Aug. 27
TEXAS----stay of impending execution
Lengthy Gap In Texas Executions To Continue As State Court Halts Yet Another
Ronaldo Ruiz was set to be executed on Aug. 31, but - as with the prior 6
scheduled executions in Texas that have been stayed or delayed - a Texas court
ordered a stay of execution for him on Friday.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Friday halted the upcoming execution of
Ronaldo Ruiz, who was set to be put to death on Aug. 31.
Texas was set to execute Ruiz, a hit man in the 1992 murder of a 29-year-old
woman. Ruiz, 43, was set to die by lethal injection on Aug. 31 after he was
convicted in the murder-for-hire of Theresa Rodriguez.
Ruiz would have become the 6th inmate to be executed in Texas in 2016.
In his latest habeas corpus application, Ruiz raised questions about deficiency
of his trial counsel and his initial habeas counsel, as well as questions about
the constitutionality of executing him "over 2 decades after his conviction" -
a matter the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly declined to consider.
In the Court of Criminal Appeals' brief, unsigned order, the court restates
Ruiz's claims and then concludes, "After reviewing applicant's writ
application, we have determined that his execution should be stayed pending
further order by this Court."
The country's busiest death chamber has not carried out an execution in nearly
4 months. The past 6 scheduled executions in Texas - including Ruiz's
previously scheduled July execution date - were stayed, delayed, or withdrawn
for various reasons.
This marks the longest period Texas has gone without killing inmates since
2014, when no executions took place for nearly 5 months amid furor over
Oklahoma's botched execution of Clayton Lockett and legal challenges related to
Texas' drug secrecy.
Jason Clark, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice
(TDCJ), told BuzzFeed News prior to Friday's ruling in Ruiz's case that the
agency was "not involved in setting or withdrawing execution dates." He added
that the TDCJ "stands ready to carry out" executions.
In a year already marked by fewer executions, Texas is the only state with
executions scheduled for the remainder of 2016. Other active death penalty
states are grappling with a variety of obstacles ranging from the effect of
Supreme Court rulings earlier this year to drug shortages and the fallout from
botched executions.
Even in Texas, in August alone now, 3 scheduled executions have been stayed -
while the date for another was changed.
Ruiz was hired by 2 brothers, Mark Rodriguez and Michael Rodriguez, to kill
Michael's wife Theresa for a life insurance scheme. Ruiz shot and killed
Theresa in the couple's garage after following them home from a movie theater.
The brothers paid Ruiz $2,000 for the murder.
Ruiz was first scheduled to die in 2007, but a federal appeals court gave him a
reprieve. His execution was then set for July 27 of this year after the US
Supreme Court refused to review his case in May 2015. However, his execution
was pushed to Aug. 31 because of the state's failure to sufficiently notify his
counsel of his pending execution, Jennifer Moreno, an attorney at the Berkeley
Law Death Penalty Clinic told BuzzFeed News.
On Aug. 19, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit from 5 death row inmates,
including Ruiz, who demanded that the state retest its drugs before executing
them. That case is now on appeal before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
(source: BuzzFeed News)
***************************
Executions under Greg Abbott, Jan. 21, 2015-present----19
Executions in Texas: Dec. 7, 1982----present-----537
Abbott#--------scheduled execution date-----name------------Tx. #
20---------September 14-------------Robert Jennings-------538
21---------October 5----------------Barney Fuller---------539
22---------October 19---------------Terry Edwards---------540
23---------November 2---------------Ramiro Gonzales-------541
24---------December 7---------------John Battaglia--------542
(sources: TDCJ & Rick Halperin)
*************************
Death penalty to be sought in accused killer of 6 in family
Attorneys say a 36-year-old Utah man charged with shooting 6 members of a
suburban Houston family 2 years ago will face the death penalty when he goes on
trial for capital murder set for next year.
Ronald Haskell wasn't in court Friday as prosecutors and defense lawyers
disclosed the trial plans during a court hearing.
