April 8
KANSAS:
Death penalty is wrong
I've been commiserating for the last several months with people of all types
and persuasions regarding the sad state of financial affairs in Kansas. Facts
do not seem to sway the general public, so I would like to play upon the
conscience of Kansans.
Unlike many things, religion is a subject I know a thing or two about. What
religion encourages us to be part of a society of constant wars and killings?
None of them.
Abraham, Jesus Christ and the Prophet Mohammed all agree on at least two
notions - love God above all else and treat every person as your brother.
The death penalty is not just wrong from a religious perspective; it is also a
terrible drain financially and it puts us at risk of murdering an innocent
person. In a state that puts so much energy into "pro-life" legislation, we
seem to forget we still enforce the death penalty. Our state leaders continue
to believe we can kill our problems away; that some lives are meaningless. With
this I certainly disagree.
GEORGE M MELBY, Kansas City, Kan.
(source: Letter to the Editor, Topeka Capital Journal)
ARIZONA:
Murder suspect may avoid death penalty
James Rankin-McKnight, facing the death penalty if he's convicted by a jury on
a murder charge, may actually avoid the trial process altogether, if his lawyer
has his way.
Kim Cotter, 55, was found stabbed to death in November 2012, and police
arrested 2 men, Rankin-McKnight, 25; and Ryan Skinner, 23, who were living in a
unit adjoining Cotter's residence in the 1500 block of South Highway 89 in
Chino Valley.
Police executed a search warrant, found evidence they said linked the 2
suspects to the attack, and booked the 2 suspects into the Yavapai County jail.
In March 2013, charges of murder, burglary and evidence tampering were
dismissed against Ryan Skinner.
Rankin-McKnight faces the same charges and, in a separate case, 4 counts of
aggravated assault and 1 count of deadly assault by a prisoner.
On Monday, April 6, his lead attorney, Tom Kelly, said in court that he had
mental health evaluations from 3 doctors that "should stimulate some discussion
for a non-trial resolution," a plea agreement, which would allow his client to
bypass the death penalty.
Deputy County Attorney Dana Owens said she had just received the hundreds of
pages of material and hadn't yet read it, and added that she might want to
speak with the doctors after she did.
Superior Court Judge Tina Ainley set a new date to go over the material's
impact in June.
Rankin-McKnight is currently scheduled for a February 2016 trial.
(source: The Daily Courier)
CALIFORNIA:
Californians Respond To Ballot Initiative To Kill Gays With Shellfish
Suppression Act And 'Jackass' Act
After sodomite suppression comes shellfish suppression.
A lawyer named Matt McLaughlin filed a ballot initiative with the California's
Department of Justice in February to enact the "Sodomite Suppression Act,"
which calls for the killing of anyone who engages in sodomy. (Never mind that
the death penalty was ruled unconstitutional in the state last June.)
"Seeing that it is better that offenders should die rather than that all of us
should be killed by God's just wrath against us for the folly of
tolerating-wickedness in our midst, the People of California wisely command, in
the fear of God, that any person who willingly touches another person of the
same gender for purposes of sexual gratification be put to death by bullets to
the head or by any other convenient method," McLaughlin wrote.
Now, other Californians are responding with some new ballot initiatives of
their own -- like the "Shellfish Suppression Act" and the "Intolerant Jackass
Act." Joe Decker of San Jose proposed the legislation against shellfish,
writing: "Shellfish are a monstrous evil that Almighty God, giver of freedom
and liberty, commands us in Leviticus to suppress. They also smell bad."
Leviticus calls the consumption of "all that have not fins and scales in the
seas" an abomination. Those who consume or sell shellfish, Decker wrote, should
be subject to a $666,000 fine or a prison term of 6 years, 6 months and 6 days.
(Get it?)
The Intolerant Jackass Act by Charlotte Laws of Woodland Hills calls for
anti-gay individuals to attend sensitivity training and donate $5,000 to an
LGBT organization.
The back and forth is possible because California allows residents to pay $200
to submit initiatives that could be added to the ballot, provided the
initiative gets signatures from 5 % of the state's populace.
As for McLaughlin, the state Legislature's LGBT Caucus wrote to the State Bar
last month requesting an investigation into McLaughlin's ability to practice
law after he advocated to "legalize the murder" of gay people, according to the
Sacramento Bee.
(source: Huffington Post)
WASHINGTON:
Joseph McEnroe's mother, aunt give conflicting testimony
Jurors deciding the fate of convicted Carnation killer Joseph McEnroe heard
conflicting testimony Tuesday from his mother and his aunt in the death-penalty
phase of his trial.
