Sept. 27
OHIO:
Former Ohio Attorney General Joins Anti-Death Penalty Organization
Jim Petro, the state attorney general who oversaw 18 executions in Ohio, was
elected to the board of directors of Ohioans to Stop Executions this weekend
with his wife, Nancy. The move is a high-profile turnaround for a Republican
state official.
"Ohio has an unusually high number pro-death penalty government officials who
have changed their positions on the issue, but this is the 1st time we've had a
couple with such experience join our leadership team," Melinda Elkins-Dawson,
board chair, said in a public statement.
Petro urged "a re-examination of Ohio's death penalty" via OTSE's work. He said
he recently arrived at the conclusion that it's time to rethink this policy
arena. (Nancy has always opposed the death penalty.)
In Ohio, Ronald Phillips is scheduled to be killed in January.
(source: clevescene.com)
****************
Glen Bates found guilty in murder of 2-year-old daughter
A man who prosecutors said swung his 2-year-old daughter into a door frame
"like a baseball bat," contributing to her death, was found guilty Monday of
charges including aggravated murder.
The verdicts were announced shortly before 2:15 p.m. in Hamilton County Common
Pleas Court. A jury of 8 women and 4 men deliberated about 2 hours, also
finding Bates guilty of murder and child endangering.
As he has done during much of the trial, Glen Bates showed no emotion when the
verdicts were read. He stared ahead blankly or closed his eyes.
The sentencing phase of the trial is set to begin Wednesday. The jury must
still determine whether to recommend a death sentence. Judge Megan Shanahan
will make the final decision.
Bates, 34, rejected at least 2 plea deals before deciding to stand trial in the
beating and starvation death of Glenara Bates. If he'd accepted either of those
deals, he would have faced a minimum of 15 years to life in prison.
It was Glenara's mother, Andrea Bradley, who carried Glenara's cold and limp
body into Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center on March 29, 2015.
Bradley's case is being handled separately. She faces the same charges.
Closing arguments in Bates' trial took place Monday morning after 3 days of
testimony.
Prosecutors said Bates intended to kill Glenara when he held her by the legs
and swung her into a door frame, striking her head.
In order for Bates to be found guilty of aggravated murder - and thus a
possible death sentence - prosecutors had to prove that he specifically
intended to kill Glenara.
Hamilton County Assistant Prosecutor Rick Gibson said during closing arguments
that Bates had no other purpose.
"He takes this 2-year-old girl, and he swings her as hard as he can into that
door frame, hits her head on the door frame," Gibson said, adding, "Like a
baseball bat, with all his might."
"What does that action tell you about his intent?" Gibson said.
Glenara's 10-year-old sister testified about that alleged incident on the
trial's 1st day.
The girl, who is now living with a foster family in rural, western Ohio, said
Glenara cried briefly "and then she stopped."
Gibson said the head injuries that led to Glenara's death were consistent with
being swung "at a high rate of speed."
It tore veins and caused the internal bleeding inside Glenara's skull that was
found during an autopsy, he said.
Glenara's body was "covered from head to toe" with bruises, scars and burns,
Gibson said. She was also severely malnourished and weighed just 13 pounds when
she died.
He directed much of the blame at Bates, who lived on and off with Glenara, her
mother, Andrea Bradley, and several other children in a rented house in East
Walnut Hills.
Bates told detectives that he began living at the home 1 or 2 weeks before
Glenara died.
His attorneys have directed blame at Bradley.
Defense attorney Norm Aubin said Bradley was around the children more and was
responsible for feeding Glenara. There was testimony that Bradley "didn't like"
Glenara and would bite her and whip her with a belt.
"He walked in on a situation that was already going bad," Aubin said in his
closing arguments.
He asked jurors not to allow anger toward Bates or sympathy for Glenara affect
their judgment.
"I do not believe he purposely intended to cause the death of his child," Aubin
said.
(source: cincinnati.com)
INDIANA:
7th Circuit Court orders issuance of writ of habeas corpus for convicted
murderer
The full 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered that writ of habeas corpus or
a new trial be ordered for a man convicted of 3 murders and sentenced to death,
finding that state courts incorrectly omitted a key piece of evidence in the
defense's case.
In the case of Wayne Kubsch v. Ron Neal, 14-1898, Wayne Kubsch was convicted in
the 1998 murders of his wife, Beth Kubsch, Rick Milewski and Aaron Milewski,
Rick Milweski and Beth Kubsch's son, in Mishawaka. Kubsch was sentenced to
death as a result of his convictions.
