July 20
PENNSYLVANIA:
4 irrefutable facts proving death penalty is always wrong
Look at that black and white photograph of George Stinney.
I mean stop and really look at the face of that 14-year-old boy who was
executed in the electric chair by the state of South Carolina in 1944. He’s
your son, your grandson, your nephew. He’s also the youngest person in American
history to have been sentenced to death and to have been executed.
His murder trial involving the death of 2 white girls was not transcribed. The
entire trial lasted only 2 hours. George’s white court-appointed “lawyer”
presented no defense despite the fact that there was no physical evidence tying
his client to the crime. All the spectators were white because Blacks were not
allowed in the courtroom. The jury members were all-white. Those jurors
“deliberated” for just 10 minutes before finding George guilty after which the
white judge immediately sentenced the boy to death.
Because he was so short, the jailers had the child sit on the Bible he was
carrying so his body could reach up to the electric chair’s hanging mask. Stop
and think about that for a minute.
Because George’s racist and classist so-called trial was such a nightmarish
travesty in that he received nothing remotely akin to due process, a South
Carolina Circuit Court judge vacated his conviction and exonerated him- but the
legal system waited 70 years to do so in 2014. As a result, that judge’s “too
little, too late” ruling did absolutely nothing to save him after having been
the victim of state-sanctioned premeditated murder.
Fast forward to 2019. At a news conference on July 16, progressive Philadelphia
District Attorney Larry Krasner announced that his office the day before
petitioned the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to declare the death penalty
unconstitutional. And he said it was because such punishment is racist,
classist, and arbitrary. He’s right, you know.
He’s also right when he stated, “The most jaw-dropping statistic is that out of
155 Philadelphia death sentences [from 1978-2017], 72 %... have been
overturned. What that means is that... [previous prosecutors], before we got
here... argued for the execution of... people and were wrong... 72 % of the
time. And actually, it’s worse than that. Because those other 28 % are not
settled, you should expect that there will be even more of these that are
overturned.”
And if you think he’s anti-death penalty because he’s some kind of “bleeding
heart liberal,” you obviously haven’t read last year’s legislative report
entitled “Capital Punishment in Pennsylvania,” written by the bipartisan Joint
State Government Commission led by 4 Task Force Members consisting of 2
Republicans.
That report cited, among other impeccable and objective sources, the 2003 Final
Report of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in
the Justice System, which concluded the following:
“[T]here are strong indications that Pennsylvania ‘s capital justice system
does not operate in an evenhanded manner....[R]esearchers... found that
African- American defendants were sentenced to death at a significantly higher
rate than similarly situated non-African-Americans; researchers further
concluded that 1/3 of African-Americans on death row in Philadelphia... would
have received life sentences if they were not African-American. Race was also
shown to be a major factor in capital jury selection, with the prosecution
striking African-Americans from the jury twice as often as
non-African-Americans....”
By the way, why do proponents of capital punishment even bother to deny its
obvious racism and obvious classism? I guess they don’t know that about 98 % of
the chief District Attorneys in death penalty states are white and only about
one percent Black. And I also guess they don’t know that while the
“impoverished” poor constitute approximately 15 % of the country’s population,
they are about 90 % of the death row population?
Let’s start calling the death penalty/capital punishment exactly what it is:
state-sanctioned premeditated murder. I call it that not because I’m into
subjective hyperbole but because I’m into objective definitions. Since a
governor approves these executions, they’re state-sanctioned. And since such
killings are planned (i.e., scheduled well in advance) as well as unjustified
(i.e., done in the absence of an imminent threat to life or limb)- especially
when a deadly weapon (i.e., lethal injection or electric chair or gas chamber
or hangman’s noose or firing squad) is used- they’re premeditated. Accordingly,
just as you and I are not legally permitted to commit murder, premeditated or
otherwise, neither should state governments be.
Here are the 4 irrefutable facts proving that the death penalty/capital
punishment is always wrong:
1. It’s not a deterrent. If it was, why is it that the South, which has the
highest murder rate in the country, also has the most death penalty executions
at 80 percent, while the Northeast has the lowest murder rate but only one
percent of the executions?
2. It’s not reasonable retribution. If it was, why do many, if not most, of the
proponents constantly scream for revenge? Furthermore, aren’t we- i.e., the
civilized members of society- better than the sociopathic killers who kill to
get their way? And isn’t the notion of killing killers to show that killing is
wrong rather hypocritical?
3. It’s not really religiously mandated. If it was (at least by the 3 faiths
with the most adherents), how does a believer justify the destruction of what
God, Allah, Jehovah, etc. created? In other words, since we as humans can only
procreate- and not create- how can the killing of the Creator’s creation be
justified, particularly in light of the fact that such killing is not the
result of the sort of on-the-spot deadly self-defense that is necessary in
response to an imminent threat? And because the death penalty/capital
punishment is not the result of such immediate self-defense, isn’t a state
execution sinful for believers and unethical or immoral for non-believers?
4. It’s not really founded on the fair notion of “an eye for an eye.” If it
was, then why doesn’t society rob robbers or kidnap kidnappers? Even better,
why doesn’t society rape rapists? Yeah, that’s it. In the very same way our tax
dollars are used to pay a state employee to kill a convicted killer through
lethal injection, why don’t we hire and pay a state employee to rape a
convicted rapist through sexual penetration? Savage, you say? Barbaric, you
say? Uncivilized, you say? Exactly, I say- just as savage and as barbaric and
as uncivilized as the death penalty.
