February 7
WYOMING:
Death penalty vote a proud moment for Wyoming House
“Riveting.” It’s not a word I’ve ever used before in connection with the
Wyoming Legislature, and I’ve covered about 20 sessions over the past four
decades.
But it’s the best descriptor I can think of for the debate in the House last
Wednesday over the proposed repeal of the state’s death penalty. It was an
emotional, thoughtful and somber discussion of a topic I never thought would
make it to the floor, much less pass the House 36-21 on final reading Friday.
I’ve covered capital murder cases and read a ton of books about serial killers
and other heinous criminals, but my basic belief on the matter hasn’t wavered:
The death penalty is wrong, for many reasons.
The state should not have the right to take a person’s life. Most of the world
agrees with me; 142 nations have abolished the death penalty either in statute
or practice, while the 56 that still have capital punishment — China, Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan etc. — aren’t exactly the beacons of
civic virtue we should hope to emulate.
The ultimate penalty is applied unevenly in America, with a highly
disproportionate number of minorities on death row. Far too many people have
been executed in this country who were later found to be innocent, and hundreds
of the convicted killers have languished on death row for an average of 17
years.
The huge fiscal impact of the appeals process drains states’ budgets as
taxpayers must cover the costs incurred by both the state and defense for
convicted murderers who cannot afford attorneys.
But that doesn’t mean I haven’t wrestled with the thought, deep inside, that
some crimes are so horrific that a justly convicted killer doesn’t deserve to
live.
So I listened intently as Rep. Jared Olsen (R-Cheyenne), the young attorney who
sponsored the death penalty repeal bill, explained his reasoning in his opening
statement to his House colleagues. Olsen said that when he circulated a draft
of what became House Bill 145-Death Penalty Repeal 2 among potential
co-sponsors, he was asked how he would feel if the murder victim was a member
of his family.
“My gut actually said, ‘Yeah, I would want that person put to death,” Olsen
said. “But you know what? That’s what’s wrong with the system. My gut is wrong.
It’s not based on reason.
“Ask yourself if it’s reason, or it’s blind [justice], or if it’s nothing but
fear and anger,” he said.
My anti death penalty convictions might also be erased in seconds if a member
of my family was the victim. But Olsen has it right. It’s not the state’s
responsibility to seek revenge for crimes. It must punish the guilty, but not
solely for the sake of retribution.
Olsen asked a fundamental question: “How much authority do we want to rest in
our government?” He noted that since 1973, 150 former death row inmates have
been exonerated in the U.S.
“Some say we need a swifter justice system,” the attorney said. “But what if we
had one? There’s far too great a risk for imperfect people managing a [criminal
justice] system.”
The last person the state of Wyoming executed was Mark Hopkinson in 1992. I
covered the small protest on the front lawn of the Capitol when he was put to
death at the Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins. It was a frigid night, and
I remember looking at the light in then Gov. Mike Sullivan’s office window and
hoping he would stop the damn thing from happening.
Hopkinson was convicted of ordering the murders of Evanston attorney Vincent
Vehar, his wife Beverly and son John, and was sentenced to 3 consecutive life
terms. He was sentenced to death for ordering the murder of Jeffrey Green while
Hopkinson was in prison for hiring Green to kill an Arizona attorney in an
unsuccessful bombing plot.
I don’t doubt his guilt in any of the four murders, but I could not see the
point of the state taking his life, and I still don’t. Nothing would bring the
Vehars or Green back. I think life without the possibility of parole is a just
sentence, and arguably one that is even tougher on an inmate than lying on a
gurney and being given a lethal dose of chemicals.
Knowing that one is going to spend the rest of his or her life locked up
without any hope of ever getting out would be a living hell on earth.
During the House debate the thoughts of Rep. Danny Eyre (R-Lyman) also turned
to Hopkinson. Eyre noted that he grew up with the murderer and also knew
Hopkinson’s victims.
“He did some terrible things,” said Eyre, who had been a death penalty
supporter. “When that actual execution took place, I knew he was guilty and
he’d ruined many lives, but it was a dark and sad day.”
Rep. Art Washut (R-Casper) is a retired police officer. You could have heard a
pin drop on the House floor as he recalled having to tell three young children
that their mother had been killed and their father was probably going to
prison, perhaps forever. At a glance he fits the profile of an ardent death
penalty backer.
Yet Washut favors taking capital punishment off the books. “I’ve thought about
it long and hard and I think conservatives can get behind this abolition of the
death penalty in good conscience,” he said.
The testimony of Rep. Andrea Clifford (D-Riverton) was heart-wrenching. Her
18-year-old aunt was raped and murdered.
