravating factor - or the death penalty is off the table. Arias would instead then get 25 years to life in prison or life without the possibility of parole.

In the Arias case, the experts say that even though the jury found her guilty of 1st-degree murder, sentencing her to death is another matter.

"Even somebody who voted for (1st-degree murder) may not feel comfortable with the death penalty," Silverman said.

(source: Courier Post Online)

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Jodi Arias trial: Jurors to reconvene next week over sentencing

On May 9 NY Times reports that the jury for the Jodi Arias trial will reconvene on May 15 to decide whether Jodi will be given the death penalty for the first degree murder of Travis Alexander. It seems that as a whole the group can't make the life altering decision as to whether allow her to sit in prison for the rest of her life, with the possibility of parole, no matter how improbable, or give her the death sentence.

This trial has been full of twists and turns and while Jodi was very ruthless in the way that she murdered Travis Alexander, she was obviously a victim of some degree, as it was very obvious to most that she was being played and wasn't as meaningful to him as she was to him. The life altering decision of handing someone the death sentence takes a toll on everyone. The jury will individually have to live with the fact. for the rest of their lives, that they played a part in killing someone. Jodi Arias wants the death penalty as she feels that it would be the ultimate freedom and she wants it as quickly as possible. However, if Jodi were given the death sentence, she would be only one of four women to ever be on death row in the state of Arizona.

The jury will reconvene on May 15 and hopefully they will have had a chance to come to an agreement that suits everyone.

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

Jodi Arias is afraid to face victim's family

On May 10, 2013 ABC News 15 out of Ariz. reported the latest in the Jodi Arias drama extravaganza. It's now being reported that the woman doesn't want to face the loved ones of Travis Alexander when they make their post-trial statements. Her attorneys have formally requested that Travis's loved ones make their statements on video for the jury to view, and not do so in the presence of Arias during the sentencing phase of the trial, post-conviction. This appears to be a final attempt at having the upper hand after being convicted of 1st-degree murder. Arias believed she wouldn't be convicted, and was quoted as saying that no jury would ever convict her. Now it seems that she is tucking her tail, so-to-speak, and is too cowardly to face those who were impacted most by the horrific murder she committed.

The motion that was filed by her attorneys said the following:

"Ms. Arias requests that any and all victim impact evidence be presented via videotape so as to prevent an unpredictable outburst."

What is meant by the above statement? Are Arias's attorneys insinuating that Jodi may have an outburst of anger, despair or guilt? If justice were to truly be served -- and it looks like it may -- then the victim impact statements will be made in person, just feet from Jodi Arias. It seems as though the just decision would be for all parties to be present throughout the entirety of the trial.

The Phoenix based Herald and News reports that the sentencing portion of the trial has been postponed until next week. That means Jodi has time to mull over her actions and the events that have transpired over the past several days. She is undoubtedly playing over the jurors announcing their agreement to the conviction, 1-by-1, while she thinks about whether or not it's even worth it to appeal the conviction. She claims that she wants the death penalty, that it's better to her than a life sentence. She'll find out just what's in store in a few days.

(source for both: The Examiner)

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

Who was last person executed in Arizona?

--60-year-old Richard Dale Stokley was put to death Dec. 5, 2012

--He was convicted for the 1991 rape and murder of 2 girls

--125 inmates are currently on Arizona death row; 3 are women

If newly convicted killer Jodi Arias gets the death penalty, it could be decades before the sentence is ever carried out.

Arizona's most recent execution was that of 60-year-old Richard Dale Stokley on Dec. 5, 2012, by lethal injection. He was convicted in 1992 for the 1991 rape and murder of 2 teenage girls who were abducted from a July 4 fair.

Stokley and another man, Randy Brazeal, took the girls out into the desert where they were raped, strangled, stomped and stabbed to death. The men took the bodies and threw them into an abandoned mine shaft. The next day, Stokley turned himself in to police.

Despite that confession and conviction, Stokley spent the next 20 years on death row appealing his sentence. In return for a lesser sentence, Brazeal entered a plea agreement saying Stokley was the one who did the actual murders.

Arizona's state website lists 125 inmates currently on death row. Several of them have been there since the 1980s. Edward Schad, for example, was sentenced to death row on Jan. 2, 1980. His case is still being appealed to various courts this year.

There are 3 women on Arizona's death row. Wendi Andriano was put there by Arias prosecutor Juan Martinez. She too claimed self-defense in the 2008 killing of her husband. It came out in court that he had been poisoned and was undergoing debilitating chemotherapy for advanced stage cancer. The prosecution said Andriano killed him for a malpractice settlement.

According to AZCentral.com, Debra Milke was sentenced to death for having her 4-year-old son killed in 1989. Just this month, an appeals court tossed out her 1991 conviction. They said she deserved a new trial because the detective in the case had a history of misconduct issues. He testified she had confessed to him, but she denies it, and no record of the confession exists.

The 3rd woman, Shawna Forde, was sentenced to death for the 2009 killings of a man and his daughter in their home. Prosecutors said she was the ringleader of a robbery operation that targeted the man because they believed he was a drug dealer. Her defense was based around the idea that she was never in the home. Forde had previously made her name as a member of Arizona's controversial Minutemen movement.

The botched Arizona execution of the notorious Eva Dugan led the state to change from hanging to the gas chamber. In 1992, voters decided to switch yet again to lethal injection.

(source: HLN TV News)

CALIFORNIA:

Fugitive Ukiah murder suspect brought back to U.S.

After 12 years and 8 months on the run in Mexico, a man suspected in the brutal slaying of a 1-time Ukiah neighbor could find himself facing the death penalty now that he's in the hands of Mendocino County authorities.

Charges lodged Friday against Jerred Raymond Hernandez, 32, include 1st-degree murder with special circumstances that could mean a death sentence or life imprisonment without possibility of parole if he's convicted.

Hernandez's arrest and pending prosecution bring to a close one of the lengthiest and most complex manhunts for Ukiah police, Chief Chris Dewey said.

The arrest also brings some closure to the family of Michael Williamson, who was killed in his parents' home, said father Norman Williamson, 89.

"We're a close, happy family and you can imagine what this does for us to have this resolved," the elder Williamson said.

Just this week, the family gathered at their Carolyn Drive house to celebrate the joint birthdays of Michael, who would have turned 57, and his younger brother Dan, as they do most years, Norman Williamson said.

But this year, with Hernandez in custody, the family celebrated with a new sense of relief they have not felt since Michael Williamson was killed Aug. 2, 2000.

"We learned to live with our lives. Our faith supported us through it, but it is nice to have it resolved," Williamson said.

Firefighters found Williamson bludgeoned to death in the home, which had also been burglarized, police said. The suspect apparently set a small fire, which mainly caused smoke damage.

Hernandez, who was 19 at the time and living around the corner, was quickly identified as a suspect through physical evidence and several statements from family members and acquaintances, Detective Rick Pintane said.

Police said Hernandez was among several addicts whom Williamson, a recovering drug user, had been mentoring.

But Hernandez was gone, and his father later told police he visited an uncle in Ensenada, Mexico, according to a federal warrant for his arrest filed in September 2000.

That is where Mexican police found him Sunday, after an adulthood spent on the run.

But in the early days of the investigation, police were following tips that Hernandez could also be in Humboldt County, Trinity County or Southern California.

The investigation eventually led police to the East Coast as well as Mexico and Canada, said Pintane, who was part of the original investigation team and took over the case in 2010.

"You have to keep opening doors to get the right door," Pintane said.

A television show, "America's Most Wanted," featured the search for Hernandez in February 2012. Several tips prompted by the show went nowhere, Pintane said.

Then, about a month ago, Ukiah police received their first solid sign of Hernandez's whereabouts: photographs as well as "communications," which Pintane wouldn't describe further but said involved technology and resources not available a decade ago.

They alerted the FBI, and federal agents coordinated with Mexican police on his apprehension Sunday.

Hernandez was charged Friday in Mendocino County Court with 1st-degree murder with special circumstances for commission of the crime in the course or a robbery, murder in the course of a burglary, murder while engaged in an arson, as well as independent charges of 1st-degree robbery, 1st-degree burglary and arson, with a special allegation for use of an accelerant.

He is to return to court May 21 to enter a plea.

Hernandez is being held without bail.

Norman Williamson, a retired English teacher who taught at Ukiah High School and Mendocino College, said he and his wife Maggie stayed in their home even after the devastating events that took place there.

They raised 4 children in the home and have hosted 8 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. Their daughter is moving next door.

"Mike was a good kid," Williamson said.

And although Hernandez's arrest also brings up the grief, Williamson said his family has experienced more good than bad, "way way way more," he added.

"That was a big bad one, but this is our life. It's been right here, and this is where it's going to end too," Williamson said.

(source: The Press Democrat)

WASHINGTON:

Justices weigh death penalty in Carnation killings.

The state Supreme Court is considering whether prosecutors should be allowed to seek the death penalty against 2 people accused of killing a family of 6 in Carnation on Christmas Eve 2007.

In arguments before the justices Thursday, the King County Prosecutor’s Office argued that Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ramsdell overstepped his authority by taking capital punishment off the table, The Seattle Times reported.

Ramsdell ruled in January that in making their decision to seek execution, prosecutors should only have considered whether mitigating evidence warranted leniency for the defendants, Michele Anderson and her former boyfriend, Joseph McEnroe. Instead, they also considered the strength of their case, the judge said.

Senior deputy prosecutor James Whisman argued that Ramsdell didn’t have access to all of the mitigation evidence his office considered, and he said decisions to seek the death penalty are not reviewable by the judiciary because they are charging decisions, which rest with the elected prosecutor.

Anderson and McEnroe are charged with aggravated 1st-degree murder in the slaughter of Anderson's family - her parents, brother, sister-in-law, and her young niece and nephew. The only possible penalties for aggravated 1st-degree murder are life without release and the death penalty.

Under state law, mitigating factors in potential death-penalty cases can include evidence of an extreme mental disturbance or impairment. Leniency also can be merited if a suspect acted under duress or domination of another person.

Attorney Kathryn Ross, who represented the defendants before the Supreme Court, argued that the state's death penalty statute is unique in that prosecutors are directed to impose it only if there isn't sufficient evidence of mitigating factors to merit leniency.

"I guess that's why we're here - to decide how to read that statute. Is mitigation the only thing they consider" in deciding to seek the death penalty, said Chief Justice Barbara Madsen.

Outside the courtroom, Pam Mantle - whose daughter Erica Anderson and grandchildren Nathan and Olivia were among those killed - said the constant delays in the case have taken a toll.

"Everything has been put on hold. You just wait and wait and nothing happens," she said.

3 weeks after Ramsdell issued his ruling, King County Superior Court Judge Ronald Kessler tossed the death penalty in another high-profile case: the 2009 killing of Seattle police officer Timothy Brenton. Kessler ruled that prosecutor Dan Satterberg abused his discretion by relying on a flawed investigation into mitigating factors that could have merited leniency for the defendant, Christopher Monfort.

The Supreme Court is to hear oral arguments in Monfort's case June 27.

(source: Associated Press)

USA:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg shows different side to DePaul audience

It was a different side of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that a DePaul University audience of some 500 were treated to at a centennial celebration for its law, business and music schools Friday night at the Chicago History Museum.

They got a witty, laid-back, opera aficionado who humorously linked those divergent fields together in deft commentary.

But they also heard poignant remarks at night's end about Ginsberg's lifelong championing of equality for all and the most difficult cases to come before her - those involving the death penalty.

DePaul, said the 80-year-old justice and staunch women's rights advocate, "holds a special place in my remembrance of good things past," as it conferred on her an honorary degree in 1985, "8 years before I was appointed to this invitation-attracting job I now hold."

The event featured Ginsburg - on the court 20 years, appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993 - sitting on stage engaging in a 1-on-1 repartee with William Mason, the Lyric Opera of Chicago's general director emeritus.

The 2 bantered between various opera performances by DePaul music faculty - with Ginsberg's daughter-in-law, soprano Patrice Michaels, a voice teacher at University of Chicago who is married to her son, James, and sings with the Lyric Opera, a special guest.

Michaels performed an original piece dedicated to the justice.

Ginsburg, considered part of the court's moderate-liberal bloc, kicked off the evening with a short lecture about law and opera, displaying her keen knowledge of that medium as the names and plots of myriad operatic pieces rolled off her tongue.

"Lawyers and judges as a rule fare rather badly in operatic works," she said to laughter.

"My expertise to address this topic may not be clear. For truth be told, I am ill-equipped to break out in song. My grade school music teacher labeled me a sparrow, not a robin, and instructed me to just mouth the words. Still, in my dreams I can be a great diva."

It was after the program - accepting a handful of questions from the audience - that Ginsburg talked of her court career.

Born Mar. 15, 1933, in a low-income, working class neighborhood in Brooklyn, she graduated 1st in her class at Cornell University in 1954. She spoke of the male-dominated, hostile environment she encountered at Harvard Law School.

"In the law, women were simply not there in the ancient days when I went to law school, maybe 3 % of women were of the legal profession. My entry class at Harvard had over 500 people - 9 women," the justice said.

But Ginsburg excelled at Harvard, becoming the first female member of its prestigious Law Review before transferring to Columbia Law School, where she again graduated 1st in her class in 1959. It was the gender discrimination she encountered when seeking employment that shaped her early feminist views, she said.

"People always ask me, 'Did you always want to be a judge?' What I wanted to do was get a job," she said. "It's absolutely wonderful to see the changes and where we are now."

She taught at Rutgers University Law School from 1963-1972; and Columbia from 1972-1980, becoming Columbia's 1st female, tenured professor. She entered the national spotlight in the '70s, as director of the Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, a time during which she argued 6 landmark gender equality cases before the Supreme Court.

Asked her heroes, she drew laughter with: "I suppose mine was Nancy Drew, because she was a girl who was out there doing her work, and dominating her boyfriend." Turning serious, she named the late 1800s suffragist Belva Ann Lockwood, one of the nation's 1st female lawyers and the 1st woman allowed to practice before the Supreme Court - in 1879, after having successfully petitioned Congress to change that law.

"And Bella wasn't satisfied," said Ginsburg. "She ran for president twice, in 1884 and 1888. She said I know we don't have the vote yet, but there is nothing in the constitution that says we can't run for president."

Ginsberg was appointed in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter to the U.S. Court of Appeals, then selected by Clinton to fill the seat then vacated by Supreme Court Justice Byron White.

She wrote the court's 1996 landmark decision in U.S. vs. Virginia, which said the state-supported Virginia Military Institute could not refuse women. She also wrote a dissenting opinion in Bush v. Gore, in which the majority Court decided Bush won the 2000 presidential election.

"What I've tried to do is show the world is a better place for all of us - men, women and children - if we aren't pigeonholed or put in a box," she said.

And her most challenging case?

"From my very 1st year on the court up till my 20th year, death penalty cases are for me the most difficult," Ginsberg said. "To be part of a system that has the last word on whether somebody lives or dies is very, very difficult."

(source: Chicago Sun-Times)

INDIA:

'Abolish death penalty'

In 1996, Bheru Singh, suspecting his wife of infidelity, killed her and their 5 children. The Supreme Court sentenced him to death. 2 years later, Shaikh Ayub, found guilty of killing his wife and five children, was given life imprisonment by the SC.

-- In 2000, Suresh, convicted of sexually assaulting a 1 1/2 year old child was acquitted by the high court but the SC gave him life imprisonment. 5 years later, Satish who was convicted of raping and murdering a 6-year-old, was acquitted by the HC but handed death penalty by SC.

-- In 1975, Harbans Singh, Jeeta Singh and Kashmira Singh were convicted by the HC for murdering 4 people. Their appeals went to 3 separate SC benches with 3 different orders. While Jeeta Singh was handed a death sentence, Kashmira Singh's sentence was commuted and in Harbans Singh's case, the court recommended that the President commute his sentence.

These examples of "inconsistent" orders not just in different levels of court but by different benches of the apex court have been used by anti-death campaigners to strengthen their campaign which has received greater attention following the flurry of mercy petitions cleared by President Pranab Mukherjee in the last 10 months.

International and Indian NGOs, lawyers and human rights activists on Friday demanded that India abolish death penalty in keeping with international trends. 2/3 of the world has abolished death penalty.

Amnesty International and People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) analyzed SC judgments in death penalty cases between 1950-2006 to find that whether an accused got death as punishment depended on a range of subjective factors from quality of lawyers to the interest of the state or the personal views of the judge.

Speaking on the issue, Amnesty India's Shailesh Rai said people's frustration with the impunity of the criminal justice system led them to believe that death penalty was a "quick-fix" solution.

Human Rights Law Network director Colin Gonsalves agreed that the justice system was skewed heavily against the poor and vulnerable sections. "You never hear of the rich or powerful getting death. Point out a single death sentence that has been given to a rich or affluent person," he said, adding that death penalty was only a form of state revenge.

(source: Himanshi Dhawan, The Times of India)

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Trauma of awaiting death

First let us get rid of the cobwebs of prejudice. Sure, the murders were wicked and diabolic. The appellant and his friends showed no mercy to their victims. Why should any mercy be shown to them? But, gently, we must remind ourselves it is not Shylock's pound of flesh that is sought, nor a chilling of the human spirit. It is justice to the killer too and not justice untempered by mercy that we dispense.

This appears to be an appropriate response to Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice Sudhanshu Jyothi Mukhopadhyaya of the Supreme Court while judging the petition of Professor Devender Pal Singh Bhullar, a death convict. The Bench observed: "At times, their objective is to annihilate their rivals including their political opponents. They use bullets, bombs and other weapons of mass killing for achieving their perverted political and other goals or wage war against the State. While doing so, they do not show any respect for human lives. Before killing the victims, they do not think even for a second about the parents, wives, children and other near and dear ones of the victims. The families of those killed suffer the agony for their entire life, apart from financial and other losses. It is paradoxical that the people who do not show any mercy or compassion for others, plead for mercy and project delay in disposal of the petition filed under Article 72 or 161 of the Constitution as a ground for commutation of the sentence of death."

The 1st paragraph was the classic statement of Justice O. Chinnappa Reddy, former judge of the Supreme Court (1978-1987), in a landmark case of T.N. Vatheeswaran vs State of Tamil Nadu in 1983, which appears as if he was answering the questions of the Supreme Court in 2013. It is quite a paradox that Justice Chinnappa breathed his last (at 91) on April 13, a day after the Supreme Court delivered judgment in the Bhullar case, as if he disagreed with the inhuman element of the decision. In the Bhullar case, the conclusion of the Supreme Court is "that long delay may be one of the grounds for commutation of the sentence of death into life imprisonment, cannot be invoked in cases where a person is convicted for offence under TADA or similar statutes. Such cases stand on an altogether different plane and cannot be compared with murders committed due to personal animosity or over property and personal disputes. The seriousness of the crimes committed by the terrorists can be gauged from the fact that many hundred innocent civilians and men in uniform have lost their lives".

No Constitutional basis: The judgement did not explain any basis, constitutional or otherwise, for this new categorisation of terrorist and non-terrorist criminals for the purposes of commuting death penalty for cruel delay before execution in the context of rejection of mercy petition by the President.

Senior advocates Ram Jethmalani, and Tehmton Andhyarujina, who assisted the court, and K.T.S. Tulsi, senior advocate, relied heavily on the Vatheeswaran case among others and advocated quashing of rejection of mercy petition on the ground of inordinate delay of 8 years.

In Bhullar, the Bench rightly mentioned that the prolonged delay in the execution of a death sentence is unquestionably an important consideration for determining whether the sentence should be allowed to be executed.

Subsequent benches of the apex court have never rejected Vatheeswaran, but reiterated the principle of Justice Chinnappa though they disagreed with the two-year period. But this Bench has thrown the baby out with the bathwater, rejecting the principle along with the '2 year' term. Pratt and Morgan vs Jamaica (Communication No. 210/1986 and 225/1987) a seminal case, establishing that where the execution of a prisoner is to take place more than 5 years after the sentence of death was passed, there are strong grounds for believing that the delay would amount to "inhumane or degrading punishment" which would therefore be unconstitutional. Further, the court gave guidance that appeals in capital cases should be heard within 12 months and the entire domestic appeals process should be concluded within 2 years. The bench referred to these cases, expressed its sadness at the delay, but did not attempt to give any guidance as found in the Pratt case above.

Unreasonable and doubted: State's burden to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt, once a basic tenet of criminal justice, is now under a shadow of doubt. The glaring contradictions, infirmity in confession, validity of withdrawal of that confession by accused, thumb print of a professor could not raise a reasonable doubt in the mind of the court. The 2 judges on the Supreme Court bench, Justices Arijit Pasayat and B.N. Agrawal, overruled the presiding judge, Justice M.B. Shah, who is senior to the other judges, in convicting and also sentencing Bhullar to death. The judges inserted unreasonable doubt into the rule saying: "Proof beyond reasonable doubt" should be "a guideline, not a fetish, the procedure is only a handmaiden and not the mistress of the law."

Cancer of delay: Delay is the major cancerous problem of administration and adjudication in our system. Delay in any other count may be tolerated if it has nothing to do with life and death. But when a person on death row suffers solitary confinement, the delay of years is deplorable, and denial of justice on all counts.

The trauma of waiting for death begins from the moment death penalty is pronounced. The Supreme Court decided Bhullar's appeal in March 2002. The review petition was rejected in December 2002. Curative petition filed by Bhullar was dismissed in March 2003.

After delay of 2 years the Home Ministry recommended the rejection of clemency in July 2005. In April 2011, the Ministry of Home Affairs recalled the file, scrutinised it again, and in May 2011 again recommended against granting clemency to Bhullar. Finally, in June 2011, that is 8 1/2 years after the clemency petition was filed, Bhullar was informed that his petition had been rejected.

Prolonged solitary confinement made Professor Bhullar mentally unhealthy, in support of which several documents were presented. The apex court should have at least constituted a medical board to collate the expert opinion before deciding whether a mentally ill person could be hanged.

It is appropriate tribute to Justice Chinnappa to conclude with his statement: "The dehumanising factor of prolonged delay in the execution of a sentence of death has the constitutional implication of depriving a person of his life in an unjust, unfair and unreasonable way as to offend the constitutional guarantee that no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law."

If the apex court is not, who else will be humane and reasonable?

(source: Madabhushi Sridhar is Professor and Coordinator, Centre for Media Law & Public Policy, NALSAR University, Hyderabad--Deccan Chronicle)

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UK academicians oppose execution of Prof. Devender Pal Singh Bhullar; UCU writes to Indian High Commission & UK Foreign Secretary

It is learnt that UK academicians have opposed the execution of death penalty to Professor Devender Pal Singh Bhullar.

Sally Hunt, General Secretary of University and College Union (UCU) has written a letter to Dr. Bhagwati, High Commission of India and William Hague, Foreign Secretary, UK.

Sally Hunt writes that on behalf of the 117,000 members of the University and College Union (UCU) about concerns of Bhullar's case.

The UCU has called upon the Indian government to not execute Devinderpal Singh Bhullar and to remove him from death row immediately.

(source: Sikhsiyasat.net)

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

'On what basis did President reject my plea?'

A.G. Perarivalan, convict on death row in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, wants to know the factors the President considered while rejecting his clemency petition.

He raised this demand during an interaction with officials of the Central Information Commission (CIC) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) through videoconferencing from Vellore central prison on Thursday. Perarivalan wanted to know the grounds for the rejection of his mercy petition, counsel K. Surendar told The Hindu on Friday.

Accompanied by a prison official, the convict had a 30-minute interaction with Information Commissioner Sushma Singh and Joint Secretary (Judicial), MHA, J.L. Chugh. The MHA contended that the President's decision or the advice given to the President by the Council of Ministers could not be challenged in court under the provisions of Article 74 (2) of the Constitution. The Information Commissioner, however, advised Perarivalan to make a written submission of his queries, Mr. Surendar said.

Perarivalan said he was not challenging the President's decision. Counsel who met Perarivalan after the videoconferencing session quoted him as saying that the officials gave him a patient hearing.

"We will make a written submission to the CIC soon," Mr. Surendar said. "The outcome of the investigation conducted by the Multidisciplinary Monitoring Committee into the making of the bomb that killed Rajiv Gandhi is among the details being sought," Mr. Surendar said.

