February 15
WYOMING:
Wyoming Senate defeats death penalty repeal bill
The Wyoming Senate defeated a bill Thursday that would have repealed the
state's death penalty, ending the most successful legislative attempt to do
away with capital punishment in recent memory.
Having passed the House by a safe margin, the bill was swiftly voted down by
the Wyoming Senate on its first reading. The final vote was 12-18.
"The vote was different than I expected to see from talking with people
beforehand," said the bill's sponsor in the Senate, Brian Boner, R-Converse.
"There's a lot of different factors and, at the end of the day, everyone has to
make their best determination based on the information they have."
The death penalty repeal passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on
Wednesday.
Proponents of the bill argued that it would save the state money and create a
more humane justice system, an argument that had gained substantial traffic in
the House of Representatives. Sponsors of the bill noted that since the death
penalty had been reinstated federally in 1973, approximately 165 death row
inmates had been exonerated around the country and, according to research cited
by the bill's sponsor and in anecdotal testimony from members of law
enforcement, the threat of death was deemed to be an ineffective deterrent to
committing crime.
In the Senate -- which has trended more conservative than the House this
session -- the bill had garnered several unlikely allies. Sen. Bill Landen, a
reluctant sponsor of the bill, said that after years of budget cuts and
eliminating line item after line item, said he could no longer go home and feel
good explaining the myriad cuts he's made to the state budget while defending
retaining annual expenses like the death penalty, which costs the state roughly
$1 million a year.
"Regardless of my personal thoughts -- my religion doesn't believe in the right
to kill people -- that's not enough for me," he said.
Opponents of the bill, meanwhile, argued retaining the death penalty would
allow the justice system to offer closure to victims of the most heinous
crimes, and could be used as a tool to coerce confessions from the state's
worst perpetrators. Others, simply voted by feeling, Boner said.
"A lot of (the no votes) had a deep conviction that someone can do something so
heinous that they have to die," Boner said. "There's no amount of reason or
facts that you can give them that will change that. I also think there's a
generational gap, that folks who were from a time where the death penalty were
used more often are more accustomed to it. It might have worked 30, 40 or 50
years ago, but that's just not the case anymore."
Several senators had other reasons for voting against the bill. Sen. Anthony
Bouchard, R-Cheyenne, said that while the death penalty could be used as an
effective tool, it was also a means to keep the state's justice system from
turning into the type seen in other states. He then noted that states like
California -- in some cases -- have allowed inmates to undergo gender
reassignment surgery.
"I think we're becoming a lot like other states, and we have something to
defend," he said.
Sen. Lynn Hutchings, R-Cheyenne, argued that without the death penalty, Jesus
Christ would not have been able to die to absolve the sins of mankind, and
therefore capitol punishment should be maintained.
"The greatest man who ever lived died via the death penalty for you and me,"
she said. "I'm grateful to him for our future hope because of this. Governments
were instituted to execute justice. If it wasn't for Jesus dying via the death
penalty, we would all have no hope."
Wyoming has not executed a prisoner since 1992.
(source: Casper Star-Tribune)
***********************
Death-penalty repeal fails in Wyoming despite new support
A proposal to repeal the death penalty has failed in Wyoming after getting more
support from state lawmakers than ever before.
The Wyoming Senate voted against the proposal 18-12 on Thursday.
This is the 6th year in a row that death penalty repeal has failed in the
Wyoming Legislature but this year the idea got far more support than
previously. The bill passed the House and 2 legislative committees before
failing in the Senate.
Proponents of repeal pointed to the high cost of death-penalty cases for the
state Public Defender's Office. Wyoming faces a tight fiscal outlook due to a
drop in revenue from the state's coal, oil and natural gas industries.
Death-penalty advocates argued it can help bring closure for victims and is
appropriate for the most heinous crimes.
(source: Associated Press)
********
Wyoming State Senator Invokes Jesus Dying to Defend Death Penalty----There's so
much wrong with her argument.
A Wyoming state senator used some curious logic to explain why she opposed a
bill that would have abolished the death penalty. If not for capital
punishment, Lynn Hutchings (R–Cheyenne) argued from the Wyoming Senate floor
yesterday, then Jesus Christ would not have been able to save humanity from its
sins.
