April 17
LOUISIANA:
Volunteers Gather to Care for Glenn Ford, Exonerated Louisiana Man Who Is Now
Dying from Cancer
In Louisiana, former prosecutor Marty Stroud has met with former death row
prisoner Glenn Ford to apologize to him for wrongfully charging him with
murder. After 30 years in prison, Ford was released from death row last year
after the state admitted new evidence proves he was not the killer. Stroud
recently wrote a three-page letter in the Shreveport Times calling on the state
to stop refusing to compensate Ford, who now has stage 4 lung cancer. We get an
update on Ford's case from his friend Jackie Sumell.
AMY GOODMAN: We only have a minute, and I also want to get to Glenn Ford -
JACKIE SUMELL: Yeah, absolutely.
AMY GOODMAN: - and the work you do with him, who was sentenced to death for the
murder of a man in Shreveport, Louisiana. After 30 years in prison, Ford was
released from death row last year after the state admitted new evidence proves
he was not the killer.
Last week, I spoke with the lead prosecutor in Ford's murder trial, Marty
Stroud, who recently wrote a 3-page letter to the Shreveport Times calling on
the state to stop refusing to compensate Ford, who's now dying of stage 4 liver
cancer. You're one of his hospice partners, helping Glenn. Marty Stroud, since
we talked, has gone to meet and apologize to Glenn Ford directly?
JACKIE SUMELL: Yeah. I mean, Marty Ford - Stroud, excuse me, has apologized to
Glenn Ford. Whether or not that apology is anything significant after enduring
30 years of wrongful conviction on death row in solitary confinement -
AMY GOODMAN: And the state still refuses to compensate?
JACKIE SUMELL: Compensate him financially. So he's completely underinsured. His
medical care is some - a combination of volunteers, like myself, who are
incredibly honored to be able to serve and work with Glenn, and then basic care
from the state.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Jackie Sumell, we will link to your exhibit at the Brooklyn
Public Library that has just opened.
JACKIE SUMELL: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: The book has just come out again, Herman's House. And [Nightline]
is doing a special on Glenn Ford's case tonight.
That does it for our broadcast. We're looking to hire a social media producer.
It's a full-time job. Go to our website.
I'll also be speaking at Colorado College Thursday, April 23rd, at 7:00 p.m. in
Colorado Springs.
(source: Democracy Now!)
OHIO:
Death penalty excluded for prosecutions of homicides related to Short North
Posse
11 Short North Posse members indicted on federal murder charges last year will
not face the death penalty.
When charges were filed, federal prosecutors had asked for death-penalty
specifications. The U.S. attorney general turned down the request, according to
court records filed today.
The 11 were among 20 men charged in 2014 with being part of a racketeering
conspiracy that killed and robbed rival gang members and intimidated witnesses
between 2005 and 2012 in central Ohio.
The defendants were part of the Short North Posse's killing squad, according to
a 2-year investigation by local, state and federal law-enforcement agents and
officers. The investigation resulted in the largest federal murder indictment
in Ohio history, officials said.
The killing squad was led by Robert B. Ledbetter, also known as "Killer B," and
Lance A. Green, known as "Jigga," the indictment says. Members are accused of
13 homicides.
The cases are expected to go to trial in 2016.
Death-penalty cases are unusual in federal court and can only by authorized by
the U.S. attorney general. That doesn't happen until a lengthy process based on
Department of Justice guidelines established in 1995.
The process begins when local U.S. attorneys prepare detailed reports outlining
their request for the Justice Department.
A department committee reviews each death-eligible case and gives defense
attorneys a chance to argue against death-penalty specifications. Then the
review committee makes a recommendation to the attorney general, who reviews
each case and makes a final decision.
The posse traditionally has operated in an area of Weinland Park bounded by
11th, Grant and 5th avenues and N. High Street. Law enforcers have been trying
to break the gang for years and, in December 2013, indicted 22 people connected
to the group on federal drug-trafficking charges.
(source: The Columbus Dispatch)
INDIANA:
Death penalty sought in suspected Indiana serial killings case
Indiana prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against a Gary man charged in
the slayings of 2 women and suspected in the deaths of 5 others.
Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter filed a request Friday seeking the death
penalty for Darren Dean Vann if he's convicted in the deaths of 19-year-old
Afrikka Hardy of Gary and 35-year-old Anith Jones of Merrillville.
The Post-Tribune of Merrillville reports Vann didn???t attend Friday's hearing.
Lake Superior Court Judge Diane Ross Boswell also granted prosecutors' motion
to combine the 2 murder cases.