He's jailed without bond and charged with fatally shooting Stephen and Katie
Stay and 4 of their children. A 5th and oldest child, 15-year-old Cassidy, also
was shot but survived by playing dead during the July 2014 rampage at her home
in Spring. Authorities have said Haskell was trying to find his estranged
ex-wife, who is Katie Stay's sister.
Haskell's lawyer, Doug Durham, says Haskell's mental health issues likely will
be part of the defense.
(source: Associated Prss)
NEW JERSEY:
NJ lawmakers seek reinstatement of death penalty
A state lawmaker wants to reinstate the death penalty in New Jersey for certain
crimes against children, police and corrections officers.
Assemblyman Ron Dancer, R-Ocean, on Friday said he will introduce a bill to
restore capital punishment for convictions of certain homicides, including the
killing of a victim 17 or younger.
Dancer said the legislation is a response to the murder Saturday of a
2-year-old Pennsauken boy, allegedly at the hands of his mother's live-in
boyfriend. Zacchery Tricoche, 24, is charged with 1st-degree murder for
allegedly beating the toddler to death.
"This is the type of case that demands that the death penalty be an option for
the courts," Dancer said in a statement.
The bill would extend the death penalty to terror suspects and suspects who
kill police or corrections officers.
A similar bill sponsored by Assemblyman Anthony Bucco, R-Morris, would restore
capital punishment for convicted murderers who commit another murder while in
custody.
The goal of that bill is to protect corrections officers from jailed felons who
feel they have nothing to lose.
The death penalty was repealed in New Jersey in 2007 in favor of life sentences
without parole.
Another bill, sponsored by Assemblyman David Rible, R-Monmouth, would restore
capital punishment under wide list of aggravating factors that include
defendants previously convicted of murder, those who torture the victim, those
who place others besides the victim at risk of death, those who kill for money
and those who kill to escape confinement or apprehension.
A Fairleigh Dickinson University poll last year found that 57 % of respondents
favored the death penalty for certain crimes. A 2007 Quinnipiac University poll
found that 78 % of New Jersey voters supported the death penalty for the most
violent cases.
8 suspects on New Jersey's death row saw their sentences commuted to life in
prison in 2007 when the death penalty was repealed. They included Jesse
Timmendequas, the serial pedophile convicted of raping and murdering 7-year-old
Megan Kanka. The girl's death led to Megan's Law, creating sex-offender
registries in New Jersey.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, New Jersey is 1 of 20 states
that do not sanction capital punishment.
The last person put to death by the state in New Jersey was Ralph Hudson, an
alcoholic who stabbed his waitress wife, Myrtle, to death in front of a large
crowd of diners at Captain Starn's Inlet Restaurant on the Atlantic City
Boardwalk. He was executed in the electric chair in 1963.
(source: pressofatlanticcity.com)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Group: Court Ruling Proof of Death-Penalty Reform Need
A recent court ruling that a man on death row was denied a fair trial is yet
another sign that the state's death penalty should be abolished, according to
Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (PADP).
In the case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that James
A. Dennis, convicted and sentenced to death in October of 1992, for the murder
of Chedell Williams, was denied a fair trial because the prosecution suppressed
evidence of his innocence.
"The fact that it's taken 25 years to address this extreme prosecutorial
misconduct is precisely why the death penalty doesn't work," said Kathleen
Lucas, executive director of PADP. "This case should send a strong message that
it is time for the death penalty to go."
No one has been executed in Pennsylvania since 1999 when Gary Heidnik gave up
his right to an appeal. The last person to be executed without giving up the
right to appeal was Elmo Smith in 1962.
None of the 178 prisoners on death row will be executed for at least the next
two years as Gov. Tom Wolf in February 2015 declared a moratorium on the death
penalty.
And for its part, the legislature almost certainly won't act on any changes in
the law until the completion of a joint study by the Justice Center for
Research at Penn State, and the Joint State Government Commission, under a
Senate resolution approved in 2011.
A spokesperson for the Justice Center said they expect completion of the study
within a few months.
Whatever the findings, the PADP and other anti-death-penalty groups will be up
against the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association, which according to
Executive Director Richard Long supports enforcement of the current law.
