[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA, GA., ALA.

[Rick Halperin]

April 14




USA:

Death Penalty for Child Rape, a Thing to Reconsider


This is the 1st time in more than 30 years when the U.S. Supreme Court is
considering whether to accept the death penalty for the crime of raping a
child. Until now, murder was a single crime category that could be
punished by execution. The court has to consider all the arguments and to
conclude if the crime of raping a child represents unconstitutionally
cruel and unusual punishment.

On the other hand, the decision to analyze the situation of death penalty
related cases comes after a growing nationwide debate on capital
punishment itself. The United States is one of the few democratic states
which still permit the capital punishment. This is a controversial issue
in the United States and in other parts of the world.

Arguments for and against it are based on moral, practical, religious, and
emotional grounds. Advocates for the death penalty argue that this is the
just punishment for a terrifying crime, saying that it improves the
community by making sure that convicted criminals do not find their way
out onto the streets to offend again.

Opponents of the death penalty say that capital punishment puts government
on the same moral level as criminals who have taken the life. Someone who
objects to capital punishment in itself believes there is no circumstance
in any kind of situation in which capital punishment is a justified form
of punishment.

"Today no Western nation authorizes the death penalty for any kind of
rape," said Jeffrey Fisher, a Stanford University law professor
representing Kennedy, who argued that the U.S. Constitution bars imposing
the death penalty for rape, regardless of the victim's age, according to
Reuters.

Since the reinstatement of the death penalty which occurred in 1976, there
have been 1,099 executions in the United States as of October 2006. The
last case which ended with the execution penalty for rape occurred 44
years ago.

(source: eNews)

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

Another crime added to death penalty list


The Supreme court this week is expected to hear arguments that could add
the death penalty to a crime other than murder.

The Country's high court will consider whether capital punishment can be
imposed on people convicted of raping a child.

Earlier this year the justices listened to arguments challenging lethal
executions with a 3-drug cocktail.

A ruling on that is expected by late June.

(source: WPTV News)

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

Child Rape Tests Limits Of Death Penalty----La. Law Spurs Review Of Eighth
Amendment


Ever since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty more than 30
years ago, justices have been finding ways to limit it.

In the intervening years, they have employed their interpretations of
society's "evolving standards of decency" to remove juvenile and mentally
retarded killers from death row.

Before that, they excluded kidnappers who did not kill and even some
accomplices to murder. In 1977 the court also concluded that a state could
not execute a man who raped an adult woman.

But on Wednesday the court will consider whether a person who rapes a
child is different. Louisiana prosecutors will argue that the same
societal mores that have persuaded justices to spare certain categories of
criminals lead in the opposite direction when it comes to child rapists,
demanding an expansion of capital punishment, not a retrenchment.

Proponents say society demands retribution for those who harm its most
vulnerable members. But some child advocacy experts say the unintended
consequences of the death penalty might be a decline in the reporting of
sexual assaults by family members, or even an incentive for the rapist to
kill the victim.

The argument comes as the court has imposed a de facto moratorium on
capital punishment while justices decide in a separate case whether the
current methods of lethal injection are constitutional.

Even as the number of death sentences imposed in the United States has
fallen -- there were the fewest last year since capital punishment was
reinstated in 1976 -- Louisiana and a handful of other states have changed
their laws to allow executions for those who rape children. They are
supported by additional states that say they might want to do so in the
future.

"The 'evolving standards of decency' framework is not a one-way street
that may lead only towards the elimination of the death penalty," the
state of Texas argues in a brief joined by eight other states. "Each
state's legislature should be allowed to . . . reflect its citizens'
current moral judgment regarding the just deserts for certain capital
crimes."

Of the 3,300 inmates on death row across the country, only 2 are there for
a crime other than murder. Both were convicted under Louisiana's child
rape statute, passed in 1995 and still the broadest in the land.

