March 4
TEXAS----impending execution
"Texas 7" Inmate Patrick Murphy, Jr., Given Execution Date of March 28, 2019
Patrick Henry Murphy, Jr., is scheduled to be executed on 6pm CDT, on Thursday,
March 28, 2019, at the Walls Unit of the Huntsville State Penitentiary in
Huntsville, Texas. 57-year-old Patrick has been convicted in the murder
29-year-old Police Officer Aubrey Hawkins on December 24, 2000, in Irving,
Texas. Patrick has spent the last 15 years on death row in Texas.
Patrick had a very difficult childhood. His mother was addicted to drugs and
alcohol and would frequently abandoned Patrick with relatives without warning.
He lacked a stable male role model in his life growing up, and was physically
abused by his mother, beginning around the age of four. For a large part of his
early life, Patrick lacked basic hygiene and manners. Patrick dropped out of
school after the 9th grade, however, while in prison, he earned his GED and has
completed several hours of college credits. Prior to his arrest, Patrick served
in the military and worked as a carpenter, laborer, and maintenance worker. As
an adult, Patrick was convicted of aggravated sexual assault and given a 50
year prison sentence.
In December of 2000, Patrick was serving his time at the John B. Connally Unit,
a maximum security state prison near Kenedy, Texas. Patrick conspired with 6
other inmates - 38-year-old Donald Newbury, 23-year-old Randy Ethan Halprin,
37-year-old Larry James Harper, 39-year-old Joseph C. Garcia, 30-year-old
George Rivas, and 38-year-old Michael Anthony Rodriguez - to break out of the
prison. The group, led by George Rivas, became known as the “Texas 7.” All were
serving sentences of 30 years or longer, most with potential life sentences.
On December 13, 2000, around 11:20 am, the 7 inmates used a variety of ploys to
overpower and restrain 9 civilian maintenance supervisors, 4 correctional
officers, and 3 uninvolved inmates. They had planned the escape for the slowest
part of the day and in areas with low surveillance. They stole a white prison
truck to assist in their escape, eventually dumping it in a Wal-Mart parking
lot.
After their escape, the group of seven fled to San Antonio, Texas. On December
14, they robbed a Radio Shack in Pearland to obtain money. On December 19, 4 of
the 7 checked into an Econo Lodge motel in Farmers Branch. They decided, once
again needing money, to rob Oshman’s Sporting Goods store in Irving, a nearby
town. For several days they cased the store and created their plans.
On December 24, 2000, they held up to store, stealing 44 guns and over $70,000
in cash, with Murphy outside acting as lookout and getaway driver. A customer
outside the store saw the hold up and called police. Murphy heard the report
through his police scanner and warned the others that the police were coming,
and when they arrived. Murphy was waiting in a vehicle out front, while the
police officer drove around back. Shortly thereafter, one of the men told
Murphy to leave and meet the group at the agreed upon location. When Murphy met
up with the other men, they informed him that they had shot a police officer.
Officer Aubrey Hawkins was the police officer that responded to the call. He
was immediately ambushed, suffering 11 gunshot wounds from at least 5 different
weapons. His body was dragged out of his vehicle and run over by the group as
they fled the scene.
The Texas 7 were eventually arrested on January 22, 2001, with the help of the
television show America’s Most Wanted, which featured their story on January
20, 2001. 6 of 7 were captured. The seventh, Larry Harper, killed himself
before he could be arrested. All 6 surviving members were charged, convicted,
and sentenced to death for the murder of Officer Hawkins. As it was unclear who
actually shot Officer Hawkins, they were convicted under the Law of Parties,
which allows for a person to be criminally held responsible for another’s
actions if that person acts with “the intent to promote or assist the
commission of the offense and solicits, encourages, directs aids, or attempts
to aid the other person to commit the offense… If, in the attempt to carry out
a conspiracy to commit one felony, another felony is committed by 1 of the
conspirators, all conspirator are guilty of the felony actually committed.”
The ringleader, George Rivas was executed on February 29, 2012. Michael Anthony
Rodriguez was executed on August 14, 2008, after asking that his appeals be
stopped. Donald Newbury was executed on February 4, 2015. Joseph Garcia was
executed on December 4, 2018.
Please pray for peace for the families of Aubrey Hawkins and Miguel Luna.
Please pray for strength for the family of Patrick Murphy. Please pray that if
Patrick is innocent, lacks the competence to be executed, or should not be
executed for any other reason, that evidence will be presented prior to his
execution. Please pray that Patrick may come to find peace through a personal
relationship with Jesus Christ, if he has not already.
(source: theforgivenessfoundation.org)
NEW HAMPSHIRE:
It’s time to eliminate the death penalty
On March 7, the N.H. House will vote on House Bill 455, which will eliminate
the death penalty in New Hampshire’s capital punishment statute. It will be a
grand day for New Hampshire when this bill passes, especially if it passes
initially with a veto-proof majority.
The death penalty is a deeply flawed and totally ineffective public policy. The
death penalty does nothing to reform man, as our N.H. Constitution states is
the reason for punishment. It merely kills him.
Recently, I have been giving the responsibility of our warden and corrections
officers a lot of thought. I do not want our state killing someone in my name.
