August 17
FLORIDA:
How do South Shore residents feel about capital punishment? State supreme court
delays execution----Due to questions on lethal injection, evidence-rigging by
police
The anonymous wielder of the hypodermic needle and the syringe full of deadly
drugs will have to wait to collect his $150 executioner fee from the Florida
State Prison system.
Jose Antonio Jiminez, a 2-time killer of Miami ladies in the early 1990s, was
granted an "indefinite" stay by the Florida Supreme Court late Friday
afternoon, August 10, 4 days before his appointment with death at the Florida
State Prison in Bradford County.
Jiminez, 30 at the time of his conviction, has been cooped up on death row for
25 years since a Miami jury found him guilty in the brutal multiple stabbing of
63-year-old Phyllis Minas in her apartment after she walked in on Jiminez,
allegedly a cocaine addict and high school dropout, burglarizing her home.
While he was awaiting trial in that case, Jiminez was convicted, but not given
the death sentence, in a similar homicide in 1990 of another Miami woman, Marie
Debas.
Randomly asked about the capital punishment administered by the state of
Florida, South Shore residents offered a mixed response recently: Some in favor
of capital punishment and some against the state taking a life even if for
punishment or retribution.
Rabbi Carla Freedman of the Beth Israel Congregation in Sun City Center said,
"In my opinion, capital punishment is one of the things in the Hebrew Bible
that we should reject, given the evolution of human thinking, values and
capabilities over the last 3,000 years."
Freedman went on to say, "Jewish tradition has done so for about 2,000 years,
holding that the state has no more business taking a life than an individual
has. The fundamental respect for human life should override vengeful and/or
punitive state or personal reasons."
Many residents of Apollo Beach, Ruskin, Sun City Center and Gibsonton, when
approached briefly in public, wished to remain anonymous but felt like that in
the view of Jiminez's conviction in 2 killings, he has forfeited his right to
live and should be executed if he was found gullty of murder.
"The execution should take place within 30 days of a murder conviction in a
case like this one," said one man.
Another woman responded by asking, "What if it were your mother or wife or
daughter Jiminez killed? I think you, as I would, could accept the death
penalty."
According to Malcolm S. Clements, pastor of First Baptist Church in Gibsonton,
"They that take the life of another has taken that person's right to live. They
have also deprived their family and loved ones of their life together.
"The question is, what right do they have to live when they have willingly
deprived another of their gift of life?
"Yes, they can find forgiveness with God before they die, and I pray that they
do," said Clements.
Pastor David R. Allman of the Redeemer Lutheran Church in Sun City Center,
responded thusly to the difficult question about the pros and cons of capital
punishment:
"Here is how I have been able to boil it down. It was even tougher than I
thought. There is so much more that could be said. I hope this helps," said
Allman, adding: "Lutherans join those who cry out against violence, and grieve
with the family and friends of victims. The ELCA does not support the death
penalty, yet we acknowledge the diversity of opinion within our denomination.
We believe God is merciful and holds all of society responsible to ensure
justice for everyone."
In Jiminez's case, the Florida Supreme Court's order Friday set a schedule for
briefs to be filed by Jiminez's lawyer and the state, ending with an August 28
deadline for reply briefs to be filed. "Oral argument, if necessary, will be
scheduled at a later date," the order said.
Jiminez's attorney, in a last-minute appeal August 10, successfully argued that
the drug etomidate, used in a February 2018 execution in Florida possibly
caused the executed man to scream out in pain just seconds before dying. State
prosecutors question that theory.
The other reason the Florida Supreme Court granted the stay or delay (or
perhaps no execution ever) was Jiminez's attorney's presentation of newly found
evidence that 2 of the Miami police officers testifying in Jiminez's trial
mishandled the evidence in an effort to obtain a conviction and a subsequent
death sentence. The end result could be a call for a retrial or the death
sentence being thrown out.
The Jiminez execution would have been the 28th with a death warrant signed by
Governor Rick Scott, the most of any governor since the death penalty was
reinstated in 1976. Since 1976, the state has executed 96 convicted murderers;
346 offenders, including Jiminez, are on death row. In Florida, convicted
killers can choose execution by "Old Sparky" the electric chair, or by lethal
injection.