While the 7th Circuit Court wrote in its Friday opinion that the jury in the
case had correctly relied on circumstantial evidence to convict Kubsch of the
murders, the court also wrote that one piece of evidence that was omitted could
have been used to prove Kubsch's innocence. The evidence was a videotaped
testimony of Amanda Buck, a 9-year-old girl who said in the video that she saw
Aaron Milewski at 3:30 p.m. on the day of the murders, which would have
undermined the state's theory that the murders were committed between 1:53 p.m.
and 2:51 p.m.
Buck was called to testify at a 2nd trial in the case in 2005, but she claimed
to have no memory of the videotaped interview with police. Kubsch's lawyer
attempted to use the transcript of the interview to refresh Buck's memory and
later to impeach her, but the prosecution objected, and the court sustained the
objections. The court also refused to permit the use of Buck's interview as a
recorded recollection.
After direct appeals and post-conviction proceedings in state courts, Kubsch
filed for habeas corpus relief in federal court. The district court and a panel
of 7th Circuit judges found that the state court decisions passed muster, but
that opinion was vacated when the full 7th Circuit Court decided to hear the
case en banc.
In its opinion handed down on Friday, the 7th Circuit Court wrote that the
heart of Kubsch's case went to whether the state had violated his rights to due
process under the 14th Amendment by rendering a decision contrary to the U.S.
Supreme Court's decision in the case of Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284
(1973).
In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court held that, "Few rights are more
fundamental than that of an accused to present witnesses in his own defense.
... Although perhaps no rule of evidence has been more respected or more
frequently applied in jury trials than that applicable to the exclusion of
hearsay, exceptions tailored to allow the introduction of evidence which in
fact is likely to be trustworthy have long existed."
In applying Chambers to Kubsch's case, the 7th Circuit Court wrote that the
excluded recording of Buck's testimony was the strongest evidence in Kubsch's
defense based on actual innocence and, as Chambers requires, was unusually
reliable.
If a jury had been allowed to hear Buck's testimony or that of her mother, the
circuit court wrote that they could have reasonably acquitted or convicted
Kubsch.
"All we are saying is that the jury should have been given the chance to
evaluate the case based on all the evidence, rather than on the basis of a
truncated record that omitted the strongest evidence the defense had," the
court wrote. "The facts of Kubsch's case parallel so closely the facts of
Chambers ... that a failure to apply those cases here would amount to an
unreasonable application of law clearly established by the Supreme Court."
The 7th Circuit Court reversed the district court's judgment and remanded the
case for the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus, unless the state takes steps
to give Kubsch a new trial within 120 days.
However, Judges David Hamilton, Frank Easterbrook and Diane Sykes dissented,
writing in a separate opinion that the en banc majority had "crafted a new rule
so narrow and case-specific as to be good apparently only for this case."
"The residual risk or error in capital cases is deeply sobering for all of us
with roles in the criminal justice system," Hamilton wrote. "That risk offers a
powerful policy argument against the death penalty. It does not provide a
reason to disregard rules of evidence that apply to both sides and have been
designed to ensure fair and reliable evaluation of evidence."
St. Joseph County Prosecutor Ken Cotter told the Associated Press on Monday
that he will consult with the victims' families and review case files before
determining how to proceed.
Defense attorney Alan Freedman said Kubsch is relieved by the ruling and is
awaiting the prosecutor's decision.
(source: The Indiana Lawyer)
MISSOURI:
MO Supreme Court To Hear Tisius Death Penalty Case
The State Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in Jefferson City in
the case of a man who was sentenced to death for killing 2 mid-Missouri jailers
16 years ago.
Michael Tisius was convicted of 2 counts of 1st degree murder for the June 2000
killings of Randolph County jailers Leon Egley and Jason Acton. Tisius is
currently under 2 death sentences.
The Missouri Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments for Wednesday morning
at 9:30 in Tisius' appeal, which involves claims of ineffective assistance of
counsel.
Prosecutors say Tisius and Tracie Bulington tried to break Roy Vance out of the
old Randolph County Jail in Huntsville in 2000. Egley and Acton were both shot
to death.
Tisius is being held at the maximum-security Potosi Correctional Center in
Mineral Point. Bulington is serving 2 life sentences in Chillicothe, after
being convicted of 2 counts of 2nd degree murder. As for Vance, he's serving a
life sentence without parole in Potosi.
Tisius will not be in the courtroom on Wednesday. There is no timetable on how
long it will take the Supreme Court to rule.
