April 3
INDIANA----effort to expand state death penalty
House Committee Approves 1 Expansion Of Death Penalty
A House committee has approved 1 expansion of the death penalty, but put
another on hold.
The Senate responded to last years murder of a Purdue teaching assistant in his
classroom with a bill allowing the death penalty for school shootings or
shootings during worship services.
But Public Defender Council executive director Larry Landis says the bill would
break new and questionable legal ground by allowing the death penalty based not
on the method of killing or the character of the killer or victim, but on where
the murder took place
Also Landis says an attempt to limit the bills impact to hours when classes or
church services are actually in session instead could make the bill too vague.
Committee Chairman Thomas Washburne (R-Inglefield) says he'll decide next week
whether to hold a committee vote. The committee did unanimously endorse a bill
allowing the death penalty for beheadings.
Bedford Senator Brent Steele (R) says Indiana law allows the death penalty if a
body is dismembered after death, but says a court has ruled that doesn't apply
if the dismemberment is the act of killing itself. Approval by the full House
would send the bill to Governor Pence.
(source: WBIW news)
KANSAS:
Demand to fire lawyers could complicate F. Glenn Miller Jr.'s death penalty
case
Not acknowledging F. Glenn Miller Jr.'s repeated requests to fire his lawyers
could result in a conviction being thrown out on appeal, Johnson County
prosecutors say.
Twice during recent court hearings, the man accused of killing 3 people outside
Jewish facilities in Overland Park has demanded to represent himself.
Both times, the judge has ignored requests by 74-year-old F. Glenn Miller Jr.
to fire his court-appointed lawyers.
But on Thursday, Johnson County prosecutors argued in court filings that
failing to honor the request could lead to a conviction being thrown out on
appeal.
"This is unquestionably a terrible idea for him," Chief Deputy District
Attorney Chris McMullin wrote of Miller representing himself. "However, it is
his right to do so."
Based on appeals court rulings in other cases, the judge should question Miller
in open court as to whether he wants to exercise his right to represent
himself, McMullin said.
If the court determines that his wish is a "knowing and intelligent decision,"
then it should be allowed, according to the state's filing.
Miller, also known as Frazier Glenn Cross Jr., is charged with capital murder
and faces a potential death sentence in a shooting spree last April outside the
Jewish Community Center and Village Shalom care center.
A judge set an Aug. 17 trial date last week over the objections of Miller's
lawyers, who said they needed more time to prepare an adequate defense.
But Miller insisted on a trial within the 150-day time frame set by Kansas law,
and he even told District Judge Kelly Ryan that he was ready to go to trial in
30 days if the judge would let him represent himself.
Miller has stated in writing that he does not trust his lawyers, McMullin
noted.
When seeking permission to have Internet access in his jail cell, Miller wrote
to the court: "If firing my attorneys is the only way to gain approval of this
motion, then I herewith fire them. I will represent myself pro se."
He went on to say that being able to contact potential witnesses personally "is
100 times more valuable to my defense than any number of government-paid
attorneys, who I naturally distrust for blatantly obvious political and
societal reasons."
When Ryan denied the request for Internet access last week, Miller again said
he wanted to fire his attorneys.
His next court hearing is scheduled for todayFriday, at which time the court
could take up Thursday's motion by prosecutors.
(source: Kansas City Star)
UTAH:
Death penalty trial set for Utah man accused in 2010 St. George double murder
A 2-week death penalty trial has been scheduled to begin Sept. 28 for Brandon
Perry Smith, accused of killing a woman in a St. George apartment in 2010.
Smith, 33, is charged in 5th District Court with aggravated murder and
aggravated assault in the stabbing death of 20-year-old Jerrica Christensen.
Prosecutors announced last year that they are seeking Smith's execution.
Smith is accused of beating Christensen and cutting her throat with a pocket
knife moments after his friend, Paul Clifford Ashton, shot and killed Brandie
Sue Dawn Jerden and shot and wounded James Fiske.
Smith's attorneys have implied in court papers that their client killed the
woman because he felt threatened by Ashton, but prosecutors have argued that
Smith is cold-hearted and relished taking the life of a stranger.
(source: Salt Lake Tribune)
CALIFORNIA:
Death row: The man sentenced 20 years ago... who still doesn't know the day he
will die ---- An execution date for Keith Doolin has never been set, and two
decades after his trial, he is still going through the state's interminable
capital appeals system
Keith Doolin lives on death row at San Quentin state prison in California,
around 20 miles north of San Francisco. Since his conviction for the murders of
2 women in 1995, when he was 22, he has spent most of his time in a cell
measuring 6 feet by 9, with a slot window too high in the wall to see out. He
sleeps on a thin mattress on the hard floor. 3 times a week, he is permitted to
spend a few hours in the prison yard with other inmates.
