April 3
TEXAS----female to face death penalty
Jury trial set for capital-murder defendant
A jury trial has been scheduled for Jan. 28 for the woman accused of shooting
to death her 2 young daughters, Henderson County District Attorney Mark Hall
said.
Just over 3 months ago, Sarah Henderson, 30, pleaded not guilty after being
indicted in January 2018 on 2 counts of capital murder, attempted murder and
assault on a public servant. She remains in the Henderson County jail on $1
million bond each on the capital cases and a combined $100,000 bond on the
other counts.
Henderson was arrested on Nov. 2 at her Mabank home. Sheriff Botie Hillhouse
has said that she had planned the murders of Kaylee and Kenlie for a couple of
weeks and that she tried to kill her husband, Jacob Henderson, before the gun
malfunctioned.
The girls, 5 and 7, attended Southside Elementary School in Mabank.
In a 911 call, Jacob Henderson asked for help for his wife before asking a
dispatcher to "disregard" the call. About 3 hours later, he made another 911
call to report that his wife had shot the girls in their heads.
"The assault on a public servant arose 2 days later while Henderson was being
held in the Henderson County jail, where she is accused of striking a detention
officer while he was attempting to release her from restraint," according to
reports.
Judge Scott McKee of the 392nd Judicial District Court provided prosecutors and
defense attorneys Steve Green and John Youngblood a restricted and protective
order - that is, a gag order.
Hall said he has until June 1 to determine whether the death penalty should be
sought in the case. If convicted of capital murder, Sarah Henderson could spend
life in prison without the possibility of parole or receive the death penalty.
A pretrial hearing is set for Aug. 23 in the 392nd.
(source: Athens Daily Review)
*********************
Prosecutor will seek death penalty in murder
The Texas County prosecutor will seek the death penalty for 1 of 4 persons
accused in the brutal death of a teenager last year north of Cabool that drew
national attention.
Parke Stevens Jr. announced his intention to seek the sentence against Andrew
Vrba in a court filing Monday in Crawford County Circuit Court, where the case
is expected to be heard on a change of venue. A trial date could be set as
early as Tuesday, when it appears on a docket.
Vrba, 18, is charged with 1st-degree murder, armed criminal action and
abandonment of a corpse in the September death of Joseph M. Steinfeld, who went
by "Ally" and planned to transition to a female, according to family members.
Authorities allege the victim was stabbed and the remains burned.
Stevens' decision also will likely trigger the involvement of a special
prosecutor from the Missouri attorney general???s death penalty case team. Vrba
is defended by the Missouri public defender system.
3 other defendants are charged in the stabbing death of Steinfeld:
--Isis Schauer, 18, entered a guilty plea to 2nd-degree murder and abandonment
of a corpse. She was sentenced to 20 years on the murder count and 4 years on
the 2nd charge in December. The terms are to run concurrently in the Missouri
Department of Corrections.
--Briana Calderas, 24, also is charged with 1st-degree murder, armed criminal
action and abandonment of a corpse. A pre-trial conference is June 19 in
Pulaski County, where her case will be heard. The trial is Oct. 9-12.
--A 4th person, James Grigsby, of Thayer, 25, is accused of abandonment of a
corpse and tampering with evidence.
(source: Houston Herald)
********************
'Express lane to death': Texas seeks approval to speed up death penalty
appeals, execute more quickly
Texas is seeking to speed up executions with a renewed request to opt-in to a
federal law that would shorten the legal process and limit appeals options for
death-sentenced prisoners.
Defense attorneys worry it would lead to the execution of innocent people and -
if it's applied retroactively, as Texas is requesting - it could potentially
end ongoing appeals for a number of death row prisoners and make them eligible
for execution dates.
"Opt-in would speed up the death penalty treadmill exponentially," said Kathryn
Kase, an longtime defense attorney and former executive director of Texas
Defender Services.
But a state attorney general spokeswoman framed the request to the Justice
Department as a necessary way to avoid "stressful delays" and cut down on the
"excessive costs" of lengthy federal court proceedings.
Robbie Kaplan, co-founder of the #TimesUp movement, says sweeping changes to
laws in recent years have dissuaded attorneys from taking on harassment cases
on behalf of women. The legal defense fund aims to change that.
The controversial request - which comes after years of declining executions -
has sparked a federal lawsuit and hundreds of pages of comments from a broad
coalition of concerned parties including the ACLU, the American Bar
Association, Mexico's government, a former federal judge, and dozens of defense
attorneys.
