Oct. 6
TEXAS:
Texas judge confronts 'serious deficiencies' in death penalty cases ---- The
state broke its longest streak without an execution. But the highest criminal
court has issued multiple late stays - and the legal process may be changing
At the time, in the state that executes more people than any other, it was
hardly surprising that Barney Fuller was sentenced to die.
On 1 January 2001, Fuller phoned Annette Copeland, a neighbour in the tiny
Texas town of Lovelady, a hundred miles north of Houston. "Happy New Year," he
told her. "I'm going to kill you."
2 years later, he did. A dispute that stemmed from Fuller's habit of annoying
his neighbours by firing weapons at his home escalated into a murderous rampage
that took the life of Annette and her husband, Nathan.
In the 911 call that Annette Copeland made at about 1.30am that May night, the
operator heard a man saying: "Party's over, bitch." Then a popping sound;
presumably 1 of the 3 pistol shots that Fuller fired into her head.
Fuller was executed by lethal injection on Wednesday night; there are another
253 inmates on Texas's death row and 2 more men are scheduled to die on the
gurney at the state penitentiary later this year. But the 58-year-old's death
broke a remarkable streak: it was the 1st Texas execution in 6 months.
That was the longest run without a judicial killing since 2007-08, when
executions stopped nationwide while the US supreme court considered whether the
lethal injection method violated the constitution. When Texas resumed in June
2008, 18 inmates died in the space of 5 months.
Less than a decade later, with a Pew survey suggesting public support for
capital punishment is the lowest it has been in more than 40 years, both giving
death sentences and completing them are on the decline in Texas, like elsewhere
in the country. In 2015, Texas executed 13 prisoners; Fuller's death brings
this year's total to 7 so far. Only 5 new inmates have been added to death row
in 2016 and 2015, compared with 20 in the 2 years prior.
And though traditionally unmoved by the pleas of those on death row, the
state's highest criminal court, the Texas court of criminal appeals, has issued
multiple late stays of execution - 3 in August alone.
Meanwhile one of the court's judges, Elsa Alcala, has drawn attention for
writing opinions questioning the state's process, including 1 in June that said
it has "serious deficiencies" that have "caused me great concern".
Like 8 of the 9 judges, Alcala is a Republican. She was appointed in 2011 by
former governor Rick Perry - dubbed the "killingest" governor in modern history
for presiding over 279 executions in 14 years. Despite her misgivings, Alcala
has not advocated for or against the death penalty overall.
She worries that inmates have been convicted and died as a result of the poor
quality of their lawyers at trial and during appeals, and because bad evidence
was taken seriously. "These things are coming to light - but I wonder about how
many cases have not come to light," she said last month during a panel
discussion at the Texas Tribune Festival.
There, Alcala floated "legislative fixes that wouldn't cost a dime", such as
forbidding the execution of the severely mentally ill, disallowing the
testimony of co-conspirators who cut deals with prosecutors, and no longer
asking juries to decide whether a defendant is a continuing danger "to society"
given that Texas now allows an alternative sentence of life without parole.
Last year the Texas legislature passed a law requiring a defendant's most
recent attorney to be notified when an execution date is set. It was a
progressive move according to Kathryn Kase, executive director of the Texas
Defender Service, a not-for-profit group that helps clients facing the death
penalty.
Kase represents Scott Panetti, a mentally ill man who represented himself at
trial dressed as a cowboy and tried to subpoena Jesus Christ, John F Kennedy
and the pope.
In fall 2014, Kase discovered that Panetti was scheduled to die in a little
over a month when she read about it in a local newspaper. That sent her
scrambling to argue that his lethal injection should be put on hold. It was, on
the day he was due to die - but by a federal appeals court, after the Texas
court of criminal appeals voted 6-3 to reject a stay. That prompted one of its
members, the now-retired Tom Price, to write a dissent calling for the
abolition of the death penalty.
40 years on since the supreme court reinstated capital punishment in the US,
Kase believes the system is "as imperfect as ever". But, she said, "all the
players have become sensitized to all the reasons that executions might be
unjust," and when restored to its full nine members, the court might before
long be ready to take up the issue of whether capital punishment violates the
constitution.
"These are clues that the body politic is changing its mind," she said. "The
tea leaves have become very interesting."
Alcala tracks her own evolution since first becoming involved in death penalty
cases as a young lawyer.
She was a prosecutor for 9 years in Harris County, which by itself has
accounted for more executions than any other state except Texas. With
colleagues, she tried 3 capital punishment cases; 2 resulted in death
sentences. One was handed down to a 17-year-old and was commuted to life after
the US supreme court banned the execution of juveniles in 2005.
