[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----USA, N.H., ARIZ.

[Rick Halperin]

July 15



USA:

Bribes and Punishment


To many Americans, the execution last week of China's former top food and
drug official after he confessed to taking bribes was an extreme reaction
by the Beijing government to growing worries about the safety of Chinese
exports.

After recalls of everything from toothpaste and tires to pet food and toy
trains, China's leaders decided to make an example of Zheng Xiaoyu, 62,
whose punishment came just 6 weeks after he was found guilty. Indeed,
Senator Charels Schumer of New York, a leading critic of China, called it
a "surreal response."

But several people died from the tainted products. And China is not alone
in treating corruption as a capital offense.

For instance, Vietnam occasionally imposes the death penalty. In 2006, the
government executed Phung Long That, a former anti-smuggling investigator
in Ho Chi Minh City, for accepting bribes and helping to smuggle roughly
$70 million worth of goods.

In fact, throughout history, bribery has often been thought of as a crime
that could harm the state - thus worthy of extreme punishment. Severe
sanctions for bribe-taking have a long and bloody history. Here are a few
examples.

Stripped of Citizenship

Plato said bribe-taking merits "disgrace" in his "Laws," and in ancient
Athens, corrupt officials faced the loss of their citizenship and the
right to participate in the political institutions of the city-state.

Demosthenes, the great Athenian orator and political leader, was found
guilty of accepting bribes in 324 B.C. and was fined 50 talents,
equivalent to roughly $20 million in today's dollars, says Michael
Gagarin, a classics professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

Demosthenes, who then went into exile, was comparatively lucky. Other
Athenian officials were executed for taking bribes. "Bribery was taken
very seriously and certainly could lead to capital punishment," Mr.
Gagarin says.

A Poke in the Eye

In Byzantium in the 11th century, corrupt officials were blinded and
castrated, according to Walter Kaegi, a history professor at the
University of Chicago. Besides being blinded and flogged, bribe takers
were deported and their assets confiscated. As for castration, Mr. Kaegi
says, it tended not to be a statutory punishment but rather the "result of
public outrage."

Find Religion

In Constantinople under Emperor Justinian, Mr. Kaegi says, John the
Cappadocian, who supplied the emperor's army with tainted food, was
publicly flogged and then forced to become an Orthodox priest.

"That was a merciful punishment," Mr. Kaegi adds.

A Fine and Paying for Meals

Bribe-takers in early America didn't have to worry about the pillory or
whipping-post, classic punishments in Puritan New England. Instead, they
faced a choice of jail or paying a fine. Most chose the latter, says David
Konig, professor of history and law at Washington University in St. Louis.
"Prison wasn't any fun then," says Mr. Konig. "And you had to pay for your
own food."

The Lenient Approach

Although the Twelve Tables, an early legal code in the Roman Republic,
imposed the death penalty on judges who accepted bribes, enforcement grew
lenient after the rise of the Roman Empire. Richard Saller, a history
professor at Stanford, says Rome "had a real problem trying to define what
qualified as a bribe and what was a friendship gift. There was a pretty
broad range of quid pro quos."

Emperor Tiberias sought to curb rapacious local governors from extorting
tax payments from subjects but still left local officials plenty of room
to obtain gratuities. Tiberias said he wanted his "sheep shorn, not
flayed," meaning that while citizens might have to keep paying, local
rulers shouldn't be excessively greedy when demanding payments.

(source: Editorial, New York Times)






NEW HAMPSHIRE:

The new debate: With 2 capital murder cases pending, arguments about the
death penalty gain momentum in New Hampshire


When Attorney General Kelly Ayotte outlines her reasons why John "Jay"
Brooks should be executed for allegedly soliciting people to help him kill
a Derry handyman, it will be the 2nd time in a year she's asked for the
death penalty.

Her requests may lead to New Hampshire's 1st execution in nearly 70 years.

Opponents and supporters of capital punishment, including lawmakers, agree
that the cases against Brooks and Michael Addison will make the debate far
more tangible than it has been in years past.

"We're going to be doing much more soul searching in this state," said
Rep. James Splaine, D-Portsmouth, sponsor of the last two bills calling
for the repeal of capital punishment.

"We're going to ask ourselves, 'Do we really want to do this?'"

Addison is accused of killing Manchester police Officer Michael Briggs on
Oct. 16, 2006. Brooks stands accused of planning out the murder of Jack
Reid of Derry in 2005 and soliciting others to help him kill the man he
reportedly had a grudge against.

