October 19
IDAHO:
Man to Face Death Penalty in Birthday Party Stabbing Rampage----Prosecutors say
a man suspected of going on a stabbing rampage at a children's party, killing a
little girl celebrating her 3rd birthday and wounding 8 others in Idaho, will
face the death penalty.
A man suspected of going on a stabbing rampage at a children's party, killing a
little girl celebrating her 3rd birthday and wounding 8 others, will face the
death penalty, prosecutors in Idaho said Thursday.
Timmy Kinner, a homeless man who had been asked to leave a Boise apartment
complex the day before, returned the following day and began attacking children
and others at the outdoor birthday party, police said. A judge this summer
entered not guilty pleas on his behalf to 1 count of 1st-degree murder and 8
counts of aggravated battery in connection with the June 30 attack.
"After careful consideration, we have concluded that pursuing the death penalty
is appropriate in this case," Ada County Prosecutor Jan Bennetts said in a
statement.
The Ada County Public Defender's Office, which is representing Kinner, declined
to comment.
Police have said Kinner didn't know any of the victims, who were all refugees
from Ethiopia, Syria and Iraq. Police have said the attack does not appear to
be a hate crime.
Kinner, 30, has refused to meet with a psychologist to evaluate his health.
Ruya Kadir was at her 3rd birthday party - complete with a pink doll-shaped
cake and a Disney princess banner - when police say Kinner, armed with a large
knife, attacked. Ruya and 5 other children were badly injured, along with the
three adults who tried to protect them.
Some children hid in a closet until police told them it was safe to come out.
Police say Kinner had recently been asked to leave the apartment complex
because of bad behavior. He was arrested shortly after the stabbing.
Investigators recovered the knife he was believed to have used in a nearby
canal.
(source: Associated Press)
******************
Idaho officials to pursue death penalty against man charged in Boise mass
stabbing
The Ada County Prosecutor's Office announced Thursday that it will pursue the
death penalty for the man charged in a June mass stabbing that killed a
3-year-old girl and wounded 8 other refugees.
"My office, including 2 senior deputy prosecutors, victim-witness coordinators,
an investigator and staff are working closely with the Boise Police Department
and their assigned detectives," lead prosecutor Jan Bennetts said in a
statement. "After careful consideration, we have concluded that pursuing the
death penalty is appropriate in this case. It is important that we preserve the
integrity of the case and let the criminal justice process take its course to
ensure Mr. Kinner is afforded due process and receives a fair trial."
The prosecutor's office said it would make no additional comments on the
decision. Kinner's lead attorney is David Smethers with the Ada County Public
Defenders Office. The office on Thursday said it has "no comment" on the
decision.
Kinner is set to go to trial Jan. 3. His attorneys have raised concerns over
his mental health in recent hearings, asking that he be committed to a state
facility for treatment.
(source: idahostatesman.com)
NEVADA:
Scott Dozier Still Wants to Be Executed. And He's Still Waiting.----After
forcing Nevada into a legal battle over its lethal injection drugs, an
execution "volunteer" says the state is punishing him.
Last week, Nevada death row prisoner Scott Dozier called his family and friends
and said they might not be hearing from him for a while. He had been placed, he
said, in a form of solitary confinement so his mental health could be assessed,
with just a few articles of clothing and an anti-suicide blanket.
Prison officials have not offered an explanation, but Dozier has speculated
that they are punishing him for - or trying to get him to halt - his years-long
effort to be executed. "I have never heard him sound so defeated," said Edgar
Barens, a filmmaker who has regularly corresponded with Dozier.
Dozier's ongoing legal saga, which I wrote about in January, continues to
illuminate the ambivalence and political turmoil surrounding the death penalty
in the United States. Death row prisoners usually appeal their sentences, and
many manage to hold off execution for decades. Many live in solitary
confinement with few amenities, but Dozier was given access to an exercise
yard, as well as a television, MP3 player and art supplies. Still, he did not
feel that life in prison was a life worth living. 2 years ago, he announced
that he would give up his appeals and agree to be killed. His request forced
Nevada, which had not executed anyone in a decade, to come up with a new lethal
injection cocktail and defend it in a number of court battles.