(source: ozarksfirst.com)
IDAHO:
Judge rejects motions on death penalty
Additional attempts at taking the death penalty off the table for the man
accused of murdering Coeur d'Alene Police Sgt. Greg Moore fell short Monday.
But, Kootenai County District Court Judge Lansing Haynes has yet to rule on 2
others.
Jonathan Renfro, a 26-year-old Rathdrum resident who allegedly admitted to
killing Moore in a Coeur d'Alene neighborhood on May 5, 2015, currently faces
the death penalty if found guilty of charges associated with the incident. In a
series of hearings in Kootenai County District Court beginning last week,
Haynes has heard arguments from the team of public defenders representing
Renfro as to why their client should not face execution for reasons ranging
from international law to the nature of the encounter Moore had with Renfro
prior to the shooting.
Monday's hearing began with Kootenai County Public Defender John Adams stating
Moore's interaction with Renfro around 1:30 a.m. constituted an unreasonable
seizure. Renfro walking in the Coeur d'Alene neighborhood was legal, and Adams
said the experienced officer was "acting on a hunch" when he approached the
Rathdrum man.
"Unfortunately it's a hunch that went terribly wrong," Adams added.
Once Moore asked for and received Renfro's driver's license, Adams said the
encounter went from being consensual to one where any individual would come to
the conclusion they were not free to leave. Due to Adams' assertion that his
client's "seizure" by Moore was unconstitutional, the public defender
challenged Haynes to suppress all evidence gathered from the officer's
dashboard camera, and to not allow the death penalty to be pursued by the
Kootenai County Prosecutors Office.
"1st degree murder has to go away, it's got to be a 2nd degree murder," Adams
said. "It's a big call, but the law is pretty straightforward."
Kootenai County Deputy Prosecutor David Robbins, however, argued Renfro was not
"seized" by Moore. To fall under the legal definition of the term, Robbins said
Renfro had to have either been surrendering to law enforcement authority or
physically restrained.
"The moment he pulled that trigger, he was not unconstitutionally seized,"
Robbins said. "A person who is seized does not shoot a police officer."
Following arguments, Haynes told the courtroom he would issue a ruling on
Adams' motion during a hearing on Oct. 12.
Haynes denied 2 other motions made by the public defender's office that also
asked the judge to not allow the death penalty to be among the potential
punishments for Renfro. Kootenai County Public Defender Linda Payne presented
arguments for both of the motions, the 1st of which involved the assertion that
the use of capital punishment in America conflicts with international law,
which she said has deemed the practice "cruel and unusual punishment" due to
the amount of time it takes before a prisoner on death row is executed.
However, Haynes agreed with Robbins' counter-argument that the international
law in question allows for individual countries to still use capital
punishment.
The 2nd motion Payne argued asked Haynes to preclude the death penalty because
"evolving standards of decency" have caused pursuit of death as punishment to
decrease. In some states, Payne said the practice has been essentially
abolished by the act of not imposing the death penalty.
"The respect for human life and rights does not include imposing the death
penalty," Payne added.
Robbins told Haynes a shift in the amount of capital cases does not mean the
practice itself is unconstitutional. He added there is no indication the Idaho
Legislature plans on eliminating the death penalty in the state.
Haynes agreed with Robbins and denied the motion. The judge will issue rulings
on 2 more motions at 9:00 a.m. on Oct. 12.
(source: Bonner County Daily Bee)
CALIFORNIA:
Death penalty trial starts in Baby Sophia case
The death penalty trial of Christopher Cheary, accused in the sexual assault
and blunt-force trauma death of a 3-year-old girl, started Monday, more than
five years after the toddler was found dead.
Cheary, 25, is accused of 1st-degree murder in the death of Sophia Acosta at an
apartment building in Exeter. He committed sodomy, torture and lewd acts,
making it a capital case, the Tulare County District Attorney's Office said.
A jury of 6 men and 6 women is hearing the case before Judge Jospeh Kalashian.
There are 7 alternate jurors.
On the afternoon of May 7, 2011, Exeter police went to an apartment building on
the 800 block of West Visalia Road after getting a call from a neighbor that a
child reportedly was not breathing.
Paramedics found her lifeless on the floor of the apartment where she lived
with her mother, Erika Smith, and her mother's boyfriend.
The girl was taken to Kaweah Delta Medical Center, then flown by helicopter to
Valley Children's Hospital. She never regained consciousness and died May 11.
Her organs were harvested.
