Sept. 14
CALIFORNIA----female may face death penalty
Caregiver pleads not guilty to Desert Hot Springs murder
A caregiver pleaded not guilty to committing a Desert Hot Springs murder that
involved circumstances that make her eligible for the death penalty if
convicted.
Kelly Lee Phillips, 45, entered her plea during her arraignment Tuesday morning
in Riverside County Superior Court at Larson Justice Center in Indio. She's
charged with the murder of Chandra Saras, 59, who police found about 10 a.m.
Aug. 15 at a home in the 64-100 block of Mount Blanc Court.
Phillips qualifies for the death penalty because her charges include murder
during the commission of a felony and murder for financial gain, Riverside
County District Attorney's office spokesman John Hall said. He added District
Attorney Mike Hestrin will decide at a later date whether or not prosecutors
will pursue the death penalty.
"If the DA does not decide to seek death, the defendant's potential sentence
would be life in prison without the possibility of parole," Hall said.
Phillips' hearing lasted a matter of seconds and was far shorter than the 90
minutes she waited in the courtroom.
She arrived about 9 a.m. and was directed to the jury box on the right side of
the room. She sat silently and mostly stared straight with her hair combed to
her left and shielding her face from the crowd. On the rare moments she turned
her head, she was expressionless.
Phillips' next court appearance is scheduled for Sept. 22. It will be a routine
hearing focused on a case where little information has been released.
In addition to the murder charges, Phillips also is accused of dissuading a
witness, burglary, driving without a license, misusing a vending or slot
machine and two misdemeanor counts of forgery.
Other homicides Cathedral City woman killed, problem roommate suspected
A criminal complaint indicates Phillips used Saras' name to cash 2 checks for
$200 each at a Wells Fargo bank branch. Other specifics haven't been provided
and Desert Hot Springs police say they're not releasing additional details on
the investigation, including the cause of Saras' death.
Deputy District Attorney Kristi Kirk, who's handling the case, referred all
questions to Hall, who reiterated Saras' cause of death is under investigation.
Phillips' attorney, Daniel Yu, also declined to comment to The Desert Sun.
She remains in custody at the Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility in Banning
without bail.
This was Desert Hot Springs' 3rd homicide of 2016, according to data maintained
by The Desert Sun.
This year, there have been 16 homicides across the Coachella Valley.
There have been 5 homicides in Indio, 3 in Cathedral City, 2 in Coachella and 1
each in Thermal, Whitewater and on Interstate 10.
(source: The Desert Sun)
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Death Penalty Still Has Plenty Of Bay Area Support, Poll Suggests
New numbers show the push to end the death penalty in California is facing an
uphill fight.
Our exclusive KPIX 5 SurveyUSA poll shows that 52 % of statewide voters are
opposed to Proposition 62, that's compared to 36 % who favor replacing the
death penalty with life in prison. Perhaps even more surprising is that the
death penalty still has plenty of bay area support.
Once again the death penalty is on the California ballot. Voters considered
whether to abolish it in 1972 and again in 2012. Both times, the death penalty
survived.
For a state known for its lefty politics, where Democrats hold every statewide
office, Californians have a history of supporting the death penalty when it is
on the ballot.
It's easy to forget that Democrats in California are not a majority,
Independents are.
Carson Bruno, a research fellow at the Hoover Institute, said, "California is
definitely a blue state there's no doubt about that, but we're not a uniformly
progressive blue state up and down the state."
San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said, "When you get into the
valley, into Southern California, you realize, the Bay Area's attitude does not
cover the whole state in this issue."
Even right here in the Bay Area, the poll showed 47 % of likely voters are in
favor of keeping the death penalty. Only 42 % oppose it.
Wagstaffe is opposed to Prop 62. He wants to keep the death penalty. He says
his Bay Area constituents want the death penalty to be used sparingly.
"I think they appreciate that we're very, very cautious and limited in our use
of this most significant of all punishments in our criminal justice system,"
Wagstaffe said.
Law Professor Ellen Kreitzberg is in favor of Prop 62. She she's confident that
the death penalty will be repealed.
Kreitzberg, law professor and director of the Death Penalty College at Santa
Clara University School of Law said, "California voters know that the death
penalty is arbitrary and unreliable and dysfunctional system...When the people
of California review that, they're going to vote yes on 62 to abolish it."
Kreitzberg says the poll is flawed because it doesn't line up with other polls
showing decreased support for the death penalty.
While there are those who think the death penalty it is immoral there are also
those who think the system isn't working. On this November's ballot there is
also a measure - Prop 66 - which would make changes to the death penalty
system. Having that reform option on the ballot may explain why fewer people
support repealing the death penalty.
(source: KPIX news)
OREGON:
Pretrial motions delay opening statements in trial of former Gladstone cop
accused in wife's death
A judge delayed the opening statements in the trial of a former Gladstone
police sergeant accused in the 2011 killing of his wife after defense attorneys
presented a series of motions Tuesday.
Clackamas County Circuit Judge Kathie Steele said she will announce a ruling on
each issue before opening statements, now set for Wednesday morning.
Lynn Edward Benton, 54, is accused in an alleged $2,000 murder-for-hire plot
that led to the death of his wife, Debbie Higbee Benton, 54, in her beauty
salon in Gladstone on May 28, 2011.
Prosecutors contend Benton offered the money to his 58-year-old friend, Susan
Campbell, and her 36-year-old son, Jason Jaynes. The two also are charged in
the death. Benton had tried but failed to kill his wife multiple times before
by injecting her with insulin and poisoning her hot chocolate, prosecutors
allege.