As of now, the state is losing those battles, and it appears Dozier will not be
executed anytime soon. In late September, Las Vegas district judge Elizabeth
Gonzalez barred officials from using their store of lethal injection drugs,
based on opposition from the pharmaceutical companies that produced them.
Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt is asking the state supreme court to
overrule Gonzalez, but if that fails, officials will need to acquire new drugs
- no company has offered to sell them - or else develop a new execution method,
such as the firing squad.
After 2 previous stays of execution, Dozier was placed on suicide watch for
several days. The prison agency said this was a temporary precaution until he
could be given a psychological evaluation, but Dozier thought officials might
be punishing him. "I can't fucking believe they can treat people like this," he
told me by phone in July after the most recent stay. "It feels like they're
fucking with me to get me to stop [pushing to be executed]." He wrote letters
to the head of the prison agency and a state senator, but to no avail.
This time, family and friends said Dozier had been in good spirits until he was
put in these conditions, which he described to Barens as "limbo inside of
limbo." In an email sent on Oct. 3 to one of Dozier's lawyers, obtained by The
Marshall Project, Ely State Prison warden William Gittere wrote that Dozier's
placement was based on a "mental health provider's orders." "He is not on a
suicide watch, but has been placed in an infirmary cell to be observed and
assessed for the next few days to a week," Gittere wrote. "I cannot comment on
the source of information that led to the provider's concern due to an ongoing
investigation."
Last Friday, Dozier's family sent a letter to Nevada Department of Corrections
director James Dzurenda. "At this point there is little to no information
supporting the idea that Mr. Dozier is a risk to himself or others," they
wrote. "He has asked to speak with medical staff yet requests were left
unanswered, denied, or met with apathy."
In an email, corrections department spokesperson Brooke Santina cited patient
privacy in declining to provide details about Dozier's mental health treatment,
but said prisoners are only placed in segregation when "we have a reason to
believe that there is a threat to their safety or the safety of another." Asked
if Dozier was being punished, she responded, "With nearly 14,000 inmates in 18
facilities across the state, it's imperative we follow the law and our policy
to ensure each inmate is treated as any other inmate in his or her
circumstances would be treated."
"It's more that I'm resigned ... I'm not raging against the dying of the
light."
Dozier was sentenced to death in 2007 for killing and dismembering 22-year-old
Jeremiah Miller, an associate in the methamphetamine trade. He was separately
convicted in Arizona of killing 26-year-old Jasen Greene, and while in an
Arizona jail, in 2005, he attempted suicide. He denies both murders, and began
appealing his convictions, but in October 2016, he ended his appeals. Some have
described his effort to be executed as akin to state-assisted suicide, but
Dozier doesn't see it that way. "It's not that I think I deserve the sentence,"
he told me. "It's more that I'm resigned ... I'm not raging against the dying
of the light."
His decision set off a chain reaction. Pharmaceutical companies, most of which
have refused to sell drugs for use in lethal injection in recent years,
declined to sell them to Nevada. The state announced a new cocktail featuring
fentanyl, the opioid better known for causing overdoses across the country, and
set an execution date in November 2017. When Dozier let his defense lawyers
argue that death by the new drug combination might be painful, and therefore
unconstitutional, a judge stayed his execution.
As the months passed, Dozier's frustration - with the state, with his lawyers,
with himself - only grew. "I see this as a war right now, a battle, and I feel
like sometimes I'm winning, and sometimes I feel like I'm losing," he told me
by phone in February. He started wondering if state officials were dragging out
the legal process, hoping he would change his mind and save them the hassle of
killing him.
But he also maintained his caustic, nihilistic sense of humor. When President
Trump said he wanted to give the death penalty to some drug dealers, Dozier
said, "They can't even execute me! Get your shit together, people."
"We don't know how long we have with him, when will be the last time we see
him, hug him, talk with him, or say our final goodbyes."