What’s the solution? That’s easy. Support the bipartisan “death penalty
abolition” legislation drafted by primary sponsors State Representative Chris
Rabb, a Democrat from Philly and State Representative Frank Ryan, a Republican
from Lebanon County. For more info, call Representative Rabb’s district office
at (215) 242-7300.
(source: Michael Coard, The Philadelphia Tri bune)
*********************
Accused killer's attorney asks for delay pending death penalty ruling
The attorney for accused killer Jose Colon plans to file a motion to delay
proceedings pending a decision by the state Supreme Court involving the death
penalty in Pennsylvania.
During a hearing on Friday, attorney Jim Best informed Northumberland County
President Judge Charles Saylor that he intends to file a motion to stay until
the outcome of the court's decision whether to abolish the death penalty in
Pennsylvania. The Commonwealth is seeking the death penalty for Colon, 43, of
Shamokin, for the killing of Kasandra Ortiz, 23, on Feb. 26, 2018.
Best is working with a mitigation expert. Saylor rescheduled the trial for the
October term.
Colon is charged with 65 criminal counts from 2 cases related to the fatal
shooting of Ortiz. Colon is also facing charges related to a 7-hour standoff
with police in which he fired 11 shots.
He allegedly confessed to the murder during an interview March 7 at the
Stonington state police station, according to a criminal complaint. Colon
admitted to striking Ortiz in the head and face outside her apartment on Rock
Street, continuing the assault after she was knocked to the ground, according
to documents. Colon told police he dragged the bloodied woman to a nearby dirt
lot at Rock and Spurzheim streets where he shot her once and left her body
before fleeing the scene, the complaint states.
Colon is charged with criminal homicide and 11 counts of attempted homicide of
law enforcement officers, as well as 25 felony charges of aggravated assault,
illegally possessing a firearm and assault of a law enforcement officer. The
remaining charges are misdemeanor counts.
The legal effort to find the death penalty unconstitutional is tied to two
death-row inmates: Jermont Cox, who was ordered to die for a murder from 1992
in Philadelphia, and Kevin Marinelli, who was convicted in the 1994 torture
death of Kulpmont resident Conrad Dumchock. The high court has set a Sept. 11
hearing date for oral arguments on the petition by Cox and Marinelli.
On Feb. 13, 2015, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced a halt to all
executions.
(source: The Daily Item)
*******************
Death penalty may have its day in court
The death penalty is a bundle of contradictions that promotes both support and
opposition to its continued use.
The support for the death penalty as an effective deterrent has all but
disappeared. The rarity of imposition and the handful of times each year that
it is carried out mutes any impact the death penalty has on crime.
Pennsylvania may be the next major battleground for the death penalty. This
week, in an extraordinary move by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner,
his office filed a brief with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in support of a
claim by two death row inmates that the death penalty in Pennsylvania violates
the Eighth Amendment to the United State Constitution.
Krasner, whose opposition to the death penalty was a major component of his
2017 upset DA victory, now joins a small group of prosecutors from across the
country - including the Boulder County, Colorado District Attorney, Orlando,
Florida States Attorney and King County, Washington Prosecuting Attorney - who
have called for their states to abolish the death penalty, reported the
Huffington Post.
The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office based its position on a review of
every case where a Philadelphia defendant received a death sentence between
1978 and 2017. The study found that 72 % of those 155 sentences were ultimately
overturned - more than half of them for ineffective assistance counsel.
Pennsylvania is 1 of 30 states that has the death penalty, although Democratic
Gov. Tom Wolf 4 years ago announced a temporary halt on executions in one of
his first acts as governor. The moratorium still stands.
Since 1978, three men have been executed in Pennsylvania. Gary Heidnik,
convicted of killing of two women he imprisoned in his Philadelphia home, was
the last person put to death in the state, in 1999.
The current appeal has attracted support from groups like the Pennsylvania
chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the NAACP Legal
Defense Fund.
It is not just progressives who want to see the end to the death penalty in
Pennsylvania. Hannah Cox, National Manager of Conservatives Concerned About the
Death Penalty, suggested, “Conservatives in Pennsylvania and across the country
increasingly realize the death penalty is a failed government program that
threatens innocent people and is marred by racial disparities, as well as
inconsistency in how it has been used.”
The Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association is alright with the death
penalty. “If the death penalty is abolished, that would have a very real effect
on a limited number of cases - which happen to be the most heinous cases,” said
Greg Rowe, legislation and policy director for the PDAA. The Pennsylvania
attorney general, the Philadelphia chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police,
and several groups of Republican state lawmakers filed briefs in support of the
death penalty.
If racial disparities and poor lawyering are not enough to oppose the death
penalty, those supporting the end to the death penalty have more to argue. In
2016, The Reading Eagle reported that Pennsylvania paid an estimated $816
million on the death penalty since 1978.
The Juvenile Law Center and Youth Sentencing and Reentry Project cites
impetuosity and susceptibility to negative peer influences for 18- to
25-year-olds - who make up over one third of Pennsylvania’s current death row -
as evidence of the overall arbitrary and disproportionate nature of
Pennsylvania’s death penalty.
