February 8
ALABAMA----execution
Alabama executes Domineque Ray for 1995 Selma murder
Alabama death row inmate Domineque Ray died by lethal injection Thursday
evening.
Prison officials recorded his time of death as 10:12 p.m.
Ray was executed after an 11th-hour ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court vacated
a stay of execution pending a religious rights claim. Ray, a Muslim, had argued
Alabama's practice of including a Christian prison chaplain in the execution
chamber was in violation of the First Amendment. Ray sought to have his imam
present at the time of his death.
Imam Yusef Maisonet, Ray's spiritual adviser, witnessed Ray's execution from an
adjoining chamber, which held media and prison officials. 2 lawyers accompanied
Maisonet.
When the curtain opened at 9:44 p.m., Ray lifted his head from the gurney,
looking into the witness room. With his right hand in a fist, he extended a
pointer finger.
Maisonet appeared to mirror the gesture and murmured that it was an
acknowledgement of the singular God of the Islamic faith. When asked if he had
any final words, Ray gave a brief faith declaration in Arabic.
At 9:48, Ray made a fist with his left hand, raising his head slightly to look
at his arm. His left arm shook briefly, before his eyes closed a minute later.
When the curtains to the witness chamber were drawn at 10:05 p.m., Ray's right
pointer remained extended.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals had previously stayed the execution, writing
that there was a possibility Alabama had "run afoul" of the religious freedom
clause of the First Amendment.
The U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to vacate the stay "because Ray waited until
Jan. 28, 2019, to seek relief."
Justices Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor
dissented to the ruling.
"Here, Ray has put forward a powerful claim that his religious rights will be
violated at the moment the State puts him to death," Kagan wrote in her
dissent. "The Eleventh Circuit wanted to hear that claim in full. Instead, this
Court short-circuits that ordinary process — and itself rejects the claim with
little briefing and no argument — just so the State can meet its preferred
execution date."
Ray was sentenced to death for the 1995 rape and fatal stabbing of 15-year-old
Tiffany Harville of Selma. Months before his death penalty trial, he was
sentenced to life for a 1994 slaying of 2 teen brothers.
Ray was implicated in the crime after another man, Marcus Owden, confessed to
his role in Harville's kidnapping. Owden testified in a 1999 trial that Ray cut
Harville's throat. Owden is serving a life sentence without parole.
The Supreme Court denied a second stay appeal on Thursday night, in which
attorneys said Ray's original defense team wasn't informed that Owden suffered
from schizophrenia and potential delusions at the time of his trial.
“For 20 years, Domineque Ray has successfully eluded execution for the barbaric
murder of a 15-year-old Selma girl,” said Attorney General Steve Marshall in a
statement. “In 1995, Ray brutally deprived young Tiffany Harville of her life,
repeatedly stabbing and raping her before leaving her body in a cotton field. A
jury gave him a death sentence for this heinous crime. A year before, Ray had
also taken the lives of 2 teenage brothers, Reinhard and Earnest Mabins.
Tonight, Ray’s long-delayed appointment with justice is finally met.”
A family member of Harville reached by phone Tuesday declined to comment.
Prison officials said Thursday no one from the victim's family would witness
the execution.
Last week, Alabama prison officials argued in court that the prison chaplain is
allowed in the execution chamber because he is a Department of Corrections
employee trained in execution protocol. ADOC agreed to exclude the chaplain for
Ray's execution.
But after a Wednesday ruling that suggested the state's practice had "run
afoul" of the religious freedom clause of the First Amendment, Alabama amended
or altered its lethal injection protocol, according to court records, to
exclude the prison chaplain.
Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner Jeff Dunn said the department
has not yet made changes to its official lethal injection protocol, though the
Holman chaplain was not included in Ray's execution. Dunn said the department
conducts an "after-action review" following every state execution and will
consider changes then.
Dunn said that execution protocol is a "product of ADOC policy," and it is
within the purview of the department to make changes as it deems necessary.
(source: Montgomery Advertiser)
***************
Justices Allow Execution of Muslim Death Row Inmate Who Sought Imam
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the execution of a Muslim inmate in
Alabama whose request that his imam be present had been denied.
The vote was 5 to 4, with the 4 more liberal members of the court in dissent.
The majority offered little reasoning but said that the inmate, Domineque Ray,
had waited too long to object. Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the dissenters,
said the majority was “profoundly wrong.”
