Aug. 25
TEXAS:
Death Watch: The Quality of State Killings----Why is the TDCJ so reluctant to
test death drugs?
Friday's news that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed Jeffery Wood's
execution - remanding the case back to Wood's Kerr County trial court so a
judge can reconsider the testimony of Dr. James Grigson, the since-deceased
forensic psychiatrist nicknamed "Dr. Death" because of his recurring state
testimonies in capital cases - means the Texas' Department of Criminal Justice
has seen each of the state's last 10 scheduled executions be stayed or delayed.
(The state hasn't executed anyone since Pablo Vasquez on April 6.) Wood's stay,
officially issued with respect to Grigson's testimony, was hopefully spurred in
part by questions over the ethics of executing an individual who did not
actually kill anyone (see "Death Watch: Executing Texas' Law of Parties," Aug.
12). It comes one week after the state temporarily spared the life of fellow
inmate Robert Pruett, who also went to prison as an accomplice to a murder, and
later went to death row for the murder of a prison guard in Beeville - though
evidence is mounting that he may not be responsible for that killing, either.
Meanwhile, the state turns its attention to Rolando Ruiz, scheduled for
execution Aug. 31. Ruiz, 44, was sent to death row for the 1992 murder-for-hire
of Theresa Rodriguez. After agreeing to a $2,000 payment from Rodriguez's
husband, Michael, and her brother-in-law, Mark, Ruiz shot Rodriguez in the head
in her San Antonio garage; the brothers were trying to collect on a couple of
hefty life insurance policies. Mark received a life sentence for capital
murder. Michael - a member of the Texas 7, who broke out of the state's John B.
Connally Unit on Dec. 13, 2000 and went on a crime spree - was sentenced to
death and executed Aug. 14, 2008. 2 other men involved with the arranged
killing were also sentenced to life for the crime.
Ruiz's chances for mitigation during the sentencing portion of his trial got
muddied by the role he reportedly played during an uprising at the Bexar County
Jail shortly after his arrest. Ruiz was convicted of aggravated assault on a
peace officer, and attorneys say he lost the opportunity to present himself as
a non-threat in the future. His habeas appeals were guided by what his trial
attorneys failed to produce during that portion, specifically a psychologist's
report detailing the "significant reduced mental capacity" Ruiz possessed at
the time of Rodriguez's murder as a result of the drugs and alcohol he consumed
to cope with an abusive upbringing.
On Aug. 12, with Wood and 3 of the 4 other inmates currently scheduled for
death dates, Ruiz filed a complaint in Judge Lynn Hughes' federal district
court that challenges the testing methods TDCJ employs for its doses of
compounded pentobarbital, the highly secretive drug TDCJ uses to carry out its
killings. The inmates' argument is rooted in the courtesy extended in Whitaker
et al v. Livingston, a case from 2013. The case initially proved unsuccessful,
but played a major role in fellow plaintiff Perry Williams' execution date
getting withdrawn this summer (see "Death Watch: A First Time for Everything,"
July 15). In 2015, the Attorney General's Office agreed to retest Williams and
Thomas Whitaker's doses shortly before their executions. Williams received his
execution warrant in Jan. 2016. In early July, the state said that it did not
have time to test Williams' pentobarbital dose in the 6 months following
issuance of the warrant.
Attorneys for the 5 inmates argued that the precedent set by Whitaker and
Williams means that their clients have a constitutional right to the same
testing, a charge Hughes disagreed with late last week. Hughes' decision was
sent to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Aug. 19, where some kind of action
will need to be taken before Ruiz's execution date comes up.
"All we ask for is for the state to retest the drug before the executions,"
said Michael Biles, 1 of the 3 attorneys working the case. "It's a 1-day test
to make sure the drug still has the same potency and is not contaminated. No
stay of executions, just a retest. The state refused. The court refused to
grant us that release. We had a very small ask, and it's frustrating that we
weren't successful [in federal court]."
(source: The Austin Chronicle)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Roger King, 72, 'larger than life' retired Philly homicide prosecutor
Roger King, 72, a towering figure in Philadelphia law enforcement during a
decades-long career as a top homicide prosecutor in the District Attorney's
Office, died Wednesday morning, Aug. 24, in hospice care in Wyndmoor.
The cause of death was metastatic kidney cancer, said his wife, Sharon
Wainright. He had battled the disease for 2 years.
"Roger had a heart of gold," Wainright said. "He was very proud of the work
that he had done."