An execution date has never been set, and 1 decades after his trial Mr Doolin
is still going through the state's interminable capital appeals system. He is
far from alone in limbo: California's death row, the longest in the US, is only
going to get longer. Last week, Governor Jerry Brown asked lawmakers for $3.2m
(2.2m pounds ) to provide up to 100 more cells for death row inmates at San
Quentin.
Since 1978, California has sentenced more than 900 people to death, but
executed just 13. In the 9 years since the last execution, 49 inmates have
escaped death row not via the appeals process, but by dying of natural causes,
overdoses or suicide before the state could kill them.
In the Golden State, being sentenced to death in fact means facing a long life
of grim uncertainty, not only for inmates, but for their families. "When you
have a loved one in prison, that's a prison sentence for the family," said Mr
Doolin's mother, Donna Larsen, who is still fighting to prove her son's
innocence. "The death sentence is a death sentence for the family."
California has more than 750 inmates on death row, up from 646 in 2006, when it
last executed a prisoner. The nation's 2nd-longest death row is in Florida,
with just over 400 inmates. There are 20 condemned women at the Central
California Women's Facility near Fresno, and as many as 731 men at San Quentin,
housed separately from their fellow prisoners in 3 dedicated cell-blocks
capable of accommodating no more than 715 at a time.
According to the Los Angeles Times, those cells housed 708 inmates last week,
with the remainder at court hearings, medical facilities or in out-of-state
prisons. In its funding request, the governor's office described the cell
shortage as "critical", adding that, should the expansion plan be delayed, "San
Quentin would not have beds to accommodate the condemned."
California is one of 32 US states that still has the death penalty, but
executions here were halted following a 2006 court ruling, which forbade the
state from using its 3-drug lethal-injection method. So far, the California
authorities have failed to agree on an alternative.
At the ballot box in 2012, 52 % of California voters decided in favour of
keeping capital punishment. Last year, however, a federal judge ruled that the
state's death penalty was unconstitutional due to its costly and dysfunctional
appellate process, which leaves death row inmates waiting for decades to learn
their ultimate fate: a delay the judge called cruel and unusual. The office of
California's Attorney General has challenged the ruling; if it is upheld by an
appeals court, the case could find its way to the US Supreme Court.
The wife of death row inmate Jarvis Masters, who received a death sentence 25
years ago for a murder he and his lawyers still insist he took no part in,
compared the mental anguish of having a loved one on death row to having a
child diagnosed with a terminal illness.
"You wait, knowing that sometime in the near future your child is going to
die," said Mr Masters' wife, who preferred not to be named. "Time goes by, and
then the doctors come back and say, 'Maybe the child's not going to die. We're
going to do some research and get back to you.' Meanwhile, your child is still
on their deathbed and you're stuck in limbo. It goes on and on, year after
year, and your whole life is on hold without any sense of closure for anyone
involved."
Texas, the most prolific death penalty state, has executed more than 160
prisoners since 2006, and since 2012 has used a single drug, pentobarbital, in
its lethal injections. "California can and should have done the same thing,"
said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the California-based Criminal Justice
Legal Foundation, who supports capital punishment. He added: "The number of
people leaving death row would be greater than the number coming in, if
Governor Brown had done what he should have done and got it working again." The
funding requested by the governor would be used to accommodate the estimated 20
new death row inmates expected per year. Death row prisoners are typically kept
in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, in units that require additional
staff and security, making each prisoner significantly more expensive to house
than an inmate in the prison's general population.
"The death penalty costs California an enormous amount," said Robert Dunham,
Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Centre. "That amount only
increases as people continue to be sentenced to death, and the state remains
unable to provide them with representation in the appeals process. Those costs
would disappear if the death penalty disappeared."
The interminable wait for an execution that may never occur is bad not only for
inmates, but also for their victims and their victims' loved ones, Mr Dunham
said. "What crime victims don't need is re-traumatisation. And they don't need
false assurances of finality that do not come to pass."
In 1981, Aba Gayle's daughter Catherine Blount was murdered by Douglas Mickey,
who has spent more than 30 years on death row for the crime. When he was first
convicted, Ms Gayle said, she was full of anger and thoughts of revenge. But
eventually she exchanged letters with her daughter's killer, visited him at San
Quentin, and changed her mind.
"It took me 12 years to get to the point where I could forgive him," she said.
