December 14
TEXAS:
DA will seek death penalty in murder of 20-month-old Central Texas girl
Milam County prosecutors will seek the death penalty in the trial of a man
indicted Thursday for capital murder in the death of a 20-month-old Rockdale
girl.
Shawn Vincent Boniello, who’s also known as Shayla Angeline Boniello, 30,
remains in the Milam County Jail.
The Milam County Grand Jury handed up a capital murder indictment against him
Wednesday morning in the death of Patricia Ann Rader, who died on the evening
of Dec. 3 at her home in Rockdale.
“Upon receipt of the draft of an offense report…from the Rockdale Police
Department…the Milam County District Attorney’s office will seek the penalty of
death for the defendant,” County/District Attorney Bill Torrey said in a press
release early Thursday afternoon.
"District Judge John W. Youngblood has requested the Texas Capital Defender’s
Service in Austin, to represent the defendant," Torrey said.
Officers, firefighters and paramedics responded to the girl’s home at around
5:45 p.m. Dec. 3 after receiving a report of an unresponsive child.
Paramedics performed CPR at the scene, but were unable to revive the girl.
Boniello was arrested that night and was initially charged with child
abandonment/endangerment, but on Dec. 4 was also named in a complaint charging
capital murder.
(source: KWTX news)
**********************
Death sentences remained near historic low levels in Texas in 2018, yet state’s
capital punishment system still plagued by racial bias, geographical
disparities, and fundamental unfairness----All 7 death sentences in 2018
imposed on people of color
The number of death sentences and executions in 2018 was consistent with lower
use of the death penalty in Texas over the last 10 years, according to a new
report from the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (TCADP). New
death sentences remained in the single digits for the 9th time in 10 years,
with Texas juries condemning seven individuals to death. All 7 men sentenced to
death in Texas in 2018 are people of color.
Juries rejected the death penalty in two capital murder trials, while two other
capital cases were declared mistrials. For the third year in a row, no one was
resentenced to death in Texas.
"The death penalty landscape in Texas has changed significantly over the last
20 years,” said Kristin Houlé, TCADP Executive Director and author of Texas
Death Penalty Developments in 2018: The Year in Review. “Not only have the
number of death sentences and executions declined by staggering percentages,
but the chorus of voices raising concerns about the application of the death
penalty grows louder and more diverse every day.”
As use of the death penalty declines, its application remains geographically
isolated. Only 4 counties in Texas have imposed more than one death sentence in
the last 5 years. The 2 counties that have imposed the most death sentences
since 1974 – Harris and Dallas – together account for just 2 new sentences
since 2015.
The death penalty also continues to be disproportionately imposed on people of
color. Over the last 5 years, more than 70% of death sentences have been
imposed on people of color.
The State of Texas put 13 people to death in 2018, matching the number of
executions carried out in 2015. It was 1 of just 8 states nationwide to carry
out executions in 2018 and accounted for more than 1/2 of all U.S. executions
this year. The cases of those put to death in Texas in 2018 involved claims of
innocence, ineffective assistance of counsel, religious discrimination, and
false testimony, among other serious issues.
In 2018, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) stayed half as many
executions as it did in 2017, granting reprieves to 3 individuals with claims
related to intellectual disability or incompetency to be executed.
3 other people with execution dates received reprieves, including a rare
clemency grant. On February 22, 2018, less than an hour before the execution
of Thomas “Bart” Whitaker was set to begin, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a
proclamation sparing his life and commuting his death sentence to life in
prison without the possibility of parole in accordance with a unanimous
recommendation from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. It was the 1st
clemency grant in Texas in more than a decade and only the 3rd since the
resumption of executions in 1982. Since 2014, a total of 24 individuals –
including 3 this year – have been removed from death row in Texas for reasons
other than execution. During this same time period, 50 people have been put to
death.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2017 ruling in Moore v. Texas continued to impact
Texas death penalty cases. That decision found the state of Texas must use
current medical standards for determining whether a person is intellectually
disabled and therefore exempt from execution. In 2018, the CCA granted 2 stays
and issued orders in 6 other cases with claims related to intellectual
disability in light of Moore, remanding them to the trial courts for further
action. In the case of Bobby Moore himself, however, the state’s highest
criminal court once again relied on lay stereotypes and non-scientific criteria
in rejecting Moore’s claim that he is exempt from the death penalty because he
is intellectually disabled. His attorneys and the Harris County District
Attorney’s Office have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to accept review of the
case and summarily reverse the June 6, 2018 ruling from the CCA.