Quinn Cozzens, an attorney with the Pennsylvania-based Abolitionist Law Center,
argues that that the death penalty can be unfairly “used as a tool” in the plea
bargaining process. “They’re able to hang that over the heads of defendants,”
Cozzens said.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court may soon have a say whether the death penalty is
fine as it is, needs repaired or ended.
(source: Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly &
George P.C. His book The Executioner’s Toll, 2010 was released by McFarland
Publishing----Crestview News Bulletin)
FLORIDA:
Jury recommends death penalty for Lakeland mom who killed her father, daughter
A Lakeland mother could be sent to death row for killing her daughter and
father.
A jury found 29-year-old Cheyanne Jessie guilty of 1st-degree murder earlier
this week. On Friday, a jury unanimously recommended the death penalty for the
29-year-old woman for killing her 6-year-old daughter, Meredith.
The jury also recommended life in the murder of her father, 50-year-old Mark
Weekly, according to the State Attorney's Office.
Jessie stuffed their bodies into plastic bins then hid them behind a neighbor's
shed.
A judge is considering the jury's decision of death penalty into consideration
before making a final ruling.
(source: ABC News)
**********************
Dear Gov. DeSantis: Florida's death penalty is broken
Gov. Ron DeSantis has issued a death warrant for the execution of Gary Bowles
on Aug. 22. This is the second warrant in less than a year by our new governor.
Since 1988, I have opposed the death penalty. I corresponded with Willie
Darden, who was executed after 15 years on Florida’s death row. U.S. Supreme
Court Justice Harry Blackmun said of that case: "If ever a man received an
unfair trial, Darden did. He may be guilty, I don't know, but he got a
runaround in that courtroom."
There are so many reasons to stop the death penalty in Florida. Currently, 1 in
5 new death sentences nationwide originate in our state. Also, Florida has one
of the highest exoneration rates in the country. So far, 29 people have been
freed from our death row after evidence of innocence came to light.
Florida also displays some of the most alarming practices when it comes to the
trial and execution of the mentally ill. It has chosen to ignore nationally
applied standards of mental incompetency – that is, when the accused have no
rational understanding of why they are being executed.
Mostly, the death penalty affects the poor. Almost all death row inmates are
unable to afford their own attorney at trial. Court-appointed attorneys often
lack the experience necessary. Capital punishment means, essentially, them
without the capital get the punishment.
Furthermore, the cost of the death penalty is exorbitant. More than a dozen
states have found that capital cases are up to 10 times more expensive than
comparable non-death-penalty cases. These taxpayer dollars could be spent
tending the needs of crime victims and addressing why people commit crimes in
the first place.
Florida does not need the death penalty to maintain public safety. Life in
prison without possibility of parole is a better sentence — and costs less.
Capital punishment is a broken, inhumane and unjust system. It doesn’t even
necessarily bring healing to victims’ families. The governor needs to call a
moratorium.
It is up to us, the people of Florida, to contact the governor and tell him:
not in my name!
Shirley Poore is a member of Tallahassee Citizens Against the Death Penalty.
(source: Letter to the Editor, Tallahassee Democrat)
ALABAMA:
Capital murder charge in September death of good Samaritan
An Alabama man arrested in the stabbing death of a good Samaritan now faces a
capital murder charge.
The Montgomery Advertiser reports that a grand jury recently indicted
32-year-old Ronald Jason Mann, of Elmore County in the death of 47-year-old
Davon Waldrep, also of Elmore County.
Waldrep came to Mann's aid at a car wreck in September and was stabbed when he
refused to give the driver his cellphone, Elmore County Sheriff Bill Franklin
said.
"This man just thought somebody had a wreck and he stopped to help," Franklin
said. "He asked if he could call someone. That's when Mann said he wanted the
good Samaritan's cell phone."
Authorities said Mann and a juvenile had earlier forced a man and woman to
withdraw money from a convenience store ATM.
As Mann was driving away from the store, he struck a sign at a nearby railroad
crossing, which disabled his vehicle shortly before Waldrep approached.
Authorities said Mann and the teenager fled into the woods after Waldrep was
stabbed. They were captured hours later.
Waldrep died from his wounds several weeks later in a Montgomery hospital.
Mann is currently in the custody of the Alabama Department of Corrections on
unrelated charges, Franklin said. It was unclear if he had an attorney who
could speak for him.
The death penalty is on the table for Mann, said C.J. Robinson, chief assistant
district attorney. The only other sentencing option in a capital murder
conviction is life in prison without the possibility of parole. Capital murder
charges were brought because Waldrep was killed during a robbery, Robinson
said.
(source: Associated Press)
NEBRASKA:
In upholding Nikko Jenkins' death sentence, high court rejects notion that
Jenkins is mentally ill
The Nebraska Supreme Court left little unturned as it upheld spree killer Nikko
Jenkins' conviction and death sentence in the wicked 10-day rampage that left 4
Omahans dead in August 2013.
In an exhaustive 53-page ruling, the high court sifted through professionals'
often contradictory mental-health diagnoses of the troubled Omahan, delved into
the state's repeal and later reinstatement of the death penalty, and explored
the years that Jenkins spent in isolation prior the killings.
This won't end Jenkins' appeals. His attorney, Douglas County Public Defender
Tom Riley, said Friday he will raise issues that he believes could result in
the U.S. Supreme Court reviewing Jenkins' case, a rare occurrence even in
death-penalty cases.