"I didn't want to live with those horrible, negative feelings any longer. It
has really changed my life, but I would have missed that opportunity had he
been executed."
Now 81 and a passionate anti-death penalty campaigner, Ms Gayle and her family
intend to plead for clemency on Mr Mickey's behalf if an execution date is ever
set. "There's a moratorium on executions, capital punishment has been declared
unconstitutional, and yet district attorneys keep seeking the death penalty and
sending more people to death row. It's crazy," Ms Gayle said. "I have now met
many of the wives and mothers of death row inmates, and it doesn't take long to
figure out that there are a lot of victims in this. it's not just the family of
the murdered person."
Even supporters of capital punishment admit that no death penalty at all would
be better than the death sentence indefinitely deferred. "If I really believed
that the situation in California could never be fixed, then I would probably be
in favour of getting rid of [capital punishment]," Mr Scheidegger said. "But it
is entirely fixable."
(source: The Independent)
********************
Attorneys to spend much of the next 2 weeks in court ahead of death penalty
trial set for April 15
Attorneys for a Fairfield man accused in the gunshot slaying of a veteran
Vallejo police officer in 2011 are likely to spend much of the next 2 weeks in
court arguing various motions ahead of a trial set to begin April 15.
Pretrial motions in the case of Henry Albert Smith Jr. have had defense
attorneys and prosecutors spending an increasing amount of time in the
courtroom. Smith is accused of the Nov. 17, 2011, gunshot slaying of veteran
Vallejo Police Officer Jim Capoot and is charged with murder including special
circumstances that make him eligible for the death penalty.
Attorneys were back in Solano County Superior Court on Thursday, a day after a
judge denied a defense motion to move the trial out of the county. The motion
was based largely on the amount of pretrial publicity the case has garnered.
Defense attorneys still have numerous motions to litigate in the case. Issues
range from the types of questions prospective jurors may be asked during jury
selection, to the constitutionality of the death penalty.
According to testimony during a probable cause hearing in 2012, Smith was
apprehended in a North Vallejo neighborhood on Nov. 17, 2011, following the
pursuit of an alleged bank robber.
Capoot chased the suspect into a North Vallejo backyard where he was slain.
Smith was apprehended down the street from where the shooting occurred.
Officers recovered a .40-caliber Glock semi-automatic handgun in his left-front
pocket, police testified.
A criminalist with the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office testified that 3
bullet casings were recovered in the back yard. Those shell casings were
analyzed by a firearms and toolmarks examiner for the same agency. The examiner
testified that the shell casings were traced back to the gun found on Smith.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in Smith's case.
However, defense attorneys for Smith plan to file a motion seeking to declare
California's death penalty unconstitutional.
Last year, a federal judge in Southern California declared the death penalty
was unconstitutional, however, the ruling was limited to a single case.
A hearing on the issue in the local case is set for next week.
Despite a ruling this week that the trial would not be moved out of the county,
defense attorneys for Smith have not yet abandoned their attempt to have the
trial moved, even if it is just to the Vallejo branch of Solano County Superior
Court.
Smith's attorneys have argued that the trial should be held in Vallejo, where
the alleged crime occurred and where Smith is more likely to receive a fair
trial.
An informal study performed by defense attorneys revealed that 8 % of the jury
pools in Fairfield appeared to have African Americans jurors, while 13 %
appeared in Vallejo, according to Chief Deputy Public Defender Oscar Bobrow.
Smith is African American.
Bobrow stated on Thursday he has also attempted to obtain the court's list of
prospective jurors since September but to no avail.
Smith's defense team would like the information to hire a private company to
perform a survey of jurors, similar to a census.
That issue is set to go before a visiting judge on April 14.
Smith, who remains in Solano County Jail without bail, has pleaded not guilty
to murder, robbery and being a felon in possession of a handgun in connection
with the case.
(source: The Reporter)
********************
Double murder defendant fails to oust O.C. judge
A panel of Fourth District Court of Appeal justices on Thursday denied a
double-murder defendant's efforts to have an Orange County Superior Court judge
removed from his death penalty case.
Daniel Patrick Wozniak's attorneys have alleged his rights may have been
violated by a jailhouse informant in much the same way as convicted mass killer
Scott Dekraai, who convinced another judge to have the Orange County District
Attorney's Office removed from prosecuting his case, a ruling that is under
appeal.
Justices Kathleen O'Leary, Richard Aronson and Raymond Ikola did not issue an
opinion explaining the denial of a writ of mandate.
Wozniak's attorneys from the Orange County Public Defender's Office argued that
Orange County Superior Court Judge John Conley showed his cards when he argued
against his dismissal from the case.