There also were significant developments this year in cases involving outdated
or false scientific evidence. In October, Rigoberto "Robert" Avila became the
1st death-sentenced defendant to receive a favorable recommendation from a
district court under Article 11.073 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.
That statute, which was adopted with bipartisan support by the Texas
Legislature in 2013, provides a remedy for individuals who were convicted based
on false or outdated science.
41st District Court Judge Annabell Perez of El Paso recommended Avila receive a
new trial after concluding that if newly available scientific evidence had been
available at his trial, the jury probably would have found Avila not guilty.
The case now moves back to the CCA.
“It is clear that prosecutors and the public are turning away from the death
penalty,” said Houlé. “At this critical moment in our state’s experience with
the death penalty, concerned citizens and elected officials should take a
closer look at the realities of this irreversible, arbitrary, and costly
punishment and pursue alternative means of achieving justice."
TCADP is a statewide grassroots advocacy organization based in Austin.
see: The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty annual report:
https://tcadp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Texas-Death-Penalty-Developments-in-2018.pdf
(source: TCADP)
FLORIDA----execution
Florida executes Jose Antonio Jimenez, who brutally murdered Miami court clerk
in 1992
Florida executed Miami’s Jose Antonio Jimenez by lethal injection on Thursday
night, 26 years after he viciously stabbed a woman to death during a burglary.
Jimenez was pronounced dead at 9:48 p.m. The execution, originally set for 6
p.m., was delayed by a last-minute request to the U.S. Supreme Court to stay
the execution. The court declined.
The 55-year-old condemned killer declined to make any last statements. The
nephew of victim Phyliss Minas watched from the front row of a viewing area,
separated from Jimenez by a large, thick glass window.
“Mr. Jimenez has shown no remorse or repentance for his crime,” nephew Alan
Partee said in a written statement released by the Florida Department of
Corrections after the execution. “His execution will allow closure to a painful
memory of the vicious murder ... My family hopes he has made peace with himself
and to whatever power he may or may not believe in. We pray for his soul and
feel justice has been rightfully served.”
Jimenez was convicted of the 1992 murder of 63-year-old Minas, a clerk at the
Miami-Dade criminal courthouse who was home alone when he broke in. He stabbed
her 8 times, including 2 fatal thrusts to the heart.
At his 1994 trial, a neighbor testified he saw Jimenez, who lived in the
building, climbing down from Minas’ apartment. His fingerprint was also found
on the interior of her front door.
His defense attorneys have long insisted that Jimenez was not the killer, and
the circumstantial case did not prove he was to blame. A jury, nevertheless,
voted 12-0 to sentence him to death.
Jimenez was the 5th killer executed since Florida changed how it administers
lethal injections, a process that critics say may be cruel and unusual
punishment. In 2017, the state added a drug called etomidate — intended to
induce unconsciousness — to the lethal cocktail administered to inmates during
execution.
In arguing against the drug, Jimenez’s lawyers cited the last execution of a
Florida inmate: Eric Branch, who was put to death in February for the 1993
murder of a college student. According to defense lawyers, Branch screamed and
his head, body and legs shook as the drug was administered.
The Florida Supreme Court, however, rejected the claim, saying it had already
“fully considered and approved” the current method of execution.
Gov. Rick Scott originally scheduled Jimenez’s execution for July 18, but the
Florida Supreme Court issued a stay as his defense lawyers claimed that North
Miami hadn’t turned over key police records. The high court rejected the appeal
in October, paving the way for Thursday’s execution.
Jimenez, a former house painter with a history of crack-cocaine addiction, was
also convicted of the 1990 murder of a woman on Miami Beach. He was sentenced
to 17 years in prison for that killing.
Jimenez woke up Thursday about 7:30 a.m., and later met with a Catholic
spiritual adviser. “His mood was calm. His mood was in good spirits,” Florida
corrections spokeswoman Michelle Glady said at an afternoon press briefing.
