[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., CALIF., USA
July 15 FLORIDA: New video shows murder suspect escaping Broward County Courthouse Deputies are searching for a murder suspect who escaped the Broward County Courthouse. Authorities say Dayonte Resiles slipped out of his jail jumpsuit and handcuffs and escaped at 9:30 a.m. from the courthouse in Fort Lauderdale. Courthouse officials say he was in the process of being unshackled when he broke free. The courthouse is on lockdown, according to the Broward County Sheriff's Office. Deputies are reviewing surveillance video and K-9 units can be seen searching the courthouse. Resiles was last seen wearing a white T-shirt and black shorts. Authorities say he killed a woman in Davie in 2014. Police found her in her home with her hands and feet bound. She had multiple stab wounds. He was in court for a hearing over whether the death penalty applies to his case, according to media reports. (source: WWMT news) CALIFORNIA: Abolish the death penalty; Vote yes on Proposition 62 California's death penalty has been a failure on every level. Capital punishment is barbaric, unfairly applied and does not prevent crime any more effectively than the prospect of life in prison. Since it was reinstated in 1978, the state has spent more than $4 billion on just 13 executions: Imagine if, instead, the money had been spent on education, on rehabilitating young offenders or on catching more murderers, rapists and other violent criminals. That's how to reduce crime and prevent more people from becoming victims. Proposition 62 in November would make California the 20th state to abolish the death penalty in favor of life in prison with no chance of parole. It's time. No, past time. Vote yes. A competing ballot measure, Proposition 66, aims to remedy some of the costs and delays in the current system by speeding up the process of killing convicts. Speed is the hallmark of places like China, where the average length of time on death row is estimated at 50 days. It is the opposite of what nations concerned with actual justice would do. In the United States, for every 10 prisoners who have been executed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1973, 1 person on death row has been set free. One in 10. California has 748 inmates on death row, and the likelihood of uncovering mistakes continues to grow with advances in DNA and other forensics. Why not just lock up killers for life? Costs will plunge. The guilty will never see the daylight of freedom again. District attorneys throughout the state argue that the death penalty is a tool to condemn society's most vicious criminals. But this claim flies in the face of actual evidence: For every year between 2008-2013, the average homicide rate of states without the death penalty was significantly lower than those with capital punishment. Those same district attorneys have unfairly applied the death penalty in California. In the past 10 years, Riverside County has condemned murderers to death row at more than 5 times the statewide rate. Residents of Alameda County are nearly 8 times as likely to be sentenced to death than residents of Santa Clara County. And juries in California are much more likely to recommend a death sentence for a black defendant than a white defendant. The independent Legislative Analysts Office estimates that abolishing the death penalty would reduce state costs by $150 million every year. The money could be used to prevent crime by, as one example, solving more homicide and rape cases, putting away predators who otherwise would claim more victims. It could be used for education -- lack of a high school diploma is one of the best predictors of a life of crime -- and for addiction and mental health programs that keep people out of the penal system, giving police more time to deal with serious crime. Donald Heller wrote the 1978 proposition that brought back capital punishment. He now favors abolishing it. He knows that it costs California $90,000 a year more per prisoner on death row than it costs to jail our worst criminals for life. No other Western nation has the death penalty. California shouldn't share the values of places such as North Korea, China, Pakistan, Libya, Iran and Saudi Arabia. It should shed this dehumanizing and costly practice -- and not speed it up, as Proposition 66 aims to do. That would actually magnify the inequity and sometimes outright injustice in the death penalty's application. Vote no on Proposition 66 -- and vote yes on Proposition 62. Abolish the death penalty in California. (source: Editorial, Mercury News) USA: Mike Pence's Stance On The Death Penalty Rubs A Growing Number Of Americans The Wrong Way With Donald Trump's recent announcement of Mike Pence as his 2016 running mate, people are rushing to scrutinize the Indiana governor's policy positions and voting record. One position that has not received much attention,