There's widespread skepticism among the defense bar as to whether Texas
actually meets the qualification criteria - but some are worried that it won't
matter. Approval is up to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, putting the nation's
top prosecutor - who recently advocated for capital punishment for drug dealers
- in charge of decisions that could hamstring the defense.
If Sessions greenlights the Lone Star State's application, it'll be the 1st
ever opt-in approval in the more than 2 decades since the law's inception.
For attorneys like Casey Kaplan - who helped free a wrongfully convicted Harris
County man, Alfred Dewayne Brown, from death row - that's a terrifying
possibility.
"In an environment like Texas where you know the state gets it wrong - and not
just accidentally, but intentionally - why in the world would you ever take
steps to speed up the process to execute a potentially innocent person?" he
said. "Until somebody can answer that question they should be taking steps to
slow it down."
Whitewashing failure
The state's hopes for fast-tracking a path to the gurney date back to at least
1996, when Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.
Written in the tough-on-crime 1990s and in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City
bombing, the law set time limits to expedite federal appeals in death penalty
cases and gave greater deference to state courts.
"We are about to curb these endless, frivolous appeals of death sentences by
those convicted of murder," then-Sen. Bob Dole said at the time. Nationally,
the average time between sentencing and execution has continued to rise,
according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
But in addition to what is already in place, the law also opens the door to
creating even tighter deadlines with a special opt-in provision under a section
called Chapter 154.
In order to qualify for Chapter 154 certification, states have to prove that
they offered good enough lawyers earlier in the process, during the so-called
"state habeas" appeal. If the condemned were all able to get competent,
sufficiently paid attorneys with the funds to afford things like investigators
and specialists during the state habeas appeal, then the law would permit
speeding up the later federal habeas appeal.
"Opt-in presumes that we've reached this promised land of excellent and
well-resourced legal representation at all levels for everyone on death row and
in fact we have not," Kase said. The slew of letters submitted to the
government early this year consistently panned Texas's current defense system,
calling it "inadequate" and "infected" by "well-publicized failures," pointing
out that the state doesn't even guarantee counsel for all types of
post-conviction proceedings.
So far no state has qualified.
But in November, Sessions fired off letters to Texas and Arizona - 2 states
that previously put in certification requests - and asked if they still wanted
to apply.
They did.
The states' affirmative responses prompted a required comment period, during
with TDS and other capital defense organizations penned a scathing 247-page
comment - bolstered by more than 100 appendixes - eviscerating Texas's
application, calling it "little more than a whitewash of the state's persistent
historic failures" that includes "no evidence at all."
The application itself also doesn't explain why the state wants to opt-in, but
a state attorney general spokeswoman helped clarify.
"Opting-in would serve several purposes for Texans, including sparing crime
victims years of unnecessary and stressful delays, ensuring that our state
court judgments are respected by federal judges as cases progress, and reducing
the excessive costs of lengthy federal court proceedings," said AG spokeswoman
Kayleigh Lovvorn. The Department of Justice declined to comment and a
spokesperson for the governor's office referred comment to the state attorney
general.
Houston-based capital defense attorney Patrick McCann stressed that federal
courts are where many condemned men - including those wrongfully convicted like
Anthony Graves, and those deemed too intellectually disabled to execute, like
Bobby Moore - have gotten relief.
"This is a political quest," he said. "It's an appeal to Gov. Abbott's base to
make it very proudly explained that we have an express lane to death."
Worst-Case Scenario
If Sessions approves it, opting in would include limitations on how long
federal courts have to resolve cases, restrictions on judges' abilities to
grant stays of execution, and limits on the claims prisoners can raise in
federal habeas proceedings.
But what's sparking the most concern among defense lawyers is a change that
would halve the time attorneys have to file the 1st part of their federal
appeal.
If Texas opts in, attorneys would have six months instead of a year to
interview witnesses, hire investigators, and familiarize themselves sometimes a
decade or more of case files to sift out any possible past lawyering mistakes,
suspicion of withheld evidence or proof of actual innocence stuffed away in
boxes and boxes of materials.
"Doing all that in one year is already extraordinarily difficult, and any
further limitations would only exacerbate the existing problem," said Emily
Olson-Gault, director of the Death Penalty Representation Project at the
American Bar Association.
"We know that errors are made in capital cases," she added. "The more that the
allotted time to prepare is limited, the greater the risk that serious
constitutional errors will stand uncorrected."
And if claims aren't raised in the 1st filing, they can't always be raised
later.