"I was in my late 20s or early 30s when I was trying those, single, didn't have
kids. Nowadays I think of the execution of a 17-year-old as barbaric. But back
then I guess it just wasn't in my zone of reference," she told the Guardian.
"I think that we learn with time and we evolve in our thinking and what we
would have found acceptable 20, 25 years ago, may not be acceptable, probably
isn't acceptable, in many instances, today."
The US supreme court on Wednesday heard oral arguments in the case of Duane
Buck, a convicted murderer sentenced to death after a Texas jury heard a
so-called expert testify that being black increased his "future dangerousness".
Astonishingly, the "expert" was called by Buck's defence lawyers.
While Alcala said the recent spate of stays is a result of various issues, she
thinks one likely factor is "that we have better lawyers coming in ... When I
first got on the court we would have executions come up and there was really a
defendant without any kind of representation, or active representation."
For now, there are still "leaps and bounds to go to get to where I feel
comfortable [with how] Texas is handling death penalty cases," Alcala said in
the discussion. "I think it's working better than it used to, and maybe that's
not saying a whole lot."
(source: The Guardian)
OHIO:
Andrea Bradley: After saying she 'didn't care' if she died, mom may take new
plea deal in court
A woman who Hamilton County officials accused of torturing her 2-year-old
daughter to death could take a plea deal when she returns to court Oct. 18
after defiantly saying she "didn't care" if she got the death penalty on Sept.
29.
30-year-old Andrea Bradley is charged with aggravated murder for allegedly
starving and killing her daughter Glenara Bates, who weighed only 13 pounds
when she was beaten to death.
Mental health tests reveal that Bradley has an IQ of 67, below the threshold
for Ohio's death penalty. At her last court appearance, Bradley's attorneys
asked Judge Ruehlman for more time to negotiate a plea deal.
Bradley chose not to take a plea deal that would have given her 15 years behind
bars in May. This decision meant her case would head to trial.
A jury recommended death for Bradley's boyfriend Glen Bates on Sept. 28. Bates
was convicted of killing his daughter after banging her head against a wall.
(source: WCPO news)
TENNESSEE:
Tennessee justices question death row attorneys on lawsuit
Tennessee Supreme Court justices peppered lawyers trying to block the state's
lethal injection protocol with questions on Thursday, challenging them to
declare some other execution method they would consider acceptable under the
law.
Lawyers representing the death row inmates argued that they shouldn't have to
suggest alternatives as part of their legal challenge, which claims the state's
1-drug lethal injection method is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual
punishment because it's likely to inflict extreme pain and can cause a
lingering death.
The justices appeared to disagree, citing a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling they
said requires challengers of execution methods to suggest alternatives.
"The Supreme Court has said repeatedly that the death penalty is constitutional
in this country," said Justice Roger A. Page. "Doesn't it follow there has to
be some constitutional method to carry it out?"
"The proper test does not involve the showing of an alternate method,"
plaintiffs' attorney Steve Kissinger insisted.
Justice Sharon Lee said that under the plaintiffs' argument, "it sounds like
there would be no protocol which would meet the standards."
Tennessee has not executed an inmate in nearly 6 years because of legal
challenges and problems in obtaining lethal injection drugs. State lawmakers
passed a law to allow the state to return to using the electric chair if lethal
injections can no longer be administered.
Death row inmates sued after the state moved away from its 3-drug cocktail to a
1-drug method using a powerful anesthetic called pentobarbital. After
pentobarbital's only commercial producer restricted its distribution to prevent
its use in executions, Tennessee decided to have a compound pharmacy mix
pentobarbital to order.
Compounded drugs are small, specially mixed batches of drugs that are not
subject to the same federal scrutiny as regular doses.
The inmates' lawyers said this work-around is unethical and illegal.
"It is not a medical procedure; it is not done in the ordinary course of the
medical practice; it violates the DEA's statute; it violates the Tennessee
licensing provisions," said Michael Passino, an attorney for the inmates. "It
violates the ethical obligation of the physician."
State attorney Jennifer Smith said the current lethal injection standards meet
constitutional requirements.
"A prisoner is not entitled to a painless death, but to a death that is not
cruel, that is not unnecessarily painful," she said.
Justice Lee asked what Tennessee can do to avoid the problems other states have
experienced with lethal injections.
"How do we know our executions won't be botched?" Lee asked.
"We don't," said Smith. "Executions, like any human endeavor are subject to
error."
"We can't be 100 % sure that there will not be a problem with an execution. But
that's not what the constitution requires," she said. "The constitution doesn't
guarantee a perfect process."