I do not want my neighbors to be taking care of a man or woman, serving them
dinner one moment and in the next hours walking them to their death and killing
them. This is a totally traumatizing and brutalizing situation. This is not
just my personal opinion. It has been stated by multiple wardens and
corrections officials.
If we want to respect and protect our corrections officers, we will make sure
that they have proper training, that they are paid well, that staffing is more
than adequate, and that policies and procedures are in place to promote a safe
prison environment. The death penalty does none of this.
I urge every representative in New Hampshire to vote for HB 455.
MARTHA A. HUNT
Sutton
(source: Letter to the Editor, Concord Monitor)
COLORADO:
TIMELINE: The death penalty in Colorado
Breaking down Colorado's history of capital punishment, plus a searchable
database of death penalty cases since 1979.
The 1st murderer to be executed in Colorado — 160 years ago this April — was
hanged from a cottonwood tree near Cherry Creek after a legal process that took
all of 3 days to go from crime to punishment.
The hanging of John Stoefel, who, in killing his brother-in-law, had committed
Denver’s first murder, was the first of 103 legally ordered executions in
Colorado history, dating back to before Colorado was even a state. (That number
includes only instances where some type of credible judicial process led to the
execution; it does not include vigilante executions.)
Since then, Colorado has seen the death penalty halted and then reinstated at
least 4 times. One man who would later be declared innocent was executed. Only
one of those 103 executions has occurred within the past 50 years.
Below is a timeline of the death penalty in the state, compiled largely from
the research of University of Colorado at Boulder professor Michael Radelet,
who has written the definitive history of capital punishment in Colorado.
1859: John Stoefel is executed and buried in a cemetery located in what is now
Cheesman Park.
1861: Colorado is incorporated as a territory and adopts a formal death penalty
law.
1877: James Miller, a black man convicted of killing a white man at a dance
hall, is the 1st person executed in the newly formed state of Colorado.
1889: A new law requires all executions to be conducted within the walls of the
state prison in Cañon City. Public executions had previously drawn thousands of
people to watch.
1897: Amid an outcry over the morality of the death penalty, Gov. Alva Adams
signs a law abolishing capital punishment in the state.
1901: After several lynchings and concerns about rising vigilante justice,
Colorado reinstates the death penalty.
1934: Colorado becomes the 2nd state to adopt the gas chamber as its execution
method. Executions had previously been conducted by a hanging device known as
the “twitch-up.”
1939: Joe Arridy is executed for allegedly sexually assaulting and killing a
15-year-old girl. Possessing an IQ of only 46, Arridy ate ice cream and played
with a toy train before being led to the execution chamber. A re-examination
beginning in the 1990s suggests Arridy had been wrongly implicated in the
killing. A posthumous clemency petition is prepared and, in 2011, Gov. Bill
Ritter issues Arridy a full pardon, calling the case, “a tragic conviction
(based) on a false and coerced confession.”
1966: Colorado voters soundly defeat a ballot initiative to abolish the death
penalty.
1967: Luis Jose Monge is executed for the murders of his wife and three of his
children. He is the last person to be executed in Colorado for 3 decades.
1972: In the case Furman v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court halts executions
nationwide, finding that the way states implement the death penalty amounts to
cruel and unusual punishment.
1974: Colorado voters pass a rewritten death penalty law, reinstating capital
punishment in the state.
1978: The Colorado Supreme Court strikes down the 1974 law, saying it doesn’t
allow juries to fully consider mitigating factors in deciding a possible death
sentence. 7 men are taken off death row as a result.
1979: The Colorado legislature passes a new bill reinstating the death penalty.
Gov. Dick Lamm allows the bill to become law without his signature.
1988: Colorado joins a growing number of states by adopting lethal injection as
its method of execution. The law does not allow any alternate methods.
1995: David Wymore, a public defender in Colorado, publishes an article
outlining what he calls The Colorado Method — a defense strategy that
emphasizes to jurors during jury selection that imposing the death penalty is
an individual moral choice and that every juror’s views must be respected. It
is now considered to be the gold standard in death penalty defense.
1995: Dismayed by the difficulty of winning death sentences from jurors,
Colorado lawmakers pass a bill mandating that three-judge panels decide whether
to impose capital punishment.
1996: Nathan Dunlap is sentenced to death for killing four people in an Aurora
Chuck E. Cheese restaurant. Because Dunlap’s crime occurred before the
three-judge system was adopted, his sentence is decided by a jury. He remains
on death row.
1997: Gary Lee Davis, who kidnapped, raped and murdered a woman in Adams
County, is the 1st inmate executed in Colorado in 30 years. No one has been
executed since, though 6 men are on Colorado’s death row following Davis’s
execution.
2001: Ronald Lee White receives a new sentence of life in prison after a court
overturns his death sentence based on undisclosed evidence.
2002: Frank Rodriguez, who was sentenced to death for kidnapping and murder,
dies in prison from complications related to Hepatitis C.
2002: In the case Ring v. Arizona, the U.S. Supreme Court finds that death
sentences must be decided by juries, not judges. Colorado’s Supreme Court
subsequently strikes down the state’s 3-judge panel sentencing scheme, and 3
men on Colorado’s death row have their sentences changed to life in prison.
2005: A court changes the death sentence of Robert Harlan, convicted of
kidnapping, rape and murder, to life in prison because jurors consulted a Bible
during deliberations.