Those facts alone are a powerful argument that executing someone for rape
would violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition against "cruel and unusual
punishment," argue lawyers for Louisiana death row inmate Patrick Kennedy.
The 43-year-old Kennedy was convicted of raping his 8-year-old
stepdaughter in 1998 in an assault so brutal that the girl required
surgery.

But Jeffrey L. Fisher, a Stanford University law professor who will argue
Kennedy's case, said no matter how heinous the crime, the court decided in
1977's Coker v. Georgia its last previous ruling on the limits of capital
punishment -- that rape is not subject to the ultimate penalty.

Justice Byron R. White wrote for the court: "We have the abiding
conviction that the death penalty, which is unique in its severity and
irrevocability, is an excessive penalty for the rapist who, as such, does
not take human life."

That might have settled it, except the court noted in that decision, and
in subsequent ones, that although the victim was 16, she was an "adult
woman."

To Louisiana legislators, that meant there was an open question about
whether capital punishment would be allowed for those who rape children.
The state's Supreme Court held that children require special protection
from society and that the "the degradation and devastation of child rape,
and the permeation of harm resulting to victims of rape in this age
category" justify the death penalty.

And it pointedly noted that "this current court, and its new members" have
not considered the issue.

Louisiana has been joined in expanding the death penalty by Montana, South
Carolina, Oklahoma and most recently Texas. (Florida and Georgia have
older laws that have been called into question by state courts.)

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt (R) has asked his state's legislature to impose
the death penalty on child rapists after the high-profile case of a man
who kidnapped a boy and held him captive for 4 years. Michael J. Devlin
received 74 life sentences, but Blunt questioned whether that was
"sufficient" for his crimes.

"This court should not foreclose a national debate on appropriate
punishment for child rape," Missouri said in an amicus brief.

Louisiana argues that such initiatives are reflective of the same sort of
societal trends -- albeit in the opposite direction -- that the court
recognized in 2002, when it declared the death penalty unconstitutional
for the mentally retarded, and in 2005, when it did the same for
juveniles. Both reversed earlier decisions by the court.

Fisher and the Capital Appeals Project in New Orleans, which represented
Kennedy in his appeals, countered that more states have rejected the death
penalty for child rapists than have added it, and that New Jersey repealed
its death penalty law entirely. "Viewed against the backdrop of 44 years
without a single execution for rape of any kind, the enactments of only 4
states over 13 years . . . hardly signify a shift in societal attitudes,"
their brief argues.

Expanding the death penalty to include non-homicidal rape would separate
the United States from other Western nations and align it with "only a
sliver" of the world, including China, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Fisher
argues.

Even if imposing the death penalty for child rapists were ruled
constitutional, he said, Louisiana's law is so broad that it fails the
Supreme Court's test of narrowing classifications of offenders to the
worst of the worst. For instance, while other states require previous
convictions before a convict is eligible for the death penalty, Louisiana
does not. Anyone convicted of raping a child younger than 13 is eligible
for the death penalty, even though the typical murderer would not be.

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union
reminded the court of the "scourge of racial bias" that accompanied the
execution of rapists during the middle part of the 20th century; nearly 90
% of those executed were black.

Beyond legal issues, the law is bad policy, an unlikely coalition of
social workers and groups that work to prevent sexual assaults told the
court.

Her opposition "might seem counterintuitive," Judy Benitez, executive
director of the Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault, said in an
interview. "But our great fear is that it will increase underreporting" of
the crime.

She said the "vast majority" of sexual assaults against children are
committed by a family member or friend, and that other family members
would be unwilling to turn over the rapist if the death penalty might be
carried out.

Additionally, the imposition of the death penalty means that abusers face
no greater penalty for raping and killing their victims than for solely
raping them, she said.

Benitez acknowledges those are arguments that would seem better directed
at legislators than the courts. But she said lawmakers are often swayed by
the emotions that accompany terrible crimes.

"It's a complex area that I think needs to be looked at in a more in-depth
manner than policymakers are often willing to do," she said.

(source: Washington Post)

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

Trend It, Don't End It----Tracking the inscrutable social consensus on
capital punishment for rapists.