Mr. King spent 3 decades prosecuting homicides in Philadelphia, including some
of the city's most notorious cases, such as the conviction of David Dickson
Jr., a former Drexel University security guard with a foot fetish who strangled
a 20-year-old student in 1984.
When Mr. King retired in 2008, he had won 16 death-penalty convictions - more
than anyone in Pennsylvania history at the time, according to Robert Dunham,
executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington.
But his legacy was complicated by several overturned convictions. Just this
week, a federal appeals court ruled that death-row inmate James Dennis -
prosecuted by Mr. King in 1992 for murdering a teenage girl over her gold
earrings - should be granted a new trial because police and prosecutors
withheld evidence suggesting that Dennis was innocent.
Still, fellow prosecutors and defense attorneys on Wednesday described Mr. King
as a fierce and effective litigator - intense, passionate, and at times
intimidating. An imposing physical presence at 6-foot-2, Mr. King spoke with
conviction inside the courtroom, his colleagues said, and was uniquely
dedicated to trying even the toughest murder cases.
"There isn't a person who knew Roger who didn't know the devotion he had to
being the best-prepared prosecutor ever," said former District Attorney Lynne
M. Abraham, Mr. King's boss for 19 years.
Veteran defense attorney A. Charles Peruto Jr. said Mr. King was "a great
opponent."
"Any good defense attorney respected him," Peruto said.
Mr. King was born in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Aug. 3, 1944, the 6th of 7 children.
His mother was a dietitian, his father a preacher.
He attended the University of Southern California and was a safety on the
football team, according to his wife. He graduated in 1967, then went on to law
school at the University of California, Los Angeles. After graduating, he
briefly worked at the Federal Trade Commission, his wife said, and in 1973
joined the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office.
After just 3 years, Mr. King joined the homicide unit, a prestigious assignment
for a young prosecutor. Abraham said other young African American lawyers were
inspired watching him in the high-profile post, viewing him as "an example of
someone who [was] a fearless warrior for justice."
Ed Rendell, the city's district attorney from 1978 through 1985, remembered Mr.
King as "an incredible trial lawyer."
"He had a magnetic effect" on jurors, Rendell said. "He riveted their attention
when he talked, and he was compelling in his arguments."
Jack McMahon, a prominent criminal defense attorney who worked with Mr. King as
a prosecutor in the 1980s, said that he had a "preacher-like style" and an
incredible memory - and that many in the office viewed him as "larger than
life."
"He was dedicated" to the work, McMahon said. "It was his life."
Besides the Dickson and Dennis cases, Mr. King had a hand in other high-profile
murder prosecutions, trying "thousands" of cases, including killers of children
and police officers, he told an interviewer in 1995.
In 1997, he told a judge that the defendants in a case had plotted to kill him.
And when he was digging into drug gangs involved with the Black Mafia and
Junior Black Mafia, he said, he received at least four death threats a week.
Not all of Mr. King's efforts were successful.
When he and a colleague prosecuted the Lex Street massacre - an infamous 2000
shooting that left seven dead in West Philadelphia - they refused to release
from prison the 4 men who had been charged even after new evidence pointed
toward 4 other suspects.
The men later sued the city, and in 2003 they were awarded a $1.9 million
settlement.
Mr. King was respected within the court system as a dogged and competitive
lawyer. McMahon and Fortunato N. Perri Jr. - another prominent defense attorney
- said that as young prosecutors, they would walk to his courtroom just to
watch him in action.
Jude Conroy, an assistant district attorney who was mentored by Mr. King, said
the office named an annual award for homicide prosecutors partly for him.
And Ed Cameron, assistant chief of the office's homicide unit, said Mr. King
was so proud of his work that he later handed out business cards describing
himself as a retired homicide prosecutor.
"This job," Cameron said, "was a really big part of his life."
In addition to his wife, Mr. King is survived by a daughter, Karen Epley.
Funeral services will be private.
(source: philly.com)
*********************
Federal judge dismisses appeal in 1987 Bristol Township anti-gay killing case
The federal judge who granted convicted killer Richard Laird a new trial in
2005 has decided differently the 2nd time around.
Laird, 52, saw his appeal shot down last week when U.S. District Judge Jan
DuBois, in a 105-page opinion, upheld his conviction and death sentence.
Laird asked the court to overturn his 2007 conviction and death sentence for
1st-degree murder - his 2nd conviction by a Bucks County jury - for the Dec.