2008: Sir Mario Owens is sentenced to death for the murder of Javad Marshall
Fields and Vivian Wolfe in Aurora. Marshall Fields was a witness in a separate
murder case involving Owens. Owens remains on death row, and his appeals are
ongoing.
2009: Colorado lawmakers come within one vote of sending a bill abolishing the
death penalty to the governor.
2009: Robert Ray is sentenced to death in connection with Marshall Fields’ and
Wolfe’s murders. He remains on death row, and his appeals are ongoing.
2013: After Dunlap exhausts all of the appeals he is guaranteed by right, Gov.
John Hickenlooper issues an indefinite reprieve from execution in the case,
calling the state’s death penalty system, “imperfect and inherently
inequitable.” But Hickenlooper stops short of commuting Dunlap’s sentence,
leaving the ultimate decision to a subsequent governor.
2014: Prosecutors agree to a plea deal sparing convicted killer Edward Montour
from facing the death penalty. Montour, who killed a Colorado corrections
officer named Eric Autobee, had previously been sentenced to death, but a court
overturned that sentence and granted him a new trial. Autobee’s father became
an outspoken opponent of the death penalty during the case and protested
prosecutors’ efforts to pursue capital punishment.
2015: A poll shows 2/3 of Coloradans favor keeping the death penalty on the
books.
2015: In separate cases, jurors decline to impose death sentences on a man who
killed 12 people in an Aurora movie theater and a man who killed five people in
a Denver bar.
2017: Colorado Democrats introduce a bill in the Republican-controlled Senate
to repeal the death penalty. It fails at its 1st committee vote.
2018: Jurors decline to impose a death sentence on a man who killed 2 people in
Colorado Springs, the 3rd consecutive case in Colorado that reached a death
penalty sentencing hearing but ended in a life verdict.
2019: Democrats at the Colorado legislature again introduce a bill to repeal
the death penalty. With Democrats in charge of both chambers and Gov. Jared
Polis saying he is in support, a repeal has its best chance of passing in
decades.
Colorado death penalty cases since 1979
Since 1980, prosecutors statewide have announced they were seeking the death
penalty in at least 134 cases, according to research by University of Colorado
professor Michael Radelet. Sixteen of those cases resulted in a death sentence,
and only one of those death sentences resulted in an execution in Colorado.
Slightly fewer than half of the cases resulted in a guilty plea, often -- but
not always -- as part of a plea deal to take the death penalty off the table.
15 cases ended with a conviction for something other than murder. In 6 cases,
the defendants were acquitted. Three people are currently on death row, and 3
of the cases are ongoing.
******************
“Those scars will always be there”: Rhonda Fields’ son was murdered by two of
the three men on Colorado’s death row----The Aurora Democrat is opposed to
repealing the death penalty in Colorado. She plans to be “vocal and … honest”
during debate over a bill to abolish.
For some people there is triumph over tragedy. For state Sen. Rhonda Fields,
there is triumph alongside it.
“My pastor told me long ago that I did not bury my son — that I planted him,”
Fields said in a speech on the Colorado Senate floor in January. “And from
planting him came the efforts of all of the work that you see me do down here.”
The Aurora Democrat dove into politics in the wake of her son Javad’s murder in
2005, a shooting that also killed his fiancée, Vivian Wolfe and led to the
death-penalty convictions of Sir Mario Owens and Robert Ray.
The pair make up 2/3 of Colorado’s death row as their cases travel through the
appellate process.
Fields supports capital punishment and said she plans to be outspoken about her
opposition to a bill being brought by fellow Democrats as soon as this week
that would to repeal the death penalty in Colorado.
She has been vocal before. In 2013 she brought a measure that would have sent
the repeal question to voters as her colleagues, then in the House, made a
failed effort to pass a repeal bill.
“I think our death-penalty statute is one that’s very reasonable,” she told The
Colorado Sun. “It’s something that our DAs just don’t dole out because there
are certain elements that have to be met before it’s considered. It’s very
seldom sought out when you think about other states, like Texas and Florida.”
The Sun spoke with Fields about her journey to the statehouse, her feelings
about capital punishment and her response to remarks from Gov. Jared Polis that
he might commute the sentences of the men who killed her son:
The following interview was edited for clarity and length.
Colorado Sun: We heard that your opinions on this topic were shifting?
Sen. Rhonda Fields: When I think about my opinion shifting, basically that
means that the work that I do and the person that I am is not centered around
the offenders who committed this horrific crime against my son and his fiancée.
So, when I say it’s shifting, it’s evolving. It means that no matter what the
outcome is regarding the repeal of the death penalty, it’s really not going to
change who I am as a woman, as a mom, as a senator. Because that has already —
his death has already impacted me. That murder. Those scars will always be
there, so it doesn’t matter the outcome. I’m still going to be left with the
isolation and the pain of how that act has resulted in who I am. It’s not going
to change who I am. I’ve already been damaged by the trauma of the murders, so
it just will be another sting.
CS: Is your plan to be very vocal about the repeal effort?
RF: It depends on how it’s presented. There’s going to be some words that are
going to provoke a response. I’m not quite sure what that looks like, but I’m
going to respond to whatever is shared. I’ll be vocal and I’ll be honest. And
I’ll be speaking from the heart.