“I was raised with my cultural beliefs that we shouldn’t live with anger and
being bitter,” Clifford, who is Native American said. “It’s not good for humans
and not good for the family. It’s not good for the tribe. … It’s for the
Creator to decide. We’re not here to judge anyone. We’re humans; we make
mistakes.”
Making one of the most pointed, succinct fiscal arguments I’ve ever heard
against the death penalty was Rep. Tyler Lindholm (R-Sundance). Support Drake’s
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“For every dollar we spend on a broken death penalty system, we are taking
money away from programs that would actually prevent crimes, keep us safer and
restore the lives of homicide victims’ [families],” Lindholm said.
He rattled off a list of things the state could pay for if it didn’t have to
maintain a penalty option that it has used once in the past 50 years: proven
gang prevention programs, desperately needed grief counseling, financial
assistance for families of murder victims, training and better equipment that
would keep police officers and neighborhoods safer.
Olsen delivered the perfect closer to his argument: “If you keep the death
penalty, Wyoming will use it. No one can guarantee an innocent person will not
be sent to death.”
After seeing other bills repealing the death penalty quickly tossed out by
legislative committees over the years, I had given up all hope that our
lawmakers would ever enact one. I am amazed but gratified that Wyoming is
genuinely considering HB145.
I don’t know what the Senate will do this session, but I do know three things.
First, the days of capital punishment are numbered in the state.
Second, moving, unforgettable and rational debates like the one the House just
had will bring about the change.
And finally, that Wyoming should thank Olsen for bringing this debate to the
forefront of state politics and the attention of the public. When our officials
have the courage of their convictions and aren’t afraid to do what they believe
is right, we all benefit.
(source: Opinion; Veteran Wyoming journalist Kerry Drake has covered Wyoming
for more than four decades, previously as a reporter and editor for the Wyoming
Tribune-Eagle and Casper Star-Tribune----wyofile.com)
MONTANA:
66 Session in 60 Seconds – Revising laws to death penalty
Montana is the only state among the 30 others to have the death penalty that
hasn’t handed down the death sentence in the 21st Century. 1996 was the last
time someone was sentenced to death row and convicting someone might become
even more rare.
The changes under this bill would only allow someone to be sentenced to the
death penalty if DNA or biological evidence links the defendant to the crime.
This evidence must be admitted during the trail and the judge must determine if
the DNA evidence makes the defendant guilty.
Things such as blood, hair, saliva, skin tissue, fingernail scrapings, bone,
bodily fluids or other identifiable biological material would be allowed in
court to convict the defendant, but this would be the only way to get a guilty
verdict that would result in the death penalty. Efforts were made in 2009 and
2011 to abolish the death penalty and both times those bills passed in the
Senate but were defeated in the House Judiciary Committee.
(source: abcfoxmontana.com)
IDAHO:
Execution Records Trial Reveals False Statements, Questionable Practices by
Idaho Officials
Idaho officials deliberately misled the public about the costs and application
of the state’s death penalty and prison officials’ questionable efforts at
obtaining execution drugs, according to evidence presented in week-long court
hearings on the state’s execution secrecy practices. Testimony from January 28
through February 1, 2019 in an open-records lawsuit against the Idaho
Department of Corrections has revealed that Idaho paid $10,000 in cash to an
undisclosed drug supplier, maintained a set of fraudulent financial records
related to execution expenses, falsely denied having records documenting
contacts with a disreputable drug supplier in India, and hid from the public
information as mundane as the hairdressers who give prisoners their final
haircuts. The lawsuit was brought by the ACLU of Idaho on behalf of University
of Idaho law professor Aliza Cover after the IDOC refused to turn over numerous
execution-related records to her in response to a 2017 public records request.
Relying on Idaho’s Public Records Act, Cover had sought copies of receipts,
purchase orders, and other information related to the drugs Idaho used in its
last two executions in 2011 and 2012 and those it expects to use in future
executions. The department disclosed only a copy of the state’s execution
policy manual, but claimed the remaining documents were exempt from public
scrutiny. Cover, who studies the death penalty and its application, sued,
asking the court to order the records disclosed. Even then, IDOC resisted. In
actions ACLU attorney Molly Kafka characterized as “relying on speculation and
fear rather than data,” IDOC redacted dozens of items from execution records,
including not only the names of prison staff who participated in executions,
but their handwriting, and the names of people only tangentially involved in
executions, such as clergy who counsel death-row prisoners and hairdressers who
give prisoners their final haircuts. The state claimed, without evidence, that
the redactions were necessary to protect those individuals from protest,
harassment, or violence. Similar claims of threats against execution team
members in other states have been found to be unsubstantiated. Idaho officials
also withheld information on the source of execution drugs used in the past,
claiming that suppliers would no longer provide the drugs if their identities
were revealed. IDOC falsely told investigative reporter Chris McDaniel that
records he had requested did not exist. In fact, records showed that Idaho had
contact with Chris Harris—a drug supplier in India who had obtained drugs from
a European pharmaceutical company for medical use in Africa and then
misappropriated them instead for sale for executions in the United States.