After state officials set a new execution date for last July, several drug
companies accused them of purposefully obfuscating their intentions while
buying their products. When a judge halted the execution, it was a benchmark
moment: never before had a drug company stopped an execution in court.
Dozier was visiting with his family - for the last time, he thought - when an
officer told them about the stay. "It is heartbreaking and stressful," Dozier's
sister Bekki Patzer told me in an email. "I don't know for certain, but I
imagine it is similar to someone having a terminally ill family member. We
don't know how long we have with him, when will be the last time we see him,
hug him, talk with him, or say our final goodbyes."
His family has continued to write letters to the department about Dozier's
conditions but have not received a reply. Patzer told me she understands that
the prison must take precautions, but does not understand why her brother has
been deprived of his personal belongings, along with the ability to exercise in
the yard, make calls and receive visitors. "His well-being is my primary
concern," she said, "and I don't see how keeping him from those things can do
anything but cause a deterioration in his mental and physical well-being."
(source: Maurice Chammah is a staff writer at the Marshall
Project----moptherjones.com)
CALIFORNIA:
Nearly a Decade Awaiting Trial, Now Freed----Neko Wilson to be released in the
1st test of California's felony murder law.
In the first test of a newly signed law that significantly narrows California's
felony murder rule, a judge today ordered the immediate release of a man who
has spent nearly a decade awaiting trial in double murder.
Neko Wilson, now 36, had initially faced the death penalty in connection with
the July 2009 murders of Gary and Sandra DeBartolo, a couple killed during a
robbery at their home in California's Central Valley. Prosecutors had accused
Wilson of helping plan the robbery, not of killing the couple. He initially
faced the death penalty under a legal doctrine known as the felony murder rule,
which holds that anyone involved in certain types of serious felonies that
result in death can be held as liable as the actual killer.
But a new law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in September significantly narrowed
that doctrine and prompted prosecutors to drop the murder charges against
Wilson.
"It's overwhelming," said Jacque Wilson, who is Neko Wilson's brother and his
lawyer, as he stood outside the courtroom immediately after hearing Judge John
F. Vogt's decision. "You go from being someone the state wanted to kill, to
someone who's coming home."
In court, Neko Wilson agreed to a plea deal on robbery charges, as well as
charges in unrelated cases. The total sentence for those charges added up to
nine years, the amount of time he’s already been jailed awaiting trial.
The prosecutor, William Lacy, senior deputy district attorney in Fresno, said
the new law had left prosecutors little choice. "It's a new world we live in,"
Lacy said. "It certainly means that people who were charged with murder
previously won't be charged."
Lacy told reporters that he "absolutely" believed the new law would have a
negative impact on public safety in California.
The felony murder doctrine has long been controversial. Many prosecutors say
that it is critical to be able to hold people accountable for deaths that
happen during serious crimes. Defense lawyers say that it often sweeps up
people who had no intention of killing anyone, like getaway drivers and
lookouts.
Earlier this year, State Senator Nancy Skinner introduced legislation to narrow
the state's felony murder doctrine, a measure called SB 1437, in part, she
said, because felony murder cases disproportionately affect women and young
black and Latino men.
Advocates for the legislation say that hundreds of cases could be affected by
the law.
The bill faced opposition from many law enforcement groups, including the
California District Attorneys Association and the California Police Chiefs
Association, and victims’ groups, such as Crime Victims United. These groups
voiced concerns that it would harm public safety and could force the
re-examination of hundreds of murder cases.
With the new law, California joins a growing number of states in abolishing or
severely narrowing felony murder. Over the decades, legislatures in Hawaii and
Kentucky have abolished the rule, and, last fall, Massachusetts joined Michigan
in ending it through the courts.
The case has been a long, complicated legal battle.
In July 2009, Gary and Sandra DeBartolo were found dead in their Central Valley
home, their throats slashed.
Prosecutors arrested 6 people in connection with the killings, including Neko
Wilson, who they say had helped craft a plan to steal high-grade marijuana from
the couple's home. Prosecutors alleged that Wilson sat in a vehicle nearby as
others went into the house to rob the couple. The DeBartolos were killed during
the robbery.