15, 1987, killing of 26-year-old Anthony Milano, of Bristol Township.
First Assistant District Attorney Michelle Henry, who prosecuted Laird in 1997
second trial, said she was pleased by the judge's "very gratifying" decision.
"The death penalty is appropriately reserved for the most heinous murders and
the cold-blooded killers who commit them," she said.
Jurors first convicted Laird and co-defendant Frank Chester in 1989, sentencing
both men to death for kidnapping Milano from a bar on Route 13 before beating
him and slashing him to death with a utility knife.
Both men later had their verdicts overturned in federal court.
Chester, 48, pleaded guilty in March after a successful bid to avoid the death
penalty while Laird continues to appeal.
In denying Laird's latest appeal, DuBois also declined to include a
"certificate of appealability," complicating further appeals of the his
decision.
District Attorney David Heckler said he found it refreshing to see federal
courts "only calling balls and strikes" in death penalty cases.
"I have been disappointed over the years in the federal courts' handling of
death penalty cases, because it seemed that they would use any excuse to reach
the foregone conclusion that the death penalty was not going to be upheld," he
said.
Despite the federal judge's decision, it remains unlikely Laird will be
executed soon because some appeal options remain. Should he exhaust those
options, Gov. Tom Wolf's moratorium on the death penalty will cause further
delay.
(source: The Intelligencer)
VIRGINIA:
Judge in Joaquin Rams capital murder case suddenly steps down after handling it
for 3 years
The long death penalty prosecution of Joaquin Rams in Prince William County,
for allegedly drowning his toddler son in 2012, has taken another dramatic
turn. Circuit Court Judge Craig D. Johnston, who had overseen the case since
Rams's indictment in 2013, suddenly recused himself in June following a tragic
death in the family. Then, after 2 other Prince William judges were appointed
and also had to recuse, Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Randy I. Bellows took over
the case and held his first hearing in Manassas Wednesday.
The move brings a new judge to a death penalty case that already is unusual
because the defendant is claiming actual innocence, and he has three witnesses
who corroborate his claim. The case has seen 3 years' worth of pretrial
maneuvering, including a rarely-used special grand jury to investigate Rams, a
reversal of the official cause of death, the disclosure that four jailhouse
informants are prosecution witnesses and a pledge by Prince William prosecutors
to continue pursuing Rams even if he beats the current charges. But Bellows
showed Wednesday that he was well-versed in the case, ruled on 2 somewhat
complicated motions without hesitation, and said the trial date of Feb. 21
would stand.
Rams, 44, is charged in the October 2012 death of Prince McLeod Rams, who was
15-months-old when he was found wet and unconscious in Rams's Manassas City
home one Saturday afternoon. He died the next day at the hospital. Police and
Prince William prosecutors believe Rams drowned the boy to collect $540,000 in
life insurance proceeds for policies he'd taken out on Prince. Prince's mother
had won custody of the boy after extensive hearings in Montgomery County, and
he was on a short unsupervised visitation with his father when he collapsed and
later died.
Rams, who claimed he splashed cold water on the boy because he was having a
febrile seizure, was arrested in January 2013 after the Virginia medical
examiner ruled that Prince died of drowning. He was indicted for capital murder
in July 2013, and Johnston began presiding over the case. But recently,
Johnston suffered his own tragedy: a toddler in his family was killed when
another family members accidentally ran over the child, several lawyers
familiar with the case said.
At a hearing in June, Prince William Circuit Court Judge Lon Farris took the
bench and told the lawyers, "Judge Johnston wants me to express his apologies
at having to withdraw, with the tragic events that occurred in his family in
the last few weeks. He simply does not feel emotionally that he can handle the
subject matter of this case. I assure you there were no legal or ethical
matters resulting in his needing to withdraw from the case."
But the appointment of Farris didn't last long. Rams' lawyers pointed out that
he had served as an "ex parte" judge in the case, hearing issues that one side
didn't want to present in front of the other side. Farris initially declined to
recuse, court records show, then changed his mind and stepped down in late
June.
In July, Prince William Circuit Court Judge Steven S. Smith was appointed by
the Virginia Supreme Court to take over the case. But the lawyers discovered
that when Smith was in private practice, his firm had represented Rams on an
unrelated matter. Smith recused.
The state Supreme Court then appointed Bellows, who is no stranger to stepping
up for another judge in high-profile cases. Last year, he took over the trial
of Alexandria's Charles Severance, accused of 3 slayings there, after Fairfax
Circuit Court Judge Jane Marum Roush was appointed to the state Supreme Court.