Also Republican candidate for attorney general, John Rafferty, supports the
death penalty, a campaign spokesman said.
Democratic candidate for attorney general Josh Shapiro said: "I believe in the
most heinous of cases, the death penalty should be an option. However, it is
clear from both the research and how it has been used in Pennsylvania that it
needs to be reformed."
(source: thelegalintelligencer.com)
**********************
DA to seek death penalty in Wilkinsburg mass shooting cases
The Allegheny County District Attorney's Office announced Friday that the
commonwealth will seek the death penalty against the 2 men charged in the
Wilkinsburg mass shooting that left 6 dead, including an unborn child.
Cheron Shelton, 29, and Robert Thomas, 27, are both charged with criminal
homicide, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, criminal conspiracy and
attempted homicide in connection with the deadly shooting.
Chanetta Powell, a 25-year-old who was 8 months pregnant, and four others --
Jerry Shelton, 35; Tina Shelton, 37; Brittany Powell, 27; and Shada Mahone, 26
-- were all killed in the ambush in the backyard of a home on Franklin Avenue
on March 9. Powell's unborn child also died. Cheron Shelton is not related to
Jerry or Tina Shelton.
(source: WPXI news)
FLORIDA/ARIZONA:
Push continues for Florida lethal injection details
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 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 7 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 3-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 3-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."
(source: The St. Augustine Record)
TENNESSEE:
Maryville police officer killed in 'ambush,' suspect could face death penalty
The suspect in the shooting death of a Maryville police officer will be charged
with criminal homicide and 4 counts of aggravated assault, the Blount County
Sheriff's Office announced a press conference Friday evening. The sheriff's
office says the charge could go up to capital murder, which would make him
eligible for the death penalty.
Maryville Police Chief Tony Crisp says Officer Kenny Moats, 32, died at
University of Tennessee Medical Center after he was shot in the neck during a
domestic call on Alcoa Trail. The shooting happened Thursday at around 4:00
p.m.
Members of the law enforcement, as well as Maryville Fire Department gathered
to salute Officer Moats and say farewell to their friend and co-worker.
"We ask our citizens to remember this officer's family. He has 3 small
children. It's a very trying time for his family. It's a trying time for the
men and women of the Maryville Police Department. It's a trying time for the
law enforcement in this community," said Maryville Police Chief Tony Crisp,
holding back tears.
A memorial was set up outside the Maryville Police Department. Dozens of people
stopped by with flowers and to remember Officer Moats.
The city of Knoxville says they will turn the Henley Bridge lights blue Friday
night in honor of Officer Kenny Moats.
Smith Funeral Home will handle the arrangements for Officer Moats' funeral. A
candlelight vigil to honor Officer Kenny Moats is scheduled at 8:00 p.m. at the
city of Maryville's Theater in the Park behind the Blount County Courthouse.
(source: WJHL news)
CALIFORNIA:
Save the death penalty. No on Prop. 62
Opponents of California's death penalty have been highly successful at
thwarting executions since the state resumed executions in 1992 after a 20-year
hiatus. Their latest ploy is Proposition 62, which would repeal the death
penalty and re-sentence death row inmates to life without parole. Measure
sponsors argue that capital punishment presents the risk of executing an
innocent person, but also state California's death penalty is "simply
unworkable."
That's a cheeky stand, coming from the corner that has been throwing monkey
wrenches into the criminal justice system to subvert death penalty law. Over
the years, appellate attorneys have introduced endless time-sucking, frivolous
appeals that have jammed the courts, largely on technical grounds that have
nothing to do with guilt or innocence, e.g., the trial lawyer wasn't top
drawer; the defendant's parents were abusive; lethal injection may not be 100 %
painless.
In 2006, lawyers argued that convicted torture-murderer Michael Morales might
feel pain in his last moments because of the state's 3-drug lethal-injection
protocol. A federal judge granted their appeal and effectively froze the
capital punishment pipeline for a decade.