Court records show that Jose Reyes, Chris Bernard Butler and Andrew Jones have
accepted plea deals in the case. A jury convicted another co-defendant, Dawn
Singh, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole in the killings.
Prosecutors accused Singh of driving the getaway car. Another co-defendant,
Leroy Johnson, is still awaiting trial and could face the death penalty if
convicted.
"Obviously, this whole case is a tragedy," Jacque Wilson said outside the
courtroom after the hearing. As he talked about his brother, he grew quiet. His
jaw tightened, and he began to cry. "But 2 wrongs don't make a right. I believe
that justice was done."
Nearby, Wilson's father, 82-year-old Mack Wilson, beamed.
"It's one of the happiest days of my life," he said. "I thought I'd never see
him or touch him again."
Mack Wilson said he hoped Neko Wilson would be released quickly so he could
make it home for dinner. The previous day, he'd cooked a feast of ribs, potato
salad and corn bread in preparation for his son's homecoming.
"I'm the happiest guy in the universe," he said.
(source: themarshallproject.org)
**********************
Death penalty decision expected next month in Stan Norman murder case
The prosecutor in the Stan Norman murder case said he'll likely decide by next
month whether to seek death against two men accused of the veteran's slaying.
Assistant District Attorney Chris Walsh said during a Thursday court hearing
that decision could occur by Nov. 15, the next date Sean Bryant, 52, and
Michael McCauley, 42, are scheduled to appear in Nevada County Superior Court.
Defense attorney David Brooks, who represents Bryant, said he's acting like it
currently is a death penalty case.
"We're going to gear it up, but we haven't done it yet," Brooks said.
Prosecutors have filed a special circumstance of murder with torture against
the men. That designation means they're eligible for death or life in prison
with no chance of parole.
Walsh said he wants to hear from Brooks and McCauley's defense attorney - who
might have information about their clients' upbringing and background - before
making a decision about the death penalty.
According to Brooks, a death penalty case involves more county dollars and much
more time. Nevada County would have to pay for one additional attorney for each
man. Additionally, those attorneys would have to meet certain requirements.
"There are very few attorneys like that here, because the death penalty is not
used," Brooks said.
Authorities claim Bryant and McCauley were involved in the April 15 death of
Norman, 70. Officers arrested Bryant in mid-May on an unrelated accusation,
charging him with murder several days later. McCauley was arrested June 1.
Both men remained Thursday in the Nevada County Jail without bond.
(source: theunion.com)
WASHINGTON:
The Washington Supreme Court Just Banned Life-Without-Parole Sentences for
Teens----The ruling comes a week after the court abolished capital punishment.
Washington's state Supreme Court has ruled that it's unconstitutional to
sentence teen offenders to life in prison without parole because their brains
are less developed than those of adult offenders, arguing that they should be
granted a 2nd chance because of their potential for growth.
The 5-4 decision on Thursday comes one week after the court abolished the death
penalty in the state. Washington is now 1 of at least 21 states, along with the
District of Columbia, that ban life-without-parole punishments for crimes
committed by people under the age of 18.
The case centered on a man named Brian Basset who received a mandatory
life-without-parole sentence in 1996 after he was convicted of killing his
mother, father, and younger brother at the age of 16. He thought he would die
in prison, until the US Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that such mandatory
punishments were cruel and unusual for teens. The justices later said juvenile
lifers who were stuck behind bars should be resentenced or given an opportunity
for release. But they left the door open for judges to resentence them to new
life-without-parole terms in cases where a person was believed to be
irredeemable.
At the time, 70 % of the country's 2,600 juvenile lifers were people of color,
and many had been sent to prison during the superpredator scare of the 1990s,
when prosecutors attempted to depict teen criminals as dangerous and deserving
harsh punishments.