But Jenkins' conviction and placement on death row just passed one of its most
important reviews — the state high court's rejection of appeals can be very
difficult for a condemned convict to overcome.
"This ruling was very thorough," said Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine, who
prosecuted the case along with his chief deputy, Brenda Beadle. "The criminal
justice process really is completed, other than postconviction actions that may
be filed later.
"I hate to use the word closure. But at least this tells the victims' families
that they're not going to have to sit in the courtroom and relive the evidence
anymore."
That fact wasn't lost on the mother of one of Jenkins' victims. Jenkins and his
sister, Erica Jenkins, took turns shooting Curtis Bradford in the head after
luring him to a house near 18th and Clark Streets in northeast Omaha.
"Oh my gosh, I'm glad it's over," Velita Glasgow said Friday. "This case has
taken so much from us — it just doesn't hurt the one individual, it hurts the
entire family.
"I don't ever want to have to come to court again. I don't ever want to see him
again. I'm just glad that all this evil is over, and my life can move on."
While striking a major blow to his chances to succeed on appeal, the Supreme
Court's ruling doesn't end the court actions on his behalf.
Riley recently filed a motion to have Jenkins removed from death row because
state officials have declared him incompetent and in need of forced
medications. This ruling didn’t address that request.
Riley noted a couple of ironies coming out of the Nebraska Supreme Court
ruling. One, the high court noted that there was ample evidence to support the
three-judge panel's conclusion that Jenkins was feigning mental illness for
secondary gain, such as to try to get transferred to different prisons.
At the same time, Nebraska prison officials — including doctors and
psychologists — have recently declared that Jenkins is psychotic and is in need
of forced medication. In the past week, Jenkins cut his throat — the latest in
a series of self-mutilations.
"The irony of this is the (professionals) who are now dealing with him in
prison are unanimously saying he has a mental illness," Riley said. "Not only
that, they are saying we need to be able to forcibly medicate him so that we
can make him healthy enough to be executed.
"The word 'irony' doesn't even do justice to what that entails."
In Friday's ruling, the Nebraska Supreme Court addressed several of Riley and
Jenkins' arguments about whether Jenkins truly is severely mentally ill, what
effect his extensive stay in solitary confinement had on him, whether a
mentally ill defendant can be executed and the legality of the death penalty.
Jenkins was convicted of: the Aug. 11, 2013 killiings of Jorge Cajiga-Ruiz and
Juan Uribe-Pena after his sister and cousin lured them to an Omaha park on the
pretense of sex; the Aug. 19, 2013, killing of Bradford, who served time in
prison at the same time as Jenkins, after luring Bradford on the pretext of
committing a robbery; and the Aug. 21, 2013, killing of Andrea Kruger, a wife
and mother of 3, near 168th and Fort Streets.
Jenkins' court case was so wild, so unconventional and so long that Nebraska
lawmakers repealed the death penalty, a ballot initiative was undertaken and
Nebraska voters eventually restored it — all while Jenkins was awaiting his
fate. Those twists and turns led Riley to challenge whether Jenkins should have
even been eligible for the death penalty.
The Supreme Court rejected that argument.
"Less than 3 years ago, Nebraskans had the opportunity to eliminate the death
penalty and 61 percent voted to retain capital punishment," Justice William
Cassel wrote. "The judiciary bears no license to end a debate reserved for the
people and their representatives. In Nebraska, the people have spoken."
The high court addressed several other issues that have dogged Jenkins' case.
Is he severely mentally ill?
The court spent dozens of pages addressing Jenkins' dueling diagnoses — and
pointed to facts that seem to debunk the idea that he hears voices, including
those of a serpent god.
In short: about half of the psychologists and psychiatrists who have examined
Jenkins have diagnosed him as psychotic or schizophrenic. The other half have
determined that he is faking those mental illnesses for secondary benefit, such
as to excuse his criminal behavior, to obtain different placement in prison or,
at one point, for his hope that he would receive government disability payments
upon his release.
The high court noted that the 3-judge death-penalty panel — including the trial
judge, Peter Bataillon — sided with psychiatrists who concluded that Jenkins
was malingering. One notion that the high court took aim at: the defense's
contention that Jenkins spoke of hearing voices when he was 8 years old.
Defense experts have pointed to that psychiatrist's note as proof that Jenkins'
psychosis is long-standing.
The problem: Questioned further, 8-year-old Nikko told the doctor that the
voices he was talking about were actual voices of older neighborhood boys who
told him to steal a bicycle.
"There is no doubt that Jenkins exhibited abnormal behaviors," the high court
wrote. "A previous report had said (Jenkins) heard voices telling him to do bad
things. On further inquiry, (Jenkins) said these are real voices of these older
boys, and he only hears them when the boys are there with him. There was no
evidence of psychosis or auditory hallucinations."
Did state prison officials, by keeping him in solitary confinement for years,
create a monster that they're now trying to execute?
Riley argued that Jenkins should not have been put on death row because prison
officials had improperly isolated Jenkins during his 1st prison stint after he
committed two carjackings when he was 15 and 16. Riley noted that Jenkins
killed these four Omahans within three weeks of his release from a prison term
that saw him spend six of his 10 years in solitary confinement.
Jenkins himself has advanced this argument. In his eight-hour confession with
detectives, he told them: "The Nebraska Department of Corrections is so
responsible. This is equivalent to me being a pit bull that they pull off that
chain and whoever it hurt, you’re responsible for it. Because you knew the
danger of the animal, knew the danger that you created in that cell.”