Death penalty lawyer Kenneth McGuire - who is among those suing in D.C. federal
court to challenge the certification process - called the shorter time frame
"completely impractical" and said it would "only guarantee a miscarriage of
justice." Attorney James Rytting concurred, adding that sometimes it takes
"several months" for the courts to appoint federal habeas lawyers.
And, because Texas has requested certification dating back to 1995, there's
some question as to whether it would retroactively applied to cases now
entering federal appeals.
"That's a worst-case scenario," McCann said.
Bigger Problems
Opting in wouldn't just impact defense attorneys and their clients.
Defense attorney Margaret Schmucker, who previously worked for the state
attorney general under both Abbott and John Cornyn before him, highlighted the
problems it could cause for the state attorneys, who would likely have to
handle appeals at a quicker clip.
"On any given day any one of the capital division attorneys would have a couple
dozen cases on their docket," she said. "And it's not going to be any easier on
them. So unless the money and the staff comes to deal with the expedited
processes they're going to have bigger problems."
It also could have an impact on which cases are taken up by the nation's
highest court, which issued 2 groundbreaking decisions stemming from
Houston-area cases last year.
"The Supreme Court can only hear what's brought to it and if those cases never
get there because they get shut out or shut down, the Supreme Court is gonna be
a lot less busy," McCann said.
"Bobby Moore would be dead under this standard of time limits. Anthony Graves
would be dead. Pretty much everybody who's been released or commuted on death
row would have already been executed so not only would we have done wrong we
wouldn't even know we had."
As of now, it's not clear when a decision from Washington might come.
(source: Houston Chronicle)
***************
Texas Seeks Sessions' Approval to "Speed Up the Death Penalty
Treadmill"----Critics warn the move could lead to the state killing a greater
number of people
Texas is seeking permission from Trump administration Attorney General Jeff
Sessions to opt-in to a federal law that would fast-track executions, a move
that critics warn could lead to the state killing more people - including those
who are wrongfully convicted and those deemed too handicapped to be executed.
"Opt-in would speed up the death penalty treadmill exponentially."----Kathryn
Kase, defense attorney
While a spokesperson for the Texas attorney general's office claimed to Houston
Chronicle that it is pursuing the measure - which would limit the length of the
legal process and convicts' appeals options - to avoid "stressful delays" and
"excessive costs," defense attorney Kathryn Kase warned that "opt-in would
speed up the death penalty treadmill exponentially."
"Opt-in presumes that we've reached this promised land of excellent and
well-resourced legal representation at all levels for everyone on death row and
in fact we have not," added Kase, the former executive director of Texas
Defender Services, a nonprofit that provides legal support to people
challenging death penalty sentences.
Although the federal law has been on the books for two decades, no state has
ever received opt-in approval from the Justice Department. However, the
decision could be swayed by President Donald Trump's repeated endorsements of
state-sanctioned killings.
Additionally, Sessions' actions so far suggest the Attorney General may be
personally supportive of the move: In November, he reportedly sent letters to
Texas and Arizona, the two states that have previously expressed interest in
opting in, to inquire about whether they were still interested.
"And, because Texas has requested certification dating back to 1995," the
Chronicle reports, "there's some question as to whether it would retroactively
applied to cases now entering federal appeals." Currently, 229 inmates are on
death row in Texas.
The law would restrict: the ability of federal judges to grant stays on
executions; how long federal courts have to rule on cases; the claims convicts
can raise during federal proceedings; and the amount of time defense attorneys
have to file federal appeals.
Rather than a year, attorneys representing death row inmates would have only
six months, as the Chronice explains, "to interview witnesses, hire
investigators, and familiarize themselves sometimes a decade or more of case
files to sift out any possible past lawyering mistakes, suspicion of withheld
evidence, or proof of actual innocence stuffed away in boxes and boxes of
materials."
"Doing all that in one year is already extraordinarily difficult, and any
further limitations would only exacerbate the existing problem," said Emily
Olson-Gault, director of the Death Penalty Representation Project at the
American Bar Association. "We know that errors are made in capital cases... The
more that the allotted time to prepare is limited, the greater the risk that
serious constitutional errors will stand uncorrected."
"It's an appeal to [Republican] Gov. [Greg] Abbott's base to make it very
proudly explained that we have an express lane to death."----Patrick McCann,
defense attorney
Houston-based defense attorney Patrick McCann pointed out that the limitations
would likely reduce the number of Texas inmates' cases that make it to federal
courts, which determined that Anthony Graves was wrongfully convicted and Bobby
Moore (pdf) was too intellectually disabled to execute.
"Bobby Moore would be dead under this standard of time limits. Anthony Graves
would be dead," McCann said. "Pretty much everybody who's been released or
commuted on death row would have already been executed so not only would we
have done wrong we wouldn't even know we had."
