March 6
NEW HAMPSHIRE:
*M*A*S*H star speaks out against death penalty
Mike Farrell is best known for playing Captain B.J. Hunnicutt on the smash hit
television series M*A*S*H, opposite Alan Alda from 1975 to 1983.
On Friday, March 3, Farrell spoke in Concord about his lesser known work as a
death penalty abolitionist.
In a keynote address to the New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the Death
Penalty, Farrell called capital punishment "the prime example of society's
failure, the ultimate insult to human value."
Farrell was introduced by Barbara Keshen, a former public defender, assistant
attorney general and lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of NH.
Keshen noted that New Hampshire has not executed anyone since 1939. Michael
Addison, convicted of the capital murder of Manchester Police Officer Michael
Briggs in 2006, is the state's lone death row inmate. He remains alive pending
his appeals in federal court.
New Hampshire has come close to abolishing the death penalty 3 times, Keshen
said. In 2000, repeal was passed by the Legislature and vetoed by Gov. Jeanne
Shaheen. In 2014 and 2016 repeal bills died in the state Senate on 12-12 votes.
"If we repeal the death penalty it moves us closer toward being the kind of
society that I think we want to be," Keshen said. "A more kind, a more
compassionate society. And repealing the death penalty is a real statement of
desire to aim toward those goals and that's why for me it's important and why I
continue to do this work."
The coalition also awarded three of the state's newspapers, the Portsmouth
Herald, Concord Monitor and Keene Sentinel, with its Gov. William Badger Award,
for "outstanding and persistent editorial advocacy of death penalty repeal."
William Badger served as New Hampshire's governor from 1834 to 1836 and called
for the abolition of the death penalty.
Farrell got involved in the fight against the death penalty in 1976, after the
Supreme Court found it constitutional and reinstated it after a 4-year hiatus.
"I was working on the show (M*A*S*H) and getting involved in things like
fighting a ballot proposition attempting to keep gay people from teaching in
our schools. Then a minister from Nashville contacted me. He was fighting the
death penalty and had read that I opposed it. He needed someone with visibility
to help him stop the bloodbath he saw coming."
Farrell said he used his celebrity to raise awareness about the plight of death
row inmates and to get their advocates access to governors and others in power
to review their cases or commute their sentences.
"Anyone who looks seriously at the death system in this country knows it's
racist in application, is primarily used against the poor and the poorly
defended, is more expensive - 18 times more in California - than life in
prison, and it entraps, savages and sometimes kills the innocent, some of whom
I can name," Farrell said.
While 18 states have repealed the death penalty, many others, including
Farrell's home state of California, have repeatedly voted to keep and even
expand it. The New Hampshire House will vote on a bill this week that seeks to
expand the state's death penalty to include those who kill children. A House
committee that heard testimony regarding the bill recommended against it,
deeming it inexpedient to legislate.
Farrell, like Keshen and many other coalition members, noted that state
sanctioned killing not only destroys the life of the person on death row, it
damages the people who conduct the execution and society as a whole.
"There is an inevitable, inescapable consequence associated with the taking of
a human life," Farrell said. "The person losing her or his life pays a price,
of course. But what is the price paid by those who do the killing? What is the
cost to the society that tells people to kill for them - not the economic cost,
which is tremendous, but the moral cost, to all of us."
Several times during his address Farrell paused and stated simply: "I hate this
system."
(source: seacoastonline.com)
MASSACHUSETTS:
Philosophy Department hosts lecture on landmark Supreme Court case
The Department of Philosophy hosted Evan Mandery, a professor of criminal
justice at John Jay College, for a lecture on Friday about the 1987 Supreme
Court case McCleskey v. Kemp, which was a seminal ruling that found that
evidence of racial discrimination could not be used to overturn the death
penalty.
The event was this year's annual Hugo Adam Bedau Memorial Lecture, which is
named after a former professor of philosophy. The event began with a short
introduction by Northeastern University Law Professor Michael Meltsner, who
knew Bedau. Meltsner described Bedau as a longtime advocate for justice and
said that the lecture - held annually since Bedau's death from Parkinson's
disease in 2012 - was meant to commemorate his life.
Meltsner then introduced Mandery, the event's keynote speaker on the McCleskey
v. Kemp case. Meltsner gave a brief explanation of Mandery's most recent book,
"A Wild Justice," saying it explored the limitations of the death penalty in
the history of court cases.
