Sept. 27
TEXAS:
Texas Recently Murdered a Man for a Crime Experts Say He Did Not
Commit----Larry Swearingen was put to death for a murder and a rape that the
science says he did not do.
His last words were those of Jesus Christ.
Pious Catholic barbarians say things like, “Oh well! La di dah! If he’s
innocent then he’ll to heaven! No harm done! Let’s kill some more because of
something something retributive justice! Ignore the teaching of Holy Church
calling for the abolition of the death penalty. I have a book here by Ed Feser
that says killing prisoners is fine so that makes it okay to fight the Church.
And besides, abortion is worse and so it’s okay if I wink at the murder of an
innocent man. It’s just one guy. God won’t notice if I cheer for just one
murder.”
What they don’t seem to grasp is that pious barbarians could have said the same
thing when they murdered Jesus. The thing is, the fact he went to heaven did
not do his murderers any good. That’s the thing: the death penalty doesn’t just
kill the victim. It kills the soul of the person who cheers for the death of
innocents in the lust for the blood of the guilty.
The problem with the death penalty is, then, basically tripartite:
1.It kills people who do not need to be killed.
2.It kills completely innocent people in order to kill people who do not need
to be killed.
3.It makes the people who kill them into people who are eager to kill
completely innocent people in order to kill people who do not need to be
killed.
In addition to this, it makes Catholic death penalty defenders into people
willing to make war on the Church in order to become people who are eager to
kill completely innocent people in order to kill people who do not need to be
killed.
(source: patheos.com)
************************
DNA Testing Could Save This Texas Man’s Life. But Prosecutors Are Opposing
It.----Rodney Reed, set to be executed on Nov. 20, is innocent of a rape and
murder, his lawyers say, and untested evidence will prove it. But prosecutors
have pushed back, arguing the evidence is contaminated.
For the last 2 decades, Rodney Reed has said he can prove he is innocent of the
crimes that landed him on Texas’s death row. The key to his freedom, he has
argued, lies in a box in the Bastrop County clerk’s office. The box contains
items—including a belt, name tag, shirt, and two beer cans—found in 1996 near
the dead body of 19-year-old Stacey Stites. On these items, Reed has
maintained, is biological material from Stites’s killer, and testing will show
that material does not belong to him.
Prosecutors, however, have said that Reed, who in 1998 was convicted of raping
and murdering Stites, could not be innocent. They have opposed testing the
evidence, which includes the murder weapon, as the case has wound its way
through state and federal courts.
In August, Reed’s attorneys filed a federal civil rights lawsuit, arguing that
executing him without first conducting DNA testing is a violation of his
constitutional rights. And on Tuesday, they asked the U.S. Supreme Court to
consider his innocence claims. In that filing, Reed’s attorneys asked whether
convicting or executing a person who is innocent violates the U.S.
constitution. Reed is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Nov. 20.
As DNA testing has become more advanced, so has its ability to provide crucial
information that can reconstruct who was present at a crime scene. Test
results, as part of a larger case, can carry enormous weight: They can help
prove that someone is innocent and in some cases, identify the person who
committed the crime. Or they can do the opposite and confirm a person’s guilt.
In death penalty cases, testing has saved lives. Of the 166 people exonerated
from death row since 1973, 21 of those were freed using DNA testing.
Still, some prosecutors continue to oppose this testing to re-examine
convictions in capital cases. Vanessa Potkin, director of post-conviction
litigation at the Innocence Project, told The Appeal that during her time
there, at least 6 people have been executed, despite the availability of DNA
testing that could prove their innocence. Prosecutors fought against the
testing in all of those cases.
“We have a human system we know it doesn’t always get it right,” she said.
“It’s pretty shocking when you get to a capital case, where the stakes couldn’t
be higher, to encounter prosecutorial resistance to simple tests that could get
to the truth.”
There were no eyewitnesses to support the state’s theory that Reed abducted
Stites on her way to work; raped and murdered her; and abandoned her body.