In 2015, when a 35-year-old Basset appeared before a judge for resentencing, he
argued he had turned himself around. At the time of his crime he had been
homeless because his parents would not let him live with them. In prison he had
earned a full-tuition scholarship to college and worked his way onto the honor
roll. He was mentoring other inmates and had not committed any disciplinary
infractions for more than a decade. Still, he was resentenced to life without
parole, a term he contested as unconstitutional.
"Children are less criminally culpable than adults," Justice Susan Owens wrote
for the majority.
The Washington state Supreme Court agreed and categorically banned the sentence
for teen offenders, saying it violated the state constitution, which it argued
provided broader protections than the Eighth Amendment. "[W]e find that states
are rapidly abandoning juvenile life without parole sentences, children are
less criminally culpable than adults, and the characteristics of youth do not
support the penological goals of a life without parole sentence," Justice Susan
Owens wrote for the majority.
While a growing number of states have moved away from harsh sentences for
teens, some like Michigan and Louisiana continue to lag behind. In Louisiana,
nearly 2/3 of juveniles convicted of new murder crimes since 2016 have been
handed life sentences with no chance of parole; most of them were African
American.
(source: motherjones.com)
********************
How This Sociologist’s Research Led a State to Abolish the Death Penalty
When the Washington State Supreme Court abolished the death penalty this month,
that was primarily because of Katherine Beckett.
Beckett, a professor of sociology and law at the University of Washington,
wrote a statistical study with a doctoral student in 2014, finding that, while
a defendant’s race didn’t appear to influence prosecutors in whether to seek
the death penalty, juries were more than four times more likely to impose a
death sentence if the defendant was black. The ruling this month declared the
death penalty unconstitutional "because it is imposed in an arbitrary and
racially biased manner." In their deliberation, the justices wrote, they
afforded "great weight to Beckett’s analysis and conclusions."
"That's one good thing about doing statistical analysis: The findings are the
findings."
The state had spent several years trying to undermine Beckett and her work. In
2013 she had taken on the topic at the invitation of lawyers for Allen Eugene
Gregory, a convicted murderer who was one of eight men on Washington's death
row. That research was met with a gantlet of extended debate and attacks,
including scrutiny from an expert hired by the state who suggested that the 2
scholars had unethically adjusted models to generate a predetermined result.
After much examination of statistical analysis and modeling, the court decided
differently in Gregory's case. He and the other death-row inmates will have
their sentences commuted to life in prison.
Beckett spoke with The Chronicle about rerunning analyses for justices,
fielding disturbing emails, and the need to research the efficacy of long
sentences for violent crimes.
Did you have any inkling that your research would have the impact it did?
We knew that this case was headed to the state Supreme Court, so the impact was
always there as a possibility. We knew there was that potential.
At some point you reran the analysis and corrected for errors. How concerned
were you that the findings might be diminished or even disproved?
We ran the analyses probably hundreds of times, measuring different variables
in different ways. Literally for years we were rerunning the analysis. And over
time we just became more and more confident in the strength of the findings,
because no matter how you ran it, the race of the defendant just kept coming
back.
How did you try to safeguard the research process so that the potential
significance of the findings didn't subconsciously affect the analysis?
That's 1 good thing about doing statistical analysis: The findings are the
findings. There's not a lot you can do to influence them. And we were very
clear with the attorneys that we were happy to do the analyses, and if they
showed that race didn't matter, we wouldn't try to rig the game in any way.
They were 100-% on board with that.
Did the findings have an immediate impact or take a while to get traction?
It took a while. Somewhere along the way, the state elected to hire an expert
who issued a critique of our work, and that spawned a roughly 2-year
back-and-forth dialogue that was eventually umpired by a commissioner appointed
by the state Supreme Court.
How did the scrutiny by the state's attorney or the justices compare with, say,
peer review?
The expert hired by the state was skeptical and critical in a way I had not
seen in peer review. It was an exhaustive process and somewhat trying. The
commissioner appointed by the Supreme Court ultimately wrote her own report,
and the justices looked at both that and the back-and-forth. So it was very
well vetted, much more thoroughly than anything I’ve experienced in the
peer-review process.
