May 18
OHIO:
Ohio governor in future to inform victims' families when death sentences
commuted
In the future Ohio Gov. John Kasich will call family members of murder victims
when he decides to spare the lives of death row inmates, the governor's office
said Friday.
Kasich's decision followed a meeting earlier this week with relatives of a
homicide victim upset by the governor's decision to grant clemency last year.
At issue was Kasich's announcement on Dec. 17 he was sparing Ronald Post,
sentenced to death for killing Elyria motel clerk Helen Vantz on Dec. 15, 1983.
Kasich followed a recommendation by the Ohio Parole Board that Post receive
clemency because of poor legal representation he received at trial. The
governor's decision was unrelated to a request for mercy by Post's attorneys
because he was so obese that he could not be executed humanely.
Vantz' son, Michael Vantz, asked earlier this year for a meeting with Kasich
for a chance to hear from the governor about his reasons for sparing Post and
the decision to announce it so close to the anniversary of Helen Vantz' death.
The timing of Kasich's decision "was one major point of tension, and disrespect
to the victim's family members, friends, survivors," Michael Vantz, of suburban
Cleveland, said in an email Friday in which he described the meeting with the
governor on Wednesday.
Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols declined to comment on the meeting, calling it a
private event, but confirmed the governor's new policy on informing relatives
if a death sentence is commuted. Nichols added that Kasich acknowledged the
unfortunate timing of his clemency announcement for Post, who had been
scheduled to die Jan. 16.
Kasich also promised to look into the issue of whether a judge could be
required to remove a defense attorney from a trial if the attorney was deemed
incompetent, according to Vantz.
During the meeting, Kasich related the story of his parents' 1987 death in a
crash caused by a drunk driver and gave Vantz a signed copy of his book, "Every
Other Monday," about faith and finding solace, Vantz said.
"His deeply sincere regret about the very timing of commuting the sentence of
the murderer Ronald Post was extraordinary," Michael Vantz said in his email.
"Kasich proved his humanity."
A friend of Vantz' murdered mother and one of her nephews also attended the
meeting with Kasich.
Kasich has spared the lives of 4 death row inmates since taking office and
denied clemency for 10 others.
Governors in Ohio and other states have struggled with the same issue.
Earlier this week in Colorado, records released by Gov. John Hickenlooper
indicated he has spoken with 7 prosecutors and 2 defense attorneys as well as
victims' families as he ponders whether to grant clemency to Nathan Dunlap, who
faces execution in August for ambushing and killing 4 people in 1993.
In Illinois, former Gov. George Ryan set up a review structure so families
could be heard while he considered the general commutation of death row, which
he ultimately carried out.
In Missouri, former Gov. Mel Carnahan was criticized for not telling relatives
of the victim of Darrell Mease of his intention to spare him. Carnahan commuted
Mease's death sentence in 1999 at the urging of Pope John Paul II, who was
visiting the U.S. at the time.
Carnahan later apologized for the "human error" in failing to notify the
parents of shooting victim Willie Lawrence.
Former Ohio Gov. Dick Celeste has said he never regretted his decision to
commute 8 inmates' death sentences on the eve of leaving office in 1991, but in
later years acknowledged the mistake of not consulting more deeply with
prosecutors and family members of the victims of the killers he freed from
death row.
(source: Associated Press)
KANSAS:
The Kansas death penalty has cobwebs
It may be weeks before Kansans know if prosecutors will seek the death penalty
for Kyle Flack, accused of killing 4 people in Franklin County this spring.
It will take far longer - 10 years or more - before anyone in the state is
actually put to death for a crime.
And that time gap, advocates on both sides of the death penalty debate say,
suggests the state remains deeply uneasy about the punishment - an ambivalence
that muddies its value.
"When a law isn't applied, it isn't really a law," said David Muhlhausen, a
death penalty supporter and expert with the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Capital punishment opponents aren't eager to speed up executions, of course.
But they say the state's lengthy death penalty procedure is costing taxpayers
millions of dollars in legal fees and other expenses without significantly
improving public safety.
"Constituents have said to me, 'We have a theoretical death penalty, but we
don't carry it out in practice,'" said Mary Sloan, executive director of the
Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty.