Instead, the state’s case hinged on three sperm cells found inside Stites.
Prosecutors argued at trial that the cells, which a 1996 DNA test confirmed
were Reed’s, proved that he had raped Stites just before killing her.
Reed’s attorneys have not disputed that the sperm belongs to their client.
Since 1998, they, and Reed, have said that he and Stites were involved in a
consensual sexual relationship and had sex sometime after midnight on the day
before she was found dead. Forensic experts have supported this theory in
recent filings.
“It is further my opinion beyond a reasonable degree of medical certainty that,
based on all of the forensic evidence, Mr. Reed is scheduled to be executed for
a crime that he did not commit,” wrote forensic pathologist Michael Baden in
2015. The forensic testimony that the prosecution used to establish their
timeline for the killing has since been disproved or recanted.
In 2015, Bastrop County District Attorney Bryan Goertz consented to testing
Stites’s clothing and swabs taken from her body. The test found that Reed was a
potential match for the biological material found on them. But his attorneys
argue that Stites had been redressed in her work clothes from the previous
night, when she had sex with Reed, before she was killed.
“In a lot of ways it was a way for them to claim they agreed to some DNA
testing without actually risking a DNA result that could actually identify who
committed the crime,” Reed’s attorney, Bryce Benjet of the Innocence Project,
told The Appeal.
Reed’s legal team argues that a belt and other items found near Stites’s body
will most likely contain DNA from her fiancé, Jimmy Fennell, a former police
officer who was released from prison in 2018 after being convicted of
kidnapping and improper sexual contact with a woman in his custody. Fennell
made several statements during and after the investigation that were
inconsistent with his story that he and Stites showered together then went to
bed the night before her body was found, Reed’s attorneys have argued. And
according to an autopsy report, a woven leather belt—half of which was found by
Fennell’s truck and half of which was found near Stites’s body—was used to
strangle Stites. In their federal civil rights complaint, Reed’s attorneys
allege that Fennell said on “multiple occasions” that he would kill her if she
ever cheated on him, at least one time specifying that it would be with a belt.
Fennell’s attorney has said his client was not involved in Stites’s death.
“[Jimmy] continues to profess his innocence,”attorney Robert M. Phillips told
Austin news outlet KXAN in March 2018. “He loved Stacey Stites. He was engaged
to be married to her and the individual who raped and murdered her is properly
on death row.”
Goertz did not respond to requests for comment from The Appeal, but in a May
2018 filing with the U.S Supreme Court, he characterized Reed’s challenges to
his conviction as a “fervent attack” without any basis. He has argued that the
items cannot be tested because they are contaminated and have not been stored
properly. Even if they had been, they would not prove that Reed is innocent,
Goertz has written in court filings. He has also said that Reed only requested
testing after he had run out of other options. The judges for Texas’s highest
criminal court have ruled in line with this argument.
Reed’s attorneys have countered that all of the items meet the criteria for DNA
testing and any doubts about contamination would be cleared up by obtaining
matches on several items that belong to Fennell.
“It’s really extraordinary that we have evidence that clearly could prove
innocence, that would undoubtedly be tested if this was a murder investigated
today,” Benjet said. Yet “the district attorney and the attorney general’s
office have steadfastly refused to even make it possible to answer these basic
questions as to guilt or innocence,” he added.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that there is no constitutional right to DNA
testing. Each state has different rules about what qualifies for DNA testing,
which means people on death row must either rely on the state courts to rule in
their favor or for prosecutors to give their consent.
In Ohio, Portage County’s chief prosecutor, Victor Vigluicci, is opposing DNA
testing in the case of Tyrone Noling, a death row prisoner convicted of
murdering an elderly couple in 1990. For more than two decades, Noling has
maintained his innocence. Much like Reed’s case, there is no physical evidence
linking him to the crime, and all 3 people who testified against him at trial
have since recanted their stories. Noling’s attorneys have pushed for the state
to test evidence, but the state has argued that the items are contaminated.
