March 31
INDIANA:
Indiana man sentenced to die must be re-sentenced
A man sentenced to die for the murders of a Lapel woman and her daughter will
be sentenced again. A circuit court of appeals overturned Frederick Baer's
punishment for the 2004 killings, so now it's back to court for a new sentence.
Minutes after Baer was initially sentenced, he unleashed a profane rant on the
way back to jail.
He was sentenced to death for the February 2004 murder of Cory Clark and her
daughter Jenna in Lapel, Indiana.
"If we don't impose the death sentence in this case - I don't know whose case
out there we should ever impose it on," Prosecutor Rodney Cummings, R-Madison
County, said. "I'm not certain I've ever seen a more deserving defendant than
this individual."
Before the murders, Baer had already been a one-man crime spree in central
Indiana.
"He's been convicted of a number of other cases of home invasion and rapes in
Marion and Hamilton Counties, in addition to this crime," Cummings said. "He'll
be 81 before he would be eligible to be released for those crimes. He's never
getting out of prison."
But is it the will of the murder victims family that Baer pay the ultimate
price?
"They are ready to get this behind them. I feel confident based on the facts of
this case there's likely to be another death sentence imposed, but then you are
looking at another 15 years of appeals," Cummings said. "Do they want to endure
that? I don't want to put them through that if they really don't want to do
that."
Many potential death penalty cases nowadays are being resolved with sentences
of life without the possibility of parole.
Prosecutor Cummings will consult with the family and ask them if they want to
continue to pursue the death penalty. If the decision is made to seek the death
penalty, there likely won't be any new hearing for 6 months.
(source: theindychannel.com)
NEVADA:
Nevada death penalty opponents have the high ground
Michael Kreps’ recent letter to the editor in favor of not only keeping the
death penalty but speeding up the appeals process to allow for more rapid
executions misses the point.
Mr. Kreps states, “I do not believe that our justice system is so crooked that
it meets out the death penalty based on the color of your skin.” With all due
respect to his anecdotal incidents, statistics prove him wrong. The whole
system doesn’t have to be crooked. All it takes is just one overly ambitious
prosecutor worried about re-election, a bad cop with a grudge planting
evidence, a fellow inmate with a desire for a reduced sentence or biased
jurors.
According to Amnesty International, 151 people have been released from death
rows throughput the country due to evidence of wrongful convictions. That’s 151
innocent people who would have been executed. Speeding up the process is not
the answer. Eliminating the death penalty like most other civilized countries
is.
(source: Letter to the Editor, Las Vegas Review-Journal)
WASHINGTON:
Rep. Jenny Graham fights to keep death penalty in state law
As momentum to get rid of the death penalty builds in the Legislature, a
freshman Spokane lawmaker is outspoken in her belief that capital punishment
works and should remain on the books.
Republican Rep. Jenny Graham ran for office on a platform of public safety and
said the state needs to be proactive in protecting people from criminals.
“I am supportive of being absolutely ruthless when it comes to protecting the
people in my community from what we determine to be clear and present danger,”
she said.
Last week, Graham grilled opponents of the death penalty at a House committee
hearing, arguing that replacing it with life without parole was inadequate. The
bill already passed the Senate on a party line vote and is expected to come
before the full House in April.
Her call for being “ruthless” is linked to her experience. Graham said she grew
up in a physically and sexually abusive home. Her siblings were prone to
running away to escape the abuse, and periods of absence were normal until her
sister Debra never returned.
For 6 years, Debra remained missing until Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer,
named her as one of his victims as part of a plea bargain to avoid the death
penalty.
Without the threat of capital punishment, there would have been no incentive
for Ridgway to give up all of his victims, including Debra, Graham said.
“It’s only because he was afraid of losing his own life,” she said. “This is
not mercy for him. It’s mercy for the families. It’s mercy for the community.”
People don’t talk about what works with the death penalty, she said.
But opponents at the hearing said the death penalty effectively has become
unavailable for prosecutors in Washington. Gov. Jay Inslee imposed a moratorium
on capital punishment in 2014 and said he would not sign a death warrant. Last
year, the state Supreme Court ruled that while the death penalty itself is not
unconstitutional, its arbitrary and racially biased application makes it
unenforceable.
A study from the University of Washington, cited repeatedly in the court’s
ruling, concluded jurors were four times more likely to impose death sentences
for black defendants. The report also showed there was uneven distribution
among counties where prosecutors sought the death penalty.
The eight inmates on death row at the time of the court ruling had their
sentences switched to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Since Washington’s death penalty statute was enacted in 1981, the state has
given 33 death sentences and carried out 5 executions, with the most recent in
2010.
Now the Legislature is considering removing an unenforceable law from the
books, which Attorney General Bob Ferguson said would keep the state from
repeating history. The Supreme Court has struck down the death penalty four
times previously, only for state Legislatures to bring it back.
“Those fixes have never worked,” Ferguson said. “It’s time to take the death
penalty off the books in Washington state once and for all.”
The bill’s primary sponsor, Sen. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, said the
Legislature has public and fiscal obligations to clarify the penalties for
various crimes. It’s time to “close this chapter” of the death penalty in
Washington, he said.
“I think it’s below us as a civic society,” Carlyle said. “It’s not a
deterrent. It doesn’t bring closure. It is unhelpful to the long-term interests
of our state.”
During testimony in the House Public Safety Committee, speakers denounced the
racially biased aspects of the death penalty and raised concerns over the cost.
A study from Seattle University determined capital punishment cases added an
additional $1 million onto already expensive sentences.