After the three-hour-plus delay, media witnesses were ushered in to the viewing
chamber just past 9 p.m. The seats were filled with prison authorities. When
the curtain was raised, Jimenez was already strapped into a gurney, tubes
protruding from his left arm.
When he declined to speak, the lethal injection began at 9:33 p.m. Jimenez
shifted his head around a bit, then began to draw deeper and deeper breaths,
his chest heaving up and down underneath a white sheet. His lips seemed to
quiver, his eyes blinked.
By 9:37 p.m., his breaths seemed to have slowed. A prison official shook his
shoulders, with no response. One minute later, he took another deep breath, his
final visible one. The color seeped out of his face over the next few minutes.
At 9:47 p.m., a bearded doctor in a white coat entered the room. He used a
small light to check Jimenez’s eyes, and a stethoscope to listen for a
heartbeat. One minute later, he was pronounced dead.
“The execution took place without incident,” said Glady, the spokeswoman.
Jimenez becomes the 2nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
Florida and the 97th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in
1979.
Only Texas (558), Virginia (113), and Oklahoma (112) have executed more inmated
than Florida since the death penalty was re-legalized in the USA on July 2,
1976.
Jimenez becomes the 25th and final condemned person to be put to death this
year in the USA and the 1,490th overall since the nation resumed executions on
Janaury 17, 1977. There were 23 executions carried out in the USA in 2017.
(sources: Miami Herald & Rick Halperin)
ALABAMA:
Defendants in Prattville barbershop murders on the fast-track to trial
The capital murder suspects charged in the Prattville barbershop murders are
now on the fast-track to trial.
Defendants Marty Morgan, 37, and Keon Cain, 20, are indicted on capital murder
counts for reportedly shooting 3 people to death and nearly killing another at
a barbershop on Highway 82 in July 2017.
Both defendants appeared in court Thursday for a hearing to take up more than
30 defense motions related to their trials in 2019.
The state is expected to seek the death penalty in both cases.
Cain’s defense argued to ban the death penalty due to the defendant’s age at
the time of the murders. The state argued against that motion and it was
ultimately denied.
Morgan’s defense team filed more than 30 motions regarding his May 2019 trial.
The majority of the motions were granted, most involved jury selection and
issues relating to how the case would be presented to the jury.
The defense teams are still seeking to suppress comments made by the defendants
to police following their arrests.
Morgan and Cain are charged with 2 counts of capital murder and burglary for
the deaths of Eddie Scott, Anthony Smith, and Al Benson. Cain is also charged
with 1st-degree robbery and attempted murder. There were injuries to a 4th
victim who was shot multiple times but survived.
Investigators believe the motive for the shooting was robbery. A game of
dominoes was underway and between $2,000 and $3,000 were recovered later by
investigators.
Morgan is scheduled to stand trial 1st in May 2019.
(source: WSFA news)
MISSISSIPPI:
Death row inmate seeks execution; judge to decide competency
A Mississippi judge will decide whether a death row inmate who says he wants to
be executed is mentally competent to waive all his appeals.
The state Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the examination in the case of
David Cox.
Cox wrote to Mississippi Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr. in August saying he
wanted to fire his lawyers, give up all his appeals and have the state Supreme
Court set his execution date.
"I seek in earnest to (waive) all my appeals immediately, I seek to be executed
as I do here, this day, stand on MS death row a guilty man worthy of death —
please grant me this plea," Cox wrote in an Aug. 16 letter .
Cox pleaded guilty to shooting his wife Kim in 2010 in the Union County town of
Shannon, raping her daughter in front of her, and watching Kim Cox die as
police negotiators and relatives pleaded for her life. He also pleaded guilty
to 7 other crimes without making a bargain with prosecutors that precluded the
death penalty. A jury sentenced him to death.
In another letter in July to Union County District Attorney Ben Creekmore, Cox
wrote that "if I had my perfect way and will about it I'd ever so gladly dig my
dead (sarcastic) wife up whom I very happily and premeditatedly slaughtered on
5-21-2010 and with eager pleasure kill" her again.