Under Alabama’s policy, she wrote, “a Christian prisoner may have a minister of
his own faith accompany him into the execution chamber to say his last rites.”
“But if an inmate practices a different religion — whether Islam, Judaism or
any other — he may not die with a minister of his own faith by his side,”
Justice Kagan wrote.
“That treatment goes against the Establishment Clause’s core principle of
denominational neutrality,” she added, referring to the clause of the First
Amendment that bars the government from favoring one religious denomination
over another.
A federal appeals court had issued a stay of execution on Wednesday, saying
that excluding the imam while routinely allowing a Christian chaplain to be
present raised serious questions about religious discrimination.
Mr. Ray was originally scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. Thursday for the 1995
rape, robbery and murder of Tiffany Harville, 15, in a cotton field outside
Selma. His lawyer, Spencer Hahn, said at 10:20 p.m. that Mr. Ray had been
killed.
As his execution date neared, Mr. Ray told prison officials that he sought, as
the appeals court put it, “spiritual guidance and comfort from a cleric of his
own faith.”
The officials said Mr. Ray’s imam could visit him shortly before the execution
and observe it from a viewing room. But they would not allow the imam into the
execution chamber.
The chaplain was allowed to be present, the officials went on, because he was
an employee of the prison system who was “a member of the execution team” and
was “familiar with the technicalities of the execution protocol,” having
attended almost every execution in the state since 1997. The chaplain kneels
and prays with inmates who seek pastoral care, the officials said. After
considering Mr. Ray’s request, prison officials agreed to exclude the chaplain.
But they said allowing the imam to be present raised unacceptable safety
concerns.
A unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the
11th Circuit, in Atlanta, stayed the execution, saying Mr. Ray had presented “a
powerful Establishment Clause claim.”
“We are exceedingly loath to substitute our judgment on prison procedures for
the determination of those officials charged with the formidable task of
running a prison, let alone administering the death penalty in a controlled and
secured manner,” Judge Stanley Marcus wrote. “Nevertheless, in the face of this
limited record, it looks substantially likely to us that Alabama has run afoul
of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.”
The appeals court put Mr. Ray’s appeal on a fast track, with briefing to have
been completed in a little more than a month.
On Wednesday, lawyers for Alabama filed an emergency application asking the
Supreme Court to vacate the stay of execution in the case, Dunn v. Ray, No.
18A815. The state should be allowed, they wrote, to proceed with the “serious
and solemn responsibility” of conducting executions “in an orderly and secure
fashion.”
In response, lawyers for Mr. Ray urged the justices to allow the litigation to
move forward in the appeals court. “Mr. Ray does not dispute that the state has
an interest in enforcing its judgments,” they wrote. “But it does not have an
interest in doing so unconstitutionally.”
In her dissent on Thursday, Justice Kagan wrote that the majority had acted
with unseemly haste.
“Ray has put forward a powerful claim that his religious rights will be
violated at the moment the state puts him to death,” she wrote. “The 11th
Circuit wanted to hear that claim in full. Instead, this court short-circuits
that ordinary process — and itself rejects the claim with little briefing and
no argument — just so the state can meet its preferred execution date.”
(source: New York Times)
*************
The Supreme Court just handed down a truly shocking attack on
Muslims----"Religious liberty" is a sham.
The Supreme Court just handed down a brief order holding that a man named
Domineque Ray must die without his spiritual adviser being made available to
give him comfort. The decision was 5-4 along party lines. The case is Dunn v.
Ray.
Ray is a death row inmate, and there is no doubt that the state of Alabama may
execute him. The only issue in this case was whether Ray, who is Muslim, may be
killed with his imam at his side. Moreover, as Justice Elena Kagan notes in a
dissenting opinion, “a Christian prisoner may have a minister of his own faith
accompany him into the execution chamber to say his last rites” under the
prison’s policy. So if Ray were a Christian, he would have his spiritual
adviser present.
One of the cornerstones of the Supreme Court’s religion jurisprudence is that
the government may not discriminate among faiths. As it explained in Larson v.
Valente, “the clearest command of the Establishment Clause is that one
religious denomination cannot be officially preferred over another.” Yet, as
Kagan writes, that is exactly what the court did in Ray.