In an email, Vigluicci told The Appeal that testing the items would lead to
“false results.” When asked about the possibility that Noling could be
innocent, he cited the “overwhelming evidence” that was used to convict him.
“We seek only the truth and to do justice, which is what we have done in this
case,” he wrote.
Noling’s attorney, Brian Howe of the Ohio Innocence Project, told The Appeal
that although innocence and guilt are not always clear in some cases, “I just
really don’t understand how the government would fight and expend all of these
resources just to preserve its ignorance.”
A 2011 study found that prosecutors opposed DNA testing in nearly 1 in 5 cases
that resulted in an exoneration. Former Baltimore County prosecutor Ann Brobst
first said the evidence in Kirk Bloodsworth’s case had been destroyed when he
wrote to her requesting DNA testing in 1992. Bloodsworth’s attorney eventually
located the evidence in the clerk’s office, and a test did not match
Bloodworth’s DNA profile. He was released from prison in 1993, after nearly a
decade behind bars—the first person sentenced to death to be exonerated with
DNA testing.
Bobst did not accept that Bloodsworth was innocent until 2004, when
investigators matched the DNA to the victim’s killer. “She refused to even
think about my innocence at all,” Bloodsworth told The Appeal of Brobst, who
died in 2012. “At the end of the day, 24 jurors, the police department, and the
prosecutor’s office of Baltimore County were all dead wrong.”
DNA testing is available in less than 10 % of cases involving a violent crime,
which means most people can’t use it as a tool to help prove they have been
wrongfully convicted, said Potkin of the Innocence Project. And even if it is
available, prosecutors and courts might argue that the prisoners didn’t ask for
the testing in time. “It should never be too late for innocence,” said Potkin.
This was the case for Darrell Grayson, who was executed in Alabama in 2007 for
the 1980 rape and murder of an elderly woman, despite requests from his
attorneys, including Potkin, to test clothes and sheets from the crime scene
that they said would show he was not present. Then-Attorney General Troy King
said that because Grayson had confessed to the crime and never asserted his
innocence, he did not have a right to the testing. (Grayson, until his death,
maintained that he didn’t remember the evening because he was intoxicated.)
King also accused Grayson of using his DNA testing petition as a delay tactic
to avoid execution.
King did not respond to a list of questions from The Appeal.
In some cases, however, prosecutors have agreed to work alongside the defense.
In Louisiana, Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick Jr. launched a
joint investigation with the Innocence Project into Damon Thibodeaux’s capital
murder conviction after being presented with evidence that he had likely given
a false confession.
“As district attorney, it is my duty to make every effort to ensure that
convictions are based on reliable evidence,” Connick said at the time. DNA
testing and interview witnesses confirmed that Connick’s office had almost sent
an innocent man to the execution chamber. After 15 years on death row,
Thibodeaux was exonerated in 2012.
Texas judges have already ruled that Reed will not be able to test the belt and
other items. That leaves the final say on his case to federal courts or
Governor Greg Abbott. Though federal courts have stepped in to require DNA
testing in capital cases in the past, this rarely happens, said Potkin.
If the testing is conducted and analysts conclude that the DNA on the belt does
not belong to Reed, he could use the results to request a new trial or ask
Abbott for a commutation, as required by Texas law. Abbott could also decide to
commute Reed’s sentence without a DNA test but this is unlikely. He has
overseen 47 executions since taking office.
A 2014 analysis of past exonerations concluded that about 4 % of people, or
roughly 110 prisoners on death row are innocent. And Texas has executed
innocent men before. The state executed Carlos DeLuna in 1989, though a
subsequent investigation by Columbia University found that a key witness had
misidentified him. In 2004, the state executed Cameron Todd Willingham, based
on junk arson science. In August, Texas executed Larry Swearingen, who
maintained his innocence until his final breath. The court said it stood by the
“mountain of evidence” against him.
Keith Findley, an expert on wrongful convictions with the Wisconsin Innocence
Project, told The Appeal that “ultimately we need prosecutors to take their
commitment, their responsibility, to doing justice more seriously,” he said.