And in 2008 he took on his 1st death penalty case, stepping in for the retrial
of Fairfax???s Alfredo Prieto after the original judge became Fairfax chief
judge. A jury sentenced Prieto to death, Bellows imposed that sentence in 2010
and Prieto was executed last year.
Bellows is both a former public defender in the District and a former federal
prosecutor in Alexandria, handling high-profile spy cases such as FBI double
agent Robert Hanssen, before joining the Fairfax bench in 2002. He played a key
role in the bringing scrutiny to the 2013 Fairfax police killing of John Geer,
ordering the police to release their investigative and internal affairs records
to the family in its civil suit. That set off a chain of events that led to the
criminal conviction of Officer Adam Torres for involuntary manslaughter earlier
this year.
Bellows now steps into his second death penalty case, but this time there is no
official cause of death: the original ruling of drowning was reversed by
Virginia's chief medical examiner in 2014 to "undetermined." In addition,
Prince William prosecutors have said they plan to use 4 jailhouse informants
against Rams, although one was ruled incompetent to stand trial for 2 years and
another was found to be malingering when he claimed mental illness. Rams's
lawyers asked for a "reliability" hearing on whether the informants were
suitable to testify, but Johnston ruled against them. The collapse of a
jailhouse informant's testimony in the D.C. murder case of federal intern
Chandra Levy recently led to the dismissal of a conviction in her 2001 death .
On Wednesday, Bellows took on his 1st key issue in the Rams case. Rams's
attorneys asked him to give the jury an instruction during the penalty phase of
the case - if Rams is convicted - that if jurors are not unanimous in voting
for a death sentence, the judge will impose a life sentence without parole.
Defense attorney Chris Leibig, who also represented Charles Severance in front
of Bellows, presented an affidavit from Scott E. Sundby, a capital punishment
expert who said that, absent such an instruction, jurors often believe failing
to reach a unanimous decision will cause a retrial or a resentencing, and that
"jurors favoring life have changed their vote to death because of a mistaken
concern."
But Bellows had not only researched the law, he had dug out a 2010 law review
article Sundby had written about his research on death penalty jurors. The
judge noted that the Virginia Supreme Court had weighed in against such an
explanatory instruction to jurors on what happens if they aren't unanimous and
that the U.S. Supreme Court had approvingly cited that reasoning.
"We don't want to communicate to jurors," Bellows said, "any reason for them to
avoid their solemn responsibility to figure out what the appropriate sentence
is." He rejected the defense request.
When prosecutors wanted to add extra aliases to Rams's indictment, to be sure
that no potential juror had known him under a different name, Bellows knew that
Rams had changed his name years ago, from his birth name of John Anthony
Ramirez. "Was that in 2000 or 2002?" he asked. (It was 2002.) The judge allowed
the aliases to be added.
Bellows said the trial remained slotted for 2 months beginning Feb. 21, and set
nine pretrial hearing dates in coming months. Chief Deputy Commonwealth's
Attorney Jim Willett said the prosecution's case would only take 5 to 6 days,
and that even in the penalty phase of the case he would not seek to introduce
evidence of 2 other Rams-related death cases. Rams's girlfriend, Shawn Mason,
was shot to death in 2003 in Manassas City, and his mother, Alma Collins, was
found asphyxiated in 2008. Prosecutors now believe Rams is responsible for both
deaths and Willett previously sought to introduce them in the Prince Rams case.
Johnston rejected that in 2014.
In arguing against granting Rams bond earlier this year, Willett said
prosecutors planned to charge Rams with those murders if he is acquitted of
killing Prince. Johnston then denied bond for Rams, who has been in jail for 3
years but had not previously requested bond or pushed for a speedy trial.
Bellows did not say Wednesday whether he would reconsider any issues already
decided by Johnston.
(source: Tom Jackman, Washington Post)
FLORIDA:
Florida won't budge on lethal injection records request----Lawyers for 7 death
row inmates and the First Amendment Coalition of Arizona filed a subpoena
seeking years of records related to Florida's triple-drug lethal injection
protocol, including the types of drugs purchased, the strengths and amounts,
the expiration dates and suppliers' names.
Lawyers representing Arizona death row inmates aren't backing down from a
battle with Florida corrections officials over the release of documents related
to execution drugs, part of a drawn-out challenge to Arizona's lethal-injection
process.