Perarivalan petitioned the MHA in 2012 asking why the President rejected his mercy petition. Since there was no response, he sent a telegram to the CIC stating that his plea should be treated as urgent and heard on priority. The telegram became necessary in the backdrop of the secret executions of Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru.

The videoconference was scheduled for April 15, but did not take place that day for technical reasons. Perarivalan is lodged in Vellore central prison along with Murugan alias Sriharan and Santhan, who are also facing the death penalty in the case. Their petition challenging the inordinate delay in the President rejecting their mercy petitions is pending in the Supreme Court.

(source: The Hindu)

MAY 10, 2013:

TEXAS:

Granger appeal will cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands

It could take a decade and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars spent on appeals before Bartholomew Granger reaches a Texas death chamber for killing a Deweyville grandma in a 2012 shooting spree.

Death penalty cases mandate direct appeals under Texas law, meaning that the presiding judge - in this case Judge Bob Wortham of the 58th District Court - appoints a lawyer to handle the direct appeal, which is the 1st step on a road leading to the death chamber in Huntsville, if the conviction is found to be sound.

Beaumont attorney Doug Barlow, who has 850 appeals under his belt, is the only lawyer in the region board certified for appeals, Wortham said.

Barlow estimated the direct appeal, which will go to Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, bypassing the Ninth District appeals court - normally the 1st stop for criminal cases originating in Jefferson County - will likely cost between $25,000 and $50,000. Before the appeals process is over it could cost in the hundreds of thousands, he said.

A Galveston County jury gave Granger, 42, the death penalty Tuesday for the shooting death of 79-year-old Minnie Ray Sebolt. Sebolt was killed March 14, 2012 in front of the Jefferson County Courthouse when the Houston man opened fire on his daughter and her mother, who were witnesses against him in an aggravated sexual assault trial in Criminal District Court.

Barlow, who was out of town this week attending legal conferences in Dallas and Austin, said the 1st step to the appeal will be obtaining the record - that is, the transcript of the case prepared by the court reporter.

He will pore over that document looking for anything running afoul of courtroom procedure.

Barlow said that most lawyers find appeals boring, but not him.

"They're really interesting - reading records and addressing legal issues," he said.

In the Granger case, Barlow said he would certainly be looking at some of the volatile exchanges between Granger and prosecutor Ed Shettle, who in one instance called Granger "a murdering son of a bitch."

"If it's a viable issue we'll be raising that too," Barlow said.

(source: Beaumont Enterprise)

PENNSYLVANIA:

Westmoreland prosecutor puts 3 defendants on death row in 9 months

In 9 months, Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck has added 3 inmates to more than 190 awaiting the death penalty in Pennsylvania.

But the prosecutions of Melvin Knight, Ricky Smyrnes and Kevin Murphy do not signal a change in philosophy to prosecute more capital murder cases, Peck said Wednesday.

"It's simply the nature of the crimes," said Peck, the county's top prosecutor since 1995. "In all the time I've been district attorney I've never had the kinds of cases where the aggravating circumstances were as substantial as we had in these 3 cases."

On Tuesday night, after more than 7 hours of deliberations, a jury returned a death sentence against 52-year-old Murphy for shooting to death his mother, sister and aunt 4 years ago.

In April, Smyrnes, 27, of North Huntingdon was condemned to die for his part in the February 2010 torture slaying of Jennifer Daugherty, a mentally disabled woman from Mt. Pleasant who was held captive in a Greensburg apartment by 6 roommates.

A jury imposed the death penalty on Knight, 23, of Swissvale last August for his role in the Daugherty slaying.

Peck prosecuted all three cases and could seek the death penalty against a third suspect in the Daugherty murder this year.

"Torture and multiple killings are very persuasive factors," Peck said. "I evaluate every 1st-degree murder case to see if we should seek the death penalty."

Before the Daugherty and Murphy cases, Peck had not initiated a death penalty prosecution since 2000.

In 2005, he won the second death sentence against Michael Travaglia, 53, of Washington Township, Westmoreland County, in the "kill for thrill murders" that left 4 people dead in 1980, including Apollo police Officer Leonard C. Miller.

Travaglia and accomplice John Lesko, 53, of Pittsburgh remain on death row, with appeals pending.

As of May 1, there were 194 people on death row, according to the state Department of Corrections.

A majority are from Eastern Pennsylvania, including about 80 from Philadelphia.

8 inmates from Allegheny County and four from Fayette County are awaiting execution.

2 death row inmates were sentenced in Washington County and one each in Indiana, Butler, Greene and Cambria counties.

When Murphy is formally sentenced Thursday afternoon by Judge Al Bell, he will become Westmoreland County's 5th entry on death row.

Knight and Smyrnes were convicted as the dominant predators against Daugherty, 33, who was held captive for more than 2 days. They beat her, forced her to drink concoctions of bodily fluids and cleaning supplies, taunted her and shaved her head before she was stabbed in the heart.

Peck will seek the death penalty against a 3rd person in the Daugherty slaying. The trial for Amber Meidinger, 23, of Greensburg, has not yet been scheduled. She testified against Smyrnes and Knight and wants a deal that would eliminate the possibility of a death sentence.

Through 11 days of testimony, Peck used bits of circumstantial evidence to build his case against Murphy, of Conemaugh Township, Indiana County, who killed his 69-year-old mother, Doris; his sister, Kris, 43; and his aunt, Edith Tietge, 81.

Their bodies were discovered in the garage area of Ferguson Glass, the family-owned business in Loyalhanna Township.

Peck argued to the jury that Murphy killed his relatives at the urging of his soon-to-be divorced girlfriend so she could move into the home Murphy shared with his mother and sister. The two women disapproved of Murphy's relationship with the married woman, according to testimony.

Dante Bertani, who served 40 years as Westmoreland County's public defender, said Peck seeks the death penalty too often.

"The fact that homicides continue to happen means it's not a deterrent. Requesting the death penalty is a mistake," Bertani said.

Bertani unsuccessfully represented Travaglia during his trial in 1981 and a retrial in the mid-2000s.

(source: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

OHIO:

Death penalty possible in murder case; $10M bail set

A Fremont man charged with shooting his wife to death in March at a Carroll Township home might face the death penalty if convicted, the prosecutor said.

Randy Ross, 47, is charged with 1 felony count of aggravated murder. Ross - who authorities said turned the gun on himself after his wife was shot - is recovering from at least 1 gunshot wound to the head at Magruder Hospital, where sheriff's deputies are guarding him.

A grand jury will hear evidence against him next week and could indict him on additional charges, Ottawa County Prosecutor Mark Mulligan said. The grand jury also will decide whether the death penalty could be a punishment if Ross is convicted, Mulligan said.

"The evidence of his guilt is overwhelming," Mulligan said during Ross' initial appearance Thursday in Ottawa County Municipal Court.

Ross is charged with storming into the Leutz Road home where his estranged wife, Amy Ross, 43, was staying with her sister. Authorities say he chased her upstairs and shot her in the chest.

Amy Ross had filed for divorce from Randy Ross twice. The most recent filing was in April 2012 in Sandusky County Common Pleas Court, where she alleged cruelty and negligence.

Magistrate Lou Wargo set a $10 million bail for Ross, who appeared for the hearing by video from his bed at Magruder Hospital. He was released from St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center in Toledo on Wednesday.

He wore a hospital gown, and his jaw was wired shut.

He also lost an eye because of his injuries.

Ross declined to say much when Magistrate Lou Wargo asked him for input on bail.

"I've got to get an attorney," he said.

Wargo appointed attorney Adrian Cimerman of Toledo to represent Ross. Another hearing is set for 3:30 p.m. May 17 in municipal court.

Ottawa County Sheriff Steve Levorchick said he did not know how long Ross would be at Magruder. Levorchick is hoping to move Ross to another jail, but has not found one that can take him.

"He's got medical needs that are beyond our jail's capability," he said.

(source: The News-Messenger)

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

Prosecutor to seek murder charges against accused Ohio kidnapper

An Ohio prosecutor vowed on Thursday to seek murder charges that could carry the death penalty against a former Cleveland school bus driver accused of kidnapping and raping 3 young women who endured a decade as captives in his house.

The murder charges against Ariel Castro would stem from forced miscarriages that police say were suffered by one of his victims. Castro was arrested on Monday shortly after the women were rescued.

Their imprisonment ended when neighbors, alerted by cries for help, broke through a locked door of Castro's house and freed Amanda Berry, who disappeared the day before her 17th birthday in 2003 on her way home from work at a fast-food restaurant.

Liberated along with Berry, now 27, were her 6-year-old daughter, conceived and born during her confinement, and 2 fellow captives - Gina DeJesus, 23, who vanished at age 14 after school, and Michelle Knight, 32, who was 20 when she went missing in 2002.

All 3 told police they were abducted by Castro when they accepted offers of a ride from him in the same West Side Cleveland neighborhood where they were found years later.

Castro, 52, made his first court appearance on Thursday to face the 3 counts of rape and four counts of kidnapping he was initially charged with by the city attorney's office, and was ordered to remain in custody on an $8 million bond.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty, who has jurisdiction over all felony cases for Cleveland, said he intends to expand the charges once the case is formally transferred to his office.

"I fully intend to seek charges for each and every act of sexual violence, rape, each day of kidnapping, every felonious assault, and each act of aggravated murder for terminating pregnancies that the offender perpetrated," he said.

Under Ohio law, the crime of aggravated murder includes the unlawful termination of a pregnancy and is a capital offense.

The prosecutor's office will launch the official process to determine if the death penalty is appropriate, McGinty said, adding: "Capital punishment must be reserved for those crimes that are truly the worst examples of human conduct."

Knight suffered at least 5 miscarriages that she told police were intentionally caused by Castro starving her and beating her in the abdomen, according to an initial police report.

Authorities say all 3 women were at times bound in chains or rope and were subjected to intimidation, sexual assault, starvation and other abuses during their respective nine, 10 or 11 years of captivity.

The victims told investigators they recalled leaving the confines of the house just twice during their ordeal, ushered on both occasions into a separate garage on the property while disguised in wigs and hats.

1ST PUBLIC APPEARANCE

During his initial hearing in municipal court, which lasted less than 5 minutes, Castro neither spoke nor entered a plea, and kept his face turned away from a courtroom gallery crowded with media and spectators.

Castro's home "was a prison to these three women and the child," Cuyahoga County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Brian Murphy told the judge. "Today the situation is turned on him. ... Mr. Castro stands before you a captive, in captivity, a prisoner."

The prosecutor's office declined to comment late on Thursday on a CNN report, attributed to an unnamed law enforcement source, that Castro had confessed under questioning to some of the actions of which he has been accused.

Castro's court-appointed lawyer, Kathleen DeMetz, said her client would be placed on a suicide watch in jail and was expected to be held in isolation.

In order to win release on bail, he would need $800,000 cash - 10 % of the bond amount.

"The man doesn't have any money," Metz said. "He clearly doesn't have that," noting that Castro had been unemployed since being fired from his job driving school buses last November.

Berry told police that her escape on Monday had been her 1st chance to break free in the 10 years that she was held, seizing the opportunity during Castro's momentary absence.

Her baby was born in a plastic inflatable children's swimming pool on Christmas Day, 2006, authorities said. A paternity test will be conducted to determine the girl's father.

McGinty, the county prosecutor, said assembling a multitude of charges against Castro could take time, considering the ordeals the victims experienced.

"They need a chance to heal before we can seek further in-depth evidence from them," he said, describing them as having "found the internal strength and courage to outlast their tormentor and survive a decade of torture and depravity."

Berry and DeJesus went home with family members on Wednesday, while Knight remained hospitalized in good condition.

(source: Reuters)

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

Prosecutor may seek death penalty for Cleveland kidnap, rape suspect Ariel Castro

An Ohio prosecutor says he may seek the death penalty against the man accused of imprisoning three women at his home for about a decade for forcing them to suffer miscarriages.

Cuyahoga County prosecutor Thomas McGinty says Ohio law calls for the death penalty for the "most depraved criminals who commit aggravated murder during the course of a kidnapping." He says aggravated murder charges could be filed related to pregnancies terminated by force.

Ariel Castro is being held on $8 million bail. The 52-year-old former school bus driver was under a suicide watch in jail, where he was being held on kidnapping and rape charges for holding three women - Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight - inside his home for about a decade.

Knight, who still hasn't been since in public, is said to be recovering in a hospital and has turned away visitors, CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds reports from Cleveland.

"She was severely beaten," said Knight's grandmother, Debora Knight. "He had beat so badly in the face, she has to have facial reconstruction, and she's lost hearing in one ear."

McGinty suggests the charges could number in the hundreds, if not thousands.

In his first court appearance Thursday, Castro looked down at the ground for almost the entire proceeding, biting his collar and signing documents with his handcuffed hands. He didn't speak.

The women found alive after years in captivity endured lonely, dark lives inside a dingy home where they were raped and allowed outside only a handful of times in disguises while walking to a garage steps away, investigators say.

Assistant county prosecutor Brian Murphy said the women were beaten repeatedly and sexually assaulted. He said Castro used the women "in whatever self-gratifying, self-serving way he saw fit."

While many questions remain about how Castro maintained such tight control over the women for so many years before one of them made a daring escape Monday, the horrors they suffered are beginning to come to light.

Castro lured the women into his vehicle, according to court documents filed Thursday.

Police say the women were apparently bound by ropes and chains at times and were kept in different rooms. They suffered prolonged sexual and psychological abuse and had miscarriages, according to a police report obtained Wednesday by CBS News, which corroborated information received earlier from a law enforcement source. Knight told police she suffered 5 miscarriages.

Castro has been charged with 4 counts of kidnapping - covering the captives and the daughter born to one of them - and 3 counts of rape, against all 3 women.

Years before his arrest Monday, Castro apparently contemplated committing suicide, CBS News senior investigative producer Pat Milton reports.

In a lengthy, handwritten note from 2004 discovered in his house by FBI agents, Castro allegedly confessed to taking the three women and said that he was abused as a child and raped by an uncle, according to a law enforcement source.

Reynolds also reports that Castro called himself a "sexual predator" and provided details about taking each of his victims. He blamed the women for their own kidnappings, but he asks for whatever money he has to be donated to his victims after his death.

Kathleen DeMetz, a public defender who represented Castro in court, said he would be transferred from a city jail medical unit where defendants charged with sex crimes or are considered a suicide risk are normally held.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine told CNN Thursday night that his office received DNA profiles of Castro and will start trying to determine if he is involved in other crimes.

Earlier Thursday in court, Castro did not have a chance to talk to his 2 brothers, who were arrested and cleared without charges, DeMetz said.

The women and Castro have given lengthy statements to police that have helped build their case, said Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba.

None of the women, though, gave them any indication that Castro's 2 brothers, who had been in custody since Monday, were involved, Tomba said. Prosecutors brought no charges against the brothers, citing a lack of evidence. The brothers appeared in court before Castro, on unrelated charges, and were in the process of being released.

Pedro Castro, 54, pleaded no contest to an open container charge while 2 charges against Onil Castro, 50, were dismissed.

"Ariel kept everyone at a distance," Tomba said.

The women, now in their 20s and 30s, vanished separately between 2002 and 2004. At the time, they were 14, 16 and 20 years old.

(source: CBS News)

GEORGIA:

Defense calls no witnesses in mass murder trial; Jury expected to begin deliberations Friday

Jurors are scheduled to begin deliberations today in a 2004 mass murder case in which the alleged triggerman is facing 5 murder counts.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys wrapped up on the presentation of evidence in the trial of Alexander Woods III about lunchtime on Thursday. The defense called no witnesses.

Woods, 34, is accused of shooting the four members of a Colquitt County family and their housekeeper on Nov. 8, 2004, on Highway 37 east of Moultrie. Those killed were Betty Faye Watts, 50; Katrina Darlene Watts "Tina" Resendez, 29; Juan Carlos Resendez, 3; Liliana Alegria Aguilar, 30; and 24-year-old Jaime Cruze Resendez.

2 1/2 days of testimony included law enforcement officials and people who know Woods or another man implicated in the murders and co-defendant Jerry Johnny Thompson. Woods' attorneys did not call any witnesses. Woods declined to take the stand, which would have put him in the position of having to answer questions from the prosecution. Judges instruct jurors not to consider a defendant's choice not to testify in determining guilt.

Senior Superior Court Judge Tracy Moulton Jr. outlined a Friday schedule of closing arguments, after which jurors will be given instructions and sent to the jury room to discuss the case.

Thompson, who has pleaded guilty to 5 counts of murder, described in testimony trips to Texas with Jaime Resendez to bring back marijuana. He said that Woods rode with Anthony Davis to the Resendez's house on the day of the murders in Davis' green Ford Expedition.

After arming Woods and Davis with protective vests, an AK-47 rifle and 9 mm handgun, Thompson said, he led them to the residence and continued driving. Davis and Woods were supposed to get Jaime Resendez to contact a marijuana supplier in Texas, to whom Resendez owed $198,000.

The case hinges heavily on Thompson's testimony. Woods' attorneys already have noted contradicting statements given to law enforcement by Thompson over the years.

Davis was found dead on Jan. 16, 2005, in southern Lowndes County, with multiple gunshot wounds and his body badly burned, a Lowndes County Sheriff's Office investigator told jurors on Thursday.

Thompson's testimony was that Davis, whom he and other marijuana dealers used to collect debts, summoned him to return to the Resendez residence, and when he went inside Jaime was dead and Woods was looking to find cash inside the house.

Law enforcement officers told the jury that the house was ransacked, but that there was no forced entry into the house that family members said was always locked. Finding the house unlocked alerted 2 of Tina Resendez's sons, then 7 and 8, that something was wrong when they first arrived home from school and then found the bodies of their mother and stepfather in the hallway inside.

Thompson was the 1st of 3 defendants charged in the murders, in 2006, with prosecutors at one time seeking the death penalty against the Nashville, Ga., man. During a news conference announcing Thompson's arrest, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said that Jaime Resendez was the only one in the family involved with the drug trade and the others were innocent victims.

Thompson avoided a trial and possible death sentence by pleading guilty to 5 counts of murder in November 2011.

Thompson has been sentenced to a life sentence in 1 of those cases and is scheduled to be sentenced on the other 4 as early as next week. He agreed to testify at Woods’ trial when he entered the guilty plea.

A 3rd defendant, Wilma Ann Yvonne Stover, 26, also of Nashville, also was charged with 5 counts of murder in the case and also testified in Woods' trial on Tuesday. No trial has been set for Stover.

Both she and Thompson testified that she waited outside in Thompson's truck and left when he used a hand-held radio to tell her to leave the scene.

Thompson in October 2010 picked Woods out of a lineup in Lowndes County that included 5 other men, while Stover, who said she only saw him from a distance, picked a different man out of the same group, telling investigators she would rate the certainty of her selection at 50 %.

(source: Moultrie Observer)

FLORIDA:

Florida Bar wants former Broward judge disbarred

Former Broward Circuit Judge Ana Gardiner should be disbarred, not just suspended, for her misconduct during a capital murder trial in 2007, the Florida Bar argued in a brief filed to the state Supreme Court this week.

The Bar had previously found that Gardiner, who served as a judge from 1999 until her resignation in 2010, had engaged in an improper "personal and emotional relationship" with then-Assistant State Attorney Howard Scheinberg starting in March 2007, while Scheinberg was prosecuting Omar Loureiro on a murder charge.

Loureiro was convicted and sentenced to death, but his lawyer later learned that Gardiner and Scheinberg had exchanged 949 cellphone calls and 471 text messages while the trial was going on. Loureiro was given a new trial, convicted again, and sentenced to life in prison.

Gardiner resigned, vowing never to run for another judgeship, while the Judicial Qualifications Commission was reviewing the misconduct allegations.

A judicial referee who reviewed the case issued a report in January recommending a 1-year suspension of Gardiner's law license, determining that Gardiner's actions were dishonest and deceitful.

(source: Sun-Sentinel)

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

Speeding Up Execution Bill Gets Calls for Veto

Florida has averaged 3 point 2 executions a year since the death penalty was reinstated in 1979. 3 people have already died by lethal injection this year and 2 more executions are pending before the middle of June. Legislation on the Governor's desk is designed to speed up executions even more, but it may have the opposite effect.

Executions are pending for 2 man between now and June 12. Their executions will bring the year's total to 5. Ranking 2013, number 3 in executions since Florida resumed using the death penalty in 1979.

But lawmakers want an even quicker pace. Legislation on the Governor's desk seeks to speed up executions. It also reverses a decision made a decade ago that was intended to speed up the process; but didn't. Former Supreme Court Justice Raul Cantero says the new changes are still deficient.

"What I'm disappointed in is that the legislature also did not reform the death penalty process to provide for some kind of unanimity in the death penalty recommendation process as every other state has." says Raul Cantero, Former Supreme Court Justice.

The bill attempts to tell the Governor when he has to sign death warrants, but experts say that's most likely a violation of separation of powers.

Mark Schlackman from the Center for the Advancement of Human Rights, says the Governor, could today, sign up to a hundred warrants. "Florida's process of issuing death warrants is unconstitutionally vague." says Schlackman.

Florida leads the nation with 24 death row exonerations. The ACLU says speeding up executions would be a mistake. "And it makes almost certain that Florida is going to execute an innocent person." says Howard Simon, ACLU.

The ACLU also says signing the legislation would tie this and future Governor's hands in signing death warrants, which they say is reason enough for a veto.

(source: WCTV)

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

High court skeptical over Xbox appeal

Nearly 9 years after the grisly discovery of six bodies in a central Florida home, an attorney for one of the convicted murderers argued Thursday that a mistrial should have been sought in the case and that his client had been wrongly portrayed as the ringleader.

The trial was held in St. Johns County because of pre-trial publicity in Volusia County, and attracted national attention.

Christopher Anderson, an appellate attorney for death row inmate Troy Victorino, told the Florida Supreme Court that another defendant in what became known as the "Xbox murders" refused to be cross-examined while testifying during the trial. Anderson contended that Victorino's trial attorneys improperly failed to seek a mistrial when that refusal took place.

Anderson said the lack of cross-examination helped lead to the conclusion that his client was the ringleader in the killings in a Deltona home - a notion that Anderson disputed. Victorino and 3 other men were convicted in the case, which involved the victims being beaten with baseball bats.

"He was framed as the ringleader, and that's what got him the death penalty," Anderson said.

But Senior Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Nunnelley offered another explanation for the death sentence: He said Victorino "deserved it." Nunnelley said Victorino wanted to retrieve some belongings from the home, including an Xbox video game system, and kicked in the door, shattering the dead-bolt lock.

At least some of the justices also appeared skeptical of Anderson's arguments, which centered on the refusal by defendant Robert Cannon to be cross-examined. Cannon had negotiated a plea agreement in which he was a witness for the state.

Anderson said Cannon claimed the 6-foot-7 Victorino had bullied him into taking part in the bludgeoning deaths, a claim that the appellate attorney described as "nonsense." But Justice Charles Canady appeared to flatly reject that argument.

"He was afraid of him - and apparently with quite good reason," Canady said.

The August 2004 murders drew national attention, at least in part because of their gruesome nature and the number of victims. Victorino, now 36, has been depicted as the ringleader since the time of the killings and was convicted on 6 counts of 1st-degree murder, along with other charges.

In addition to Victorino, defendant Jerone Hunter, now 26, was sentenced to death. Cannon and Michael Salas, both 27, received life sentences. The victims, who were discovered in various rooms of the blood-stained house, were Erin Belanger, Roberto Gonzalez, Michelle Nathan, Anthony Vega, Jonathon Gleason and Francisco Ayo-Roman.

The Supreme Court in 2009 upheld Victorino's convictions and death sentence in what is known as a "direct" appeal. But the arguments Thursday were more narrowly tailored to arguments that he had received ineffective legal representation.

If the appeal is successful, Anderson said Victorino could receive a new trial or a new sentencing hearing. It typically takes justices months to issue rulings.

Anderson said, for example, the portrayal of Victorino as a ringleader could have influenced the decision of jurors to call for the death penalty.