(source: Associated Press)
NEBRASKA:
Nebraska death penalty foes call for audit of drug purchase
Death penalty foes are calling for an audit of the $54,400 purchase of lethal
injection drugs that Nebraska never received.
Sen. Burke Harr of Omaha made the request Thursday in a letter to State Auditor
Charlie Janssen. It was released as the anti-death penalty group Retain a Just
Nebraska reiterated its arguments that the state is unlikely to execute an
inmate again even if voters reinstate the punishment because of challenges
obtaining the drugs.
Nebraska bought the drugs from the India-based Harris Pharma LLP but hasn't
been able to import them because of federal restrictions. The state has tried
to recoup some of the money, but Harris Pharma has refused to provide a refund.
Sen. Colby Coash of Lincoln says the challenges with executions are a
distraction for prison officials.
(source: Associated Press)
NEW MEXICO:
The Latest: Death penalty bill fails to clear NM Senate
The New Mexico Legislature has adjourned from a special legislative session
without considering a measure to reinstate the death penalty and other criminal
justice initiatives backed by Republican Gov. Susana Martinez.
The Democrat-led Senate adjourned Thursday without taking up stricter
sentencing provisions approved by the House or Representatives.
New Mexico repealed the death penalty in 2009. Martinez and allies in
Legislature have pushed for stricter criminal sentencing as a response to the
recent killing of 2 police officers and the August sexual assault, killing and
mutilation of 10-year-old Victoria Martens in Albuquerque.
(source: Washington Times)
UTAH:
Judge hands court defeats to Utah death-row inmate
One of Utah's longest-serving death-row inmates is one step closer to execution
by firing squad after a judge handed down pair of court defeats.
U.S. District Judge Dee Benson decided Wednesday that high-profile prisoner Ron
Lafferty won't get to seek out new evidence to back up claims that his lawyers
were ineffective and jurors were biased, in part because the claims are nearly
a decade old.
Lafferty was convicted and sentenced to death in the 1984 deaths of his
sister-in-law and her baby daughter. He has claimed the killings were directed
by God because of the woman's resistance to his beliefs in polygamy.
His lawyers didn't immediately return messages seeking comment.
Benson also denied Lafferty's claims last year that the use of the firing squad
is cruel and unusual.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
California's death penalty should be reformed, not repealed
Californians have strong feelings regarding the death penalty. A lot of the
discussion this year has been about the fiscal impacts of competing death
penalty measures. Those who want to repeal the death penalty say the system is
broken and can't be fixed, and that it has become overly expensive. Those in
favor of reform of the death penalty believe that housing heinous criminals for
the rest of their lives is what's too expensive. Asking taxpayers to clothe,
house, feed, guard and provide healthcare to the nearly 750 convicts currently
on death row will clearly cost more money than fixing the system.
But while the fiscal debate around the death penalty is important, for me, the
issue at hand is not dollars and cents, but justice.
Whatever your feelings are toward the death penalty, one thing most people will
never know is the pain experienced when a family member, or in my case, family
members are brutally tortured and murdered. They'll never experience the
heartache, the anger, or the frustration with our criminal justice system. I
hope no one has to experience the pain I've been through, yet I live with these
emotions every day and have done so for more than 30 years.
In 1984 my mother, sister and 2 nephews were cold-heartedly shot to death. The
killer, an 18-year-old gang member named Tiqueon Cox walked through my mother's
house and shot each member of my family. My mother sat at the table drinking a
cup of coffee and was shot in the head. My sister was shot to death while she
slept and my two nephews, aged 8 and 12 years, were shot while they slept. The
triggerman was paid to commit murder. In a cruel twist of fate, my family was
not the intended target ... they were all murdered by mistake when Tiqueon went
to the wrong house.
Tiqueon was sentenced to death by a jury of his peers. He's been sitting on
death row for 30 years and has exhausted all of his appeals at both the state
and federal level. This man is one of the worst of the worst, yet he still sits
on death row, waiting for an execution date, and 30 years later, I continue to
wait for justice to be served. California's death penalty needs to remain
intact to deal with criminals like Cox, but it needs to be reformed.
One ballot measure that we must vote no on is Proposition 62. This measure
would abolish the death penalty and give these heinous criminals life in prison
without parole. Repealing the death penalty does nothing to stop these hardened
criminals. In fact, Tiqueon Cox, while on death row, has continued to operate
as a shot caller; being classified as the most dangerous man on death row. In
2001, he attempted a violent takeover of the Super Max Adjustment Center at San
Quentin. His goal was not to escape but to kill as many guards as possible. He
is also responsible for repeated assaults on fellow inmates and correctional
officers.
