March 2
KANSAS:
Preliminary hearing to begin for Missouri man accused of killing 3 at Kansas
Jewish sites
An avowed white supremacist accused in the fatal shootings of 3 people at 2
Jewish sites in Kansas is set to appear in court Monday to determine whether
there is sufficient evidence to try him.
74-year-old Frazier Glenn Miller, of Aurora, Missouri, is charged with capital
murder in the attacks on April 13, the eve of Passover. Johnson County
prosecutors have announced plans to seek the death penalty.
Miller is accused of killing a 69-year-old man and his 14-year-old grandson who
were at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City for a singing
contest audition. He also is accused of fatally shooting a woman who was
visiting her mother at a Jewish retirement home in nearby Overland Park. None
of the victims was Jewish.
(source: Associated Press)
NEBRASKA:
Documentary on death-penalty executions is ex-stuntwoman's entree into
filmmaking
PATTY DILLON
Born: 1976 in San Diego
Lives near: 36th and Pacific Streets
Education: Bellevue West High School grad, 1994; attended Chadron State,
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Family: Single; mom is Carol Dillon of Omaha, dad, Bernie Dillon, is deceased;
brothers Matt and Russell are also of Omaha
Did you know: She worked as a snowboard instructor, film stuntwoman and talent
agency manager before focusing on film production.
30 years ago, Patty Dillon moved to Omaha with her mother from her birthplace
of San Diego.
20 years ago, she was voted most outgoing as a graduating senior at Bellevue
West High School.
5 years ago, she moved back to Omaha from Montana to intern with Dana Altman at
North Sea Films.
Next week, Dillon, 38, will be on hand when her first documentary screens at
the Omaha Film Festival. She served as writer, director and co-producer of the
71-minute film, which had its world premiere Feb. 12 at the Big Sky Film
Festival in Missoula, Montana.
"There Will Be No Stay" focuses on the process of death-penalty executions from
the viewpoint of those who carry them out.
The idea began when a doctor who ended up becoming her co-producer chatted with
her about the absurdity of how the surface of the prisoner's arm is cleaned and
disinfected before lethal injection is administered. "It seemed a ridiculous
dichotomy," Dillon said.
She wrote up a 13-part documentary series for television, tentatively titled
"Dichotomy of Death." The idea became the start of the stand-alone movie. "The
more I researched the process of execution, the more blown away I became,"
Dillon said. "And the more I learned, the more I had to find out. It became a
sort of obsession."
She discovered an alarming trend of suicides among executioners.
The film centers on interviews with two former South Carolina executioners, a
former Georgia prison warden and a former Texas prison chaplain, plus the
relative of a murder victim. The young woman who killed his grandmother, 15 at
the time, was on death row.
The movie, made on a budget of about $200,000, took 7 years to fund and
complete.
Dillon's journey to directing was even longer.
Dillon's mother, Carol, is a retired University of Nebraska at Omaha professor
of linguistics and English composition. Her parents divorced when she was 3,
and her father, a commercial mortgage broker, died in 2009.
After graduating from Bellevue West, Patty says, she was "a total rebel" who
couldn't wait to leave Omaha. She started college at Chadron State, then
transferred to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she studied theater
performance, music and dance.
She quit college, moved to Colorado and became a snowboard instructor. That led
to movie stuntwoman school in Seattle. Her stunt credits include TV shows such
as "Dawson's Creek," "One Tree Hill," "Eastbound and Down" and several small
films.
She decided she wanted to make movies, not be in them. Altman taught her the
ropes of film production, starting in July 2010.
"If I could put Omaha on a coast, I'd live here forever," said Dillon, who now
is developing an episodic television series and a movie she calls a dark
comedy.
She said comedy had always been her forte in college, so people were surprised
that she chose the topic of executions for her first film.
"It's been taxing, for sure," she said, "especially now that it's time to
expose your art to the world. It's a little terrifying."
Her intent, she said, isn't to change anybody's mind about capital punishment.
It's simply a platform for execution team members to share their stories.
"The demons they're battling are palpable, every day," she said. "Everybody in
the film is dealing with post-traumatic stress. It's heavy. It's taken a
tremendous toll on these men."
"There Will Be No Stay" screens at 8:30 p.m. March 12 at the Omaha Film
Festival, held at Village Pointe Cinema. Dillon will take questions after the
screening.