"It's really critical to the life versus death decision, in particular," Anderson said.

At one point, however, Justice Peggy Quince scoffed at the suggestion that Victorino might have only gone to the Deltona home with the intent to "rough people up" and get belongings he thought were there.

"So he went in to rough up people with a baseball bat?" she asked.

(source: Associated Press)

MISSISSIPPI:

A Stay of Execution and a Whole Lot More

For Justice Michael Randolph of the Mississippi Supreme Court, a legal opinion wasn't just a place to explain why his 8 colleagues were mistaken in staying an execution - it was a forum to vent wide-ranging criticism of the U.S. Justice Department.

The court voted 8-1 on Tuesday to stay the day's scheduled execution of Willie Jerome Manning, following acknowledgments by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of errors in agents' testimony that helped convict Mr. Manning in 1994 of murdering 2 college students.

The FBI, citing time constraints, reevaluated the evidence against Mr. Manning with assistance from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Innocence Project, both of which are critical of the death penalty.

Judge Randolph objected to that partnership, and then, with a single bullet, managed to hit the Justice Department's conduct in the bungled Fast and Furious gun-trafficking sting and its policies in domestic terrorism cases.

"Although the connectivity and expediency by which this review was accomplished is mind boggling," Justice Randolph wrote, "I should not be surprised, given that the families of the clandestine 'Fast and Furious' gun running operation can't get the Department of Justice to identify the decision makers (whose actions resulted in the death of a border agent and many others) after years of inquiry, and that this is the same Department of Justice that enforces Miranda warnings to foreign enemy combatants."

The Justice Department and FBI declined to comment on Judge Randolph's non sequitur. The court's majority also held its tongue, simply stating that "after due consideration," the motion to stay the execution was granted, "pending further Order of this Court."

Justice Randolph hinted, however, that me might soon have more to say on the topic of the Justice Department's inadequacies, as he sees them.

"There exists a host of other legal and factual issues, but time allocated to write is so compressed due to last minute filings, and I shall more fully address these deficiencies when the opportunity presents itself."

(source: Wall Street Journal)

COLORADO:

Attorneys file new challenge to Dunlap execution

Attorneys for the man convicted of ambushing and killing four people at a Colorado pizzeria in 1993 filed a lawsuit Thursday saying the state's plans for his execution in August could cause prolonged and excruciating pain, a violation of the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The lawsuit also says the state Corrections Department is planning in secret for the execution, violating Dunlap's due process rights.

Dunlap has been on death row since 1996, when a jury convicted him of murder and sentenced him to die for the shooting deaths of 4 employees - 3 of them teenagers - who were cleaning a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in the Denver suburb of Aurora after hours.

Dunlap, then 19, had recently lost a job there.

A judge scheduled his execution for the week of Aug. 18, with the day to be set by the head of the Corrections Department. It would be the first execution in Colorado since 1997.

The U.S. Supreme Court turned down Dunlap's last guaranteed appeal in February, but his attorneys are fighting on multiple fronts to spare his life. They have asked Gov. John Hickenlooper for clemency and said they will file other legal challenges, including arguing that Dunlap cannot be executed until after he finishes a 75-year prison term for robbery and that making him wait on death row for a decade and a half is cruel and unusual punishment.

Hickenlooper has not said whether he will grant clemency or when he will decide.

The lawsuit filed Thursday says Colorado's death penalty law, which mandates execution by lethal injection, is too vague because does not specify all the drugs and dosage amounts that can be used.

It also says the law does not list required qualifications for the people who carry out the execution nor include medical safeguards, and that exposes Dunlap to the risk of "conscious and agonizing suffering."

The suit claims the Corrections Department has a "secret protocol" for executions, and that officials plan to use a combination of three execution drugs when the statute calls for using a single drug.

A spokeswoman for the department said officials had no immediate comment.

Bobby Stephens, who was shot in the face at the restaurant but survived, told KUSA-TV in Denver Wednesday ( http://on9news.tv/12fBKea) that Dunlap should be executed.

Stephens said if someone takes a person's life unwillingly in such a horrific manner, the person shouldn't be allowed to live.

(source: Associated Press)

NEVADA:

Death penalty sought in Las Vegas Strip shooting----Ammar Asim Faruq Harris charged

Clark County prosecutors have decided to seek the death penalty for a self-described pimp accused in a shooting and fiery crash that killed three people on the Las Vegas Strip.

Ammar Asim Faruq Harris also faces felony sex assault charges in a 2010 rape case.

The Feb. 21 shooting killed a man driving a Maserati sports car that then slammed into a taxi that burst into flames. 2 people in the taxi were killed.

Harris was arrested in Los Angeles and is being held without bail at the Clark County jail.

The Las Vegas Sun reports Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson filed the notice of intent to seek the death penalty on Wednesday after a special panel in the DA's office reviewed the case and recommended that action.

(source: Associated Press)

ARIZONA:

Jodi Arias death penalty proceedings postponed until May 15

The death penalty phase in the trial of Jodi Arias, the California woman convicted of 1st-degree murder in the brutal slaying of an ex-boyfriend, has been postponed until May 15, court officials said on Thursday.

An Arizona jury on Wednesday found Arias guilty of murdering 30-year-old Travis Alexander, whose body was found in the shower of his Phoenix valley home in June 2008. He had been shot in the face, stabbed nearly 30 times, and his throat had been slashed.

Arias, who was put on suicide watch and moved to a psychiatric unit after the verdict, had been due in court on Thursday to begin the part of her trial in which a jury will decide whether she deserves to be executed by lethal injection.

But the proceedings were postponed, and are now due to resume at 10 a.m. (1700 GMT) on Wednesday. Court officials tweeted that trial proceedings were sealed on Thursday, but gave no reason for the postponement.

A spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office said Arias and her counsel had held a closed meeting with Judge Sherry Stephens.

"After that meeting, the details of which are under seal, Judge Stephens canceled court for the day without providing a reason," spokesman Jerry Cobb said.

A call to defense attorney Kirk Nurmi was not immediately returned.

Arias, 32, had tried to convince the jury during her 4-month trial that she had acted in self-defense after Alexander attacked her because she had dropped his camera while taking photographs of him in the shower.

She teared up as the jury's decision was read while a crowd of hundreds erupted into cheers outside the court. Jurors could have convicted Arias of a lesser crime such as second-degree murder or manslaughter, but instead found her guilty of the most serious charge possible.

The trial, which aired graphic evidence including a sex tape and photographs of the blood-spattered crime scene, became a sensation on cable television news with its tale of an attractive and soft-spoken young woman charged with a brutal crime.

'THE ULTIMATE FREEDOM'

In a television interview moments after the verdict, Arias indicated that she preferred a death sentence to life in prison. The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office later moved Arias to a jail psychiatric facility after placing her on suicide watch on Wednesday.

"The worst outcome for me would be natural life. I would much rather die sooner than later," Arias, speaking slowly and calmly, said in an interview with Fox affiliate KSAZ.

"I said years ago I'd rather get death than life and that still is true today. I believe death is the ultimate freedom, so I'd rather just have my freedom as soon as I can get it," she said.

In a separate development on Thursday, the sheriff's office said deputies arrested a man suspected of tweeting that he was going to put a bomb in the courtroom where Arias' case was being heard.

Laquint Cherry, 18, was booked into jail on a felony charge related to acts of terrorism. Sheriff's office spokesman Joaquin Enriquez said no explosive device was found at the court and that the trial postponement was not related to the threat. In the next phase of the trial, the prosecution will present evidence trying to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that aggravating factors exist that merit the death penalty. The defense can also present rebuttal evidence. The decision will then be up to the jury.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said the state planned to present "evidence to prove the murder was committed in an especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner."

Nurmi has argued that the one-time waitress snapped in the "sudden heat of passion" in the moments between a photograph she took showing Alexander alive and taking a shower, and a subsequent picture of his apparently dead body covered in blood.

(source: Reuters)

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After Verdict, Sentencing Is a New Trial for Jurors

There were cheers and hugs on the packed sidewalk outside the courthouse here on Wednesday as word trickled out of a verdict in the 4-month murder trial of Jodi Arias.

A petite woman with bangs and glasses, Ms. Arias, 32, stood accused of shooting, repeatedly stabbing and almost decapitating her former boyfriend, Travis Alexander, 5 years ago. Nancy Grace of HLN, the cable news channel, who had done much to popularize the case on television, choked up as she delivered the news. "Guilty on murder 1," she said.

The trial has brought large crowds and a news media scrum to the Maricopa County Superior Court, as well as a live, online video stream of the proceedings and extensive coverage on cable television. Entered into evidence were sometimes salacious pictures, videos and text messages that depicted the couple’s tumultuous relationship, and coverage of the trial took on some of the aspects of a soap opera. Ratings soared.

Now, far from the cameras, in a jury room deep within the courthouse, the case will enter its solemn ending, as 12 citizens begin the task of deciding whether Ms. Arias should die for her crime. After a postponement on Thursday, jurors will reconvene on May 15.

If reality television shows have fueled viewers' appetites for the sensational details of courtroom testimony, jurors on many previous capital cases say that they were unprepared for the emotional impact of the sentencing phase. Reaching a decision to impose the death penalty, they say, is painfully difficult, with haunting effects that linger long after the trial ends.

Stephanie DePrima, 61, a sales clerk in Salem, Ore., recalled staring at autopsy pictures alongside other jurors during a trial 3 years ago, as a man's life "hung from the tips of our fingers," she said. The pictures, of a bank lobby where the defendants had detonated a bomb during a robbery, depicted "the most horrific scenes" she had ever seen, Ms. DePrima said.

"We saw so much, it got to a point we kind of started going numb," she recalled during an interview this week. "It became so overwhelming you had to shut yourself off from what you were seeing."

Ms. DePrima said she did not cry until weeks after the jury sentenced the defendant to death. Nightmares began after several months, she said, jolting her awake in sheer terror - "sweat, my heart beating fast."

Alison Ward, 65, a retiree from Sanibel, Fla., was a juror in 2010 in the capital trial of a man accused of killing his 11-month-old stepdaughter.

One image stayed with her, she said: the defendant and the girl's mother carrying the child's body in a suitcase, where they had stored it overnight.

"Reality is nothing like you see on TV," Ms. Ward said, describing the experience of serving on the jury, which agreed on a death penalty sentence, as a lonely, painful quest to decide whether to impose what she called "a measure of justice that is bizarre" - a death as a sentence for a killing.

A Supreme Court ruling in 2002 required that jurors, rather than judges, decide whether sufficient aggravating factors existed before the death penalty can be imposed. In Arizona and most of the other 31 states that have the death penalty, jurors also decide on the sentencing, the only time in criminal prosecutions when the penalty is applied by average citizens.

During trials of any type, jurors cannot talk to anyone about the case they are weighing, not even one another, save for discussions held inside the deliberation room.

"We take all of that in," Ms. Ward lamented, "but can't get it out."

Ms. DePrima said that she and some of the other jurors got together for coffee a few times "to decompress a little bit," but after a while, she stopped accepting the invitations. "It got too hard to remember," she said.

Ronald Reedy, 77, a juror in the trial of a man charged with stomping a person to death, said he often saw some of the other jurors, his neighbors at a retirement community in Central Florida. The greeting is nothing more than, "Hi, how are you," he said.

"We did what we had to do, and then it was over" said Mr. Reedy, whose jury decided on a death sentence. (In Florida, a jury's sentencing is nonbinding; a judge can overrule it and apply a life prison term instead.)

For the jurors weighing Ms. Arias' fate, the sentencing is the 1st step of the trial's final chapter. After considering whether aggravating factors were present, they will move to decide whether to recommend the death penalty.

Of the 125 inmates on death row in Arizona, 3 are women. Depending on the jury's decision, Ms. Arias could be sent to join them, or she could remain in prison for the rest of her life. If jurors cannot reach a unanimous decision, Arizona law allows the court to order another jury. If a 2nd jury cannot reach a unanimous decision, the judge would impose a life sentence.

Ms. Arias has expressed her preference for execution. "Death is the ultimate freedom," she said during a television interview after the verdict. "I'd rather just have my freedom as soon as I can get it."

(source: New York Times)

WASHINGTON:

High court reviews exclusion of death penalty in 2007 Carnation killings; The oral arguments before the Supreme Court centered on whether a lower-court judge was right when he ruled in January that prosecutors couldn't seek the death penalty against the defendants charged with aggravated 1st-degree murder in the slayings of 6 family members.

A King County judge overstepped his bounds when he ruled that prosecutors can't seek the death penalty against the 2 people accused of killing a family of 6 on Christmas Eve 2007 in Carnation, the state Supreme Court was told Thursday.

King County Senior Deputy Prosecutor James Whisman argued that under the state's death-penalty statute, "discretion is placed with the prosecutor" to decide whether to seek capital punishment.

But in ruling out the death penalty, Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ramsdell wasn't privy to all of the information King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg considered in deciding to seek the death penalty, Whisman said.

"The court ruled the prosecutor can't consider the strength of the evidence ... but he wasn't clear on what he meant by 'strength of the evidence,'" Whisman told the 9-member panel. Ramsdell did not have access to mitigation information on both defendants that was submitted by their defense attorneys, and the judge had previously denied a defense motion to compel Satterberg to spell out "which factors in the mitigation package he found persuasive and which ones" he didn't, Whisman said.

But defense attorney Kathryn Ross, who represented defendants Michele Anderson and her former boyfriend, Joseph McEnroe, before the Supreme Court, said Satterberg's decision to seek the death penalty was based only on the evidence and not on the mitigation evidence submitted by the defense. Ross argued that the state's death-penalty statute is unique in that prosecutors are directed to impose it only if there isn't sufficient evidence of mitigating factors to merit leniency.

"I guess that's why we're here - to decide how to read that statute. Is mitigation the only thing they consider" in deciding to seek the death penalty, said Chief Justice Barbara Madsen.

Trial judge's decision

The oral arguments before the Supreme Court centered on whether Ramsdell was right when he ruled in January that prosecutors couldn't seek the death penalty against Anderson and McEnroe, who are each charged with aggravated 1st-degree murder in the shooting deaths of 6 members of Anderson's family: her parents, brother, sister-in-law and the younger couple's 2 preschool-aged children.

The judge handed down his ruling Jan. 31 after 3,000 jury subpoenas had been mailed out on the eve of McEnroe's trial.

Ramsdell ruled that while Satterberg properly considered the "facts and circumstances" of the crimes, the prosecutor erroneously considered the strength of the state's evidence against Anderson and McEnroe in deciding whether to seek the death penalty.

He said the prosecutor should only have weighed whether there were sufficient mitigating circumstances to warrant leniency if convicted - which in the case of aggravated 1st-degree murder means life in prison without the possibility of release, instead of death.

Under state law, mitigating factors in potential death-penalty cases can include evidence of an extreme mental disturbance or impairment. Leniency also can be merited if a suspect acted under duress or domination of another person.

Meanwhile, 3 weeks after Ramsdell issued his ruling, King County Superior Court Judge Ronald Kessler ruled Satterberg abused his discretion by relying on a flawed investigation into mitigating factors that could have merited leniency for accused cop-killer Christopher Monfort.

Kessler tossed the death penalty in the case even though Monfort's defense team hadn't provided any mitigation evidence to the state for more than 3 years after Monfort was charged in the fatal shooting of Seattle police Officer Tim Brenton on Halloween 2009.

The Supreme Court is to hear oral arguments in Monfort's case June 27.

While McEnroe and Anderson's attorneys want the Supreme Court to uphold Ramsdell's ruling and dismiss the death penalty from consideration, Satterberg's office has asked the court to reverse Ramsdell's decision, reinstate the death-penalty notice and remand the case to Superior Court for trial.

It typically takes between 2 and 6 months for the justices to release their written rulings.

Prosecution arguments

Whisman, the senior deputy prosecutor, argued Thursday that Ramsdell had repeatedly denied "a series of (defense) motions all surrounding the prosecutor's decision" to seek the death penalty, and each one of them was "trying to get to the core issue" of why the prosecutor didn't find the defense's mitigation packages compelling.

"Ultimately, the only way to make this decision (to seek the death penalty) reviewable is to have a trial at the charging phase," when a prosecutor decides what charges to file against a defendant, Whisman said. But, he said, that would then make "the judge a decision-maker," which the Supreme Court "has consistently said" is inappropriate at the accusatory stage of a trial.

Whisman pointed out that prosecutors proposed the statute's mitigation language back in 1980 and said the decision to seek the death penalty isn't subject to judicial review because "it's a charging decision." He also said upholding Ramsdell's ruling in the case could potentially overturn earlier Supreme Court decisions.

Ross said if a prosecutor decides to seek the death penalty based "only on how easy it is for the state to prove" a crime, the application of it becomes random. She claimed Satterberg's office "didn't care" about the mitigation evidence.

"Mainstream white people" argument

Ross, in a passing reference before the Supreme Court, also raised a racial argument outlined in the defense brief.

Ross and her co-counsel argued in their brief that Satterberg has made 6 death-penalty decisions during his tenure, filing notice of intent to seek the punishment against McEnroe, Anderson and Monfort, who are all accused of killing "mainstream white people." He did do so in the other cases, where victims included a lesbian, a gay man, an Asian child and a mixed-race baby, the brief says.

In their reply brief, Whisman and Senior Deputy Prosecutor Andrea Vitalich called the allegations "politically charged and specious." In all 3 cases where the death penalty was not sought, the defendants presented mitigating evidence, "including documented instances of mental illness predating their crimes," the brief says.

Outside the courtroom, Pam Mantle - whose daughter Erica Anderson and grandchildren Nathan and Olivia were among those killed - said the constant delays in the case have taken a toll.

"Everything has been put on hold. You just wait and wait and nothing happens," she said.

(source: Seattle Times)

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1st-degree murder finding puts death penalty on table for Scherf

A Snohomish County jury found Byron Scherf guilty of 1st-degree murder Thursday, which means the death penalty is now an option.

The jury was tasked with determining whether Scherf, 54, planned the killing of corrections officer Jayme Biendl, 34, or if it was just a violent attack.

Prosecutors say they plan to pursue this as a capital murder case.

A jury takes up the sentencing phase on Monday.

Scherf and his lawyers did not dispute that he strangled a corrections officer to death with an amplifier cord in the prison chapel of the Washington state Reformatory at Monroe.

Scherf is a convicted rapist who was serving a life sentence in January 2011 when he killed Biendl He initially cooperated with investigators and confessed but stopped because he says he was denied jail privileges that had been promised. His trial began May 1.

After closing arguments Thursday, the jury had the option of convicting Scherf of 2nd-degree murder, which would remove execution as a punishment, The Daily Herald reported.

Scherf's lawyers suggested he didn't plan to kill Biendl, and they say he blacked out in the final minutes of her life.

The jury saw Scherf's video confession this week and heard forensic testimony about how Biendl was strangled with an amplifier cord. Scherf said he first planned to ambush and beat up Biendl over something she said to him. He refused to say what set him off.

On Wednesday, Snohomish County Medical Examiner Norman Thiersch testified it would have taken four to 5 minutes of constant pressure to strangle Biendl. It took significant force to fracture the cartilage in her neck while she struggled to survive, he said.

Scherf's DNA was found on Biendl's fingernails. His blood was found on her coat and the amplifier cord, forensic scientists from the state crime lab testified.

Scherf's hands were bright red with an obvious mark across a palm, testified a Monroe police detective who saw him a few hours after the killing.

Scherf said he blacked out while pulling on the cord. When he came to, he was sitting in a chair in the back of the church sanctuary. He told detectives he had no memories of Biendl dying.

(source: Associated Press)

USA:

The flaws in the US justice system----What does 1 death row inmate's execution, halted at the last minute, reveal about capital punishment in the US?

Convicted of murdering two white students in 1994, Willie Manning was sentenced to death.

His execution was to be carried out on Tuesday evening. But at the 11th hour, the Mississippi Supreme Court stepped in and blocked it.

The court did not give a reason for its decision, however doubts over the evidence used to convict Manning have been piling up.

The US department of justice recently sent several letters saying parts of testimonies given by 2 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) experts were erroneous.

The FBI has even offered to conduct DNA tests, an offer which was rejected by Mississippi's attorney general.

The case has once again raised questions over capital punishment in the US, and while 18 states have abolished the penalty, 32 have not.

From 1973 to 2012, 142 people sentenced to death have been exonerated in 26 different states.

In Texas, 12 people have been exonerated - the state that accounts for nearly 1 in 3 executions since 1976.

And 20 death row inmates have been found innocent in Illinois, where the death penalty was abolished in 2011.

Florida tops the list - where 24 people have been exonerated - that is 1 out of every 6 exonerations in the US. And in the same state, legislators are trying to pass a law that would make it more difficult for inmates to appeal their case, speeding up their road to execution.

"When someone sits on death row for 10, 20, 30 years, it really makes a mockery of our justice system," said Republican Senator Rob Bradley. "It's not fair to the victims' families not only to be traumatised by the loss of a loved one, but then have to sit and suffer while justice is not realised year after year after year. This is not about guilt or innocence, it's about timely justice."

Another Republican who sponsored the bill in the lower house, Matt Gaetz said: "Only God can judge. But we can sure set up the meeting."

So what does Willie Manning's case reveal about capital punishment in the US? Should death penalty still be implemented or is it a good time to stop its practice?

To discuss this, Inside Story Americas, with presenter Kimberly Halkett, is joined by guests: Stephen Harper, a law professor at Florida International University and has represented many prisoners facing the death penalty; Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center and a law professor at Catholic University; Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer and former US associate deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan; and Rob Mink, Willie Manning's attorney.

"Well I think the only higher burden of proof can be to get rid of the death penalty, and I say that because there been 24 people in Florida alone, who are on death thrown who were exonerated. the system that we have, the justice system, is full of imperfections...So I don't think that the death penalty can survive because the human error is just simply too great... "

(source: Stephen Harper, law professor at Florida International University----Al Jazeera)

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

Feds want Mass. man's death penalty reinstated

Prosecutors have asked a federal appeals court to reinstate the death penalty sentence handed down to a man who killed three people in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Gary Sampson, a drifter who grew up in Abington, Mass., was convicted in 2003 of killing 19-year-old Jonathan Rizzo of Kingston, Mass., 69-year-old Philip McCloskey of Taunton, Mass., and 58-year-old Robert Whitney of Concord over a 6-day stretch in 2001.

He was sentenced to death, but in 2011 a judge ordered a new sentencing trial because one juror had intentionally answered questions dishonestly on a juror questionnaire in an attempt to hide her family's criminal past.

Sampson's lawyer said the juror's lies were relevant.

Prosecutors argued Wednesday there was no reason to set the sentence aside, since issues on the questionnaire were not connected to Sampson's crimes.

(source: Associated Press)

US MILITARY:

Judge declines to drop death penalty for Fort Hood shooter

A military judge on Thursday again denied a request from accused Fort Hood gunman Army Major Nidal Hasan to remove the death penalty as a punishment option in his forthcoming court-martial on charges of killing 13 people in a 2009 shooting rampage.

At a pre-trial hearing, judge Colonel Tara Osborn also denied requests from the defense that Hasan's trial be pushed back until September 1 and that a media affairs expert be appointed at government expense to assist the defense in jury selection.

Selection of the panel of officers who will act as the jury is set to begin on May 29, although Osborn said Thursday that interviews with prospective jurors might not begin until the following day.

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, is facing the death penalty for opening fire in Fort Hood, Texas, on a group of soldiers who were preparing to deploy to Iraq on November 5, 2009.

In addition to the 13 killed, 32 were wounded, and Hasan, 42, is paralyzed from the chest down from gunshots fired by two civilian Fort Hood police officers who ended what was the worst shooting at a U.S. military installation.

The defense requested the trial delay because recent media reports about the April 15 Boston Marathon bombings have mentioned Hasan.

"Media coverage was saturated again," Lieutenant Colonel Kris Poppe, the lead defense lawyer, told the judge. "The comparisons are striking and troubling."

But Colonel Steve Henricks, one of the prosecutors, said prominent stories about the Boston bombings had only mentioned Hasan briefly, and Osborn said: "How do we know that nothing else will happen between now and the time of the trial that will bring this case to public attention again?"