Your research didn't exactly go viral, but it achieved a level of attention
unusual for academic work. What's that like?
It's a little overwhelming, actually. But also deeply gratifying.
The court, in deciding this case, really took social-science evidence
seriously. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that statistical evidence is not
sufficient and that one needs to prove the intent to discriminate, which is a
sort of unattainable evidentiary bar. So given that this kind of study would
not be considered at the federal level, to have it taken so seriously at the
state level is heartening. I think it has given a lot of people hope that
perhaps state constitutions and judiciaries can provide more-meaningful
protections than the federal courts can.
And it's gratifying that the court was willing to hang in there for several
years of very technical and boring back-and-forth about what p-values really
mean, and all these things I'm sure the justices would rather not have spent
their time on.
These days, scholars in the public eye are often subject to internet attacks or
other scorn. Did that happen to you?
I've gotten a few emails that were somewhat tension-producing, I'll say, but it
hasn't been too bad. I've been honored and pleased by the general tenor of the
communication I've received.
What are you working on now?
Essentially I'm trying to figure out why mass incarceration is persisting the
way it is, given that crime rates have been plummeting for many years, and many
states have adopted reforms intended to reduce prison populations. Yet we see a
much smaller reduction in the prison population than you'd expect.
I also have a project analyzing the causes of the proliferation of long and
life sentences, specifically in Washington State. In many states, including
Washington, one of the main drivers of mass incarceration is the increasing
length of sentences.
Where would you like to see more of your peers focus their research?
I've only ever dreamed of my own research agenda, not other people's.
A lot of people who are interested in criminal-justice reform tend to want to
avoid the difficult subject of violence. As cohort researchers, we're going to
have to get brave and be willing to look that in the eye. The temptation is to
talk about the need to keep marijuana possessors out of the system, but that's
just not going to get you very far. Not that we shouldn't do that, but we
should also be proposing harder questions about what justice looks like when
serious harm is involved.
Why is that an interesting research question?
Well, our ideas about what justice requires have changed. The amount of time
that people now serve for cases involving serious violence is far greater than
it used to be. We didn't always do this, and most countries don't. Those
changing sensibilities are important. Not only are long sentences a major
contributor to mass incarceration, but they're also contributing to the rapid
aging of the prison population, which is an extraordinarily inefficient,
inhumane, and expensive development.
One of the most consistent criminological findings is that people age out of
crime, and that includes people who have committed serious crimes. The risk
that someone poses after the age of 50 or so is just very, very small. There
may be some exceptions in cases involving psychosis or sociopathy, but in the
vast majority of cases, age is an excellent predictor of being safe to be
released.
What's your advice for professors to improve the impact of their work?
In some ways, I just got lucky. But I hope this case supports the idea that,
for those of us interested in bringing our research to bear on public-policy
questions, it’s absolutely great to allow your values and political commitments
to shape the questions you ask. We do have to be careful to not let our values
and political commitments determine or influence our findings.
The other thing is really thinking through the institutional context. It's much
less likely that the findings around race would have had an impact in the state
legislature as opposed to the courts. So, given the particularities of the
issue you're working on, what kinds of partnerships are most likely to lead to
some kind of impact?
So if you hadn't been working with the lawyers on this particular case, and
instead you had just published your research and tried to interest state
leaders, it might not have gone very far?
Right. If there were a legislative initiative underway, they probably would
have wanted to focus on something more like the cost associated with the death
penalty.
What would you say to fellow scholars who might find themselves and their work
attracting heated public attention?
Hang in there. Take deep breaths. It can be very intense, particularly if
people attack your integrity. Just try not to get sucked into personal
animosity, try to keep your head on your shoulders, and just keep focusing on
the actual work and the quality of the work.
(source: The Chronicle of Higher Education)
USA:
Death penalty never acceptable, justified
Last Thursday, Oct. 11, Washington state became the 20th state to ban the death
penalty as a punishment for crimes. In many states, the death penalty is still
legal, whether it be through lethal injection, like in Texas, or electrocution,
like in Alabama. It is 2018, and people should not be electrocuted to death for
crimes they have committed.