Cox's lawyers argue that he is mentally ill and isn't competent to waive his
appeals, and that it's unconstitutional for the state to execute him.
"There is no reliable evidence that Mr. Cox has a free or unrestrained will
necessary to lodge a permanent, voluntary waiver of his right to continue
pursuing post-conviction remedies," wrote Benjamin H. McGee III of the state
Office of Post-Conviction Counsel.
In support of that, he cited Cox himself. In a Nov. 7 letter to McGee, Cox
wrote that he's divided between "skin 1" which wants to continue appeals and
"skin 2" which wants to be executed.
"Skin 1 is not willing, while Skin 2 is willing to surrender all counsel & all
appeals — still. David Cox as a whole is not a single unit, but 2 — David Cox
within David Cox is a living division of separated matter within the same
vessel of life," Cox wrote in the Nov. 7 letter .
McGee has filed a fresh petition with Mississippi's justices seeking a new
sentencing hearing. The lawyer says Cox's trial lawyers didn't adequately lay
out the history of abuse that Cox endured as a child, including poverty,
neglect, parental abandonment, chronic exposure to pornography and witnessing
his father sexually abuse his sister. Cox's sister, in a sworn statement, said
he dropped out of school and huffed gasoline "all day," later becoming addicted
to methamphetamine. Lawyers argued the substance abuse permanently injured his
brain and that it would be unconstitutional to execute him, just as the Supreme
Court has ruled it unconstitutional to execute someone with mental
disabilities.
"Mr. Cox's rage, violence and impulse control problems are product of brain
dysfunction, not a reflection of choice or character. He has a severe
psychopathology - that is, a severe mental disorder or mental illness - but he
is not a psychopath." Forensic psychologist Robert Stanulis wrote in a report
for the defense.
Mississippi hasn't executed anyone since 2012, amid legal disputes over lethal
injection procedures and difficulty procuring execution drugs.
(source: Associated Press)
ARIZONA----female faces death penalty
Adelaide mum accused of step-daughter’s murder appears in Arizona court
Lisa Cunningham, the Australian mother facing the death penalty for the alleged
murder of her 7-year-old daughter has appeared in an Arizona pre-trial court
hearing today.
In a hearing lasting just 3 minutes, Lisa and her husband Germayne Cunningham
were granted access to parts of an autopsy report and a phone containing what
police allege were incriminating text messages about their dying daughter.
Sanaa, Lisa Cunningham’s stepdaughter, suffered acute schizophrenia. She died
from a sepsis infection following injuries to her head and foot in February
2017, prosecutors allege. Police allege she also had injuries on her wrist
consistent with the use of zip-tie restraints and a straight jacket.
Prosecutors allege the Cunninghams neglected and abused Germayne’s daughter.
Their other children are now under Arizona state foster care.
Mrs Cunningham, 43, is being held in solitary confinement and is denied contact
with her surviving children.
9 news correspondent Charles Croucher reports she was seen to mouth ‘I’m doing
okay’ to family members attending the hearing.
Outside the Maricopa County Superior Court, defence lawyer Eric Kessler told
media: “She’s reading documents, communicating with us and from a health
standpoint she’s fine.”
Kessler stated her murder charge was one of the “grossest miscarriages of
justice” he’s ever seen.
He argued the Cunninghams have no case to answer: that Sanaa died from
pneumonia, a known side-effect of the adult-strength antipsychotic Risperdal
she had been prescribed by doctors.
Kessler said he plans meets with Australian Consulate to seek funding to
continue the defence of Lisa Cunningham.
The next hearing has been set for February 28.
(source: themercury.com.au)
OREGON:
Oregon Lawmakers Mull Big Changes To Death Penalty, No Election Required
Oregon lawmakers and death penalty opponents are considering a roundabout
approach at gutting the state’s capital punishment law — without sending it to
voters.
Since 1984, the death penalty has been enshrined in the Oregon Constitution,
meaning it can only be removed by a vote of the people. But under proposals
being discussed by Rep. Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland, Sen. Floyd Prozanski,
D-Eugene, and others, the policy could be largely dismantled next year via a
vote of the Legislature.
“I’m going to try to deal with it right now on a statutory basis,” Greenlick
told OPB.