"So if we're not going to carry it out in practice, why do we pay all that
cost?"
No one has been put to death in Kansas since 1965.
"Kansas is 10 years and $20 million away from its 1st execution," predicted
lawyer and capital punishment opponent Sean O'Brien of Kansas City.
But death penalty supporters say the state's ultimate sanction shouldn't be
judged solely by the number of times it's actually used. The mere threat of
death - or decades locked in isolation, waiting for death - plays an important
role, they say, in the state's justice system.
An uneven history
Kansas lawmakers reinstated the state's death penalty in 1994. Since then, 13
men have been condemned to death for murder. All remain alive. Only 9 sit on
the state's death row, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections'
website. The others' sentences were reduced after appeals and plea agreements,
or have been vacated pending a new trial.
Since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court validated rewritten capital punishment
laws, only 2 states with death penalty statutes - Kansas and New Hampshire -
have not executed a single inmate.
The long gap between capital crime and capital punishment in Kansas is the
result of several interlocking factors, experts say.
The state's death penalty law is narrow, providing a way for even the most
brutal killers to escape the punishment. Some prosecutors use the death penalty
more as a negotiating tool than a criminal sanction, and some politicians
remain ambivalent about executions, as do many residents in the state.
And the courts play a critical role.
All death sentences in Kansas are automatically reviewed by the state's Supreme
Court. It's uniquely allowed to "scour the record" for trial and sentencing
errors in capital cases, even those not raised by defense lawyers. That further
raises the chances for delays.
In January, the state Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Phillip Cheatham,
who faced the death penalty for a 2003 double homicide in Topeka. Cheatham, the
court found, was poorly defended by his lawyer.
Kansas Sen. Greg Smith of Overland Park - whose daughter Kelsey was murdered -
holds the state's judges responsible for the lack of executions in Kansas.
"It's constitutional," he said. "It's just we have a lack of judicial will to
use it."
The state's highest court delayed executions in the last decade by deciding the
Kansas death sentencing procedure was constitutionally flawed. In 2006, the
U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to overrule that opinion and reinstate capital
punishment in Kansas.
"The American people have determined that the good to be derived from capital
punishment...outweighs the risk of error," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the
case. "It is no proper part of the business of this Court, or of its Justices,
to 2nd-guess that judgment."
But the decision didn't entirely settle the matter.
This fall, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider Kansas death row inmate Scott
Cheever's case - he claims his Fifth Amendment protection against
self-incrimination was violated during his trial and sentencing for killing a
sheriff.
Lawyers who work with death penalty defendants say those multilevel appeal
rights in state and federal courts are important and unavoidable, regardless of
length.
"These cases are looked at closely, for due process," said Richard Dieter of
the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. "If there's any
problem, it has to be done over."
That means sharply higher legal costs, for investigations, defense lawyers and
appeals arguments.
In 2003, a legislative audit examined the state's death penalty expenses in the
previous decade. Kansas, the audit found, had spent or would spend almost $20
million on its 14 death penalty cases, including cases where the death penalty
was sought but not granted.
By contrast, taxpayers spent $6.3 million on eight cases where the prosecutors
did not ask for death in a murder case.
The most expensive death penalty case involved Johnson County's John E.
Robinson Sr., convicted on 2 capital murder counts. 10 years ago, the state
said Robinson's case would cost taxpayers $2.4 million, a bill that has
continued to grow.
"Nobody in his right mind defends the death penalty because it saves money,
anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances," O'Brien said.
"Because it doesn't."
Continued debate
Arguments over safety versus cost play out regularly in state legislatures
across the country.
Earlier this month, Maryland repealed its death penalty statute. Nebraska's
repeal effort fell short this spring because of a filibuster, even though a
majority of the state's 1-house legislature indicated support for repeal.
Today, 32 states have a capital punishment statute, as does the federal
government. 18 states and the District of Columbia do not.
Missouri has executed 68 people since 1976, according to the Death Penalty
Information Center. Currently, 48 inmates face capital punishment in the state.
A bill abolishing the death penalty and replacing it with life without parole
was introduced in the General Assembly this year, but it was not debated.
