June 15
TEXAS:
Appeal in 1997 Texarkana capital murder to be reviewed
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals says a 37-year-old man on Texas death row
for a robbery and fatal shooting in Texarkana nearly 19 years ago will get a
review of an appeal in his case.
Attorneys for convicted killer Julius Murphy argue Bowie County prosecutors at
his 1998 trial improperly withheld evidence that 2 key witnesses were pressured
into testifying against Murphy and that one of the witnesses gave false
testimony.
The state's highest criminal court Wednesday sent the appeal to Murphy's trial
court to be resolved. It also rejected an argument that evolving standards of
decency show the death penalty is now unconstitutional.
Murphy was condemned for the slaying of 26-year-old Jason Erie, who was
attacked after his car broke down near his father's house in Texarkana.
(source: Associated Press)
******************
Court Changes Texas Death Row Inmate's Sentence to Life
A man who fatally stabbed a 68-year-old woman and her 4-year-old granddaughter
during a 1995 burglary in Hidalgo County will no longer face execution after he
has been determined to be intellectually disabled.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court,
changed Jose Noey Martinez's sentence Wednesday to life in prison. The court
agreed with a lower court's ruling that Martinez, now 40, "is a person with
intellectual disability" and "is constitutionally ineligible for a death
sentence." Martinez had been on death row almost 20 years.
Martinez broke into the home of Esperanza Palomo to steal a TV and stereo,
according to court documents. Palomo was babysitting her blind granddaughter,
Amanda. Shortly after breaking in, Palomo confronted Martinez with a baseball
bat. He stabbed the grandmother, who fell to the ground immediately, and raped
her.
After killing the woman, Martinez told law enforcement, he heard the
granddaughter crying in another room, court documents show. He told officers
that he stabbed her to death.
A Hidalgo County jury found Martinez guilty of capital murder in 1996 and
sentenced him to death. On appeal, Martinez's attorneys had claimed that he is
mentally retarded and argued that executing him would violate the Eighth
Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.
(source: Texas Tribune)
DELAWARE:
Delaware court considers constitutionality of death penalty
A silent vigil was held outside the Delaware Supreme Court as the court weighs
the constitutionality of capital punishment in Delaware.
The ongoing debate over Delaware's death penalty has made its way to the
state's highest court.
For nearly a year, the discourse has drawn protests and emotional pleas at
Legislative Hall, but the issue, now sitting squarely before the Delaware
Supreme Court, drew a much more pensive tone in a Dover courtroom on Wednesday,
as the court heard arguments over whether the way people are sentenced to death
in Delaware is constitutional.
The quandary before the court arose after the U.S. Supreme Court found in
January that Florida's death penalty law was unconstitutional because it gave
judges - not juries - the final say to impose a death sentence. Delaware and
Alabama are the only other states that allow judges to override a jury's
recommendation of life. Delaware judges, however, have not been using that
power.
Confusion over the rulings implication in Delaware led the state's Supreme
Court to agree to hear arguments and weigh in.
In front of a packed courtroom Wednesday, a prosecutor argued to the Supreme
Court that the state's death penalty process avoids the pitfalls that made
Florida's statute infirm, especially since juries make the initial decision
about whether a defendant is eligible for the death penalty in Delaware. A
public defender countered that the state violates the Sixth Amendment when
juries are routinely told that their sentencing decision is merely a
recommendation.
"The most basic tenant of the [Florida] decision is that fact finding
subjecting the defendant to the death penalty must be made by the jury," said
Assistant Public Defender Santino Ceccotti "That does not occur in this state."
Delaware is 1 of 32 states with capital punishment. The last execution in the
state was in 2012, when Shannon Johnson, 28, was killed by lethal injection.
All pending capital murder trials and executions for the 14 men on death row
are currently on hold while the state considers the constitutionality issue.
The process for sentencing someone to death in Delaware requires multiple
steps. Once a person is found guilty of 1st-degree murder, the jury must
unanimously agree that the evidence shows beyond a reasonable doubt that a
least once of 22 statutory aggravating factors exists.
?Then, each juror has to decide whether the aggravating factors outweigh the
mitigating factors. That decision does not need to be unanimous, and the judge
is not bound by those findings. The judge then has the final authority in
sentencing someone to death.
On Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General Sean Lugg argued that Florida's death
penalty process looks similar to an older version of Delaware's statute that
existed before the General Assembly in 2002 changed it in response to another
court ruling. The more recent ruling was a way to get Florida in line with the
prior decision, Lugg said.
Ceccotti countered that legislative change is still needed for Delaware's law
to pass constitutional muster. Delaware Supreme Court Chief Justice Leo E.
Strine Jr. repeatedly questioned how, if the court were to find the statute
unconstitutional, would the legislature write a new statute with a judge still
involved in any aspect of the sentencing.
Ceccotti responded, saying that to be in line with the Florida decision, the
fact finding can not be in the hands of judges.
Florida and Alabama are also still grappling with the U.S. Supreme Court
decision.
Last week, the Florida Supreme Court heard arguments over whether the death
penalty statute lawmakers in Florida hurriedly passed after the January
decision is now acceptable. Like Delaware, Florida's new law requires juries to
unanimously determine at least one aggravating factor before defendants are
sentenced to death. Alabama has been far less willing to act, but the U.S.
Supreme Court has told the Alabama appeals court multiple times recently to
reconsider its statute.