The Orange County District Attorney's Office countered that attorneys for
Wozniak have not provided any factual basis to disqualify Conley.
The legal skirmish stems from Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Kevin
Brazile's rejection of a motion to disqualify Conley from presiding over
Wozniak's penalty trial.
Wozniak's attorneys argued that it was well established before the case even
found its way to Conley's courtroom that they wanted to call the judge as a
witness to testify about what they say is a 3-decades-long conspiracy to use
jailhouse snitches to violate the rights of defendants while in custody. Conley
worked as a prosecutor in the 1980s.
The defense contends Conley's status as a potential witness should disqualify
him from presiding over the defendant's trial.
The attorneys also argued that Conley showed bias in the case with legal
filings defending his ability to remain impartial. For instance, they argue he
"incorrectly" assumed Wozniak would make the case for dismissal of the death
penalty and recusal of Conley based on a Massiah motion violation, which refers
to a landmark case that prohibits questioning of a suspect after he has
acquired legal representation.
The attorneys also fault Brazile for failing "to address the issue of how Judge
Conley could serve simultaneously and fairly as the judge and a witness during
an evidentiary hearing on whether the death penalty should be dismissed."
Wozniak's attorneys argue the same jailhouse snitch - Fernando Perez -
questioned Wozniak and Scott Evans Dekraai, the worst mass killer in Orange
County history. Both are represented by Assistant Public Defender Scott
Sanders, who has fought to have the District Attorney's Office kicked off both
casesl.
Wozniak's attorneys claim litigation in the Dekraai case on the use of
jailhouse informants "revealed law violations and the concealment of critical
evidence. It was determined that 18 defendants - 14 of whom were charged with
murder, including 2 defendants on death row and 1 facing capital murder - had
informant discovery improperly withheld from them," their filing states.
Prosecutors argue in their reply that any evidence from Perez, aka Inmate F,
would not be used in Wozniak's trial. Also, Perez was not officially a
government informant at the time he was chatting up Wozniak.
"Inmate F was facing a lengthy potential prison sentence and decided to share
Mr. Wozniak's admissions with law enforcement," Wyatt's defenders write in
their brief. "Inmate F had no contact with anyone from Wozniak's prosecution
team prior to his conversation with the defendant."
Wozniak's prosecutor, Senior Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy, said he
quickly alerted Sanders about Inmate F and said he would not call him as a
witness. That ended Costa Mesa???s work with Inmate F.
"In fact, the prosecutor has never met, spoken to, emailed or communicated in
any way, at any time, with the (Sheriff's Department's) deputies involved in
the Scott Dekraai case," prosecutors argue in the reply.
"As a professional courtesy," Murphy also gave Sanders a heads-up when his
client appeared on the MSNBC program "Lockup."
"After learning Mr. Wozniak provided interviews to the media, Mr. Murphy
immediately contacted the defense with the express purpose of helping them
control their client from future actions detrimental to his defense," the
prosecutors wrote in response to Sanders' appeal.
Prosecutors also accuse Sanders of dragging out the Wozniak case, failing to
make multiple deadlines for filing a formal motion to dismiss the District
Attorney's Office and the death penalty as an option.
On Jan. 27, Orange County Superior Court Judge James Stotler stepped down from
presiding over the Wozniak case, noting the "vociferous invectives directed by
defense counsel toward OCDA," according to the response from prosecutors.
Wozniak is accused of luring Samuel Herr to the Los Alamitos Joint Forces
Military base in May 2010 to shoot him and then using the victim's cell phone
to trick his friend, Juri Kibuishi, into going to Herr's Costa Mesa apartment,
where the defendant allegedly gunned her down and then made it look like Herr
killed her during a sexual assault. Wozniak then allegedly returned to the base
to dismember Herr.
(source: mynewsla.com)
WASHINGTON:
Carnation killer testifies in bid to avoid death penalty
Joseph McEnroe said he was "terrified" to take the stand and when he did, he
appeared a mess. On March 25, a jury found McEnroe guilty of killing 6 members
of his then-girlfriend Michele Anderson's family in 2007. Now jurors must
decide whether he will face execution by lethal injection or life in prison
without the possibility of parole.
Heavily medicated for anxiety and depression, and speaking with a thick
impediment he's had since childhood, McEnroe was scattered, giggled and didn't
make sense at times on Thursday. He would appear disconnected at one moment and
lucid the next.
It was a far different image than that of the murderous monster prosecutor's
portrayed him to be. Instead, he seemed emotionally damaged and riddled with
self doubt, while at the same time, intelligent and even sarcastic.