Kansas lawmakers also introduced death penalty repeal bills this session, but
they went nowhere. The state's last serious debate on death penalty repeal came
in 2010, when it fell a vote short in the Senate.
Gov. Sam Brownback said last week that his view on capital punishment has
changed in recent years, putting him to the left of most in his Republican
Party. He now believes it should be reserved for inmates who pose a future
threat to society, using Osama bin Laden as an example.
"You're always looking to protect life," he said. "That's a very narrow
definition of the use of the death penalty."
Brownback's views on capital punishment in Kansas, though, may be less
important than they appear. Even if he is re-elected in 2014, it's unlikely he
would still be in office when any death row clemency requests might be filed.
But they do suggest many Kansans, even some conservatives, remain uncomfortable
with the ultimate sanction.
"It represents an ambivalence in the state about the death penalty," Dieter
said. "It may be wanted on the books, but carrying it out is problematic. And
so it's delayed."
Death's leverage
Some prosecutors and supporters, though, say keeping the death penalty on the
Kansas books remains important.
Studies show the death penalty is still a deterrent, Heritage's Muhlhausen
said, although the effect drops in states that don't actually carry it out.
Other experts dispute his conclusion. The Kansas murder rate is 3.5 per 100,000
people, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. In Missouri, it's 7
murders per 100,000. Both have the death penalty, but only Missouri has carried
it out in recent years.
Iowa has no death penalty. Its murder rate is 1.3 per 100,000 people.
But even the threat of capital punishment can focus a defendant's attention on
plea agreements that spare victims' families from long trials, some lawyers
say. In most agreements, almost all future appeals are waived, ending the
trauma of court appearances and media stories about the crime. Additionally,
death penalty defendants have more to worry about than death.
Paul Cramm represented Edwin Hall, now serving a sentence of life without
parole after pleading guilty to murdering Kelsey Smith.
Clients, Cramm said, are often as worried about the conditions of death row as
they are about the execution chamber itself, which encourages plea deals. Death
row inmates are kept in El Dorado, Kan., in isolation from almost all other
prisoners.
Most defendants realize "the likelihood of an acquittal or a finding of not
guilty is not real high," Cramm said. "The likelihood of being executed in your
lifetime is not real high. So I guess what we're negotiating for is, what sort
of life do you want to have while you're incarcerated?"
Death penalty opponents also suggest the long wait for death is itself cruel.
Supporters, though, say those complaints are misplaced. A prisoner can't take
advantage of every delay the law allows, they say, and then complain about how
long it takes to die.
If Kansas ever executes a condemned prisoner, it will take place in the state
prison in Lansing. Only death by lethal injection is authorized. Asked if the
gap between sentence and execution in Kansas is too long, Brownback hesitated
for several seconds.
"I've been at the chambers in Lansing, where the death penalty would have to be
administered," he said. "That's a very sobering place to see.
"But I think it's kind of actually worked for the state," he added. "Most
Kansans would look at it as wanting this to be very, very, very sparingly
used."
(source: Kansas City Star)
**********************
Kansas AG taking lead on quadruple homicide case
The Kansas Attorney General's Office is taking the lead on the prosecution of
Kyle T. Flack, the man charged in a quadruple homicide in Franklin County.
Derek Schmidt, Kansas attorney general, announced Friday his office would lead
the prosecution team in the case, which involved the killing of 4 Ottawa-area
residents, including an 18-month-old child.
The Franklin County Attorney's office filed criminal charges May 10 against
Flack, 27, Ottawa, including 2 counts of capital murder, 4 counts of murder in
the 1st degree, 1 count of rape and 1 count of criminal possession of a
firearm. The 2 capital murder charges make Flack eligible for the death
penalty.
Stephen Hunting, Franklin County attorney, had been acting as the lead
prosecutor in the Flack case. Earlier in Hunting's career, he served as an
assistant attorney general for the Kansas Attorney General's Office as the
domestic violence prosecutor, according to Herald archives.
