Oct. 7
VIRGINIA:
Judge delays sentencing for Halifax County man facing possible death penalty
James Lloyd Terry will have to wait a few more weeks before learning his fate.
On Thursday, the Commonwealth and Terry's attorney delivered their respective
closing arguments, concluding a 4-day sentencing phase.
Judge Joel Cunningham said that it would not be appropriate to hand down a
decision Thursday without having had a chance to review the arguments made by
both sides.
Cunningham now has to decide whether Terry will receive life in prison without
parole or the death penalty for raping and beating to death 84-year-old
Charlotte Rice in her South Boston home on April 14th, 2011.
Both Terry and Rice's families declined to comment after court was adjourned
Thursday.
Judge Cunningham will deliver his decision at 9:30 a.m. in Halifax County
Circuit Court on October 31.
(source: WSLS news)
WEST VIRGINIA:
Petition Created To Publicly Hang Benjamin Taylor, Who Raped 9-Month-Old To
Death
Benjamin Taylor, 32, has been arrested and is being held on a $2 million bail
in Southern Regional Jail, West Virginia. The man has been charged with the
rape and beating resulting in the death of 9-month-old Emmaleigh Barringer,
daughter of his girlfriend, with whom he lived. The baby's mother has 3 older
children who were apparently unharmed by Taylor.
On the morning of October 3, Amanda Adkins awoke early, around 4 a.m., after
going to bed about 6 hours earlier. After awakening, she discovered the baby
was not in her crib. She began a frantic search which ended when she found
Emmaleigh naked, bleeding, battered and unresponsive in the basement of her
home near Ripley, WV. She immediately called 911, but when paramedics arrived,
Emmaleigh was not breathing. Although they were able to regain Emmaleigh's
pulse, she was placed on a ventilator and was soon pronounced brain dead. She
had head trauma and had lost massive blood from the brutal sexual assault,
which responding police characterized as "the worst sexual assault they had
ever seen", according to Fox 43.
Benjamin Taylor, according to Facebook information, has apparently been Amanda
Adkin's boyfriend sine July. He apparently has an infant son of his own with
another woman, but the baby did not live with him and is reportedly unharmed.
Within hours of the discovery of Emmaleigh, Taylor was arrested and taken to
jail, where his charges were soon upgraded to murder after the family had made
the difficult decision to take Emmaleigh off life support. The infant girl died
immediately.
Meanwhile, as local residents and people across the country struggle to make
sense of what happened, Benjamin Taylor's Facebook page has been scrutinized.
His bio says "dead inside", but it is unclear when he wrote that bio. His
Facebook page says he is a laborer.
Hate posts fill his page from distressed and enraged individuals, some who knew
him, and some who didn't. Most wish death upon him in descriptive brutal
manners. One Facebook post that was posted by Taylor not long before the brutal
rape of Emmaleigh said "Real mean love other men's children like their own."
Over 300 people have commented, many of them calling for the public hanging of
Benjamin Taylor. While the death penalty is outlawed in West Virginia, a
petition to Congress that was created yesterday that calls for his public
lynching has already received 2,000 signatures.
Many people describe the brutal things they would like to inflict upon Taylor,
and many express concern that his own infant son has been sexually assaulted by
him, although there has been no actual evidence of this. Many of Taylor's
Facebook posts are about drugs or sex, which has disgusted the public at large.
One woman wrote that she hopes he will be tortured for the rest of his life for
what he did to Emmaleigh.
"His horrible and evil actions proves evil has no boundaries and no shred of
morality or humanity. That defenseless child had to live the last moments of
her life conscious in excruciating pain wondering what she did wrong to deserve
that or why it was happening to her screaming in pain underneath her killer
with zero comfort or love. Your evil actions caused a small innocent baby to
die a horrific death. She had her whole life ahead of her and has people who
love her that now have to carry the pain and suffering you have caused. You
have done something that cannot ever be justified or be undone. If you do live
through your prison experience and are released no one here will ever forget or
let you live without being reminded of what you have done to that baby."
(source: inquisitr.com)
ALABAMA:
Exonerated death row prisoner tells his story----Regaining Life
For 30 years, Anthony Ray Hinton spent his life in a tiny cell on death row in
Alabama's Holman Correctional Facility for a crime he did not commit.
Now, after being exonerated just over a year ago, Hinton is traveling across
the country to tell his story to others hoping to make a difference.