Gov. Jerry Brown had pledged to implement the death penalty, even though he
personally opposes it. Yet his corrections department was happy to sit back and
let the law not work for years. In exasperation, the tough-on-crime Criminal
Justice Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit on behalf of the families of murder
victims of 2 death row inmates to prod the state to develop a drug protocol
that should pass muster with the U.S. Supreme Court. State Attorney General
Kamala Harris, who also said she would uphold California's law despite her
personal objections, tried to block the suit on the dubious grounds that the
victims' families "lack standing." She failed. The families won. Sacramento
finally devised a 1-drug protocol, which should go into effect after a vetting
period expected to end soon.
So now, just as the obstructionists are about to run out of string, they have
put a measure on the November ballot to end California's death penalty.
Opponent Matt Cherry of Death Penalty Focus told The Chronicle editorial board
that capital punishment "has failed in California." Since 1992, he added, "Just
13 people have been executed," which he noted constitutes about 1 % of the 930
individuals sentenced to death since 1978. It's like an extorting mobster
telling an honest businessman that it no longer pays to work hard and follow
the rules. You might as well just toss him the keys to the shop and save
yourself some heartache.
In their ballot argument, Prop. 62 supporters warn that when executions resume,
California risks executing an innocent person - like Carlos DeLuna who was
executed in 1989 before an "independent investigation later proved his
innocence." Problem: Texas executed DeLuna. Prop. 62's backers can't name an
exonerated individual from California's post-1978 death row because there
aren't any.
In 2012, I asked Brown if he had considered appointing a panel to recommend
death row inmates deserving of a commutation. Brown personally remains a death
penalty opponent, so his answer is instructive: "As attorney general, I think
the representation was good. I think people have gotten exquisite due process
in the state of California. It goes on for 20 or 25 years and to think that
they've missed anything like they have in some other states, I have not seen
any evidence of it. None. I know people say, 'Oh, there have been all these
innocent people.' Well, I have not seen one name on death row that???s been
told to me."
At a different editorial board meeting, former San Quentin State Prison Warden
Jeanne Woodford, Ana Zamora of the No of 65 campaign and Berkeley law Professor
Elisabeth Semel vigorously defended all of the hijinks played by
anti-death-penalty lawyers. They oppose both the death penalty and Prop. 66,
which is supposed to streamline executions.
Why does it take a year to process an appeal based on a convicted killer's
childhood? Why doesn???t the Habeas Corpus Resource Center focus on worthy
appeals and stop jamming up the courts with frivolous paper - and then complain
about court backlogs? Why have opponents gone after the state for getting
lethal injection drugs from compounding pharmacies or other states, after
opponents made it impossible to secure drugs from once legal sources? The
answer to everything: Defense attorneys have to do it, because "it's the law."
Well, so is the death penalty.
If California voters should decide to repeal capital punishment, do not believe
for 1 minute they won't use every dirty trick to undermine life without parole.
And they'll tell you they have to because, "it's the law."
Capital punishment in California
930 individuals sentenced to death since 1978
13 death row inmates executed
2 inmates sentenced in California were executed in other states, Missouri and
Virginia
71 death row inmates died of natural causes
25 death row inmates killed themselves
8 death row inmates died of other causes
[source: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation]
(source: Opinion; Debra J. Saunders is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist)
*********************
Capital punishment serves a purpose
Writing in support of Proposition 62, a California ballot initiative to repeal
the death penalty, former El Dorado county supervisor Ron Briggs makes the
tiresomely familiar claim that "the death penalty does not make our communities
any safer" and "is not a deterrent to crime."
For death penalty opponents, it is a venerable article of faith that executing
murderers doesn't deter other murders and that abolishing the death penalty
doesn't make killings more likely. Never mind that a thick sheaf of
peer-reviewed academic studies refutes the abolitionists' belief, as, of
course, does common sense: All penalties have some deterrent effect, and the
more severe the penalty, the more it deters. Let a parking meter expire, and
you risk a $20 ticket; park in a handicapped spot, and risk a $200 ticket.
Which violation are you less likely to commit?
It doesn't take a social-science degree to grasp the real-world difference
between facing vs. not facing a potential death sentence. Criminals grasp it
too.