The 2 trials are expected to play out in New Hampshire courts through 2008
and 2009. Ayotte already has petitioned the court to seek the death
penalty against Addison, but hasn't yet in Brooks' case.

Any possible execution is far enough away that prison officials say they
have no plans to build a death chamber.

"These cases are ones that will extend for years on appeals," said William
Wrenn, commissioner of the state Department of Corrections. "So there's no
rush to put something together. But, obviously, it's in the back of our
minds."

Wrenn said prison officials are drafting procedures for how to carry out
an execution. The method would be lethal injection.

Few and far between

New Hampshire's narrowly defined capital murder law makes death-penalty
cases rare.

Killing a police officer, murder-for-hire and killing someone during a
kidnapping are among the half-dozen crimes that qualify for a death
sentence. Prisoners who kill another while serving a life sentence, murder
during a rape and certain drug crimes also qualify.

Howard Long of Alton, who was hanged in 1939 for murdering 10-year-old
Mark Neville Jensen, was the last person executed at the state prison in
Concord. Long beat the boy beyond recognition with an automobile jack
after molesting him.

The gallows at the state prison where Long was hanged was dismantled in
the 1980s.

In total, 24 people have been executed in New Hampshire since 1739, when 2
Portsmouth women were hanged for concealing the murders of their
illegitimate children.

8 people have been charged with capital murder here since the 1950s. 2
were sentenced to be hanged, but no one has been put to death because the
U.S. Supreme Court banned the federal death penalty in 1972. It was
reinstated in 1976.

Gordon Perry was the last person to be charged with capital murder in 1997
for shooting to death Epsom police Officer Jeremy Charron. Perry escaped
the death chamber by pleading guilty to first-degree murder.

Splaine believes he and other death-penalty opponents such as the Diocese
of New Hampshire are gaining support.

The House voted 185-173 in March against a bill to repeal executions.
Death-penalty opponents won't be able to file similar legislation until
2009, because lawmakers aren't allowed to file failed bills in consecutive
sessions.

"2 years ago, the bill was defeated by 70 votes. This year it was 12
votes," Splaine said. "So I think it has allowed us to discuss a lot of
issues surrounding the death penalty and more and more people are finally
getting it."

Gov. John Lynch has said he would veto a bill to repeal the death penalty
if it came to his desk. Lynch said he fully supports Ayotte's decision to
seek the death penalty against Addison.

Death-penalty supporters say New Hampshire needs to keep the ultimate
punishment intact, especially for those who kill police officers.

"I guess I'm speaking from the perspective of a mother and grandmother,
but I feel like if someone takes another's life they shouldn't be able to
have visits from their mother in jail," said Rep. Laura Pantelakos,
D-Portsmouth. "The Bible says 'an eye for an eye.'"

Pantelakos, a 15-term legislator, was among those who voted against
Splaine's bill in March. But even she acknowledged the death penalty may
be short lived.

"We have a lot of bleeding hearts who think we should save these people,"
she said. "After they're in jail for a while, these people suddenly find
God."

Push and pull

Arnie Alpert, coordinator for the New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the
Death Penalty, said members will be regrouping in the coming months to
push legislators to repeal capital punishment.

"We need to help people get past the idea that if people aren't executed,
then somehow they're getting away with it," Alpert said. "The fact is that
the alternative to the death penalty - life in prison with no possibility
of parole - is a serious punishment. They're being held accountable to
society."

Legislators came closest to banning the death penalty in 2000. Both
chambers supported the bill, but then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen vetoed it.

Shaheen's tenure included the 1997 murder of Charron, the Epsom police
officer, and the shooting rampage of Carl Drega, who killed 2 state
troopers, a judge and a newspaper editor, before he was killed in a
gunfight with police. Shaheen said capital punishment was needed for
people like Drega.

Battles about capital punishment are already playing out in superior
courts and will likely last into next year.

Addison's lawyers have filed 15 requests to have Judge Kathleen McGuire
toss out the death penalty. She has yet to rule on any of the requests.
The attorney general has set aside $420,000, with lawmakers' approval, to
prosecute the case. No money has been earmarked to prosecute Brooks.

Alpert's group and the New Hampshire Chapter of the American Civil
Liberties Union are hoping the 2 new cases will finally lead to ending
capital punishment in 2009.

Barbara Keshen, who represented Perry in the 1997 capital murder case,
said she's committed to playing "a large role" in the fight to ban
executions.