CS: You are one of two people in the Capitol who are closer to this issue than
most people. Rep. Tom Sullivan, a Centennial Democrat, lost his son in the 2012
Aurora theater shooting and also opposes repealing the death penalty.
RF: All I know is my position and my family’s position. It’s a very personal
decision. I’m not in the business of trying to convince people one way or not.
I used to do that — when you talk about evolving — I used to try to convince
people. But I’ve matured and I don’t try convince people about their position.
Either you support it or you don’t. It doesn’t impact me because I’m going to
stand where I’m standing.
MORE: Colorado lawmakers will consider whether to repeal the death penalty
again, as factors align for passage
CS: Gov. Jared Polis suggested in an interview with Colorado Public Radio that
he would commute the sentences of people on death row if the death penalty
repeal passes.
RF: He has not had that conversation with me. And so to hear that from the
news, without having that conversation from the governor, is disappointing.
Because out of courtesy, if he’s going to do that and two of the people on
death row are responsible for murdering my son, I think the right thing to do
would be to call the mother.
(Polis declined an interview, but released the follow statement to The Sun:
“There was absolutely no disrespect intended. I’ve been clear that if the
legislature passed a bill to abolish the death penalty, I would sign it. I am
inspired by the work Sen. Fields does for her community and how she is driven
by the memory of her son.”)
CS: A question that I know is going to be raised is why not bring this to a
vote of the people as opposed to just having the legislature pass a repeal.
What do you think about that?
RF: I think that the people should weigh in on this decision. At the end of the
day, I think that would be the right approach.
CS: Do you think you are going to talk about your son a lot while this bill is
being discussed?
RF: Most likely. It’s going to be a difficult conversation, but it’s one that
we have to have. I think that’s how we get at good public policy, when we talk
through it and we don’t push through it without having a full debate. I’m
looking forward to having that debate and that discussion on the floor, if it
makes it that far. I’m not afraid of it. It’s not hurtful for me because it’s
something that we have to talk about. For me to shy away from it or to shrink
from it is just not something that I can do.
CS: What do you think are the important parts of the conversation?
RF: I think the important thing is to remember the victims. I think a lot of
times the focus is on the offender. I think there is too much discussion about
the men who are on death row and their race. I think the discussion should be
on the act, and the act was murder. I think we should be discussing and
elevating the people whose lives were lost because of their act. In my case,
the folks who murdered my son were trying to get away with murder. They wanted
to silence his testimony. So now they’re serving their sentence based on them
trying to get away with murder. It shouldn’t be based on cost. Because what
price do you put on justice? What value do you want to put on my son’s life and
his fiancée’s life? I don’t know if there is a price tag that you can put on
justice. When someone commits a heinous crime there should be consequences.
CS: When former Gov. John Hickenlooper commuted the death sentence of Nathan
Dunlap in 2013 he said the state needed to have a conversation about the death
penalty. Do you think that enough of that the conversation has occured get to
the point where we are debating this bill again?
RF: I don’t think so. I think that there’s been probably independent, isolated
circles of conversation. But I don’t think that the public has been engaged in
this topic. I think that people are concerned about their wages, they’re
concerned about access to healthcare, they’re concerned about affordable
housing. They’re concerned about day-to-day issues. To be focused on the dark
side — I mean when all the kinds of things that we can be focusing on in the
state and for us to to be focusing on people who commit murder — is just not
what I think should be a priority. I think we should be funding full-day
kindergarten and making sure that prescription drugs are affordable and those
kinds of things. Those are the right things to talk about. These men have
committed some horrific acts. And they can’t take that back. I will never get
my son and his fiancée back.
*********************
In 1997, Colorado’s 1st execution in 30 years marked a watershed moment. But
did it change the conversation about capital punishment?
I witnessed the state impose the death sentence on Gary Lee Davis. It was a
surreal event marked by a clean, quiet ease.
In the course of Colorado’s long conversation about capital punishment, the
execution of Gary Lee Davis in 1997 would seem to be a significant mile marker
on the road to resolving a question that has long divided the state’s
residents.
It had been 30 years since the state executed Luis Monge in the gas chamber, a
device that by then had been relegated to the status of museum piece, a
reminder of the bizarre machinations the state once employed. The Davis
execution, by contrast, would be the state’s 1st by lethal injection — which,
in the manner of most previous methods, was presented as a more humane
alternative.
It happened on Oct. 13, a Monday night, at the Colorado State Penitentiary in
Cañon City. There were 5 media witnesses, myself included, and 5 others — 2
relatives of Virginia “Ginny” May, the Byers woman who’d been kidnapped, raped
and shot 14 times by Davis; the prosecutor, Adams County DA Bob Grant; a
sheriff; and an attorney who had represented Davis on appeals.
Then, almost abruptly after months of build up, it was over. No apparent
glitches, other than unfolding a few minutes behind schedule. No shocking
surprises. No last-minute reprieve. No drama.
So, did it change the death penalty conversation in Colorado?
That’s hard to tell, objectively. In terms of further executions, juries still
appeared reluctant to impose capital punishment. And Colorado, while eventually
adding more inmates to death row, resumed its posture of waiting for appeals to
play out — and then joined the conglomeration of states that had gone at least
10 years since their last execution. Polls, which are tricky because responses
tend to shift markedly depending on how the death penalty question is posed,
narrowed slightly in the ensuing years on the national yes-or-no proposition,
with a majority in favor.