"The greatest man who ever lived died via the death penalty for you and for
me," said Hutchings. "Governments were instituted to execute justice. If it
wasn't for Jesus dying via the death penalty, we would all have no hope."
From a Christian point of view, her statement is factually correct but
logically absurd. Christians believe Jesus was crucified by the authorities,
died, and later rose from the dead, thus atoning for the world's wrongs. But
this did not make killing him OK. In the Bible, the people who called for
Jesus' death were motivated by jealousy, not justice. They knew Jesus has not
done anything worthy of the death penalty, but they wanted to kill him anyway
because he threatened the status quo.
Equating Jesus' death at the hands of selfish people in power to the modern
death penalty as it's used currently—mainly to execute murderers—makes
absolutely no sense.
Hutchings' pro–death penalty argument would still be flawed even if she had not
invoked Jesus. As I've argued in the past, the government should not be in the
business of killing its own citizens, even mass murderers. "The death penalty
is uncivilized in theory and unfair and inequitable in practice," the ACLU
rightly says. "Well-publicized problems with the death penalty process—wrongful
convictions, arbitrary application, and high costs—have convinced many
libertarians that capital punishment is just one more failed government program
that should be scrapped," Ben Jones adds at Libertarianism.org.
Add to that the numerous questions over the death penalty drugs administered to
death row inmates, as well as the fact that states often operate in the shadows
when it comes to procuring these drugs. Meanwhile, studies from various states
suggest it's more expensive for the government to put someone to death than it
is to keep them behind bars for life, according to Amnesty International. In
Wyoming, incarcerating the average death row inmate costs 30 percent more than
keeping general population prisoners locked up, Wyoming Department of
Corrections Director Bob Lampert tells the Casper Star-Tribune.
Reason's Nick Gillespie may have put it best in arguing against the death
penalty back in 2014:
The state's first role—and arguably its only one—is protecting the lives and
property of its citizens. In everything it does—from collecting taxes to
seizing property for public works to incentivizing "good" behaviors and
habits—it should use the least violence or coercion possible.
No matter how despicable murderers can be, the state can make sure we're safe
by locking them up behind bars for the rest of their—and our—lives. That's not
only a cheaper answer than state-sanctioned murder, it's a more moral one, too.
The proposed bill to eliminate the death penalty in Wyoming ended up failing in
the state Senate by an 18–12 vote.
(source: reason.com)
NEVADA:
Mina murderer the 1st to be executed by deadly fumes 95 years ago this week
95 years ago on Feb. 8, a Mineral County murder would put Nevada on the
forefront of science when a Chinese gang member would be the 1st put to death
by the use of deadly fumes at the state prison.
The story actually began on the evening of Aug. 27, 1921 when Tom Quong Kee, a
Chinese laundryman living in Mina, was woke up by the sound of someone knocking
on his back door of the little cabin where he lived. Kee, a member of the Bing
Kung Tong gang, made his way to the door clad in nothing but pajamas and a
jacket, holding a candle for his only source of light. When he opened the door,
he found two other Chinese men on in front of the other outside his home. The
man in the back pulled out a .38 caliber Colt revolver and fired 2 shots into
Kee. The bullets hit the laundryman in his heart.
The senseless killing in the town of Mina was an act of tong gang warfare that
had been spreading from the Chinese-American communities of California and had
now trickled down into neighboring Nevada.
These feuds, started by a member of the Hop Sing Tong stole a Chinese slave
girl which had belonged to the Suey Sing Tong gang. To avenge the injustice –
the Suey Sing council took an ally with the Bing Kung Tong gang and declared
war on the Hop Sings.
On the morning of Aug. 28, 1921, a Chinese vegetable peddler went looking for
Kee. Peering through the windows of Kee’s cabin, the peddler saw the old
laundryman on the floor. The peddler notified Mina Justice of Peace L.E.
Cornelius, who turned the death over to Mineral County Sheriff Deputy W.J.
Hammill.
Deputy Hammill examined the body and the scene and traced two sets of
footprints from Kee’s cabin to a spot where an automobile had been parked and
some empty beer bottles had been disposed.