During questioning by his defense attorney Bill Prestia, McEnroe immediately
admitted to the 2007 Christmas Eve killings. When asked why he would commit
such horrific acts, McEnroe answered, "I did it because I thought I had to. I
know that's not a very good excuse. I'm not trying to excuse myself. I'm trying
to explain my actions."
The defense maintains McEnroe believed he "had to" kill Michele Anderson's
family because he suffers from a mental disorder that allowed her to completely
control him. Anderson confessed to masterminding the killings because of a
perceived family feud.
"I would have left," McEnroe said. "I didn't want to kill anyone."
Defense attorneys argued he killed 5 of the 6 victims after Anderson shot her
brother during an altercation at her parents' home. McEnroe said he shot them
all in the head and tried to dispose of the bodies in order to "protect"
Anderson.
McEnroe spent hours dissecting his troubled childhood on the stand, talking
about failed suicide attempts, abuse suffered at the hands of his mother's many
boyfriends, and "spirit animals" that would appear to him in the form of a
crow. However, he offered no excuses for what he did.
"I've taken their futures and what they might have been," he said. "I've also
taken them from these people who had done nothing but show me kindness and
goodness."
Of the 2 children he shot in the head, McEnroe said he killed them because they
had seen their parents get murdered and he wanted to save them from a life that
would be "hell." He said at the time he believed they would reincarnated,
adding, "If I thought killing myself or doing anything could bring back those
people or ameliorate the pain...I would."
He described the "noise and anger" inside his head as like "being in a
hurricane."
(source: KING news)
USA:
Boston Marathon Bomber Trial Update: Defense Rests in Death Penalty Case
After just 2 days of testimony in the Boston Marathon bombing trial, defense
lawyers representing accused bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev rested their case on
Tuesday.
The 21-year-old suspected terrorist is currently standing trial for his role in
the Boston Marathon attack, which killed 3 people and injured 264 others on
April 15, 2013. Although Tsarnaev, 21, has confessed to the crime, his lawyers
reiterated their argument that he participated in the bombing when he was 19
years old because he was under the influenced of his older brother, Tamerlan,
26. Their goal is to save Tsarnaev, who is facing 30 federal charges, from the
death penalty, reports The New York Times.
Calling only four witnesses to the stand, the defense presented their case that
Tamerlan, who was killed 3 days after the bombing, was the mastermind behind
the terror attack and took all the major steps to carry it out.
On Tuesday, an FBI agent testified that investigators only found Tamerlan's
fingerprints on bomb pieces from the 2 pressure cooker bombs used in the
attack. The deceased brother's prints were also found on materials used to plan
and carry out the bombings.
In addition, the defense called computer forensic analyst Mark Spencer to the
stand, who said that he found Internet searches for the Boston Marathon, gun
stores, wireless transmitters, detonators and a "fireworks firing system" on a
laptop the defense claims was owned by Tamerlan, reports NBC News. Meanwhile,
there were no such searches on Dzhokhar's device, except for a search for the
marathon after the bombings, Spencer said,.
Spencer also noted that copies from an al Qaeda-associated magazine were
created on Tamerlan's computer before being transferred to Dzhokhar's.
However, while being cross-examined, Spencer admitted that it was impossible to
know who was using either of the laptops at any time. Prosecutors also pointed
out that different fingerprints can easily be destroyed in an explosion.
Closing arguments are scheduled for Monday, April 6.
(source: Latin Post)
*************************
Writing to a prisoner on death row
Sir, - As someone writing to a prisoner on Florida's death row, and involving a
judge overruling the jury in imposing the death penalty, I certainly agree with
your assessment (March 27th) that Utah governor Gary Herbert's description of
the use of a firing squad to carry out the sentence is more than "a little bit
gruesome".
On the other hand, because of its barbarity, it may lead to a rethink by some
of the supporters of executions.
My friend, who has spent almost 40 years on death row, has recently had a
documentary made indicating his innocence, which he has consistently claimed
through all these years. Many have actually been executed and afterwards
exonerated. This is a political football used by some governors to ensure their
re-election and it does not seem to bother them that innocent people are put to
death.
I am against this barbaric practice in all circumstances and cannot see how it
can ever be acceptable to take perfectly healthy human beings out and put them
to death. What message does that convey about taking life?
America is not slow to condemn other countries for human rights' abuses. It is
somewhat hypocritical of it to do so while clinging to this despicable
practice.
- Yours, etc, MARY STEWART Ardeskin, Donegal.
(source: Letter to the Editor, Irish Times)
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