[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO
July 18 OHIOimpending execution This killer turned prison chaplain shows what's wrong with the death penalty. Ronald Phillips is scheduled to die on Wednesday, July 26. It is the 7th time this death row inmate in Ohio has been slated for execution since he was sentenced in 1993 for brutally killing a child. Mr. Phillips's crime was horrendous: He raped and beat to death his girlfriend???s 3-year-old daughter, Sheila Marie Evans. That was 24 years ago when Mr. Phillips was 19 years old. Today, Ron Phillips is an unofficial chaplain at Ohio's Chillicothe Correctional Institution. He attends multiple church services each week and has spent time with other inmates discussing Bible readings and life's challenges. Chris Gebhart, a retired businessman and practicing Catholic, has worked with multiple death row inmates at the prison since 2012. Ron Phillips at 43 years old is a very different man from the disturbed young adult who killed Sheila Marie in 1993, says Mr. Gebhart. He has visited Mr. Phillips regularly, sitting shoulder to shoulder with the inmate for 2 hours every month, sharing stories and studying the Bible. Mr. Phillips is now a nondenominational Christian who deeply regrets what he did. "He is close to God," says Mr. Gebhart. "He feels it, and he is concerned about others. I would trust him with my life. I can't say that about too many people." National media are now watching the stories of Ron Phillips and 2 other Ohio inmates for their implications for death row prisoners across the country. All 3 are supposed to die by lethal injection using a cocktail of drugs that may not properly anesthetize prisoners. (Their attorneys are hoping to postpone execution once again by taking their cases to the Supreme Court.) But Mr. Phillips's story also raises a greater question: Can a person change so dramatically over the course of 2-plus decades that he no longer deserves to die? Mr. Phillips, says Chris Gebhart, is not asking to be set free. He is not asking for forgiveness, either. But Ron Phillips isasking for his life to be spared and to have his sentence commuted to life in prison without parole so he can spend his remaining days on death row as a fellow inmate and prison minister to his peers. It is something Mr. Phillips is uniquely positioned to do, says Mr. Gebhart. "There are guys in high-security prisons that wouldn't trust outsiders, but they would sit down with him because he's one of them," says Mr. Gebhart. "He can do so much good. He can reach people that other people can't reach." The pain and loss that anyone who loved 3-year-old Sheila Marie feels are unimaginable, especially knowing the disturbing details of her final days. In the minutes from Mr. Phillips's December 2016 parole board meeting, Sheila Marie's half-sister, Renee Mundell, noted that "Phillips took away her opportunity to watch Sheila grow up." The minutes describing the meeting also said: "It is difficult for [Mundell] to face the reality of the pain and fear her sister endured. It makes her sick to think about it." Both Ms. Mundell and Sheila Marie's aunt, Donna Hudson, asked the court to serve "justice" by executing Mr. Phillips. In support of their plea, on a Facebook page maintained in memory of Sheila Marie, visitors continually and passionately advocate for executing Ron Phillips. For many, the details of Mr. Phillips's appalling crime warrant the death penalty. But a closer look at the ways he has changed over 24 years makes it difficult to argue that the man he has become deserves to die. According to those same 2016 parole board minutes, "Phillips insisted what he did to Sheila was wrong, and he is the only person responsible for his actions." He said that he is "not the same arrogant, immature and selfish person who committed those crimes." He requested his sentence to be commuted to life in prison without parole. His plea was denied by the parole board 8 days later,10 votes to 2. Killing Ron Phillips will achieve a measure of vengeance, but it will not undo any of the terrible things he did to Sheila Marie. By now, Mr. Phillips's execution might not even serve justice; killing him releases him from the burden of thinking every single day about the horrendous crimes he committed. Catholic teaching opposes the death penalty in all but the rarest of circumstances. Pope Francis has gone even further saying, "Nowadays the death penalty is inadmissible, no matter how serious the crime committed." This case, in particular, highlights why capital punishment should be rejected: Had Ron Phillips been executed 20 years ago, he would not have had the chance to seek and find God, to continually repent for the crimes he committed and to become a leader, an instrument of faith and a voice of peace and love amongst his peers. How many more people like Ron Phillips - searching for salvation, open to change - fill our country's prisons? How
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, PENN., N.C., GA., FLA., MISS., OHIO, KY.
