Sept. 12
NEBRASKA:
Nebraska county OKs sales tax to pay wrongfully convicted
A Nebraska county that owes more than $30 million to 6 people wrongfully
convicted of murder approved a new half-cent sales tax Wednesday to help pay
the legal judgment, but the former prisoners still will have to wait at least 6
years to collect the full amount they’re owed.
The Gage County Board of Supervisors voted 7-0 to impose the sales tax, which
will generate an additional $1.3 million annually to cover the county’s debt.
Known as the Beatrice 6, the ex-inmates spent more than 70 years in prison
collectively for a 1985 rape and killing in Beatrice, Nebraska, about 40 miles
(64 kilometres) south of Lincoln. DNA evidence exonerated them in 2008.
They sued Gage County the following year, alleging that the county ran a
reckless investigation. A federal jury awarded them $28.1 million in 2016, plus
interest and attorney fees that raise the total to more than $30 million. The
county wasn’t properly insured when the six were convicted, and its appeals
were all rejected. That left officials with no choice but to pay the judgment.
Now that the county has to pay it, “we’re trying to find ways to fund this as
best as possible and take some of the burden off the landowner,” said County
Board Chairman Erich Tiemann, according to the Beatrice Daily Sun.
Gage County has already raised its property tax as high as legally allowed and
has started making $3.8 million a year in payments, but county officials say
relying on property taxes alone isn’t fair to farmers whose land requires them
to pay much more than homeowners and renters.
The new tax is intended to ease that burden and possibly allow the county to
pay the judgment in 6 years instead of 8. Starting Jan. 1, anyone who buys $100
worth of taxable goods or services in Gage County will pay an extra 50 cents to
help with the judgment.
Even with the extra funding, the surviving members of the Beatrice 6 will
likely have to wait years to receive everything they’re owed. One of the six
was killed in a 2011 factory accident in Alabama, and several others are aging
and have health problems.
Attorneys for the 6 weren’t immediately available for comment.
The board’s vote followed a newly enacted state law tailored to Gage County’s
situation that allows counties to impose a sales tax to pay off a legal
judgment without putting the issue on the ballot, as is normally required.
Lawmakers approved the measure over the veto of Gov. Pete Ricketts, who argued
that voter approval should have been required.
“It’s something that should definitely help the property owners in Gage
County,” said state Sen. Myron Dorn, a former Gage County supervisor who
sponsored the law.
It’s unlikely that voters would approve a sales tax increase because many
didn’t live in the county when authorities were investigating the killing, and
some residents still believe the 6 were involved even though state officials
have declared them innocent. Some of the 6 have been diagnosed with mental
health problems and were coerced into confessing with threats of capital
punishment.
Both the sales and property taxes will expire once the judgment is paid in
full.
(source: Associated Press)
WYOMING:
Dale Wayne Eaton considering U.S. Supreme Court appeal, lawyer tells Natrona
County judge
A Wyoming man convicted of the kidnapping, rape and murder of a teenage woman
more than 30 years ago may still appeal his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, his
lawyer told a Natrona County judge on Tuesday afternoon.
Sean O’Brien, the Kansas City, Missouri, lawyer and law professor who has led
Dale Wayne Eaton’s recent post-conviction appeals, made the statement by phone
to Judge Daniel Forgey during a mid-afternoon scheduling conference in Natrona
County District Court that spanned about 10 minutes. The conference marked the
first hearing in the state court since a regional federal appeals court issued
an opinion this summer that declined to prevent prosecutors from seeking
Eaton’s death.
Eaton, now 74, has asked the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Denver, to
reconsider its opinion.
The Wyoming attorney general’s office has until the end of the week to reply to
the request. If the case returns to the state court, Eaton may again defend
himself against the death penalty. On Aug. 5, about two weeks after the 10th
Circuit’s decision, Natrona County District Attorney Dan Itzen filed paperwork
indicating he would seek Eaton’s capital punishment.