The mother and an aunt of convicted Carnation killer Joseph McEnroe, testifying
in his effort to avoid the death penalty, told a King County jury Tuesday two
very different stories about his upbringing.
Sean Johnson, Joseph McEnroe's mother, insisted she was a loving mother who
taught him to sing the Don Ho classic "Tiny Bubbles." The 57-year-old Portland
woman said she relied on McEnroe, her eldest, to take care of her three younger
children.
However, her sister, Mary Turner, of Portland, portrayed McEnroe???s upbringing
as a nightmare caused by a mentally and economically unstable mother. She said
Johnson beat her nephew, verbally abused him, demanded that he keep things in
order at home and used him to manipulate her own parents for money.
Both women, along with McEnroe's siblings, told the Superior Court jury that
they know McEnroe killed a family of 6 in Carnation on Christmas Eve 2007, but
that they were taking the stand out of love and support for him.
"I love my nephew unconditionally. No matter what," Turner told the jury. "He's
been my Joey ever since he was born and he will be so until the day God takes
him home."
McEnroe, 36, was convicted last month of 6 counts of aggravated murder in the
shootings of 6 members of his former girlfriend's family in Carnation. The jury
that found him guilty is now being asked to determine whether he should be
condemned to death or be given a sentence of life in prison without the
possibility of release.
While on the witness stand Monday, McEnroe told the jury that the
ex-girlfriend, Michele Anderson, convinced him to kill her parents, Wayne and
Judy Anderson, as well as her brother, Scott Anderson, his wife, Erica
Anderson, and their two children, 5-year-old Olivia Anderson and 3-year-old
Nathan Anderson.
McEnroe slapped himself on the head and cried when he recalled the killings. He
said that Michele Anderson convinced him that her family had wronged her and
they were out to get them, so they had to be killed.
McEnroe testified that he only planned to act "as a backup" to make sure his
then-girlfriend "was safe." Instead, he said, she failed at fulfilling her
portion of the murder plot, leaving him to take a lead role in the slaughter
and crime-scene cleanup.
"If you hate me, I hate me too. I hate me so much I can't handle being with
myself sometimes," an emotional McEnroe told the jury.
According to testimony, McEnroe and Michele Anderson armed themselves and drove
their pickup to the home of her 60-year-old father and 61-year-old mother on
the afternoon of Dec. 24, 2007.
Once inside, McEnroe distracted Judy Anderson, while Michele shot at her
father. After Michele's gun jammed, McEnroe said he shot her parents.
The 2 then hid the bodies and cleaned the home. They waited for Scott and Erica
Anderson, both 32, and their children to show up at the holiday gathering,
McEnroe testified.
Once they arrived, Michele Anderson shot her brother, according to trial
testimony. McEnroe then shot Erica Anderson and the children because he didn't
want witnesses, King County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Scott O'Toole earlier told
the jury.
During 2 days on the witness stand Friday and Monday, McEnroe talked about his
rough upbringing, describing a life where he was often the main caregiver for
his siblings while their mother was at work or out with her boyfriends. He told
the jury how he met Michele Anderson online and how he loved her family.
McEnroe is expected to return to the witness stand later this week for
cross-examination by O'Toole.
Michele Anderson is to be tried later on the same capital charges.
(source: Seattle Times)
USA:
After The Rhetoric, The True Cost Of Capital Punishment
Following political mantras to their logical conclusions on societal issues can
sometimes reveal a mantra's inherent lack of logic. For instance, if
small-government conservatives would abide by the results of applying their
"less government, less spending" mantra to capital punishment, not a one would
support the practice.
The simple reason is that capital cases involve more government activity and
more taxpayer dollars than non-capital cases. This has been confirmed in study
after study. Capital cases require longer trial preparation times, extended
jury selection phases, lengthier trials, an additional sentencing trial
following a guilty verdict, and an enormously expensive and time-consuming
appeals process.
[Tough-on-crime death penalty supporters] showcase their vitriol on high
profile capital cases like Tsarnaev's while flying blind to the stifling
systemic realities of capital punishment.
Advancing a data-based anti-death penalty argument amid a trial as emotionally
wrenching as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's can make one appear unsympathetic to victims.
But there's a compelling case to be made that such an argument displays greater
compassion for victims than the unnuanced absolutism of the loudest
death-penalty proponents. An anti-death penalty caller to a typical talk radio
show is inevitably thrashed as a soft-headed coddler of murderers. Lost in the
hosts' bombast is the impact of capital cases on current and future crime
victims.