The Florida Department of Corrections is refusing to release the documents,
arguing that the information is exempt under the Sunshine State's broad
open-records law.
Corrections officials released some of the records to the media, but have
refused to provide any of the information to the plaintiffs in the Arizona
case, according to documents filed by the Arizona plaintiffs Monday in federal
court.
Lawyers for seven Death Row inmates and the First Amendment Coalition of
Arizona in June filed a subpoena seeking years of records related to Florida's
triple-drug lethal injection protocol, including the types of drugs purchased,
the strengths and amounts of the drugs, the expiration dates of the drugs and
the names of suppliers.
Arizona's death penalty has been on hold for 2 years following the botched 2014
execution of inmate Joseph Wood, who died nearly 2 hours after the
lethal-injection procedure was started.
Before the Florida Department of Corrections filed a motion to quash the
subpoena in July, the Arizona lawyers offered to limit the scope of their
records request and to keep the documents off-limits to the public.
But after the sides met on July 19, the Florida corrections agency "reiterated
that it does 'not intend to produce any information pursuant to the subpoena
without court order,'" lawyer Joshua Anderson, who represents the Arizona
plaintiffs, wrote in a 15-page objection to the state's motion to quash the
subpoena.
The Arizona lawyers sought similar records from at least 3 other states -
Georgia, Missouri and Texas - that have provided the information, according to
the court filing.
The Arizona death-penalty challenge is focused on whether the use of midazolam,
the first step in a three-drug lethal-injection cocktail, violates Eighth
Amendment protections from cruel or unusual punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court
has held that, in those types of cases, prisoners must provide an available
alternative to the method of execution being challenged. Gathering the
information from the other states is a "core component" to the inmates' claim
that Arizona's lethal-injection process is unconstitutional, their lawyers
argued.
"If the judicial system were to, on the one hand, require plaintiffs bringing a
method of execution claim to prove that a known alternative exists and is
available while, on the other hand, blocking discovery necessary to prove that
fact, it would create a burden that is effectively impossible to satisfy,"
Anderson wrote.
Defendants in the Arizona case claim that the case is moot because Arizona
corrections officials do not have midazolam and cannot obtain more.
Pfizer, which manufactures midazolam, in March announced that it would not
distribute the drugs for use in capital punishment.
Finding out how other states have handled the midazolam shortage is "directly
relevant to rebutting" the Arizona defendants' claim that they cannot acquire
more of the drug, Anderson wrote.
A bitterly divided U.S. Supreme Court last year signed off on the use of
midazolam for executions, ruling that lawyers for Oklahoma prisoners failed to
prove that the use of the drug "entails a substantial risk of severe pain." The
Oklahoma prisoners had argued that the drug does not effectively sedate inmates
during the execution process.
Florida and other states began using midazolam as the first step in a
three-drug execution cocktail in 2013, after previously using a drug called
pentobarbital sodium. The states switched because Danish-based manufacturer
Lundbeck refused to sell pentobarbital sodium directly to corrections agencies
for use in executions and ordered its distributors to also stop supplying the
drug for lethal-injection purposes.
In the Arizona case, Florida officials argued that the requested documents are
privileged and protected from disclosure under Florida law.
But the state law "protects only the identity of FDC's (Florida Department of
Corrections') supplier of execution drugs," Anderson wrote. "It does not shield
all information related to FDC's lethal injection supplies, nor does it protect
the identity of any entity who has declined to work with FDC or has refused to
provide it with execution drugs."
The battle over the records comes as Florida's death penalty is under intense
scrutiny following a U.S. Supreme Court decision in January that found the
state's death penalty sentencing system gave too much power to judges, and not
juries.
The Florida Supreme Court is poised to deal with the aftermath of that
decision, which came in a case known as Hurst v. Florida, as well as a law
hurriedly passed this spring to deal with the Hurst ruling. The Florida court
indefinitely postponed two executions following the Hurst ruling.
State corrections officials for years have kept shrouded in secrecy information
about the lethal-injection drugs, the subject of a separate federal lawsuit in
Florida.
But, in late June, the agency released logs to media outlets, including The
News Service of Florida, which had requested information about the drugs. The
handwritten logs provide limited data about the three drugs, such as the
amounts and dates on which the state received the drugs. Information about the
expiration of the drugs was incomplete, and agency officials refused to answer
questions about the logs.
An analysis of the logs found that the state has enough midazolam for about 13
executions, but it is unclear when the drugs will expire.