“You let the DNA testing do the talking.”
(source: theappeal.org)
*********************
Haskell found guilty of capital murder in Stay family deaths
A Harris County jury on Thursday convicted Ronald Haskell of capital murder,
rejecting the former FedEx driver's claims of insanity in the 2014 massacre of
the Stay family in Spring.
The decision came after a month of testimony and about 8 hours of deliberation
in the gruesome shooting, which killed Katie and Stephen Stay and 4 of their 5
children.
The jury panel will now move to the punishment phase of the trial, and will
decide whether to hand down a life sentence or the death penalty.
The family Katie and Stephen Stay react after their killer, Ronald Haskell, was
convicted in connection with the 2014 shooting deaths of the couple and 4 of
their children. The only survivor of the tragedy, Cassidy Stay, was in the
courtroom to witness the verdict.
Haskell, now 39, arrived at the Stays' home on July 9, 2014, dressed in a Fed
Ex uniform and carrying a makeshift "package." He held the five children at
gunpoint until their parents arrived home, and made them lay on the floor
before shooting them all.
Only Cassidy Stay, then 15, survived. She warned police that her former uncle
might be heading to harm other family members, and authorities arrested him at
the end of a short chase and lengthy standoff.
Haskell's attorneys used an insanity defense, claiming that he was mentally ill
at the time of the shooting and didn't know his actions were wrong. Prosecutors
said he was a narcissist who was enacting vengeance on anyone who helped his
ex-wife, who left him a year before after sustaining more than a decade of
alleged abuse.
The Harris County District Attorney's Office issued a statement shortly after
the verdict was read.
"We are grateful for the jurors' rapt attention over the last many weeks to
every piece of evidence in the case," Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg
said. "There was never a reasonable doubt that Haskell meticulously planned and
carried out the slaughter of the Stay family."
(source: Houston Chronicle)
****************************
Man guilty of killing 6 members of his ex's family in Texas, faces death
sentence ---- A teenage girl survived the deadly 2014 attack in the Houston
area by playing dead after she was grazed by a bullet, authorities have said.
A Utah man was convicted Thursday of killing 6 members of his extended family
in Texas and faces the possibility of a death sentence.
A Harris County jury found Ronald Haskell, 39, guilty in the July 2014 killings
of 6 members of the Stay family: parents Stephen Stay and Katie Stay, and
children Bryan, 13, Emily, 9, Rebecca, 7 and Zach, 4.
"We are grateful for the jurors’ rapt attention over the last many weeks to
every piece of evidence in the case," Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg
said in a statement. "There was never a reasonable doubt that Haskell
meticulously planned and carried out the slaughter of the Stay family."
Police have said that Haskell traveled from California to the Houston suburb of
Spring and ambushed his ex-wife's sister, her husband and their 5 children in
their home. The Stays and 4 of their children were fatally shot in the back of
their heads, and a fifth child, who was 15 at the time, survived. That teen,
Cassidy, was grazed in the head by a bullet and played dead.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the capital murder case, but
jurors will decide whether Haskell should receive a death sentence or life in
prison.
At trial, the defense argued that Haskell was insane and heard voices that led
him to kill the 6 people, NBC affiliate KPRC of Houston reported. After the
verdict was read Thursday, he hung his head.
"I think he took it as best as you could expect," said Doug Durham, one of
Haskell's defense attorneys, according to the station. "He was aware that this
was a strong possibility."
The sentencing phase begins Monday. Haskell defense attorney Neil Davis III
said his team will work “to save his life. That's our job," according to KPRC.
The sentencing phase is expected to last around 2 ½ weeks, the station
reported.
Cassidy testified at the trial and was surrounded by family members. She
appeared to be praying before the guilty verdict was read Thursday, according
to KPRC.
At a 2014 memorial for her family, Cassidy thanked the community for its
support and said that she was comforted knowing her parents, two brothers and 2
sisters are "in a much better place, and that I'll be able to see them again
one day."