In a contest of death penalty aphorisms, "an eye for an eye" should be
countered with "justice delayed is justice denied." Outsized government
expenditures paired with courtroom-hogging trials and appellate hearings slow
the wheels of justice. Victims of crimes that don't get much attention - simple
assaults, burglaries, identity theft - deal with prosecutor's offices
overburdened by death penalty appellate expenses and court dockets clogged by
death penalty motions. Cases move slower. Justice gets delayed.
This reality upends the arguments of tough-on-crime death penalty supporters.
They showcase their vitriol on high profile capital cases like Tsarnaev's while
flying blind to the stifling systemic realities of capital punishment.
Even law enforcement officials in leading death penalty states have questioned
the cost of the measure. "I know now that if I file a capital murder case and
don't seek the death penalty, the expense is much less,": James Farren, the
District Attorney of Randall County in the Texas panhandle, told the Marshall
Project last December. "While I know that justice is not for sale, if I
bankrupt the county, and we simply don't have any money, and the next day
someone goes into a daycare and guns down 5 kids, what do I say? Sorry?" In
Jasper County, Texas, near the Louisiana border, the trials of 3 men who
dragged an African-American man to death behind their pickup truck in 1998 cost
taxpayers $731,000, which doesn't include continued appeals for 1 of the
defendants (another was executed in 2011; the 3rd received life in prison). The
tax rate increase for the county was 8 % in the trial years, compared to the
usual 5 %.
It's ironic that officeholders who sign oaths against tax hikes and attack food
stamp and other aid programs voice such ardent support for a system with such
onerous financial and organizational outcomes. Ironic, but not surprising.
It's ironic that officeholders who sign oaths against tax hikes and attack food
stamp and other aid programs voice such ardent support for a system with such
onerous financial and organizational outcomes. Ironic, but not surprising.
Trumpeting the ultimate penalty against repellent individuals scores easy
points, especially when the ripple effect on other victims and the justice
system itself goes unnoticed.
Whether Tsarnaev, or the Texas white supremacists who dragged James Byrd Jr. to
death, or any other killers deserve to die is only 1/2 the question. Decoupling
this emotive half of the debate from its prosaic flipside - namely, the costs
and systemic impacts of capital punishment - is intellectually assailable.
Society should demand a braver reckoning from its leaders and itself.
(source: WBUR.org)
*************************
Is the death penalty more trouble than it's worth?
According to national polls Americans are still in favor of the death penalty.
However, while still a majority, the number of us in favor of capital
punishment has declined. And so has the use of capital punishment. States just
aren't as keen on using the ultimate punishment as they once were. For example
Virginia hasn't carried out an execution since 2013. That's noteworthy since
for a time the Commonwealth was running second behind Texas in the number of
executions. It was a dubious distinction.
While several states have backed off in their use capital punishment, 18 states
outlaw it altogether, there are some who are keen to use it no matter what.
However, you have to wonder if it???s more trouble than it's worth. The
preferred method of execution is lethal injection. While, originally conceived
as a sort of antiseptic alternative to more violent forms of execution, it's
run into problems. There have been botched executions and serious questions
about the humaneness of this method of putting people to death.
Also, after 20 years of cheerfully supplying America with its execution drugs
the large European drug firms that made them have suddenly developed a
conscience and are refusing to sell them to states for executions. Even the
large compounding pharmacies, based in the US, have gone on record in
opposition to supplying these drugs.
So, what is a state to do if you can't use lethal injection?
Why, do what Utah did, and go back to the firing squad. Yes, it's as creepy as
it sounds. Under Utah's approach to the ultimate penalty, law enforcement
officers, apparently by the hundreds, now that's really scary, volunteer to be
a part of the handful of men who actually get to shoot the prisoner. Other
states, almost all of them in the west or south, with their execution drugs no
longer available, are looking at proposals to bring back the electric chair or
even returning to hanging.
But does this really make sense? Sure, we all, from time to time, have that
desire to give some of the heinous criminals what's coming to them. It's
certainly hard to work up much sympathy to the surviving Boston Marathon
bomber. But from a societal perspective, particularly in a highly developed
civilization such as ours, does the death penalty make sense anymore?
There is 1strong objection to the death penalty that's hard to refute, and
that's what happens when someone is wrongly convicted? This happens a lot more
than most people realize. During the past 20 years, some 10 death row inmates,
and many more cases are pending, have been exonerated and released. The reasons
vary, but include faulty evidence, prosecutorial misconduct or incompetent
defense. Thomas Jefferson, an early advocate for reining in the use of capital
punishment based some of his objection on the inevitable fallibility of the
justice system. He had a point.