The precise details of the bills Greenlick and Prozanski are considering are
still being worked out. But lawmakers and death penalty opponents all describe
some general ideas.
Under one possible proposal, the Legislature would alter the definition of
aggravated murder, the only crime punishable by death in Oregon. Currently, the
definition includes elements such as multiple victims, the inclusion of torture
in the crime, an exchange of payment for a killing, and a list of victims such
as children or law enforcement officers.
Greenlick and others are considering a bill that would scrub those factors.
Instead, the definition of the crime would be limited to deaths resulting from
acts of domestic or international terrorism. Elements of a crime that currently
meet the standard for aggravated murder would be placed into other degrees of
homicide, not punishable by death, they say.
“What’s happened in Oregon is we’ve created an incredibly broad category,” said
Jeff Ellis, a Portland attorney and board member of Oregonians for Alternatives
to the Death Penalty who is consulting on the proposal. “It’s virtually
impossible to commit a murder without committing an aggravated murder.”
By altering the crime’s definition, Ellis said, lawmakers would focus on the
“worst of the worst” murders.
One thing that’s not yet clear is whether proponents of the change will seek to
make the change retroactive, a move that would result in Oregon’s death row
being cleared out. It’s become a matter of debate among death penalty
opponents, because some prisoners on death row were sentenced before jurors
were given an option of sentencing them to life without parole. That means
they’d be eligible for parole if a change was made retroactive.
Ellis estimated that 6 or 7 of Oregon’s 33 death row inmates would be
parole-eligible under that change.
A second possible proposal, Greenlick and Ellis say, would change the questions
that jurors must answer in capital murder cases in order to sentence a
defendant to death. The change would be aimed at making such sentences less
likely.
Currently, state law requires jurors to answer “yes” to 3 or 4 questions during
the sentencing phase, depending on the facts of the trial. Those are:
Whether the person committed the crime deliberately
Whether there is a “probability” they commit further violence in the future
Whether there is evidence the defendant acted unreasonably in response to
provocation by the victim
Whether they should be sentenced to death
Ellis says 2 changes should be made to that list. First, he’d like to get rid
of the 2nd question, which asks jurors to predict future violence. Death
penalty opponents say it’s an impossible question to accurately answer, and
point to studies that suggest jurors frequently get it wrong.
Supporters of the death penalty disagree, arguing that the question is
thoughtful and presents another hurdle to prosecutors seeking a death sentence.
“It creates a heavy burden and it also requires that the state produce a great
deal of evidence,” said Clatsop County District Attorney Josh Marquis, who has
long argued in favor of capital punishment.
Ellis also proposes changing the standard by which jurors must answer “yes” to
the final question, whether a defendant should be sentenced to death. It is the
only question on the list that does not require jurors to be sure “beyond a
reasonable doubt.”
“This is something that essentially says, ‘Let’s just attach the traditional
criminal burden of proof,’” Ellis said.
The ideas are a novel approach to curbing the death penalty in a state with a
fickle history on the subject. Beginning in 1894, capital punishment was
enacted and repealed 3 separate times before voters’ most recent approval in
1984.
Executions have been on hold since former Gov. John Kitzhaber announced a
moratorium in 2011. Gov. Kate Brown has continued the moratorium.
Privately, death penalty opponents concede it would be a heavy lift convincing
Oregon voters to undo capital punishment yet again. So in a summit earlier this
year, death penalty opponents and lawmakers began thinking up ways to change
the system through legislation rather than a statewide vote.
Still, the political viability of the proposals Greenlick and Prozanski are
considering is unclear.
Prozanski chairs the Senate Committee on Judiciary, so he could call a proposal
up for a hearing there. Greenlick sits on the House Judiciary Committee, and
said recently he would press committee chair Rep. Jeff Barker, D-Aloha, to hold
a vote on the matter.
House Majority Leader Jennifer Williamson, D-Portland, an attorney who is
deeply involved in justice issues, told OPB she’ll be a chief sponsor for the
bills that emerge.
“It’s not abolishing the death penalty in Oregon,” said Williamson, who
generally opposes capital punishment. “It’s just making sure it’s an available
sentence in the most egregious crimes.”