Unknown to the two men who had shot Kee, Deputy Hammill had observed these
strangers at the Palace Café in Mina over a week earlier. They had been asking
for work in the area. The deputy had been warned that the 2 men were neither
unemployed nor innocent, instead were tong members sent to kill Kee. Deputy
Hammill contacted Reno Police Chief John M. Kirkley to be on the lookout for a
car bearing two Chinese male suspects.
The two men captured would be 29-year-old Gee Jon and 19-year-old Hughie Sing.
Both slight in stature, neither were physically intimidating. China-born Jon
stood 5 foot, 5 ¼ inches and weighed 129 pounds. Sing, born in Carson City,
measured only 5 foot, 2 ½ inches tall and tipped the scale at only 105 pounds.
Gee had emigrated from Canton, China around 1907 and had lived most of his life
while in the United States in San Francisco’s Chinatown except for a few months
when he lived in the Stockton Chinatown. Kee had difficulty understanding and
speaking English but Sing, could read, speak and write both English and
Chinese, having attended grammar school in the place of his birth. Sing had
only been a member of the Hop Sing Tong for 2 months prior to enlisting the
help of Jon.
After their arrest, both Jon and Sing were interrogated by the Reno police.
Sing was advised that anything he said could be used against him in court.
Hoping to be set free, he confessed to his role in the crime of killing Kee in
Mina and implicated Jon.
Both were taken back to Mina where they were held without bail until their
preliminary hearing was held on Sept. 8, 1921. W.H. Chang, an attorney from San
Francisco and most likely to be a Hop Sing Tong member would represent Jon and
Sing in court along with James M. Frame.
Sing withdrew his confession given to the Reno police and both waived the right
to make a statement at the hearing. Their attorney entered pleas of “not
guilty” for each man.
The trial of Kee and Sing would be held in the Mineral County courthouse in
Hawthorne from Nov. 28 to Dec. 3, 1921 before the Seventh Judicial District
Court. Both men denied being members of the Hop Sing Tong gang, shooting Kee or
even going to Mina with intentions to kill the old laundryman. Their defense
was they had “been to Tonopah where they wanted to be employed at a
restaurant.” Sing explained that his confession to the Reno police was in
belief that he would be freed immediately.
After testimony of witnesses and law enforcement, the court wasn’t convinced.
It was brought to the attention of the court that Sing had previously lived
with Kee in Mina for two years. Sing’s knowledge of Kee, the town of Mina and
his ability to speak English made him the best guide for Jon to commit murder.
Both men were found guilty of first degree murder of Kee. District Judge J.
Emmett Walsh handed down death sentences to the 2 Chinese men in 1922.
A law had been passed in 1921 by the 30th session of the Nevada State
Legislature and signed by Governor Emmett D. Boyle that all criminals sentenced
to deal were to be executed by means of lethal gas. Jon and Sing were the first
to be affected by the passing of this new law. It was thought that gas was to
be a more humane way to end life of those convicted to death.
After Judge Walsh handed down his sentence to Jon and Sing, their attorney
Frame moved for a new trial. Walsh denied the motion and Frame was ready to
appeal to the state supreme court.
Under the custody of Sheriff Frederick B. Balzar, Jon and Sing were taken to
the Nevada State Prison in Carson City where they were incarcerated until their
sentence was to be carried out. Sing had confidence in his attorney, but also
was prepared for the worse stating, “I don’t think there’s no hope, unless
maybe the supreme court does something. Our lawyer said he’d file something in
the supreme court within thirty days, but if the court doesn’t act I guess
we’ll have to die.”
Frame did file with the Nevada Supreme Court in the later part of February
1922, expressing that execution by lethal gas constituted cruel and unusual
punishment.
A stay of execution for the two men, who had been ordered to be executed
between April 16-22, 1922, was granted. A long legal battle would begin.
In January of 1923, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that lethal gas execution
was neither cruel nor unusual punishment. Attorney Frame motioned for a new
trial. It was denied.
Frame would again file another appeal with the state supreme court for a
rehearing of the Kee and Sing case. The higher court would again render a
negative verdict. Not one to give up, Frame and his partner, Fiore Raffetto,
applied for a writ of certiorari in the United States Circuit Court of Appeals
in San Francisco. The attorney’s stressed that the Nevada Supreme Court did not
grant Kee or Sing separate trials, the use of lethal gas execution and the
wording of the title of Nevada’s 1921 capital punishment statute.