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----FLA., CALIF., USA
Nov. 18 FLORIDA: Jurors should be unanimous in recommending death sentence Even the most ardent opponents of capital punishment were hard-pressed to feel much sympathy for Oba Chandler, one of Florida's most notorious murderers. On Tuesday, the state finally executed him, as a unanimous jury had recommended 17 years ago for his brutal 1989 killings of an Ohio woman and her two daughters. If Florida is going to continue to use the death penalty despite its cost and potential for killing people for crimes they did not commit, it should let no lesser standard apply. It's time for the state to join other death penalty states in requiring a unanimous recommendation from the jury before a death sentence. Florida's hand is already being forced on the issue. In June, a federal district judge in Miami ruled that Florida's unique failure to require unanimous agreement by juries in recommending the death penalty is unconstitutional. The state has appealed. But Florida lawmakers should have gotten the message long before this past summer that something was amiss. Florida has the dubious honor of leading the country in death row exonerations: 23 since the death penalty was reinstated in the 1970s. That raises the very real specter that Florida has executed individuals who were not guilty of capital crimes. Such findings have prompted right-minded lawmakers to at least entertain the notion that the system could be improved. A trio of bills filed this year by Sens. Oscar Braynon, D-Miami Gardens, and Thad Altman, R-Melbourne, and state Rep. John Patrick Julien, D-North Miami Beach, would each require a judge only impose a sentence of death after unanimous agreement by jurors. That would provide greater clarity and accountability to Florida's criminal justice system. The proposal would also reduce lengthy and costly appeals by inmates challenging their death sentences due to a less-than-unanimous jury recommendation. Chandler was sentenced to death in 1994 by Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Susan Schaeffer following a unanimous recommendation by the jury. His heinous murders of Joan Rogers and daughters Michelle and Christe still shock Tampa Bay. But Chandler notwithstanding, Florida needs to have a broader conversation on the overall efficacy of capital punishment. Until then, the Florida Legislature should embrace the notion of unanimous jury recommendation as a small but long-overdue step to provide a bit more fairness in administrating the ultimate sentence. (source: Editorial, St. Petersburg Times) CALIFORNIAnew death sentence Man convicted in wife's contract killing is sentenced to deathJames Fayed, found guilty of hiring men to kill his estranged wife in a Century City parking garage in 2008, gets the death penalty, with the judge calling him one cold, calculating human being. As hired killers slit Pamela Fayed's throat in a Century City parking garage, her bloodcurdling screams echoed throughout the structure. Bystanders turned their heads in the direction of the horrific attack, footage from security cameras shows. The only person within earshot who didn't react was the victim's estranged husband who was sitting on a nearby bench texting on his cellphone, like he doesn't have a care in the world, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy said Thursday, moments before sentencing James Fayed to death for the contract killing. Earlier this year, a jury found Fayed, 48, guilty of hiring three men to kill his wife during a bitter divorce. The millionaire businessman wanted to avoid sharing the profits from their international precious metals trading company, prosecutors said, and to prevent her from cooperating with a federal investigation of alleged financial wrongdoing at the firm, Goldfinger Inc. This is one cold, calculating human being, Kennedy said. Shortly after the July 28, 2008, slaying, investigators arrested Fayed on fraud charges. Then a jailhouse informant secretly recorded him discussing his hatred for his late wife and the possibility of hiring a Mafia hit man to execute the men he had hired to kill her. Fayed can be heard on the audiotape explaining the need to clean up the … mess because he didn't want to wind up in the death chamber himself. He also complained about the killers' incompetence, noting that they had missed repeated opportunities he had arranged for them to do the job in remote places with no cameras — including at a Fourth of July party in Malibu. Instead, they attacked in a well-lighted public parking garage, and had been caught on camera fleeing the scene in a car rented by the couple's firm. In addition to the death penalty for 1st-degree murder, Kennedy sentenced Fayed to 25 years to life for the related charge of conspiracy to commit murder. I have never, in all my years, had a case like this, Kennedy said, accusing Fayed of arranging anonymous emails, phone