The Supreme Court’s Republican majority couches its decision as simply a matter
of procedure. Ray’s execution was set for Thursday on November 6th. According
to the majority, “Ray waited until January 28, 2019 to seek relief,” and thus
his request may be denied under the principle that “a court may consider the
last-minute nature of an application to stay execution in deciding whether to
grant equitable relief.”
This, however, is the same Supreme Court that has rewritten fundamental
principles of its own religious liberty jurisprudence in cases like Burwell v.
Hobby Lobby when conservative Christians claimed that their religious beliefs
were under attack. It is also the same court that upheld President Donald
Trump’s Muslim ban despite the fact that Trump literally bragged repeatedly
about his plans to ban members of a certain faith from the country.
Moreover, as Kagan notes, the prison warden did not deny Ray’s request to have
his imam present until January 23. So Ray went through the prison’s
administrative channels to get the relief he sought, and then he filed suit
just 5 days after his request was denied. Given this timing, it appears very
likely that the majority’s claim that Ray waited too long to file his suit is
pretextual.
To be fair, it is possible that the Republican majority denied Ray’s request
due to a lack of sympathy towards death row inmates generally, rather than out
of particular animus towards Muslims. Yet it is also unclear why a mere desire
to ensure that executions are carried out would justify the decision in Ray.
Again, the issue in this case is not whether Mr. Ray may be executed, it is
whether a Muslim inmate is entitled to be treated exactly the same way as a
Christian while that inmate is being executed.
(source: thinkprogress.org)
OHIO:
Murder suspect changes mind, seeks speedy trial
The search could be on for an attorney to represent a Lorain man facing the
death penalty after he has stated he no longer wants to waive his right to a
speedy trial.
Jocquez Ross, 29, was indicted on aggravated murder and other charges in
connection with the fatal shooting of Michael Lewis and his wife, Fannie Lewis.
If convicted, Ross could face the death penalty.
On Wednesday, though, shortly before a scheduled pretrial hearing in the case,
Ross told his attorney, Kreig Brusnahan, that he would no longer waive time in
his case. Ross was indicted in January 2017 and has been waiving his right to a
speedy trial.
If Ross decides to not waive his speedy trial rights, it probably will cost him
his attorney.
“As the court knows, I’ve been doing this for quite a long time,” Brusnahan
said. “I know how long it will take me to effectively prepare this case for
trial. It can’t happen before January of next year.”
Brusnahan said he’ll have no choice but to withdraw as Ross’ attorney.
“There’s no way that I’ll be able to effectively prepare this case for trial
without a speedy trial waiver,” he said. “I just explained to Mr. Ross that if
it’s his desire to not waive speedy trial, I’m going to ask to withdraw from
the case. I can’t be put in that situation where I don’t have appropriate time
to prepare for trial.”
Judge Christopher Rothgery said he would continue the pretrial in 1 week.
“During that time period, I’m going to give you the opportunity to discuss the
pros and cons of your client’s decision with him, and I will consider a motion
to withdraw at that point (Tuesday), if it’s still his inclination to do so.”
Rothgery said he’ll try to find an attorney that will take a death-penalty case
without a time waiver, but he said, “I have a feeling it isn’t going to be
easy.”
A similar situation arose last year when John Rowan was indicted on capital
murder charges in connection with the killing of Harold Litten in North
Ridgeivlle. Rowan declined to waive his speedy trial rights and multiple
attorneys, including Brusnahan, withdrew from representing the defendant before
attorneys Kenneth Lieux and David Doughten were appointed and convinced Rowan
to waive time.
Rowan eventually pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without the
possibility of parole for at least 30 years.
Ross is accused of shooting Michael and Fannie Lewis in their rented Chevrolet
Traverse on Fox Hill Lane on Jan. 31, 2016. Elyria police responding to reports
of gunshots found the couple both dead of gunshot wounds.
Police and prosecutors have said little about the motive for the slaying,
although they believe the couple was targeted. They also have said they were
examining a connection with drugs because Michael Lewis had been under
indictment on drug charges at the time of his death.
Ross is scheduled to appear before Rothgery on Tuesday. He is being held in
Lorain County Jail without bond, according to jail records.
(soruce: The Chronicle)
*******************
Ohio’s Governor Stopped an Execution Over Fears It Would Feel Like
Waterboarding
At the coroner’s office in Dayton, Ohio, Dr. Mark Edgar stood over the body of
Robert Van Hook. The deceased 58-year-old weighed 228 pounds; he wore blue
pants, a white shirt, and identification tags around his ankles. Edgar, a
professor of pathology at Emory University School of Medicine, had done
countless autopsies over the years. But this would be the 1st time he examined
the body of someone executed by the state.