(source: observernews.net)
KENTUCKY:
Hearing to determine future of death penalty in Kentucky
A hearing is scheduled to discuss the status of the death penalty in Kentucky.
A Franklin Circuit Court judge put a hold on executions in the Commonwealth in
2010. Judge Phillip Shepherd cited concerns over mental competency tests and
whether the drugs used in lethal injections were humane.
Currently, there are 31 inmates on Kentucky's death row.
The state's last execution was in 2008. Marco Chapman stabbed 2 children to
death and raped and stabbed their mother in 2002 in Gallatin County.
A status hearing on the judge's injunction is scheduled for 1 p.m. Friday.
(source: WKYT news)
ARKANSAS:
Judge Griffen Granted Hearing Before Judicial Discipline for Death Penalty
Protest
Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen has been granted a hearing before
the Arkansas Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission (JDDC) for his
anti-death penalty protest in April 2017.
The hearing will take place Friday, August 17 at 9:30 a.m. at the office of the
JDDC.
According to the filed court documents, Special Counsel and one counsel
representing Respondent will be given 20 minutes each for argument.
The JDDC announced on June 8 that ethics charges had been filed in connection
to Griffen's anti-death penalty protest. Both last year and April 17 of this
year, Griffen strapped himself to a cot and lay motionless as a display against
capital punishment. After his actions in 2017, the judge, who is also a Baptist
preacher, was barred from hearing death penalty cases.
The JDDC has said Griffen's public opposition to the death penalty violated the
Code of Judicial Conduct.
Griffen's attorney Michael Laux argues the judge's actions are protected under
the First Amendment. A federal judge ruled earlier this month that Griffen
cannot sue the Arkansas Supreme Court as a single entity for barring him from
hearing execution-related cases. However, that same judge said Griffen can sue
the individual justices and those lawsuits still stand.
Click here to read today's filed hearing document.
(source: Fox News)
ARIZONA:
Border militiaman's convictions, death sentences upheld in Arivaca slayings
The Arizona Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the guilty verdicts and death
penalty of a man who took part in a pair of 2009 home invasion murders in
Arivaca linked to a Minutemen border militia group.
Justice John Pelander, writing for the court, rejected a series of arguments
presented by attorneys for Jason E. Bush that he did not get a fair trial.
Those contentions ranged from the procedures used in the pretrial questioning
of potential jurors to the contention that jury did not properly consider his
mental illness and troubled past in deciding to sentence him to death.
Pelander also said Pima County Superior Court Judge John Leonardo did not err
in refusing a request to move the trial out of the county due to pretrial
publicity.
Pelander said the trial occurred far after the initial news stories and that
the reporting was "largely factual."
The court also said there was nothing wrong with Gina Gonzales, the wife and
mother of the victims, from telling the jury considering the sentence the
impact the crime has had on her life.
But the court split on the question of the death penalty.
Appellate Judge Lawrence Winthrop, sitting on the case because Justice John
Lopez could not because he had formerly worked at the Attorney General???s
Office, said he believes the death penalty violates a state constitutional
provision against "cruel and unusual punishment."
"Given the continued reports that demonstrate defendants may be sentenced to
death because of jurors' inherent bias, and studies that demonstrate the death
penalty has no identifiable deterrent effect, the answer to the question of
whether the cost of the death penalty outweighs the societal benefit is a
resounding, 'no,'" he wrote.
According to prosecutors, Bush was part of a plan by Shawna Forde, founder of
Minutemen American Defense, to rob and kill people she believed were drug
smugglers to fund her organization.
The home invasion involved Bush, Albert Gaxiola and Forde. Evidence presented
at trial showed that they killed Raul "Junior" Flores and 9-year-old daughter
Brisenia. They also attempted to kill Gina but left after she managed to shoot
Bush.
Forde was sentenced to death for the slayings. Gaxiola received 2 life
sentences.
