January 1, 2018
TEXAS:
Report: Bexar County juries don't like the death penalty
Juries are becoming more and more reluctant to hand out death sentences
throughout Texas, but especially in Bexar County, according to a new report by
the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
In 2017, juries in Texas sentenced 4 people to death - the lowest level since
the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the state's revised capital punishment statute in
1976.
Bexar County juries sentenced no one to death last year, the report states, and
have sentenced only 1 person to death in the past 8 years: Mark Anthony
Gonzalez, who was convicted in the 2011 murder of a Bexar County sheriff's
sergeant.
Harris County, meanwhile, has sentenced 10 people to death in the past 8 years.
"Texas continues to move away from the death penalty, even in the counties that
have used it the most," Kristin Houle, executive director of the Texas
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said in a news release.
"Prosecutors, juries, judges, and the public are subjecting our state's death
penalty practices to unprecedented scrutiny," she added. "In an increasing
number of cases, they are accepting alternatives to this flawed and
irreversible punishment."
6 counties - out of 254 counties in Texas - account for more than 1/2 of all
new death sentences imposed in the past 5 years, the report found. Bexar County
is not one of them.
The Texas Coalition Against the Death Penalty, an advocacy organization based
in Austin, said the decline can be credited to improvements in the quality of
legal counsel and the exorbitant cost of death penalty trials.
Other reasons cited: Prosecutorial discretion, concerns about wrongful
convictions and the availability of life in prison without the possibility of
parole - which became a sentencing option in Texas in 2005.
Historically, Bexar County has been one of the counties to hand out the most
death penalties. Since 1974, prosecutors in Bexar County have secured 76 death
sentences, the 3rd-most sentences statewide.
But in recent years, that trend has declined. Between 2009 and 2012, 4 juries
that could have used capital punishment rejected the sentence. The defendants
were sentenced to life in prison without parole instead.
The report also shows the application of the death penalty remains near
historic lows.
Last year, Texas put 7 people to death, matching 2016 for the lowest number of
executions in 2 decades. Still, Texas accounted for 30 % of all U.S. executions
last year.
2 people from Bexar County were executed in 2017: Rolando Ruiz, a hit man who
killed a woman on behalf of her husband and brother-in-law, and TaiChin Preyor,
who killed a 24-year-old woman in a drug-related attack.
Bexar County matched Tarrant County for the most executions in the state.
Harris County, in comparison, had zero executions - the 1st time that's
happened since 1985 - and Dallas County accounted for 1 execution.
However, the report noted that application of the death penalty remains
racially biased. Over the past 5 years, 70 % of death sentences have been
imposed on people of color. More than 1/2 of those death sentences were handed
to African-American defendants - even though African-Americans make up only 13
% of the population.
5 executions already are scheduled for the 1st quarter of 2018, though none of
them are from Bexar County.
On Nov. 28, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed the execution of Juan
Castillo to review claims of false testimony. His execution has not yet been
rescheduled.
(source: San Antonio Express-News)
FLORIDA:
2nd suspect in Super Bowl Sunday triple murder to face death penalty
The state of Florida is seeking the death penalty against a man accused of
killing 3 people at a Super Bowl party in February.
Marcus Steward, 25, was arrested last month in Riviera Beach as the 2nd suspect
in the Feb. 5 attacks on Mohawk Street, according to the incident report.
Police DNA evidence linked Steward to the murders. There was DNA found on a
glove, a hoodie, and part of a rifle. The evidence was found in the back of
Sean Henry's stolen Honda Accord and in culvert along I-95 where police found
Henry's stolen car abandoned.
Steward is charged with 3 counts of 1st degree murder with a firearm, 1 county
of attempted 1st degree murder with a firearm and 1 count of grand theft of a
motor vehicle.
Christopher Vasata, 24, is also facing the death penalty for the triple murder.
He was arrested in late March for his alleged role in the killings and is in a
wheelchair due to injuries sustained during the shooting.
Steward is due back in court Jan. 12 at 8:30 a.m.
(source: CBS News)
USA:
Abolish the death penalty
I strongly believe that the death penalty should have been abolished long ago.
The death penalty is not moral. It goes against our natural rights. I would not
want to be killed. Would you? Prison is a place to think about one???s action.