July 18 TEXASimpending execution Court papers: 'Utterly unqualified' attorney used Wikipedia to defend death penalty inmateLawyers for death row inmate file last-minute motions days before scheduled execution With just days left till the next scheduled execution in the Lone Star state, lawyers for convicted Bexar County killer TaiChin Preyor on Friday filed a flurry of last-minute paperwork seeking to halt the condemned man's death. The pair of motions - in the Western District of Texas - claim one of Preyor's former attorneys on the case, Brandy Estelle, was "utterly unqualified" and may have even resorted to the popular crowdsourcing site Wikipedia for research in the case. Preyor, who murdered a woman who sold him drugs more than a decade ago, is scheduled to meet his fate in Huntsville on July 27. The 46-year-old was convicted in the 2004 slaying when he repeatedly stabbed Jami Tackett before cutting her throat. Neighbors found the dying woman after hearing her screams - and police caught Preyor after he came back to retrieve his car keys, the San Antonio Express-News previously reported. The San Antonio man has been on death row since 2005 fighting his case. At issue now is the allegedly subpar defense counsel who represented Preyor during parts of the federal appeals process. "It appears she relied on Wikipedia, of all things, to learn the complex ins and outs of Texas capital-punishment," Preyor's attorneys wrote of their client's former counsel, noting that Estelle's case files included a print-out of the Wikipedia page "Capital punishment in Texas" with a Post-It note labelled "Research." In addition, court papers contend Estelle was getting help on the case from an attorney disbarred for showing a "gargantuan indifference to the interests of his clients," a federal court wrote in a published decision. "No doubt fearing repercussions, Estelle never disclosed her disbarred co-counsel's lead role in the case to this Court," claims the convicted man's legal team, which includes Catherine Stetson, Preyor's pro bono attorney and a partner at Hogan Lovells. The dozens of pages of motions and exhibits filed Friday call Jefferson and Estelle's work "shocking conduct" and "exactly the kind of extraordinary circumstance that warrants this Court's intervention." The motions for stay of execution and relief from judgment ask the court to halt Preyor's death date and reopen his federal appeal, this time with "licensed and qualified counsel." Last-minute stays of execution are more the exception than the rule - but they're certainly not unheard of. In 2011, Harris County death row inmate Duane Edward Buck was granted a last-minute reprieve amid questions of racially tainted expert testimony. He's still on death row as the appeals process continues to play out. (source: Houston Chronicle) PENNSYLVANIA: Pennsylvania execution notices are 'not worth the paper they're written on'The death warrants have been around since 1995, a strain on court time and resources. The news rolled in earlier this month, for the 460th time since 1985: A Pennsylvania death row inmate had received an execution notice or warrant. This time it was for Philadelphia murderer Omar Sharif Cash, and like 457 men who've come before him he will almost certainly never be put to death. Cash could get a reprieve for several reasons, the best-known likely being Gov. Tom Wolf's death penalty moratorium. Should any death penalty case go the distance, Wolf has said he will halt the execution. But long before it comes to that, the execution notice signed for Cash will likely be stayed, amounting to what one of the country's foremost death penalty opponents considers a waste of time. And since 1995, 350-plus other notices and warrants could be classified in the same category. "They're legally premature," said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, "meaning they're not worth the paper they're written on." Pennsylvania elected officials created the execution warrant system still used today in 1995, during the beginning of Gov. Tom Ridge's 1st term. At the time, he and many legislators - Republican and Democrat - were pushing a tough-on-crime stance. Ridge even held a special session focused on crime-related legislation. The bill, proposed by Rep. Ron Marsico (R-105th), mandated the governor sign an execution warrant for a death row inmate by at least 90 days after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision of the inmate's direct appeal. If the governor didn't sign the warrant, then the Department of Corrections would have to issue a notice of execution within 30 days of the previous deadline. "Despite the law, there was no death penalty in Pennsylvania," Ridge said in 1995. "When you kill in cold blood, you deserve to pay the highest penalty." The thought behind the bill was inmates had no motivation