Haskell was disguised as a FedEx delivery driver when he went to the Stay home,
apparently looking for his ex-wife, who is Katie Stay's sister.
He forced his way inside and tied up Cassidy, officials said. When the rest of
her family returned minutes later, Haskell tied them up and demanded to know
the whereabouts of his ex-wife. They said they didn't know, and they were each
shot in the back of the head.
Cassidy, who was wounded, played dead until Haskell left, and was able to
identify him to police. She told officials he was planning to drive to her
grandparents’ home and kill them. But police tracked down Haskell, and he was
arrested after a 20-minute police chase and a 3-hour standoff.
(source: NBC News)
FLORIDA:
Teresa Sievers murder trial: What you need to know about death penalty trials
in Florida
With trials approaching, death sentences are hanging over the heads of 2
suspects accused in the 2015 death of a Bonita Springs doctor.
The victim’s husband Mark Sievers, 51, and Jimmy Ray Rodgers, 29, are
co-defendants in the case. Both are charged with 1st-degree murder and will
face the death penalty if convicted.
Teresa Sievers, 46, was found dead, face down on the kitchen floor with the
back of her head bashed in inside her family’s home at 27034 Jarvis Road on
June 29, 2015.
There are several differences between a death penalty trial and other criminal
trials in Florida, including the size of the jury.
The jury doubles from six people to 12 people during capital cases, according
to the Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure.
Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in
Washington D.C., said other differences can be found in the structure of the
trial and qualifications of the jury.
The jury selection process usually takes more time in death penalty cases
compared to other criminal trials and involves a death-qualification process,
Dunham said.
“In addition to being asked general questions about whether they can be fair,
jurors are asked a series of questions related their beliefs about capital
punishment,” Dunham said.
If a potential juror has religious, moral, ethical or other beliefs that
preclude them from imposing the death penalty, or if a judge thinks they have
substantial impairment in imposing the death penalty, they are excluded from
serving on the jury, Dunham said.
"You are also excluded from service if you say you'd automatically impose the
death penalty, but virtually nobody says that,” he said.
Death penalty trials are multi-phased compared to other criminal proceedings.
The 1st step is for the jury to determine if the defendant is guilty or
innocent.
“For the most part, that isn't different from a regular criminal trial except
you have a death penalty jury hearing the case,” Dunham said.
If the defendant is found guilty, the trial moves forward to the next stage
with the same jury. Prosecutors then must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that
at least one aggravating factor applies to the defendant, Dunham said.
"It's those aggravating circumstances that actually make the defendant eligible
for the death penalty,” he said. “Being convicted of first-degree murder is not
enough to get you the death penalty.”
Florida Statue outlines 16 aggravating factors, including some related to the
defendant’s criminal history and the age and person of the victim.
If the offense was committed for “pecuniary gain” that is also considered an
aggravating factor, per Florida Statue.
Sievers had 5 life insurance policies under his wife's name totaling $4.4
million and planned to pay Curtis Wayne Wright, another defendant in the case,
to kill her, according to an affidavit released by the State Attorney’s Office
in 2015.
In a death penalty trial, all of the jurors must agree that prosecutors proved
at least one aggravating factor applies to the defendant then the defense gets
to present mitigating circumstances, Dunham said.
Legislators can direct juries to consider certain factors as mitigating
circumstances, such as severe mental illness, but cannot limit what a jury
considers mitigating, Dunham said.
"The defense can present anything that relates to the defendant's background,
mental health, character or record that would give the jury a reason to spare
the defendant's life or that could persuade the jury that life without parole
is enough,” Dunham said.
After the evidence is presented, the jury must vote unanimously to impose the
death sentence to move forward. Then the final decision during a death penalty
trial in Florida comes from the judge.
"The original reason for judge sentencing was the judge knows the law and the
judge would be a safeguard against a runaway jury,” Dunham said.
Another hearing is held during which the defense can present additional
evidence to try and persuade the judge to override the jury and impose a life
in prison sentence, instead of a death sentence.