(source: omaha.com)
MONTANA:
Life in prison for Smith----Ronald Smith should not be executed by the state of
Montana, says the Herald editorial board.
1 slow step forward, and 1 hastily scurrying step back. That's the best way to
describe the state of Montana's dances with abolishing the death penalty - a
move that would affect Ronald Smith, an Albertan who's been on Montana's death
row for more than 30 years.
Last week, the Montana legislature got very close to joining the civilized
world and abolishing the death penalty, but abolition was defeated by a single
vote. The state's senate has already passed an abolition law, but the house
hasn't, and this time, things ended in a 50-50 stalemate. That means the
abolition proposal is sunk for this year???s legislative session.
Smith is 1 of only 2 inmates on Montana's death row; 74 other inmates were
executed over the years. The Red Deer man pleaded guilty in 1983 to 2 counts of
homicide and 2 of kidnapping for his role in the deaths of Blackfoot Indian
Reservation residents Thomas Running Rabbit, Jr. and Harvey Mad Man, Jr.
Representative David Moore, who sponsored the abolition bill in the house, said
he "couldn't imagine a worse fate than being locked up in prison for the rest
of my life." Exactly. That's worse than death, and it certainly is a greater
deterrent. To have one's freedom taken away forever and to spend the rest of
one's days sitting in jail, living with the knowledge of having committed a
horrible crime, is much more severe punishment than the oblivion death offers.
It's also a far more humane and civilized way of dealing with criminals.
Even U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who is poised to leave his position,
said he opposes the death penalty because "there's always the possibility that
mistakes will be made." Indeed, there have been numerous highly publicized
cases of innocent people being executed in the U.S. for crimes they didn't
commit.
In Smith's case, his guilt is not in question. He even requested the death
penalty, but then changed his mind, and the intervening years have been
basically a series of delays in executing him, including an appeal for clemency
to the state's governor in 2013, who didn't act either way on it before leaving
office.
"Our system of justice is the best in the world," Holder said. We disagree. The
best justice system in the world doesn't stoop to the level of the murderers it
imprisons, by killing them. Research has shown that the inevitable years of
appeals that follow a death-row inmate's conviction are far more expensive than
simply maintaining him for life behind bars.
Smith's roller-coaster death row ride should end and he should spend the
remainder of his natural life in prison.
(source: Editorial, Calgary Herald)
*************************
Death penalty: Shot in arm is cruel, unusual?
After laying awake several nights contemplating the death penalty in Montana I
see today (Feb. 24) the legislature is deadlocked over a bill to end the death
penalty. We have 2 prisoners on death row who cannot be killed because the
American Civil Liberties Union says that sticking a needle in their arms is
cruel and unusual, and the Supreme Court says they are absolutely correct.
I wonder how many ACLU-ers permit their wives to take babies to a doctor to
have needles stuck in them to prevent diseases. And our young military stand in
line to be shot in the arm before going to war to prevent diseases. Even our
elderly get a shot in the arm every year to prevent flu, but to stick a needle
in a criminals arm is cruel and unusual punishment.
How about a shot in the head with a .45? In all recorded history there is not
one person who died this way who complained of pain! I know, our law says it is
a crime for 1 person to kill another person, but it is permitted for the state
to kill a person. It seems to me there is a conflict there but it is the law.
Do away with the death penalty. There is absolutely no evidence that it deters
crime, but there is ample evidence that 20 years of appeals costs the state
millions. And in our state we cannot put a needle, for whatever reason, in the
arm of a criminal. So there is no death for those who the state says deserves
it.
Fred S. Collins,
Missoula
(source: Letter to the Editor, The Missoulian)
ARIZONA:
Jury deciding punishment for Arias to resume deliberations
Arizona jurors deciding whether convicted murderer Jodi Arias will get the
death penalty or life in prison for killing her boyfriend resume deliberations
Monday.
The Maricopa County Superior Court jury in Phoenix didn't reach a decision
Thursday after getting the case a day earlier. The case was in recess Friday.
Arias was convicted of 1st-degree murder in May 2013, but jurors deadlocked on
her punishment.
If this new jury deadlocks, the death penalty would be removed as an option,
and the judge will decide whether Arias serves natural life in prison or life
with the possibility of release after 25 years.
Arias' trial became a sensation with its tawdry revelations about her
relationship with Travis Alexander. He was killed at his suburban Phoenix home
in June 2008.
(source: Associated Press)
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