But there will be vocal opposition from people such as Marquis, who is retiring
as a prosecutor next month.
“I certainly plan to become more involved [in the issue] than I was when I was
in office,” he said. “I will be less constrained by my colleagues.”
Marquis is quick to note that capital punishment isn’t a purely partisan issue
— some conservatives oppose it, some liberals support it. He predicted that the
bills under discussion might not be a slam dunk in the Oregon House and Senate,
where Democrats just won supermajorities.
“It’s not hard for Jennifer Williamson or Floyd Prozanski or Mitch [Greenlick]
to make this argument,” Marquis said. “But if you start thinking about some of
the Democratic legislators who just got elected from Washington County and
Clackamas County and other places like that, that’s a bridge pretty far to go.
Do you really want to go back to your constituents and say, ‘I’m the person who
took the guy who murdered a little girl off death row because we’ve decided to
change the definition’?”
(source: opb.org)
USA:
2018 Marked the 4th Consecutive Year with Fewer than 30 Executions and Less
than 50 Death Sentences----Washington State Becomes 20th State to End Capital
Punishment
With 25 executions and 42 death sentences expected this year, the use of the
death penalty remained near historic lows in 2018, according to a report
released today by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). 2018 marked the
4th consecutive year with fewer than 30 executions and 50 death sentences,
reflecting a long-term decline of capital punishment across the United States.
Court decisions and election results signaled continuing low death-penalty use
as Washington State declared its capital punishment statute unconstitutional
and voters ousted prosecutors in 7 counties known for aggressive death-penalty
usage.
In 2018, 14 states and the federal government imposed death sentences, with 57%
of the projected 42 sentences coming from just 4 states: Texas and Florida
(both with 7) and California and Ohio (both with 5). No county imposed more
than 2 death sentences for the 1st time in the modern era of the death penalty
(after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all death penalty statutes in 1972).
The death penalty remained geographically isolated as only 8 states carried out
the 25 executions: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, South Dakota,
Tennessee, and Texas. Texas accounted for more than 1/2 of all executions (13);
there were fewer executions in the rest of the country than in any year since
1991. 2018 was the 4th year in a row with fewer than 30 executions. Before
2015, 1991 was the last year with fewer than 30 executions.
The cases in which the death penalty was imposed or carried out continued to
raise questions about the fairness of its application. More than 70% of the
people executed showed evidence of serious mental illness, brain damage,
intellectual impairment, or chronic abuse and trauma, and 4 were executed
despite substantial innocence claims.
“America continued its long-term movement away from the death penalty in 2018,”
said Robert Dunham, DPIC’s Executive Director. “Even in the face of
inflammatory political rhetoric urging its expanded use, voters showed that the
death penalty is no longer a political wedge issue. The reelection of governors
who imposed death penalty moratoria, the replacement of hardline
pro-death-penalty prosecutors with reformers, and Washington’s court decision
striking down its death penalty suggest that we will see even greater erosion
of the death penalty in the years ahead.” DPIC provides information, analysis,
and data on the death penalty but does not take a position for or against
capital punishment.
On October 11, Washington became the 20th state to abolish the death penalty
when its Supreme Court unanimously ruled that capital punishment violates the
state constitution because it “is imposed in an arbitrary and racially biased
manner.” Governors in Oregon and Pennsylvania who had imposed or extended
moratoria on the death penalty were reelected and Colorado, the 3rd state with
a moratorium, elected a governor who campaigned on repealing the death penalty.
Prosecutorial candidates who ran on reform platforms won elections in several
counties with a history of aggressive use of the death penalty. Reform
candidates were elected district attorney in two Texas counties – Bexar and
Dallas – that are among the 2 % of counties responsible for the majority of
executions. Voters in Orange and San Bernardino counties in California, 2 of
the nation’s most prolific producers of death sentences, ousted their long-time
incumbent district attorneys.
The 2018 Gallup poll found that fewer than 1/2 of Americans (49%) now believe
that the death penalty is “applied fairly.” This was the lowest level since
Gallup began asking the question in 2000. Overall support for the death penalty
remained essentially unchanged from 2017’s 45-year low.