11 years after Davis was executed, a 2008 Colorado poll asked people whether
they would rather continue the death penalty or change to life without parole
and use the savings to pursue cold-case killers. A majority opted for the
latter, 63-27 %.
Even so, the 1997 execution didn’t seem to figure very prominently in the
discussion, which became dominated by advances in DNA forensics, statistical
analyses that focused on topics like race and randomness, cost breakdowns,
arguments about deterrence and the death penalty’s place in a moral universe.
Although the Davis execution represented a sea-change in Colorado correctional
history — as of today, the only time in a half-century that the state has
implemented the death penalty — it rarely surfaces as a talking point in the
ongoing argument.
At the time, this looming and monumental event became my job. For the months
leading up to the execution, I tried to tell readers as much as I could about
everything and everyone connected to what was about to happen, on the pages —
ink-stained and pre-internet — of The Denver Post. That meant digging into
Davis’ past, talking with Ginny May’s family, following the 11th-hour efforts
to obtain clemency. It also meant exploring the details of lethal injection —
which while new to Colorado, had been used in executions elsewhere around the
country for the previous 15 years. Nationally, momentum was gathering in
opposition to lethal injection itself, in part advancing the argument that the
process merely sanitized the process for observers — but could be excruciating
for the person being executed. But Colorado’s Department of Corrections went
about preparing to fulfill the sentence, ostensibly, at least, with full
confidence.
One memory here stands out: DOC executive director Ari Zavaras, a former Denver
chief of police, explaining how he helped a staffer, who had no medical
experience, practice inserting an IV line like the ones that would be used for
lethal injection. Zavaras bared his arm and told the staffer to practice on
him.
As the date approached, anti-death penalty advocates came out in force. There
were vigils and rallies, including one at Denver’s federal courthouse, where
Terry Nichols stood trial — and faced a possible federal death penalty — for
his role in the Oklahoma City bombing. Demonstrators both for and against
capital punishment took their signs to Cañon City and marched outside the
prison grounds.
There was also Davis’ expected request for leniency from then-Gov. Roy Romer.
With the help of his attorneys, Davis spoke in a 40-minute video in which he
seemed to harbor some ambivalence about his fate. He detailed the mistakes in
his life — his alcoholism was a prominent part of this narrative — and
expressed remorse for the “hellish” way his victim had died. But he also noted
that for him, death could be a blessing compared to a life sentence.
About a month before the scheduled execution, Romer acknowledged Davis’ remorse
and rehabilitation, but said it didn’t outweigh his responsibility to pay the
penalty for his actions. The decks were cleared for the execution to go
forward.
I drove to Cañon City a couple days ahead of time and checked into a motel.
Immersed as I had been in the history of Colorado’s relationship with the death
penalty, it seemed natural to pay a visit to the local prison museum, which now
holds the gas chamber, a green metal enclosure with windows on 3 sides and a
simple chair sitting in the middle.
Later, I chatted with Wayne Patterson, the former warden who pulled the lever
on the contraption to begin the state’s last execution — and whose mother,
devoutly religious, frequently wrote to the inmates he supervised. He opposed
the death penalty but accepted his role as part of the job and figured everyone
in Colorado who had favored capital punishment in a 1966 referendum was no less
responsible.
On the Saturday night before Davis was scheduled to die, I ducked into a local
watering hole favored by corrections employees and learned that several planned
to raise a toast at the scheduled time of Davis’ execution. On Sunday morning,
I waded through a congregation leaving a church service and asked the pastor
about what would transpire at the prison the next day. He acknowledged
differences of opinion among his flock over the death penalty and noted that it
was a hard reality.
Mostly, in a town dependent on the corrections industry, it was business as
usual.
The Monday of the execution, the media got access to the press facility at the
maximum-security Colorado State Penitentiary where we would file our stories.
As witnesses, the five reporters would later return to debrief our colleagues
before we began filing our own reports.
Shortly before 8 p.m., all 10 witnesses were shuttled to the building where the
execution would take place. Preparations were running behind schedule, so there
was a brief wait before we were ushered into a small room that featured two
rows of five seats that faced a wall with three large windows. Curtains
concealed the space behind them.
When they were pulled open, the 53-year-old Davis lay strapped to a gurney with
his arms extended at an angle to the sides. Tubes led from his arms to yet
another room, where the 3 drugs — sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and
potassium chloride — would be administered in succession by an unseen member of
the execution team. (In fact, we were told, even the people dispensing the
drugs would not know which one of them supplied the lethal dose.)
If everything worked as planned, the 1st drug would render Davis unconscious,
the 2nd would paralyze him and stop his breathing and the 3rd would stop his
heart.
Only once did Davis move his gaze from the execution room. Twisting his head
slightly to the right immediately after the curtains opened, he seemed to focus
on his appeals attorney. She wore a bright red blazer in the hope that he would
be able to pick her out.
At 8:24 p.m., the process began. A priest prayed beside Davis while two DOC
staffers stood nearby, looking straight ahead. Knowing that not all lethal
injections proceeded seamlessly, I focused on Davis’ reaction as the protocol
continued. There was not much to report. A clenched fist, a slight twitch of
the thumb, subtle movement of the lips, the fist relaxing, the eyes drooping
but never quite closing.