Nothing happened as a result of the writ of certiorari, however, the Nevada
Supreme Court refused to give its assent to be sued on the writ. The attorneys
for the Chinese again petitioned the supreme court for a rehearing and were
once again denied.
By September 1923, the United States Supreme Court seemed to be the last
resort. The attorneys applied to the Nevada State Supreme Court for a writ of
error, so that Kee and Sing’s case could be carried out in the nation’s highest
court. Nevada State Chief Justice Edward A. Ducker denied the application for a
writ. If one of the justices on the United States Supreme Court was willing to
hear the petition for a writ of error, then he and his fellow justices could
hear the case, even with the prejudice of the Nevada Supreme Court’s refusal
grant a writ of error.
The writ of error was first presented to Associate Justice Joseph McKenna and
then to Chief Justice William Howard Taft. Both members of the highest court
refused to permit the petition be filed. Thereafter, Frame and Raffetto could
only direct their efforts of their clients to state officials.
The attorneys began to petition the public in hopes to sway opinions. Their
petition read, “The undersigned respectfully petition your honorable body to
commute the sentence of Gee Jon and Hughie Sing, Chinese, from death to life
imprisonment. We are informed that Hughie Sing is a mere boy, being only
nineteen years of age at the time of the commission of the crime, and that Gee
Jon was at the time of the commission of the crime an illiterate Chinese
unacquainted with American customs and not likely to fully know and appreciate
the enormity of the act. We feel that the extreme penalty should not be exacted
and think that commutation of the sentence to life imprisonment would fully
vindicate the law and subserve public good and avoid the horror of taking human
life by administration of lethal gas, and new and untried method.”
Over 400 letters were sent to prominent Nevadans. Students on the Reno campus
of the University of Nevada, the League of Women Voters I Reno and citizens of
Reno and Carson wrote in behalf of the Chinese.
Mineral County District Attorney Jay H. White called the murder of Kee: “Purely
a clean-cut premeditated murder without any extenuating circumstances. The
crime was one of the most atrocious and cold-blooded in the history of the
state. Testimony of the trial will show that applications for commutation of
the sentence are illogical in view of the facts of the case.”
After reviewing all evidence, Sing was released from death row and put to work
in the Nevada State Prison laundry. Firecrackers in Carson City’s Chinatown
would be shot off in honor of Sing.
Jon was left to face death alone. To be gassed to death for the death of Kee in
1921 with the use of hydrocyanic gas (HCN).
The morning of Gee’s execution would be cloudy, humid and cold, only 49°F. Jon
had fasted for ten days prior to this morning and ate his last meal of ham,
eggs, toast and coffee. At 9:35 a.m. two guards escorted him forty yards from
his cell to the gas chamber. He was strapped into the execution chair where he
began to weep. At 9:40 a.m. four pounds of HCN acid was introduced into the
chamber.
The use of the HCN malfunctioned due to the cold temperatures of the chamber.
It began to pool on the floor in a liquid state but was also in the air as a
gas.
Within five seconds of exposure, Gee appeared unconscious though his eyes
remained open and his head moved for six minutes. He stopped moving after 9:46
and at 10 a.m. the ventilator gate was opened and a suction fact was turned on.
The chamber door was not opened until noon.
Jon was pronounced dead at 12:25 p.m. by prison physician, Dr. Anthony
Huffaker. He was placed in a plain pine box without services and buried in the
prison cemetery on the hill overlooking the prison.
It is unknown how long Sing stayed in prison. A call to the Nevada Department
of Corrections filed to offer any further information.
As for the victim, Tom Quong Kee, the elderly laundryman, he was buried in the
Mina Ceremony shortly after his death in August of 1921.