The bodies of Kaylie Bailey, 21, Andrew Stout, 30, and Steve White, 31, were
discovered May 6 and May 7 at 3197 Georgia Road, west of Ottawa. A 4th body,
which is believed to be Lana Bailey, 18 months, the daughter of Kaylie Bailey,
was found Saturday in Osage County.
Judge Thomas Sachse set a status conference for Flack for 1:15 p.m. July 8 in
Franklin County District Court. A preliminary hearing or "preliminary
examination" in the case is expected to be scheduled at the status conference.
(source: The Ottawa Herald)
ARIZONA:
Back in 2008, Arias said she wanted death penalty
There has been a lot of attention paid to Jodi Arias' recent comments about how
she prefers the death penalty over life in prison, but it's a belief she's held
for years.
In 2008, 48 Hours interviewed Arias about her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander's
death. At the time, Arias denied killing him.
"If a conviction happens, I know that I won't be the 1st person to be wrongly
convicted and possibly wrongly sentenced for either life in prison or the death
penalty," stated Arias at the time.
"Personally, if I had my choice, I would take the death penalty because I don't
want to spend the rest of my life in prison. But I'm not so much angry at that
as I am thinking, 'What a waste because I did have my whole future ahead of
me.' I had everything to lose and nothing to gain if I were to have killed
Travis," she continued in the 2008 interview.
Arias is expected to take the stand Monday when the jury reconvenes for the
sentencing part of her trial. Thursday, the jurors were inexplicably dismissed
early. It's unclear what Arias will say Monday. Many wonder whether she will
continue to ask for the death penalty.
(source: CBS News)
CALIFORNIA----new death sentence
Corcoran inmate gets death penalty
A lifer at Corcoran State Prison has been sentenced to death for murdering his
cell mate, a Kings County judge ruled this week.
Judge Peter L. Spinetta handed down the sentence for Robert Galvan at a hearing
Wednesday, said Kings County prosecutor Thom Snyder. Galvan was immediately
taken to death row at San Quentin State Prison.
In March, a jury found Galvan guilty of 1st-degree murder with special
circumstances of torture and lying in wait, and assault with a deadly weapon by
a life prisoner causing death.
Snyder said Galvan murdered his cell mate, Robert Johnson, 28, of Clear Lake,
in September 2010 by getting him drunk on inmate-made wine, then slitting his
throat, strangling him with an electric cord, then smashing his head against
the concrete bed several times. Johnson was 30 days away from release, Snyder
said. They shared a cell in a high-security housing unit.
Galvan told investigators that he killed Johnson because his cell mate had
"disrespected" him by calling him stupid, and that he was punishing Johnson for
violating an unwritten rule not to complain to guards about disputes with cell
mates, Snyder said.
After attacking his public defender in 2011 and breaking his nose, Galvan
served as his own lawyer.
In July, while being taken back to Corcoran prison from court in Hanford, he
slipped out of his handcuffs and stabbed a guard 5 times with an inmate-made
weapon.
Galvan was in Corcoran serving four consecutive life terms. 2 were for a 1999
kidnapping, robbery and ransom when an evening at the movies turned into a
night of terror for a young couple who were carjacked outside a Fresno theater.
The couple, both in their 20s, had just left Edwards Cinemas on North
Blackstone Avenue when they were accosted by a man with a knife.
The woman was forced into the back seat and her companion ordered to drive to
an ATM, where he took money out and handed it to the kidnapper.
Instead of letting the couple go, he forced them them to drive to several other
ATMs, but they were unable to withdraw more money. The male victim said his
mother would give them money, so they drove to her apartment in Clovis.
While the son went inside, the robber held the woman hostage in the car.
The mother telephoned Clovis police while her boyfriend, driving his own car,
agreed to lead the robber and hostages to an ATM in Clovis, where officers
surrounded the bank and arrested Galvan.
The young couple, now married, testified during the penalty phase, Snyder said.
While in the Fresno County jail, Galvan attacked a correctional officer, for
which he got his 3rd life sentence. The 4th was for assaulting an inmate with a
weapon at Salinas Valley State Prison.
"He's the absolute poster for the death penalty, " Snyder said in March.
(source: Fresno Bee)
USA:
Death of the death penalty
At great political peril, George Ryan did the right thing.