A competing proposition, Proposition 66, will finally provide justice to
families. Through Proposition 66, Californians can ensure the death penalty in
California not on stays in place but actually works. Proposition 66 was written
by the most experienced legal experts on the death penalty. It was written to
ensure due process and to balance the rights of all involved - defendants,
victims and their families. Proposition 66 will streamline the system to ensure
criminals sentenced to death will not wait years simply to have an appellate
attorney appointed. It will limit unnecessary and repetitive delays in state
court to 5 years. While there are no innocent people on California's death row,
Prop 66 will ensure due process by never limiting claims of actual innocence.
In addition, it would ensure convicts on death row lose special privileges,
requiring them to work in prison and use their earnings to pay restitution to
victims' families. Proposition 66 will expand the pool of qualified lawyers to
deal with these cases, and the trial courts that handled the death penalty
trials in the 1st place and know them best will handle the initial appeals. The
overall changes to the death penalty system, as laid out by Proposition 66, are
simple fixes that will reform the death penalty and fix what's broken.
Today, California's death row is filled with killers like Rex Krebs who
abducted and murdered 2 women and Charles Ng who was convicted of murdering 11
people and most likely murdered up to 25 people. Although sentenced to death
years ago, they each have been sitting on death row for decades. My family and
other families who have suffered through the actions of heinous killers like
Cox, Krebs and Ng want and deserve justice.
California's death row inmates have murdered over 1000 victims, including 226
children and 43 police officers; 294 victims were raped and/or tortured. They
are serial killers, cop killers, child killers and rape/torture murderers.
Those in favor of abolishing the death penalty may call the death penalty cruel
and unusual but I would argue that these killers will have it easy - they will
be executed by lethal injection. They will simply fall asleep.
Cruel and unusual is what the victims suffered through and what my family and
others like mine suffer through daily.
I urge a no vote on Proposition 62 and yes on Proposition 66 to ensure the
worst of the worst killers receive the strongest sentence. A yes on Prop 66
brings closure to families while saving California taxpayers millions of
dollars every year.
Justice isn't gentle. Justice isn't easy. But justice denied is not justice.
(source: Kermit Alexander is former NFL player with the San Francisco 49ers,
the Los Angeles Rams and the Philadelphia Eagles--The Hill)
*************************
Formerly condemned prisoners speak out against the death penalty
Supporters of preserving California's death penalty in next month???s elections
showcase the relatives of murder victims, who say their only hope of justice
and closure is the killers' execution. Death penalty opponents, on the other
hand, are featuring former death row inmates who were cleared of their charges
and set free.
"I've been out over 30 years ... and every day it's on my mind," Ernest Shujaa
Graham said Wednesday at an event sponsored by supporters of Proposition 62,
which would abolish capital punishment and resentence condemned prisoners to
life without the possibility of parole.
Graham, 66, was sent to prison at age 18 for a robbery in Los Angeles. He said
he joined a political movement behind bars, was influenced by the Black Panther
Party, and in 1973 was charged with the fatal stabbing of a guard, Jerry
Sanders, at Deuel Vocational Institution near Tracy.
His 1st jury deadlocked, but he was convicted and sentenced to death after a
retrial in 1976 - a conviction the California Supreme Court reversed in 1979
because prosecutors had systematically removed all African Americans from the
jury. The court had prohibited race-based jury selection in 1978, 8 years
before the U.S. Supreme Court followed suit.
A third trial ended with another hung jury. Graham was finally acquitted at his
4th trial and set free in 1981. He now lives in Maryland and is on the board of
directors of Witness to Innocence, a group of former death row inmates seeking
to end executions.
Paris Powell, another formerly condemned prisoner, noted the number of inmates
nationwide since 1973 who have been cleared of the charges that had sent them
to death row.
"America's justice system got it wrong 156 times," he said.
Powell, now 43, was sentenced to death in Oklahoma for the fatal shooting of a
14-year-old girl in 1993. He said he knew nothing about the crime, turned down
a prosecutor's offer to go free if he would implicate others, and was convicted
on the testimony of a witness who later admitted lying under pressure from the
district attorney's office. A federal appeals court overturned Powell's
conviction in 2009 and prosecutors decided not to retry him.
"I do believe in redemption," Powell said, describing fellow death row inmates
who had straightened out their lives in prison, and some who shed tears of
remorse as they were led to the execution chamber. "This is a time that
California can show the world that there's no place for the death penalty in
2016," he said.