A person who has done an extreme wrong should be sentenced to life in prison. A
death sentence says we have given up on that person.
People in countries across the world receive unfair death sentences. For
example, in 2016, thousands of people were unjustly executed in totalitarian
nations such as China.
The cost of supporting a prisoner on death row greatly exceeds the cost of
putting the person in prison for life. Death sentences lead to expensive
appeals. That money is paid by taxpayers, so we all bear part of the cost of
the death penalty.
In California alone, the death penalty has cost the state more than $4 billion
since 1978. Research has shown that trying a case where the death penalty is
not an issue costs $740,000. A case in which prosecutors seek the death penalty
costs $1.26 million.
The death penalty is cruel. People just like the people who are reading this
letter are executed every year, and this penalty costs taxpayers a lot of money
that could be used for better purposes. The only clear solution is to abolish
the death penalty.
Konor Onufer
Hickory Middle School
(source: Letter to the Editor, Virginian-Pilot)
********************
States Study Use of Fentanyl as Execution Drug
Faced with pharmaceutical supplier refusals, states are having serious
difficulty obtaining the lethal drugs used for current execution protocols, so
they are increasingly examining alternatives - including fentanyl, the
synthetic drug that is in large part responsible for the nation's deadly opioid
epidemic.
Nevada and Nebraska have developed execution protocols including fentanyl, and
plan to employ them early in 2018. But those plans are drawing strong
opposition from death penalty opponents and some physicians, who caution the
powerful painkiller - whose overdoses kill many thousands in this country every
year - might cause excruciating or prolonged deaths. They also call attempts to
use a drug untested for executions as akin to conducting experiments on humans.
But proponents argue fentanyl is a widely available surgical anesthetic and
anti-pain treatment for advanced cancer patients, and states have thus far had
no problems obtaining ample supplies of the drug. It's also extremely potent -
in fact, 50 times stronger than heroin.
Nevada had planned to carry out its 1st execution making use of a 3-drug
protocol using fentanyl in November. Developed by a team that included the
state's former chief medical officer, the protocol starts with injecting the
sedative diazepam, better known by the trade name Valium, followed by fentanyl,
to bring on unconsciousness.
If the 1st 2 drugs work as planned and are administered properly and in large
enough doses, they ought to be sufficient to stop the condemned inmate's
breathing. But the state plans to add a 3rd drug, cisatracurium, a paralyzing
drug discovered in South America, to hasten death in case the 1st 2 drugs work
too slowly. Concerns about the 3rd, paralyzing drug caused a state judge to
postpone the execution last month, and the Nevada Supreme Court is currently
considering the case.
Nebraska plans to roll out its new fentanyl-aided execution method as early as
January 2018. It would use the same 3 drugs as in Nevada's protocol, followed
by an injection of potassium chloride, designed to stop the heart. That has
also raised concerns, since even in smaller doses, potassium chloride causes a
burning sensation; opponents argue the procedure might leave the injected
person conscious of feelings of torture-like burning but too sedated and
semi-paralyzed to be able to alert to their ordeal.
The difficulty obtaining chemicals needed for current execution protocols has
also led some of the 31 states still authorizing capital punishment not only to
search for new options, but also to consider reviving older ones. For example,
Mississippi and Oklahoma have authorized use of nitrogen gas as an alternative
execution method.
While lethal injection is the primary method of execution in every state
authorizing the death penalty, some states may look to earlier alternatives.
Nine states continue to permit electrocution as an alternative method to lethal
injection, 6 allow use of gas chambers, three permit firing squads, and 2 allow
hanging. Some death row inmates, including the one awaiting fentanyl-aided
execution in Nevada, have indicated they would prefer to face a firing squad,
and some state legislatures have been considering proposals to add such mostly
abandoned alternatives as fallbacks if lethal injection becomes impossible due
to court rulings or the inability to obtain the necessary chemicals.
(source: Christopher Zoukis is the author of Federal Prison Handbook: The
Definitive Guide to Surviving the Federal Bureau of Prisons, College for
Convicts: The Case for Higher Education in American Prisons (McFarland & Co.,
2014) and Prison Education Guide (Prison Legal News Publishing, 2016). He can
be found online at ChristopherZoukis.com and
PrisonerResource.com.----Huffington Post)
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