Dmitry Smirnov did. A resident of British Columbia, Smirnov was smitten with
Jitka Vesel, a pretty Chicago woman he'd met online playing "World of Warcraft"
in 2008 and then dated for several weeks. When Vesel ended the brief
relationship, Smirnov took it badly. He returned to Canada, but kept pursuing
Vesel by phone and online. When she broke off communication with him, he began
plotting to kill her.
Smirnov returned to the United States in 2011, bought a gun and ammunition, and
drove back to Chicago. He attached a GPS device to Vesel's car so he could
track her movements. On the evening of April 13, he tailed her to the
Czechoslovak Heritage Museum in Oak Park, Ill., where she was a curator and
board member. When she came out after a meeting, Smirnov ambushed her. He shot
her repeatedly, firing multiple rounds into the back of her head even after she
had crumpled to the ground.
A deranged suitor? Maybe - but Smirnov wasn't too deranged to first check out
whether Illinois was a death penalty state. He headed back to Chicago to murder
Vesel only after learning that Illinois had recently abolished capital
punishment. When he was questioned afterward by police, according to
prosecutors, he told them he had confirmed Illinois' no-death penalty status
"as recently as the morning of the murder." In an e-mail sent to a friend after
the fact, Smirnov - who voluntarily surrendered to the police - made clear that
he knew what to expect. "Illinois doesn't have the death penalty, so I'll spend
the rest of my life in prison," he wrote.
At trial Smirnov pleaded guilty, and was given a life sentence.
Would Jitka Vesel be alive today if Smirnov had faced the death penalty?
Obviously there is no way to know for sure. But we do know for sure that when
the cost of a crime goes up, the frequency of that crime goes down. Raise the
price of any behavior, and fewer people will do it. The deterrent power of
punishment is axiomatic; criminal law would be meaningless without it.
Still, a penalty cannot deter if it is never imposed. California hasn't
executed a murderer in 10 years. Only 13 killers have been put to death since
1972, when the state legalized capital punishment. Hundreds of savage murderers
have been sentenced to death - there are currently 746 inmates on California's
death row - but endless legal appeals and procedures have made executions, for
all intents and purposes, impossible.
Most Californians understand that their state's death penalty needs to be
fixed, not abolished. Voters defeated a repeal initiative, Proposition 34, in
2012 and appear likely to do the same to Proposition 62, the new repeal
measure, this November. According to a statewide poll released last week by the
Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California at Berkeley,
voters oppose the new death penalty repeal measure by a 10-point margin, 55 %
to 45 %.
On the other hand, California voters strongly support a 2nd death penalty
measure that will also be on the November ballot. Proposition 66, as summarized
by the San Francisco Chronicle, would "speed up executions by setting tight
deadlines for court rulings, placing some limits on appeals, and requiring many
more defense lawyers to take capital cases." The UC Berkeley poll shows voters
backing Proposition 66, with its mend-it-don't-end-it approach, by an
overwhelming 76-to-24 ratio.
The politics of capital punishment are complicated and emotional, but human
nature doesn't change. Granted, incentives and disincentives are never
foolproof. Granted, there will always be cases in which deterrents don't deter.
On the whole, however, when the death penalty is on the books and consistently
enforced, a significant number of homicides will be prevented.
Pretty much by definition, murders that don't happen because criminals are
deterred by the prospect of being executed can't be systematically tallied. But
felons often disclose their motives when asked. In a striking 1961 opinion,
California Supreme Court Justice Marshall McComb plumbed the files of the Los
Angeles Police Department to demonstrate the deterrent effect of the death
penalty on the thinking of violent criminals.
McComb listed numerous examples of homicides not committed because a would-be
killer didn't want to risk capital punishment. Among them:
-- Margaret Elizabeth Daly, arrested for attacking Pete Gibbons with a knife,
who told the investigating officers: "Yeah, I cut him and I should have done a
better job. I would have killed him but I didn't want to go to the gas
chamber."
-- Orelius Mathew Steward, imprisoned for bank robbery, who acknowledged that
he had considered shooting the unaccompanied cop who arrested him: "I could
have blasted him. I thought about it at the time, but I changed my mind when I
thought of the gas chamber."