Calling the state's opt-in move "a political quest," McCann concluded, "It's an
appeal to [Republican] Gov. [Greg] Abbott's base to make it very proudly
explained that we have an express lane to death."
(source: commondreams.org)
*******************
Jury mulls Isidro Delacruz's fate as sentencing gets underway
Isidro Delacruz faces the death penalty or life imprisonment as the punishment
phase of trial commenced Monday.
A Tom Green County Jury on Thursday found Delacruz, 27, guilty of capital
murder in the slaying of 5-year-old Naiya Villegas.
He is convicted of slitting the throat of his ex-girlfriend's daughter in the
2700 block of Houston Street on Sept. 2, 2014.
Tanya Bermea, the child's mother, told jurors about her relationship woes with
Delacruz such as the time he allegedly deflated the tires on her car before
choking her into unconsciousness in November 2013.
Multiple San Angelo police offices testified about encounters with Delacruz
when he was in his youth. One incident involved Delacruz and his brother
bullying a boy and breaking his prescription glasses. Another incident involved
Delacruz being in possession drugs.
The jurors will return Tuesday morning.
(source: gosanangelo.com)
FLORIDA:
Santa Rosa County convicted murderer's death sentence upheld by Florida Supreme
Court
The Florida Supreme Court has denied the appeal of a Santa Rosa County
convicted murderer and has upheld his death penalty sentence.
Norman Grim, 67, was sentenced to death by a unanimous jury in 2000 for the
murder and sexual battery of his neighbor, Cynthia Campbell, in 1998.
After his initial appeal in Santa Rosa County court was denied, Grim appealed
to the Florida Supreme Court, claiming he was entitled to a new penalty phase
jury under revised state law.
In October 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in another local
case that set the precedent for unanimous jury verdicts. In its ruling in Hurst
v. Florida, the high court sided with Escambia County inmate Timothy Hurst, who
claimed it was unconstitutional for the court to impose a death sentence
without the jury reaching the verdict unanimously.
Since that ruling, a number of local cases have re-surfaced as death row
inmates seek new penalty phase proceedings. In a death penalty case, a jury
hears the evidence of the alleged crime to determine guilt and then immediately
following a conviction, the same jury hears aggravating and mitigating factors
about the defendant and the crime to determine if death is an appropriate
sentence.
When successful, appeals under the Hurst ruling bring back a case so a jury can
decide between death and life in prison, but the inmate's original conviction
remains.
Circuit Judge Ross Goodman denied Grim's motion for a new penalty phase
proceeding in May, saying because Grim's jury was unanimous, it was a moot
point and he should not be granted a new penalty phase proceeding.
Grim appealed with the same argument to the Florida Supreme Court. The court
issued its opinion Thursday, saying Grim's argument does not compel the court
to depart from its precedent of striking down Hurst motions for defendants
whose juries were unanimous.
Grim has been on death row for more than 17 years. He was sentenced separately
for the sexual battery offense and received a 32-year sentence for that crime.
Grim was arrested after Campbell's body was pulled from Pensacola Bay in July
1998, the same day she was reported missing.
She was wrapped in sheets and garbage bags, and autopsy results showed she had
been struck in the head by a hammer and stabbed in the chest, according to News
Journal archives.
(source: Pensacola News Journal)
LOUISIANA:
Lawmakers should prevent wrongful executions
The Legislature is considering a bill to repeal Louisiana???s death penalty. As
someone who was nearly executed for a crime I didn't commit, I hope our
legislators recognize that as long as we have a death penalty we risk executing
innocent people.
In 1987, my friend Albert Burrell and I were wrongfully convicted and sentenced
to death for the robbery and murder of William and Callie Frost in Union
Parish. There was no physical evidence connecting us to the crime, and the
witnesses against us had motives to falsely implicate us.
The prosecution's primary witnesses against us were Albert Burrell's ex-wife -
furious that Albert had been awarded custody of their children - and a
jailhouse snitch named Olan Wayne Brantley. After my arrest, I was put in a
cell with Brantley, who told authorities that I confessed to him 2 days later.
At trial, prosecutors hid that Brantley was given a deal on a pending charge in
exchange for testifying against me. Several years later, Albert's ex-wife
recanted her testimony and admitted she lied to get custody of their children.
The prosecutor in our case, Dan Grady, eventually gave an affidavit saying that
he viewed the case against us as ''so weak that the case should never have been
brought to the grand jury.''