The state court's future decision will be significant for Delaware. A bill to
abolish the death penalty failed in the state House of Representatives earlier
this year, but instead of filing a motion for reconsideration of the bill, the
bill's sponsors said in March they would suspend legislative action until the
Delaware Supreme Court rules.
Abraham J. Bonowitz, Delaware's death penalty abolition coordinator for Amnesty
International, said at a silent vigil with about 15 people outside the Supreme
Court building Wednesday that the court's decision could help toward the goal
of abolishing the death penalty.
"All of us here are praying that the Delaware Supreme Court finds ... that the
death penalty is unconstitutional," he said. "And then it will be on the
legislature to fix it, rather than end it. We should be able to stop a fix as
it's always easier to stop bad legislation than to pass progressive
legislation."
(source: delawareonline.com)
FLORIDA:
Napolitano: Orlando Terrorist's Wife Could Face The Death Penalty
Fox News's senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano says that the Orlando
terrorist attacker's wife could face the death penalty as a result of her role
in the terrorist attack.
Appearing on "America's Newsroom" Wednesday, Napolitano said, "There's a long
list of charges that she could face, from providing assistance, to agreeing to
participate."
Noor Zahi Salman, Omar Mateen's wife, knew of Mateen's plans but did not stop
him, reports Fox News. Moreover, Salman said that she was present when Mateen
bought ammunition and a holster. Last Sunday, Mateen killed 49 people at a gay
nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
"The highest and greatest charge, the reason I mention this is because the
federal government likes to charge you with the highest and greatest charge
supported by the evidence, would be conspiracy to commit mass murder,"
Napolitano said. "A conspiracy is an agreement by 2 or more people to commit a
crime. Once the crime is committed and the person actually commits it is dead,
the remaining conspirators in this case one person we believe, is as liable as
the person who pulled the trigger."
As a result of her role, Napolitano said, Salman could face "the death
penalty."
"Now, I don't know if the federal government wants to pursue that with her,
they probably will because by charging her with the highest and greatest crime
they would expect her to plead guilty to something less which would incarcerate
her for the rest of her life, get a dangerous person off the street, send a
message to other bad guys and other confederates 'We will come after everybody
that we can.'"
Referring to the guidance of "see something, say something," Napolitano says
that Salman might have had a "legal" obligation to tell authorities about
Mateen's plans.
(source: dailycaller.com)
LOUISIANA:
Will the Supreme Court Crack Down on Louisiana???s Rogue Prosecutors?
In a Louisiana case now pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, lawyers for a
death row inmate named David Brown are asking the justices to put a stop to
what the outspoken jurist and author Alex Kozinski has called an "epidemic" of
prosecutorial misconduct. One of the most common forms of such misconduct is
the withholding of evidence that might exonerate or mitigate the guilt of a
defendant. Failure to turn it over, according to the court's seminal 1963
decision Brady v. Maryland, is a violation of due process. Brown's lawyers
argue that nothing less is at stake in their client's case than the future of
Brady and the right to due process in criminal proceedings.
Although prosecutors have bristled at Kozinski's charge, there is certainly
plenty of evidence to back up his claim. According to the National Registry of
Exonerations, a project at the University of Michigan Law School, 933 of the
nearly 1,800 exonerations to date involve official misconduct by prosecutors,
police, or other government officials. 35 of those exonerations come from the
state of Louisiana alone, where prosecutors have a dismal record of complying
with their legal obligations. According to Pace University School of Law
professor Bennett Gershman, a leading expert on prosecutorial misconduct, many
of Louisiana's prosecutors "have an incomplete and even warped understanding of
the Brady rule, and their enforcement of their Brady duty is deficient." In
Kozinski's estimation, it is the duty of the courts to solve the misconduct
problem. "Only judges can put a stop to it."
(source: theintercept.com)
UTAH:
Report: Each death row inmate costs Utah $1.66 million
A new state report finds that each death row inmate in Utah costs $1.66 million
more in taxpayer money than one sentenced to life in prison without parole.
State lawmakers weighed the costs of capital punishment Wednesday at a hearing
that came after the legislature both brought back the firing squad and
seriously considered eliminating death sentences altogether.
Some lawmakers sharply questioned whether the state could really save that much
money if they did away with capital punishment, pointing to costs like care for
elderly inmates.
Republican Rep. Paul Ray of Clearfield sponsored the proposal that brought back
the firing squad as a backup execution method, and now wants to streamline the
death-penalty appeals process from about 30 years to 15 or less. Critics say
that could give defendants short shrift.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
Money for executing mentally ill inmates would be better spent helping them
To the editor: The poor, the mentally ill and the disabled - those are the
people who are sentenced to die in this state. ("A sane approach to dealing
with mentally ill death row inmates," editorial, June 11)
The death penalty is expensive. Sentencing someone to die costs taxpayers
considerably more than sentencing someone to spend the rest of his or her life
in prison. Money spent on the death penalty could be spent on education, law
enforcement, victim assistance and mental health treatment.
Attempting to speed up executions will cost even more money and will increase
the likelihood that an innocent person will be executed. Attempting to speed up
the death penalty will impose a tremendous strain on the already overburdened
courts.
The only question that remains is why the lawmakers in this state are unwilling
to publicly state what they all know - that the death penalty is irreparably
broken and should be abolished?
Jennifer Friedman, Los Angeles
The writer is a Los Angeles County public defender.
(source: Letter to the Editor, Los Angeles Times)
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