A judge can only override a jury’s decision to impose the death sentence at
this stage and cannot override a decision to impose a life in prison sentence,
Dunham said.
Most often a judge will override a jury’s decision to impose a death sentence
when there is significant evidence of mental illness, intellectual disability
or if there was an extreme failure of the social services system to protect the
defendant as a child, Dunham said.
By the numbers: Florida's death penalty
In May of 2016, Sievers and Rodgers were indicted on 1st-degree murder charges
and in June of 2016 prosecutors filed notices of intent to seek the death
penalty against both defendants.
A judge signed an order in August, which separated Sievers’ case from Rodgers’.
Both trials are scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday in front of 20th
Judicial Circuit Judge Bruce Kyle.
Sara Miles, a public information officer for the 20th Judicial Circuit, said if
either case goes to trial Tuesday, she expects Rodgers would be tried first.
Each trial is expected to last 4 weeks, she said.
Kathleen Fitzgeorge, Rodgers’ public defender, confirmed one of the jury trials
is scheduled to start Tuesday but said she wasn’t sure which defendant would be
tried first.
Michael Mummert, Sievers’ defense attorney, could not be reached for comment.
(source: Fort Myers News-Press)
TENNESSEE:
East Tennessee inmate 1 of 9 to get execution dates for 1992 killings
In just over 2 decades, Gary Wayne Sutton has spent nearly half of his life on
Tennessee’s death row. This week, Tennessee’s attorney general has asked the
state Supreme Court to set execution dates for 9 death row prisoners, bucking a
national movement away from capital punishment.
Sutton is 1 of 9 included on that list for the 1992 murder of Tommy Griffin.
Griffin, 24, was found in February 1992 near an embankment of the Little River
in Walland, shot in the back of the head with a shotgun. His body, found 2 days
after he was last seen.
The same day Griffin’s body was found, his mother filed a missing persons
report for his sister, Connie Branam.
Branam was found days later in her car, her body inside, found by residents
near the Happy Hollow area of Wears Valley in Sevier County.
At the time, WATE 6 On Your Side reports showed Blount County and Sevier County
law enforcement were working together to link multiple crimes: Griffin’s
murder, Branam’s murder, and Griffin’s trailer fire, which investigators
reported at the time was started by hand.
The investigation led to James Henderson Dellinger and his nephew, Gary Wayne
Sutton.
According to WATE 6 On Your Side reports at the time, Griffin was last seen
with Dellinger and Sutton when they posted his bond on public intoxication
charges.
2 trials, 1 in Blount County and 1 in Sevier County, ultimately found Dellinger
and Sutton guilty. In Blount County, for the murder of Griffin, death setences;
in Sevier County, for the murder of Connie, life in prison.
(source: WATE news)
******************
Tennessee governor hands-off as AG moves for more executions
Tennessee's governor is refraining from weighing in on the attorney general's
request to schedule executions for 9 death-row prisoners and restore a 10th
inmate's death sentence
Republican Gov. Bill Lee said Thursday that it is Attorney General Herbert
Slatery's prerogative to request the execution dates and to challenge a court's
decision commuting an inmate's death sentence to life in prison. Lee said he
and Slatery haven't discussed the decisions.
If Slatery's 2 moves are successful, Lee would have to decide 12 separate times
whether to spare the life of a prisoner on death row: 2 other executions have
already been scheduled.
Tennessee, which performed 3 executions last year, was 2nd only to Texas, which
carried out 13. Most states have been moving away from the death penalty.
"The Supreme Court and the attorney general make determinations about
executions ... and how that process unfolds," Lee told reporters Thursday. "So
I will let that process ... play out. That's their responsibility."
As a 2018 gubernatorial candidate, Lee touted his Christian faith and
highlighted his participation in inmate-mentoring programs.
Last week, Slatery announced he would challenge a Nashville criminal court's
decision to commute the death sentence of black inmate Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman's
to life in prison after concerns were raised that racism tainted the jury
selection pool. Slatery argued in his appeal that the court's order
"circumvented established legal procedures."