(source: Mineral County Independent-News)
USA:
Secrecy and the Death Penalty in the United States
As execution drugs have become more difficult for states to lawfully obtain and
problematic executions have become more frequent, states have expanded their
efforts to shield their execution-related activities from public scrutiny. In
the latest episode of Discussions with DPIC, Robin Konrad, former DPIC Director
of Research and Special Projects, joins Executive Director Robert Dunham and
current Director of Research and Special Projects Ngozi Ndulue to discuss
DPIC’s November 2018 report, Behind the Curtain: Secrecy and the Death Penalty
in the United States. Konrad, the lead author of the report, is now an
Assistant Professor of Lawyering Skills at Howard University School of Law. The
discussion covers the recent expansion of secrecy in the use of the death
penalty, the reasons for the unavailability of lethal-injection drugs, and the
problems that have resulted from execution secrecy.
Secrecy policies are ubiquitous in the states that are currently attempting to
carry out executions, Konrad explains. “Everybody has some type of secrecy
provision” related to the sources of execution drugs or the way executions are
carried out, Konrad says. Secrecy provisions conceal the sources of the drugs
states obtain and the identities and qualifications of the execution team, and
restrict the portions of the execution witnesses are permitted to see and hear.
The podcast discusses these issues and questionable measures states have taken
to hide potential problems, including Florida and Oklahoma taping down
prisoners’ hands so witness cannot see them clench their fists in reaction to
the drugs, and Virginia and Nebraska closing curtains to conceal how long the
IV insertion process takes or the moments just before and after the prisoners’
death.
The episode also includes a discussion of the consequences of secrecy,
including illegal actions that have been discovered only by accident or through
investigative journalism. “We’ve seen states acting in a way that is often
illegal, where we’ve seen states purchasing drugs overseas in an illegal manner
from companies or individuals that are less than reputable. We've seen the
prison officials driving money in the middle of the night across state lines to
exchange money for drugs and drugs for money. We have seen the states using
pharmacies that have had numerous violations. One pharmacy that was used by
Missouri had … 1800 violations of state and federal law,” Konrad says. The
podcast concludes with a discussion of the ways in which secrecy undermines
democratic principles of open government and hides problematic state practices.
“When we’re looking at [a] government ... for the people, by the people, the
people should know what is going on and states shouldn't be hiding information
about the most serious punishment that they carry out against their citizens,”
Konrad says. “I don’t see how in any principled system of justice, you can
sustain a system that basically is grounded in secrecy, grounded in hiding
what’s going on from the public. You have to be open, you have to be honest,
you have to be transparent, you have to be trustworthy,” adds Dunham.
(source: Death Penalty Information Center)
*****************
Trump comments won't spare alleged Hudson bike path killer from death penalty,
says judge
The government can seek the death penalty against an ISIS sympathizer accused
of killing eight people in a truck attack on the Hudson River bike path despite
President Trump's calls for his execution, a judge ruled Thursday.
Lawyers for Sayfullo Saipov, 31, had argued that Trump’s tweets about the Oct.
31, 2017 terrorist attack tainted the process by which then-Attorney General
Jeff Sessions chose to pursue the death penalty at trial.
“He killed 8 people, badly injured 12. SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!” Trump tweeted
the morning after the attack.
But Manhattan Federal Judge Vernon Broderick wrote that Saipov had no evidence
that Trump’s comments affected the Department of Justice’s procedures for
deciding whether to seek the death penalty. The judge did note, however, that
Trump’s statements “were perhaps ill-advised given the pendency of this case.”
Saipov, who has ranted in court about ISIS, is charged with driving a rented
pickup truck down the popular bike path, leaving a 14-block trail of
destruction.
It wasn’t the 1st time an accused terrorist argued he shouldn’t get the death
penalty due to a President’s comments in the aftermath of an attack. Terry
Nichols argued President Bill Clinton’s comments had improperly influenced
then-Attorney General Janet Reno’s decision to seek the death penalty for his
role in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
“If this is not a crime for which capital punishment is called, I don’t know
what is,” Clinton said then.
Nichols was convicted of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter, but acquitted
of 1st-degree murder. After his jury deadlocked on imposing the death penatly,
a judge sentenced him to life without parole.
“While (Trump’s) comments are arguably more inflammatory than President
Clinton’s statements relating to Nichols, Saipov has offered no evidence that
the President’s remarks impacted the Attorney General’s decision-making process
in any way,” Broderick wrote.
Saipov’s trial is currently scheduled for October.
(source: New York Daily News)
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