This week, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case about whether-for the
1st time in decades-a criminal can be executed for a crime that isn't
murder. Patrick Kennedy was convicted in 2004 for the rape of a child, his
8-year-old stepdaughter, and the state of Louisiana contends that his
crime is tantamount to murder and worthy of death. Nobody in this country
has actually been executed for anything other than murder since 1964,
although 5 states, including Louisiana, have laws permitting capital
punishment for the rape of young children. Several others are
contemplating broadening their laws to do the same. The court must
determine, in Kennedy v. Louisiana, whether the Eighth Amendment's
prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment bars the execution of someone
who didn't commit a murder but did violate a young child.

Kennedy is somewhat confounded by the quiet "moratorium" on executions the
United States is experiencing, while the high court mulls another case.
That one tests the constitutionality of the lethal injection procedures
used in Kentucky and all but one of the 38 states permitting capital
punishment. The court will decide the lethal-injection question this
spring. But, in the meantime, there's been a pause in capital punishment
since last September: a good opportunity to reflect on what life would be
like without it and to take the public temperature on the death penalty in
general.

Capital punishment in America has been in a slow-repeat, slow-decline for
years. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, which compiles
statistics on capital punishment nationally, the number of executions has
dropped steadily since 1998. Even before the 2007 moratorium took effect,
the execution numbers had hit a 10-year low of 53 in 2006. American
confidence in the death penalty has also dipped slightly: A Gallup poll
taken in 2006 showed that while 2/3 of Americans endorsed capital
punishment for murderers, given the choice between the death penalty and a
life sentence without parole, slightly more preferred life in prison for
the 1st time in decades.

This dip has been variously attributed to the reported 127 death-row
exonerations now logged by DPIC (though death penalty supporters strongly
dispute that statistic), as well as popular books by the likes of John
Grisham and pervasive evidence that racism still taints the capital
sentencing system. Still, public opinion on the death penalty remains in
favor of it-at least for murder. And while the number of states imposing
or contemplating moratoriums on the death penalty grows, many seem bent on
mending-not ending-the capital system with cleaner execution protocols and
higher-quality capital defense.

All of the statistics, polls, and trends I've just cited would be utterly
irrelevant to any legal discussion of whether a child rapist can be
executed, were it not for the odd constitutional test that weighs "cruel
and unusual" punishment against "evolving standards of decency." This is
an exercise in molar-grinding frustration for members of the Supreme Court
devoted to adhering to the Constitution's original text. When the Supreme
Court ended the death penalty for mentally retarded offenders in 2002 and
again for those who were minors at the time of their crimes in 2005, it
did so via an elaborate interpretive dance that required putting one
finger on the pulse of foreign courts and the other to the wind of
American public opinion. For those of us who are not big fans of public
hangings on the Pubclicke Square, the notion that standards of unusual
cruelty can "evolve" has its appeal. But the new fight over executing
child rapists reveals that attempts to measure the shifting winds of
public opinion for some ephemeral "national consensus" often says more
about which justice is doing the measuring than whatever it is that's
being measured.

The Supreme Court tackled the death penalty with regard to the rape of a
16-year-old in 1977, in Coker v. Georgia, and prohibited capital
punishment for the rape of an "adult." The majority found that "the death
penalty, which is unique in its severity, is an excessive penalty for the
rapist who, as such, does not take human life." Coker has since stood for
the general principle that the death penalty is unavailable for nonmurder
crimes, no matter how heinous. But Louisiana contends that child rape is
different from adult rape, and its Supreme Court, in upholding the death
penalty for Kennedy, wrote that "if the court is going to exercise its
independent judgment to validate the death penalty for any non-homicide
crime, it is going to be child rape."