Osborn previously denied a request by Hasan's lawyers that the death penalty be removed from consideration in return for a guilty plea. The Uniform Code of Military Justice, the unique law code that governs the armed forces, does not allow a guilty plea to a capital charge.

"The evidence is overwhelming, so the defense has always concentrated on two things: How can we delay this trial and how can we get a reduced sentence?" said Jeffrey Addicott, a former legal adviser to the Army Special Forces and a professor of law at St. Mary's University in Texas.

"The defense is hoping that the more time that goes by, they can just get the government to throw up their hands in frustration and say, OK, we'll just accept a guilty plea."

Osborn has been trying to get the trial schedule on track after extensive delays while the military justice system debated whether Hasan, who is Muslim, should be required to shave his beard to comply with military rules. Osborn has put that issue aside.

Opening arguments in the trial are expected to begin on July 1. Security is being ramped up at Fort Hood's Lawrence J. Williams Courthouse in preparation for the trial. Officials have placed bullet-proof sand-and-fiber barriers close to the building.

Fort Hood is a 340-square-mile (880-square-km) Army post located about 60 miles north of Austin, Texas.

(source: Reuters)

BANGLADESH:

B'deshi Islamist gets death penalty

A Bangladesh tribunal convicted a top Islamic party politician today of atrocities stemming from the nation's 1971 independence war and sentenced him to death, triggering fears of another wave of deadly street violence between party supporters and security forces.

The verdict against Muhammad Kamaruzzaman was the 4th verdict in Bangladesh's war crimes tribunals since January. Dozens of people have been killed in the riots that followed the earlier cases.

There were clashes in at least 2 cities today but no immediate reports of injuries. In northwestern Rajshahi, police fired tear gas to disperse dozens of supporters of Kamaruzzaman who tried to block roads and attack vehicles, private NTV television station reported. Protesters smashed several vehicles in northeastern Sylhet city, local police official Rezaul Karim said. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called the trials a long-overdue effort at obtaining justice against war criminals 4 decades after Bangladesh split from Pakistan. Critics accuse Hasina of using the tribunals to decimate the country's opposition parties ahead of elections scheduled for next year.

Kamaruzzaman, 61, was convicted in a packed courtroom of five counts of mass killings, rape, torture and kidnapping, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said.

(source: The Himalayan Times)

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Death Sentence in Bangladesh for War Atrocities

A Bangladesh tribunal on Thursday convicted and sentenced an Islamist party leader to death for atrocities in the country's war of independence, generating a nationwide wave of violent protest from the leader's supporters.

The leader, Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, 61, assistant secretary general of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was found guilty of genocide and torture of unarmed civilians during the 1971 war to break away from Pakistan, lawyers and tribunal officials said. Mr. Kamaruzzaman’s lead defense lawyer, Abdur Razzaq, said he would appeal.

War veterans were among the hundreds on the street outside the court who cheered the verdict, the 4th war crimes conviction by the tribunal. More are expected.

"We are happy with the verdict as it fulfills the demands of the countrymen, especially the young generation," said Imran Sarker, who gave up his medical practice to lead the movement demanding the death penalty for all war criminals.

Bangladesh, which is still reeling from a garment factory collapse that killed more than 900 people last month, has also been rocked in recent months by protests and counter protests related to the complex legacy of the 1971 war. More than 100 people have been killed in clashes this year, most of them Islamist party activists and members of the security forces.

The unrest is one of the main challenges facing the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who in 2010 ordered an inquiry into abuses committed during the war. Jamaat and the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party accuse the prime minister of using the tribunal to persecute them. The government has denied the accusation.

Rights groups have criticized the tribunal as failing to adhere to international standards. Human Rights Watch said lawyers, witnesses and investigators reported being threatened.

To protest the verdict, Jamat supporters blocked highways, attacked vehicles, started fires and struck at banks in cities across the country, including Sylhet, Rajshahi, Khulna and Patuakhali, the police and witnesses said. They were dispersed by officers using rubber bullets.

Jamaat also called a daylong general strike on Sunday to protest the verdict.

(source: Reuters)

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

Jamaat leader sentenced to death over war crimes

A top leader of Bangladesh's fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami was Thursday sentenced to death for mass murder and "crimes against humanity" he committed during the 1971 liberation war against Pakistan, becoming the fourth person to be convicted in the case.

A special Bangladeshi tribunal handed down death penalty to Muhammad Kuamaruzzaman for collaborating in the mass murder of 164 unarmed civilians in Sohagpur village on July 25, 1971, The Daily Star reported.

"He will be hanged by neck until he is dead," chairman of the 3-judge International Crimes Tribunal-2 Justice Obaidul Hassan pronounced as the convict was escorted to the dock at the crowded courtroom.

Quamruzzaman, 60, an assistant secretary general of Jamaat, is the 4th accused convicted for the 1971 war crimes siding with Pakistani troops while his party was opposed to Bangladesh's independence.

Elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion and police enforced a sharp vigil around the tribunal complex of the special tribunal at the Old High Court complex at downtown Dhaka as the verdict came while an opposition enforced nationwide shutdown for the second consecutive day.

Quamaruzzaman was brought at the court by a security convoy from the Dhaka Central Jail.

The prosecution lawyers earlier said he was a principal organiser of the so-called elite al Badr militia forces manned by Bengali collaborators in the northern Mymensingh region which subsequently carried out atrocities and mass murders also elsewhere in the country.

During the trial, Quamaruzzaman denied the allegations and said the prosecution was politically motivated.

Bangladesh says the liberation war left 3 million people dead, 200,000 women raped and forced millions to flee to India.

Strongly opposing the tribunal decision, Quamaruzzaman's counsel Saifur Rahman said they would appeal against the judgment in the Supreme Court.

(source: The Indian Express)

MAY 9, 2013:

TEXAS----stay of impendnig execution

Execution for Prison Guard Murder Delayed for DNA Tests

State lawyers agreed Thursday to a 60-day reprieve for death row inmate Robert Pruett, who was scheduled for execution May 21, after the inmate filed a request for DNA testing, arguing it may prove his innocence in the 1999 stabbing of prison correctional officer Daniel Nagle.

Pruett, 33, was convicted in 2002 of Nagle's killing and maintains that inmates and corrupt officers colluded to implicate him. A jury found Pruett guilty after prosecutors argued that he murdered Nagle after a dispute over a disciplinary write-up. Prosecutors told jurors that Pruett - who was already serving a life sentence for another murder he allegedly participated in with his father - killed Nagle because the inmate was upset that he had written him up for taking a sack lunch into the recreation yard at the McConnell Unit in Beeville.

That write-up is the subject of the DNA request. A palm print was found on the report that did not match Pruett. The Texas Department of Public Safety currently maintains a database of palm prints, but it did not exist in 2002.

"Since 2002, the science of touch DNA has developed, and prints left on pieces of evidence are routinely tested for DNA," Pruett's lawyer David Dow, who teaches at the University of Houston Law Center, wrote in the request for testing. "The State's scientists that examined the disciplinary report did not utilize this technology, which was still in its infancy at the time of trial."

Pruett believes that someone else tore up the disciplinary report and spread the pieces near Nagle's body in an attempt to frame him for the murder, Dow wrote. He added that no guards witnessed the murder and that the inmates who testified about witnessing the murder may have been unreliable.

(source: Texas Tribune)

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Executions under Rick Perry, 2001-present-----258

Executions in Texas: Dec. 7,1982-present----497

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

259-------------May 15-------------------Jeffrey Williams-----498

260-------------June 12------------------Elroy Chester--------499

261------------June 26-------------------Kimberly McCarthy----500******

262--------------July 10------------------Rigoberto Avila, Jr.----501

263-------------July 16-----------------John Quintanilla Jr.---502

264-------------July 18------------------Vaughn Ross----------503

265-------------July 31-------------------Douglas Feldman-----504

266-------------Sept. 19------------------Robert Garza--------505

267-------------Sept. 26------------------Arturo Diaz--------506

(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)

PENNSYLVANIA:

Murphy sentenced to death in killings of mother, sister and aunt

A Westmoreland County judge this afternoon sentenced convicted triple-murderer Kevin Murphy to death by lethal injection.

Offered a chance to make a statement, he declined.

In a brief hearing, Judge Al Bell then imposed the sentence delivered by a jury late Tuesday night.

The death penalty is punishment for the murder of his mother, Doris Murphy, 69, on April 23, 2009. He received life in prison for the murders of his sister, Kris Murphy, 43, and his aunt, Edith Tietge, 81.

Mr. Murphy was convicted of shooting all 3 in the back of the head in the garage of his glass shop in Loyalhanna.

Disrict Attorney John Peck said Mr. Murphy shot them at the behest of his then-married girlfriend, Susan McGuire, who urged him to "knock off" his relatives because they disapproved of his relationship with her.

Ms. McGuire has not been charged but Mr. Peck said the investigation remains open.

Following the sentencing, Mr. Murphy cried as he hugged members of his family in the gallery while sheriff's deputies stood guard.

It was the 1st time since his trial began nearly 3 weeks ago that he showed any emotion.

It's unlikely, however, that Mr. Murphy will be executed for many years, if ever. Nearly 200 inmates are on death row in Pennsylvania, but the state hasn't executed anyone since Gary Heidnik in 1999.

In Mr. Murphy's case, the 1st step now is an automatic review by the state Supreme Court.

(source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

OHIO:

Castro, arraigned for kidnapping and rape, could face murder charges

Ariel Castro has been arraigned on charges of rape and kidnapping, days after three women missing for over a decade were found alive at his home. He looked down at the ground while lawyers spoke to the judge. Bond was set at $2 million on each case.

Ariel Castro, the former school bus driver who owned the home where three women were held captive for the past decade, was arraigned Thursday morning on kidnapping and rape charges. But Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty suggested later Thursday that Castro could face murder charges and he's implicated in the deaths of the victims' unborn children.

McGinty said pending further police investigation, Castro, 52, could face charge of murder in the course of kidnapping, which carries a potential death penalty. McGinty will present the case to the grand jury and would seek aggravated murder charges for each of the pregnancies.

Initial police reports obtained by Cleveland TV station WKYC said kidnap victims Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were raped by Castro and that Knight had been impregnated 5 times, then starved and beaten, killing the fetuses. Berry, also impregnated, gave birth to a baby - now 6 - in Castro's basement, according to the report.

Earlier Monday, Castro was arraigned on 7 charges of kidnapping and rape. Handcuffed and wearing a dark blue jail jumpsuit, Castro stared at the floor throughout most of the 5-minute hearing, even while exchanging words and a few nods with his attorney, public defender Kathleen DeMetz.

Cleveland Municipal Court judge Lauren Moore set bail at $8 million.

It was Castro's 1st court appearance since Berry's screams Monday alerted neighbors, then the police and the world to the nightmare she and fellow victims Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight endured.

Prosecutor Brian Murphy said the rape and kidnapping charges are based on Castro's "premeditated, deliberate and depraved decisions to snatch 3 young ladies from Cleveland's west side streets to use for whatever self-gratifying, self-serving ways that he saw fit."

He said the women were forced to endure a "horrifying ordeal for more than a decade" in which they were had been "bound, restrained and sexually assaulted."

"They were never free to leave this residence," he said, referring to Castro's Seymour Avenue home.

Castro did not enter a plea, which DeMetz said would be done when the case is transferred from municipal court to county court. She acknowledged that Castro could face additional charges.

Castro has been under suicide watch during his confinement in the medical ward of the municipal jail. He'll be transferred to the county jail.

CBS News, quoting an unidentified law enforcement source, reported Thursday that FBI agents found a note in Castro's house, apparently dating back to 2004, in which he contemplated suicide and asked that all of his money be provided to each of his victims. In the note, Castro wrote that he was abused as a child and raped by an uncle, CBS said.

DeMetz met with Castro for 30 minutes Thursday morning to review his rights and court procedures. She declined to discuss what they talked about or describe his demeanor.

She said he had not spoken to his brothers, Pedro and Onil. The brothers were arrested Monday, but prosecutors say there is no evidence linking them to the victims' kidnapping or sexual assault. They were in court on unrelated misdemeanor charges Thursday. Pedro Castro pleaded no contest to an unrelated open-container charge and two unrelated misdemeanor charges against Onil Castro were dropped. Both were later freed.

Knight, now 32, remains in a Cleveland hospital. Berry, 27, and DeJesus, 23, returned to their Cleveland homes Wednesday for their 1st time since they vanished.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson made a statement asking everyone to give the victims in Cleveland time and space to heal.

As prosecutors consider additional charges, grim details emerge from the initial police report on what went on inside Castro's home, where the victims were heled after being abducted on separate occasions by Castro after he offered them rides home from school or work.

The report sketches the outlines of the victims' descent into hell and is rife with details of beatings, chained confinement, starvation and death threats.

The report alleges that Castro impregnated Knight five times, forced her to starve for weeks at a time and punched her in the stomach until she miscarried. Castro, the report said, also forced Knight to deliver Berry's baby in a plastic kiddie pool and threatened to murder Knight if the newborn died.

"Michelle stated that Ariel told her that if the baby died, that he'd kill her," the police report states, according to WKYC's Tom Meyer.

The report then tells of the next few harrowing minutes as Knight fought for her own life and for the life of Berry's child, Jocelyn, who had stopped breathing during the birth. Knight, the report said, put her mouth to the Jocelyn's mouth and "breathed for her" to keep them both alive.

The report, according to WKYC, says Berry managed to escape Monday because Castro forgot to lock the "big inside door" when he left briefly to go to a local fast-food restaurant. She then alerted neighbors and called 911.

Once police arrived, the officers checked the basement and then walked to the second floor."As we neared the top of the steps, Officer Espada hollered out, 'Cleveland Police,' at which time ... Knight ran and threw herself into (Officer) Espada's arms," the officer writing the report noted. "We then asked if there was anyone else upstairs with her, when (DeJesus) came out of the bedroom."

Espada then put Knight down and DeJesus jumped into the officer's arms.

As the victims settled into their sudden freedom, Gina's aunt, Sandra Ruiz, called on friends, relatives and the media "to give us time and privacy to heal."

Mayor Frank Jackson said Thursday afternoon that he had ordered his police and public safety officials to plug leaks of information in the case. Jackson said the order was not intended to conceal information, but "to demonstrate compassion for the victims and their families and to ensure the credibility of our investigative process and to allow us to arrive at a just conclusion in this very difficult situation."

He would not elaborate, but suggested he was concerned about the dissemination of erroneous information through leaks.

(source: USA Today)

ARKANSAS:

Death Penalty Racist, Unconstitutional, Murder Suspect Claims

The attorney for a Greenland murder suspect is calling on county court officials to abolish the possibility of the death penalty for Mandrake Patterson, calling the death penalty racist against African Americans.

Patterson was arrested in January, suspected of gunning down his wife and mother-in-law. Patterson, 27, is charged with 2 counts of capital murder and 1 count of attempted capital murder. Patterson pleaded not guilty to the charges and remains in the Washington County Detention Center without bond.

The capital murder trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 26. Public defender Gregg Parrish submitted several pretrial motions last month seeking to take the death penalty off the table, since prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Patterson, according to court documents from the Washington County Circuit Clerk's Office.

Despite the motions' language, prosecutors have not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty in the murder case against Patterson, according to the Washington County Prosecutor's Office.

In 1 pretrial motion, Parrish states the death penalty has been historically racist.

"(T)he death penalty has been arbitrarily and capriciously imposed in an unconstitutionally and racially discriminatory manner," Parrish states. "(T)here has been a clear pattern showing that the death penalty is more likely to be imposed upon an African-American defendant convicted of killing a white person."

The motion goes on to state that the 14th Amendment prohibits racial discrimination in capital sentencing.

Other motions call the death penalty itself unconstitutional, on grounds of cruel and unusual punishment, and seek a 2nd trial for sentencing if Patterson is found guilty of capital murder. A jury able to render a death penalty finding may be pre-disposed to think of Patterson as guilty during the trial, one of the motions states.

Patterson was arrested Jan. 10 on suspicion of killing 2 people and injuring his wife's aunt at 1037 N. Main St. in Greenland.

Patterson's mother-in-law, Betty Desalvo, 53, was pronounced dead after the shooting. His wife, Hope Patterson, 34, died later at Washington Regional Medical Center, according to the Greenland Police Department.

A 3rd woman, Denise Fulfer, 55, was in critical but stable condition at Washington Regional Medical Center. Desalvo and Fulfer are sisters.

Patterson made a voluntary statement to Greenland police and confessed to being involved in the shooting, according to a probable cause preliminary report from the Washington County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.

Police responded to a domestic disturbance call at the Elmwood Apartments on Main Street at 8:46 p.m., authorities said.

"It was a domestic dispute that went bad," said Police Chief Gary Ricker.

All those involved lived at the address where the shooting occurred, police said.

Police said there was 5th person who also lived in the apartment who witnessed the shooting and is being questioned by police.

Greenland police said a shotgun was used in the shootings.

Police said they have responded to disturbance calls at the home in the past.

Ricker said it's been a while since something like this has happened in the city of Greenland.

"The last murder we had before this was probably about 10 years ago, and I've been police chief for 21 years. And this is only the 2nd time that something like this happened," Ricker said.

(source: KFSM News)

ARIZONA:

After Conviction in Murder Case, Sentencing Presents a New Trial

There were cheers and hugs on the packed sidewalk outside the courthouse here on Wednesday as word trickled out of a verdict in the 4-month murder trial of Jodi Arias.

A petite woman with bangs and glasses, Ms. Arias, 32, stood accused of shooting, repeatedly stabbing and almost decapitating her former boyfriend, Travis Alexander, 5 years ago. Nancy Grace of HLN, the cable news channel, who had done much to popularize the case on television, choked up as she delivered the news. "Guilty on murder one," she said.

The trial has brought large crowds and a news media scrum to the Maricopa County Superior Court, as well as a live, online video stream of the proceedings and extensive coverage on cable television. Entered into evidence were sometimes salacious pictures, videos and text messages that depicted the couple's tumultuous relationship, and coverage of the trial took on some of the aspects of a nonfiction soap opera. Ratings soared.

Now, far from the cameras, in a jury room deep within the courthouse, the case will enter its solemn ending, as 12 citizens begin the task of deciding whether Ms. Arias should die for her crime. After a postponement on Thursday, jurors will reconvene on May 15.

If reality television shows have fueled viewers' appetites for the sensational details of courtroom testimony, jurors on many previous capital cases say that they were unprepared for the emotional impact of the sentencing phase. Reaching a decision to impose the death penalty, they say, is painfully difficult, with haunting effects that linger long after the trial ends.

Stephanie DePrima, 61, a sales clerk in Salem, Ore., recalled staring at autopsy pictures alongside other jurors during a trial three years ago, as a man's life "hung from the tips of our fingers," she said. The pictures, of a bank lobby where the defendants had detonated a bomb during a robbery, depicted "the most horrific scenes" she had ever seen, Ms. DePrima said.

"We saw so much, it got to a point we kind of started going numb," she recalled during an interview this week. "It became so overwhelming you had to shut yourself off from what you were seeing."

Ms. DePrima said she did not cry until weeks after the jury sentenced the defendant to death. Nightmares began after several months, she said, jolting her awake in sheer terror - "sweat, my heart beating fast."

Alison Ward, 65, a retiree from Sanibel, Fla., was a juror in 2010 in the capital trial of a man accused of killing his 11-month-old stepdaughter.

One image stayed with her, she said: the defendant and the girl's mother carrying the child's body in a suitcase, where they had stored it overnight.

"Reality is nothing like you see on TV," Ms. Ward said, describing the experience of serving on the jury as a lonely, painful quest to decide whether to impose what she called "a measure of justice that is bizarre" - a death as a sentence for a killing.

A Supreme Court ruling in 2002 required that jurors, rather than judges, decide whether sufficient aggravating factors existed before the death penalty can be imposed. In Arizona and most of the other 31 states that have the death penalty, jurors also decide on the sentencing, the only time in criminal prosecutions when the penalty is applied by average citizens.

During trials of any type, jurors cannot talk to anyone about the case they are weighing, not even one another, save for discussions held inside the deliberation room.

"We take all of that in," Ms. Ward lamented, "but can't get it out."

Ms. DePrima said that she and some of the other jurors got together for coffee a few times "to decompress a little bit," but after a while, she stopped accepting the invitations. "It got too hard to remember," she said.

Ronald Reedy, 77, a juror in the capital trial of a man charged with stomping a person to death, said he often bumped into some of the other jurors, his neighbors at a retirement community in Central Florida. The greeting is nothing more than, "Hi, how are you," he said.

"We did what we had to do," Mr. Reedy said, "and then it was over."

For the jurors weighing Ms. Arias' fate, the sentencing is the 1st step of the trial's final chapter. After considering whether aggravating factors were present, they will move to decide whether to recommend the death penalty.

Of the 125 inmates on death row in Arizona, 3 are women. Depending on the jury's decision, Ms. Arias could be sent to join them, or she could remain in prison for the rest of her life. If jurors cannot reach a unanimous decision, Arizona law allows the court to order another jury. If a 2nd jury cannot reach a unanimous decision, the judge would impose a life sentence.

Ms. Arias has expressed her preference for execution. "Death is the ultimate freedom," she said during a television interview after the verdict. "I'd rather just have my freedom as soon as I can get it."

(source: New York Times)

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We're obsessed when it's white women in trouble

Our country is obsessed with the perils of attractive young white women, as this week's trio of high profile crime stories about Amanda Knox, Jodi Arias and the Cleveland kidnapping victims demonstrates. We don't see breathless coverage of the disproportionately large number of African-American men tried for crimes in our system. We see almost no coverage of missing boys, or missing children of color, or crimes against nonwhites.

This week an African-American man in Mississippi, Willie Manning, was about to be executed, though he was denied access to DNA testing. Manning, convicted of murdering 2 college students in 1994, maintains his innocence and requested the scientific testing, which has exonerated many convicted murderers, including some on death row.

The Mississippi Supreme Court denied that request and ordered his execution. At the last moment, U.S. Justice Department letters tipped the balance in favor of a reprieve. Few media outlets considered the monumental constitutional issues, or even the dramatic ticking clock toward his execution, worthy of mention.

Isn't the fact that we still execute Americans without giving them access to DNA testing a stunning, significant story? Yet it got next to no attention.

Instead, in the last week thousands of hours of attention have been devoted to every detail of just 3 crime stories.

In Phoenix, Arizona, Jodi Arias was convicted Wednesday of 1st degree murder, after the jury unanimously found that she intentionally and with premeditation killed her former boyfriend, Travis Alexander. The trial was covered live on HLN and followed closely on social media and other television networks. The next phase of the trial is scheduled to begin May 15.

In Cleveland, Ohio, Amanda Berry reportedly screamed for help, a neighbor came to her aid, and she, her 6-year-old daughter, and 2 women, Gina DeJesus (who is Latina) and Michelle Knight were freed after a decade of captivity. Ariel Castro was charged today with kidnapping and rape.

Amanda Knox, the American college student who was convicted, then acquitted of the murder of her roommate in Italy, has given tearful interviews in connection with her book tour, as an Italian court has reversed again and held that she should stand trial again for the charges.

Each of these cases includes salacious allegations and high-stakes outcomes. The Cleveland victims were reportedly raped and beaten countless times over the years. Amanda Knox is accused of killing her roommate as part of a drug-fueled sex game. Jodi Arias posed nude for photos and had sex with her victim just before she murdered him.

While each of these crime stories is worthy of news coverage -- especially the Cleveland story, which involved serious questions of alleged law enforcement lapses -- many others are equally worthy yet receive little or no attention, even as every detail of the high-profile stories is pored over and rehashed.

Missing children websites carry pictures of many African-American and Latino kids who have disappeared, and photos of little boys who have vanished. News outlets rarely feature their stories. Their families grieve their absence and yearn for media coverage that could help find their children and energize law enforcement.

And the biggest American crime story of all receives the least mention: that we now incarcerate more of our own people than any other country on earth, or in human history, and that minority males are disproportionately policed, arrested and convicted, and sentenced to harsher sentences. African-American juveniles are 6 times as likely as whites to be sentenced to prison for identical crimes.