A few weeks later, Cheary was arrested in Stanislaus County following an
investigation by Exeter police.
Proscutor David Alavezos told jurors during opening statements that Smith and
Cheary had an argument and Smith left for Visalia, leaving Sophia and a younger
sister with Cheary, and later returned.
After she returned, she soon went over to a neighbor's apartment and asked for
a ride to the hospital because Sophia wasn't breathing. The neighbor called 911
and went to the apartment.
Circumstantial and physical evidence links Cheary to Sophia's death, including
semen found on a bedskirt in Sophia's room, a condom wrapper, unusual actions
and differing stories told by the defendant, he said.
"He later admitted he lied," Alavezos said.
The girl was bleeding from her anus and the autopsy showed lacerations to the
girl's anus, she said. She had bruises to her back, buttocks and head, he said.
Cheary used heroin, he said.
But defense attorney Angela Krueger started her opening by challenging the
prosecutor's case against Cheary.
"There was no rape, there was no torture, there was no murder," Krueger said.
The prosecution has said there was significant blood coming out of Sophia's
anus, "but at the apartment, there was no fresh blood," she said. "If there
were anal lacerations, there would be blood in the apartment."
At the hospital, the girl was bleeding from several places and the medical
evidence will show the girl may have suffered from a blood-clotting problem,
she said.
She died of lack of oxygen to the brain because she had blood clots, she said.
"It's rare, but children do get blood clots," Krueger said. She had massive
irrerversible brain swelling, she said.
As for Cheary's DNA, "they found none of him on her or her on him," she said.
"There was no DNA of Mr. Cheary anywhere where it shouldn't have been."
The small amount of his sperm found on a bedskirt is explainable from living
with his girlfriend and does not link him to her death, she said.
Police missed the condom wrapper on several searches, she said. It was never
checked for fingerprints, she said.
Cheary told police a story the girl's mother told him to tell, she said.
She admitted Cheary was using heroin and had smoked it with his girlfriend, she
said.
Neighbor Mary Ann Flores said Smith pounded on her door and was hysterical and
wanted a ride to the hospital because Sophia wasn't breathing.
She went to the apartment and Cheary brought down a lifeless body from the 2nd
floor.
"She was nude. She was sopping wet," Flores said. When she asked why she was
wet, Cheary said. "because he had to rinse her off."
Cheary tried CPR on the girl, but "to me she was already dead," Flores said.
(source: The Fresno Bee)
WASHINGTON:
Washington state mall shooter had no militant contact: source
There is no evidence showing that a man charged with 5 counts of 1st-degree
murder after confessing to a shooting rampage at a shopping mall in Washington
state over the weekend had contact with any known Islamic militant groups or
individuals, a law enforcement official told Reuters on Monday.
Turkish-born Arcan Cetin, a 20-year-old legal U.S. resident, was advised of the
charges against him during a brief hearing in Skagit County District Court in
Mount Vernon, Washington, on Monday and ordered held on $2 million bail.
According to charging documents, Cetin admitted to police investigators that he
brought a Ruger .22 caliber rifle into the Macy's department store at Cascade
Mall in Burlington, about 65 miles (105 km) north of Seattle, on Friday evening
and fatally shot 5 people.
Skagit County District Attorney Richard Weyrich declined to discuss a motive
for the shootings. But a law enforcement official familiar with the
investigation told Reuters there was nothing to suggest that Cetin had had
contact with any known Islamic militants.
However, the source said Cetin's motives for the attack were still unclear.
Cetin walked into the Macy's shortly before 7 p.m. PDT (0200 GMT), gunning down
a 16-year-old girl near a clothing rack, then opening fire on the other 4
victims in the make-up department before placing the gun on a cosmetics counter
and walking out, prosecutors said in the court papers.
Representative Rick Larsen said on the floor of the House of Representatives on
Monday that the slain girl was high school sophomore Sarai Lara, a cancer
survivor.
Also killed in the attack were Shayla Martin, a 52-year-old Macy's makeup
artist, Boeing employee and father of 2 Chuck Eagan, retired probation officer
Belinda Galde, 64, and her 95-year-old mother, Beatrice Dotson, Larsen said.
Wearing red and blue jail garb and shackled at the waist, Cetin showed no
emotion during Monday's court appearance and spoke only to respond "yes, your
honor" several times to the judge.
"It's a terrible, terrible thing and a terrible tragedy for the whole
community," Weyrich told reporters after the hearing, adding prosecutors have
yet to decide whether to seek the death penalty against Cetin.