"There is no shortage in books about the Supreme Court and the death penalty,
but very few get to show how the decision-making process happens," Meltsner
said. "Mandery interviewed the clerks who were involved in the cases, which is
something that no one has really done before."
After the introduction was over, Mandery began his speech by noting his respect
for Bedau and his writings. Although he had never met Bedau in person, the
professor became a role model he admired, he said.
"Reading Bedau's book made it conspicuous that he had a view, but he also
worked very diligently to be fair about it," Mandery said. "He presented
contrary evidence and was careful to present 2 sides of every issue."
Mandery also spoke about the 1972 Supreme Court case of Furman v. Georgia. That
case was unique, Mandery said, because all 5 justices ruling in the 5-4
majority wrote separate opinions.
According to Mandery, Justice Potter Stewart voted to strike down the death
penalty statutes that existed in most states, arguing that in their current
forms they violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual
punishment. Stewart argued that the death penalty does not necessarily violate
the Constitution, as long as states revised their statutes to give out
sentences in less arbitrary ways. Mandery said all of the justices believed
that the decision would mark the end of the death penalty.
"However, 40 years later, 35 states have passed new statutes concerning the
death penalty," Mandery said. "There is no consistency in the American death
penalty, both in the national and intrastate level."
Mandery noted that 2 % of counties are responsible for 1/2 of the executions in
the United States, and he criticized how arbitrary the implementation of the
death penalty can be. In particular, Mandery said that McCleskey v. Kemp was
significant for trials about racial discrimination in court.
Mandery explained that Warren McCleskey had been convicted of armed robbery and
murder. McCleskey then petitioned the Supreme Court to review his case,
referring to a study by University of Iowa College of Law Professor David
Baldus as evidence of discrimination.
"Baldus led a social science study of the arbitrariness of death penalties in
Georgia," Mandery said. "He coded 2500 various death penalty cases and found a
significant race effect. You were much more likely to get a death penalty if
you killed a white person than if you killed a black person."
Mandery said that Justice Lewis Powell, however, argued that the statistical
study was not enough evidence to reverse McCleskey's conviction. The court
sentenced McCleskey to death.
"What I know from my research, though, [is that] Powell was [previously] very
uneasy about the death penalty," he said. "He asked the clerk to research
whether these cases can be prospectively applied."
He said that Powell had spoken with numerous clerks about the matter, and most
of the conversations had been expansive and cathartic. However, Powell's regret
was expressed long after the case was declared, and it was irretrievable then.
By examining the 2 cases, Mandery expressed his concern about the prevalence of
the death penalty in the United States.
"If the death penalty were reserved for Hitler, I just wouldn't care about it,"
Mandery said. "It's not about the penalty itself. It's the [systemic] structure
of the death penalty against poor black murderers that makes me so concerned
about it."
(source: The Tufts Daily)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Jury to be selected this week for state trooper ambush case
Visitors to the sparsely populated Pike County in northeastern Pennsylvania
along the New York border might find themselves drawn to the natural beauty of
Lake Wallenpaupack, the historic coziness of Milford, the county seat, (where
they might view the flag draped over Abraham Lincoln the night he was
assassinated), or venture to view the still standing aqueduct constructed in
the 19th century by John Roebling of Brooklyn Bridge fame.
But the group of Chester County residents venturing to that county later this
month won't likely have much time for sightseeing. Instead, the panel of 12
jurors and several alternates will be hearing the death penalty case of a man
accused of the ambush of 2 Pennsylvania state troopers in 2014.
The jury selection process for that trial will begin at the county Justice
Center on Thursday. The judge overseeing the trial last year declared that the
jury should be chosen from outside Pike County, where pre-trial publicity and
the paucity of eligible jurors demanded a change of venire - or that the jury
should be made up of people from outside that rural county.
Summonses went out earlier this year to 120 people from Chester County to
report to the courthouse to participate in the jury selection process.
Attorneys for both sides will travel here to begin the process, which will take
approximately a week if previous death penalty cases provide any example. The
prosecution is led by Pike County District Attorney Raymond J. Tonkin, who last
year won a bitter re-election campaign, one of whose issues was who was better
suited to prosecute Eric Frein, the accused in the trooper case. In the jury
selection process, he will be assisted by Chester County Deputy District
Attorney Michelle Frei, who was part of the team that prosecuted chainsaw
killer LaQuanta Chapman in 2012, the last time Chester County saw a death
penalty verdict delivered.
Frei is also one of the prosecutors involved in the case revolving around the
alleged killers of 3-year-old murder victim Scott "Scotty" McMillan.