The same day, he filed request for the status conference.
Neither Itzen nor Eaton appeared in court Tuesday. In the prosecutor’s stead
were assistant district attorneys Mike Schafer and Kevin Taheri, who spoke only
briefly. O’Brien appeared by phone with Lindsay Runnels, also of Kansas City,
and Terry Harris, who practices in Cheyenne. O’Brien told Forgey a federal
district court stay on proceedings in the lower court remains in place; he said
a typical re-hearing, as he’d requested from the 10th Circuit, takes a month or
2.
The lawyer then noted that Eaton’s legal team is considering requesting review
of the case by the U.S. Supreme Court.
“That is a possibility, at this point, that we’re considering,” the Kansas City
lawyer said over the court phone. He did not say what factors he and co-counsel
were considering. O’Brien did not immediately respond to an early Tuesday
evening phone call requesting comment for this story.
Taheri then told the judge that the attorney general’s office — which has
handled the appellate case — agreed that the federal stay remains in effect.
O’Brien told Forgey he would inform the judge of any updates from appellate
courts, and the judge concluded the hearing.
The proceedings are the latest in a case that has largely been active in
federal courts since Eaton’s 2004 conviction for the 1988 kidnapping, rape and
murder of a woman. Although a jury found Eaton should be put to death, he spent
a decade on death row before a judge ordered in 2014 he should be re-sentenced.
A hearing to determine a new sentence has not yet been held.
Although authorities began investigating Lisa Marie Kimmell’s death shortly
after her body turned up in the North Platte River, investigators were
unsuccessful for a decade. In 1998, after Eaton was convicted of assault and
sent to Wyoming State Penitentiary, authorities found Eaton’s DNA linked him to
Kimmell’s body. In 2002, authorities unearthed Kimmell’s car on Eaton’s
property in Moneta, about an hour from Casper.
In 2003, the Natrona County District Attorney’s Office charged Eaton with
Kimmell’s death, and in early 2004 jurors convicted him of 1st-degree
premeditated murder, felony murder, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated robbery
and 1st-degree sexual assault. Days later, the jury found Eaton should be put
to death.
(source: Casper Star Tribune)
NEVADA:
Prosecutors to seek death penalty for 2 in Aryan Warriors case
Prosecutors announced Wednesday that they plan to seek the death penalty for 2
of the 23 defendants tied to a violent white supremacist Nevada prison gang.
Anthony Williams, 36, and Tarik “Torque” Goicoechea, 34, are suspected of
stabbing a fellow inmate to death before Williams was freed from High Desert
State Prison without facing criminal charges in the killing.
Williams, who goes by the nickname “Mugsy,” was not charged in the slaying
until last month, more than half a year after he was tried and convicted for
his role in a string of robberies across Clark County that occurred after his
release.
Prosecutors said they plan to seek capital punishment for both Williams and
Goicoechea. Both men pleaded not guilty Wednesday.
A sweeping indictment against reputed members of the Aryan Warriors was
recently unsealed as a result of an investigation by a gang task force with
representatives from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Department of
Homeland Security, the Clark County district attorney’s office, the
Metropolitan Police Department, North Las Vegas police, the U.S. Marshals
Service, the Nye County Sheriff’s Office and the Nevada Department of
Corrections.
The defendants, many of whom appeared in court Wednesday afternoon, face
charges ranging from murder and robbery to drug trafficking and racketeering.
The indictment was the 1st time prosecutors publicly linked Williams and
Goicoechea to the slaying of 26-year-old Andrew Thurgood.
Authorities have declined to say why it took more than 3 years to charge
Williams, a felon with convictions dating back to 2001, and Goicoechea in the
February 2016 death of Thurgood, who was serving time at the prison for
attempted possession of a stolen vehicle.
No other crimes listed in the indictment occurred before January.