In November, DPIC released a comprehensive report, “Behind the Curtain: Secrecy
and the Death Penalty in the United States,” showing that, since 2011, 13
states have enacted new secrecy statutes that conceal important information
about the execution process. Of the 17 states that have carried out 246 recent
lethal-injection executions, all withheld at least some information about the
execution process.
(source: The Death Penalty Information Center (www.deathpenaltyinfo.org) is a
non-profit organization serving the media and the public with analysis and
information on issues concerning capital punishment. DPIC was founded in 1990
and prepares in-depth reports, issues press releases, conducts briefings for
the media, and serves as a resource to those working on this issue.
********************
Death row executions remain near historic lows in 2018
The report by the District of Columbia-based Death Penalty Information Center
says 25 executions were carried out in 2018, the 4th consecutive year in which
there have been fewer than 30 executions nationwide.
Since the death penalty was re-instated in the United States in 1976, the
number of executions peaked in 1999 with 98. They were at their lowest in 2016
with 20, according to center statistics. Americans’ support for the death
penalty similarly peaked in the 1990s and has declined since, according to
public opinion polls by Gallup. A 2018 Gallup poll showed 56 % of Americans
supported the death penalty for a person convicted or murder.
Executions in 2018 were clustered in 8 states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia,
Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas. About 1/2 of all the
executions in 2018 took place in Texas, which carried out 13 death sentences.
Tennessee was 2nd with 3. Alabama, Florida and Georgia each had 2 while
Nebraska, Ohio and South Dakota each carried out one. Florida’s execution
Thursday of Jose Antonio Jimenez for fatally beating and stabbing a woman
during a burglary was the most recent. According to a list maintained by the
Death Penalty Information Center , there are no other executions scheduled this
year.
Nebraska, Tennessee and South Dakota were the three states that resumed
executions this year. Nebraska’s execution of Carey Dean Moore was the state’s
1st execution in more than 20 years. It was also the 1st time any state has
used the drug fentanyl in an execution. This year marked the 1st time in nearly
9 years that Tennessee carried out an execution. South Dakota ended a 6-year
stretch without executions when it executed Rodney Berget, who was convicted of
killing a corrections officer during a prison escape attempt.
Tennessee’s executions came at the end of a systematic challenge to lethal
injection there while executions in Nebraska and South Dakota involved inmates
who gave up challenges to their execution, said Death Penalty Information
Center executive director Robert Dunham. The center doesn’t take a side in the
debate over the death penalty, Dunham said, but has criticized the way states
carry out the death penalty, singling out problems with bias and secrecy, among
others.
All the inmates executed in 2018 were men, and all but 2 of the executions were
carried out by lethal injection, according to a center database.
2 Tennessee inmates, David Miller and Edmund Zagorski, chose to die by electric
chair because of concerns about pain associated with the state’s lethal
injection procedure. Both unsuccessfully argued to courts that Tennessee’s
lethal injection procedure, which uses the drug midazolam, results in a
prolonged and torturous death. Before this year, the last time a state used the
electric chair to execute an inmate was 2013.
The report says that 41 new death sentences have been imposed so far this year,
the 4th straight year with fewer than 50 new death sentences.
And while 3 states resumed executions this year, Washington became the 20th
state to abolish the death penalty in October, when its Supreme Court said
capital punishment in the state was “imposed in an arbitrary and racially
biased manner."
The report notes 2 death row inmates were freed in 2018: California inmate
Vicente Benavides and Florida inmate Clemente Aguirre-Jarquin. Benavides, who
was on death row for nearly 25 years after being convicted of raping and
killing his girlfriend’s 21-month-old daughter, was freed after California’s
highest court ruled that false medical testimony was presented at his trial.
Aguirre-Jarquin, who spent 14 years behind bars for the murder of his 2
neighbors, was freed after evidence showed that the daughter of 1 of the
victims confessed to the murders and her blood was at the scene.
17 inmates currently have execution dates set for 2019 , according to center
records.
(source: Associated Press)
US MILITARY:
Former Green Beret major faces murder charge for 2010 Afghanistan incident
After 8 years, 2 investigations and the intervention of a congressman, Maj.
Matthew Golsteyn is being charged with murder in the death of an Afghan man
during a 2010 deployment.