On March 4, 2000, I was granted a new trial after Judge Cynthia Woodard found
that prosecutors had misled the jury and failed to turn over exculpatory
evidence. I was released and all charges were dismissed in December 2000 after
having served 13 years on death row for a crime I did not commit. Albert was
released a month later. Albert was a mildly intellectually disabled man who
could not afford a lawyer. If my appellate lawyers had not discovered what went
wrong in my case, Albert could have been executed.
DNA tests eventually proved that the blood found at the victims' home did not
belong to me or Albert. DNA evidence is only available in 10-15 % of murder
cases, so others may not be so "lucky."
Unfortunately, our story is not unique. Albert and I are two of the 11 men
wrongfully sentenced to death in Louisiana since 1973. Our state leads the
nation in per capita exonerations from death row. All of these cases have at
least one of the frequent causes of wrongful conviction and some have 2 or
more: eyewitness misidentification, junk science, unreliable informant
testimony, perjury or false accusations, false confessions, inadequate defense
representation, and police or prosecutorial misconduct.
Nationally, since 1976 there has been one exoneration for every 9 executions.
In the same time in Louisiana, there has been one exoneration for every 2.5
executions. This is a shameful track record, and it is only matter of time
before the unfathomable happens: the execution of an innocent person.
But we have an alternative that removes this disgraceful possibility.
Legislators can replace the death penalty with a life sentence, which keeps
society safe while ensuring that mistakes can be corrected if new evidence is
discovered. I urge them to take this historic opportunity to prevent wrongful
executions by repealing the death penalty. The execution of an innocent person
is a mistake our state cannot take back.
(source: Guest Column----Michael Graham is a member of Witness to Innocence, a
national organization of death row exonerees. He spent 13 years on death row in
Louisiana before being exonerated; The Advocate)
MISSOURI:
Prosecutors Seek Death Penalty in Transgender Teen's Killing
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for one of the suspects in the
slaying of a transgender teenager in southwest Missouri.
Court records show plans requesting the sentence for Andrew Vrba were filed
Monday. Vrba is charged with 1st-degree murder in the death of 17-year-old Ally
Steinfeld. Vrba's attorney hasn't responded to an email seeking comment.
Investigators say Steinfeld was stabbed several times, including in the
genitals. Her eyes were gouged out and her body was set on fire. Officials say
the slaying wasn't a hate crime.
Steinfeld's remains were found in September near Cabool.
One female suspect has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for 2nd-degree
murder, while another awaits a 1st-degree murder trial. A 4th suspect has
pleaded not guilty to abandonment of a corpse.
(source: Associated Press)
NEBRASKA:
Death-row inmate Lotter's IQ too low for execution, lawyers argue
Attorneys for death-row inmate John Lotter are taking a new position, alleging
he is ineligible for the death penalty because he functions intellectually as a
child.
It's the latest legal maneuvering by the man convicted in a triple murder that
inspired the 1999 movie "Boys Don't Cry."
Lotter, 46, has maintained his innocence in the Dec. 31, 1993, killings at a
Humboldt farmhouse, despite being convicted of 3 counts of 1st-degree murder.
He's spent the past 22 years on death row pending appeals.
Late last week, Rebecca Woodman of the Death Penalty Litigation Clinic in
Kansas City, Missouri, let a Nebraska federal judge know about a
post-conviction motion filed in Richardson County alleging Lotter is an
"intellectually disabled person."
In a 60-page motion, she and 2 other attorneys representing Lotter raised
numerous arguments, the newest among them challenging that Lotter is ineligible
for the death penalty given recent IQ testing.
The attorneys cited a landmark 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision forbidding the
execution of people with intellectual disabilities and a later decision by the
court in 2014 rejecting a strict IQ cutoff rule in Florida.
In Nebraska, by law, an IQ of 70 or below is presumptive evidence of an
intellectual disability.
According to the court filing last week, Dr. Ricardo Weinstein, a clinical and
forensic neuropsychologist from Encinitas, California, evaluated Lotter last
year and determined he scored a 67 for general intellectual ability on the
Woodcock-Johnson test, the equivalent IQ of an average 8-year-old.
In 1981, at the age of 10, Lotter scored a 76, which adjusts to a 73 under
today's scoring, according to the expert.
Attorney Tim Noerrlinger said Weinstein also reviewed trial records and school
records showing Lotter was in special-education classes, and he interviewed
Lotter's mother, foster mother, a psychiatrist who worked with Lotter as a
child and others before determining that Lotter had significant adaptive
deficits.
It's Weinstein's opinion that Lotter qualifies for the diagnosis of
intellectual developmental disability.