Among those indicted were the gang’s reputed leader, known as the “horn
holder,” 37-year-old Robert “Coco” Standridge, who is being held at High Desert
State Prison, and Zackaria “Lil Dog” Luz, known as the gang’s “street captain,”
or 2nd in command. He also is imprisoned at High Desert.
2 of the men named in the indictment, Devin “Soup” Campbell, 24, and
Christopher “Bullwinkle” Ashoff, 38, have been tied to killings in Las Vegas
that occurred earlier this year.
(source: Las Vegas Review-Journal)
ARIZONA:
Court: Death-row inmate should get new chance to show lawyer failed him
A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that an Arizona death-row inmate should
have another chance to prove his attorney did not fully investigate evidence of
his intellectual disabilities in his trial for a 1989 Phoenix double-murder.
A 3-judge panel on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said there is a
“reasonable probability” that David Ramirez’s sentencing would have been
different if his attorney at the time had presented evidence of the defendant’s
low IQ and a history of abuse, sexual assault, neglect and developmental
issues.
“The (sentencing) judge did find several mitigating factors, and only three
aggravating factors,” Chief Judge Sidney Thomas wrote in his opinion. “Had the
evidence of a mental impairment been introduced, as well as the evidence of the
level of abuse Ramirez suffered, there is a substantial claim that the judge
‘would have struck a different balance.'”
The U.S. Attorney’s office for Arizona did not respond to request for comment
on the case Wednesday. But Tim Gabrielsen, an assistant federal public defender
for Arizona, said that while he welcomed the decision, “it’s regrettable that
it took this long” to reach this point.
Ramirez has spent nearly 30 years on death row for the stabbing deaths of his
girlfriend, Mary Gortarez, and her 15-year-old daughter, Candie, in Gortarez’s
Phoenix apartment on May 25, 1989.
Police were called to the apartment that morning by neighbors who reported
hearing thuds and sounds of struggle for around half an hour. When they
arrived, police found what appeared to be the scene of a violent struggle with
Ramirez “apparently intoxicated” and covered in blood, which was splattered
throughout the apartment.
Gortarez was found on the living room floor, stabbed 18 times in the neck,
back, stomach and left eye. Candie’s naked body was found in a bedroom, stabbed
15 times around her neck. Neither victim died immediately and records say
Ramirez sexually assaulted Candie before she died.
A jury convicted Ramirez guilty on two counts of first-degree murder in
December 1990.
At sentencing, Ramirez presented a sentencing report that talked about his
chaotic childhood, a history of sexual and substance abuse, a poor school
record and the fact that his state of mind was muddled at time of the murders
by drugs and alcohol. 3 family members testified to varying levels of maternal
support for Ramirez, and two prison guards said he was a good worker in prison.
The sentencing judge agreed there were several mitigating factors for Ramirez,
but also found three aggravating factors: two previous felony convictions,
multiple murders and the “especially cruel, heinous or depraved manner” of the
killings. He sentenced Ramirez to death.
In his most recent appeals, however, Ramirez has argued that the public
defender who represented him at trial – who had never handled a capital case
before – failed to investigate and present evidence that would have weighed in
his favor.
The attorney agreed, saying in later court filings that she was unprepared to
represent “someone as mentally disturbed as David Ramirez, especially in a
capital case.” She relied on the psychologist’s finding that Ramirez was “well
within the average range of intelligence.”
But they psychologist said he would not have reached the findings he did if the
attorney had presented him with fuller records on Ramirez’s background. Those
would have led to different tests that showed Ramirez with an IQ in the 70 to
77 range.
The appeals court said the evidence presented at Ramirez’s sentencing painted a
“relatively innocuous” picture compared to what later emerged.
Family members who were subsequently contacted said Ramirez had little
relationship with his mother, who routinely beat him with “anything she could
get her hands on, including electrical cords and shoes.” She reportedly drank
while pregnant with Ramirez and told family members she would put beer in
Ramirez’s bottle when he was young.
