[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, ARIZ., CALIF., USA
Sept. 6
OHIO:
Anti-death penalty group wants court recommendations enacted
Ohio's largest anti-death penalty group wants more recommendations for changing
the state's capital punishment law to be enacted.
Ohioans To Stop Executions says lawmakers have only approved 4 of 56 proposals
made by an Ohio Supreme Court task force in 2014. The organization says in an
annual report released Tuesday that 6 more are pending in the Legislature but
have yet to receive support in both the House and Senate.
The report also says prosecutors sought the death penalty in 26 cases last
year, 5 more than in 2014.
Most cases came from counties that traditionally seek the death penalty more
often. Those include Franklin, Hamilton, Lake, Mahoning, Stark and Trumbull
counties.
Ohio hasn't executed anyone in almost 3 years because of a lack of lethal
injection drugs.
(source: Associated Press)
ARIZONA:
Death penalty possible in killing of BHC 8-year-old girl
A police detective has testified in a court hearing for a man accused of
killing an 8-year-old Bullhead City girl two years ago that there was evidence
the victim was sexually assaulted.
The Kingman Daily Miner and the Mohave Valley Daily News reported that
Detective Brandon Grasse testified Friday during a Mohave County Superior Court
hearing in the case of Justin James Rector.
Prosecutors said they plan to seek the death penalty if Rector is convicted of
first-degree murder in the September 2014 killing of Isabella "Bella"
Grogan-Cannella. Rector is also charged with kidnapping, child abuse and
abandonment of a dead body.
The girl's partially clothed body was found in a shallow grave near her home.
Judge Lee Jantzen ruled during the hearing that prosecutors had established
probable cause to seek a death sentence for Rector, if he is convicted of
murder.
Circumstances cited for a death sentence included: the victim's age being under
age 15, the death being committed in a cruel or heinous manner and the
defendant having committed a serious offense other than murder.
"Asphyxia due to strangulation," Grasse said when asked by prosecutor Greg
McPhillips during the hearing to comment on the autopsy and how the girl died.
He also said there was evidence of sexual assault.
"It was cruel and it was horrible," McPhillips said.
Rector's attorney, Gerald Gavin, argued that there was no evidence of sexual
abuse and there was no evidence the murder was cruel or heinous compared to
other death row inmates whose victims were tortured over time. He argued that
the girl was killed quickly, but he conceded that she was under age 15.
McPhillips countered that the girl's death was cruel because of her young age
and that she trusted Rector, a family friend, who had stayed with her family.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
Death is Different: What defenders of capital punishment get wrong
Last week, in a reactionary op-ed littered with Trump-inspired flourish,
Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert ramped up her personal,
public, and political crusade for Proposition 66 in California (and its dubious
promise of quick, yet somehow still accurate, state-sanctioned killings).
Schubert was responding to my column published at the end of last month,
"California Voters can tip the balance in death penalty debate," or as Schubert
assailed it, "Stephen Cooper's latest rant against the death penalty in
California." Following her dismissive, Trump-style personal attack, Schubert's
response immediately devolves into Trumpish narcissism ("Proposition 66 was
conceived by some of the brightest legal minds in California"), followed by the
trumpeting of a controversial and misleading poll concerning Californians
alleged support for the death penalty.
Schubert's op-ed extols Proposition 66 - which promises to speed executions in
California, though not hardly as much as advertised - given Schubert's
remarkable concession that: "The initiative does not impose a rigid deadline
that must be met in every case. Courts are allowed to go longer in
extraordinary cases."
Schubert badly needs to brush up on Supreme Court case law because, as The New
York Times observed 14 years ago: "The Supreme Court has long professed the
principle that 'death is different,' that in order to deprive someone of his
life, the state must be punctilious about providing him every procedural
protection." Just 1 eloquent example of this is Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1,
45-46 (1957) (on rehearing) (Frankfurter, J., concurring) ("The taking of life
is irrevocable. It is in capital cases especially that the balance of
conflicting interests must be weighed most heavily in favor of the procedural
safeguards of the Bill of Rights.").