Benton faces charges of aggravated murder, solicitation to commit aggravated
murder, criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated murder and attempted murder.
If convicted of aggravated murder, he could face the death penalty.
Benton was a police officer for more than 20 years and spent the majority of
his career as a woman. He married Higbee Benton in 2010. That same year, he
began transitioning to male and prosecutors say it caused a rift between the
couple.
Benton had moved out of their Gladstone home a month before his wife's death.
He was fired 6 months after Higbee Benton's death, in December 2011, after
supervisors found pornography on his work laptop.
Campbell and Jaynes also face aggravated murder charges. Campbell is the only
person who has admitted wrongdoing to police, claiming to have shot Higbee
Benton, 54, in the back, court records show. Autopsy results show Higbee Benton
was shot, strangled and beaten.
Campbell was arrested nearly a week after Higbee Benton was found dead. Benton
and Jaynes were arrested in November 2012 after Campbell testified to a grand
jury.
Among the motions made Tuesday, the defense asked the court to dismiss
solicitation and conspiracy charges against Benton because prosecutors don't
plan to present a theory to the jury that was used to indict Benton.
Defense attorney Laurie Bender said Campbell told the grand jury in 2012 that
she received a vial of insulin from Jaynes and gave the vial to Benton, whom
she claimed injected the dose into his wife in 2010.
But Bender said prosecutors recently announced that they will present evidence
of a different attempt to kill Higbee Benton. The new theory relies on police
interviews with Travis Layman, the government's primary witness and an inmate
who claims Benton confessed to him that he killed his wife while they were both
held at the Multnomah County Jail.
Layman claims Benton said he used fentanyl patches in November 2010 to try to
kill his wife. The use of fentanyl wasn't mentioned during the grand jury
hearing, Bender said.
"This is a completely new theory, and it's a theory not supported by
discovery," Bender said. "Mr. Benton has not had an opportunity to investigate
this new theory. We've been preparing and litigating the theory about the
insulin for 4 1/2 years."
Clackamas County Senior Deputy District Attorney John Wentworth pointed out
that the defense has had access to Layman's interviews since last year. He also
said Campbell told the grand jury that Benton tried more than once to kill his
wife.
"The grand jury indicts the facts, they don't indict the theories," Wentworth
said. "The state has alleged that there were attempts to kill Debbie Higbee.
That has been made clear. The defense has chosen to focus exclusively on the
insulin, and it's to their detriment, but they've had the evidence for a long
time that there was more than one attempt."
Jaynes is scheduled to go on trial in Higbee Benton's death in March.
Campbell's trial date hasn't yet been set. Jaynes is being held in prison on an
unrelated sex abuse conviction. Campbell is being held in prison on an
unrelated drug conviction and tampering with a witness in her son's sex abuse
case.
Campbell was the prosecution's star witness in the cases against Benton and
Jaynes, but prosecutors revoked her plea agreement last month because she
violated the terms at least 3 times.
Prosecutors say during the course of Higbee Benton's death investigation,
police uncovered other twists including allegations of domestic violence by
Benton against his wife, a 1999 sex abuse coverup by Benton where Jaynes was
the suspect and child pornography discovered on Benton's father's laptop and
thumb drives.
(source: oregonlive.com)
USA:
Citing 'flawed' process, Dylann Roof lawyers again fight to toss death penalty
In another attack on the death penalty's legality, Dylann Roof's attorneys said
this week that capital punishment is so fraught with potential problems that it
shouldn't be used in his case.
Roof, 22, has offered to plead guilty and accept a lifetime prison sentence in
the June 2015 shooting that killed 9 at Charleston's Emanuel AME Church. But
federal prosecutors have pushed forward with the trial, seeking Roof's
execution on some of his 33 charges.
But as time passes, court rulings continue to limit how the death penalty can
be applied, and further evidence has emerged showing how unfair it can be,
Roof's lawyers said Monday in a court document. To support their position, the
attorneys included in their filing about 2,200 pages of court transcripts,
research, news articles and opinion polls on the death penalty.
It's time to reopen the discussion of whether the punishment is cruel and
unusual under the Eighth Amendment, they said.
"The death penalty is unreliable, arbitrary, and so complicated that jurors
frequently misapply it," Sarah Gannett, an Arizona public defender on Roof's
defense team, said in the filing. "In a prosecution as consequential as this
one, the court should not (allow) procedures that are proven to be flawed."
U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel already has reviewed written arguments from
prosecutors and defense attorneys on the death penalty's constitutionality.
Monday's filing supplemented the defense team's argument. Gergel has not ruled
on the issue.
Initial jury selection procedures are scheduled to start Sept. 26 in downtown
Charleston. The trial will follow Nov. 7.
Roof, who is white, is charged with hate crimes, religious rights violations
and using a firearm in a violent crime. Authorities said he targeted the
churchgoers because they were black. He penned manifestos about white
supremacy, they said.
He is expected to be convicted when the case is tried, but the most contested
portion of the proceeding will come during sentencing. That's when prosecutors
will present evidence of aggravation, such as the targeting of multiple
vulnerable people or an intent to incite violence among others. Defense
attorneys will highlight mitigating factors, such as any mental defects.
Prosecutors have said that detailed instructions can lead a jury to a fair
finding. But Roof's lawyers said they are concerned that the jurors will not
follow the guidelines for weighing those factors.
"Because it cannot be implemented in a manner that avoids arbitrary, capricious
and irrevocable results," Gannett's filing added, "the (federal death penalty)
is unconstitutional and must be stricken as a possible penalty in this case."
(source: The Post and Courier)
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