In Washington, 3 out of every 4 black men can expect some time behind bars in their lifetimes. In Baltimore and Chicago, the majority of young black men are currently under the control of the criminal justice system. In sheer numbers, more African-Americans are under correctional control today than were enslaved at the time of the Civil War. Our disastrous war on drugs has devastated inner-city communities, and led to large numbers of African-Americans being legally barred from voting, jury duty, public housing, food stamps, student loans, and many other civic rights and benefits, often for life.

We cannot fix these problems if we are unaware of them. We cannot get a groundswell for reform if we are distracted by titillating outlier stories.

The media choose which stories to make high profile, driven by public interest in those stories. We cannot call ourselves a nation of equals until we pay equal attention to all those in our criminal justice system whose stories merit our attention, regardless of their race or gender.

(source: Opinion, Lisa Bloom--CNN)

WASHINGTON:

WA Supreme Court hears Carnation death penalty appeal

The Washington Supreme Court will hear arguments for and against the use of the death penalty against a man and a woman accused of killing 6 Carnation family members on Christmas Eve 2007.

Joseph McEnroe and his girlfriend Michele Anderson are accused of murdering 6 members of Anderson's family, including her 6-year-old niece and 3-year-old nephew.

Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ramsdell ruled January 31st that the King County prosecutor's office made a mistake in considering the strength of its evidence in deciding to seek the death penalty.

Jury selection was set to take place in early February for McEnroe's trial, but the trial is on hold as prosecutors appeal Judge Ramsdell's ruling. Anderson's trial has also been stayed pending the appeal.

(source: KING News)

SAUDI ARABIA----execution

Man beheaded for drug trafficking in Saudi Arabia; 38 people executed in kingdom this year

Saudi authorities on Wednesday beheaded a Pakistani man found guilty of smuggling drugs into the kingdom, the interior ministry said.

The man was caught attempting to smuggle heroin hidden inside his stomach, the ministry said.

He was executed in Riyadh.

His beheading brings to 38 the number of people executed in Saudi Arabia since the beginning of the year, according to an AFP tally.

In 2012, the kingdom executed 76 people, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Human Rights Watch has put the number at 69.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Saudi Arabia's strict version of sharia, or Islamic law.

(source: Gulf News)

CHINA:

Why China Executes So Many People; Despite growing opposition, capital punishment remains entrenched in the country's justice system.

Zhang Jing has only seen her husband 4 times in the past 4 years. This Thursday, it will have been be exactly 2 years since they last met.

And she may never see him again.

That's because Zhang's husband, Xia Junfeng, a former street vendor in the northeastern city of Shenyang, was sentenced to death in 2011 for stabbing to death 2 chengguan, who are much-maligned city management inspectors responsible for enforcing law and order.

The sentence is now under final review by the Supreme People's Court in Beijing. If approved, Xia will not be able to appeal and will be executed.

Zhang, 37, still adamantly believes that her husband is innocent.

"They charged him with intentional homicide. But how could my husband have 'intentionally' killed someone if they first beat him up?" Zhang questioned. "He was only defending himself. If he'd known what would happen, would he still have done it? Of course he wouldn't have. Even if he escaped the death penalty, he'd lose freedom for the rest of his life behind bars. Isn't that a very painful thing?"

"Also, why didn't they call defense witnesses to testify in court? Why only call upon the chengguans' witnesses? I feel it was very unfair," she said.

Cases like Xia's, where there's a chance that the accused could be innocent, are the focus of the anti-death penalty efforts in China. "Even those who strongly support the death penalty don't support condemning an innocent person to death," said Teng Biao, a human rights activist and founder of the non-profit Beijing-based China Against Death Penalty. Teng also served as the defense lawyer for Xia in his appeal.

A report released last month by the human rights group Amnesty International said that, as in previous years, China executed more people last year than the rest of the world combined. While the official number is unknown -- executions are considered state secrets in China -- most estimates place the number at around 3,000. By contrast, 42 people were executed in the United States last year.

Opposition to the death penalty exists in China but faces many obstacles, including pro-execution government propaganda, class and income inequalities, and the lack of an independent judiciary. Another issue, alas, is popular indifference. But while anti-death penalty activists say public education is needed to get the message out, they believe change ultimately needs to come from the top -- something that they're not optimistic about at all.

***

The death penalty has deeply-entrenched roots in China, and the notion of sha ren chang ming, the Mandarin equivalent to "an eye for an eye", is rife in Chinese literature and tradition. But a judiciary beholden to the interests of the Communist Party arguably has a bigger impact.

"If the case is deemed to be detrimental to social stability, the government might order the courts to issue the death penalty," said Liu Weiguo, a Shandong-based rights lawyer. Even some supporters of the death penalty, like Guangzhou lawyer Cheng Zhunqiang, say that its legitimacy depends on the existence of an "extremely fair and just" judiciary, which China lacks. The current judicial system is unfairly skewed against the disenfranchised, and the application of the law is utterly arbitrary.

Prominent human rights lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan recalled a typical example: Gu Kailai, the wife of disgraced Politburo member Bo Xilai and convicted murderer, was given a suspended death sentence due to mental illness. Meanwhile, a villager from the impoverished southwestern province of Guizhou that Liu represented was refused a psychiatric assessment by the judges who eventually sentenced him to death.

6 decades of Communist rule have inculcated the idea that an individual life can be sacrificed for the greater good, a belief exemplified by the 1-child policy. The poor are further disadvantaged because they cannot afford to "buy back" their lives by offering financial compensation to the victim's family in return for them not pressing charges. This issue loomed large in the case of Zhang Jing. "We're just hawkers. We don't have money. We can't afford to compensate. It's impossible," she said.

Besides these legal questions, death penalty opponents contend that the government's propaganda seeks to convince people that killing is appropriate in certain circumstances. 6 decades of Communist rule have inculcated the idea that an individual life can be sacrificed for the greater good, a belief exemplified by the 1-child policy.

There's also a sense, reinforced through propaganda, that killing "bad people" is inherently just. In March, national television ran live footage of the run-up to the execution of four foreign nationals convicted of murdering 13 Chinese sailors on the Mekong River, an event that received international media attention. Shortly after the execution, Hu Xijin, the editor of the nationalistic state-run newspaper Global Times, declared to his 3.6 million followers on Weibo that "it is necessary to resolutely pursue revenge and send a stern warning to those who kill Chinese people."

These efforts appear to be working. A survey of respondents in Beijing, Hubei and Guangdong conducted in 2008 by the Max Planck Institute revealed that almost 60 percent supported the death penalty. Unsurprisingly, capital punishment provides great legitimacy to the Communist Party, which claims to be satisfying popular sentiment and public indignation when it executes corrupt officials. China is one of the very few countries that has the death penalty for economic crime and has shown little mercy with disgraced government officials. And, in a country in which free speech isn't guaranteed, the public hears few arguments against the death penalty in the national media.

***

Chinese opponents of the death penalty know they face a daunting environment.

"Very few people are aware of the concept of abolishing the death penalty, let alone the consideration of societal improvement and benefits that comes with getting rid of the sentence. Only an extremely small minority knows about it," said Beijing-based human rights lawyer Li Heping. "An overwhelming majority, including some members of the legal profession, think that the death penalty is a right and proper punishment. They have not thought about this issue in depth."

Liang Xiaojun, who works with Teng Biao, pointed out that China Against Death Penalty is China's only grassroots organization that pays close attention to the death penalty issue. "The movement is not on track yet. We were only recently set up, so our influence is still quite limited," he said.

For now, death penalty opponents are aiming to limit its use by first abolishing the sentence against non-violent crimes. China currently has 55 offenses that are punishable by death -- the most in the world. Of these, 31 are non-violent offenses. But in the long term, death penalty opponents have a much higher aim: to completely overhaul the way the practice is judged in Chinese society.

Will this happen? Ultimately, most activists believe change requires leadership from the top. Many countries that abolished the death penalty did so before public opinion had swung in favor of ending it. The Communist Party, with its lack of political opposition, would face few hurdles should it choose to change this policy. Nevertheless, few Chinese are optimistic.

Back in Shenyang, Zhang Jing said she's mentally prepared for the ruling, which could come any day.

"I don't dare give myself even a little hope. I'm afraid I won't be able to take it," said Zhang. "If the sentence is upheld, that means justice no longer applies. What can you do?" Her voice trailed off.

"I hope the death penalty can be abolished, not because of my husband's case, but because I know that there're many wrongful convictions," she said. "But it's a long, long road ahead. I don't know when it'll happen, I don't know how many lifetimes later, but definitely not within my lifetime."

(source: The Atlantic)

INDIA:

Campaign Against the Death Penalty in India - conference at Delhi on May 10

It is learnt that various campaigners against the death penalty in India are going to hold a conference at Delhi on May 10, 2013. The conference shall be held at Speakers Hall, Constitution Club, Rafi Marg, New Delhi from 3 pm to 8 pm.

According to information the purpose of the conference is to provide a rational critique from eminent and distinguished speakers, both from the judiciary, those working within the Indian criminal justice system, NGO's and human rights groups; how the death penalty as a means of punishment and deterrence is both dangerous and flawed as a penal objective in 2013.

"Given the disturbing recent trend of the death penalty being carried out arbitrarily this year in India, a national campaign against the death penalty comprising of distinguished jurists, senior lawyers, human rights groups, academics, NGOs and activists have converged to highlight the disappointing return to capital punishment. The secretive and barbaric nature of these executions has added to the alarm and concern" reads a statement by the organizers of the conference.

The conference will examine some of the following topics with eminent speakers including:

--Justice A.K. Ganguli (Retd), Supreme Court, Juvenile Justice: the death penalty for juveniles accused of serious offences

--Justice A. P. Shah (Retd.), Chief Justice Delhi High Court, A judges View of the use and abuse of the death penalty.

--Colin Gonsalves, Senior Supreme Court Advocate and director of HRLN, Access to justice, flawed investigations, legal aid and the right to a fair trial where the death penalty is carried out.

--Shashi Kumar Velath, Amnesty International, The "Lethal Lottery", activism and mobilization.

--Meagan Lee, Reprieve, India bucking the trend: The global move away from the death penalty and "Death-row Syndrome", --Anup Surendranath, Professor National Law University Delhi, TADA - Emergency Legislation and the Death Penalty.

--Navneet Bhullar, My struggle against the death penalty

--Satnam Singh Bains, Barrister Chambers Lord Gifford QC, London, Miscarriages of justice

This conference has been organised by Human Rights Law Network in collaboration with Peoples Union for Civil Liberties, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Free Bhullar Campaign, Lokraj Sanganath, AISA, JNU Students' Union, Peoples Union for Democratic Rights, Anhad, Jamia Teachers' Solidarity Association, Indian Alliance for Child Rights, Lawyers for Human Rights International, Lawyers for Justice, People's Watch, Sikh Human Rights Groups and other NGOs.

(source: sikhsiyasat.net)

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

Germany pitches for commuting death penalty

The German embassy in New Delhi on Thursday conveyed to the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) that Germany had strongly taken up the issue of commuting Devinderpal Singh Bhullar's death sentence to life imprisonment with President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

At a meeting with DSGMC president Manjit Singh GK and general secretary Manjinder Singh Sirsa, the embassy conveyed that German President Joachim Gauck had sent a written communique to the Indian President and PM.

"The embassy has conveyed to us that it was mentioned in the communication to India's top leaders that when Bhullar was extradited from Germany in 1995, it was decided that he would not be given capital punishment in India," said GK.

He said the German intervention would help the efforts being made by the Shiromani Akali Dal and the DSGMC to save Bhullar from the gallows. India's leaders were also told by the German President that capital punishment was not prevalent in Germany and the European Union.

Bhullar's wife Navneet Kaur and human rights lawyers from London Jaswant Kaur and Satnam Singh were also present at the meeting.

On April 15, Navneet and the others had approached the embassy, seeking the German government's intervention in the matter. "On Thursday, we were called to the embassy for a meeting in response to our request," the DSGMC president said.

German minister for foreign affairs Guido Westerwlee has also written to his Indian counterpart, Salman Khurshid, on the issue, asking the Indian government to commute Bhullar's death sentence.

Bhullar is on death row after being convicted for the 1993 Delhi bomb blast, which killed 9 persons. The attack had targeted then Youth Congress chief Maninderjit Singh Bitta, who survived.

(source: Hindustan Times)

TEXAS----impending execution

Death Watch: New Appeal Argues Mental Impairment; New appeal argues Williams' mental impairment

It was 9:07pm on May 19, 1990 when undercover Houston Police Officer Troy Blando ran a check through the mobile data terminal in his unmarked Jeep Cherokee, looking for history on a Lexus he spotted driving into the parking lot of the Roadrunner Motor Inn while he was out on the beat, hunting for stolen cars. Just about 2 minutes later, he activated the MDT's emergency assistance button; he'd been shot, and needed help. Blando did not survive.

Police quickly arrested Jeffrey Williams, who said he'd been getting out of the Lexus in question - a car that he had stolen. Williams told police that he'd shot Blando in self-defense. Blando had approached him with his gun drawn, and Williams didn't know he was an officer, he said. Blando called him names and tried to cuff him, he told police. Williams pulled a gun, as did Blando, according to court records. Both fired; Blando was shot in the chest. The police found Williams near the scene of the crime. He was still wearing a single handcuff on his wrist. In February 2000, Williams was convicted of murdering Blando and was sentenced to death.

Williams has raised a number of points on appeal - including that he is mentally disabled, and that his lawyer, well-known Houston capital attorney Donald Davis, who was disbarred several months after Williams was convicted and then committed suicide several weeks later, failed to do any investigation into Williams' history of mental health issues - making him ineligible for execution. Execution of the mentally ill or the mentally retarded is constitutionally banned, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled.

Indeed, Walter Quijano, the psychologist likely now best known for his testimony in a handful of capital cases opining that being black makes one more likely to be dangerous, was hired in Williams' case, but was never provided any materials or given any direction, he said in an affidavit attached to one of Williams' appeals. In order to prove mental disability to avoid execution, courts look to three factors: low IQ, low adaptive functioning, and childhood onset. (For more on capital punishment and mental retardation in Texas, see "Smart Enough to Die," April 19.) Williams' IQ is in question - he tested at 70 in high school, but his academic achievements surpassed that limited level, the courts have said - as is his ability to care for himself. Friends and family have described a man incapable of dressing or cleaning himself, who doesn't understand how to prepare food or to hold a job. Nonetheless, courts have ruled that he is not too impaired: He was able to buy 2 vehicles on his own, and, although witnesses said he was unkempt and unclean, no one ever said he smelled bad, a federal judge concluded.

In a new appeal, Williams' current attorney, Virginia lawyer Jon Sheldon, argues that although there was plenty of evidence of Williams' troubled background and mental impairment, none of that evidence was brought in during the sentencing phase of his trial, when the jury must consider whether there is mitigating evidence that might warrant a sentence of life rather than death. That evidence "should have been presented" in Williams' case, he said. In fact, not only did Davis fail at trial, Sheldon said, but Williams' state habeas appeal attorney also fell down on the job – in part by failing to raise an ineffective assistance claim. Indeed, Sheldon said Williams' first habeas lawyer failed to do any real work on Williams' behalf; he took an old appeal from another defendant in an unrelated case and merely did a cut-and-paste with the text - leaving in details from the other case - to create an appeal for Williams. He then filed that appeal late, Sheldon said, prompting the court to reject it. Because of the failed lawyering, he said, the case deserves scrutiny. "You cannot have faith at all that anything in this case" was done properly, he said.

Sheldon said he believes that recent court action in an unrelated matter suggests that the federal courts would agree that Williams' case should be reviewed. It's "highly likely we'll get a stay on this," he said.

If put to death as scheduled on May 15, Williams would be the 498th inmate executed since reinstatement of the death penalty.

As expected, the state on Tuesday executed Carroll Parr, convicted of shooting a drug dealer in a drug-deal-turned-robbery gone bad.

(source: Austin Chronicle)

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Criminal appeals court rejects 'suitcase killer' Rosendo Rodriguez's petition; Court dismissed petition without comment

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected convicted murderer Rosendo Rodriguez III's attempt to win a new trial in his death penalty case.

The court dismissed his state habeas corpus petition without comment Wednesday, May 8. Rodriguez, convicted in 2008 and sentenced to death for the 2005 killing of a prostitute and her unborn child in a Lubbock hotel room, contended his trial was marred by alleged juror misconduct and inadequate legal representation.

He also said his attorneys should have stopped him from reneging on a plea deal that would have given him a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Rodriguez gained the "suitcase killer" nickname because after killing Summer Baldwin, he bought a suitcase, put her body in it and left it in a Dumpster. Under the plea deal he backed out of, he also gave Lubbock County prosecutors information that eventually led to the discovery of a teenage girl's body - also left in a suitcase - in the city's landfill.

District Judge Jim Bob Darnell, who presided at the trial 5 years ago, reviewed the record and held several days of evidentiary hearings last year before delivering an 83-page finding recommending the appellate court reject Rodriguez's arguments.

Rodriguez still can file a federal habeas corpus petition before exhausting his main avenues of appeal.

(source: Lubbock Avalanche-Journal)

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

Convicted courthouse shooter accurately predicts his death sentence

During the penalty phase of his trial for a fatal courthouse shooting, Bartholomew Granger scribbled a message on a legal pad and held it up for jurors to see.

The message read, "Death," report the Associated Press, the Beaumont Enterprise and the Houston Chronicle. On Tuesday, jurors acquiesced after less than 2 hours of deliberations and found that Granger deserved to die for the fatal shooting of 79-year-old Minnie Ray Sebolt at a courthouse in Beaumont, Texas.

Granger had insisted he wasn't responsible for the slaying of Sebolt, but did admit shooting his daughter and running over her with his truck outside the courthouse. She survived the attack. The daughter had testified against Granger in a sexual assault case, and Granger said she deserved to die. "She's the one who should be dead," he said in a courtroom outburst last week. "Not the old lady, her!"

The outbursts continued when Sebolt's daughter, Deborah Ray Holst, read a victim impact statement after the jury decided on the sentence, the AP story says. Granger shouted, "I didn't kill your mother!" and said he didn't want to hear the statement. Holst asked the judge if Granger could be shocked.

"Tase me. Inject me with poison," Granger said.

"I would love to do it myself," Holst replied.

(source: ABA Journal)

PENNSYLVANIA:

Judge set to sentence man to death in Loyalhanna triple murder

Kevin Murphy will formally join Pennsylvania's death row today.

Westmoreland County Common Pleas Judge Al Bell will sentence him to death by lethal injection this afternoon after a jury imposed the penalty Monday night following a 2-week trial.

Mr. Murphy, 52, of Conemaugh in Indiana County, was convicted of murdering his mother, sister and aunt in 2009 because they disapproved of his relationship with a married woman who wanted to move in with him.

It's unlikely, however, that Mr. Murphy will be executed for many years, if ever. Nearly 200 inmates are on death row in Pennsylvania, but the state hasn't executed anyone since Gary Heidnik in 1999.

Some residents in Westmoreland County who followed the Murphy case commented that the penalty phase was pointless, citing the fact that 2 of the county's most notorious murderers, John Lesko and Michael Travaglia, are still on death row more than 30 years after their 1979-80 rampage that left 4 dead.

The delay in that case, as in all the others, is due to the endless appellate process. Capital cases are subject to 2 levels of judicial review, first in the state system and then in the federal courts. Even after all of that, state clemency hearings can add more time to the process.

In addition, momentum seems to be building across the country to abolish the death penalty altogether. Last week, Maryland became the 6th state in 6 years to do so, bringing the total to 18 states.

In Mr. Murphy's case, the 1st step now is an automatic review by the state Supreme Court.

Pittsburgh region's death row

The vast majority of those on death row are from Philadelphia, but the Pittsburgh region has its share. As of May 1, this is the list, according to the Department of Corrections:

Allegheny County

--Richard Baumhammers: Convicted of killing 5 in a racially motivated South Hills shooting rampage in 2000.

--Anthony Fiebiger: Convicted of raping and killing Marcia Jones of Mount Washington in 1982 and strangling Norma Parker of Carnegie in 1989.

--Gerald Watkins: Convicted of shooting his ex-girlfriend, Beth Ann Anderson, their baby, Melanie, and Ms. Anderson's son, Charles Kevin Kelly Jr., 9, at their house in Homewood in 1994.

--Ronald Taylor: Convicted of killing 3 in a 2000 Wilkinsburg shooting rampage targeting white people.

--Wayne Mitchell: Convicted of raping and killing his estranged wife, Robin Little, 19, in Homewood in 1997.

--Leroy Fears: Convicted of sexually assaulting and killing Shawn Hagan, 12, in 1994 after meeting him at a fishing spot along the Monongahela River.

--Kenneth Hairston: Convicted of killing his wife, Catherine, and autistic son, Sean, with a sledgehammer in their Garfield home in 2001.

--Patrick Stollar: Convicted in the 2003 beating, strangulation and stabbing of Jean Heck, 78, in her Upper St. Clair home.

Fayette County

--Scott Blystone: Convicted in the 1986 killing of hitchhiker Dalton Smithburger.

--Mark Breakiron: Convicted in the 1987 stabbing of waitress Saundra Martin.

--Mark Edwards: Convicted in the 2002 murders of Larry Bobish, his wife Joanna, and their pregnant daughter, Krystal, in their North Union home.

Washington County

--Roland Steele: Convicted in the 1985 "karate-style" murders of 3 elderly women: Lucille Horner, 88, Minnie Warwick, 86, and Sarah Knutz, 85.

--Michelle Tharp: Convicted in the 1998 starvation death of her daughter, Tausha Lee Lanham, 7.

Butler County

--Donald Tedford: Convicted in the rape and murder of Jeanine Revak, 22, in 1986.

Greene County

--Jeffrey Martin: Convicted in the rape and murder of Gabrielle Bechen, 12, in 2006.

(source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

NORTH CAROLINA:

House to vote on execution ban for mentally disabled

State House lawmakers are expected to vote next week on a bill that would let judges take the death penalty off the table for capital defendants with severe mental disability.

The measure, House Bill 722, won approval from the House Judiciary B subcommittee Wednesday evening. It sets up a very specific definition for "severe mental disability" involving a history of problems, an inability to understand the the wrongness of the crime, or to exercise rational judgment.

The accused would have to present "clear and convincing evidence" of the disability, and could not use the defense for a crime committed under voluntary intoxication, even if habitual.

A judge would be allowed to decide at a pre-trial hearing whether a defendant meets the criteria. If the judge agreed, the death penalty couldn't be sought, but the defendant wouldn't be able to raise the insanity defense at trial.

The measure also provides for retroactive application through Motions for Appropriate Relief for those already on death row.

Sponsor Rep. Paul Stam, R-Wake, said the issue of executing the mentally disabled is "nothing new," quoting 18th century legal scholar William Blackstone: "A madman shall be punished by his madness alone."

"You don't deter crime by punishing those that everybody knows can't be deterred - the people who are clearly mentally disabled or deficient," he said in committee. "That's what this bill is about. It's not - not, not, not - about weakening the death penalty on capital crimes."

Stam said the House passed an identical measure in 2011, but the Senate refused to consider it.

"We think there may be a change of thought in the Senate side," he told the committee. "Frankly, I think they will take it up this time. Once the capital punishment main bill is settled, it makes it easier to do that, because we're not in an indefinite moratorium."

NC Conference of DAs director Peg Dorer spoke against the proposal, saying claims of severe mental disability are common in every capital case.

"DAs oppose this bill," she said. "The issue of mental disability should be weighed by the jury, not by the judge. it only takes one juror to make that decision, and the death penalty is not found."

Dorer said the change would encourage "judge shopping," and would cost more money, as opposed to saving it, as proponents claim. She predicted that all the current inmates on the state's death row would seek relief under the measure, forcing the state to re-litigate those cases.

That concern was echoed by Rep. Debra Conrad, R-Forsyth, who said her local DA "compared the bill to the Racial Justice Act," predicting that "it will the end death penalty as a punishment in North Carolina."