The high court agreed that expert studies have shown that "years on end of
near-total isolation exact a terrible price."
"Here, Jenkins' own actions led to his disciplinary segregation," the court
wrote. "The Department of Correctional Services must have some recourse to deal
with an inmate who does such things as manufacture a weapon from a toilet
brush...assault staff, attempt to escape...The sentencing panel acted
reasonably in not rewarding such behavior."
The plea hearing
Jenkins' hearings were often described as circuses — in which Jenkins tried to
dominate the proceedings and sometimes claimed to be speaking in tongues to an
Egyptian serpent god.
In one hearing, he called County Attorney Kleine and a World-Herald reporter to
the stand, which is unusual. Even more unusual, Judge Bataillon allowed him to
call both witnesses. The lead prosecutor isn't a witness; and the shield law
typically precludes a reporter from taking the stand.
Jenkins' plea hearing was the climactic example of business as unusual in
Jenkins' case.
After Judge Bataillon allowed Jenkins to act as his own legal counsel, Jenkins
declared that he wanted to plead no contest to the killings.
The judge informed him he would have to plead guilty rather than “no contest.”
Jenkins initially pleaded guilty but said he couldn’t remember shooting each of
the victims. He stopped short anytime he got close to describing the actual
killings — sometimes bursting into garbled speech in which he claimed to be
talking to his serpent god.
Faced with a defendant who wouldn’t describe his guilty actions, Bataillon
rethought his original stance, relented and allowed Jenkins to plead no
contest. Under no contest pleas, prosecutors give the factual basis of the
murder charges.
Riley argued that the judge's changing conditions in which he would accept
Jenkins' plea essentially robbed Jenkins of a fair hearing. Riley also argued
that Jenkins never should have been allowed to represent himself.
The high court ruled that Bataillon properly informed Jenkins of his rights and
properly ruled that Jenkins was able to understand the proceedings against him
and represent himself.
What's next?
Beyond the appeal, Riley has filed a couple of motions to try to get Jenkins
off of death row on the suggestion that he is severely mentally ill and, thus,
incapable of being executed.
Riley noted that Corrections Department psychiatrists and psychologists have
twice in the past year found that Jenkins is "psychotic, delusional, acting
upon command hallucinations and is seriously mentally ill."
Jenkins has a history of cutting himself, including his private parts,
tattooing his face and carving his skin with Satan, Hitler and 666 666 (though
it came out backwards because he was looking into a mirror.)
Riley accused Corrections director Scott Frakes of failing to "carry out his
statutory duty to notify the District Court of Douglas County of defendant's
mental illness."
Under state law: "If any convicted person under sentence of death shall appear
to be incompetent, the Director of Correctional Services shall forthwith give
notice thereof to a judge of the district court of the judicial district in
which the convicted person was tried and sentenced."
A hearing on Corrections' placement of Jenkins and use of forced medications is
set for August.
(source: Omaha World-Herald)
*********************
NE Sup. Court says Nikko Jenkins' death sentence will stand
The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed the Douglas County District Court
convictions and sentencings for Nikko Jenkins.
Jenkins is currently on death row for the murders of Jorge Ruiz, Juan Pena,
Curtis Bradford, and Andrea Kruger in a 10-day span in August 2013 shortly
after being released from prison.
Court documents indicate he argued that he was not competent to enter pleas of
no contest on his own behalf, and that he shouldn't have been allowed to
proceed in his own defense. Jenkins also said the death penalty is cruel and
unusual punishment, and that the 3-judge panel did not give meaningful
consideration to his claims of mental illness.
The Nebraska Supreme Court stated that testimony and evidence was given as to
whether Jenkins had an actual mental illness or if he was faking.
"In light of the conflicting evidence, they gave weight to the expert evidence
reflecting that Jenkins suffered from a personality disorder and was feigning
mental illness. We find no error in that regard."
"We cannot say that the district court abused its discretion in finding Jenkins
to be competent to waive counsel, to enter no contest pleas, to proceed to
sentencing, and to be sentenced to death." The Supreme Court concluded."
Jenkins is currently housed at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution.
(source: KMTV news)
SOUTH DAKOTA:
The death penalty in SD
South Dakota has the death penalty just as 28 other states do. In order for the
death penalty to be sought in South Dakota, one of 10 separate aggravating
circumstances must be met. The first execution in South Dakota was in 1877 when
Jack McCall was hanged for murdering Wild Bill Hickok. South Dakota has
executed 18 murderers since then.
The death penalty is punishment for murder, not for any other reason. South
Dakota used hanging until 1947, then the electric chair until 1984 and lethal
injection since. Our death penalty was abolished in 1915 and reinstated in 1939
and declared unconstitutional from 1972-1979. Since 1979, 4 executions have
been conducted and 6 death penalties awarded, even though South Dakota has had
over 200 reported murders since 1979.
Many folks wonder why the death penalty is so rarely sought, even though most
murders in South Dakota meet the requirements for it. In fairness to our
prosecutors, it should be pointed out that in many other states deals are made
with murderers to avoid the death penalty. It also should be noted that South
Dakota has never had a death row inmate found innocent prior to or after
execution.