While Washington state has made a step in the right direction, only 20 states
have banned the death penalty. The concept of the death penalty is rather
morbid. A person makes a mistake and commits a crime, whether it be due to a
mental illness or how they were raised, and they have no chance for redemption
or growth beyond that decision.
That is, of course, not to say that criminals that rape and murder should
eventually be allowed to roam freely among those who did not commit crimes.
There should still be life-long sentences in prison for those who committed
horrific crimes. Prisoners are more than their crime, and they still deserve to
live a life and pay penance for it.
The most prevalent argument for the death penalty is that the prison system is
already a major cost, and keeping the prisoners alive and healthy is a burden.
The idea that the price of keeping someone alive is too much to handle, and
therefore, that they should die is so desensitized to the fact that prisoners
are, in fact, real people. Many of them have done horrible things, but that
does not suddenly make them less human.
Another major concern people have is that if the person committed a murder,
they took a life. Their life should be taken as well. In order for a killer to
fully repent and feel remorse for what they did, they should be forced to stew
in it, think on it and come to terms with what they did. For those who are more
vengeful, this concept should provide some peace, knowing that the people who
commit the crimes will have to do the time, potentially for the rest of their
lives.
Too often do murder convicts, including some that are on death row, actually
get proven innocent following trial and are released. In some cases, they are
proven innocent post-mortem because they were executed before the technology
advanced to where it is now. The safest way to avoid unjustified execution is
to not execute people, guilty or otherwise.
(source: Francesca Miesner, The (Oswego State University) Oswegonian)
********************
Democrats Discuss: 'No' to the death penalty
The discussion of the death penalty isn't usually discussed in a partisan
manner. People on all sides of the aisle struggle to find their ground on how
they feel about the issue. This isn't an issue that sways elections or is asked
about in debates - but it should be. Capital punishment affects more people in
the United States than people realize and we have a responsibility as citizens
to pay attention to it.
Anthony Ray Hinton, a man who was wrongfully convicted due to racism, spent 35
years of his life on death row because he couldn’t afford more than a
court-appointed attorney. His autobiography illustrates the lives of many
different men he spent time with on the row. He tells the story of Horrace
Dunkins, a man whose execution was botched. They executioners had to
electrocute him twice for 19 minutes in the chair. This type of incident is not
uncommon and raises the question, does the death penalty fall under cruel and
unusual punishment?
Stories of men and women dying from cardiac arrest when the IV with the
mysterious death drug wasn't entered correctly, men catching on fire from the
electricity, and men who were found innocent after they had already been put to
death are all unacceptable. One case of this should have been the line to stop
capital punishment, instead, there's been thousands and it's still being
practiced today.
It is estimated that one in 25 men on death row is innocent, according to a
study conducted by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This should
be alarming to all people. Hinton is only one in thousands who couldn’t afford
a properly equipped lawyer. In fact, Hinton was told by the officer who
interrogated him that the officer didn't care whether Hinton was innocent or
not, all that mattered was there was going to be a white judge, a white jury,
and a white man saying he shot him. He is not the only one who has experienced
this.
Of the total amount of executions carried out since 1976, 43 % have been people
of color. Currently, 55 % of people awaiting executions today are people of
color. These percentages are disgustingly disproportionate.
The chance of the state executing someone for a crime they did not commit is a
crime in itself. We murder people for murdering innocent people, and then the
US turns around and does the same.
There is the argument of taxpayers spending their money on imprisoning someone
for life versus giving them an execution date. The misconception is: it’s more
expensive to put someone on death row and execute them than keeping them in
prison for life. According to some, it’s ten times more expensive to sentence
someone to death row. The execution itself is hard to gauge because there is a
lot of secrecy around the injection drug and how much it costs. The costs come
from the legal help, the trials, and the appeals. Capital cases are more
expensive and take much longer to resolve. On average, it's estimated about
$470,000 more per case.