He also asked the state Supreme Court to set execution dates for nine death row
prisoners.
Tennessee has executed 5 people since August 2018, including 3 by electrocution
— an option for inmates convicted of crimes before January 1999. Two of the
executions have taken place since Lee took office. In those cases, the governor
denied each of the inmates' requests for clemency.
In Tennessee, the attorney general can request execution dates once juries have
delivered death sentences and inmates have exhausted their three-tier appeals
process in state courts and the U.S. Supreme Court. The state Supreme Court
then schedules the executions.
Lee is expected to reveal a slate of criminal justice reform proposals for the
upcoming legislative session in January, but changes to the death penalty are
not expected to be among them.
Asked Thursday if he thought the death penalty law should be changed, the
governor replied, "That's a decision for the people of Tennessee and the
Legislature. The death penalty is appropriate for those most heinous of crimes,
and that has been the belief of the people of the state."
Department of Correction spokeswoman Dorinda Carter declined to respond
directly to a question from The Associated Press on Thursday about whether the
state had enough lethal injection chemicals for all nine death row inmates. The
state allows use of pharmacist-compounded drugs.
"We feel confident we can carry out the orders of the court when dates are
set," Carter said in an email.
Executions in Tennessee are carried out through lethal injection unless the
drugs are unavailable, in which case the electric chair is used.
(source: Associated Press)
KENTUCKY:
Kentucky Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Raising Death-Penalty Eligibility Age
The Kentucky Supreme Court has heard oral argument and will soon decide whether
subjecting youthful offenders under age 21 to the death penalty violates the
constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. On September
19, 2019, the Court heard argument in the government’s appeals of two capital
cases in which a trial judge barred county prosecutors from seeking the death
penalty because the defendants charged with the murders were younger than age
21 when the killings took place.
In August 2017, Fayette County Circuit Judge Ernesto Scorsone prohibited
prosecutors from seeking the death penalty against Travis Bredhold, who was 18
years and 5 months old at the time he is alleged to have killed a gas station
attendant. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roper v. Simmons that it
was unconstitutional to impose the death penalty on offenders younger than age
18 when the crime occurred. Citing new neuroscience research that portions of
the brain responsible for impulse control and risk evaluation are still
developing in 18- to 21-year-olds, Scorsone found that the death penalty “would
be an unconstitutionally disproportionate punishment for crimes committed by
individuals under 21 years of age” for the same reasons the Supreme Court had
barred it for offenders under 18. Scorsone said the undeveloped brains of 18-
to 21-year-olds “ma[de] them unlikely to be deterred by knowledge of likelihood
and severity of punishment” and the flexibility of their young brains gave them
“a much better chance at rehabilitation than … adults.”
Scorsone issued a similar ruling in the cases of Efrain Diaz Jr. and Justin D.
Smith, who are accused of killing a University of Kentucky student in 2015.
Diaz was 20 and Smith was 18 at the time of that killing. Prosecutors then
appealed Scorsone’s decisions to the commonwealth’s high court.
Matthew Krygiel, an assistant state attorney general, argued on behalf of the
state that a categorical ban is unnecessary, and that juries should consider
the defendants’ age and maturity on an individual basis. “It’s completely
consistent to say that someone in that 18 to 20 range is impetuous or lacks
judgement while also believing that a person who commits intentional murder —
at least sometimes — can be equally as culpable as an adult,” he said.
Timothy Arnold, a public defender who argued on behalf of the defendants, said
that recent brain research has left us with a “completely different
understanding of the science” of brain development than when Roper was decided.
“In 2005 we thought the problem with juvenile misbehavior was simply that the
brakes were defective,” Arnold explained. “And now we know they have their foot
on the gas, and they are flooring it between the ages of 18 and 20.” Arnold
also noted that a person’s behavior during late adolescence does not
necessarily predict his or her future behavior. “During this period there
remains heightened plasticity within the brain and a general inability to
predict future criminality because the brain is still developing,” Arnold said.