Several minutes passed, but Davis never moved. Finally, the coroner entered and
checked for a heartbeat, then shined a penlight into Davis’ eyes. After she
left the room, the priest laid his hand on Davis’ head, then filed out.
The curtains closed.
How does one react? From the prosecutor and Ginny May’s father, there was a
handshake and congratulations on justice served. The father would later say
that he’d waste no more time thinking about Gary Lee Davis, that the execution
gave fair warning that the death penalty was back and his daughter’s death
would not be in vain.
As we headed outside to be shuttled back to the press area, we heard a clatter
of tapping on cell windows behind us. We saw lights flickering — an effect, we
later learned, achieved by prisoners intermittently covering their windows with
blankets. A goodbye to the condemned man.
In the moment, I struggled with how outwardly uneventful, how matter-of-fact,
the experience had been. There was not a lot of time to reflect before rushing
to make deadline.
The next day, I left Cañon City feeling hollow and exhausted. Whatever one’s
opinion on the death penalty, I concluded, personally witnessing Colorado’s
first execution in 30 years probably would have done little, if anything, to
change it.
Proponents might have seen Davis’ eyelids flutter and his lips quiver and been
satisfied that the punishment had been fairly and compassionately dispensed, or
even figured this end was too good for him, considering the depraved nature of
his crimes. Opponents might have been deeply disturbed by the clean, quiet ease
with which a life was taken in their name.
Some of us wondered if this would be just the 1st, with more to come in
Colorado, now that the decades-long absence of capital punishment had been
interrupted. But it wasn’t. Nearly 22 years later, the state is poised to
consider abolition.
(source for all: The Colorado Sun)
NEVADA:
On heels of prolonged death penalty case, lawmakers want to reconsider a ban on
capital punishment
2 years after a wrenching hearing on a possible death penalty ban, and just
weeks after an inmate who was stymied in his quest to die at the hands of the
state took his own life, Nevada lawmakers are once again grappling with ending
capital punishment.
Democratic Assemblyman Ozzie Fumo and Democratic state Sen. James Ohrenschall
are sponsoring AB149, which seeks to abolish the death penalty, and the Senate
introduced a 2nd such bill from the pair — SB246, which strikes language
allowing the death penalty for 1st-degree murder — on Friday.
Nevada has not executed someone since 2006, even though there are 77 people on
death row, largely because condemned inmates are entitled to what often becomes
decades of appeals.
“We need to get that conversation started,” said Fumo, a criminal defense
attorney. “There’s a misconception out there about what the death penalty
means. I think most people in favor of it think when you get the death penalty,
you’re executed within a year. And when they find out that Nevada just doesn’t
do it, they change.”
The bills come against the backdrop of the case of Scott Dozier, who was
convicted of two murders in the early 2000s and later opted to give up any
further appeals of his death sentence. He was twice scheduled for execution and
it was twice postponed over legal issues — first over concern about the
humaneness of an untried lethal injection combination and later when drugmaker
Alvogen objected to its product being used to kill someone.
Dozier, who had expressed his desire to die since 2016, died by an apparent
suicide at Ely State Prison in early January.
“This is, on paper, an execution that should have happened,” Ohrenschall said.
“A willing inmate who wanted to be executed, we had a director who said he
would get the chemicals, the cocktail he needed to concoct a lethal injection,
and it wasn’t able to happen. So I think that it all should work together to
create a stronger argument.”
Some of the state’s supply of lethal injection drugs meant for Dozier has
already started expiring, with several packages of the painkiller fentanyl and
the paralytic cisatracurium past their expiration dates and others going bad
this spring and summer. Pharmaceutical companies’ unwillingness to supply such
drugs for lethal injection would complicate the state’s ability to carry out an
execution.
Another change in the calculus is that Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak holds veto
power. Former Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval was supportive of the death
penalty, while Sisolak has expressed opposition: He said in the campaign that
capital punishment should be reserved only for the worst of the worst, and said
in a January IndyTalks forum that he opposed the death penalty.
He’s not making any commitments on what will come out of this year’s
discussion, though.
“As is the case with all other bills going through the legislative process, the
governor looks forward to reviewing this legislation,” his spokeswoman, Helen
Kalla, said in a statement.
Opponents have a long list of reasons for the ultimate punishment to go,
including those underscored by the Dozier case. The high stakes of the penalty
demand extra state resources to handle appeals and drug company fights that
took place over the past 2 years, for example.
Fumo also thinks the existing system is stacked in favor of giving a defendant
the death penalty, even when the person is more likely to die in prison before
exhausting their appeals.
“We don’t even allow a jury to be chosen unless they say ‘I can give the death
penalty.’ We’re already pre-deciding what is going to happen,” he said. “If a
jury was actually fair, and we had people on the jury who say ‘yes I could give
it,’ ‘no I can’t,’ and let that jury decide, we’d have a more fair process.”
But even though Democrats have expanded their power since the discussion came
up in 2017, the bill’s passage is far from certain. Death penalty supporters
have potent emotional arguments on their side, including recent crimes that
shook the community.