Frien, 33, of Canadensis, Monroe County, is charged in connection with the
shooting death of Cpl. Bryon Dickson II and the wounding of Trooper Alex
Douglass outside Blooming Grove in September 2014. He led police on a tense
48-day manhunt across Pike and Monroe counties before U.S. marshals caught him
about 30 miles from the shooting scene. Frein has pleaded not guilty.
Court documents say Frein spoke of wanting to start a revolution in a letter to
his parents and called Dickson's slaying an "assassination" during a police
interview. He is represented by attorneys Michael E. Weinstein and William
Ruzzo.
Pike County Judge Gregory Chelak, who visited the Justice Center last month,
ruled that the trial itself would be held at the county courthouse in Milford.
Pike County is between Scranton and the Pennsylvania-New Jersey border along
Interstate 84. The jurors will initially be bused from West Chester to Milford,
but it is uncertain now whether they will remain sequestered at a motel there
for the duration of the trial, which is expected to last at least 1 week.
(source: dailylocal.com)
DELAWARE:
Judge holds hearing in case overturning death penalty
A judge is holding an evidence suppression hearing for a murder suspect whose
case led to Delaware's death penalty being overturned by the state Supreme
Court.
Monday's hearing comes in the prosecution of Benjamin Rauf, who is charged in
the 2015 drug-related killing of 27-year-old Shazim Uppal of Hockessin, a
fellow Temple University law school graduate.
Prosecutors had planned to seek the death penalty against Rauf, but after a
U.S. Supreme Court ruling regarding Florida's death penalty statute, the judge
sought a state Supreme Court opinion on Delaware's law, which is similar to
Florida's.
A majority of the justices concluded that Delaware's law was unconstitutional
because it allows judges too much discretion and doesn't require that a jury
find unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant deserves
execution.
(source: Associated Press)
ALABAMA:
Judged by 12, not 1
There's a reason Alabama stands alone as the only state in the nation to give
judges the option to override a jury's sentencing recommendation in capital
cases. It's a terrible way to dispense justice.
First, consider the matter from the perspective of a jury in a capital case.
They've sat trough the testimony. They deliberated and reached a verdict. Now
jurors - ordinary people - must enter the penalty phase and determine whether
the person they just convicted will be held in prison for the rest of their
life, or be executed by the state for their crimes.
It's an overwhelming thing to ask of anyone. But it's worse if, after all that
soul-searching, the recommendation is dismissed by a judge who makes his own
decision.
It's no picnic for a judge, either, considering that, in Alabama, judges face a
regular referendum in partisan elections. The mere existence of the capital
punishment option exposes them to enormous public and political pressure to
exercise that option.
Then there's the perspective of defendants, who may have 6 th Amendment
concerns, as did U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor, in a ruling
concerning similar laws under challenge in recent years.
Alabama lawmakers can take a step toward eliminating this troublesome aspect to
capital punishment in our state. Measures that would eliminate the judge's
option to override a jury recommendation in capital cases are making their way
through both chambers of the Legislature, and appear poised for passage.
Lawmakers must see this change through, as any potential death sentence should
rest in the hands of 12, not 1.
(source: Editorial, Dothan Eagle)
ARKANSAS:
Death-penalty opponents outraged at Arkansas 'assembly line' of executions
For more than a decade, the state of Arkansas did not put to death a single
condemned inmate. Next month, it will execute 8.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson moved this week to reactivate the state's death chamber
after a request by Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge to go ahead with
the sentences. The governor ordered the executions on Monday.
No inmate in the state of Arkansas has been put to death since convicted killer
Eric Randall Nance died by lethal injection more than 11 years ago. Following
his execution, the state???s death chamber remained dormant amid legal and
operational challenges.
The effective deactivation of capital punishment in Arkansas represented an
abrupt halt in the state's practice, and followed a period in which nearly 30
inmates were executed between 1990 and Nance's death in November 2005.
Aside from legal maneuvers that argued capital punishment is unconstitutional,
the state's department of correction has also had difficulties obtaining the
necessary drugs to carry out executions - an obstacle several states have
encountered in recent years.
Hutchinson's reasoning for ordering the executions of all 8 death row inmates
before May appears to stem from the fact that the state's supply of midazolam -
1 of 3 drugs used in the lethal mixtures - expires at the end of April. The
drug has received intense scrutiny over claims it is often ineffective and has
directly contributed to multiple cruelly botched executions.