LIFE ON DEATH ROW
"I lived 30 years of pure hell. The only joy that I was able to get was the joy
that my mind was allowed to bring to me," Hinton said. "I wish I could tell you
the state of Alabama made a mistake, but it was not a mistake. The justice
system is not what you might think, and innocent men and women go to death row
in this country every single day."
In 1985, Hinton was convicted for the murders of 2 fast-food workers based on
the testimony of ballistic experts appointed by the state of Alabama matching a
gun owned by Hinton's mother, with whom Hinton lived, to bullets recovered from
the crime scene.
Shortly thereafter, Hinton, who is black, was sent to death row by an all-white
jury for 2 counts of 1st-degree murder, and Hinton said he believes race played
a vital role in his sentencing and is still alive today.
"I wish I could tell you that race played no part in (me) spending 30 years on
Alabama death row, but if I told you anything other than that, I would be
telling you a lie. Race played every part that it could play in my sentence to
death row," Hinton said. "From what I've seen, and what I've heard, I believe
that racism is worse now than ever before. I want you to know that racism is
what's really going to destroy this world, but I will not stand here and tell
you that any time a black does something that he or she is innocent any more
than I will tell you a white person is."
Although Hinton was convicted for 2 murders, he said he was at work when the
murders occurred and got his supervisor to vouch for him, yet the court system
still found Hinton guilty. Years later, a new trial would reveal overwhelmingly
that the bullet recovered at the crime scene did not match the bullet of
Hinton's mother's gun, but it took decades and the case's trip to the United
States Supreme Court to prove his innocence. Hinton also found Bryan Stevenson,
who believed in Hinton's case and didn't give up after several failed attempts
at obtaining Hinton's freedom.
Hinton said spending a lot of his life on death row showed him that the court
system is broken.
"The pure fact that I am here can tell you that the system is flawed. I did not
get out on technicalities, I got out on truth," Hinton said. "Now, I feel that
I am obligated (to speak) for those who have been left behind ... to tell
people that I deserve, that you deserve, to at least hear the truth."
Stevenson, who originally found an attorney from Boston to represent Hinton,
ended up being the one who helped free him. The Boston lawyer told Hinton his
goal was to get him life without parole, but Hinton said his mother didn't
raise him to admit to something he did not do, that he'd rather die than lie
about his case.
In the end, however, Stevenson came to represent Hinton and found ballistic
experts who would ultimately prove his innocence. While the process seemed
slow-going, Hinton said a major obstacle almost caused him to give up
altogether.
"I got news that the love of my life had passed. I called Mr. Stevenson and
said, 'My mother is deceased, and I don't give a damn about this case anymore.
You can drop it and put your energy into something else. I don't care because
now my mother is no longer here," Hinton said. "I hung up the phone without
even saying 'thank you' or 'goodbye.' Just as I hung up the phone, I could hear
my mother in my ear telling me how disappointed she was in me because she
brought me up to fight when there's a reason to fight."
On April 3, 2015, Hinton was able to walk away from death row as a free man.
JUST MERCY
These words and others were spoken to a packed auditorium in Shepherd
University's Frank Center Thursday night, and there was not a dry eye among the
shocked-into-silence crowd as a tearful Hinton told his story.
Hinton's appearance in Shepherdstown was part of Shepherd University's Common
Reading program, and this year's book selection is "Just Mercy: A Story of
Justice and Redemption" by Bryan Stevenson, who helped free Hinton.
Shannon Holliday, common reading program coordinator, said being able to hear
Hinton's speech was truly an honor.
"I think it sheds a lot of light on different flaws in the criminal justice
system in America and issues surrounding race, along with mass incarceration
and the death penalty. His case is so relevant and so recent, and it took
decades. He spent more time in prison than most of our students have been
alive," Holliday said. "I think it's really eye-opening to hear the story from
someone who's lived it because it makes it more personal, and it has a greater
impact than just having them read the book."
LIFE AS A FREE MAN
Now that Hinton has been living his life off death row for over a year now, he
says adjusting has been a difficult process.
The house he shared with his mother before being convicted is where he resides.
"I went out and I purchased some of the nicest furniture that you could perhaps
buy. I was sleeping in a fetal position for 30 years, so I went out and I
purchased a king-sized bed. The thing about that king-sized bed, I have yet to
be able to stretch out in it. I cannot go to sleep until I sleep in a fetal
position," Hinton said. "Every morning at 2:45, I am up because every morning
for 30 years I had to eat breakfast at 3 a.m. Once I'm up, I cannot go back to
sleep."