What Schubert troublingly fails to grasp, despite touting her background having
prosecuted death penalty cases, is that each and every death penalty case is
"extraordinary." In ignorance of this
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, ARIZ., CALIF., USA
April 21 OHIO: Ohio high court upholds death penalty for former Toledoan The Ohio Supreme Court today upheld the death sentence for a former Toledo man who shot a convenience store clerk during a 2008 robbery. The high court rejected the argument that Anthony Belton, 30, should have been allowed to have a jury determine his sentence after he'd already pleaded no contest to aggravated murder and 2 counts of aggravated robbery and had a 3-judge panel consider his case. "In short, Ohio law does not permit a jury to sentence a capital defendant if the defendant has elected to enter a plea of guilty or no contest to capital charges," wrote Justice Sharon Kennedy for the 6-1 majority. The court also disagreed with Belton's argument that not allowing a jury to weigh the factors that determine whether a death sentence is appropriate in the case violated his Sixth Amendment rights. "...a defendant is not deprived of his right to present a defense simply because he does not present his evidence to a jury...," Justice Kennedy wrote. "And Belton does not claim that he was prevented from presenting a full mitigation defense to the 3-judge panel." Belton was convicted of shooting Matthew Dugan, 34, in the back of the head during the holdup of the former BP gas station at Dorr Street and Secord Road on Aug. 13, 2008. The 3-judge panel that considered his case determined that the fact that Belton committed the murder in the course of another felony, robbery, was sufficient to outweigh mitigating factors such as Belton's troubled childhood. The Supreme Court's sole dissenting vote belonged to Justice William O'Neill, who has previously stated he believes Ohio's death penalty is unconstitutional. Belton, on death row at Chillicothe Correctional Institution, still has a path of federal appeals that he may pursue. Ohio has not executed an inmate since January, 2014 amid under court and gubernatorial moratoriums as the state has struggled to obtain the drugs it would prefer to use in lethal injections. The current moratorium will expire at the end of this year. (source: Toledo Blade) ARIZONA: 7 Mohave County inmates currently on death row There are 7 inmates from Mohave County who sit on Arizona's death row. Mohave County has 2 death penalty cases pending in Superior Court. There are currently 7 convicted inmates from the county awaiting execution. Justin James Rector, 26, who faces the death penalty if convicted, is charged with 1st-degree murder for the Sept. 2, 2014, death of 8-year-old Isabella Grogan-Cannella and leaving her body near her Bullhead City home Darrell Bryant Ketchner's conviction for 1st-degree murder and burglary was overturned in December 2014. He had been sentenced in March 2013 for the July 4, 2009, murder of Ariel Allison, 18, in Kingman. Ketchner, 57, again faces the death penalty if convicted of Allison's murder. The cases of 3 death row inmates from Mohave County, Brad Lee Nelson, Frank Anderson and Charles David Ellison, are on appeal, according to Indigent Defense Administrator Blake Schritter. There are 117 men and 2 women on death row in Arizona. Of the 119 death row inmates in the state, 70 are Caucasians, 25 are Mexican-Americans, 16 are African-Americans, 1 is a Mexican national, 3 are Native Americans and 2 are listed as other. Daniel Wayne Cook was the last Mohave County inmate to be executed. He was put to death in August 2012 for killing a man and a 16-year-old boy in Lake Havasu City in July 1987. Nelson, 45, is the most recent inmate sentenced to death. He was sentenced in December 2009 for the June 2006 beating death of 13-year-old Amber Leann Graff of Golden Valley. Ellison, 50, of Lake Havasu City, was sentenced to death in February 2004 for killing an elderly Kingman couple in February 1999. Anderson, 68, was sentenced to death in December 2002 for killing 3 members of a Golden Valley family in August 1996. Anderson's co-defendant, Bobby Poyson, 39, was sentenced to death in September 1998 for his participation in the murders. The oldest inmate, Graham Saunders Henry, 69, was convicted and sentenced in February 1995 for kidnapping and killing an elderly Las Vegas man in a remote desert about 40 miles north of Kingman in June 1986. Danny L. Jones, 51, was sentenced to death in December 1993 for the baseball bat beating death of a Bullhead City man, his 74-year-old grandmother and his 7-year-old daughter in March 1992. Roger W. Murray, 45, was sentenced to death in October 1992 for the May 1991 shotgun slaying of a Grasshopper Junction couple. His brother, Robert W. Murray, was also sentenced to death for the murders but he died in June 2014. (source: Mohave Valley Daily News) CALIFORNIA: Don't Let California Jumpstart Executions Officials at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) are doing everything they can to jumpstart executions
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----OHIO, ARIZ., CALIF., USA, N.C.