Most compound pharmacies that in the past sold midazolam to states for
executions have stopped making it available, on ethical grounds, leaving most
prisons departments without a source for the powerful sedative.
The men marked for death - at an unprecedented rate of two per day for 4 days -
are Don Davis, Bruce Earl Ward, Ledelle Lee, Stacey Johnson, Marcell Williams,
Jack Jones, Jr., Jason McGehee and Kenneth Williams. Davis and Ward are
scheduled for April 17, Lee and Johnson on April 20, Williams and Jones on
April 24 and McGehee and Williams on April 27.
"The Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty is outraged by ... plans
to carry out eight executions within the span of 10 days in April," the group
said. "This planned mass execution is grotesque."
Attorneys for the men have so far unsuccessfully appealed to state and federal
courts seeking a stay of execution. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined
to hear the inmates' arguments that Arkansas' execution statutes, amended in
2015, are unlawful. After that refusal, Arkansas' high court promptly ended a
stay it granted last summer and Rutledge asked Hutchinson to schedule the death
sentences.
"This action is necessary to fulfill the requirement of the law, but it is also
important to bring closure to the victims' families who have lived with the
court appeals and uncertainty for a very long time," Hutchinson said.
An amended challenge from the inmates' lawyers, filed last week, claims that
states' uses of midazolam do not have the intended effect during executions,
saying the drug masks "torture by paralyzing the subject as he is burned alive
from the inside." It is intended to sedate the prisoner before 2 more drugs are
introduced to paralyze and kill them. The 2nd drug, pancuronium bromide,
paralyzes the inmate and the 3rd, potassium chloride, stops the heart.
"Unless the prisoner is unconscious, then drugs 2 and 3 will cause pain -
torturous punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment, and state
guarantees against cruel and unusual punishment," Jeff Rosenzweig, an attorney
for the prisoners, said.
The Supreme Court refused to hear the challenges because it previously
stipulated that any legal challenge opposing a state's use of midazolam in
lethal injections must identify other available chemicals that can be used
instead.
Rosenzweig said there's a high probability that a botched execution will happen
if Arkansas goes through with the sentences next month.
"The idea of killing that many people in that short a time period evokes an
assembly line," he said.
(source: KTTN news)
NEW MEXICO:
House panel rejects bill to bring back death penalty
Juan Melendez, who was on death row in Florida for 17 years. Melendez, 65, now
lives in Albuquerque.
When Juan Melendez was on Florida's death row for a murder conviction, his
mother built an altar with a statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe surrounded by
roses. She said 5 rosaries a day, asking for a miracle to exonerate him and
bring him home safely. She also wrote Melendez a letter saying, "Have faith,
put your trust in God and that miracle will happen. One day, you will be free."
It took 17 years, but the miracle happened. Melendez, 65, now living in
Albuquerque, was freed in 2002 after the real killer came forward. Melendez
said the letter gave him hope, but he didn't know then that his mother was
saving money to return his body to Puerto Rico after his execution.
"No mother should ever have to go through that," Melendez said Sunday to a
committee of the state House of Representatives that considered a bill to
reinstate the death penalty in New Mexico. "I think she suffered more than I
did."
Democrats on the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee blocked the death
penalty bill after hearing from Melendez and about 2 dozen other opponents of
capital punishment.
As expected, the committee voted 3-2 on party lines to table the measure,
effectively killing House Bill 72, sponsored by Rep. Monica Youngblood,
R-Albuquerque.
Her bill would have allowed for the death penalty in cases involving the murder
of a child or law enforcement officer.
Explaining the bill, Youngblood said it was aimed at "the evil in our society
that would hurt a child in this way." New Mexico recently has been the scene of
several high-profile murders of children, including 10-year-old Victoria
Martens of Albuquerque in August 2016 and 9-year-old Ashlynn Mike, who was
found dead in Shiprock in May 2016.
Youngblood said the question of capital punishment being a deterrent to crime
is arguable. But she pointed to an October 2016 Albuquerque Journal poll that
said a large majority of New Mexicans support bringing back the death penalty.
Hobbs District Attorney Dianna Luce, Youngblood's expert witness, listed
several murderers in the state who received the death penalty, but added that
only 1 person has been executed in New Mexico in more than 50 years. That was
child killer Terry Clark in 2001.
Luce also said, "New Mexico is the best place in the U.S. to be a criminal"
because "our laws are not as strong as [other states]."
Shortly before the committee's vote, Melendez told The New Mexican he doubts
the state will ever bring back the death penalty.