Graham pushed back, calling discussion of the cost offensive to victims. There
is nothing in the budget more important than public safety, she said.
Some victims spoke against the death penalty to the committee and suggested
that it would not bring closure.
Again, Graham pushed back. “Victims do not have the right to make that choice
for someone else’s family,” she said.
Without the threat of the death penalty, prison guards would face added danger,
she said. “If they’re not worried about losing their own life, then these
people are in danger.”
Graham was highly critical of the juxtaposition of the bill to abolish capital
punishment with another to create a post-conviction review board that could
result in some criminals being released early, including those convicted of
1st-degree murder.
But Ferguson said criminals who could now face the death penalty would not be
released under that proposal.
“Abolishing the death penalty necessarily requires maintaining the ability for
the people of the state of Washington to send someone to jail for the rest of
their life without the possibility of parole period and full-stop,” Ferguson
said.
The early release bill appears dead in the Legislature, but House Public Safety
Committee Chairman Roger Goodman, D-Kirkland, said the death penalty bill will
clear the committee in early April. With the support of Democrats who hold
substantial majorities in both chambers, it is expected to be sent to Inslee,
who will sign it.
While some Republicans have refused to expend political capital on the fight to
retain the death penalty, Graham is vocal and unapologetic.
“I’m not willing to accept that, somehow or another, I’m a cold and uncaring
person because I believe in being proactive in protecting people,” she said.
Those who call for victims to turn the other cheek are indifferent and
enabling, she said.
“It’s not about hate. It’s not about vengeance,” she said. “People need to
start waking up. What are they going to do when this is their child, when this
is their family? Nobody is immune."
(source: The Spokesman-Review)
USA:
2 death row inmates similar requests, but different results
Death row inmates Patrick Murphy and Domineque Ray each turned to courts
recently with a similar plea: Halt my execution if the state won't let a
spiritual adviser of my faith accompany me into the execution chamber.
Both cases wound up at the Supreme Court. And while the justices overrode a
lower court and allowed Ray's execution to go forward in Alabama in February,
they gave Murphy, a Texas inmate, a temporary reprieve Thursday night.
What the justices wrote suggests the opposite results came down to one thing:
timing. Ray, a Muslim, didn't ask to be joined by his spiritual adviser soon
enough, while Murphy, a Buddhist, did.
Spencer Hahn, one of Ray's attorneys, said in a telephone interview Friday that
he hoped his client had helped bring attention to the fact some inmates are
treated differently when it comes to religious advisers in the execution
chamber.
"I'd like to think Mr. Ray's death was not in vain," he said.
Hahn said the Supreme Court's action in Murphy's case sends a message to other
corrections departments: "The Supreme Court doesn't want to see people
mistreated like this in their final moments."<>P> Ray, 42, was sentenced to
death for the 1995 rape and murder of 15-year-old Tiffany Harville. His
attorneys argued that Alabama's execution procedure violated the Constitution
by favoring Christian inmates over Muslims. A Christian chaplain employed by
the prison is typically present in the execution chamber during a lethal
injection, but the state would not let Ray's imam in the chamber, arguing only
prison employees are allowed for security reasons.
A federal appeals court halted Ray's execution, but the Supreme Court reversed
that decision and let it take place Feb. 7. The court's 5 conservative justices
said Ray waited until just 10 days before his execution to raise the issue. The
court's four liberal justices dissented. Justice Elena Kagan wrote that Ray's
request to have his imam by his side was denied on Jan. 23 and he sued five
days later. Ray's imam watched the execution from an adjoining witness room.
Murphy's plea was similar. The 57-year-old, who was among a group of inmates
who escaped from a Texas prison in 2000 and then committed numerous robberies,
including one where a police officer was fatally shot, became a Buddhist while
in prison. He asked that his spiritual adviser, a Buddhist priest, accompany
him into the execution chamber. Texas officials said no.
They argued that only chaplains who had been extensively vetted by the prison
system were allowed in the chamber. While Christian and Muslim chaplains were
available, no Buddhist priest was.
Murphy's lawyers argued that violated their client's rights. Justice Clarence
Thomas and Justice Neil Gorsuch would have allowed Murphy's execution to
proceed. But a majority of the Supreme Court said the state can't carry out
Murphy's execution at this time unless it permits Murphy's spiritual adviser or
another Buddhist reverend the state chooses to accompany him in the execution
chamber.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jeremy Desel said Thursday that
the state would review the ruling to determine how to respond.
Speaking just for himself, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote "that Murphy made his
request to the State in a sufficiently timely manner, 1 month before the
scheduled execution." No other justice wrote separately.
Kavanaugh said the state has two options going forward: allow all inmates to
have a religious adviser of their religion in the execution room, or allow
religious advisers only in the viewing room, not the execution room.
Robert Dunham, the head of the Death Penalty Information Center, said it's
possible something besides timing was considered by the justices.
"The more centrist conservatives on the court may have been stung by the
overwhelming criticism they received from people across the political and
religious and ideological spectrum" following Ray's execution, he said.
It was not clear how many other inmates might find themselves in a similar
situation. Only eight states, including Texas and Alabama, carried out
executions last year.
But law professor James A. Sonne, whose Stanford clinic has studied the issue
of chaplains' presence at executions, said most of the 30 states with the death
penalty allow a chaplain of the inmate's choice to be present at the execution,
though that doesn't necessarily mean in the death chamber. He called Thursday's
ruling a "sea-change."
(source: Associated Press)
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