Van Hook had died one day earlier, on July 18, 2018, inside the death chamber
at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. After a tearful
apology to his victim’s family, he was injected with 500 milligrams of
midazolam — the first of a three-drug formula adopted in 2017. Media witnesses
described labored breathing from Van Hook shortly afterward, including “gasping
and wheezing” loud enough to be heard from the witness room. Nevertheless,
compared to recent executions in Ohio, things seemed to go smoothly.
Still, Edgar had cause for concern. For the past few years he had been
examining the autopsy reports of men executed using midazolam across the
country. He found a disturbing pattern. A majority showed signs of pulmonary
edema, an accumulation of fluid in the lungs. Several showed bloody froth that
oozed from the lungs during the autopsy — evidence that the buildup had been
sudden, severe, and harrowing. In a medical context, where a life is to be
saved, pulmonary edema is considered an emergency — it feels like drowning.
Even if someone is to be deliberately killed by the state, the Constitution is
supposed to prohibit cruel and unusual punishment. To Edgar, the autopsies
showed the executed men felt the panic and terror of asphyxiation before they
died.
Edgar’s findings compounded a more familiar problem with midazolam. Unlike the
drugs used to provide anesthesia in previous execution protocols, it was a
sedative, not a barbiturate. Anesthesiologists had warned for years that even
at extremely high doses, midazolam did not have the properties to render a
person insensate — immune to pain — for the purpose of lethal injection. The
second and third drugs in Ohio’s protocol — a paralytic that stops respiration
and potassium chloride to stop the heart — were known be excruciating if
injected without a proper anesthetic. Experts likened the effect to being
buried alive while feeling fire in one’s veins.
The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed this evidence in the 2015 ruling Glossip v.
Gross, waving forth a slew of executions using midazolam. But Edgar’s findings
were new. Days before arriving in Ohio to do the autopsy on Van Hook, he had
presented them publicly for the first time at a trial in Nashville, Tennessee,
where lawyers were challenging plans to kill a man named Billy Ray Irick. Among
the witnesses who corroborated Edgar’s conclusions was a leading
pharmacologist, Dr. David Greenblatt, who did some of the earliest clinical
trials of midazolam. He explained how a massive dose of the acidic drug would
almost immediately begin to destroy pulmonary capillaries and lung tissues upon
injection, leading to pulmonary edema. Other witnesses gave firsthand accounts
of executions in which the condemned had struggled to breathe. This was
compelling — if not quite exhaustive — evidence. “The ideal situation would be
for me to do these autopsies myself and see exactly what I was interested in,”
Edgar said on the stand in Nashville. The next day, Ohio executed Van Hook.
Ohio does not conduct autopsies following executions. But Ohio Federal Public
Defender Allen Bohnert secured permission on Edgar’s behalf. “The autopsy was
conducted in the usual manner,” Edgar wrote in a subsequent report. He made a
Y-shaped incision into the chest and abdomen. A technician removed and weighed
Van Hook’s organs and Edgar examined them, looking for anything unusual. When
he got to the lungs, he found “significant abnormalities.” They were unusually
heavy — one telltale sign of congestion. When he cut into them, he found a mix
of blood and frothy fluid.
Of the 27 previously available autopsy reports for people executed using
midazolam, Edgar had found evidence of pulmonary edema in 23. Van Hook was the
24th. A few weeks later, Tennessee used midazolam to execute Irick, who moved
and made choking sounds — another grim sign. In a motion seeking a stay of
execution and preliminary injunction for Warren Keith Henness, who was
scheduled to die in Ohio in February 2019, Bohnert urged a federal magistrate
judge to consider these recent developments. “At some point the courts cannot
explain away the ever-growing mountain of evidence” against midazolam, he
wrote.
Magistrate Judge Michael Merz granted an evidentiary hearing. After four days
of testimony, he issued a damning 148-page order on January 14. The evidence
surrounding midazolam had become far more persuasive since Merz last presided
over such a proceeding. Not only was he now convinced that midazolam had no
analgesic properties, but the drug was “sure or very likely” to cause pulmonary
edema, which was akin to “waterboarding.” Yet Merz said he could not stop
Henness’s execution. Under Glossip, people challenging lethal injection
protocols had to prove that there was an alternative method readily available
for the state to use to kill them. Henness had not met this burden.