Kennedy's lawyers measure the national discomfort with executing child
rapists by counting to two: the number of people on death row for
nonhomicide offenses. They also count to zero: the number of criminals
executed for a rape since 1964. For its part, the state of Louisiana
argues in its brief that public sentiment is tilting its way: "[S]ocietal
awareness" and "outrage" over the sexual violation of children is rising,
and the enactment of "Megan's laws" reflects a punitive new approach to
child rapists. Louisiana also points out that "the rape of a child under
12 is a crime like no other," and that the physical and psychological
effects of child rape are devastating. It also engages in some counting,
i.e., the number of state legislatures trending toward making certain
nonhomicide offenses a capital crime: 38 % of death penalty states now
punish some nonhomicide crimes with the death penalty.

International jurists and social scientists have also weighed in. A
friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of Kennedy from British law scholars
and former law lords includes citations to the Moroccan and Nigerian penal
codes-a tactic guaranteed to send several justices into near-irreversible
clinical despair. Another brief, from the National Association of Social
Workers, warns that if child rape becomes a capital crime, victims will be
less likely to report abuse, and rapists more likely to kill them. Several
other states write in support of Louisiana, urging the court not to meddle
with the independent state legislatures. Which leaves the high court in
the unenviable position of having to measure whether the generalized
public support for capital punishment may be canceled out by the slight
recent decline in that support, which must in turn be weighed against
efforts in some states to execute a broader range of criminals. All of
which should somehow be tested against whatever the foreign courts might
think.

Depending on how you look at it, and at which level of generality you
elect to start counting, we are witnessing either a burgeoning new trend
for executing rapists-or the last gasps of capital punishment.

The problem with measuring "evolving standards of decency" is that they
tend to evolve and devolve in multiple directions at the same time.
Patrick Kennedy's lawyers are right about the broad American distaste for
executing nonmurderers. Louisiana is also right that the trend is shifting
toward expanding the types of crimes eligible for capital punishment.
Americans generally support the death penalty but still worry it's applied
unfairly and now seem to increasingly favor life without parole. They
still want the option of capital punishment but apparently wish to
exercise it a few dozen times per year only. For the high court, it's a
monumental challenge: distilling all of these trends and counter-trends
into some broad, workable constitutional rule, a rule that somehow
reflects the emerging "national consensus" that we may like the idea of
capital punishment far more than the reality of it.

A version of this piece appears in this week's Newsweek.

(source: Slate, Dahlia Lithwick is a Slate senior editor)






GEORGIA:

High Court Denies Reconsideration in Troy Davis Case


The Georgia Supreme Court has announced a denial to a motion to reconsider
its decision in the Troy Davis death penalty case. Davis was convicted in
the 1989 murder of Savannah Police Officer Mark MacPhail, and sentenced to
death. On March 17, the state's highest court voted 4 to 3 to deny defense
requests for a new trial. The high court first heard the Davis case for
appeal in mid-November. Defense attorneys claim that seven of the nine
original witnesses in Davis' trial have since changed their stories. Davis
was scheduled to be executed in July of 2007. The Georgia Board of Pardons
and Paroles granted a 90-day stay just 23 hours before he was scheduled to
be executed.

(source: WSAV News)






ALABAMA:

Death penalty should be issue


I am a Republican but have been very impressed with Barack Obama.

I would like to know why the presidential candidates are not speaking up
about the death penalty. The United States Supreme Court will be making a
historic ruling in a month or so, executions are on hold, and we have a
very flawed system.

Why is this not a topic? Do you know ithe state of Alabama is trying to
execute a man who has never had his 1st habeas corpus or rule 32 appeals
heard? There is also DNA evidence that could prove his innocence and the
governor will not allow it. The Supreme Court even denied him DNA testing
November 2007. It is because of a law signed into action by President
Clinton in 1996, called the AEDPA Act. It puts a 1-year time limit on
death row inmates to file their post-conviction appeals.

Well, Alabama is the only state in the United States where death row
inmates are not even entitled to an attorney during post-conviction
appeals. So even if you have DNA evidence, that if tested, that could
prove your innocence, too bad we are going to kill you because you did not
file your paper work on time. Another man in Georgia was just denied new
trial based on the same AEDPA Act.