The attack follows a series of violent outbursts at shopping centers across the
United States, including the stabbing of 9 people at the Crossroads Center in
Minnesota on Sept. 17. The FBI has said it considers that attack a "potential
act of terrorism."
Cetin was taken into custody without incident Saturday evening after police
spotted him near his home in Oak Harbor, 30 miles (48 km) southwest of
Burlington.
According to the charging documents, Cetin initially walked into the mall
unarmed, through a Chuck E. Cheese family entertainment and pizza restaurant,
then went back to his car to retrieve the rifle from the trunk, moving the car
closer to Macy's.
According to prosecutors, Cetin's father told them that he and his son had had
a falling out recently.
The father said he last saw his son at dinner at about 4:30 p.m. on the day of
the shooting and that his rifle, which matched the description of the murder
weapon, was missing along with ammunition.
(source: Reuters)
USA:
Here's what Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump think about criminal justice
The US locks up more of its citizens than any other country, so it's no
surprise that mass incarceration and criminal-justice reform have become
prominent issues on the presidential campaign trail.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has treaded carefully on this
front, denouncing some of the tough-on-crime laws from the 1980s and 1990s that
contributed to mass incarceration and walking back her decades-old remark
calling young offenders "super predators."
It has been difficult territory to navigate; both Clinton and her husband,
former President Bill Clinton, advocated harsh sentencing during his
administration, particularly when the two were drumming up support for the 1994
crime bill.
The changes introduced by the law - which called for severe sentences, strict
gun laws, and more police officers and prisons - have been widely derided in
recent years as a key cause of mass incarceration. The data shows the law, in
fact, has had minimal influence in reforming or influencing state policies.
Clinton has now proposed numerous policy changes geared at reducing the number
of incarcerated people and facilitating prisoners' reentry into society. At the
same time, her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, has ramped up his rhetoric on
cracking down on violent crime and cast himself as the "law and order"
candidate.
It's worth noting that the federal government, headed by the president, has
jurisdiction only over federal laws and prisons, which hold just 211,000 of the
US's estimated 2.2 million incarcerated people. The White House can try to
influence state and local laws by offering or retracting funding, but the
effects are often limited.
Regardless, both major-party nominees have asserted their positions on crime,
prisons, and mass incarceration. Here's how Clinton and Trump say they'll
handle criminal-justice issues.
Crime rate
Even on this basic statistic that underlies most criminal-justice issues,
Republicans and Democrats remain split on the data. The FBI has recorded a
steady downward trend in violent crime rates over the past decade, and
Democrats have used this to bolster their arguments to reduce incarceration.
Clinton told a Columbia University audience in July that crime was at "historic
lows."
Republicans, however, have seized on the rising murder rate in cities such as
Chicago and asserted that President Barack Obama's policies have allowed
criminals to run amok.
"Decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being reversed by this
administration's rollback of criminal enforcement," Trump said at his speech to
the Republican National Convention.
Trump has loudly spoke of "out of control" crime rates and asserted that inner
cities have reached "record levels" of crime. But according to projections for
2016 crime rates, violent crime across the country remains near the bottom of a
30-year downward trend, even with a projected 5.5% increase for 2016.
Prison privatization
The Department of Justice appeased prison-reform advocates in August when it
announced it would phase out the use of private prisons for federal inmates. An
Inspector General's report one week earlier had declared the facilities were
less effective and more dangerous than their government-run counterparts.
Private prisons have received renewed scrutiny in recent years after reports
revealed consistent problems with violence, squalid conditions, neglectful
medical care, and overcrowding. The Department of Homeland Security has also
said it will review its use of private facilities for immigrant detainees.
Clinton has pledged to "end" for-profit detention facilities, and she no longer
accepts donations from private-prison lobbyists.
Trump has expressed support for private prisons but hasn't discussed the issue
at length.
"I do think we can do a lot of privatizations and private prisons. It seems to
work a lot better," he said at a town hall in March.
Clemency
Presidential clemency has received more attention than usual this year after
Obama began to make unprecedented use of the power. As of September, he has
commuted the sentences of 673 inmates, more than the previous 10 presidents
combined, and pardoned 70.
Clemency can be used to pardon federal inmates or commute their sentences. It's
one of the few direct, relatively unchecked actions a president can take in the
criminal-justice system, as it bypasses both Congress and the courts.
