Aug. 23
NEBRASKA:
Nebraska death penalty opponents unveil new television ad
Nebraska death penalty opponents are airing a new television ad in their
campaign to keep capital punishment off the books.
The group Retain a Just Nebraska unveiled the 30-second television spot on
Monday.
The ad features Republican state Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln, a leading death
penalty opponent. Coash argues in the ad that the state resources spent on
capital punishment should be put toward other uses, such as crime victims,
roads and schools.
The ad notes that Nebraska hasn't executed a prisoner since 1997.
Lawmakers abolished the death penalty in May 2015 over Gov. Pete Ricketts'
veto. Capital punishment supporters launched a petition drive that prevented
the law from going into effect until voters decide whether to overturn the
Legislature's repeal vote in the November election.
(source: Associated Press)
NEW MEXICO:
It's time to bring back death penalty for cop killers and child murderers
At this time, all of their accused killers are safe from facing the death
penalty in New Mexico.
That could change. And it should.
Gov. Susana Martinez is calling for lawmakers to reinstate the death penalty in
New Mexico for murderers of police officers and children.
"A society that fails to adequately protect and defend those who protect all of
us is a society that will be undone and unsafe," she said in a statement last
Wednesday.
Capital punishment had been on the books for a number of years in New Mexico
and applied to the most serious crimes, such as killing a police or corrections
officer on duty, as well as murder committed during attempted kidnapping or
rape or criminal sexual contact of a child.
But New Mexico repealed capital punishment in 2009 when former Gov. Bill
Richardson signed legislation replacing it with a maximum sentence of life in
prison without the possibility of parole.
After taking office in 2011, Martinez supported legislation to reimpose the
death penalty, but it didn't make it through the Democratic-controlled
Legislature. Since then, it has not been part of her legislative agenda - until
now.
And that could send a deadly serious message to violent criminals who think
nothing of taking the life of law enforcement officers dedicated to protecting
the rest of us. People like members of the prison gang Syndicato de Nuevo
Mexico who allegedly conspired to kill state Corrections Secretary Gregg
Marcantel and his Security Threat Intelligence Unit chief Dwayne Santiestevan.
For officers Jose Chavez - who was laid to rest this weekend - Daniel Webster
and Gregg Benner, and innocent Ashlynne Mike, their lives matter. Lawmakers
should set this right when they convene in January.
(source: This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was
written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the
opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.)
******************
New Mexico's bishops reject governor's plan to reinstate death penalty
The Catholic bishops of New Mexico in an Aug. 18 statement said they oppose
Republican Gov. Susana Martinez's plan to reinstate the death penalty and
called on the Legislature to reject it.
The bishops recalled that when the Legislature in March 2009 repealed "the
morally untenable practice of the death penalty," they applauded the move,
calling it "a milestone" that was "moving New Mexico from a culture of violence
to a culture of peace, justice and love."
"The state created life in prison without the possibility of parole. This
renders a perpetrator harmless to society," they said.
"In one voice, (we) once again echo the teaching of the church that life is
sacred," the New Mexico bishops said. "There is one seamless teaching on God's
gift of life that must be protected from conception in the womb to natural
death. It is always tragic and sad when a member of the community is murdered.
"These senseless acts must be prevented by calling for systemic change in
society beginning with our youngest children. Crime can be prevented, and this
is done by an investment in social capital," they said.
On Aug. 17, Martinez said she will push for reinstating the death penalty
during the 2017 legislative session. She was prompted to call for resuming
capital punishment after the recent shooting of a Hatch police officer. She
said she supports the death penalty at least for convicted child killers and
those convicted of murdering law enforcement officers.
She supported a measure to reinstate the death penalty shortly after she was
elected governor in 2011, but the bill died in Democratic-majority Legislature.
The New Mexico bishops' quoted the Catechism of the Catholic Church and St.
John Paul II in saying that cases where it is "an absolute necessity" for the
state to employ the death penalty to ensure the safety of the community "are
very rare, if not practically nonexistent."
"We join Pope Francis in his continued call to end the practice of the death
penalty," the bishops said. "Pope Benedict and St. Pope John Paul II both
worked diligently to end the death penalty throughout the world. The trend in
the United States has now been to abandon the use of the death penalty. In the
last 5 years, 5 states have passed legislation to repeal their death penalty
law."
The statement was signed by Archbishop John C. Wester and retired Archbishop
Michael J. Sheehan of Santa Fe; Bishop Oscar Cantu and retired Bishop Ricardo
Ramirez of Las Cruces; and Bishop James S. Wall of Gallup.
(source: Catholic News Service)
CALIFORNIA:
State Supreme Court overturns death penalty in Shasta County slaying
The California Supreme Court has overturned a death penalty sentencing of a man
convicted of murdering a 98-year-old Shasta County woman in 1995.