But that ultimately will be a decision for the court.
Lotter's attorneys pointed to the Florida decision, where the Supreme Court
found that professionals have long agreed an IQ test score should be read not
as a single number but as a range, which can fluctuate for several reasons.
If Richardson County District Judge Vicky Johnson grants an evidentiary hearing
to consider the issue or others raised by Lotter's attorneys, the state would
be allowed to seek its own experts.
Lotter was sentenced to death for his role in the 1993 killings of Brandon
Teena and 2 witnesses, Lisa Lambert and Philip DeVine. Thomas Nissen is serving
life sentences for the part he played in the crime.
(source: Lioncoln Journal Star)
UTAH:
No one can declare anyone unredeemable
Among the worthy bills that died during Utah's legislative session this year
was H.B. 379, Death Penalty Amendments, sponsored by Rep. Gage Froerer,
R-Huntsville. This bill would have prohibited the state "from seeking the death
penalty for aggravated murder committed after May 7, 2018," and also would have
prohibited the state from seeking the death penalty for crimes committed before
May 8, 2018 unless intent to seek the death penalty is filed before that date.
During an emotional hearing before the House Law Enforcement and Criminal
Justice Committee, committee member Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, said of the
nine individuals who are on Utah's death row, "Those people aren't there
because they're nice, or they made a mistake. They're there because they're
monsters."
While the heinousness of the crimes that landed these people in prison is
undeniable, and the need to remove them from society is without question, no
agent of the state can pretend to have the ability to declare anyone an
unredeemable monster. Ignoring the realities that can lead a person to kill and
victimize others does no one any good. Acknowledging the humanity of even the
worst offenders is critical for preventing more murder and victimization.
Rachel Carter, Salt Lake City
(source: Letter to the Editor, Salt Lake Tribune)
IDAHO:
People with severe mental illness should not face death penalty
Our system of justice has long recognized that the death penalty ought to be
imposed only on the "worst of the worst" individuals in society.
For this reason, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that death cannot be justly
imposed on persons who have reduced moral culpability for their acts -
exempting children from capital punishment in Roper v. Simmons (2005), and
persons with intellectual disabilities in Atkins v. Virginia (2002).
As criminal defense and appellate attorneys with over 60 years of practice in
Idaho and as members of the Idaho Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, we
can say with confidence that the execution of individuals with severe mental
illness is as grave an injustice as executing children and people with
intellectual disabilities.
Our legislators must grapple with this pressing issue and eliminate a bygone
practice that conflicts with our evolving standards of decency and the
prevailing scientific understanding of mental health.
Severe mental illnesses are characterized by mental impairments that distort
one's ability to distinguish fact from fiction. These illnesses, which
disproportionately affect veterans and low-income Idahoans, inhibit the
rational decision-making process that most of us take for granted in every
aspect of our daily lives.
Despite this, and contrary to popular opinion, it is important to note that
there is no connection between mental illness and an increased propensity for
violence - in fact, persons with mental illness are more likely to be victims
of violent crime than perpetrators.
However, for the very small subset of Idahoans with severe mental illness who
do end up committing a capital crime, existing legal protections and safeguards
are woefully inadequate.
In almost all respects, our justice system consistently fails people with
mental illness due to the lack of preventative treatment options, limited
access to mental health courts, and restricted treatment options while
incarcerated.
Over the course of our careers, we personally experienced that our justice
system fails to sufficiently take mental illness into account, including
death-row inmates who struggled to comprehend their impending deaths nor fully
understand the reasons why they were being punished.
These experiences solidified my conviction that a sentence of death serves no
legitimate purpose and undermines the administration of justice when imposed on
people suffering from severe mental illness.
Given their impairments, defendants with severe mental illnesses, by
definition, have diminished capacities to understand and process information,
to analyze and learn from their mistakes, to control their impulses, and,
simply, to keep in touch with reality.
These unique psychological traits are similar to the characteristics observed
in juveniles and individuals with intellectual disability that led the Supreme
Court to take the death penalty off the table for these 2 categories of
offenders.
Our legislators ought to draw the obvious and proper moral parallel by
exempting those with severe mental illnesses from the death penalty. Doing so
would also raise awareness of mental health in Idaho and divert valuable
taxpayer dollars to higher-priority programs, like mental health treatment and
victim's compensation funds.
The Idaho Alliance for the Severe Mental Illness Death Penalty Exemption
(IASMIE) is working to correct this alarming injustice.
IASMIE is currently in the process of submitting legislation that would take
death off the table for defendants who had a severe mental illness at the time
of their crime.