Dorer said she hadn't talked with a single DA who supports the bill. But co-sponsor Rep. Rick Glazier, D-Cumberland, said that many DAs will admit privately they'd rather let a judge make the decision in such cases.

"There are cases where, because of the politics of the case, of repercussions in the community, a DA feels they have no choice but to proceed" to seek the death penalty despite mental disability, Glazier said, "even if they know what the outcome will be."

Glazier said such cases cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and take weeks to try. He said allowing judges to rule on disability before the trial would cut out much of that."This gets us to where we're going to be in 99.9% of these cases, anyway."

In 1992 in Fayetteville, Glazier defended one of the infamous "Ninja Killers" who killed 3 people. The other defendant was sentenced to death - "and rightly so," Glazier added - for stabbing his victims 44 times.

Glazier's client, the other defendant, had stabbed one victim once. He was 19 with a history of mental illness that stretched back to early childhood. He had been institutionalized twice, and was kicked out of the military shortly before the crime because "he wasn't capable of doing his job."

The DA still sought the death penalty. The trial took six weeks and included 38 witnesses, and Glazier said the jury, after four days, found his client guilty but sentenced him to life without parole because of his mental disability. "My client went catatonic the last day of trial and has never spoken a word since in Central Prison."

Glazier said H722 would also end the abuse of the insanity defense for drug or alcohol use. "Right now, you can use the insanity defense for any case where you can make a case for it," he said. "It should be an exceptional defense that is rarely used."

The measure passed the committee with two no votes from freshmen Reps. Conrad and Brian Brown, R-Mecklenburg. Its next stop is the House floor.

(source: WRAL News)

GEORGIA:

Bibb prosecutors seeking death penalty in manager's slaying

Held hostage in her house on a Friday last fall, Gail Spencer had apparently done all she could to stay alive.

Under duress and at gunpoint inside her tidy, 2-bedroom home with yellow siding, Spencer did what she was told.

The 58-year-old grandmother, an office manager at a law firm less than a mile away on Macon's Vineville Avenue, complied with the demands of her assailants.

2 men and 2 women, 1 of them a co-worker, are said to have seized on Spencer's knowledge of wire transfers and forced her to help them steal an estimated $1.3 million from the law firm's accounts.

After Spencer did that -- and after prosecutors say she was ordered to perform a sex act on one of the intruders, a teenager named Michael Brett Kelly -- it still wasn't enough.

At the end of the hours-long ordeal, Kelly, 19, went into Spencer's room with a trash bag to suffocate her, a source familiar with the case has said.

That's when another intruder, 23-year-old Keith Anthony Dozier, heard Spencer's pleading last words: "You promised, you promised, you promised."

Spencer was later found dead in the house. Word of her killing rattled neighbors and locals alike. The investigation into her death soon pointed to the Pinkston & Associates law firm where she worked.

One of her office mates, Tracy Michelle Jones, 38, now faces the death penalty if convicted of Spencer's Oct. 5 murder, according to a notice filed Wednesday in Bibb County Superior Court.

"It was an outrageously vile and horrible crime, and its effects will linger on Ms. Spencer's family and our community for years to come," Bibb County District Attorney David Cooke said at a news conference.

Jones has been singled out by prosecutors as the alleged mastermind of the embezzlement scheme -- which involved wire transfers deposited into the suspects' bank accounts -- to siphon money from the Pinkston firm's accounts.

The scheme allegedly was hatched to keep Spencer out of the office, captive in her home, and to get information from her so the money could be transferred.

Jones, a source said, was at work at the law office while Spencer was being held hostage. Jones had worked at other Macon-area firms in recent years.

A fuller picture of what happened during Spencer's final hours in her home at 3475 Stinsonville Road likely will emerge Monday.

Documents should be filed then in the murder case against Kelly, who is expected to plead guilty and testify against Jones in exchange for a life-without-parole prison sentence.

Kelly, who lived with Jones in a south Bibb apartment, has been described by a source familiar with the case as someone with "no conscience. He's a reptile. ... He acted that way early on -- then he cracked."

It hasn't been divulged what led police to zero in on the murder suspects, the 4th of whom is Kelly's half-sister, Courtney Nicole Kelly, 23.

"What they did to that lady, they ought to get the electric chair," a local cop told a Telegraph reporter in the days after Spencer's death.

The financial fallout from the alleged plot has taken months to untangle.

Proceeds from 4 loan closings were part of the money stolen from Pinkston & Associates.

Lawyers representing the Pinkston firm's title insurer took the firm to court last year and argued about how the more than $1 million recovered would be divvied to satisfy the loans. All but about $69,000 of the missing money was recovered and returned to Pinkston's account.

Although the firm had taken in money to settle the 4 loan closings, the money had not been sent to lenders by the time the alleged embezzlement occurred. As a result, people who already had sold their homes were still making payments on their old mortgages to protect their credit.

The lenders have now been paid and the loans have been satisfied, attorney Calder Pinkston, who runs the firm, said last week.

(source: Macon Telegraph)

ALABAMA----female may face death penalty

Bond denied: Judge denies bond for grandmother accused of killing her granddaughter

A judge refused to set bond Tuesday for a 48-year-old woman charged with capital murder in the death of her granddaughter, who prosecutors say was run to death as punishment for a lie.

Circuit Judge William Ogletree rejected defense claims that Joyce Hardin Garrard should be freed for health reasons as she awaits trial in the death of Savannah Hardin, 9.

6 neighbors testified they wouldn't mind having Garrard back in the neighborhood.

But the judge sided instead with prosecutors, who argued that bond isn't normally allowed in cases carrying a potential death penalty in Alabama.

"We adamantly object to it," said Assistant District Attorney Marcus Reid.

Garrard appeared somber as she left court. She seemed playful beforehand, smiling and shaking her legs to make her ankle shackles jangle as she entered the courtroom.

Garrard and Jessica Mae Hardin, Savannah Hardin's stepmother, were arrested after the child's death in February 2012.

Prosecutors contend Garrard forced Savannah to run around her yard picking up debris for about 3 hours as punishment for a lie about eating candy, and Hardin failed to intervene. The girl collapsed and died at a hospital 3 days later.

Both women say they are innocent.

Hardin, who had a baby shortly after her arrest, is charged with non-capital murder and was freed on $150,000 bond in January.

Garrard's lawyer, Dani Bone, argued the grandmother has a health history that includes a stroke and four heart attacks and could be freed under state law.

Garrard also suffers from depression, anxiety and sleep apnea that could affect her memory and prevent her from helping with her defense, he said.

"We're asking for a bond, the same as the co-defendant," Bone told the judge.

Dr. Roger Buck, who treats prisoners in Etowah County's jail, testified about Garrard's health issues but disagreed with defense claims that the woman's health would suffer if she remained in custody.

While 6 area residents said they wouldn't mind if the judge freed Garrard, Reid argued that Alabama's Constitution says defendants in capital cases are not eligible for bond. Garrard shouldn't be granted an exception, he said.

Reid - who called Garrard the "drill sergeant from hell" during a previous hearing - said the state was seeking the death penalty against the woman because the child's running death was particularly cruel and heinous.

"There's no more helpless victim than a child," he said.

Numerous relatives and neighbors of Garrard sat on the defense's side of the courtroom during the hearing, but no family members sat on the prosecution side.

No trial date is set.

(source: Associated Press)

MISSISSIPPI:

Just Test the DNA----Willie Jerome Manning and the Death Penalty

On Tuesday afternoon in Mississippi, Willie Jerome Manning was granted a last-minute stay of execution by the Supreme Court of Mississippi, just hours before his lethal injection was scheduled to go through.

Manning, an African-American man, was convicted of murdering Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller, 2 white college students, in 1992. The case can be read as a manual for anti-death penalty advocates: racial bias in the original trial, false testimony from snitches, and even faulty science.

The stay comes after prosecutors and state courts refused Manning's request for new DNA testing that could possibly prove his innocence, which he has maintained from the beginning. Since his trial, the FBI has come forward and admitted that the original analysis it performed on the evidence, such as testing hair samples found at the scene, contained numerous errors and it "exceeded the limits of the science and was, therefore, invalid." What's more, the FBI has offered to perform the new DNA testing itself. The FBI and the Department of Justice have also reviewed the ballistic evidence in the case and found that to be invalid as well.

Not only is there now no physical evidence linking Manning to the case, the credibility of 2 key witnesses that were used by the prosecution have also come into question. One of those was a jailhouse witness who claimed that Manning had confessed the murders to him, but the witness later admitted that he lied. Both of the witnesses received deals for their own criminal charges in exchange for testifying against Manning, a tactic that has been found to be the leading cause of wrongful convictions, according to the Innocence Project.

Outside of the faulty evidence presented against him, Manning faced a jury with no African-American jurors in a case already rife with racial tensions. What's more, studies of capital cases have found that the race of the victim plays a huge role in whether or not the defendant will receive a death sentence. According to The Death Penalty Information Center, "In 82% of the studies [reviewed], race of the victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty, i.e., those who murdered whites were found more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks." Of the cases reviewed, over 77% of the murder victims in cases that resulted in execution were white, despite the fact that only about 50% of murder victims are white.

Even in the face of the clear issues with Manning's trial, the Mississippi state Supreme Court has thus far refused to grant a new DNA test. Last Friday, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, one of the men who could step in to stop Manning's execution, said that Manning's guilt is "overwhelming," and that Manning "is a violent person who committed these heinous murders." He continued, saying that the defense has waited "until the 11th hour" to request new DNA testing.

"Any time there is legitimate, exculpatory evidence, capable of DNA testing, the state is prepared to conduct testing. However when the defense waits until the 11th hour to raise such claims, which could not possibly exonerate their client, courts are loathe to be subjected to these types of dilatory defense tactics."

Yet, public record shows that Manning and his defense team filed requests specifically for DNA testing as early as 2008. Hood, along with the district attorney's office, has consistently opposed the request for new DNA testing, and now Manning faces his imminent execution. Vanessa Potkin, senior staff attorney at the Innocence Project, said on Democracy Now this week,

"It's just amazing in a democracy, you know, built on a truth and senses of justice, that we would go forward with killing somebody when we have evidence that can cut to the truth of this case and determine whether or not he really did the crime."

And yet here we are, possibly going forward with executing someone whose guilt is more than questionable. Certainly, it has happened before that we have executed someone despite evidence that they may be innocent. Anyone who is active in the anti-death penalty movement can't help but be reminded of another case, a recent case, where Georgia went through with an execution of one of its own prisoners: Troy Anthony Davis. On September 25th, 2011, the state of Georgia executed Troy Davis, despite so much doubt surrounding his case and a huge public outcry for clemency.

At the moment it is not clear where the Mississippi courts will go from here. What is clear is that the decision to test the DNA should be an open and shut one. As Potkin said, our democracy was built on a sense of justice. Is it just to execute a man without first proving beyond reasonable doubt that he is guilty of the murders he was convicted of? Is it just to call Manning's trial, which was rife with faulty science, false testimonies, and racial bias, a fair one? One that should end with Manning's death? Let's not repeat our past mistakes and go forward with the state-sanctioned murder of another man when there is so much doubt. Test the DNA. It is that simple.

(source: Alyssa Rohricht; Counterpunch.org)

LOUISIANA:

Judge rules triple-slaying trial will be held in Ascension

The state district judge presiding over the trials of 5 men implicated in the home-invasion killings of a Gonzales-area couple and their adult son ordered on Wednesday that jury selection for the 1st of the trials trial take place in Lafayette Parish.

But Judge Alvin Turner Jr. of 23rd Judicial District Court ruled the 1st-degree murder trial of the 1st of the 5 defendants to go on trial - Michael Aikens, 36, 16460 La. 930, Prairieville - will remain in Ascension Parish.

Aikens' defense attorneys argued that pretrial publicity about the slayings would prevent Aikens from being judged by fair and impartial jurors in Ascension.

"It's our opinion that a change of venue in this case is appropriate," Elton Richey, Aikens' defense attorney, told Turner before the judge issued his ruling at the Ascension Parish Courthouse Annex in Gonzales.

Prosecutors have said they plan to seek the death penalty for Aikens. He and the 4 other defendants each face trial on three first-degree murder counts. Three of the four remaining defendants also face the death penalty.

Richey is a lawyer with the Capital Assistance Project of Louisiana Inc. in Shreveport.

Assistant District Attorney Robin O'Bannon did not object to picking the jury in Lafayette, saying her office wanted to avoid placing a further burden on the victims' family, but said the District Attorney's Office would oppose moving the trial.

Jury selection starts Sept. 30, O'Bannon said in a later interview.

In a May 2 motion seeking the venue change, Richey cited research from the 1st half of the 1990s, raising concerns about racial bias among jurors against black defendants in death penalty cases, a worry only exacerbated by the pretrial publicity in strongly majority white Ascension.

Turner made clear in questioning Richey on Wednesday that Richey was making an argument about jury selection, not the trial itself. Before ruling, the judge told him a parish would be selected with roughly the same racial makeup as Ascension's.

Sheriff's investigators have said the slayings stemmed from a plot to steal gold and other valuable coins from a safe in Robert Irwin Marchand's house near Gonzales.

Aikens had worked for Marchand more than a decade earlier and knew about his employer's coin collection, authorities have said.

Marchand, 74; his wife, Shirley Marchand, 72; and his stepson, Douglas Dooley, 50, of Cross Plains, Tenn., were found with throats slashed and showing signs of being beaten when deputies found them in the family's Babin Road home on Feb. 18, 2012.

Robert Marchand and Dooley were dead. Shirley Marchand died March 2, 2012.

Turner also severed the 4 other defendants' trials from Aikens' trial Wednesday. O'Bannon did not object.

Defense attorneys told Turner that either their clients or Aikens had made "antagonistic statements" toward the other.

O'Bannon said the defendants were making unspecified accusations against each other.

The defense attorneys declined comment. Portions of the court record, including disclosed sheriff's reports, have been sealed.

(source: The Advocate)

COLORADO:

No justice in broken death penalty system

I believe that if we are going to have the death penalty, it must be used fairly. This is why I was deeply troubled to read that the death penalty in Colorado is unevenly applied based on race and other arbitrary variables ("Murderer's case exposes problems with the death penalty," May 5).

For this reason, Gov. John Hickenlooper would be well reasoned to stop the upcoming execution of Nathan Dunlap and sentence him to life without parole. I am no bleeding heart; Dunlap will be punished very harshly by spending the rest of his life behind bars without the possibility of parole. That is the suitable solution given the serious problems with Colorado's death penalty. There is no justice in executing a man when the system is quite evidently broken.

I expect our elected officials to take every measure necessary to ensure that our state operates with fairness. Please commute Nathan Dunlap's sentence from death to life without parole.

BARBARA KISH----Boulder

(source: Letter to the Editor, Daily Camera)

NEVADA:

DA to seek death penalty against suspect in Strip shooting, crash

Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against Ammar Harris, the suspect in a February shooting on the Las Vegas Strip that killed 1 person and caused a car crash that killed 2 others.

A special panel in the Clark County District Attorney's Office reviewed the case, weighing aggravating factors, whether a jury would be inclined to impose the death penalty and whether a conviction is likely to stand up to appeal.

District Attorney Steve Wolfson filed the notice of intent to seek the death penalty after the committee made its recommendation.

Wolfson had announced that he was likely to seek the death penalty shortly after Harris, 27, was arrested in Studio City, Calif., following a weeklong, multi-state manhunt.

Harris is accused of shooting into a Maserati driven by Kenneth Cherry Jr. early Feb. 21 while driving on the Las Vegas Strip in a Range Rover.

Cherry and a passenger, Freddy Walters, were struck by the gunfire, Metro Police said. Cherry's wounds caused him to lose control of the car, which ran a red light at Flamingo Road and crashed into a taxi. The impact caused the cab to explode.

3 people were killed and are listed as victims in connection with the 3 1st-degree murder counts Harris faces: Cherry; the cab driver, Michael Boldon, 62, of Las Vegas; and cab passenger Sandra Sutton-Wasmund, 48, a businesswoman from Maple Valley, Wash.

Walters survived and is the victim named in the indictment in connection with an attempted murder count.

Tehran Boldon, the younger brother of Michael Boldon, said "bravo," when he heard the news that the district attorney would seek the death penalty.

Harris has "shown no remorse, and he needs to be made example of. Hopefully it will send a message to people like him that think it's a game," he said. "I would hate to think that he could outlive me when I don't think he should be living at all."

Harris previously was arrested in 2010 in Las Vegas on charges of pandering, kidnapping, sexual assault and coercion.

The charges later were dropped, but a witness re-emerged after Harris' arrest this year, and Harris was indicted in April on 3 counts of sexual assault and 1 count of robbery related to the 2010 arrest.

(source: Las Vegas Sun)

CALIFORNIA:

Lawsuit revived in wrongful murder term

A federal appeals court revived a damage suit Wednesday by a California man who spent 24 years in prison for a murder he did not commit, based on what the court described as the lies of a jailhouse informant.

In a separate opinion, one judge said the same informant's perjured testimony in another case led to the 1998 execution of a man who was probably ineligible for the death penalty and may have been innocent.

The ruling Wednesday involved Thomas L. Goldstein, a former Marine who had no criminal record when he was convicted of fatally shooting John McGinest in an alley near Goldstein's Long Beach home in 1979.

Goldstein was placed in a cell with Edward Fink, a heroin addict and felon, who testified that Goldstein had admitted to the murder. Goldstein was freed in 2004 after a federal judge ruled that the now-deceased Fink had lied.

Goldstein, who is now in his mid-60s, has sought damages against former District Attorney John Van de Kamp, the city of Long Beach and Los Angeles County, claiming they were responsible for his wrongful prosecution and conviction.

The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed his case against Van de Kamp in 2009, ruling unanimously that prosecutors are immune from damages for wrongful convictions. Long Beach settled with Goldstein for nearly $8 million in 2010, and on Wednesday the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated his suit against the county.

The suit alleges that the district attorney's office had failed to train Goldstein's prosecutors to notify defense lawyers that an informant had been promised leniency. In a 3-0 ruling, the appeals court said the county can be held responsible for the misconduct of its prosecutors, reversing a federal judge's ruling that district attorneys are agents of the state.

One member of the panel, Judge Stephen Reinhardt, said Fink's "perjured testimony" had also been crucial to the conviction and execution of Thomas Thompson for a 1981 rape and murder in Orange County.

Prosecutors have maintained that Thompson was properly convicted and sentenced. But Reinhardt, recalling Fink's role, said Wednesday it was "unlikely that Thompson was death-eligible for his part in the crime, if he was guilty at all of any offense."

(source: San Francisco Chronicle)

US MILITARY:

Accused Fort Hood shooter seeks to avoid death penalty

Accused Fort Hood gunman Army Major Nidal Hasan is expected to ask a court on Thursday to remove the death penalty as a punishment option in his forthcoming court-martial on charges of killing 13 people in a 2009 shooting rampage.

At a pre-trial hearing, judge Colonel Tara Osborn is likely to consider a request from the defense that Hasan's trial be pushed back until September 1. Selection of the panel of officers who will act as the jury is set to begin on May 29.

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, is facing the death penalty for opening fire in Forth Hood, Texas, on a group of soldiers who were preparing to deploy to Iraq on November 5, 2009.

In addition to the 13 killed, 32 were wounded, and Hasan, 42, is paralyzed from the chest down from gunshots fired by 2 civilian Fort Hood police officers who ended what was the worst shooting at a U.S. military installation.

Osborn previously denied a request by Hasan's lawyers that the death penalty be removed from consideration in return for a guilty plea. The Uniform Code of Military Justice, the unique law code that governs the armed forces, does not allow a guilty plea to a capital charge.

Jeffrey Addicott, a professor of law at St. Mary's University in Texas, said nothing has happened that would change Osborn's decision. "The evidence is overwhelming, so the defense has always concentrated on 2 things: How can we delay this trial, and how can we get a reduced sentence," said Addicott, a former legal adviser to the Army Special Forces. "The defense is hoping that the more time that goes by, they can just get the government to throw up their hands in frustration and say, OK, we'll just accept a guilty plea."

Osborn has been trying to get the trial schedule on track after extensive delays while the military justice system debated whether Hasan, who is Muslim, should be required to shave his beard to comply with military rules. Osborn has put that issue aside.

Opening arguments in the trial are expected to begin on July 1.

Hasan's lawyers are also asking that a media affairs expert be appointed at government expense to assist the defense in jury selection.

Fort Hood is a 340-square-mile (880-square-km) Army post located about 60 miles north of Austin, Texas.

(source: Reuters)

USA (MASSACHUSETTS):

Federal appeals court will decide whether to get involved in Gary Lee Sampson death penalty case

Gary Lee Sampson pleaded guilty to killing 3 people in a series of carjackings in 2001 and is the 1st person to be sentenced to death for a crime committed in Massachusetts in more than 50 years.

A federal appeals court panel indicated Wednesday that it may use its authority to weigh in on the case of Gary Lee Sampson, the serial killer who was the 1st person sentenced to death by a federal court in Massachusetts and the 1st sentenced to execution for a crime committed in the state in more than a half century.

At issue is whether Judge Mark L. Wolf, who was then chief of US District Court in Boston, should have ordered a new sentencing trial for Sampson after ruling in 2011 that a juror who was involved in the original sentencing trial had lied about her past, possibly tainting the jury's verdict. Prosecutors appealed the decision.

William E. McDaniels, a lawyer for Sampson, argued that the issues involved in the case were serious and that "1 juror can make the difference in a matter of life or death."

Assistant US Attorney Mark T. Quinlivan argued that the questions about the juror's potential bias should not be enough to void the jury's final decision for a death penalty.

"At the end of the day . . . Gary Lee Sampson was entitled to a fair trial," he said. "There was neither actual or implied bias . . . and that should have been the end of it."

Sampson, now 53, had been sentenced to death by a jury in 2003 after he pleaded guilty to killing 2 people in Massachusetts in a series of carjackings in 2001. He also killed a 3rd person in New Hampshire.

"I think what we're concerned with here is whether there was an actual bias," said Senior US Circuit Court Judge Bruce M. Selya.

In the federal courthouse in Boston, the 3-member panel of the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit had been asked to overturn Wolf's order for a new sentencing trial, solely to determine whether Sampson should be sentenced to death for the Massachusetts killings.

Family members of Sampson's victims have called for him to receive the death penalty and lashed out at Wolf's decision to hold a new sentencing trial.

Lawyers in the case had also been grappling with a technical legal issue: whether the Appeals Court had the jurisdiction to hear an appeal of Wolf's decision at all or whether the matter should be settled with a new sentencing trial in US District Court.

But panel members indicated during a hearing Wednesday that, regardless of the legal question, they might invoke their authority to hear extraordinary cases, under what is known as an advisory mandamus, to settle the matter for the courts and litigators in the case, but also for family members of Sampson's victims, who might have to endure a 2nd sentencing trial.

Quinlivan argued that the panel should decide on the case, because a decision could have an effect on how other courts interpret juror bias.

"I don't think there's any question that this District Court's decision is unprecedented," he said, adding that "it can open the flood gates" for defendants to appeal other cases.

"This is a big game; it's a death penalty case," he said.

Sampson killed Jonathan Rizzo, 19, of Kingston and Phillip McCloskey, 69, of Taunton in Massachusetts in July 2001. He then killed Robert "Eli" Whitney of Penacook, N.H., in what prosecutors have called a bloody, weeklong rampage.

Though Sampson pleaded guilty, he contested the death penalty, and a jury ultimately decided on the sentence.

In the years after, however, lawyers handling Sampson's appeal found that 1 of the jurors had lied on a questionnaire.

The juror did not report that she had once been threatened with a gun and that she had a daughter who had a history of drug abuse and had been sent to jail before.

Wolf ordered the new trial, saying that he would have excused her from the case if he had known about the risk of bias.

(source: Boston Globe)

BANGLADESH:

Bangladesh Jamaat leader sentenced to death; War tribunal convicts Mohammad Kamaruzzaman on charges of genocide and torture of unarmed civilians during 1971 war.

A Bangladesh war crimes tribunal has convicted and sentenced assistant secretary-general of the Jamaat-e-Islami party to death for war crimes, raising fears of clashes between the police and supporters of the Islamist leader.

Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, 59, was found guilty on charges of genocide and torture of unarmed civilians during the 1971 war for independence from Pakistan, lawyers and tribunal officials said on Thursday.

Obaidul Hassan, the head of the 3-judge tribunal, said the charges had been proved beyond doubt and sentenced him to death.

He had previously been acquitted for 2 of the 7 original charges.

1 of the charges that carried the death penalty was being a commander of a massacre of 120 people.

Defence lawyer Ehsan Siddiky said justice was denied to his client and promised to appeal.

Analyst David Bergman told Al Jazeera that there were cheers outside the court when the verdict was announced.

"The defence, however, is extremely critical of the judgement and can not believe so much responsibility is being placed on a man who was just 19 at the time," he said.

"They say the only crime he has committed is being a leader of the opposition. It is true that many of those facing the tribunal are from Jamaat-e-Islami, but they are known to have collaborated with the Pakistani army in 1971 and so they are an obvious target for prosecution."

Kamaruzzaman, who had pleaded not guilty through his lawyers, was accused of committing multiple abuses during the country's liberation war.

"He was just a lad during the war. It's a ridiculous suggestion that a 19-year-old could control the Pakistani army," chief defence counsel Abdur Razzaq said.

Politicised court

He was found guilty of leading his followers to kill at least 183 people in his home district of Sherpur in northern Bangladesh.

The prosecution said he had formed the group Al-Badr to collaborate with the Pakistani army and led them to kill unarmed people and rape women.

Bangladesh says the war left 3 million people dead, 200,000 women raped and millions forced to flee to neighbouring India.

Previous convictions of other Jamaat leaders, including 2 that carried the death penalty, led to protests and violence throughout Bangladesh.

The supporters of the largest Islamic party in the country claim the tribunals are a politically-motivated attempt to persecute their leaders.

"The Jamaat-e-Islami will not be happy with this verdict, but it is unclear at this point whether there will be violence," Bergman said.

"There has been constant criticism from the defence lawyers that they are dealing with a politicised court process and that they are being prosecuted because they are part of an alliance that is against the government."

The Jamaat, a key part of an opposition coalition, had backed Pakistan during the independence war, but has denied its leaders were involved in war crimes.

'Village of widows'

The genocide charge against Kamaruzzaman stems from the killing of at least 120 unarmed Bangladeshi farmers in the remote northern village of Sohagpur, which has since become known as the "Village of the Widows".

Three of the widows testified against Kamaruzzaman at his trial in which the prosecution detailed how the then 19-year-old led Pakistani troops to the village.

The tribunal was told the soldiers then marched the farmers to paddy fields, forced them to stand in a line and proceeded to gun them down en masse.

Mohammad Jalal Uddin, a farmer who lost 7 members of his extended family in the killing, was delighted at the verdict.

"I lost my father, uncle and other relatives. Their crime was to have taken part in training to join the freedom fight," said Uddin, who was a student at the time.

"We still have 37 widows in the village."

(source: Al Jazeera)

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

Bangladesh sentences 3rd Jamaat-e-Islami leader to death; Muhammad Kamaruzzaman found guilty of crimes relating to independence war, raising fears of further deadly street violence

A Bangladeshi tribunal has sentenced to death a top Islamist politician after finding him guilty of atrocities stemming from the 1971 independence war.

The verdict against Muhammad Kamaruzzaman was the 4th in Bangladesh's war crimes tribunals since January, and many feared it could trigger another wave of deadly street violence between his supporters and security forces.

The prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, has called the trials a long-overdue effort to obtain justice for victims of war crimes committed during Bangladesh's split from Pakistan. Critics accuse Hasina of using the tribunals to neuter opposition parties ahead of elections scheduled for next year.

Kamaruzzaman, 61, was convicted on five counts of mass killings, rape, torture and kidnapping.

Obaidul Hassan, the head of the three-judge tribunal, said the charges had been proved beyond a doubt and sentenced him to death.

Kamaruzzaman's lawyer Ehsan Siddiky said justice was denied to his client and promised to appeal.

During the trial, he denied participating in wartime atrocities and said the prosecution was politically motivated.

Kamaruzzaman is the assistant secretary general of Jamaat-e-Islami, a hardline party that was opposed Bangladesh's independence. It is now a key partner in the opposition coalition.

The politician was found guilty of leading his followers to kill at least 183 people in his home district of Sherpur in northern Bangladesh.

The prosecution said he formed the group al-Badr to collaborate with the Pakistani army and led them to kill unarmed people and rape women.

Bangladesh says the war left 3 million people dead, 200,000 women raped and forced millions to flee to neighbouring India.

Kamaruzzaman has 1 month to appeal the verdict.

Bangladesh has put its security forces on high alert. In February, more than 70 people were killed as riots swept through Bangladesh after the tribunal sentenced to death another Jamaat leader, Delwar Hossain Sayedee, for crimes against humanity. In the same month another leading figure in the party, Abdul Kader Mollah, was given life imprisonment in February. The 1st verdict of the tribunal was against Abul Kalam Azad, an Islamic cleric and a former Jamaat leader, who was sentenced to death.

(source: The Guardian)

MALAYSIA:

File written submissions, lawyers told

Criminal law practitioners who do not file written submissions in death penalty cases could face disciplinary action, say several senior lawyers.

They said this in response to a Court of Appeal judgment which took to task the counsel in a drug trafficking case in Kulim, Kedah.

Noting such conduct was unusual in death penalty appeals, Justice Dr Hamid Sultan Abu Backer said the criminal Bar should not accept these cases if they did not have time to prepare for the case and/or appropriate submission to help "in the administration of criminal justice".

He urged the Bar Council to educate members on the need to file written submissions at the earliest opportunity and, in appropriate cases, initiate disciplinary action.

Justice Hamid Sultan, who sat with Justices Mohd Apandi Ali and Linton Albert, added that they had come across assigned counsel who had not even met the appellant to take instructions and "confessing at the hearing it was the 1st time they were meeting the appellant and stating that they are ready to proceed."

They called it "shocking", especially in capital punishment cases.

"If he had sufficient time, it is deplorable for counsel not to file a written submission, which gives the judges insight into the defence's case before the appeal is heard in court," said the council's Criminal Law Committee (CLC) co-chair Datuk V. Sithambaram.

"It is important for judges to understand the case before seeing counsel because they would have discussed the issues troubling them and would be able to ask for clarification or further submissions.

"In view of the large number of cases being disposed of, it's an advantage to highlight the salient points because counsel may not get the full opportunity to canvas arguments in favour of the appellant."

On whether the courts pushed through the day's appeals, he admitted that judges did postpone if they could not finish them all.

"The CLC will look into this case and make recommendations to the council at its next meeting."

Former Bar president Ragunath Kesavan said written submissions were crucial and not filing them was not acting in the client's interests.

He argued that oral submissions should have precedence, especially in capital punishment cases. A senior lawyer, who declined to be named, said the grounds of complaint against a counsel who did not have good reasons for not filing a written submission were: not assisting the administration of justice, disobeying a court directive, and not acting in the interests of his client.

But he, too, contended, in criminal matters, regardless of whether there was a written submission, counsel must be heard fully in court.

(source: The Star)

INDONESIA:

Woman launches death penalty appeal

A grandmother originally from Teesside who is facing the death penalty for drug smuggling in Bali has lodged an appeal at Indonesia's Supreme Court, human rights campaigners said.

Lindsay Sandiford was sentenced to death by firing squad by a court in Indonesia for bringing 1.6 million pounds worth of cocaine into the country.

The 56-year-old lost her first appeal against the ruling at the Bali High Court last month but has now launched a second bid to overturn the death penalty at the higher court, pressure group Reprieve said.

Balinese police claim Sandiford, from Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, was at the centre of a drugs-importing ring involving 3 other Britons.

She denies the allegations, claiming she was forced to transport the drugs to protect her children, whose safety was at stake.

Sandiford's latest move comes after she lost her appeal over a UK Government refusal to fund her legal challenge.

But she has accrued more than 10,000 pounds from public donations through a fundraising web page.

Sandiford, originally from Redcar, Teesside, was arrested at Bali's airport last May after 4.8kg (10.6lb) of cocaine was found in the lining of her suitcase during a routine customs check.

She was later accused of damaging the image of Bali and received the death sentence following her trial. The penalty was imposed despite prosecutors asking only for a 15-year jail term.

The British Government said it was disappointed when she lost her bid to block the sentence.

Sandiford could seek a judicial review if the Supreme Court rejects her appeal though this would largely depend on whether new evidence had come to light, human rights campaigners said.

After that, her final resort would be to seek a reprieve granted by the country's president.

Reprieve's investigator Zoe Bedford said: "We understand that Lindsay's lawyer filed her full grounds of appeal with the Supreme Court today.

"We expect the Supreme Court to make a decision in Lindsay's case within 96 days from today. Lindsay remains extremely grateful to the generosity of the public in raising the funds to allow her to file this appeal.

"We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will take into consideration the compelling mitigating evidence in Lindsay's case and award her a sentence that is proportionate both to the offence and to her role in it.

"In particular, it is hoped that the judges will give due consideration to Lindsay's cooperation with the authorities which led to the arrest and prosecution of more senior syndicate members, and take into account the need to encourage others to cooperate in the future."

(source: Hartlepool Mail)

UNITED KINGDOM:

The Power of My Voice

A few weeks ago, in the midst of a wild holiday in a cabin in the north of Scotland, I received a phone call from Amnesty International UK's Human Rights Education Manager to inform me that the protest song which I had entered into their competition, "Power of Our Voices", had been shortlisted and that I was invited to their headquarters in London for an awards ceremony. I was, to say the least, delighted.

I had begun writing the song, Death Row, in September 2011. The week that I had started to write it, Troy Davis was executed in Georgia after almost 20 years on death row. I was struck by the horrific nature of his sentencing. I believe that the death penalty is wrong in all circumstances, but Troy Davis's case was particularly chilling. After his initial trial, witnesses had admitted that they had lied in their evidence against him. This meant that there was no concrete evidence to suggest that Troy Davis was guilty of the crime, meaning that a potentially innocent man had just been killed, despite more than a million people signing a petition and loudly protesting against his sentence as part of a high-profile campaign.

Troy Davis's story moved me so much that I decided to base my composition, which was originally written for chamber choir and bass drum, on his story. I used my own lyrics, my own adaption of a poem by Jeffrey C Doughtie, a death row inmate in Texas who was executed in 2001, and Troy Davis's last words, combined with a haunting melody and an audio clip of a newsreader announcing his death, to portray his horrific fate as best I could.

The work had already been completed when I saw an advertisement in Amnesty International UK's quarterly magazine for their competition, "Power of Our Voices". The competition was encouraging secondary school students from across the UK to write a protest song or lyrics to a protest song about a human rights issue which they felt strongly about. This was the perfect opportunity for me to showcase my composition. Little did I know that it would place me in London just 3 months later.

The awards ceremony was a very inspiring, rewarding experience. We were given a tour of Amnesty International UK's headquarters and were introduced to many of their staff who were, at that very moment, involved in some of the world's most major human rights issues. It was a chance for me and other young people like me to meet each other and discuss our passion for human rights and music.

The day gave me hope that young people do care about human rights. To tell the truth, I know very few young people who are outspoken about this passion. This is why I think it is so wonderful that Amnesty International UK has started this competition, as it is encouraging young people to express their views on human rights issues through what I think is the most powerful medium to do so - music.

My success in the competition has given me confidence in my song-writing skills and encouragement to continue voicing my opinion on human rights issues. It has inspired me to set up an Amnesty youth group at my school, which I am currently in the process of doing. It even led to my performance in an evening of songs of peace and struggle hosted by renowned Scottish singer-songwriter, Karine Polwart

But most importantly, my success in the competition has given me encouragement for my future career. I have known for a while that I want to study music when I leave school. Now I know that I want to incorporate my passion for human rights into this, as I now know that this is possible.

(source: Isla Ratcliff; Winner of Amnesty International Protest Song competition 2013--Huffington Post)

MAY 8, 2013:

FLORIDA:

Attorney told by judge he must represent death row inmate

A Jacksonville attorney is scrambling today after being told that he must represent condemned prison guard killer William Van Poyck even though he says he has neither the expertise nor the resources needed to navigate the complex world of death penalty appeals.

Gerald Bettman said he plans to ask the Florida Supreme Court to overturn Palm Beach County Judge Barry Cohen's order that requires him to continue to represent Van Poyck, convicted of the 1987 murder of Glades Correctional Institution guard Fred Griffis outside a West Palm Beach doctor's office.

But, he said, he is losing hope that he can stop Van Poyck's execution, scheduled for June 12.

"I don't see much hope in this last 35 to 40 days," he said. "I don't know if anybody can save him at this point."

Cohen, who signed the order this morning on behalf of Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Charles Burton, said Bettman waited too long to file the motion to withdraw. Gov. Rick Scott signed Van Poyck's death warrant on Friday and the Florida Supreme Court has already issued orders on the timing of Van Poyck's expected appeals. The motion should have been filed well before the wheels began turning toward Van Poyck's execution.

Bettman has been representing the 58-year-old Miami native for free since about 1995. A Milwaukee lawyer, Jeff Davis, has also filed appeals for Van Poyck over the years. Davis, who isn't a criminal defense attorney, is out of the country. Bettman, who runs a 2-lawyer office, said he hasn't ever represented someone in the flurry of appeals that are filed after a death warrant is signed.

"I've got to figure all this out and I don't even know the routes," he said.

(source: Palm Beach Post)

OHIO:

Howland woman asks top court to vacate her death sentence

The only woman on Ohio's death row asked the Ohio Supreme Court Tuesday to vacate her death sentence, citing errors made during an earlier resentencing.

Donna Marie Roberts argues that the trial judge should have considered head injuries, her history of depression and other mitigating factors before again issuing the ultimate penalty for her role in the 2001 murder of her former husband.

"What happened here is the court got reversed, got [its] hand slapped ... and did the bare minimum to just get it out of there as quickly as possible, and everything we requested to support [Roberts' case] was denied," attorney David Doughten said.

But prosecutors, during oral arguments that lasted more than an hour, countered that Roberts had her days in court, evidence was presented, and the judge properly weighed and resentenced her to death.

"Even though she stood before the court and talked for 18 pages worth of transcript, she never said to the court, 'Don't sentence me to death, I've changed my mind on this, I thought this was a good idea 5 or 6 years ago, I've changed my mind,'" said Assistant Trumbull County Prosecutor LuWayne Annos. "That was never stated to the court, not by Ms. Roberts and not by her counsel. At no point was there ever a plea for Donna Roberts' life at that second sentencing."

According to documents, Roberts and her then-boyfriend Nathaniel Jackson planned the murder of 57-year-old Robert Fingerhut for months. Roberts provided Jackson with access to the Howland home she and Fingerhut shared, where Jackson shot the victim multiple times.

Both Roberts and Jackson received death penalties and were resentenced on an earlier ruling from the Supreme Court, after it was determined that the prosecutor's office assisted in writing the original opinion in the case. Roberts also was not allowed to make an oral statement to the judge before her original death sentence was announced.

Legal counsel for Roberts argued Tuesday that the trial court judge should have allowed additional mitigating evidence after the case was remanded.

Among other arguments, Roberts contends the court should have considered that she was sexually abused as a child, spent time in a psychiatric ward, suffered severe head injuries from car accidents and received government assistance due to a mental disability.

Justices voiced concern Tuesday that the trial judge did not make direct reference to Roberts' statement in his final decision, and they questioned prosecutors about whether that was grounds to reconsider the case.

"This is a capital offense," said Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor. "The judge is required to create a sentencing entry, and there's certain things that have to be in it that indicate that the judge has met their responsibility when it comes to the weighing and balancing of the aggravating and mitigating circumstances. ... That's not here."

Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger added, "What is concerning me... it seems as though the judge went back and just reviewed what had been done at the trial and specifically talked about the waiver at the trial ... and then prepared an entry talking about the mitigating and aggravating factors ... It seems as though the judge missed the remand."

(source: Youngstown Vindicator)

OKLAHOMA:

Death penalty overturned: Man will get new trial in Glenpool killings case

An appeals court has affirmed a Tulsa federal judge's ruling to grant a new trial to a man who had been sentenced to die for the murders of a Glenpool couple.

In a ruling issued Monday, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a decision by U.S. Senior District Judge Terence Kern to overturn the death verdicts that were imposed at the 2003 trial of Michael Allen Browning, who is now 37.

The 10th Circuit decision "will not be appealed. Our focus now is to start contacting witnesses and prepare for another trial," said Tulsa County First Assistant District Attorney Doug Drummond.

"This decision is very difficult for the victims' family," he said in an emailed statement. "They were able to get some closure once the trial was completed, and now, years later, they must go through the same emotional process again."

In a 2011 decision, Kern ruled that Browning was entitled to relief based on a pretrial ruling by a Tulsa County judge not to order the disclosure of the mental-health records of a vital prosecution witness.

Jurors who found Browning guilty decided that he deserved the death penalty for the 1st-degree murders of Harry and Teresa Hye, plus a life sentence for shooting their niece with an intent to kill.

Investigators said Harry Hye, 64; his wife, Teresa Hye, 42; and their niece, Cenessa Tackett, then 21, were shot during a robbery Feb. 18, 2001, before their rural home was burned down.

Tackett, who was then pregnant with a child that she said was Browning's, survived and was the prosecution's key trial witness.

Tackett indicated that Browning's co-defendant, Joel Shane Pethel, shot her and her aunt and uncle after the 3 were bound with duct tape and placed in a large closet, where she said Browning started a fire.

Pethel, whose last name is spelled Pethal in some records, pleaded guilty to the 2 murders plus robbery, shooting and arson counts. He was sentenced to four consecutive life prison terms - 2 of them with no possibility of parole - plus 35 years.

In Browning's federal court appeal, he claimed that Tackett made up testimony about his involvement.

Kern's ruling said the prosecution painted Tackett "as an immature young victim with learning disabilities," but that the disclosure of her mental health records to the defense "could reasonably have changed the way the jury viewed Ms. Tackett's credibility and the motive behind her testimony."

The 10th Circuit's opinion says that "what the jury did not know - and the defense attorneys also did not know - was that Tackett, who became the most important witness at trial, had been diagnosed with a severe mental disorder."

That information "was favorable to Browning and material to his defense, the federal appeals court wrote.

According to Drummond, the mental health records were turned over to a Tulsa County judge to review for a determination on whether they should be turned over to the defense counsel.

The judge's decision not to share them with the defense was affirmed by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, the prosecutor indicated.

"I tell families that the death penalty appeal process is a long and winding road, and this is one example," Drummond's email says.

In a unanimous decision in 2006, the state Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed 2 murder convictions and 2 death sentences for Browning and upheld the life term for the shooting count.

(source: Tulsa World)

COLORADO:

New insanity plea may slow Colorado shooting case

The trial of the former grad student charged in the deadly Colorado movie theater shootings will likely be delayed weeks or months because he wants to change his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity.

James Holmes' attorneys filed the court papers Tuesday.

The judge handling the case will hear arguments from the defense and prosecutors about the request Monday. If the judge accepts the plea, Holmes would be sent to the state mental hospital where doctors would determine whether he was sane at the time of the shootings. If he's found to be insane, a jury still could find him guilty.

Tom Sullivan, whose son, Alex, was killed in the attack, said prosecutors have warned victims that an insanity plea would delay the case.

"We're just mortified that this is the process that we're going through, and we still have a long way to go," Sullivan said Tuesday. "I know justice will win out in the end."

Holmes, 25, is charged with more than 160 counts of murder and attempted murder in the July 20 attack in Aurora that killed 12 people and left 70 wounded or injured. Prosecutors said Holmes spent months buying guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition, donned police-style body armor and opened fire during a midnight screening of the latest Batman movie.

Prosecutors announced last month they would seek the death penalty at the trial now scheduled to start Feb. 3.

Holmes was widely expected to plead insanity, given the compelling evidence against him. But his lawyers delayed it for weeks, saying state laws on the death penalty and insanity overlap in ways that could severely hamper his ability to mount a defense against capital punishment.

One of their worries: If Holmes doesn't cooperate with the doctors, he could be barred from calling witnesses to testify about his mental condition during sentencing. That would make it nearly impossible for his lawyers to use his mental state as an argument against the death penalty.

"If you don't cooperate during the evaluation phase, you lose the right to call witnesses in your own behalf who could help convince a jury that your life should be spared," said Karen Steinhauser, an adjunct law professor and former prosecutor.

It's not clear how cooperation is defined, she said, and the question hasn't been tested in court since the laws were changed to their present form in the late 1990s.

Colorado law defines insanity as the inability to distinguish right from wrong, caused by a diseased or defective mind. The law specifically excludes depravity, "moral obliquity" and passion caused by anger, hatred or other emotions from being considered insanity.

Holmes' attorneys repeatedly have said in court hearings and documents that Holmes is mentally ill. He was being seen by a psychiatrist before the attack.

Holmes had sent the psychiatrist a notebook that media reports said included crude drawings of violence. Prosecutors might renew their request to see the notebook because state law gives them access to some medical records of defendants who plead not guilty by reason of insanity.

Prosecutors backed off their previous attempt to see the notebook when Holmes' lawyers said it was protected by doctor-patient privilege.

(source: Associated Press)

ARIZONA:

Jodi Arias Convicted of Murder, Faces Possible Death Penalty

Nearly 5 years after she admittedly killed her lover Travis Alexander, Jodi Arias was convicted Wednesday of 1st-degree murder.

Arias showed little emotion when the verdict was read by the clerk. She licked her lips and appeared glum. As jurors were polled, each affirming the guilty verdict, she seemed to grow increasing upset, fighting back tears.

Outside the Arizona courtroom, the gathered crowd cheered. Alexander's family hugged each other after the verdict was read.

The trial will now enter a penalty phase, with additional testimony and arguments, to determine whether Arias should get life in prison or the death penalty.

Since it started Jan. 2, the Phoenix-based trial has become the country's most closely watched criminal proceeding.

The case pit a beautiful photographer who changed her story twice, eventually claiming self-defense, against a bulldog prosecutor determined to prove Arias, 32, was a spiteful ex-girlfriend who planned the vicious murder out of jealousy, stole her grandfather's gun, and sloppily tried to cover her tracks.

"Throughout the whole thing, she has lied," prosecutor Juan Martinez told the jury May 3 in closing arguments.

Sex, then Violence

According to testimony, Arias arrived at Alexander's Mesa, Ariz., home the morning of June 4, 2008. They had sex, slept, and took photos of each other before she killed him and drove off into the desert, going on a date the following day with a man in Utah.

After Alexander's body was discovered 5 days later, his friends urged detectives to look at Arias, saying she stalked him after the relationship unraveled. Arias called detectives to say she hadn't seen Alexander in several weeks, and offered to help solve the case.

When confronted later with evidence that she was with Alexander before the murder - including photos that turned up in a camera in Alexander's washing machine - Arias claimed two masked intruders killed Alexander and almost killed her.

While in custody, Arias spoke at length with detectives and reporters about her relationship with Alexander and about their final encounter, even granting a jailhouse press conference and TV interviews in which she vowed "no jury will convict me, because I'm innocent."

3 years later, Arias changed her story once again, this time claiming that Alexander, a motivational speaker and businessman, was also abusive towards her, and when he charged at her for dropping his new camera, she killed him in self defense.

No Memory of Stabbing

"The simple answer is that he attacked me and I defended myself," Arias told the jury during her 18 days on the stand.

She testified she recalls shooting him with a gun he kept in his closet, but from there her memory is foggy, and she cannot recall stabbing him.

"I remember I was in the bathroom, I remember dropping the knife and it clinked to the tile, and it made a big noise. And I just remember screaming," Arias testified. "I don't remember anything after that." Defense experts testified it is not unusual for a battered woman with PTSD to repress very traumatic memories.

Since the moment the case went to the 8 men and 4 women of the jury the afternoon of May 3, court watchers have anxiously awaited the verdict.

HLN, which televised much of the proceedings, has been airing clips of interviews and testimony with a stopwatch counting every second of deliberations.