“This is not a result with which the court is comfortable,” Merz wrote. “If
Ohio executes Warren Henness under its present protocol, it will almost
certainly subject him to severe pain and needless suffering. Reading the plain
language of the Eighth Amendment, that should be enough to constitute cruel and
unusual punishment.”
Ohio seemed poised to carry out Henness’s execution. But then, on January 22,
the governor’s office issued an order of its own. Newly inaugurated Gov. Mike
DeWine granted a warrant of reprieve, delaying Henness’s execution until
September. In the meantime, he ordered a review of the state’s options and an
examination of “possible alternative drugs.”
“Agony and Horror”
Among those who have fought the legal battles over lethal injection, the events
in Ohio were a big deal. Courts across the country have repeatedly upheld the
use of midazolam despite mounting evidence of its dangers. Just last week, a
federal judge in Alabama denied a request by Domineque Ray to be executed by
nitrogen hypoxia instead of the state’s midazolam-based protocol. (That
execution, scheduled for tonight, is currently on hold for unrelated reasons.)
Although Merz’s order did not stop Henness’s execution, his findings were blunt
and unequivocal in a way that other judges have not been — which could
influence future litigation.
The reprieve for Henness was also particularly notable coming from DeWine. As
Ohio’s attorney general from 2011 through 2018, he spent much of the past
decade fighting to push through executions, even as Ohio adopted new and
untested protocols. Ever since U.S. executions first became derailed by a
shortage of sodium thiopental — the fast-acting barbiturate long used for
lethal injection — states across the country had been engaged in a macabre
human experiment. Ohio was particularly eager to tinker with its formulas,
adopting 1-drug, 2-drug, and 3-drug protocols over time. After the state 1st
used midazolam in the notoriously ugly 2014 execution of Dennis McGuire, DeWine
was instrumental to passing legislation to conceal the identity of
pharmaceutical companies that sold the state drugs for executions. But the risk
of another botched execution appears to be of more concern now that DeWine is
governor. When Henness’s attorney sent him a reprieve request highlighting
Merz’s ruling, he acted within 24 hours.
Like other states that have used midazolam for executions, Ohio had been
cautioned before killing McGuire — one anesthesiologist warned that it could
cause “agony and horror.” The execution was a ghastly ordeal. Witnesses said he
grunted and fought for air, “snorting, gurgling and arching his back,” as
described in a lawsuit brought by McGuire’s family. According to the suit, one
prison official “mouthed ‘I’m sorry’” to his relatives in the execution
chamber.
For the next 3 1/2 years, Ohio did not carry out a single execution. But other
states continued to use midazolam. Although protocols varied from state to
state, each relied on quantities of the drug that were well above the average
therapeutic dose. Witness accounts were consistent, often describing labored
breathing from the condemned.
? “If the individual was in any way aware of what was happening to them it
would be unbearable.”
In 2017, Edgar reviewed the autopsy report of 39-year-old Ricky Gray, executed
in Virginia that January. News reports had described unusual movements after
the midazolam was administered. He “looked around, moved his toes and legs,”
the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. “He appeared to take a number of deep
breaths and he appeared to make snoring or groaning sounds.” Gray’s family
requested his autopsy report, which was obtained by The Guardian. “It notes
that ‘blood-tinged fluid is present from the mouth’ and that ‘the upper airways
contains foamy liquid,’” reporter Ed Pilkington wrote. “It also finds that the
body’s lungs were ‘severely congested’ and that there were ‘red cells present
in the airways.’” Edgar told Pilkington it was evidence of acute pulmonary
edema. “When it is this severe you can experience panic and terror,” he said.
“If the individual was in any way aware of what was happening to them it would
be unbearable.”
But the executions continued apace. Shortly after that revelation, Virginia
used the same protocol to kill 35-year-old William Morva. Witnesses said he,
too, appeared to move and gasp for air. In the fall of 2017, Ohio ended its de
facto moratorium with a revamped midazolam protocol, killing Ronald Phillips
and then Gary Otte, both of whom seemed to struggle, according to witnesses. A
third execution, that of 69-year-old Alva Campbell, was aborted after the
execution team failed to find a viable vein. (He died 3 months later.)