This law would not mean that defendants with severe mental illness go
unpunished for their crimes. Indeed, under this law, if a claim of severe
mental illness was successfully litigated, the defendant would still face a
maximum sentence of life without the possibility of parole. It's a similarly
consequential sentence that will ensure justice for victims and their family
members, while respecting the demands of justice, decency, and the
Constitution.
Our association joins the majority of Americans in declaring that it is morally
and legally impermissible to execute people suffering from severe mental
illness.
The death penalty was intended to be levied against the most blameworthy among
us, not those in the throes of mania, hallucinations, and delusions.
In light of current legal shortcomings, the evolving constitutional landscape,
and corresponding legislative progress in 8 states, it is imperative that
lawmakers in Idaho take common sense action by passing an exemption to the
death penalty for those who suffered from severe mental illness at the time of
their crimes.
(source: Paul Riggins, Andrew Masser, Elisa Massoth, Heidi Johnson and Jay
Logsdon of the Idaho Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers----idahostatejournal.conm)
USA:
How US policy reflects MLK's stance on death penalty
The country is reflecting on the life and teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr. as the 50th anniversary of his death approaches.
Of the many issues the civil rights leader confronted, one ever-relevant topic
he addressed was the morality of capital punishment.
King often preached the virtue of nonviolence, and in 1957 he made plain his
stance against the death penalty:
"I do not think God approves the death penalty for any crime - rape and murder
included. God's concern is to improve individuals and bring them to the point
of conversion. Even criminology has repudiated the motive of punishment in
favor of the reformation of the criminal. Shall a good God harbor resentment?
Since the purpose of jailing a criminal is that of reformation rather than
retribution - improving him rather than paying him back for some crime that he
has done - it is highly inconsistent to take the life of a criminal. How can he
improve if his life is taken? Capital punishment is against the best judgement
of modern criminology and, above all, against the highest expression of love in
the nature of God."
King's widow, Coretta Scott King, also decried the death penalty: "Justice is
never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a
legalized murder."
James Earl Ray pleaded guilty in 1969 to killing King. In doing so, he avoided
the electric chair and spent the rest of his life in prison.
These days, we can look to the latest statistics on executions to get an idea
of how the U.S. is living up to the Kings' standards on capital punishment.
In 2018, 31 states allow the death penalty and 19 don't.
The number of executions has decreased since 1999. There were 98 executions
that year, compared to the 23 executions in 2017.
Here are the 2017 executions broken down by state:
Texas: 7
Arkansas: 4
Alabama: 3
Florida: 3
Virginia: 2
Ohio: 2
Georgia: 1
Missouri: 1
It's worth noting that many of the executions were in the South, where King
lived and often campaigned for social justice.
The number of death sentences handed down also have dropped significantly in
recent decades, from 295 in 1998 to 39 in 2017.
Of course, nobody knows how many executions will be carried out this year. 7
inmates have been put to death in the last 3 months.
There have been, however, more death row exonerations in recent years. There
was an average of 3 exonerations per year between 1973 and 1999. There was an
average of 5 exonerations per year from 2000 to 2011.
When it comes to how race has factored into capital punishment since 1976, the
numbers break down this way for executed inmates:
Black: 505 (34.5 %)
Latino: 123 (8.3 %)
White: 820 (55.6 %)
Other (as listed by the Death Penalty Information Center): 24, or 1.6 %
Here are executions since 1976 by race of victims:
Black: 330 (15.3 %)
Latino: 151 (6.9 %)
White: 1,634 (75.6 %)
Other: 45 (2.1 %)
One set of numbers shows a striking disparity.
Of the people executed for interracial murders in the U.S. since 1976, 20 white
inmates were executed for the murder of a black victim, and 289 black inmates
were executed for the murder of a white victim.
In this time of reflection on King's legacy, this might give pause to some
because of how the statistic relates to King's concerns about not just
executions but of broader racial inequality.
(source: WTOL news)
******************
ABA launches clemency information clearinghouse for death penalty cases
In 2015, ABA attorneys noticed a major gap in resources for lawyers who defend
capital cases: clemency information. Defendants who have exhausted their direct
appeals and habeas petition rights often ask governors for mercy - but there
wasn't a lot of information available about how to do that effectively.
"In every state that we studied, there were insignificant resources for and
attention paid to clemency, leaving it ... too hollow to be comfortable for our
profession," says Misty Thomas, chief counsel for the Death Penalty Due Process
Project. Thomas notes that the ABA has no position on the death penalty - but
"if we're going to have the death penalty, every single stage should be robust
and meaningful."