Support for the death penalty makes a good sound bite. But, it's expensive,
potentially fallible, and to a lot of people seems inordinately barbaric. It's
also, if the statistics are to be believed, not applied in a uniform basis. The
race of the killer and the victim seems to play an inordinate role in its
imposition. A better option, which has only recently come into wide use, is a
sentence of "life without parole." The availability of this alternative is the
biggest reason the number of executions in the U.S. has fallen. It seems a
reasonable progression away from the death penalty, something the public can
accept and who knows maybe, finally, someday, maybe the ultimate punishment
will simply fall out of use.
(source: The Journal)
**********************
Death penalty too unreliable, outdated
The state of Utah recently passed a bill into law that would allow the state to
use a firing squad as a death penalty. This method would only be used if lethal
injections were not an option at the time of an inmate's scheduled death. This
comes in the wake of a shortage of lethal injection drugs - which, according to
NPR, the state currently has none of - and multiple botched injections.
Utah was the last state to use the firing squad as a death penalty and that
case in 2010 was the most recent inmate put to death by the state, according to
the NPR article. Firing squads were no longer legal in the state after 2004
until this year. Inmates can only select this as a method if they were
sentenced to the death penalty before the year in which the law expired.
Unfortunately, with the implementation of the law, society seems to be taking a
step backward into the past instead of progressing. No matter the form of the
death penalty, it is a barbaric practice with no place in our society today.
This new yet old form of the death penalty should serve as a wake-up call for
our country to this outdated punishment for our country's worst criminals.
No matter the theory about what method of the death penalty is the most humane
or the argument for or against the firing squad, is the death penalty itself
the most logical form of punishment we have? Many prisoners who are on death
row are there because they have taken the life of another. Is punishing killing
with killing morally correct or the best option for retribution our country
has?
In 2014 alone, 3 lethal injections in the United States were botched, according
to the Death Penalty Information Center's website. The three inmates each
gasped for air or breathed heavily for at least 25 minutes. If mistakes in
executions can be this frequent, should our states or country subject these
people to the possibility of this kind of suffering?
Along with the moral question surrounding the death penalty and other forms of
penalties is the question of whether there are proper alternatives for
punishment. Life in prison without parole is perhaps the best sentence for our
country's worst criminals. This punishment would force the criminals to spend
their lives serving time for the horrible crimes they committed.
With the elimination of the death penalty as a punishment, the question of
prison overpopulation in our prison system is raised. However, at the current
rate, the number of inmates put to death is minuscule compared to the total
prison population. During the last 5 years, an average of just more than 41
criminals have been put to death in the United States, according to the Death
Penalty Information Center's website. Also, the number of those executed in the
United States has fallen or stayed the same every year since 2009.
Putting aside the moral argument, the death penalty is a greater financial
burden than seeking a punishment like life without parole for criminals. The
cost comes in the court cases leading up to the death sentence. According to a
report by the Kansas Judicial Council and reported by Forbes, defense in a case
seeking the death penalty costs four times the amount as those that do not.
Also according to the Forbes article, the Washington Bar Association found that
death penalty cases cost an average of $470,000 more than a similar case
without the punishment as a possibility.
Taking into account the financial implications, the moral questions and the
issues surrounding methods of executions, should our states be finding more
barbaric ways to implement the death penalty? If all of these questions remain,
can our country morally sentence our inmates to death?
(source: Editorial Board; The Iowa State (University) Daily)
*****************
Hispanic Evangelicals call for death penalty repeal ---- They are the 1st
national association of evangelical congregations to take a position in favour
of death penalty repeal. Many Catholic groups support them.
In a unanimous vote on Friday March 27, the National Latino Evangelical
Coalition (NaLEC) urged its 3,000 member congregations to end capital
punishment across the country.
The announcement was made in Orlando, where NaLEC leadership voted in favour of
capital punishment repeal.
"As Christ followers, we are called to work toward justice for all", Coalition
President, and lead pastor at Lamb's Church in New York, Gabriel Salguero,
stated. "And as Latinos, we know too well that justice is not always
even-handed", he added.
LONG DISCERNMENT
Salguero said the decision came after a years-long discernment process that
included "prayer, reflection, and dialog with anti-death penalty organizations
like Equal Justice USA (EJUSA)."
Through this process, they tried to understand the Bible imperative to "do
justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before our God." "The gospel calls us to
speak out for life, and our unanimous decision today to call for the end of
capital punishment is part of that commitment", the president explained.
Salguero pointed out that there are substantial injustices in how the death
penalty is administered because "human beings are fallible and there is no room
for fallibility in matters of life and death".
NaLEC is the 1st national association of evangelical congregations to take a
position in favour of death penalty repeal.
The vote came days after Debra Milke, a woman who spent more than two decades
on death row, was exonerated by an Arizona court.