A Tipping Point
On the occasions when botched executions have made national news, prison
officials have often been the ones in the spotlight. Governors and attorneys
general have also attracted a share of the blame. News reports have repeatedly
exposed cavalier (and sometimes illegal) attempts to find drugs for executions
from sketchy sources. Yet outside legal circles, there has been comparatively
little critique of the courts that have enabled such executions to go forward.
In his motion before Merz, Bohnert framed the issue in terms of a deeply
entrenched problem that goes beyond lethal injection: junk science and the
courts’ stubborn refusal to allow new evidence to change existing law.
“This court, and others, have misapplied the science involved in lethal
injection challenges involving midazolam, leading to conclusions that are
inaccurate or simply not true from a scientific perspective,” Bohnert wrote.
Litigants “untrained in medicine” have “muddied the factual picture,” he wrote,
while judges, “typically facing the urgent press of an impending execution,”
have often further distorted the issue in their rulings. Because courts base
their decisions on legal precedent, Bohnert wrote, “each subsequent judicial
decision has calcified those flaws, further insulating them from the rigorous
re-evaluation that is necessary in the wake of executions that demonstrate a
consistent pattern of troubling inmate reactions.”
To Edgar, this made Merz’s ruling a pleasant surprise. “He independently took a
look at this information anew and came to his own conclusion,” he said. Like
Bohnert, Edgar invoked examples of faulty forensics that have been exposed over
the years and the duty to correct these problems in the courts. “There are so
many examples of junk science,” he said. “If we’re not willing to accept and
relearn [based on new findings], then we’re in serious trouble.”
When it comes to the case law on lethal injection, Glossip is a major part of
the problem. Like other decisions that have enshrined junk science into law,
the ruling gave legal legitimacy to the findings of a pharmacist who had been
widely discredited even before Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments.
Critically, Bohnert points out, the ruling conflated insensateness and
unconsciousness, two concepts whose distinctions are hugely consequential. This
error has been replicated by the lower courts, while execution after execution
has shown that unconsciousness cannot protect people from the tortuous effects
of lethal injection.
Bohnert points to an irony about Glossip and its legacy. “The fact that the
states have been allowed to continue to execute using midazolam is in large
part what allowed the evidence to accumulate,” he says. Although it is not
clear what will happen next in Ohio, “I think we had a tipping point here.”
Elsewhere, midazolam is on its way out. Florida and Arizona have discarded the
drug, while Tennessee has not used it since the Irick execution, turning
instead to the electric chair — at the request of the condemned. If Alabama
uses midazolam to kill Domineque Ray tonight, his execution stands to be
another “data point,” in Merz’s words, more evidence that states may or may not
be torturing people to death while the courts continue to look away.
(source: theintercept.com)
COLORADO:
Death Penalty Repeal: Colo. Democrats Poised To Bring Legislation----Capitol
Dems say 'full steam ahead' on legislation this year. "A flat-out repeal of the
death penalty," said Sen. Angela Williams
20 states have banned or suspended the death penalty, and this could be the
year Colorado joins them. Public support for capital punishment is declining.
And Democrats, some of whom campaigned on doing away with state-sponsored
executions, now control state government.
Sen. Lois Court of Denver will support such legislation, but she knows passage
is never assured. She recalls the painful path a similar bill took in 2013 —
one year after the deadly Aurora theater shootings, when, like this year,
Democrats held the statehouse and the governor's mansion.
Court, then a state representative, remembers sitting in the bill's final
committee hearing. She opposed capital punishment then, as she does now. But
back in 2013, events, public mood and perhaps politics played a role the
committee's ultimate decision to reject the repeal bill.
Before the vote was called, Court pointed out to fellow committee members that
voters did not ask lawmakers to repeal the death penalty that year. And, she
said, the governor at the time, John Hickenlooper, was conflicted on the issue,
signaling he might veto the bill. Adding to the fraught atmosphere in the
committee room was the presence of Rep. Rhonda Fields, whose son, Javad
Marshall-Fields, was murdered in 2005. Fields, who is now a senator, supported
the prosecutors' decision to seek the death penalty, and still does today.
You could "feel the weight" in the room, as one lawmaker put it.
When the roll was called to kill the bill, Court sighed, "yes."
Six years later, Court says, the situation is different. Public support is
swinging against capital punishment, as evidenced by the recent election of
Attorney General Phil Weiser, who campaigned against capital punishment. So,
too, did some newly elected Democratic lawmakers. And, Court said, Gov. Jared
Polis is on board.