Thomas and her colleagues created a resource to make the clemency stage more
robust. The Capital Clemency Resource Initiative, a project of the ABA's Death
Penalty Due Process Project, the Death Penalty Representation Project and the
Commission on Disability Rights, launched last week. It offers state-specific
information about clemency in death penalty states, plus past petitions, court
decisions, academic papers and ABA policy on the subject.
It also offers training materials, including a book written for the project,
Representing Death-Sentenced Prisoners in Clemency: A Guide for Practitioners.
Laura Schaefer, an author of the book and a staff attorney for the Death
Penalty Representation Project, says it's a manual for lawyers who handle
capital cases - including pro bono lawyers that the project recruits and
trains. Access must be approved by the ABA staff because it's only available to
death penalty defense lawyers. However, Schaefer says another goal of the
website is to educate.
"One part of what we are trying to do is increase public understanding of the
clemency process in capital cases ... and how it's supposed to catch wrongful
sentences," she says.
Clemency is a catchall term for pardons, commutations and other acts of mercy
from state executive branches. Thomas says most death penalty prisoners ask for
their sentences to be commuted to life sentences. These requests - which in
some states are automatic - often go through governors, state parole boards or
both, and one hurdle for practitioners is knowing what the process is. Another,
she says, is that lawyers must adjust their strategies for an audience that may
not have a strong legal background.
Thomas says there are good reasons to consider those requests. In some cases,
prisoners with intellectual disabilities or mental illness were convicted
before advances in brain science cast doubt on their culpability. For prisoners
who have been on death row for decades, age-related disability can also be an
issue, as it is in an Alabama case the U.S. Supreme Court took up in February.
The heavy involvement of disability issues in these cases is one reason the
Commission on Disability Rights was part of the project.
And Schaefer says the rate of clemency grants for death-penalty defendants
seems to have grown in the past few years. Clemency-related matters put the
brakes on about 5 executions in 2017, she says. And in February, NBC says Texas
granted clemency to inmate Thomas Whitaker on the eve of his execution - which
Schaefer says is "almost unheard of."
"I think we're starting to see an upward trend in capital clemency grants,
which means that being prepared to represent someone zealously in that process
is all the more important now," she says.
(source: ABA Journal)
******************
Executing Drug Dealers
While most of the civilized world has abandoned execution for moral as well as
practical reasons, President Trump is now proposing an expanded application of
the death penalty - traditionally applied only in 1st degree murder cases - for
all "major" drug dealers.
And even then, the death penalty has become so problematic and costly that the
31 states where it's still legal only executed, or tried to execute, 23 people
last year. The legal and correctional cost of execution vastly exceeds the cost
of a life sentence.
The image of a blind-folded Lady Justice carrying a sword and a set of scales
symbolizes for Americans the fair and equal administration of the law without
corruption, greed, prejudice, or favor. And with that in mind, I wonder if the
criminal justice system would be willing to apply the death penalty equally
across all socio-economic classes and racial categories or just drug dealers
from countries President Trump dismisses with expletives.
If so, the billionaire scions of the Sackler family who are directly involved
in the mass-marketing of Purdue's oxycontin might have good cause to be worried
- as might the many thousands of Dr. Feelgoods around the country who continue
today to dispense opiates to those with the money to pay a premium.
Since 1999, 200,000 Americans have died of opiate overdoses. 80 % of today's
heroin and fentanyl users started on prescription painkillers. The CDC's latest
figures show 145 Americans a day dying from opioid overdoses. And a recent
study compared Purdue's marketing strategy to that of the Xalisco cartel which
targeted methadone clinic neighborhoods, and offered potential customers free
samples of their product.
Using I.M.S. data, Purdue targeted populations uniquely susceptible to its
product - poor communities with little education or opportunity and a high
incidence of work-related injuries. And they offered doctors coupons for a free
initial prescription, of which 34,000 were redeemed. Last year, 2.3 million
Ohio residents - some 20% - got a prescription for opioids.
If we're sincere about Lady Justice's commitment to administration of the law
fairly and without favor, the criminal in the executive suite must be held just
as liable to prosecution as the street criminal.
I wonder if President Trump would be prepared to apply his death penalty
proposal to his peers among the wealthiest one percent of white Americans as
rigorously as he would to anyone else.
(source: Bill Schubart, Vermont Public Radio)
_______________________________________________
A service courtesy of Washburn University School of Law www.washburnlaw.edu
DeathPenalty mailing list
DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu
http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty
Unsubscribe: http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/options/deathpenalty