Testimony at the trial also revealed that IDOC’s secrecy efforts extended to
fraudulent recordkeeping practices. According to a former Idaho Department of
Corrections employee, IDOC kept three sets of financial books because the
department “did not want to show a tremendous amount of money being spent for
the execution as well as for the anonymity for those involved in it.” When a
person would ask the IDOC for execution-related data, the first set of books
would be given out. A second set of books would be provided if the person
persisted. “So, the first set would be a lower amount to not represent the
total of what was being spent, and the second one had a little higher amount
just to show due diligence — that there was work being done to capture all the
amounts,” the official said. According to the official, “the third was the
actual set of books that would actually represent the expenses.”
Testifying during the trial, Cover said: “If the public is not able to have
this information about those issues, [it] cannot come to a decision on its
moral view about the punishment that is occurring.” In closing statements
Monday, February 4, 2019, one of her lawyers said: “[IDOC’s] argument at this
point is crystal clear — this information is so important that we can’t release
it, because it would change the way we do things.” An editorial by the Idaho
Press urged the state to end the secrecy: “In the end, the state of Idaho needs
to be transparent about the drugs it’s using for lethal injections and about
where they’re getting those drugs. We see no exemption in the public records
law for protecting a relationship with a drug provider.”
(source: Death Penalty Information Center)
WASHINGTON:
Washington Death Penalty Slated for Execution
Legislators propose replacing the moribund death penalty with the mandatory
imposition of life imprisonment without parole.
The Senate Law and Justice committee heard public testimony on Senate Bill 5339
sponsored by Senator Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle.
“It’s been a long public discourse the last 10 to 15 years in our state and in
our country about this issue,” said Carlyle. “I think the result of that civic
discourse in the last number of years has been a growing recognition that the
data shows that the death penalty is applied in a way that is not consistent.”
In October 2018, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that the death
penalty was being applied in an arbitrary and racially biased manner. The court
converted all death penalty sentences to life in prison without parole.
Governor Jay Inslee signed a moratorium on imposing the death penalty in 2014.
“I respectfully suggest that closing the books on this chapter is a responsible
public policy step given where the courts and our state have come and that it
really solidifies our statute in a way that makes it clear and unequivocal for
years to come,” said Carlyle.
District 4 Senator Mike Padden, R-Spokane Valley noted that Washington
effectively no longer has a death penalty and given the reasoning behind the
Supreme Court’s ruling last year it would be difficult to craft death penalty
legislation that would satisfy the court.
Former state Secretary of the Department of Corrections Dick Morgan testified
in support of the bill, speaking on behalf of several other previous DOC
secretaries. Morgan said hundreds of prisoners have committed similar crimes
and were sentenced to life without parole yet from a management viewpoint they
pose no greater risk than those on death row.
“They are from a managerial standpoint indistinguishable from one another, yet
the cost of managing those sentenced to death is extraordinarily high for the
department,” said Morgan.
Preparing for an execution takes significant additional personnel and is done
on a voluntary basis. Morgan noted that it’s common for personnel who have
participated in an execution to not wish to do so again.
Since 1904, 78 people have been executed in Washington state, according to the
Department of Corrections. The last execution took place in 2010. Cal Brown,
convicted of strangling and stabbing a woman to death in 1991, was executed by
lethal injection.
A house bill proposed by Representative Carolyn Eslick, R-Sultan, would allow
the death penalty to continue in specific circumstances. HB 1709 would ensure
the imposition of the death penalty on inmates charged with 1st degree murder
committed while serving a prison term. This legislation is in response to the
murder of correctional officer Jayme Biendl in 2011 by an inmate serving life
in prison, according to Padden.
Companion bill to remove the death penalty, HB 1488, which would also eliminate
the death penalty, is not currently scheduled for public testimony and is
sponsored by Dist. 33 Representative Tina Orwall, D-Des Moines. SB 5339 is
scheduled for executive action by the law and justice committee on Thursday.
(source: The Daily Chronicle)
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