The drug logs "fall woefully short of identifying whether the supply that
Florida is getting is pure and uncontaminated because we don't know where
they're getting it from," Maria DeLiberato, an attorney representing Florida
death row inmate Dane Abdool, a plaintiff in the Florida case, said in a
telephone interview Wednesday. "That stresses the need, and that's why our
litigation is ongoing, for open discovery in these cases so that we can
litigate whether or not Florida can carry out an execution that comports with
the Eighth Amendment."
(source: Gainesville Sun)
*******************
Jacksonville Faith Leaders Protest 'Overzealous' Use Of Death Penalty
The plea is partly a response to this week's Harvard University study labeling
Duval County among a handful of counties nationwide that sentence the majority
of criminals to die.
"So, let us lift up our voices and in the name of justice, demand the death
penalty be put to death," Unitarian Universalist Church Pastor Phillip Baber
said Wednesday on the steps of the Duval County Courthouse.
Baber and dozens of other religious leaders signed a letter to State Attorney
Angela Corey's office, calling for the abolition of the death penalty a day
after a Harvard University report criticized Corey as "overzealous."
Corey defended her use of the death penalty in a written statement Tuesday,
saying she???d never apologize for standing up for victims and their families.
But Darlene Farah, the mother of murdered Shelby Farah, said that's only true
if you agree with her.
"I'm fighting for what I feel is right, and as far as these political comments
that she's making? Angela Corey made it political when she refused to take his
offer," she said.
Farah said she wanted to avoid years of appeals by supporting an attempted plea
deal by her daughter's killer, James Rhodes, which would have given him 2
consecutive life sentences plus 20 years, but Corey sought the death penalty
instead.
State Attorney Angela Corey and Pastor R.L. Gundy will discuss Fair Punishment
Project's death penalty study on "First Coast Connect" Thursday morning.
(source: WJCT news)
********************
Death penalty protesters takes aim at State Attorney
"Regardless of his crime," Catholic Bishop Felipe Estevez told death penalty
protesters Wednesday, "he is still is a creation of God."
Estevez joined more than a dozen faith leaders in Jacksonville, calling for an
end to the death penalty. The rally came on the heels of a Harvard Law School's
Fair Punishment Project study, which found Duval is 1 of just 16 counties in
the nation to impose the death penalty more than 5 times over the past 5 years.
It's a trend out of step with the rest of the country, which has seen a 50 %
drop in the number of death sentences since 2009.
But Florida continues to punish by death. 4 Florida counties lead the nation,
and Duval County ranks 2nd.
Between 2006-2015, Pinellas imposed the death penalty 7 times, Miami-Dade 8
times, Hillsborough 9 times and Duval 29 times.
This study also looked at who is receiving those death sentences. Researchers
found that African Americans made up 87 % of those sentenced to death, even
though they comprise just 30 % of Duval County's population. And 48 % of those
sentenced also had some kind of cognitive impairment or mental illness,
according to the study.
That fact was highlighted by Minister Philip Baber. "Execution is meant to be
reserved only for the worst of the worst," he said. "But this report shows in
Duval County, it is being used against weakest of the weak."
The report is critical of State Attorney Angela Corey - and also very critical
of Public Defender Matt Shirk's office, which it says has done a poor job
defending clients charged with the death penalty.
But the meat of the report is the numbers, which make clear that Duval County
is different, ranking 2nd in the nation for the sheer amount of death penalty
sentences it hands down.
Speaking outside the Duval County Courthouse, the Rev. Susan Rodgers said those
figures don't translate to a safer society. "We now know very little is gained
through the application of the death penalty other than raising the status of
overzealous prosecutors."
The report comes at a bad time for Corey, who is in the final days of a fierce
reelection battle. Corey hints that the timing is no accident. "I would love an
answer from the author of this report as to why they chose to leave the other 3
Florida counties out for a later report. I'm certain it has nothing to do with
the fact that I'm up for election next Tuesday."
Part II of the report is due in September.
Corey also says report is filled with inaccuracies and unfair comparisons --
like the figure that compares African-Americans sentenced to death with the
overall county population. "Which is amazingly unscientific," says Corey. "The
comparison should be to the group of people eligible for death penalties, and
then the percentages would be more accurate and more informative."
The report isn't the only criticism Corey faces. Darlene Farah - also at
Wednesdays' protest -- is the focus of an New York Times Magazine story. For
months, Farah has been asking prosecutors to drop the death penalty against her
Daughter Shelby's killer, a position she says prosecutors have punished her
for.