Relatives and friends of Alexander's gathered on May 5 by Alexander's grave in his hometown of Riverside, Calif., to pray for a conviction. Spectators from across the country gathered outside the courthouse in anticipation of the verdict.

(source: people.com)

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

Jodi Arias: I prefer a death sentence

Jodi Arias, convicted of 1st-degree murder of her on-and-off lover, says she was surprised by the jury's verdict Wednesday and hopes for the death penalty over life in prison.

The jury that found her guilty of killing Travis Alexander now faces a decision on whether she deserves execution or a life term in prison.

Arias, who choked back tears as the jury's decision was read, told KSAZ-TV in a courthouse interview after the verdict was announced that she was surprised the jury found her guilty of premeditation in the death of Alexander.

"It was unexpected for me, yes, because there was no premeditation on my part," she said.

She said she would "prefer to die sooner than later" and that "death is the ultimate freedom."

The Maricopa County sheriff's office said in a statement that Arias was being put on a suicide watch because of her interview comments.

The 12 jurors deliberated reached a verdict after deliberating less than three full days. The televised trial, which began Jan. 2, gained notoriety for its accounts of gore and sex.

Jodi Arias has been found guilty of murdering her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander. He was shot in the head and stabbed and slashed more than 2 dozen times in 2008. Tears rolled down Arias' face as the verdict was read.

Alexander's brothers and sisters issued a statement saying they "are in agreement with the jury's verdict of guilty." They said they plan to file a wrongful-death civil lawsuit against Arias.

Arias spoke to Fox affiliate KSAZ in an exclusive courtroom interview about 20 minutes after the verdict was read. Arias was mostly calm and chose her words carefully during the 45-minute interview, appearing to hold back tears a few times, much as she did during the trial, according to the interview.

She said she hoped her sentence would be the death penalty.

"The worst outcome for me would be natural life (in prison). I would much rather die sooner rather than later," she said.

Arias said she is healthy, doesn't smoke and that longevity runs in her family. That means she would expect to live in prison for a long time.

"I said years ago I'd rather get death than life," she said. "I believe death is the ultimate freedom."

Arias added that she hopes the family of victim Travis Alexander can find peace now that the verdict has been rendered. She said she prayed for members of the jury every day and was shocked that they decided the killing was pre-meditated.

Arias said she could "see how it could look that way" but that "there was no premeditation on my part."

The 12 jurors reached the verdict after deliberating less than 3 full days. The trial, which began Jan. 2, gained notoriety for its accounts of gore and sex.

Alexander's brothers and sisters issued a statement saying they "are in agreement with the jury's verdict of guilty.'' They said they plan to file a wrongful death civil suit against Arias.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery issued a statement after the verdict was read, saying, "We look forward to the next phase of the proceedings, where the state will present evidence to prove the murder was committed in an especially heinous, cruel, or depraved manner."

Prosecutor Juan Martinez argued that the murder on June 4, 2008, was premeditated.

Martinez offered circumstantial evidence to try to convince the jury: --Arias dyed her hair to disguise herself before she drove to Mesa. Her attorneys said she did so long before the trip.

--Arias rented a car to avoid detection and didn't want to drive her own car, which was red, because it might attract police attention. She and her attorneys claimed she drove a rental because her own car couldn't make the trip.

--She removed the front license plate of the rental car and attached the rear plate upside down to avoid detection.

--She took 2 or 3 gas cans in her car to avoid a paper trail of gas receipts in Arizona. Arias claimed she was afraid of running out of gas in remote areas, such as the national parks she said she planned to visit to add to her photographer's portfolio.

--A gun stolen from her grandfather was the same caliber as the gun that killed Alexander. Arias claimed she pulled Alexander's own gun from the top shelf of his closet. Martinez pointed out that none of Alexander's friends knew him to have a gun.

--That there were 3 potentially fatal wounds - 1 stab wound, the gunshot and a slit throat - could indicate that Arias had time to reflect on what she was doing.

Spectators in the courtroom gasped when the verdict was read. Family members of both the victim and the defendant shed tears.

Outside the courthouse, crowds cheered.

Defense attorneys contended that Arias killed Alexander in June 2008 in an unplanned fit of rage as she reacted to what attorneys portrayed as his pattern of emotional and physical abuse.

It had cost Maricopa County taxpayers at least $1.7 million as of late April to defend Arias.

Lesley Webster hosts USA NOW for May 8, 2013, covering the Joday Arias trial. The jury found Arias guilty of 1st-degree murder of her on-and-off lover, Travis Alexander.

Arias spent 18 days on the witness stand testifying in her defense. She and her lawyers contended it was the culmination of a relationship in which she was emotionally, physically and sexually abused by Alexander.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said Tuesday that she believes Arias is guilty, but she did not cite 1st-degree murder or a lesser charge. A 1st-degree murder conviction and death sentence could one day put a commutation request on the desk of an Arizona governor.

(source: USA Today)

US MILITARY:

Hasan lawyers to ask for trial delay

Lawyers for the accused Fort Hood shooter will ask for another delay Thursday when Maj. Nidal Hasan is back in court for a pre-trial hearing.

Hasan's court-appointed defense team is asking for the start date of the trial to be pushed back 3 months to Sept. 1.

Hasan's death penalty court-martial for charges stemming from the Nov. 5, 2009, mass shooting on post that left 13 dead is slated to begin May 29.

If granted, the delays would all but guarantee the trial's conclusion would not happen until after the 4th anniversary of the shooting, the worst ever to occur on a military base.

Hasan's lawyers will be asking for more time to litigate motions to set aside the capital charges, a request for a media analysis expert and the production of witnesses, according to a news release from Fort Hood.

In previous hearings, a judge has denied requests for the media expert and to take the death penalty off the table.

(source: Killeen Daily Herald)

USA:

Feds want death sentence restored for triple murderer Gary Sampson

10 years after Abington native Gary Sampson was convicted and sentenced to death for murdering 3 men, including 2 on the South Shore, the legal battle over the sentence has heated up again.

Sampson and federal prosecutors are in the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston Wednesday afternoon, with prosecutors arguing that Sampson's death penalty should be returned.

U.S. District Court Judge Mark Wolf vacated the sentence in October 2011 and ordered a new sentencing trial, on the grounds that one of the jurors in the 1st sentencing had lied on her court questionnaire about her family's criminal history.

Prosecutors said that was no reason to set the sentence aside, since the juror's criminal history wasn't connected to Sampson's murders.

Wednesday's arguments follow years of appeals by Sampson, who has been confined to the federal death row house in Terre Haute, Ind. While Sampson has fought the death sentence, he hasn't contested the convictions.

Sampson was charged in 2001 for the killings of 19-year-old college student Jonathan Rizzo of Kingston, Philip McCloskey of Taunton and Robert "Eli" Whitney of Concord, N.H. He confessed to the murders, then was tried and convicted in 2003.

Massachusetts has no death penalty, but then-U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan sought the sentence under the federal carjacking statute.

During his 6-day spree, Sampson cornered Rizzo and McCloskey at their cars, ordered them to drive to remote spots and killed them there. He then stole the cars. Rizzo had just finished his work shift at a Plymouth restaurant.

(source: The Patriot Ledger)

IRAN:

Iranian man granted mercy by victim's family moments after execution begins

A man sentenced to death for murder in Mashad, northeastern Iran, was granted mercy at the very last moment just as he was being hung from the scaffold. According to Iranian Mehr news agency, Vahid Zare had been charged with killing a young person doing his military service. He was granted mercy by the victim's family when he started choking, seconds after the executioner pulled the gallows from beneath his feet.

Once the members of the victims' family confirmed that they were pardoning the culprit, the officials took Zahe down and sent him to the hospital.

(source: Hurriyet Daily News)

INDIA:

No formal stay order on execution of Prof. Bhullar while review petition remains pending

It is learnt that Professor Devinderpal Singh Bhullar's wife Bibi Navneet Kaur who had moved to Supreme Court of India (SCI) on May 07, 2013 seeking stay on execution of Prof. Bhullar was unable to get an urgent stay on execution of Prof. Bhullar. The SCI reportedly chose not to restrain authorities from executing his death penalty during the pendency of review petition.

Prof. Bhullar's wife had earlier sought commutation of death sentence given to her husband on the ground of inordinate delay in deciding constitutional review petition. But the plea was dismissed by the SCI on April 12, 2013. Now she has filed a review petition against April 12 verdict.

According to Indian Express (IE) "[s]eeking a stay on his execution, senior advocate Ram Jethmalani, who was appointed as an amicus curiae in the matter, expressed apprehension that Bhullar could be hanged in secrecy like Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru even though his review petition remained pending."

"We don't want to know it from the newspapers or TV channels in the morning that he has been hanged. It has been happening in this country and last hangings were under such circumstances," Jethmalani reportedly argued before a Bench led by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir.

"The Bench told him that the same situation prevailed when the matter remained pending before the other court for a decision and that it would not be proper to allow the convict re-agitate the same issues time and again", the Indian Express (IE) news report reads further.

Prof. Bhullar was one of the organizers of Sikh movement of 1980s-90s, who is sentenced to death by Indian courts in a highly controversial manner; where even the participants of Indian judicial system have raised questions over his conviction.

(source: sikhsiyasat.net)

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

No stay on Bhullar execution

Khalistan Liberation Force terrorist Devinderpal Singh Bhullar failed to get an urgent stay on his execution as the Supreme Court on Tuesday chose not to restrain authorities from executing his death penalty till his review petition was decided.

Bhullar, whose petition for commutation of death penalty to life term due to delay in deciding mercy petition was dismissed by the court last month, has filed a review petition against this rejection.

Seeking a stay on his execution, senior advocate Ram Jethmalani, who was appointed as an amicus curiae in the matter, expressed apprehension that Bhullar could be hanged in secrecy like Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru even though his review petition remained pending.

"We don't want to know it from the newspapers or TV channels in the morning that he has been hanged. It has been happening in this country and last hangings were under such circumstances," Jethmalani argued before a Bench led by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir.

The Bench told him that the same situation prevailed when the matter remained pending before the other court for a decision and that it would not be proper to allow the convict re-agitate the same issues time and again.

Jethmalani, however, pointed that a review had already been filed by Bhullar and it was required in these circumstances to hold back the possible execution. The Bench responded that it would pass formal orders in the matter on a later date.

Bhullar's review petition has sought a re-look at the March 13 verdict by a Bench led by Justice G S Singhvi. This Bench had held that in cases where the magnitude of the crime and its impact on society justified imposing capital punishment, a court cannot judicially review a decision by the President or a governor only on the ground of undue delay.

The review plea stated that this judgment sought to send to gallows "a severely mentally ill man" and that the harshness of the judgment has shocked the moral conscience of this nation.

Confronting the remarks in the verdict that "a person who shows no mercy, is not entitled to plead for mercy", the petition said that it was too harsh a comment in Constitutional terms.

"It seeks to legitimise 'eye for an eye' philosophy and negates centuries of evolution need of human kindness and mercy in the matter of governance," it added.

Bhullar, sentenced to death for a bomb blast that claimed nine lives, has been on death row since his clemency petition, which was pending with the president for 6 years, was finally rejected in 2011.

(source: Indian Express)

TEXAS----new death sentence

Jurors sentence courthouse killer to death; Bartholomew Granger convicted in Minnie Ray Sebolt's death

A Houston man was sentenced to death Tuesday in the fatal shooting of a 79-year-old woman outside a Southeast Texas courthouse.

Bartholomew Granger, 42, was convicted last week of capital murder in the slaying of Minnie Ray Sebolt. The same jurors who found him guilty deliberated for a little less than 2 hours before deciding on the death penalty.

"He is a non human. [He's] unforgiving. No remorse whatsoever," said Deborah Holst, Sebolt's daughter. "I can't talk to my mother. I can't hold, hug her. My grandkids and her great-grandkids cannot hug her and see her anymore. I have to go to her gravesite to be able to talk to her."

Granger entered the courtroom blowing a kiss to the camera. He was gagged and handcuffed to his chair, but seven deputies still needed to hold him down as he screamed through his gag, calling his daughter a coward and thanking the jury for sentencing him to death.

Granger testified that he opened fire on his daughter outside the courthouse in downtown Beaumont in March 2012 but insisted he did not kill Sebolt. She was a bystander walking outside the courthouse, where Granger's daughter had testified against him in a sexual assault case. The daughter and her mother were among three women wounded in the attack.

Holst said she would attend his execution while holding a photo of her mother.

"This is going to be right here in front of my chest," she said. "I want that to be the last thing that he sees and know why he's here and know why he's getting that needle."

"Quite frankly, I have never seen a criminal defendant quite like this guy. He -- he was an evil person," said Ed Shaettle, the Assistant District Attorney of Jefferson County.

During the sentencing phase of his trial, Granger burst out in profanity-filled rants denouncing the verdict, his daughter, prosecutors and the judge. On Monday, as he testified - and against the advice of attorneys in the punishment phase - Granger called his case a "mockery of justice" and a "lynching." He was then restrained and temporarily removed from court.

Granger testified during the trial that he emptied the 10-bullet magazine of his illegally purchased semi-automatic carbine, saying he fired toward his daughter. Then, when he saw his daughter was still moving while lying in the street, he ran over her with his pickup truck. The daughter spent 3 months in a coma.

The trial was moved 75 miles to Galveston, so jurors didn't have to walk past the crime scene each day.

Granger's daughter, now 22, was among the witnesses who testified against him.

Prosecutors said Granger parked outside the courthouse for hours, then ambushed the women when they appeared at the courthouse in the late morning. Sebolt also was outside at the time, accompanying Holst to the courthouse. She was shot twice and died in the revolving door at the courthouse entrance.

Granger subsequently came under fire from police, abandoned his bullet-riddled truck about three blocks away, walked inside a construction business and took several people hostage. At some point he was wounded, eventually was overpowered by his captives and police moved in to take him into custody.

(source: click2houston.com)

PENNSYLVANIA----new death sentence

Jury Decides Death Penalty In Triple Murder Trial

A Westmoreland County jury has decided Kevin Murphy will get the death penalty.

The Saltsburg man was convicted last week of killing his mother, sister and aunt in April 2009.

"The people who loved the defendant the most- his mother, sister and aunt- are the people he killed," said District Attorney John Peck. "The people he should have cherished the most."

Prosecutors did not present any evidence beyond an opening and closing argument. Peck told the jury that the fact that Murphy killed 3 people makes him worthy of the death penalty.

Defense attorneys say Murphy's lack of a criminal record, age and good character should be reasons to spare his life.

"Death should be reserved for career criminals," defense attorney Bob Bell told the jury. "What caused April 23- I don't know. It happened. But Kevin Murphy is not a career criminal."

Several friends and family members took the stand on Murphy's behalf.

Jurors got the case around 2:30 p.m. this afternoon.

(source: CBS News)

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

Murphy sentenced to death for trio of homicides

A Westmoreland County jury on Tuesday sentenced Kevin Murphy to death for fatally shooting his mother, sister and aunt 4 years ago.

Murphy, 52, of Conemaugh Township, Indiana County, was convicted of 3 counts of 1st-degree murder for fatally shooting Doris Murphy, 69, Kris Murphy, 43, and Edith Tietge, 81.

The victims' bodies were found at their place of employment, Ferguson Glass, the Loyalhanna Township auto-glass business that Murphy owned.

Jurors deliberated for more than 7 hours before announcing the sentence in the courtroom of Judge Al Bell.

Murphy fired bullets from a .22-caliber revolver into the victims' heads because he needed to "knock off" his mother and sister and then needed to kill his aunt after she walked in on the murders sometime after the shop closed on April 23, 2009, according to trial testimony.

Murphy's mother and sister lived with him at his home near Saltsburg, but he needed them out of the way to move his girlfriend into the house, according to the prosecution.

District Attorney John Peck argued for the death sentence for Murphy on behalf of the victims.

"He used the love they had for him to lure them into Ferguson Glass and, like a coward, to shoot them in the back of the head," Peck told jurors.

Defense attorney Robert Bell argued that Murphy's age, his lack of a prior criminal record and good character warranted sparing his life.

"The death penalty should be reserved for people who are always in trouble, not a businessman who spent his whole life abiding the law," Bell said.

7 defense witnesses took the stand Tuesday during the brief penalty phase of the trial.

Uncle Roy "Sonny" Martin, the brother of Doris Murphy and Tietge, testified on behalf of his nephew. "He was protective of his family," Martin insisted.

Martin, who had gone to an auction that day, found the victims' bodies. He previously testified that Murphy was feeding cows at Martin's farm, across the road from the glass business, when the victims were killed.

Another uncle of Murphy's, Paul Martin, testified his nephew was never in trouble as a child or an adult.

"I don't even know if he had a parking ticket," Paul Martin told jurors.

Jean Bash of Loyalhanna, a friend of the Murphy family, testified, "I never saw any anger issues. I never saw him disagree with his family."

The prosecution presented no witnesses to support the death penalty.

"His character witnesses don't mitigate this crime. They only make it more horrific. This defendant had all the opportunities," Peck told jurors.

(source: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

DELAWARE:

Bail law reform has keen backers in amending state Constitution; Law officers endorse idea ahead of hearing

A proposed state constitutional amendment that increases the number of crimes for which defendants could be held without bail would protect people from the "worst of the worst," Wilmington's Police Chief Christine Dunning said Tuesday.

Dunning was among a group of law enforcement officials and lawmakers who spoke in favor of the bill during a hearing at the city's Public Safety Building.

The bill's Democratic sponsor, Sen. Robert I. Marshall of Wilmington, held the forum attended by about 50 people in advance of a Senate committee hearing at 2:30 p.m. today in Dover.

The lone dissenting voice came from Dwight Davis, who runs a program to help convicted felons get their rights restored. He said the amendment runs counter to the U.S. Constitution's ban on "excessive bail'' and that the deck was already stacked against poor defendants.

Dunning said police and prosecutors are weary of having to meet with families of gunshot victims and being asked: "Why was this person out? Why was my son or daughter murdered."

Currently, only those charged with capital murder -- the state's only crime punishable by death -- can be imprisoned in Delaware without bail while awaiting trail. When that provision was passed, other crimes such as armed robbery and kidnapping were punishable by death.

But under a proposal by Attorney General Beau Biden that has failed twice since he took office in 2007, other serious felony crimes would be added to the list of crimes for which a defendant can be denied bail.

The amendment also provides that someone deemed too dangerous to be free would get a hearing to decide whether he or she can be held without bail. Under the proposed amendment, a judge would have to decide that "no condition or combination of conditions other than detention" would ensure the public's safety before holding the defendant without bail.

The bill proposes that defendants could be held without bail if charged with Class A felonies such as attempted murder or kidnapping. Others that could be held without bail include habitual criminals and defendants out on bail for a violent felony who commit another while free.

Biden said too many dangerous criminals are freed on low bail, then continue committing crimes, intimidating witnesses and terrorizing neighborhoods. Repeat offenders are a big reason why Delaware ranks 6th nationally for violent crime, his office contend.

Noting 27 other states and federal law allow judges to detain a highly dangerous person or someone considered a flight risk, Biden said: "We have the best chance we've had," he said. "People are fed up."

State Prosecutor Kathleen M. Jennings said her office's primary aim is to move Delaware from a money-based bail system to a risk-based system. "No amount of money makes you less dangerous," she said.

Last year, Jennings said, 157 people out on bail in Delaware for a violent felony were re-arrested for a violent felony.

This week's hearings are the 1st step in a process that would take roughly 2 years. A constitutional amendment needs a 2/3 majority of both the state House and Senate in 2 consecutive legislative sessions, which last 2 years each. The current legislative session ends in June 2014, and the next one starts in January 2015.

Should the amendments pass, the Legislature would then have to pass other bills specifying which crimes qualify for no bail, as well as the process a judge must use to determine whether the defendant is too dangerous to remain free while awaiting trial.

(source: The News Journal)

VIRGINIA:

Death Penalty Dying Out

Most of the world's governments no longer use the death penalty. Among wealthy nations there is one exception remaining. The United States is among the top 5 killers in the world. Also in the top 5: the recently "liberated" Iraq.

But most of the United States' 50 states no longer use the death penalty. There are 18 states that have abolished it, including 6 in this new millennium, including Maryland this week. 31 states haven't used the death penalty in the past 5 years, 26 in the past 10 years, 17 in the past 40 years or more. A handful of Southern states - with Texas in the lead - do most of the killing.

The progress is slow and painful. Mississippi is right now having trouble deciding whether to spare a man just because he might be innocent. Maryland has perversely left 5 people waiting to be killed while banning the death penalty for any future cases. Next-door in Virginia we hold 2nd place behind Texas and continue to kill.

Virginia electrocuted a man named Robert Gleason in January. Since then, Texas has killed 4 men, Ohio 2, and Florida, Oklahoma, and Georgia 1 each - all by lethal injection. Since 1973, there have been 141 exonerations from death row nationwide, including an innocent Virginian who came within days of being killed.

If you're convicted of killing a white person in Virginia, you're over 3 times as likely to receive the death penalty as you would be if the victim had been black. The injustice and backwardness is staggering, but so is the lack of democracy. Only 1/3 of Virginians tell pollsters they favor the death penalty.

The evil of the death penalty is not limited to the instances in which it is used - or to the corrosive influence it has on our culture. The death penalty primarily serves as a valuable chip in plea bargaining. Want someone to plead guilty, whether or not they actually are guilty? Threaten them with the death penalty. Who needs trials by jury (now used in under 2% of cases) when you have that kind of tool? And who has time for them when you've overloaded the system by treating drug use as a crime?

Remarkably, a former commonwealth's attorney here in Charlottesville, Va., named Steve Deaton is campaigning for his old job with a commitment to never use or threaten to use the death penalty.

"I believe the death penalty is barbaric and has no place in modern Charlottesville courts," Deaton says, reversing the electoral wisdom of many decades, which firmly holds that candidates must pretend to believe the death penalty is just and righteous and a deterrent to crime, even if the public thinks that's nonsense.

"I am calling for a moratorium on death penalty prosecutions," says Deaton. "During the past 20 years - that is, the term of the incumbent Commonwealth's Attorney - a number of capital murder charges have been brought against some people, almost all of them poor. Then the charge is often used as a bargaining chip to get the defendant to plead guilty to murder and accept a life sentence. This practice of using the threat of death to plea bargain is legal, and under current ethical standards, considered ethical. However, I find such a practice appalling. By engaging in this practice the prosecutor is tempting fate: what if their threat doesn't work and the case goes to a jury?"

Many in Charlottesville oppose the death penalty. Deaton explains the very real possibility that it will nonetheless be employed here: "The notion that no Charlottesville jury will return a death sentence is misleading. In a capital murder case the jury has to be 'death qualified,' meaning that the jurors must believe in the death penalty. Such a jury is not representative of the community! Studies have shown that a 'death qualified jury' is also much more likely to convict."

Deaton points out that prosecutors have a great deal of discretion: "A prosecutor does not have to bring a capital murder charge. They have the option of bringing a regular murder charge instead."

If elected, Deaton intends to use the enormous discretion given to prosecutors to try to make punishments more reasonably fit crimes, including so-called drug crimes. While Charlottesville City Council failed by a vote of 3-2 in February to end jail time for possession of marijuana, Deaton intends to charge those possessing marijuana with a different charge: disorderly conduct. It's technically a higher level charge - a Class 1 misdemeanor - but it does not carry the draconian punishments of loss of driver's license, subjection to drug testing, ruined college acceptance and student loan prospects, immigration status, etc. "If a person makes a mistake, they should be punished. They shouldn't have their lives ruined," Deaton says.

Deaton aims to counter mass-incarceration, not add to it. "The state has built a new $100 million prison in Grayson County and there is talk of expanding our local jail," he says. "All of this in spite of declining crime rates. It is time to stop feeding the prison-industrial complex. I believe the goal of the justice system should be to empty out spaces in the jails and prisons - not to fill every available space!"

Of course, the system of mass incarceration creates a caste system by stamping the scarlet F of "Felon" on those released, no matter how many years of their lives are wasted in cages. Deaton favors restoring rights, including voting rights, for people convicted of nonviolent felonies.

Charlotte