Hinton said other things will take some getting used to as well.
"In my house, I have a shower, and I can take 3, 4, 5 - however many showers I
want a day, but I only shower every other day (because that's how it was on
death row). Life passed me by for 30 years."
Although Hinton said if anyone has a reason to hate, it's him, he has not
allowed the hatred he initially felt to consume him in his life now.
"I don't have any hatred in my heart for those men (who convicted me). Before I
ever thought I might be free, I had asked God to take that hatred from me. I
didn't want any of that hate to ever consume me," Hinton said.
Now, Hinton jokes and laughs and can talk with joy about life. Hinton told
several funny stories Thursday night, including a time when his friend took him
to visit his mother's grave after he was released. Hinton heard a "white lady's
voice" from a GPS, and Hinton jokingly said he thought his friend had set him
up to go back to jail.
In the midst of everything, though, in tragedy, sadness, in years he will never
get back, Hinton's spirit has remained filled with light.
"Every night at 10:30, regardless of where I'm at, I look up and I try to see
the stars and the moon. Every time it rains ... I walk through the rain ...
because for 30 years, rain was not allowed to touch my head, and I continue to
walk in the rain to this day," Hinton said. "The things you take for granted, I
see beauty in everything that God has created simply because I lost it for 30
years."
(source: Journal-News)
TENNESSEE:
Tennessee Supreme Court justices hesitant on death penalty issue
There may be a fatal flaw in the argument against lethal injection in
Tennessee: whether or not there is a more humane way to execute condemned
inmates.
The 5 justices of the Tennessee Supreme Court heard a case Thursday that
questions the constitutionality of the state's single-drug lethal injection
protocol. But the justices themselves questioned the lawyers representing more
than 30 inmates who brought the legal challenge about what a better alternative
would be.
There wasn't an answer. The lawyers for the inmates say they don't have to
provide one.
On that point, the justices appear to disagree with the lawyers.
Chief Justice Jeffrey S. Bivins cited two decisions from the U.S. Supreme
Court, including a case as recent as last year known as Glossip that upheld
Oklahoma's death penalty.
"It requires a challenge to the method of execution, those challenging it, to
provide an alternative manner in which the executions can take place, given
that, generally, executions have been held to be constitutional," Bivins said
during the Thursday arguments. He suggested that the court cannot weigh other
issues, including the constitutionality of the death penalty, unless there is
an alternative method.
Executions in Tennessee have been stayed while the legal challenge is pending.
The last execution in the state was in 2009. Some say this case, if the
justices uphold the lethal injection protocol, may give the court a green light
to reschedule executions.
Spectators filled the black leather chairs in the courtroom Thursday, a
larger-than-normal attendance that shows the high stakes of the case. Solicitor
General Andree Blumstein, one of the senior staff at the Tennessee Attorney
General's Office, sat beside her colleague who defended the state's protocol.
The court effectively fast-tracked the issue, allowing the case to skip a step
at the Court of Appeals and go directly from a Nashville courtroom to the
state's top judges. In August 2015, Davidson County Chancellor Claudia Bonnyman
upheld the state's lethal injection protocol as constitutional. The inmates
challenged that ruling.
Yet, that does not mean the case has been straightforward: The state's top
court has already considered issues related to this case, including ruling that
the names of the execution team members are private information. Several of the
inmates who were involved in the legal challenge have died of natural causes on
death row while the case was pending.
The inmates, through their lawyers, say the Tennessee Department of
Correction's lethal-injection protocol creates risk of lingering death in
violation of the Eighth Amendment and requires physicians to illegally
prescribe controlled substances. According to court testimony, the execution
team injects a large, single dose of pentobarbital that quickly leaves a person
unconscious and then stops the heart.
Assistant Federal Public Defender Michael Passino drew a connection to a recent
Nashville case involving longtime lawyer and political figure John Jay Hooker.
Last year, Hooker, who suffered from terminal cancer, filed a lawsuit that
would have allowed a doctor to prescribe him life-ending medication. Davidson
County Chancellor Carol McCoy ruled against Hooker, affirming a state law that
makes doing so a crime. Hooker died about 4 months later.
Passino said physicians prescribing pentobarbital would be breaking federal
drug laws to carry out the death penalty.
"You cannot perform a lawful act in an unlawful manner," he said. "To the
extent that TDOC is doing that, the protocol is unconstitutional."