Vann's attorney, Teresa Hollandsworth, opposed the motion, arguing that joining
the two cases would be highly prejudicial to her client. She said Jones'
strangulation appears to be a murder-for-hire and not a rage killing as
prosecutors contended in their filing.
(source: Associated Press)
NEVADA:
Nevada has 80 on death row, but no place to execute
Nevada has more than 80 men on death row but no suitable place to execute them
should the state need to carry out capital punishment, a panel of lawmakers was
told last week.
So lawmakers again are being asked to fund a new execution chamber at Ely State
Prison so Nevada can be prepared to carry out a lethal injection should a court
order be issued. The facility in remote eastern Nevada is the state's only
maximum security prison.
Greg Cox, director of the Department of Corrections, acknowledged in a budget
hearing last week that no executions are in the offing.
But if a court orders an execution, the agency would have only between 60 and
90 days to carry it out, he said. An execution potentially could be carried out
at the now-decommissioned Nevada State Prison in the capital, but litigation
over the use of the death chamber at the facility would be anticipated, he
said.
Cox made his pitch for about $829,000 to build a new execution chamber at the
Ely prison where Nevada's death row population is housed. The execution chamber
and related facilities would take up 1,900 square feet of the current
administration wing at the facility, he said.
Ely has been selected for security reasons since that is where Nevada's worst
of the worst are housed, and no transportation would be involved for an
execution.
Inmates on Nevada's death row include Pat McKenna, known as Nevada's most
dangerous inmate who killed another man in jail in Clark County in 1979.
McKenna has tried to escape several times.
Others on death row include Richard Haberstroh, who in 1986 raped and choked
20-year-old Donna Marie Kitowski when she went to a store in Southern Nevada to
buy ingredients to bake cookies for her 20-month-old son; and Michael Sonner,
who in 1993 killed Nevada Highway Patrol trooper Carlos Borland.
Nevada uses only lethal injection for executions, and Cox acknowledged the
method of execution is being litigated around the country. Obtaining the drugs
needed to perform an execution is also a challenge, he said.
Cox said he recently became aware that the American Pharmacists Association
decided just last month to dis???courage its members from participating in
executions, finding that, "such activities are fundamentally contrary to the
role of pharmacists as providers of health care."
Cox also said he learned last week that architectural firms are expected to
avoid participating in the design of the Nevada execution chamber project.
"They are constantly peeling away this onion," he said.
The U.S. Supreme Court announced in January that it will hear arguments this
year regarding Oklahoma's lethal injection process using a drug called
midazolam.
The last execution in Nevada, by lethal injection, occurred April 26, 2006, at
the Nevada State Prison, when Daryl Mack was put to death. Mack was executed
for the rape and murder of a Reno woman, Betty Jane May, in 1988.
Executions in Nevada are rare. There have only been 12 since the U.S. Supreme
Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.
Death penalty cases are litigated in both state and federal courts and can take
decades to finalize.
Some members of the Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means joint budget
subcommittee expressed reservations about the funding request, which is a
repeat from the 2013 session albeit at a price nearly 20 % higher.
Chris Chimits, deputy administrator with the state Public Works Board, said a
big reason for the increase is the supply and demand situation in the
construction industry as the economy heats up. If the request is delayed until
2017, the cost could reach $1 million, he said.
Chimits said the chamber would be modeled after the new facility at San Quentin
in California, whose construction was overseen by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals.
"If we do anything it is going to be with their (the court's) approval on this
project," he said.
Cox also said that another delay would mean there would be no new execution
chamber for 4 years, since it is a 2-year project estimated by the Public Works
Board.
But lawmakers noted that the current state of flux in the use of lethal
injection nationwide might mean there is no immediate rush.
Sen. Ben Kieckhefer, R-Reno, said the uncertainty raises questions about
whether the investment is worthwhile at this time.
"There are a lot of needs for our capital infrastructure dollars," he said. "I
think that lack of certainty - and I understand it is out of our control -
makes it difficult."
The request is part of the agency's 2015-17 budget request, which will not be
finalized until much later in this session.
Cox said funding will be needed to keep the Nevada State Prison death chamber
ready for use should the new project not be approved. But the current chamber,
an old gas chamber, is not compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act.
There might also be other infrastructure issues.
There is no elevator access, so a disabled inmate facing execution would have
to be carried to the last-night cell across from the chamber.
The viewing area is cramped and provides little room for official witnesses,
media representatives, a religious leader, victims' family members, attorneys
and others who choose to or are required to attend executions.