She's now a lawyer for New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union and hopes her
chapter will receive national support to lobby legislators for a repeal.

Keshen said the pressure of fighting for someone's life is more personal
than most people can understand.

"When I go back now and look at my diary entries at the time, I wasn't
sleeping at night, I had nightmares and was in a high state of anxiety,"
she said. "I don't think people understand the toll it has on the
attorneys working on those cases."

Rep. David Welch, former chairman of the House Criminal Justice and Public
Safety Committee, said support for the death penalty has been receding in
recent years, but hasn't won enough support since the 2000 vote for a
repeal.

Welch, a death-penalty supporter, said lawmakers' views might change if
New Hampshire actually went through with an execution.

"Having an execution might turn people around and finally move them enough
to get rid of it," he said.

Costly and time consuming

History shows a death sentence doesn't guarantee an execution.

2 men sentenced to die by hanging in 1959, Russell Nelson Jr. and
Frederick Martineau, received 13 stays of execution until 1972 when the
U.S. Supreme Court struck down the death penalty.

They were sentenced under the federal death-penalty statute, not the state
law, so the decision made way for Martineau and Nelson to be released on
parole.

The men killed plastics manufacturer Maurice Gagnon of Lincoln, R.I., in a
Nashua parking lot. Gagnon was slated to testify against them for
burglarizing his home. Nelson served 14 years. Martineau served 15 years.

New Hampshire enacted its own capital murder law in 1971, a year before
the federal law used for the Gagnon murder.

Because of the years-long debate expected in the Statehouse and Superior
Court, prison officials are reluctant to start planning for a chamber for
its next execution.

State prison officials acknowledged they first may have to deal with
carrying out the execution of serial killer Gary Sampson. A federal judge
ordered in 2004 that Sampson should be executed in New Hampshire for the
July 2001 killing spree in which he murdered 3 people between
Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

U.S. Judge Mark Wolf ordered New Hampshire to host the execution because
Massachusetts has no death penalty law and many of the victims' families
lived in or near New Hampshire.

The order has left New Hampshire officials questioning whether the
responsibility - and cost - will be left up to the state. They're equally
uncertain about whether a new medium-security federal prison under
construction in Berlin will play any role.

Sampson, 47, now is being held at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind.,
which has a lethal-injection facility. Appeals in his case could last
nearly a decade, according to legal experts.

"We just don't know what's going to happen, so we have to go about it at a
very deliberate pace," said John Vinson, legal counsel for the New
Hampshire state prison. "You don't want to go build something that will
never be used."

Capital punishment in the United States

New Hampshire's debate about the death penalty comes at a time when
executions are declining nationally, according to the U.S. Department of
Justice:

* In 2006, 53 convicted killers were put to death nationally, 7 fewer than
the year before.

* Executions peaked at 98 in 1999, but then went into decline. In 2000,
there were 85; 66 in 2001; 71 in 2002; 65 in 2003; 59 in 2004; and 60 in
2005.

* 38 states still allow executions. 7 of them considered abolishing the
death penalty this year, but none did.

* In New England, executions have been few and far between. Only
Connecticut and New Hampshire have a death penalty.

* 2 years ago, Connecticut conducted its 1st execution in 45 years. Serial
killer Michael Ross, 45, was put to death for killing 4 women in
Connecticut during the 1980s.

* In New Hampshire, the current method of execution is lethal injection.
If an injection can't be administered, then the method is hanging.

[sources: U.S. Bureau of Statistics, New Hampshire laws]

(source: The Eagle-Tribune)






ARIZONA:

Trial date set for man accused of killing his 2 children


A man charged with killing his 2 young children will stand trail in early
2009.

A Pima County Superior Court judge yesterday scheduled the trial of
Christopher Matthew Payne to begin on January 27th, 2009.

The 29-year-old Payne was indicted in March in the slayings of his
four-year-old daughter Ariana and 5-year-old son Tyler.

He's also charged with 2 counts of child abuse and two counts of
abandoning or concealing a dead body.

Prosecutors say they intend to seek the death penalty in the case.

Deputy Pima County Attorney Sue Eazer wanted the trial to begin in 2008
but defense attorney John O'Brien said about 18 months was needed to give
both sides enough time to prepare for the expected month-long trial.

Payne was arrested after Ariana's body was found in a plastic tub at a
storage unit in February.

Tucson police have yet to find Tyler's body.

(source: AZ Family)