I would think Obama would be all over Clinton on this AEDPA act her
husband signed. All people for or against the death penalty, can agree on
one thing: We do not want to execute innocent people (or should I say
murder?).

It is my father the State of Alabama is trying to murder. He did not file
his paperwork on time because he did not have an attorney, and by Alabama
laws, he was not entitled one. He is no angel, but for Gods sake, do we
really live in a country where you do not get a habeas corpus review, you
are not entitled to a lawyer and you cannot have DNA testing of the crime
scene evidence? Yes, we do, and I am appalled the presidential candidates
are not even discussing it.

My fathers name is Thomas Arthur, Z-427, Alabama death row Inmate. The
other man in Georgia who will be executed is Troy Davis. They and many
more will be murdered because of this AEDPA Act. They will not be allowed
new trials to show evidence that can prove their innocence. They both and
many more will probably be murdered this year, once the Supreme Court
rules on cruel and unusual punishment. That is not the issue they should
be ruling on.

Do you know what it is like to sit with your father before a scheduled
execution and realize he is probably innocent of the crime? Twice I did
that last year, in September and December 2007. Now that is cruel and
unusual punishment for me and the victim's family. People don't realize
that there are 2 sets of victims when a crime is committed, the victims
family and friends, and the convicteds family and friends. Is it really
justice and closure for either set of victims if we murder the wrong
person?

Do something about this or speak of it, Obama, and I will change parties.
Right now, I am just disgusted with both parties.

Sherrie Stone----Tampa, Fla.

(source: Letter to the Editor, The Gadsden Times)

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

A death row inmate has filed a new challenge to Alabama's lethal injection
procedures. It must be taken seriously.


Daniel Lee Siebert's latest challenge to Alabama's death penalty practices
is sure to invite spite and scorn.

People don't like to hear serial killers whine about the particulars of
how they will be put to death.

It's true Siebert hasn't done anything to earn much mercy. He was
convicted of killing 5 Alabamians, including his girlfriend and her 2
young children. He has confessed to killing others across the country.

But the issue isn't what kind of person Siebert is. It's what kind of
society we want to be. We profess to be a civilized society, one that
affords certain rights and protections even to those who have committed
terrible crimes.

So, our methods of punishment do matter. That is never more true than in
the case of capital punishment, when we as a society decide that certain
wrongdoers aren't just unfit to live among us but are unfit to live at
all.

In Alabama and every other state that uses the death penalty, the current
preferred method is lethal injection, which was developed as a more humane
alternative to gas chambers, electric chairs and firing squads. But in
recent years, inmates across the country have challenged lethal injection,
saying the specific drugs and procedures used to carry out their sentences
could leave them open to unconstitutional suffering. Some obvious problems
in executions in other states have bolstered their arguments.

A specific concern has been that the drug sequence could leave an inmate
conscious but paralyzed, unable to communicate the agony of a cruel,
suffocating death.

Alabama has added a step to be used in future lethal injections just to
address that possibility. Before injecting drugs that cause paralysis and
cardiac arrest, a prison officer is supposed to call the inmate's name,
pinch his arm and brush his eyelashes to ensure the inmate is unconscious.

In his new challenge, Siebert argues the officer who will test the
inmates' response has no medical background and could make a grave
mistake.

"The revision to the protocol is substantial, though inadequate to meet
constitutional standards," Siebert's lawsuit says.

It's a concern that shouldn't be dismissed out of spite or scorn.

Already, the country is awaiting a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court on
a challenge to lethal injection in Kentucky. While most states stopped
carrying out death sentences while awaiting a ruling on this matter,
Alabama has forced courts to intervene to stop executions.

The temptation, apparently, is to disregard concerns about lethal
injection as the self-pitying cries of killers who deserve anything but
our mercy. That's understandable, but it's a mistake.

Trying to work out the details about lethal injection isn't about killers
and what they did. It's about us as a society and what we're willing to
do.

(source: Opinion, Birmingham News)