The event was held to promote Prop. 62 and oppose Prop. 66, a rival measure
that would retain the death penalty and seek to speed up executions. It would
require the state Supreme Court to rule on all capital cases within 5 years,
more than twice as fast as its current pace, while setting new time limits and
other restrictions on inmates' appeals. If both measures pass, only the 1 with
the higher majority will take effect.
Opponents say Prop. 66 would greatly increase the chances of convicting and
executing an innocent person.
"If 66 had been in effect, there's a great possibility that myself would not be
here today," Graham said.
That was disputed Thursday by San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike
Ramos, co-chairman of the campaign to pass Prop. 66.
"I think their appellate rights would be protected even more (by) expanding the
pool of attorneys and assigning them an attorney at the date of sentencing,"
Ramos said, referring to two of the initiative's provisions.
"The last thing we want to do is put an innocent person on death row and I'm
confident we have not," said Ramos, whose county is 1 of 5 responsible for
nearly all of California's death sentences in recent years. He said
exonerations like Graham's are evidence that "the system works."
His confidence wasn't shared by a third inmate, Randy Steidl, 65, who spent
more than 17 years in Illinois prisons, 12 of them on death row, before being
cleared and released in 2004. Steidl was convicted of 2 1986 murders - based on
the testimony of "a mentally ill woman and a town drunk," he said. He was
eventually exonerated after an investigation by the state police, a ruling by a
federal judge and newly available DNA evidence.
"We know that we've executed innocent people," said Steidl, who now heads
Witness for Innocence. "You can release an inmate from prison. You can't
release him from the grave."
(source: sfgate.com)
USA:
A former executioner has become a leading advocate for ending the death
penalty----Frank Thompson oversaw the only two executions in Oregon in the last
54 years.
"During the process of 1 execution, the individual let us know that the straps
binding his hands to the gurney was hurting. ... I gave instructions to make
adjustments so that this hands wouldn't hurt," Frank Thompson, former
superintendent of the Oregon State Penitentiary says. "He looked up at me and
says, "Thank you boss.'"
iThat moment of humanity in what Thompson calls a "terrible process" stays with
him.
He took on the role of superintendent after serving as a military policeman in
the Vietnam War, and ran prisons for more than 10 years. After returning from
service in Vietnam, he demonstrated against the war. After overseeing
executions, he now wants to abolish them.
Despite his experience - or because of it - when asked if he believes that
capital punishment makes the public safer, he replies in a heavy, slow voice,
"Oh, absolutely not."
For the 1st time since 1971, people seem to share Thompson's sentiment - fewer
than half of Americans support the death penalty. That's according to a poll
released last week by the Pew Research Center, which found that 49 % support
capital punishment, and 42 % oppose, trend lines that are increasingly
converging.
Despite these trends, Ohio officials announced this week that the state would
resume executions in January after a 2-year hiatus.
Thompson is happy that national views toward capital punishment appear to be
shifting. His main argument against capital punishment is one of public safety.
Murder rates in non-death penalty states are consistently lower than those with
the death penalty - and a recent survey of criminologists by the University of
Colorado found that 88 % of criminologists believed that the death penalty does
not act as a deterrent for future crimes.
"In the process of that 1st execution," which happened 18 months into his
position as superintendent, "I came to the realization that I was at my very
core against the death penalty," Thompson says.
While the 2nd execution was not any easier for Thompson, he believes that
"society has to have professionals that can do the difficult jobs -- even if
they don't believe in it -- as long as they have the ability and the capacity
to work to correct the system."
In addition to overseeing the execution, Thompson also had to assist in
rewriting the policy from death by gas chambers to death by lethal injections.
"It forced me to come to grips with how I really stood about the death penalty
and all of the flaws with the death penalty, one by one, just came into focus,"
Thompson says.
"I was a leading a group of men and women into the process of how to kill a
person - how to take a life a of human being in the name of public policy that
could not be shown to make the public any safer," he continued.
Thompson says he was able to do his job because he also had the ability to
criticize the process. He gave his director input, who then spoke to the
governor.
"It takes an inside person to have that kind of a voice," Thompson says. "If
you have the capacity to make change from within, from a credible experience,
that's the way to make a real difference."
When asked how he would respond to someone who was enthusiastic about putting a
criminal to death, Thompson says he understand that sentiment.
"I had a best friend, his name was John Tilman Hussey, who was a police officer
who was abducted by felons who were attempting to avoid being captured. They
killed him. I remember when I was supporting the death penalty - hoping that
those persons would get caught and that they would be executed," Thomson says.
"I understand those emotions," Thompson continued. "But vengeance does not make
good public policy."
(source: pri.org)
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