Corey addressed the issue in an interview on News 1045 WOKV's morning show. "We
give [victims'] feelings great weight, and we have done that with the very
vocal Darlene Farah," Corey said, "who appears to be more interested in
publicity than in grieving for her daughter."
Farah's Pastor Reginald Gundy, who has led similar protests in the past, says
whether it's the Harvard Law study or Farah's case, the national focus on Duval
County is welcome - and overdue.
"The death penalty is dying in this country, and its time for us to let the
death penalty die with it."
(source: firstcoastnews.com)
***********************
Jacksonville clergy members call for death penalty to end
A coalition of more than 50 local clergy members called Wednesday for the end
of the death penalty in light of a new Harvard University study that shows
Duval County is among a handful of U.S. counties that most frequently send
convicted criminals to their deaths.
Darlene Farah, who has called for her daughter's killer to serve a life
sentence instead of being executed, stood among the clergy in front of the
Duval County Courthouse.
A New York Times Magazine story highlighting the Harvard study featured Farah
and her clashes with State Attorney Angela Corey was also released Tuesday.
The Rev. Susan Rogers of The Well at Springfield explained how families who
oppose the death penalty, like Farah, are marginalized.
"They are told that they are not victims. Families are victims. They are the
ones left behind to deal with the shattered pieces of their broken lives,"
Rogers said. "There is no closure as promised, either, when a loved one's
murderer is put to death."
Farah did not speak at the press conference, but afterward she told reporters
her stance is not political. She wants prosecutors to do what is right.
Rogers said her faith compels her to take a stand against the death penalty and
its racial and socioeconomic disparities.
"We now know but have chosen for too long not to see that murdering those who
murder is not healing anyone for anything," she said. "In particular, it is not
healing the deep pain and suffering that is experienced by families of murdered
loved ones."
Pastor Reginald Gundy of Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church focused on the
racial disparity seen in the application of the death penalty. Since 2010, 87 %
of those sentenced to death in Duval County were people of color, according to
the report.
"And now here in Duval County, we have empirical evidence that racial bias is
being used as it relates to the death penalty," Gundy said, before quoting
Supreme Court justices. "It's just not true that we execute the people who are
the most culpable."
Bishop Felipe Estevez of the Catholic Diocese of St. Augustine said all human
life is sacred. About 1/2 of the clergy who signed a letter to be delivered to
the State Attorney's Office are affiliated with the Catholic Church.
"That is our position," he said. "Safety for the city, safety and protection of
the individual, that regardless of his crimes, still is a creature of God,
still has a dignity."
(source: jacksonville.com)
ALABAMA:
Study: Mobile, Jefferson counties 'outliers' with death penalty
2 Alabama counties are among 16 "outlier" counties across the nation that are
plagued by problems of overzealous prosecutors, ineffective defense lawyers, or
racial bias when it comes to the prosecution and imposition of the death
penalty in capital murder cases, a report issued Tuesday by a Harvard Law
School project states.
This week's report focuses on 8 of those counties, including Mobile. The 2nd
half of the report, which will provide details on Jefferson County, is to be
released in September.
Mobile County District Attorney Ashley Rich disagreed with several of the
findings in the report "Too Broken to Fix: An In-depth Look at America's
Outlier Death Penalty Counties" issued by Harvard Law's Fair Punishment
Project.
Rich said she hadn't been able to read the entire report or the material it
references. From the portion of the report she did review, she said she found
misstatements, untrue statements, and some statements that were unclear as to
what case the report is referencing.
One problem Rich said she saw was that the cases mentioned in the report don't
mention what happened to the victims.
"They never reported what the defendants did," Rich said. "They didn't want to
bring that up. They didn't want people to know what horrible, heinous things
the defendants did."
The report looked at 10 years of court opinions and records from 8 of these 16
"outlier counties: Mobile, Caddo Parish, La., Clark, NV, Duval, Fla., Harris,
Texas, Maricopa Ariz., Kern, Calif., and Riverside, Calif. The report also
analyzed all of the new death sentences handed down in the counties between
2010 and 2015.
Of the 3,143 county or county equivalents in the United States, only 16 imposed
5 or more death sentences between 2010 and 2015, according to a statement from
the authors of the report. The project reviewed more than 200 direct appeals
opinions handed down over the decade between 2006 and 2015 in the 8 counties
reviewed in Tuesday's report.