David Hall, Box Elder
(source: Letter to the Editor, Rapid City Journal)
CALIFORNIA:
75 Law Professors and Scholars Call on LA County DA to Stop Seeking the Death
Penalty
On Wednesday, a group of more than 75 law professors and other legal experts
issued an open letter urging Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey to put
a stop to the death penalty system in LA.
Months after California Governor Gavin Newsom issued a moratorium on the death
penalty and dismantled the state’s execution chamber, Los Angeles District
Attorney Jackie Lacey has continued to seek the death penalty in certain murder
cases.
DA Lacey “seeks the death penalty with an enthusiasm and consistency unmatched
by many of her counterparts across the country,” the letter said. “The nexus of
capital punishment in this country resides not in Texas, Georgia, or Oklahoma,
but in Los Angeles County, California.”
LA County has, in fact, been responsible for more death sentences per capita
than any other large county in Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas,
Utah, or Washington, over the last 5 years, according to an ACLU white paper
released last month. Nearly 1/3 of California’s more than 700 prisoners on
death row were sentenced to die in LA County. And between 2014 and 2018, Los
Angeles, neighboring Riverside, and Maricopa, Arizona were the only 3 counties
in the nation that sentenced more than 10 people to death per year.
While Lacey has championed mental health diversion since her 2012 election,
lately she has faced a growing chorus of accusations that she has not held law
enforcement officers accountable for alleged excessive–fatal– uses of force,
and is not the criminal justice reformer that many hoped to elect. (Lacey may
soon face a challenge for her position from San Francisco District Attorney
George Gascón, who is arguably one of the most reform-focused district
attorneys of any large jurisdiction in California.)
Across the nation, Wednesday’s open letter stated, “we execute not the worst of
the worst, as the Supreme Court has mandated, but society’s most vulnerable and
least lucky”–people with severe intellectual disabilities, mental illnesses,
histories of “unspeakable sexual or physical abuse,” or a combination of these
circumstances.
Moreover, legal defense is often “ineffective”–and even “deplorable”–in capital
cases, according to the professors and scholars. “In trial after trial, lawyers
fail to provide effective representation for their clients,” the letter said.
“They conduct no investigation into the case, spend little time with the client
or their family, and often present little to no testimony at trial or during
the sentencing phase.” Thus, mental illnesses, low IQs, extreme trauma, and
other impairments can go “unacknowledged by counsel and, as a result, unknown
by jurors deciding” defendants’ fates.
Even more troubling, is the fact that more than 165 innocent people have been
freed from death row since 1973 after being wrongfully convicted. Substandard
legal defense is often, at least partially, to blame, along with prosecutorial
misconduct, faulty eyewitness testimony, and bad police work.
Out of the 22 people for whom the DA’s Office has procured death sentences
since Lacey’s inauguration, five were represented by lawyers who had been
suspended or disbarred. “One lawyer is currently under investigation by the
state licensing agency, and two of the accused represented themselves, a
frequent sign of a person with a defense team ill-equipped to handle mental
illness or the seriousness of the work,” according to the legal experts. “Only
three men received representation from institutional public defense
organizations–offices with specialized training and staff dedicated to capital
cases. Luck of the draw should not determine whether a person lives or dies–but
in Los Angeles, it does.”
In her July newsletter, Lacey defended her stance on the death penalty.
“Dear Friends,” Lacey wrote, “This month, I would like to talk about the death
penalty.”
Capital punishment, Lacey said, “should be reserved for the worst of the worst
offenders.”
Among the people whom Lacey’s prosecutors have secured death penalty
convictions, is Isauro Aguirre who, along with his girlfriend, Pearl Fernandez,
subjected her 8-year-old son, Gabriel Fernandez, to long-term torture, before
killing him. Lacey’s letter highlighted seven other LA County-prosecuted death
row cases most of which involved horrible, multiple murders.
“These families grieve for their loved ones and look to me for justice,” Lacey
said. “They, like every resident of Los Angeles County, expect their
prosecutors to follow the law.” And voters have failed to abolish the death
penalty twice in recent years, leaving the death penalty an option for
prosecutors who continue to seek it. (Despite this, the state has not executed
anyone since 2006 because of problems with lethal injection protocols.)
None of the 22 people whom the LA County DA’s Office has sentenced to death
since Lacey’s election have been white, critics have also pointed out. Lacey,
in her letter, argued that her “prosecutors make decisions based on the facts
of the crime – not the race of the defendant or the victim,” adding that both
defendants and victims in LA County’s capital cases have been racially diverse.
“We will continue to carefully review these cases and I will follow the law as
prescribed by the people of California – whether that is seeking the death
penalty for the most heinous crimes or, if the death penalty is abolished, life
in prison without the possibility of parole.”
The law professors and scholars say that DA Lacey should follow the lead of
Gov. Newsom and several other jurisdictions that have issued moratoriums on
capital punishment, which so often reaches a level that is unconstitutionally
cruel and unusual.
“A prosecutor’s job, first and foremost, is to seek justice and uphold the
constitution,” the letter concludes. “By leading the nation in its use of the
death penalty, the District Attorney’s office in Los Angeles violates its
solemn oath. We call on the office to end the county’s experiment with the
broken machinery of death.”