In a 4-3 ruling, the justices determined statements made by one of the
defendants in the killing should have been allowed during the penalty phase of
the trial of Gary Grimes of Modesto.
Those statements could have swayed a jury in the penalty phase because they
indicate Grimes did not participate in the killing, the court said in the
ruling issued Monday.
Grimes, John William Morris and Patrick James Wilson, were all arrested and
charged with stabbing and strangling Betty Elizabeth Bone during a home
invasion robbery in October 1995.
Morris, then 20 years old, killed himself in the Shasta County Jail shortly
after his arrest in connection to the case. But before dying, Morris told a
witness that he killed Bone, not Grimes or Wilson.
Morris told another inmate in jail that he killed Bone, but the other 2 were in
the house during the murder but did not participate, the ruling says.
Those statements were not allowed at trial.
Another witness, whose testimony was allowed, said Grimes played a leadership
role in the killing.
"The excluded statements would have given the defense a substantial basis for
countering the prosecutor's argument," says the ruling, written by Justice
Leondra R. Kruger.
While the court did not overturn Grimes' murder conviction, the justices
ordered resentencing in the case. The state Supreme Court upheld the death
penalty sentence in January 2015, but after justices Mariano-Florentino Cuellar
and Kruger were sworn in the case was reconsidered.
Both Cuellar and Kruger voted in favor of reversing the death penalty.
Dennis Sheehy, who was district attorney at the time, notified Grimes' attorney
that he would not seek the death penalty.
"Because defendant was not the actual killer, District Attorney Sheehy did not
believe that a jury would impose the death penalty," the ruling says.
However, Sheehy resigned that year and his successor, MacGregor Scott, decided
to seek the death penalty against Grimes. He was sentenced to death by former
Shasta County Superior Court Judge Bradley Boeckman in 1999.
(source: redding.com)
WASHINGTON:
Decision on death penalty in Mukilteo shooting months away
A Mukilteo man accused of storming a house party last month, killing his
ex-girlfriend and 2 others, pleaded not guilty to 5 criminal counts on Monday.
Allen Ivanov, 19, is accused with killing Anna Bui, Jacob Long and Jordan
Ebner.
Ivanov allegedly texted a friend before the shooting to say that he was angry
at Bui, his ex, for moving on. He texted the same friend a photo of an assault
weapon and said that he planned to kill Bui and possibly others, according to
charging documents filed in Snohomish County Superior Court on Friday.
Around midnight on July 30, Ivanov watched the house party before going inside.
Ivanov's 1st victim was Long - who said "no, no, no!" before being shot,
charges said.
Ivanov then shot and wounded William Kramer and tried to shoot Alex Levin.
Ebner was slain next and Bui last, charges said.
Ivanov shot at Tristan Bratvold and Alex Levin as the 2 men tried to escape the
house party, charges said.
Ivanov told police he bought the gun he used several days before the slayings,
charges said. When investigators asked him about Bui moving on he said. "I felt
like it wasn't necessarily fair to me," according to charges.
In court Monday, Ivanov said very little. He entered a quiet plea of not guilty
to the 5 charges - 3 counts of aggravated murder and 2 counts of attempted
1st-degree murder.
Since the charge of aggravated murder could result in a possible death sentence
Superior Court Judge Thomas Wynne ordered Ivanov to remain at the Snohomish
County Jail without bail. Prosecutors say they have not yet decided whether to
seek the death penalty.
"The defense will have until Dec. 19 to submit materials to try and convince
Mr. Roe that there are sufficient mitigating circumstances to merit leniency in
this case," Snohomish County Deputy Prosecutor Adam Cornell said during
Monday's arraignment hearing.
Tim Leary, one of Ivanov's 4 lawyers, told Wynne that he's concerned 4 months
might not be enough time for their team to compile a complete death penalty
mitigation package for the prosecution.
(source: KOMO news)
USA:
Efforts to end death penalty gain steam
After nearly 2 decades of declining use, opponents of the death penalty have
begun what they characterize as a sustained legislative and political push to
end capital punishment in states across the country.
Voters in California and Nebraska will decide this year whether to end the
death penalty.
Legislators appear poised to end capital punishment in states as different as
deep-blue Delaware and ruby-red Utah. And public opinion polls show that while
a majority of Americans still back executions for those convicted of murder,
that majority is shrinking.
"The growing opposition to the death penalty is evident among every demographic
group. You see the same type of patterns among all age groups, among all races,
among all religions and among every political affiliation," said Robert Dunham,
who runs the Death Penalty Information Center, a group that advocates for an
end to capital punishment.