Not to canonize the man. After all, the then-governor of Illinois was later
imprisoned on corruption charges.
But that doesn't change the fact that, in 2000, stung that 13 inmates had been
exonerated and freed from death row in the previous 23 years, Ryan committed an
act of profound moral courage, imposing a moratorium on capital punishment. In
2003, in the waning days of his term, he one-upped himself, commuting every
death sentence in his state.
Recalling what Gov. George Ryan once did provides interesting context as
Floridians and death penalty opponents around the country wait to see what Gov.
Rick Scott will do.
Florida's chief executive has on his desk awaiting his signature - or, dare we
hope, his veto - a piece of legislation called the Timely Justice Act, passed
by his state legislature in the apparent belief Florida is not killing people
fast enough.
There are 404 people awaiting execution in Florida. We learn from a report by
my colleague, Mary Ellen Klas, that 155 of them have been there longer than 20
years, and 10 have been there longer than 35 years. The average wait: 13 years.
The act would require the governor to sign a death warrant within 30 days after
a review by the state Supreme Court. Execution would have to take place within
180 days. Additionally, the bill bars attorneys from using certain defense
strategies. Granted, it also contains provisions favorable to inmates,
including one penalizing lawyers who provide ineffective counsel, but that fig
leaf does not mitigate the danger of a bill that, in effect, creates a fast
track to the death chamber.
This measure, I feel constrained to point out, is brought to you by the same
legislative body that brought you the ill-conceived Stand Your Ground law that
has lately led people to call Florida the "gunshine state." This latest sop to
frontier justice is necessary, we're told, because, as an editorial by Scripps
Treasure Coast Newspapers puts it, delayed executions are "an affront to
justice - especially for victims' families."
Beg pardon - and I know this will be controversial - but I'm tired of hearing
what we owe victim's families. I speak from no deficit of compassion for them.
I am, for goodness sake, a member of a victim's family, albeit his extended
family. R.I.P., Ted McCoy, my brother-in-law, who was murdered 20 years ago in
Los Angeles.
That said, there's something...uncomfortably barbarous in this idea that we as
a society owe those families blood as recompense for the pain they have
endured.
More to the point, there's this: Since the death penalty was reinstated in the
mid-'70s, Florida has executed 75 people. But it has exonerated 24, many of
whom spent more than a decade on death row. According to the Death Penalty
Information Center, Florida has the highest error rate in the country.
So how can a state that gets it wrong at least one time in every 4 want to
speed up the process? Does no one care about the increased likelihood of
executing someone who committed no crime?
We are always called upon to be solicitous of the pain suffered by victims'
families. Where is our solicitude for innocent people, wrong place, wrong time,
people - usually indigent people of color - who are rushed, perjured, bumbled,
erred and "oopsed" onto death row? Why does their pain affect us less? Why are
they less deserving of our compassion? Are they not victims, too?
To his lasting credit, Illinois??? former governor came to recognize capital
punishment as the moral sinkhole it is. It is probably too much to hope
Florida's governor will do the same. But at a minimum he must veto this mistake
in waiting. The bill his legislature has sent him imposes something that may
indeed be timely.
But it sure as hell is not justice.
(source: Opinion, Leonard Pitts, Jr., Battle Creek Enquirer)
*************************
Death penalty process terribly cruel, unusual
Leaving any person on death row for longer than 6 months is cruel and unusual
punishment, both for them and the families of their victims.
On the day of conviction, a board of professionals should be formed to verify
every scrap of evidence on the case. This will cover legal malfeasance,
unethical/perjured witnesses, lab results, everything pertaining to the case.
This can be done in 90 days, but I am suggesting 180 to be on the safe side.
Depending on the ruling by this board, the defendant will either be executed
the day following the ruling, or a new trial, if needed, will start
immediately. The cost of this procedure is a fraction of the cost associated
with numerous appeals and living costs over 10 to 30 years.
Plus, the time of agony by all sides will be greatly reduced.
But, as long as the legal profession is populated by those desiring to live off
the public dole through their machinations of the legal system regarding the
death penalty, this will never change. Mike Walker----Brandon
(source: Letter to the Editor, Clarion Ledger)
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