The new chamber would be more than 300 miles east of Carson City. It would
include the execution area, separate witness viewing areas and a last-night
cell for the condemned inmate, among other features. It also would require new
walls and the reconfiguration of heating and cooling systems, lighting,
sprinklers and other elements.
The agency a few years ago planned a new stand-alone execution chamber at a
prison that was never built in Southern Nevada, and that cost estimate was
about $5 million.
Gov. Brian Sandoval is a proponent of the death penalty.
A state audit released in December found that Nevada murder cases in which
prosecutors seek the death penalty can cost nearly twice as much as those with
a lesser punishment.
Death penalty cases cost the public, on average, $1.03 million to $1.31
million, according to the audit. In a murder case in which capital punishment
is not sought, the average cost is $775,000. In those cases, prosecutors
typically seek life in prison without parole.
The 105-page audit came after the 2013 Legislature ordered a review of the
costs of capital punishment. The audit, which took 18 months, looked at the
price of trials, appeals and jail time for 28 Nevada cases.
poll---Voting is for: either building a new gas chamber or against the death
the death penalty....
see:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nevada-legislature/nevada-has-80-death-row-no-place-execute?hc_location=ufi
(source: Las Vegas Review-Journal)
USA:
Assortment of crimes can draw federal death penalty
The federal death penalty can be used to punish a variety of crimes, most of
them deadly.
Federal death penalty-eligible crimes include genocide, killing a member of
Congress, the cabinet or Supreme Court, sexual abuse resulting in death, using
chemical weapons resulting in death and torture resulting in death, according
to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Crimes that don't directly involve death also can draw the federal death
penalty, including trafficking in large quantities of drugs and "attempting,
authorizing or advising the killing of any officer, juror or witness in cases
involving a continuing criminal enterprise, regardless of whether such killing
actually occurs."
Other crimes include the mailing of injurious articles with intent to kill or
resulting in death, espionage and treason.
People have been executed by the federal government for murder, sabotage,
murder on a government reservation, kidnapping and murder, kidnapping and rape.
In the case of Timothy McVeigh, he was put to death for murder of federal law
enforcement officers and conspiracy to use and use of weapons of mass
destruction.
Currently, 61 inmates are on federal death row - 27 black and 24 white; 60
males and 1 female. Depending on what jurors decide, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev could be
added for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
Of the charges Tsarnaev was found guilty of, 17 carry the possibility of the
death penalty.
A total of 37 federal executions have been carried out from 1927 to 2003,
according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The government has put prisoners to
death via hanging, electrocution, gas and lethal injection.
From 1963 to 2001, no federal executions took place. They were officially
halted after the Furman v. Georgia decision in 1972, which found racial
disparities in punishments for the same crimes, with white defendants drawing
life imprisonments while black defendants were sentenced to death.
The Supreme Court ruled the way the death penalty was being administered
"constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and
Fourteenth Amendments. ... It would seem to be incontestable that the death
penalty inflicted on one defendant is 'unusual' if it discriminates against him
by reason of his race, religion, wealth, social position or class, or if it is
imposed under a procedure that gives room for the play of such prejudices."
The pause in executions lasted nearly 40 years, ending in June 2001 when
McVeigh was executed for charges related to the deadly 1995 bombing of the
Oklahoma City federal building. He was killed by lethal injection in the U.S.
Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute, IN.
10 inmates have been permanently removed from federal death row, including
David Ronald Chandler - the 1st condemned under the 1988 drug kingpin law. He
was given the death penalty in 1991 for allegedly paying someone to kill
someone else. Even after the gunman recanted his claim, Chandler's appeals were
turned down until President Bill Clinton commuted his death sentence to life in
prison in 2001.
Noteworthy federal executions of the modern era include those of a group of
convicted military saboteurs during World War II - Herbert Haupt, Heinrich
Heinck, Edward Kerling, Herman Heubauer, Richard Quirin and Werner Thiel, in
August 1942.
They were tried, convicted of sabotage and sentenced to die by a military
commission appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The defendants
included German nationals and one U.S. citizen - Haupt.
The Supreme Court granted Roosevelt authorization to use the military
commission in a decision titled Ex parte Quirin.
"Although the decision was generally applauded when issued and later was
successfully invoked in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld to justify holding an American
citizen captured in Afghanistan after 9/11 in military detention, modern
scholarly accounts of Quirin by historians and constitutional lawyers have been
positively scathing," said Andrew Kent in the Vanderbilt Law Review.
(source: WAFF news)
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