Morally, it brings the question, how can we as a nation justify taking lives
when it hasn't deterred crime in any way? Of the 25 states that have the
highest murder rates, 20 of them of them have the death penalty.
It's the only punishment in the United States that does to the person the crime
that person committed. If someone robs a person's house, the US doesn't go and
rob that person’s house. However, if someone murders someone, the US, in turn,
murders them.
Overall, the death penalty should fall under cruel and unusual punishment.
There are men and women sitting on death row today that didn't have the funds
for a proper attorney, they were convicted on flimsy evidence, the jury gave
them life but the judge overturned it and said death penalty, they have low IQs
and don't understand what's happening, or maybe they're just guilty.
Do we risk killing an innocent man or woman as a nation? Do we spend the the
extra billions of dollars on capital punishment when it's done nothing for
crime rates?
My vote is no.
(source: Kailee Missler is a sophomore studying strategic communications at
Ohio University----thepostathens.com)
*********************
The needle and the damage done: Lethal injection is an inhumane way to execute
people
Last week, news broke that a prisoner on death row in Tennessee had asked to be
executed by electric chair, rather than lethal injection. Edmund Zagorski, 63,
said the chair was "the lesser of the 2 evils." Many people were shocked by his
decision, but I wasn't. I was sentenced to die by lethal injection for a crime
I didn't commit - and the thought of it still gives me nightmares.
In 1990, I was convicted of murder in Mississippi. Officials accused me of
killing my 9-month-old son Walter. I checked on him one night and found he had
stopped breathing. I rushed him to the hospital performing CPR the whole way,
but the doctors couldn't wake him up.
The next day, I went to the police station as I had been asked to do. The
detective yelled at me, "You know you killed your baby. You stepped on him with
your feet and smashed him on the floor. You killed him." I was placed in a jail
cell and was not allowed to attend Walter's funeral.
For 6 years on death row, I grieved for my son and contemplated my upcoming
execution. Nobody told me there was an automatic appeal, so to begin with, I
waited on the day they were meant to kill me, dreading every footfall outside
my cell.
When my other son Danny was 5 years old, he asked me on the phone, "Are they
going to kill you with a needle?" His question stopped me cold.
I heard stories of people choking and convulsing on the gurney as they died by
lethal injection, and hoped my death would not be like that. I didn't want my
family to be burdened with the knowledge that I was suffering during my last
moments on earth.
My ordeal ended when I was finally found innocent, after 6 terrifying years,
but it chills me to consider how narrowly I escaped an agonizing, drawn-out
death.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor has called lethal injection "the chemical equivalent of
being burned at the stake," and noted the "cruel irony that the method that
appears most humane may turn out to be our most cruel experiment yet."
In March of this year, Alabama tried to execute Doyle Lee Hamm, a 61-year-old
prisoner with terminal cancer. Prison personnel spent 2 1/2 hours sticking
Hamm's legs, ankles and groin with needles in an attempt to set up an IV line.
The prison punctured his bladder before giving up and returning him to his
cell.
In Texas, Danny Bible took quick breaths before saying that his body was
"burning" as he was killed by lethal injection this year.
As lethal drugs were injected into Anthony Shore's veins, witnesses reported
that his body started to tremble and he said: "I can feel that it does burn.
Burning!"
It is little wonder that death row prisoners like Zagorski are seeking
alternatives, even if that means the electric chair.
In Missouri, a man named Russell Bucklew has requested death by lethal gas,
because he has a health condition that would cause him to choke on his own
blood if he were executed by lethal injection. In Arkansas last year, nine
prisoners requested the firing squad or gas. Another man on death row preferred
hanging.
When states turned away from using the electric chair around the time of my
conviction, they presented lethal injection as a safe, medically-administered,
all-but painless alternative. 2 decades later, we know this to be a lie, and
yet we persist in order to avoid confronting the awful reality of capital
punishment.
So far, only Oklahoma has recognized that lethal injection is inhumane and
abandoned it as a method of execution. Other states should do the same.
(source: Sabrina Butler was the 1st woman to be exonerated and freed from death
row in US history----reprieve.org.uk)
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