-- Paul Brusseau, convicted for a string of candy store holdups, which he
committed while pretending to carry a gun. "Asked what his reason was for
simulating a gun rather than using a real one, he replied that he did not want
to get the gas chamber."
Criminals may be evil and pitiless, but criminality isn't a synonym for
stupidity. When murder is punished with death, fewer criminals will murder.
When murder is punished with nothing worse than prison, more criminals will be
emboldened to kill. In the never-ending debate over capital punishment, that is
always what the choice comes down to.
(source: Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe)
USA:
The pursuit of capital punishment for Dylann Roof is a step backward
On Nov. 7 in Charleston, S.C., a federal court will begin selecting a jury in
the death penalty prosecution of Dylann Roof, the accused killer of 9 African
American worshipers at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. At first
glance, the notion of a white man facing the death penalty for murdering black
people in the South - in a killing inspired by the murderer's racist views -
may seem like a marker of racial progress.
It isn't - and those who champion civil rights should not celebrate this
moment. Roof's crime was surely heinous, and his racism was repugnant. But
supporters of racial equality and equal treatment under the law should support
Roof's offer to plead guilty and serve a sentence of life without the
possibility of parole.
How can it be that a lifelong civil rights lawyer such as myself would take
this position? Because the death penalty cannot be separated from the issue of
racial discrimination, especially in the South. The history of slavery and
lynching left deep scars in the black community, and the current death penalty
does not fare much better. More than 8 in 10 of the executions carried out
since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 have occurred in the South.
Blacks make up more than 1/3 of the 1,170 defendants executed in the region,
with most convicted of murdering a white victim.
Given the racial disproportion inherent in the modern application of the death
penalty, it is no surprise that most African Americans (including me) oppose
the death penalty, a position that would also disqualify most of them (and me)
from serving on the jury in Roof's case.
As a result, if the Roof trial continues on its present course, a jury will be
chosen that represents only part of the community. Those who oppose the death
penalty on principle will be struck from the pool of jurors by the presiding
judge. Those who express doubts about the death penalty will likely be struck
by the prosecution. The resulting jury will have fewer blacks, fewer women and
fewer people of faiths that oppose the death penalty than a jury selected at
random from the residents of Charleston. That cannot be a desirable outcome in
such an emotional and racially charged case.
Neither would the adversarial proceeding necessitated by a refusal to accept
Roof's offer to plead guilty and accept a sentence of life without the
possibility of parole. Once the trial begins, there will be a detailed
recounting of the worst day this community has ever experienced. It will be the
prosecution's duty to portray this multiple murder as gruesomely as possible in
order to secure a death sentence. Family members may be called to the stand to
describe precisely what they went through that day and how it affected them.
Likewise, the defense will be obligated to do everything in its power to lessen
Roof's culpability. This is how our adversarial process works, but it is not
necessary here. Without the agony of trying to decide between life and death, a
sentencing proceeding that followed a guilty plea could pay tribute to the
victims, focusing on the value of their lives and the consequences of their
loss. All family members could voice their pain, regardless of their view on
the death penalty. It would not be an easy day, but far better than months of
focusing only on Roof, followed by years of appeals and uncertainty.
Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch has allowed this case to proceed as a capital
prosecution until now, but a new decision point is coming soon. Most criminal
cases settle before trial because it is in the best interests of the entire
community. That could happen here; the offer is already on the table. The
attorney general need only agree.
After the racially inspired attack on the parishioners of Mother Emanuel, as
the church is known, South Carolina took the bold and important step of
permanently lowering the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol
grounds. This powerful symbol - perceived by many as the embodiment of racism
and discrimination - had to go.
With the death penalty, the Justice Department now has the power to lower
another flag that has torn communities apart along racial lines. Capital
punishment in this case may appear to be just retribution for Roof's
unfathomable crime. Yet the real-life operation of the death penalty suggests
that its application to Roof would only pave the way for future cases in which
the death penalty is invoked to harm the very community on which he inflicted
so much pain.
(source: Opinion; Wade Henderson is president and chief executive of the
Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights----Washington Post)
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