“We just had a guy up here in Northern Nevada kill four people. He’s 20 years
old or 19 or something like that. Obviously if there’s anyone who deserves the
death penalty it was this home invader who murdered for no reason,” said
Republican Assembly leader Jim Wheeler. “Do we want to keep this guy in jail
for the next 65 years, at $20,000 a year? Think about it.”
Wheeler said his caucus hasn’t come up unified position on the death penalty
question, and neither bill has been scheduled for a hearing.
But Wheeler believes that Nevada’s recent experience with a near-execution will
force the issue among legislators this year. Last session, a death penalty ban
never came up for a committee vote, much less one on the Senate or Assembly
floor.
“The Dozier episode will actually lead to some kind of resolution on what to do
about it,” he predicted.
Disclosure: Brian Sandoval has donated $75 and Steve Sisolak has donated $2,200
to The Nevada Independent.
(source: The Nevada Independent)
USA:
Louis Coleman To Face Federal Charges, Possible Death Penalty
Federal authorities have charged Louis Coleman III, 32, with kidnapping
resulting in the death of Jassy Correia, 23 - making him eligible for the
federal death penalty, according to US Attorney Andrew Lelling.
The charges will be brought in Massachusetts because Correia was taken from
Boston, said the US Attorney. Interstate kidnapping resulting in death carries
a mandatory life sentence.
Lelling said it appears Correia died from blunt force trauma and strangulation
and there is probable cause that Coleman killed her. Coleman had a scratch on
his face that he told authorities came from her, according to Lelling.
In the car police found cleaning supplies and bolt cutters.
"We're going to send a clear cut message, this is not going to be tolerated,"
said Boston Police Commissioner William Gross during the press conference
Sunday afternoon.
Lelling said when authorities pulled over Coleman on the highway in Delaware
and asked him where Correia was, he told them she was in the trunk. Troopers
found her there, naked, bound, bruised and covered in what was believed to be
in baking soda. She was not mutilated, according to Lelling.
Coleman should face the federal charges within the next few weeks in Boston.
"This federal complaint does not rule out statewide charges," said Suffolk
County District Attorney Rachel Rollins.
Correia was kidnapped while leaving the Venu Night Club in Boston late Saturday
night, where she was celebrating her 23rd birthday. Her body was found 5 days
later. Correia's body was not found in 2 separate suitcases, Lelling said.
After an investigation that took police across 3 states, law enforcement
arrested Louis Coleman III,32, of Providence, in connection with Correia's
disappearance. Rhode Island police charged him in connection to the kidnapping,
failure to report a death and mutilation of a dead body.
Correia's body is being held in Delaware by medical examiners. And Coleman is
being held on fugitive warrant out of Rhode Island.
"This has been the top focus and priority of the Providence Police Department,"
said RI Police Chief Hugh Clements during the press conference.
Rollins said authorities were taking the case, which she described as
complicated, and as having multiple moving parts in three jurisdictions,
seriously.
Correia's disappearance and murder comes on the heels of the disappearance and
reported act of violence against another 23-year-old Boston woman. The Jamaica
Plain woman disappeared on a Saturday night in January after leaving a bar and
was found - alive - 3 days later after a manhunt. Both garnered national
attention.
Victor Pena, the man accused of kidnapping the JP woman, was in court Friday
and will face rape and abduction charges on March 15.
(source: patch.com)
*******************
Massachusetts juries OK with death sentence
Massachusetts may not have a death penalty, but juries in the state are willing
to deliver it in federal cases where it’s on the table, said former federal
prosecutors.
“36 out of 36 Massachusetts jurors voted to impose the death penalty,” said
George Vien, a former federal prosecutor who now works at Donnelly, Conroy &
Gelhaar.
Vien successfully brought death penalty charges against Gary Lee Sampson, a
killer convicted of murdering three people in a weeklong rampage in 2001,
during his initial trial. A 2nd sentencing phase affirmed the death penalty
conviction of Sampson.
“If it’s a single murder, usually the department often does not seek the death
penalty,” said Vien.
He noted that in addition to Sampson, a Bay State jury sent marathon bombing
terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death row.
Former federal prosecutor Brian Kelly, now of Nixon Peabody, said the feds will
weigh elements like whether Coleman has a criminal history and whether the
killing was “particularly heinous and cruel.”
“In a situation like this the government may very well decide to pursue the
death penalty” if it finds aggravating circumstances like that, Kelly said.
The feds are charging Louis D. Coleman III with kidnapping leading to a death —
a charge that could carry the death penalty. Otherwise, a conviction on that
charge carries an automatic life sentence. U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said
it’s too early to determine whether he will pursue death for Coleman.
Tsarnaev and his brother killed 3 people and injured 280 more in the 2013
bombing and then killed an MIT police officer as they fled authorities. Sampson
killed 3 strangers during a week-long murderous rampage in Massachusetts and
New Hampshire in 2001.
Massachusetts does not have it’s own the death penalty on the books, so
criminals convicted in state jurisdiction cannot face it. No one has been
executed in Massachusetts since 1947, though 345 people were put to death here
in the 3 centuries before that.
The debate over the death penalty re-emerged in Massachusetts last year
following 2 high-profile killings of police officers. Last summer, Gov. Charlie
Baker said people who murder cops should be put to death.