(source: Death Penalty Informatino Center)
ILLINOIS:
Death Penalty Abolitionist Gail Rice to be Featured on CUTV News Radio
In 1997, Gail Rice’s life changed radically when her brother, Bruce VanderJagt,
a Denver policeman, was murdered by a skinhead. Bruce was trying to apprehend
the skinhead and a woman accomplice as they were fleeing a burglary. The
skinhead, Matthaeus Jaehnig, shot Bruce with 10 bullets from an assault rifle,
killing him instantly. Jaehnig eventually committed suicide with Bruce’s
service revolver.
Had Jaehnig lived, he would have been convicted of murder and sentenced to
death in Colorado.
Rice already opposed the death penalty at that time. Nineteen years of literacy
and ministry work in jails and prisons had convinced her that there was a very
different standard of justice for the rich and the poor in this country, and so
she believed that the death penalty could never be applied fairly. But one year
after the murder, she met the group Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation
(MVFR), a death penalty abolition group for victims’ family members and the
family members of those who had been executed or who were on death row. Their
motto was “Not in our name.” Having experienced the horror of murder, these
people did not want the state to murder in their name.
“Until I met MVFR people, I was not aware that there was a growing movement of
victims’ family members who actively opposed the death penalty,” recalls Rice.
“After I grew to know many MVFR people, I found my opposition to the death
penalty deepening far beyond my concern about fairness in the system.”
Meeting several innocent people who had been exonerated from death row in the
U.S. greatly concerned Rice. The risk of executing an innocent person is very
real. DNA evidence has led to many exonerations, but it isn’t available in most
cases. Since 1973, there have been 165 exonerations in the United States.
“As I studied the issue more, I discovered that there was no evidence that the
death penalty was a deterrent to serious crime,” says Rice. “States without the
death penalty have lower murder rates than states with the death penalty. The
likelihood of life without parole is more of a deterrent than the small
possibility of the death penalty.”
What troubled Rice most, however, was how the death penalty conflicted with her
Christian beliefs.
“For me, my Christian faith has been the strongest motivation for me to work
for abolition,” says Rice. “People are tempted to decide that some people are
not redeemable and do not deserve forgiveness, reconciliation or restoration.
Jaehnig was a person who had been created in the image of God. If I viewed
murderers as no longer being fit to live, setting aside their humanity, I would
not only be denying one of the core beliefs of my Christian faith, I would also
be holding the same attitude that many murderers hold in perpetrating their
crimes, who don’t feel as though their victims’ lives are valuable. And I never
want to become like that.”
Rice says she believes the death penalty is carried out primarily against the
poorest and most vulnerable of society.
“The death penalty makes a mockery of God’s care for the poor and the
powerless,” says Rice. “It is unthinkable that Jesus Christ would endorse the
killing of others to prove that killing is wrong. The death penalty is a
violent act of retribution and revenge.”
Many people have not been told the real facts about the death penalty, Rice
feels. According to her, the reason the death penalty is supported by both
prosecutors and politicians is because they think it is necessary and helpful
for the loved ones of those who have been murdered. Rice says it’s quite the
opposite: the death penalty is a terrible burden for murder victims’ family
members.
“In my 21 years of abolition work, I’ve never heard one person say, ‘I’m so
glad that the execution took place. Now I’m at peace. I finally have closure,’”
says Rice. “Instead, they lament the whole process, which has caused them so
much pain and misery. The idea that executions help or heal victims’ family
members is an absolute lie, and that’s what I will always tell murder victims’
family members as I continue my work to repeal the death penalty in the U.S.”
CUTV News Radio will feature Gail Rice in an interview with Jim Masters on
September 30th at 2pm EDT
If you have any questions for our guest, please call (347) 996-3389
For more information or to get involved, visit the Death Penalty Information
Center at www.deathpenaltyinfo.org and Equal Justice at www.ejusa.org
(source: einnews.com)
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A service courtesy of Washburn University School of Law www.washburnlaw.edu
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