COBELLIGERENCE IN IMPORTANT ISSUES
NaLEC is not the only group that has publicly talked against death penalty. On
Good Friday, more than 400 Catholic and evangelical leaders signed a statement
against death penalty.
"Christ on the cross is a reminder of the millions of people who have been
executed by government in history and how grotesque it really is and, often,
how unjust it is", said David Gushee, an evangelical ethicist at Mercer
University in Atlanta.
Gushee is one of the signers of a statement against death penalty, as are 2
former presidents of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (Joseph A.
Fiorenza of Galveston-Houston and William Skylstad of Spokane, Washington.);
Miguel Diaz, former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See; and Jim Wallis, Timothy P.
Kesicki, head of all Jesuit priests in the U.S. and Canada; and Richard Cizik,
a former vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
The letter described death penalty as a "practice that diminishes our humanity
and contributes to a culture of violence and retribution without restoration",
and urged governors, judges and prosecutors to end with it.
Advocacy groups are having success at the state level in banning the death
penalty. Equal Justice USA has been influential in banning the death penalty in
New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, Illinois, Connecticut, and Maryland.
"The faith community has been a critical force in the movement to repeal the
death penalty", confirmed Heather Beaudoin, who directs evangelical outreach
for EJUSA.
"EJUSA has found that evangelicals are eager to take another look at this
issue, reflecting what we are seeing in the country as a whole", EJUSA's
Executive Director Shari Silberstein said.
Silberstein believed that while the Latino Coalition was the first to take this
stance, "I do not think they will be the last".
DEATH PENALTY SUPPORT
American support for the death penalty has hit the lowest levels in 40 years.
Much of this eagerness may be among younger Christians. According to a 2014
Barna survey on the death penalty, 23 % of millennials (born 1980-2000) who
described themselves as Christian agreed with the statement: "The government
should have the option to execute the worst criminals."
Hispanics and African Americans (Catholic and Protestant) are the most opposed
to capital punishment. White evangelical Protestants are the greatest
supporters of it with 67 % of those surveyed by Pew favouring capital
punishment. In early February, Rasmussen Reports released a new survey showing
that 57 % of American adults favour the death penalty.
Besides, only 5 % of Americans think Jesus would support the executions of
criminals through death penalty.
So far in 2015, there have been 10 executions carried out. Since 1976, there
have been 1,404 executions in total with 1999 having the greatest number, 98.
(source: evangelicalfocus.com)
**********************
Death penalty win seen as tough sell in Tsarnaev case
Prosecutors who had the upper hand with an overwhelming case against Dzhokhar
Tsarnaev in his trial will find themselves the underdogs, fighting an uphill
battle, when the likely guilty verdicts propel them into the penalty phase and
they have to convince a Massachusetts jury he deserves execution, a noted death
penalty expert said.
The government will have to prove that killing Tsarnaev, 21, is a "necessity to
add to the feelings of security and closure for the people of Boston - that
it's very important for Boston to be 'strong' and this is something that's
going to help the community," said University of California Berkeley professor
Frank Zimring.
"Given that Massachusetts has been out of the business for decades of putting
anyone to death, in essence, what the prosecutors have to do is bring a penalty
back to the moral community that has been long gone," Zimring said. "There are
a lot of people who would want him to die, of course, but the question of
killing as part of the rebuilding of Boston ... that's going to be a very tough
sell."
The jury of 7 women and 5 men was sent home last night after deliberating for
more than 7 hours on trial evidence and Tsarnaev's 30-count indictment charging
him with 4 murders. They submitted 2 notes to Judge George A O'Toole Jr. at
4:25 and 4:30 p.m., neither of which he read in open court. Instead, O'Toole
ordered the trial teams to meet privately with him this morning.
Tsarnaev - a sophomore failing his classes at the University of Massachusetts
Dartmouth when he carried out the Patriots Day 2013 terrorist attack with his
late older brother Tamerlan - did not take the stand in his own defense.
Zimring said it's the worst move his legal team could make at sentencing,
because if the once popular lifeguard and Cambridge Rindge and Latin wrestling
team captain came across as intelligent and thoughtful, it would implode their
argument that he was Tamerlan's dupe.
"This trial will be about him," Zimring said. "It won't be starring him. It
becomes sort of a status competition between the prosecution wanting to
emphasize the seriousness of the crime, and the defense putting the defendant
at center stage, his characterological history, his relationship with his
brother ..."
With life imprisonment without parole Tsarnaev's only alternative to death if
he's found guilty, Zimring said the central issues for jurors to weigh "are
degree of fault and degree of retributive need. It's not that he's going to be
a danger to Boston again."
(source: Boston Herald)
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