(source: bostonherald.com)
*********************
Capital punishment; 'A broken system': the conservatives against the death
penalty----A group is challenging the practice on traditional rightwing
principles: ‘small government, low taxes, sanctity of human life’
The National Rifle Association loomed large, as did stalls promoting hunting
and fishing, Biblical fundamentalism and, quizzically, “domestic uranium”. On
Saturday, Donald Trump showed up to deliver perhaps his most extreme speech
yet, a freewheeling, 2-hour, avowedly off-script hard-right screed. But one
exhibition booth at the CPAC hub in National Harbor, Maryland, had a far less
predictable message. A large banner over the stall proclaimed: “Questioning a
broken system marked by inefficiency, inequity and inaccuracy.”
The “broken system” being denounced was not socialism, gun control or the other
targets modern Republicans love to hate. It was the death penalty.
The booth was covered in posters opposing capital punishment in the words of
prominent Republicans. Jay Sekulow, Donald Trump’s lawyer on the Russia
collusion inquiry, was quoted in big letters: “Conservatives should question
how the death penalty actually works in order to stay true to small
government.”
The group behind it was Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty
(CCATDP), a national network challenging the practice on traditional rightwing
grounds. In a country that has grown used to hearing Republicans adopt hardline
hang-’em-and-flog-’em postures, CCATDP’s line sounds as counterintuitive as
turkeys campaigning for Christmas.
The group is led by Hannah Cox, a conservative from Tennessee who has worked at
a free-market thinktank and on a pro-gun campaign. A dutiful Southerner, Cox
began life as an adamant cheerleader for capital punishment.
“I have a Republican and Southern Baptist background and everyone I know
supported the death penalty,” she said.
Her views changed after she began probing the reality in America. “The truth
was, my belief in capital punishment was a gut reaction based on no knowledge.
When I looked at it I discovered the system was shockingly different from what
I had imagined.”
Cox rattled off a list of arguments that turned her from devout supporter to
devout opponent:
Innocence. “The number of innocent people on death row is what caught my
attention first, and still worries me the most,” she said.
Cost. Numerous studies have shown that the average expense of a capital case
from trial through to the death chamber is vastly greater than the cost of
imprisoning someone for life. A 2017 review in Oklahoma found that capital
cases are more than three times more expensive than non-capital equivalents.
Big government. As a conservative committed to reining back the state, Cox now
sees capital punishment as being “as big as big government gets – and like all
government it frequently makes mistakes”.
CCATDP was formed 7 years ago. It has been plugging away ever since, but Cox is
now convinced the mood is turning slowly but definitively in their favor.
“We’re seeing a grassroots shift among conservatives, with more and more people
coming round to the idea that the system isn’t working,” she said.
Thirty states still nominally practice capital punishment in America. But that
is misleading given its general withering away.
In 2018 there were 25 executions in the US, the fourth year in a row where the
number has dropped below 30. In 1996, at its peak, there were 315 judicial
killings.
Within that nationwide decline, the number of active death penalty states has
also waned. Last year only eight states put a prisoner to death, and of those
just 1, Texas, stood out with 13 executions.
CCATDP’s significance within the overall picture of capital punishment in
America is underlined by the fact that of the 8 states that last year carried
out executions – Texas and then Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, Ohio,
South Dakota and Tennessee – are all controlled by Republicans.
Yet the data suggests even conservative thinking is on the move. A study
carried out by CCATDP last year found that the number of Republican sponsors of
state bills repealing the death penalty have soared since 2009, from 2 to 40 in
2016. In the first few weeks of 2019, Republicans in 7 states have sponsored
repeal bills.
Take Missouri. Its Republican leadership has been relatively gung-ho about
judicial killings in recent years, until a European boycott of lethal injection
drugs intervened and forced a virtual moratorium.
But Republican opposition is growing. State senator Paul Wieland has pressed
repeal bills for the past 6 years. In 2016 he had a breakthrough when his bill
reached the senate floor; it never made a vote, but even the debate marked a
seismic shift.
Like Cox, Wieland set out in politics as an advocate of the death penalty. “I
thought, yeah, these people need to pay for their crime. But when I started
looking into it, it didn’t take me long to change.”
First, he asked himself how there could be any deterrent value when it took 20
or 30 years to complete the appeals cycle and actually execute someone. Then he
moved onto more moral issues, such as whether the state can be trusted not to
kill an innocent person. As a pro-life Catholic who opposes abortion, he began
to wonder how he could be anything but pro-life for adults too.
New Hampshire has come within a hair’s breadth of abolishing the practice.
There hasn’t been an execution in the state since 1939, and there’s only one
man currently on death row. Last year a repeal bill passed both chambers, then
under Republican control, but was vetoed by the Republican governor Chris
Sununu.
State senator Bob Guida, a co-sponsor of successive repeal bills, comes from
classic conservative stock. A staunch gun advocate, he was in the US Marines
before becoming a special agent in the FBI.
He too began life as a champion of capital punishment. “That was the norm among
my FBI colleagues, and I’m sure it still is. I’ve seen some heinous and
horrific things. But I’ve come to recognise that we don’t have a perfect system
– it’s better to let 10 guilty men go free than put one innocent person to
death.”
Cox is convinced that with attitudes like Guida’s spreading, the end is in
sight. “I encourage people to get back to the fundamental principles of small
government, low taxes, sanctity of human life. These are the true conservative
values – so why not use them?”
(source: The Guardian)
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