Separate from the question of Bush's guilt, Pelander said Winthrop is off base
in his arguments about the constitutionality of the death penalty.
Pelander said the Arizona constitutional provision is virtually identical to
the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. And the U.S. Supreme Court has
ruled that amendment does not bar capital punishment.
(source: tucson.com)
**************************
Death Sentences Upheld in Home-Invasion Killings
The Arizona Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a death row inmate's convictions
and sentences in the shooting deaths of a man and his 9-year-old daughter
during a 2009 home invasion.
Jason Eugene Bush was 1 of 2 people sentenced to death for the killings of
29-year-old Raul "Junior" Flores and Brisenia Flores at their home in Arivaca
in southern Arizona. Gina Flores, Raul's wife, was wounded in the attack.
Authorities said Bush confessed to being the triggerman and that the home
invasion was planned by Shawna Forde, a former border-watch activist also
sentenced to death in the case.
According to authorities, Forde believed drugs, weapons and money were stashed
at the home.
A 3rd person convicted in the case, Albert Gaxiola, was sentenced to life in
prison.
(source: Associated Press)
NEVADA:
Nevada tells state high court that Nebraska execution had no complications
Prison officials have told the Nevada Supreme Court that witnesses reported no
complications during Nebraska's execution of Carey Dean Moore, which used some
of the same drugs that Nevada wants to use to carry out a death penalty.
Nevada state attorneys, on behalf of state prison officials, said in a
Wednesday court filing that media witnesses in Nebraska "reported no
complications, only some coughing before Moore stopped moving."
The document also noted that Nebraska's 4-drug combination included a sedative,
the synthetic opioid fentanyl and a muscle-paralyzing agent like the one Nevada
plans to use.
Robert Dunham of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., said
Thursday that it is too soon to know if the Tuesday execution of the
60-year-old Moore in Nebraska was trouble-free.
"Witnesses did not see the death itself," Dunham said, noting that Moore was
pronounced dead several minutes after a death chamber blind was closed.
"I think we have to wait to see what the autopsy results show," Dunham said.
In July, Nevada prison officials proposed substituting the sedative midazolam
for expired stocks of another sedative, diazepam, to be followed by fentanyl
and the paralytic cisatracurium for the planned execution of twice-convicted
killer Scott Raymond Dozier.
Nebraska's use of diazepam, fentanyl and cisatracurium represented the first
use of each in a lethal injection.
In Nebraska, officials also administered a heart-stopping drug, potassium
chloride, that is not part of Nevada's planned 3-drug protocol.
Media witnesses said they saw Moore take short, gasping breaths that became
deeper and more labored. He gradually turned red and then purple as the drugs
were administered, and his chest heaved several times before it went still. His
eyelids briefly cracked open.
2 pharmaceutical companies want the Nevada high court to let a state court
judge decide whether prison officials can use their drugs for an execution.
The state wants justices to decide a fast-track appeal.
Dozier, 47, is not challenging his convictions or sentences for drug-related
killings in Phoenix and Las Vegas in 2002. He said he wants to die and doesn't
care if it's painful.
His executions were called off in November and July amid legal arguments over
the products the state decided to use after having trouble obtaining lethal
drugs for the state's 1st execution in 12 years.
(source: Associated Press)
USA:
The death penalty is becoming more popular again in America
After declining for years, public support for the death penalty is on the rise;
54% of those surveyed are in favour, compared with 49% 2 years ago, according
to a recent poll by the Pew Research Centre. Death sentences are also a little
more frequent than in the recent past, says Robert Dunham of the Death Penalty
Information Centre. That may be related to the political rhetoric in
Washington. President Donald Trump has proposed executing drug dealers to curb
the opioid epidemic.
Nebraska is a deeply conservative state and its Republican governor, Pete
Ricketts, is a fervent supporter of capital punishment (not least, some say,
because he was so shocked by the gruesome murder of one of his cousins). Yet
the state has been unsure about the sentence for years. In 2015 a bipartisan
group of lawmakers overrode the governor's veto of their vote to abolish the
death penalty. The next year Mr Ricketts used his family fortune to bankroll a
referendum on its reintroduction; voters endorsed the measure overwhelmingly.