At the presidential level, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both support the
death penalty. But Trump hasn't discussed the issue in detail, and Clinton at a
debate earlier this year suggested she'd be happy if the Supreme Court or
states began to eliminate the death penalty. The Democratic platform calls for
repealing the death penalty.
At the state level, calls for an end to the death penalty are coming from an
unlikely corner of the political spectrum: Conservatives.
Nebraska's legislature, ostensibly nonpartisan but in practice controlled by
Republicans, made headlines in 2015 by repealing the death penalty.
Utah's Republican state Senate passed a repeal bill earlier this year, though
it died in the state House. In Kentucky, where Republicans only recently gained
control of the state Senate, a Senate committee held hearings on a repeal vote,
the first such hearing since 1976. Another repeal measure stalled on a tie vote
in Montana's legislature, where Republicans are in control.
"You're going to see more conservative states moving toward repeal," said Marc
Hyden, a former National Rifle Association staffer who now runs Conservatives
Concerned about the Death Penalty. "The death penalty is dying out."
While 30 states allow capital punishment, the governors of four of those states
- Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Pennsylvania - have set a moratorium on
executions while they are in office. 20 states do not allow executions.
The number of executions carried out across the country has declined
precipitously in recent years. In 2015, states carried out just 28 executions,
the lowest number since 1991 and down from a high of 98 in 1999. Through July
15, when Georgia executed a man convicted of murder in 1982, 15 executions had
taken place in 2016.
Part of the reason the number of executions have fallen is that states are
having a tough time getting the drugs necessary for lethal injections. All
thirty states that allow the death penalty use lethal injections as their
preferred method of execution. But some of the pharmaceutical companies -
mostly based in Europe - that produce those drugs have refused to sell their
products to states for use in executions, leading to nationwide shortfalls.
The fact that so few executions are taking place has spurred legislators in at
least a few states to rethink capital punishment.
"We started to look at the institution of the death penalty as a broken
government system. We had a system that was not being used, that was costing us
money," said Colby Coash, the Nebraska state senator who sponsored his state's
repeal measure in 2015. "If any other program in history had been this costly
or ineffective, we would have gotten rid of it a long time ago."
Death penalty advocates are fighting repeal supporters in a handful of key
states. After Nebraska passed its repeal in 2015, over the veto of Gov. Pete
Ricketts, advocates forced a voter referendum on the measure onto this year's
ballot, aided by $300,000 from the governor and his father, a major Republican
donor who founded the online brokerage firm TD Ameritrade.
"There was a real groundswell of anger from different corners of the state
about the repeal,' said Chris Peterson, a spokesman for Nebraskans for the
Death Penalty. Peterson's group is preparing an ad campaign that highlights
those on Nebraska's death row, and the crimes they have committed.
Peterson pointed to a poll conducted for his group earlier this month that
showed 58 % of Nebraska voters back keeping the death penalty. Just 30 % favor
repealing the legislation.
Repeal backers in Nebraska are touting a study conducted by Ernest Goss, an
economist at Creighton University, which found Nebraska spends $14.6 million
every year on the death penalty, even though the state has not executed a
prisoner since December 1997. Death penalty supporters countered with a study
from a state legislative analyst that found the death penalty has no such
impact.
The Nebraska vote, Peterson said, appeared as the first in what could become a
series of anti-death penalty dominos. But, he said: "We're going to work
aggressively and we're optimistic that we're going to set our domino back up."
Death penalty proponents have a chance to bolster capital punishment in 1 state
this year: Voters in Oklahoma will face a state question that would
specifically declare the death penalty is not cruel or unusual punishment.
There is likely to be at least 1 legislative push to reinstate the death
penalty next year: New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R) said last week she would
make a legislative priority of reinstating the death penalty for those
convicted of murdering police officers and children. Martinez cited the murders
of 5 police officers in Dallas last month, a police officer in Hatch, N.M., and
a Navajo child earlier this year.
"[A] society that fails to adequately protect and defend those who protect all
of us is a society that will be undone and unsafe," Martinez said in a
statement emailed to The Hill.
Voters in California will decide 2 ballot measures that would lead to polar
opposite outcomes: One measure, Proposition 62, would end California's death
penalty altogether. The other, Proposition 66, would maintain capital
punishment and speed the appeals process.
It was not immediately clear what would happen if both measures pass in
November. In other cases, when 2 contradictory ballot measures have passed,
courts have tended to side with the measure that won a higher level of support
among voters.
A majority of Americans continues to support the death penalty, according to
public opinion polls, but that support has dropped. In October, Gallup found 61
% of Americans support the death penalty for a person convicted of murder, down
from a high of 80 % in 1994. A Pew Research Center survey conducted last year
found 56 % of Americans favor the death penalty, down from a peak of 78 % in
1995.
(source: the hill.com)
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