Clinton has not explicitly said whether she would continue Obama's trend of
granting commutations to hundreds of prisoners at a time. Her platform does
include "allowing current nonviolent prisoners to seek fairer sentences," but
she typically discusses the need to overhaul federal mandatory-minimum laws in
place of granting clemency.
Trump has criticized commutations and called the nonviolent drug offenders who
have been released under Obama's clemency project "bad dudes."
"These are people who are out, they're walking the streets," he said at a rally
in August. "Sleep tight, folks."
Obama has concentrated his clemency efforts on inmates who were harshly
sentenced for nonviolent drug offenses during the tough-on-crime era of the
late 1980s and early 1990s. Were they convicted today, many of those inmates
would have received substantially less severe sentences.
Sentencing and drug-law reforms
Clinton's main focus in reducing mass incarceration has been to overhaul
sentencing for drug offenders - even though as president she would have the
power to influence only federal laws, not state ones.
She supports halving current mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug
offenders, retroactively applying equal sentencing to crack and powder cocaine
offenses, and eliminating nonviolent drug offenses from the "strike" system.
Beyond criminal sentencing, drug-policy reform advocates have also looked to
Clinton with the hope that she would adopt a progressive stance on federal
marijuana laws and decriminalize the drug.
Clinton is in favor of reclassifying marijuana to a Schedule II substance under
the Controlled Substances Act, which would acknowledge its medical use. It is
currently classified as a Schedule I elicit substance, putting it alongside
drugs including heroin.
Clinton has been more wary, however, on the issue of recreational marijuana and
opted to review how the policies have fared in states that have already
legalized, such as Colorado.
In a similar vein, Trump has said he is "100%" in favor of legalizing medical
marijuana but has been shakier on the drug's recreational use. He has said such
policies should be "up to the states," but his close relationship with Gov.
Chris Christie of New Jersey - a vocal opponent of marijuana - has left
marijuana advocates uneasy over whether Trump would be lenient with the drug.
Trump also hasn't spoken at length on his position on sentencing reform, but
his tough-on-crime rhetoric suggests he might favor harsher sentences and
oppose efforts to revisit mandatory minimums.
Reentry and integration
With the national conversation focused largely on preventive measures to mass
incarceration, some advocates of criminal-justice reform have called on
lawmakers to help lower recidivism rates and ease ex-felons' transitions back
into society.
Clinton believes ex-felons should be allowed to vote and has promised executive
action to "ban the box," which would prevent questions about criminal history
being asked during the hiring of federal government employees and contractors.
Clinton has also proposed a $5 billion investment in reentry jobs programs for
ex-felons.
It's unclear where Trump stands on a "ban the box" initiative, but he has come
out strongly against lawmakers who restore voting rights to ex-felons, whom he
suspects will vote Democrat.
"You know what they just did in the state of Virginia - 200,000 people that
were in prison for horrible crimes are being given the right to vote," he told
a Rhode Island audience in April, lambasting Virginia's Democratic governor,
Terry McAuliffe. "That's crooked politics. Because Virginia's a very close
state."
Death penalty
The federal use of the death penalty dramatically expanded in the 1990s, and
its modern use has grown increasingly at odds with its dwindling use in the
state systems. Recent reports show that states' use of the death penalty is
declining each year - in part because of widespread shortages of
lethal-injection drugs - yet is propped up by a handful of counties that often
demonstrate systemic failings, such as overzealous prosecutors, inadequate
defense lawyers, and racial bias and exclusion.
These concerns have been projected onto the federal system as well,
particularly in cases such as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's, when the convicted Boston
Marathon bomber was sentenced to death by a federal jury in Massachusetts, a
state that devoutly opposes capital punishment.
Both Clinton and Trump support the death penalty - Clinton even splits with her
party on this issue, favoring a limited-use policy while the Democratic
platform endorses its abolishment. In a memorable exchange with a death-row
exoneree in March, Clinton was asked how she could justify her stance on the
death penalty given mounting awareness of wrongful convictions.
Clinton gave a meandering response, saying she would "breathe a sigh of relief"
if the Supreme Court or the states eliminated the death penalty, but she
believed it should still be used for those who commit "really heinous crimes."
She continued:
"Where I end up is this - and maybe it's a distinction that is hard to support
- but at this point, given the challenges we face from terrorist activities,
primarily in our country, that end up under federal jurisdiction, for very
limited purposes I think it can still be held in reserve for those."
Trump appears to have fewer qualms about using the death penalty and said last
year he would sign an executive order to mandate the death penalty for anyone
convicted of killing police officers.
(source: Business Insider)
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