But in the weeks before Mr Moore's execution, Nebraska's Catholic bishops again
appealed to the governor, a practising Catholic. They asked him to consider the
doctrinal change announced by Pope Francis in early August, whereby the
Catholic church now holds that capital punishment is always wrong.
The bishops' appeals fell on deaf ears. Mr Ricketts considers the death penalty
to be an important tool for public safety and the only appropriate punishment
for the most heinous crimes. Yet there is scant evidence to suggest that
deterrence works. The murder rate in New York, New Mexico and Connecticut
continued to go down after those states abolished the death penalty. Southern
states execute more people than any other region of the country, yet the murder
rate in the South is the highest. The death penalty is also much more expensive
than imprisonment for life, because of costly trials and lengthy appeals.
Ernest Goss of Creighton University estimates that each death-penalty
prosecution costs Nebraska???s taxpayers about $1.5m more than life without
parole. 10 people remain on the state's death row.
Since the death penalty returned to America in 1976, 162 death sentences have
been reversed and 1,480 people have been executed, so roughly 1 in 10 was found
innocent. Mr Dunham believes that, of those who were executed, at least a dozen
were innocent. He cites the case of Carlos DeLuna, who was executed for murder
in Texas in 1989 and who is now generally believed to have been convicted in
error.
Nonetheless, it may get technically harder for Nebraska to carry out
executions. After giving Mr Moore Valium to sedate him and fentanyl to render
him unconscious, the executioner administered cisatracurium besylate to
paralyse his muscles and potassium chloride to stop his heart. If the first 2
drugs did not work well, says Eric Berger of the Nebraska College of Law, then
Mr Moore would have been in excruciating pain, much like being burned alive
from inside. According to eye witnesses, he turned red and purple before the
curtain was lowered. If an autopsy reveals that he suffered extreme pain,
Nebraska will find it even harder to buy drugs from pharmaceutical firms
fearful of the public outcry over their use.
(source: The Economist)
*****************
US arrests Iraqi refugee wanted over IS killing
An Iraqi refugee has been arrested in the US on suspicion of murdering an Iraqi
policeman while fighting for the jihadist group Islamic State (IS).
Omar Ameen, 45, appeared before a magistrate in California on Wednesday in
connection with proceedings to extradite him to Iraq to face trial.
An Iraqi arrest warrant alleges that Mr Ameen shot the policeman dead during a
raid on the town of Rawah in June 2014.
He arrived in the US 5 months later and settled in Sacramento.
US prosecutors said Mr Ameen applied to the US for refugee status while living
in Turkey after saying he was a victim of persecution and violence.
He was granted refugee status days before the attack in Rawah, which took place
as IS seized control of large swathes of western and northern Iraq.
US prosecutors allege that Mr Ameen's family supported and assisted the
installation of IS and its precursor, al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), in Rawah, and
that he was "a main local figure" of both groups.
They say he participated in various activities in support of the groups,
including helping to plant improvised explosive devices, transporting
militants, soliciting funds, robbing supply lorries and kidnapping drivers.
The Iraqi arrest warrant says that on 22 June 2014, Mr Ameen entered Rawah with
a convoy of IS vehicles and drove to the house of the policeman, Ihsan Jasim.
Mr Ameen and 5 other militants then opened fire at the house, with Mr Ameen
fatally shooting the officer in the chest, the warrant alleges.
At Wednesday's hearing, federal magistrate judge Edmund Brennan ordered Mr
Ameen to be detained until his next court appearance, accepting the
prosecutors' arguments that he posed a danger to the community and a flight
risk.
There was no immediate response to the allegations from Mr Ameen's lawyers.
The Sacramento Bee newspaper cited public defenders Benjamin Galloway and
Douglas Beevers as saying they were assigned the case minutes before the
hearing and that their client was "aware of the basic nature of the charges".
He could be executed in Iraq if convicted of "organised killing by an armed
group".
(source: BBC News)
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