"New Mexico does not deserve a law that costs that much money," he said. "New
Mexico does not deserve a law that does not deter crime. New Mexico does not
deserve a law that is racist," he said, referring to the fact that blacks and
Hispanics are more likely to receive a death sentence than are whites convicted
of murder.
"You always have the risk of convicting an innocent man," Melendez said, adding
that you can release someone from prison but you can't release someone from the
grave.
Melendez also appeared before the New Mexico Legislature in 2009, the year it
repealed the death penalty.
For 7 years after that, the Legislature made no serious attempt to reinstate
capital punishment. But last year, during a special session that began in late
September, Gov. Susana Martinez put the death penalty on the agenda. The
governor had initially said she wanted a 1-day special session to resolve a
budget deficit.
The House of Representatives, then controlled by Republicans, passed the death
penalty bill on a party-line vote following a grueling six-hour hearing that
began in the predawn hours. The Senate, with Democrats in the majority, ignored
the House bill.
Critics of Martinez said the sole reason for the death penalty being considered
during the special session was for political purposes. House members advanced
the death penalty bill just a month before the general election. Indeed, even
before the House vote in early October, Republicans were sending mailers
blasting Democrats for voting against the death penalty.
After the House committee killed the death penalty bill Sunday, Ben Baur, the
state's chief public defender, told The New Mexican, "I'm pleased that we're
not imposing new burdens on the state - financial burdens that would not do
anything to reduce crime."
A fiscal analysis by the Legislative Finance Committee of HB 72 said
reinstating executions could cost the state up to $7.2 million a year over a
3-year period.
The cost to incarcerate 1 person sentenced to the death penalty is $51,100 a
year, the study says.
In the analysis, the Administrative Office of the Courts estimated that a death
penalty jury trial would cost $12,000 to $17,000 more than a non-death penalty
case. More jury costs would be incurred because, after finding someone guilty
in a death penalty case, a jury would have to determine whether to impose
capital punishment.
Youngblood said these figures represented a "worst-case scenario."
(source: nmpolitics.net)
*********************
House tables death penalty bill
The House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee voted to table HB 72 Sunday in
a 3-2 vote.
The bill has to do with people convicted of killing a member law enforcement or
children. The sponsor of this bill, Monica Youngblood, said she decided to
introduce it after the death of Victoria Martens.
"Victoria Martens was murdered in my district," said Youngblood. "It's been
gut-wrenching to watch a community go through."
As a community mourns the horrific loss of an innocent 10-year-old girl and
many fallen police officers, legislators listened.
"We have seen the number of officers killed in the line of duty," said
Youngblood. "We have an opportunity to do something."
But plans to reinstate the death penalty didn't make it far in committee after
emotional testimony from both sides.
Supporters of the bill argued it prevents violent criminals from being repeat
offenders. The opponents called the death penalty legal revenge and looked at
the cost.
"To reinstate it means the expenditure of a lot of money and a lot of wasted
resources," said Patricia Royabal Caballero, D-13. "Where in my opinion those
resources that are very limited would be better spent helping our families,
dealing with the budget crisis."
(source: KOB news)
NEVADA:
Righetti jury trial set to begin Monday
2 jury trials are expected to begin Monday at the Regional Justice Center,
including a death penalty case that resulted in the death a 15-year-old girl
more than 5 years ago.
More than a year ago, Javier Righetti, 24, plead guilty to capital murder in a
case that shocked Las Vegas for its brutality: the rape, torture, killing and
mutilation of a 15-year-old girl abducted on her way home from school.
Righetti pleaded guilty in February with no promise that he wouldn't be put to
death for the September 2011 slaying of Arbor View High School sophomore Alyssa
Otremba, who had texted her mom that she was walking home.
He pleaded guilty to 10 counts, including murder with a deadly weapon,
1st-degree kidnapping and sexual assault with a child in Alyssa's death.
His plea to 9 counts stands, but the Nevada Supreme Court last month upheld a
lower court decision rejecting a plea on the murder charge.
On the 10th count, the plea lacked an admission that the killing was
premeditated, which prosecutors said should have been included. Such an
admission allows prosecutors to ask a jury to consider more factors regarding
the severity of the crime when weighing Righetti's sentence.
With the deal rejected, Righetti will go on trial. A judge ruled late last
month that he was mentally capable of facing the death penalty. If a jury votes
for the death penalty, he will be sent to Nevada's death row at Ely, where he
would be the youngest man in one of the solitary cells, isolated 23 hours every
day.
(source: KSNV news)
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