(source: witnessla.com)
*******************************
California Supreme Court to Consider Petition to Halt Capital Prosecutions
Calling Governor Gavin Newsom’s moratorium on executions a “paradigm shift” in
the death-penalty landscape, a defendant facing the death penalty in Los
Angeles has petitioned the California Supreme Court to halt capital
prosecutions in the state. On July 1, 2019, lawyers for Cleamon Johnson—whose
death penalty trial is scheduled to begin in January 2020—have filed a pretrial
petition for review, arguing that capital juries “cannot be expected to provide
a fair and reasoned penalty-phase determination free from speculation” about
whether a death sentence would ever be carried out.
The petition is based on the 1985 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Caldwell v.
Mississippi, which held that “It is constitutionally impermissible to rest a
death sentence on a determination made by a sentencer who has been led to
believe that the responsibility for determining the appropriateness of the
defendant’s death rests elsewhere.” It argues that because of the moratorium,
jurors will “be unable to assume a death sentence will result in an execution
and be unable to comprehend fully the gravity of their decision.” This, it
argues, creates a constitutionally unacceptable risk that jurors might impose a
death sentence merely to “send a message,” delegating to the courts the
ultimate responsibility for whether a defendant should live or be condemned to
die.
Robert Sanger, Johnson’s lead defense attorney, said the decision is important
not only for Johnson but for other defendants facing potential death-penalty
charges. “If the courts don’t take a serious look at it before we have a whole
slew of additional trials,” he told the Sacramento Bee, “we’re not only going
to spend a whole lot of money now, they may have to be redone.” Prosecutors
filed their response to the petition on July 16, arguing that standard jury
instructions are adequate to address Johnson’s concerns. “Jurors are routinely
asked to set aside these types of things in order to reach a just verdict based
on the evidence and the law,” prosecutors wrote. “The real goal of this
petition is to turn Governor Newsom’s moratorium, which is nominally a
‘reprieve,’ into a judicial abolition of the death penalty in California.”
Johnson’s lawyers are seeking expedited review of the petition, to avoid any
prejudice that could result if his case went to trial before the issue is
resolved. “This important issue of law should be decided now,” they wrote.
“Otherwise, this case will proceed to trial with the time-consuming and
expensive task of death qualifying the jury. This not only wastes government
resources and those of all of the participants, but it consumes a tremendous
amount of time for prospective jurors.” The petition argues that empaneling a
jury before the court decides this issue would be especially prejudicial to
Johnson and other capital defendants because of the unique
“death-qualification” process for selecting death-penalty juries, which
excludes jurors from service unless they swear under oath that they are willing
to impose a death sentence. Johnson’s petition contends that
“death-qualification, if it is not necessary, violates equal protection in that
it eliminates a disproportionate number of women and African Americans. It also
violates due process in that it skews a jury in the guilt and innocence phase
in favor of conviction, and against due process itself, as well as women,
racial minorities, gays, the elderly, and the physically disabled.”
San Mateo District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe, a former head of the California
District Attorneys Association, said the issue is “a smart point for them to
bring up.” However, he said, “we think the answer is one that has been dealt
with before.”
Although California has not had an execution since 2006, it has the largest
death row in the United States and has imposed more death sentences than any
other state in 4 of the last 5 years. The high number of death sentences has
been driven largely by five southern California counties, including Los Angeles
County, where Johnson is being tried. A recent study by the ACLU showed that,
like Johnson, all 22 people sentenced to death in Los Angeles under the
administration of the current District Attorney have been people of color.
(source: Death Penalty Information Center)
******************************
The attorneys were about two weeks into choosing a jury in an upcoming
triple-murder trial when they had to toss out the work they’d done and send the
potential jurors home.
The California Supreme Court essentially froze the death penalty trial of Jade
Douglas Harris, which was set to start this month, as it decides whether it
will consider an argument by his defense attorney that he can’t get a fair
trial in light of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s moratorium on executions in the state.
The court has until Aug. 30 to decide whether to take up a matter that could
result in essentially blocking death penalty trials in California while the
moratorium is in effect during Newsom’s term.
Public defenders representing Harris, who is accused in a shooting rampage that
left 3 people dead and 2 others wounded, argue that jurors must believe that
when they hand down a death sentence, it will be carried out.
Harris is charged with killing 3 people in Downey after responding to a
Craigslist ad from a family selling their Chevy Camaro. He has pleaded not
guilty.
The attorneys say a fair decision is impossible given that Newsom granted a
reprieve to the more than 700 prisoners on death row and had the state’s
execution chamber dismantled — with much fanfare in front of cameras.
“It’s just really impossible for a jury to go into a jury room and say, ‘We’re
going to ignore that,’” said Robert Sanger, a defense attorney who first made
this argument on behalf of a defendant in a separate, unrelated capital case in
Los Angeles County.
Sanger’s client is Cleamon Johnson, a gang leader known as “Big Evil” who is
charged with 5 counts of murder in a case coming up for trial in January.
“The jury making that order has to really believe it because if they don’t,
they could be cavalier about it and just say, ‘Well, let’s send a message.… We
know [the death sentence] is never going to happen, but let’s do it anyway,’”
Sanger said.
Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School, said there’s a real risk to
the accused if that is the mindset of jurors.
“The question is likely to be is there any kind of instruction or precautionary
steps that a trial judge can take to prevent that from occurring,” she said.
It’s hard to predict what the court will decide, Levenson said, but its stay in
the Harris case signals that the state’s highest justices are taking his
petition seriously.
“It’s not a frivolous issue,” she said.