"The governor now says he'll sign it," Court said, now the Senate president pro
tempore. "Full steam ahead."
(source: Colorado Independent)
WASHINGTON:
Washington bishops support bill to repeal death penalty
In a Feb. 5 press release, Washington state's Catholic bishops publicly
declared their support for a bill to repeal the death penalty in their state.
Senate Bill 5339 seeks to repeal the death penalty and require that life
imprisonment without the possibility of parole become the sentence for
aggravated 1st-degree murder convictions.
Washington State Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was
unconstitutional in October 2018. "Senate Bill 5339 removes the
unconstitutional language and moves Washington state towards greater justice
and respect for life at all stages," said Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain.
"All citizens have the right to be protected from those who commit the crime of
murder," said Sartain. "The act of murder cries out for an appropriate
punishment, but the death penalty merely adds violence to violence,
perpetuating an illusion that taking one human life for another can somehow
balance the scales of justice."
The bishops' stance is rooted in the Catholic Church's belief that every human
life is sacred from conception until natural death. The bishops have long
opposed capital punishment and, according to the release, have worked "for
decades to abolish the death penalty."
(source: National Catholic Reporter)
USA:
Killer's appeal hearing in attempt to avoid the death penalty wrapping up
A hearing for convicted kidnapper and killer Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. began
wrapping up in federal court here Wednesday, Feb. 6, the eighth day of a
proceeding focusing on the question of whether Rodriguez has an intellectual
disability, a condition that would make him ineligible for execution.
On Wednesday, Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist and an expert testifying
for the government, brought the attention of the hearing back to Rodriguez's
victim — 22-year-old Dru Sjodin — by relating what Rodriguez told him during
interviews conducted in federal prison in 2013.
Welner said Rodriguez talked about what happened after he abducted Sjodin from
a mall in Grand Forks in November 2003, stating that Rodriguez said he hadn't
planned to kill Sjodin but did so after Sjodin, whose hands were bound, began
kicking him and struggling with him as he drove her in his car.
The government also played a short video clip of Rodriguez talking to Welner in
which Rodriguez matter-of-factly talked about how, in an attempt at stealth, he
drove on lightly traveled roads to a ravine he knew about near Crookston,
Minn., where he lived with his mother. At the ravine, he took Sjodin's
unclothed remains and hid them in a depressed spot in the earth, covering them
with grass clippings.
"And that was it, you know?" Rodriguez said, punctuating his words with a
shrug.
According to hearing testimony, determining if someone has an intellectual
disability is predicated on three things: an IQ of about 70; findings that a
person has deficits when it comes to adapting to the demands of everyday life;
and a finding that the disability arose before a person turned 18 years old.
Welner and another expert who testified for the government, James Seward, a
neuropsychologist, told Judge Ralph Erickson that Rodriguez does not meet the
criteria for intellectual disability based on several factors, including adult
IQ scores in the 80s and evidence that Rodriguez functioned well while in
prison and in state security hospitals.
Expert witnesses for Rodriguez portrayed a contrasting image, stating that his
poor performance in school, which included failing a number of grades, as well
as IQ scores in the 70s during the years he was in school, supported a
diagnosis of intellectual disability, as did examples of times when Rodriguez
appeared to exaggerate his abilities in an effort to mask his limitations.
One boast cited by the defense was a claim by Rodriguez that he read 500 books
over the course of about 2 1/2 years.
In general, an IQ score between 90 and 110 is considered average, according to
online sources.
Rodriguez was convicted in a 2006 trial of kidnapping and killing Sjodin and he
was sentenced to death.
Attorneys for Rodriguez have filed papers claiming his conviction and sentence
should be overturned because false testimony was presented at trial, a claim
the court has yet to rule on.
In his testimony, Welner cited examples of "criminal cunning" on the part of
Rodriguez, which Welner said exemplified his ability to reason and to think "on
the fly" when committing crimes and covering his tracks.
Defense attorney Annie Fisher pointed out that Rodriguez left a knife sheath at
the scene of Sjodin's abduction and that he left the knife that goes with it,
which he used in the crime, in his car, where authorities found it.
She also noted that Rodriguez, who is now 65, has been incarcerated in one
facility or another almost continuously since his early 20s.
The hearing that began on Jan. 28 is likely to conclude Thursday, Feb. 7.
(source: inforum.com)
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