Golsteyn’s commander “has determined that sufficient evidence exists to warrant
the preferral of charges against him,” U.S. Army Special Operations Command
spokesman Lt. Col. Loren Bymer told Army Times in a brief email statement
Thursday.
“Major Golsteyn is being charged with the murder of an Afghan male during his
2010 deployment to Afghanistan,” Bymer wrote.
The major’s attorney, Phillip Stackhouse, told Army Times that he and his
client learned of the charges on Thursday as well, and that the murder charge
carries with it the possibility of a death penalty.
Stackhouse called his client a “humble servant-leader who saved countless
lives, both American and Afghan, and has been recognized repeatedly for his
valorous actions.”
Bymer confirmed that Golsteyn has been recalled to active duty and is under the
command of the USASOC headquarters company. An intermediary commander will
review the warrant of preferred charges to determine if the major will face an
Article 32 hearing that could lead to a court-martial.
That commander has 120 days to make that decision.
Golsteyn had been placed on voluntary excess leave, an administrative status
for soldiers pending lengthy administrative proceedings, Bymer said. He is not
being confined at this time.
The path to these charges has been a winding one.
Golsteyn, a captain at the time, was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 with 3rd
Special Forces Group. During the intense Battle of Marja, explosives planted on
a booby-trapped door killed 2 Marines and wounded 3 others who were working
with the major’s unit.
During those heated days, Golsteyn earned a Silver Star, the nation’s
3rd-highest award for valor, when he helped track down a sniper targeting his
troops, assisted a wounded Afghan soldier and helped coordinate multiple
airstrikes.
He would be awarded that medal at a 2011 ceremony at Fort Bragg, North
Carolina. The award was later approved for an upgrade to the Distinguished
Service Cross, the second highest award for valor.
But both the medal and his coveted Special Forces tab would be stripped from
him due to an investigation that eventually closed in 2014 without any charges.
An Army board of inquiry recommended a general discharge for Golsteyn and found
no clear evidence the soldier violated the rules of engagement while deployed
in 2010. This would have allowed Golsteyn to retain most of his retirement
benefits under a recommended general discharge under honorable conditions.
Though he was cleared of a law of armed conflict violation, the board found
Golsteyn’s conduct as unbecoming an officer.
Golsteyn was out of Special Forces and in a legal limbo as he awaited a
discharge.
That could have been the end of it, but in mid-2015, Army documents surfaced,
showing that Golsteyn allegedly told CIA interviewers during a polygraph test
that he had killed an alleged Afghan bomb-maker and later conspired with others
to destroy the body.
Those documents were part of a 2011 report filed by an Army investigator,
Special Agent Zachary Jackson, who reported that Golsteyn said after the
Marines were killed in the February blast that his unit found bomb-making
materials nearby, detained the suspected bomb-maker and brought him back to
their base.
A local tribal leader identified the man as a known Taliban bomb-maker. The
accused learned of the leader’s identification, which caused the tribal leader
to fear he would kill him and his family if released.
Trusting the leader and having also seen other detainees released, Golsteyn
allegedly told CIA interviewers that he and another soldier took the alleged
bomb-maker off base, shot him and buried his remains.
He also allegedly told the interviewers that on the night of the killing, he
and 2 other soldiers dug up the body and burned it in a trash pit on base.
Stackhouse has previously called this alleged admission a “fantasy” that his
client confessed to shooting an unarmed man.
Then, in late 2016, during an interview with Fox News, Golsteyn admitted to a
version of the incidents involving the killing of the alleged Afghan
bomb-maker.
The Army opened a 2nd investigation near the end of 2016.
Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-California, himself a Marine veteran of both Iraq and
Afghanistan, stepped in on Golsteyn’s behalf, writing a letter to the Army
secretary and making scathing public comments about the case, calling the
Army’s investigation “retaliatory and vindictive.”
The congressman called on Army leadership to “fix this stupidity,” describing
Golsteyn as “a distinguished and well regarded Green Beret.” Unrelated to the
Golsteyn case, Hunter was indicted earlier this year by federal prosecutors who
are alleging conspiracy, wire fraud, falsification of records and prohibited
use of campaign contributions.
(source: militarytimes.com)
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