Kent S. Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation,
said he was disappointed the court was seriously considering what he called a
“meritless argument.”
“Newsom’s moratorium only lasts for the duration of his term as governor.
Nobody sentenced today would be executed within the next 7 years anyway,” said
Scheidegger, whose organization backed a measure to speed up executions in
California. “And everybody pretty much knows that.”
Prosecutors in Johnson’s case said in court papers that any of his concerns can
be handled through appropriate jury instructions and during voir dire, when
jurors are questioned before the trial to determine their fitness. They argued
that concerns about fairness can also be assessed on appeal.
“Jurors are routinely asked to set aside these types of things in order to
reach a just verdict based on the evidence and the law,” prosecutors wrote.
A Los Angeles County district attorney’s office spokeswoman said in a statement
that the law hasn’t changed, and until it does, prosecutors will “continue to
fairly evaluate all special circumstance cases and seek death against the worst
of the worst offenders, including child murderers and serial killers.”
Newsom’s office did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
California has not had an execution since 2006. In March, Newsom issued his
controversial moratorium on death row executions in the state, which has the
largest death row in the nation.
“The law is the law and this is crystal clear: The Constitution of the state of
California provides the governor the ability to reprieve, the ability do this
moratorium,” Newsom said at the time. “My ultimate goal is to end the death
penalty in California.”
Critics said he was defying the will of voters who in 2016 approved Proposition
66, a statewide ballot measure to fast-track executions in California. During
that same election, voters rejected a separate ballot measure — Proposition 62
— to abolish the death penalty, marking the second time since 2012 that
Californians voted against repealing capital punishment.
Newsom had argued that the death penalty discriminates against people of color
and defendants who are poor or mentally ill, a point that has been echoed by
civil rights advocates.
The American Civil Liberties Union recently published a report that said all of
the 22 people sentenced to death in L.A. County since Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey
took office in December 2012 are people of color.
(source: Los Angeles Times)
*****************************
Officials: Dad may face death penalty for driving sons with severe autism off
pier, killing them
The California father whose 2 sons with autism died after he drove off a wharf
in the Port of Los Angeles has been charged with capital murder, the Los
Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced.
Ali Elmezayen, 45, of Hawthorne, California, was charged Wednesday with 2
counts of murder and 1 count of attempted murder, the DA's office said.
On April 9, 2015, Elmezayen drove a vehicle -- with his wife and 2 sons inside
-- off the LA port into San Pedro Bay. The defendant escaped the submerged car
through his open window. His wife, Rabab Diab, could not swim but survived when
a nearby fisherman threw her a life preserver. The couple's sons, 13-year-old
Elhassan and 8-year-old Abdelkrim, drowned, according to the US Attorney's
Office of the Central District of California.
Court documents describe the 2 sons as "suffer[ing] from severe autism."
Elmezayen and Diab also have a 3rd son, Elhussein. He "was also diagnosed with
autism but was high functioning" and "was away at an overnight camp through his
high school" when the family car plummeted into the water, according to the
legal documents.
When questioned following the incident, Elmezayen told police that he may have
accidentally pressed the accelerator or that he may have passed out as a result
of medication he took 2 days earlier related to his medical condition,
Thalassemia Minor, according to official testimony cited in the case. (Some
patients with this inherited blood disorder that causes fatigue are treated
with deferasirox, a medicine known to cause side effects, though fainting is
not a common one.)
Couple files suit
About a year later, in May 2016, Elmezayen and Diab filed a lawsuit against the
city of Los Angeles and several government entities, according to CNN affiliate
KCAL-TV.
The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, sought unspecified damages on
allegations of wrongful death, dangerous condition of a public property, and
negligence, among other charges, KCAL-TV reported. The lawsuit also made
allegations against the car manufacturer and an auto maintenance store. The
court ruled in favor of the defendants in October, a later statement from the
court noted.
In November 2018, Elmezayen was arrested by the FBI and charged with four
counts of mail fraud, four counts of wire fraud, one count of aggravated
identity theft (for posing as his wife in calls to the insurance companies) and
five counts of money laundering, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office of the
Central District of California. The district attorney's office alleges that
Elmezayen had schemed to collect proceeds of life insurance policies he had
purchased on the lives of his wife and sons.
Elmezayen allegedly purchased several life and accidental death insurance
policies providing coverage on himself, his wife and their three children in
2012 and 2013, according to the grand jury indictment, which also claims that
Elmezayen collected more than $260,000 from accidental death insurance policies
he had taken out on the children's lives.
"This case alleges a calculated and cold-hearted scheme to profit off the
deaths of two helpless children," U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna said in a statement.
"The alleged conduct shocks the conscience, and we will use every tool
available to us to ensure that justice is done."
He could face the death penalty if convicted
Currently, Elmezayen is in federal custody on the insurance fraud charges and
his trial is scheduled to begin on September 3. Once that case is completed, he
will be tried on the murder charges with the special circumstance allegations
that the crimes were carried out for financial gain.
If convicted, he faces a possible maximum sentence of life in state prison
without the possibility of parole or death. A decision on whether to seek the
death penalty will be made at a later date, according to the DA's office.
The district attorney's office, which declined a previous case against
Elmezayen in December 2017, would not comment on the new charges against the
defendant.
Diab and the public defenders listed on court documents for Elmezayen's case
have not responded to CNN's request for comment.
(source: KOAT news)
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