He was often left in charge of younger siblings, one of whom died of exposure
after their mother left them at home without heat one night while she went out
partying. Family members noted developmental delays in the young Ramirez, who
did not know how to comb his hair or use utensils, for example.
The appeals court ordered the case back to district court to more fully
investigate Ramirez’s claim of an ineffective attorney. It turned down his
other appeals, including a claim that courts improperly rejected his mitigating
circumstances, and refused to grant permission for other issues.
In a partial dissent, however, Judge Marsha Berzon wrote that Ramirez should be
allowed to pursue his claim that he should not receive the death penalty
because he is intellectually disabled.
Gabrielsen agreed, saying Berzon’s dissent could be the basis of a future
appeal.
“I think she hit it right on the head,” he said. “I think she was absolutely on
the money.”
(source: cronkitenews.azpbs.org)
CALIFORNIA:
California Supreme Court declines to take up L.A. death penalty cases
The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to consider whether Gov. Gavin
Newsom’s moratorium on executions prejudices capital defendants.
Meeting in closed session, the state high court declined to review two Los
Angeles County cases in which defendants face the death penalty.
The court issued a short order that did not explain the justices’ thinking, but
the action means that the court is unlikely to weigh in on other cases in which
defense attorneys claim that jurors considering a death sentence might be
swayed by the moratorium.
Prosecutors can now move forward with the 2 Los Angeles County cases, one of
which had been put on hold.
Attorneys representing Jade Douglas Harris, who is accused in a shooting
rampage that left three people dead and two wounded, and Cleamon Johnson, a
gang leader known as “Big Evil” who is charged with 5 counts of murder, had
argued that a fair decision would be 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.
Jurors, they argue, might be more likely to favor the death penalty if they
don’t believe it would actually be carried out.
“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,’”
Johnson’s attorney, Robert Sanger, has said.
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.
Harris’ trial had been set to begin in July. Attorneys on both sides were about
2 weeks into choosing a jury when they had to toss out the work they’d done and
send the potential jurors home while waiting for the high court to weigh in.
California, which has the largest death row in the nation, has not had an
execution since 2006. In March, Newsom issued his controversial moratorium on
death row executions in the state.
“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 objected that 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 2nd time
since 2012 that Californians voted against repealing capital punishment.
(source: Los Angeles Times)
*******************
Court won't block death penalty trials despite moratorium
The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to block death penalty cases
from proceeding during Gov. Gavin Newsom's moratorium on executions.
The justices rejected defense attorneys' arguments that jurors can't
realistically gauge the seriousness of imposing a death sentence if they think
it's never actually going to be carried out. Attorneys for 2 men separately
facing trials in multiple slayings say it's unfair to ask jurors to consider
what for now would be hypothetical sentences.
"In light of this paradigm shift, a California jury in a capital case cannot be
expected to provide a fair and reasoned penalty phase determination free from
speculation," defense attorney Robert Sanger wrote on behalf of his client,
Cleamon Demone Johnson.
He is awaiting trial on 5 counts of capital murder and one of attempted murder.
An appeals court said they were "6 casualties of the gang wars between the
Bloods and the Crips in the early 1990s."
California hasn't executed anyone since 2006. Still, Los Angeles County
prosecutors contend that barring jurors from considering death sentences would
be "tantamount to judicial abolition of the death penalty in violation of the
wishes of California voters."
Voters have repeatedly, if narrowly, supported executions and in 2016 approved
a ballot measure to speed them up. Lawmakers backed by the governor are
considering putting another measure on the November 2020 ballot to repeal the
death penalty.
In July, the justices temporarily halted the case against Jade Douglas Harris.
He could face a death sentence if convicted of charges that he killed three
people and wounded a 13-year-old boy while stealing a car in 2012.
(source: Associated Press)
_______________________________________________
A service courtesy of Washburn University School of Law www.washburnlaw.edu
DeathPenalty mailing list
DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu
http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty
Unsubscribe: http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/options/deathpenalty