"In the small number of counties where the death penalty still exists, we found
evidence of egregiously bad defense lawyering, rampant prosecutorial misconduct
and overzealousness, and a pattern of racial bias that undermines the fairness
of the death penalty," Rob Smith, one of the report's researchers, stated in
the project's press statement.
Among the Mobile cases noted in the report is one in which Rich got a death
sentence for a bipolar woman - Heather Leavell-Keaton - who was convicted in
the killings of her stepchildren. "Throughout the trial, Rich kept 2 faceless
sculptures with her in the courtroom facing the jury," the report states.
"That's simply not true," Rich said of the sculptures. The sculptures were only
present in the courtroom when the judge issued his final judgment that
Leavell-Keaton be sentenced to death - not during trial or during the
sentencing hearing before the jury, which recommended 11-1 for the death
penalty, she said.
The jury had all the evidence in the case, including her bipolar history, when
it recommended the death penalty, Rich said. The woman tortured a baby, slowly
poisoned the children and watched as the co-defendant strangled them, she said.
Alabama law allows the conviction and death penalty for someone who is bipolar,
Rich said. "But they don't talk about that," she said of the report.
Other findings
Among the other findings from the report regarding Mobile:
--Between 2006 and 2015 Mobile County had 10 death sentences reviewed on direct
appeal (these are automatic appeals).
--Between 2010 and 2015 there were 8 death sentences imposed.
--In 2014 the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the death sentence of
an intellectually impaired man, Derrick Shawn Penn, after Rich introduced and
repeatedly referred to "improper and highly inflammatory evidence." Rich said
the appeals court did not use those words. An Associated Press article stated
that Penn was found guilty in the shooting deaths of his estranged wife, Janet
Penn, and her boyfriend, Demetrius Powe, in 2009. The appeals court, according
to the AP story, stated the trial judge did not give the jury proper
instructions about how it should consider a protection from abuse petition that
Penn had filed before she was killed.
--Rich and prosecutor Jo Beth Murphee account for nine of the 10 Mobile County
death sentences in the study. Rich said other prosecutors also were involved in
those cases and that she and Murphee were the senior trial attorneys so they
would naturally get more capital cases.
--70% of the 10 appellate cases involved defendants with significant mental
impairments or other forms of mitigation.
--Bad lawyering was a persistent problem across all 16 "outlier" counties. In
most of the counties, the average mitigation presentation, where defense
lawyers present evidence that the defendant's life should be spared, at the
penalty phase of the trial lasted approximately 1 day. "While this is just one
data point for determining the quality of legal representation, this finding
reveals appalling inadequacies. The average in Mobile was less than 1 day,"
according to a statement from the project.
The report also stated that Mobile County has had a history of racial bias and
exclusion - noting the 1981 lynching of Michael Donald by members of the Ku
Klux Klan, a judge who allegedly refused bail reduction until he first learned
the client's color; and findings that in the late 1980s and early 1990s Mobile
County were found to have violated rules 7 times by striking jurors based on
race.
The most recent case the study noted involving claims of juror exclusion - in
which prosecutors struck 17 blacks from the jury pool - based on race was that
of Donald Whatley, who was convicted in November and recommended by a jury to
die for the 2003 slaying of downtown Mobile motel owner Pete Patel. The Alabama
Court of Criminal Appeals ultimately ruled the prosecution did not exclude
jurors based on race in that case, Rich said.
"In looking at these outlier counties, it is very clear that race is still
playing a role in determining who is sentenced to die," Professor Frank
Baumgartner of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, stated in the
Project's press statement.
Rich said she had only seen a portion of the report and felt she didn't have
time to rebut everything. She also said she wanted to see the spreadsheet the
project referenced in its report. She said she had requested that the group
send it to her.
Non-unanimous verdicts
While this week's report doesn't include Jefferson County, The New York Times
Magazine in a story on Tuesday cited figures it received from the Fair
Punishment Project that Jefferson County had five death sentences handed down
since 2010 - all of them involving black defendants.
The report points out that Florida and Alabama were "outliers" because those
states are the only ones to allow juries to recommend the death penalty on
non-unanimous votes.
The New York Times, in its story, stated that of the 13 total death penalty
sentences issued in Jefferson and Mobile Counties, only 1 case included a
unanimous jury recommendation.
Jefferson County District Attorney Brandon Falls declined to comment on this
week's study.
(source: al.com)
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