Feb. 14 OHIO: Jury finds man guilty in murder of infant; Ross spared death penalty A jury concluded today that John V. Ross II killed his son but spared him from the death penalty. Deliberating about nine hours over two days, jurors convicted Ross, 29, of murder, a lesser charge of reckless homicide, felonious assault and child endangering. Ross, of Akron, was accused of aggravated murder in the July 7 death of his 11-week-old son, John III, but was found not guilty on that charge, which carried a possible death sentence. Sitting between his lawyers at the defense table, dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and tie, Ross showed no emotion as the verdicts were read. Sheriff's deputies quickly led him out of the courtroom. Nina Woofter, the mother of the dead child, said afterward she did not know how to feel about the not-guilty verdict on the aggravated murder charge, but she did say she felt justice was served. ''Nobody really knows what happened that day but God and Mr. Ross, and I feel God's hand was in all of this and his will has been done. That's just what I believe, but I feel justice has been done here,'' Woofter said. Summit County Common Pleas Judge Patricia A. Cosgrove scheduled sentencing for 9:15 a.m. Thursday. According to Ohio law, Ross faces a prison sentence of 15 years to life for the murder conviction. ''What Judge Cosgrove does with the other charges is not known at this time. It's up to her,'' defense lawyer Kerry O'Brien said. Felonious assault carries a sentence of two to eight years, and the potential sentence for reckless homicide is 1 to 5 years. Cosgrove could run those sentences consecutively to or simultaneously with the sentence for murder. Jurors, who met with the lead investigator, Akron Police Detective Gary Shadie, and lawyers from both sides after the verdicts were announced, declined to comment to news reporters before leaving the courthouse. Trial testimony According to testimony in the 5-day trial, Ross was the only adult present in a run-down, two-story home on Newton Street on the hot and humid morning of the baby's death. Woofter, 24, had been living there with Ross, their son, two dogs, a pet rabbit and 6 other children she had from another relationship. She was at work that morning at a Rally's restaurant in Barberton. Woofter testified that she left home shortly after 9 a.m., taking a bus to Barberton. She learned of the baby's death when police picked her up at work and drove her back to Newton Street in the early afternoon. In a recorded statement to Shadie two days after his son's death, Ross said the city turned off the water at the home shortly after Woofter left for work. He said he spent the next couple of hours in a juggling act trying to keep the children in line while feeding them and tending to the needs of his son. When Little John, as he was called, would not stop crying, Ross said he picked the baby up and placed him face down under a blanket on a sofa in the cramped living room. It was at that point, prosecutors contended, that Ross used a child car seat and pressed it down on the baby for a full minute, they said to quiet him. Assistant Summit County Prosecutor Greg Peacock, in his opening statement, called the car seat the murder weapon. To prove the aggravated murder charge, prosecutors had to convince the jury that Ross purposely killed his son. In closing arguments Thursday, defense counsel Nathan A. Ray played the tape of Ross' police statement for the jury. Quietly and calmly, Ross described what it was like in the house in the moments before the child's death. ''I couldn't think. There was so much going on, I was just trying to keep [the baby] quieter,'' Ross said. Calling 911 When he discovered his son wasn't breathing, Ross said, he put the child on the floor and attempted to revive him by doing chest compressions. Ross said he then ran out of the house, looking for a pay phone to call 911 because his cell phone was broken. The jury also heard the 4-minute tape of the 911 call. Ross could be heard breathing heavily throughout much of it. Paramedics were sent to the home at 11:39 a.m. They found the baby on his back on the living room floor, with his arms and legs outstretched. ''We knew right away that we weren't going to do any life-saving measures,'' paramedic Robert Alestock testified. Autopsy reports Assistant Summit County Medical Examiner Dorothy E. Dean, who performed the autopsy, determined the cause of death was asphyxiation from compression of the torso, with a contributing cause of ''occlusion,'' or blockage, of the airways. Dean, who said she found evidence of 21 rib fractures, said the manner of death was homicide. Her findings were subjected to a withering attack Thursday in more than 3 hours of testimony by the defense's lone witness, Jonathan L. Arden, a court-certified expert in forensic pathology. Arden, a former chief medical examiner in Washington, D.C., and the No. 2 man in