Associate Solicitor General Jennifer Smith argued on behalf of the state and
said Bonnyman was right to uphold the state's protocol. She said the inmates do
not have a valid challenge.
"The death penalty is constitutional and there must be a way to carry it out,"
Smith said, urging the justices to demand an alternative.
She said there is no state or federal case in which judges have found that
carrying out the death penalty violates federal drug laws such as the
Controlled Substances Act.
Still Justice Sharon G. Lee showed hesitation about whether the drugs avoid
lingering death, asking whether Tennessee's protocol was different than other
states where executions have been botched, at times leaving inmates writhing in
pain on execution gurneys.
"Your honor, there is no guarantee that an execution is not going to have a
problem," Smith said, adding that Tennessee's protocol is similar to
Kentucky's, which has been upheld.
"So how do we know our execution would not be botched?" Lee asked.
"We don't," Smith responded.
There is no deadline for the court to issue its written ruling. Cases typically
take several months to decide.
(source: The Tennessean)
NEBRASKA:
Execution drugs still a question in death penalty campaign
An Omaha senator is asking the state auditor's office to investigate the
attempt by the Department of Correctional Services to acquire lethal injection
drugs from a foreign broker.
Sen. Burke Harr is asking questions about a contract with Chris Harris,
salesman and owner of HarrisPharma, which as of last year had sold or tried to
sell execution drugs to 4 or 5 states, and Nebraska.
"I'd sure like an audit to see why we didn't receive the drugs and if we
didn't, why we didn't receive our money back," Harr said.
He's a step behind Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers.
Auditor Charlie Janssen said inquiries on the Harris contract, and other
questions asked of the Corrections Department and Harris, are already in
progress after Chambers made the request several months ago.
"We take it seriously and we're going to find out, hopefully, all the answers
to the questions the senators have," he said Thursday afternoon.
Harr said in his letter to Janssen that the incomplete acquisition of drugs
that can't legally be imported into this country raises questions about the
contract.
If there's a contract, and Harris isn't able to fulfill his end, he asked, why
isn't the state suing to get the money back?
"Do we just walk away? Is that normal for the state just to walk away when the
other side breaches a contract?" asked Harr. "I don't think we want to set a
precedent of allowing people to breach contracts and know that we won't go
after them."
Nebraska ordered sodium thiopental and pancuronium bromide and paid $54,400 for
them, but never received the drugs.
In an execution by lethal injection, sodium thiopental renders the inmate
unconscious and pancuronium bromide, a muscle relaxant, stops breathing. A 3rd
drug, potassium chloride, stops the heart.
Corrections Director Scott Frakes sent a letter to Harris Jan. 6 asking for
reimbursement of $26,700 paid by the state in April for 1,000 vials of sodium
thiopental. Harris responded on Jan. 28, saying the refund was not possible and
that the failure to deliver wasn't the company's fault.
Harr also wants to know how Nebraska found Harris.
The Corrections Department has emails that show Harris made contact in April
2015, asking if the state would be interested in ordering sodium thiopental.
Other questions concern what kind of vetting process took place before Nebraska
signed the contract and whether there actually was a signed contract.
Supporters of Retain a Just Nebraska said Thursday at a news conference that
Nebraska is unlikely to ever execute someone even if voters bring back the
death penalty.
Lincoln Sen. Colby Coash and University of Nebraska law professor Eric Berger
represent the anti-death penalty side of a question that will be on the Nov. 8
ballot asking voters to decide whether to retain a law passed in 2015 that
abolished the death penalty in Nebraska, or to repeal that law.
Even if the state could get the drugs, Berger said, it would be only a
short-term fix. They expire, and the state would need to be able to buy them
over and over. It's already difficult to find sellers, he said, because
pharmaceutical companies are saying they don't want their drugs used in that
way.
"It's a problem that's not going away," he said. "If anything, it's a problem
that's probably going to get harder and harder for the state."
Chris Peterson, spokesman for Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, pointed to the
planned resumption of executions in Ohio with a new protocol and new drug
cocktail similar to Oklahoma's. The protocol has been found not to violate the
U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
According to National Public Radio, Ohio's protocol calls for the drugs
midazolam, rocuronium bromide and potassium chloride. They are FDA-approved, as
far as the integrity of the drugs, and they do not come from a compounding
pharmacy.
Berger said Ohio still could have trouble getting the drugs needed, especially
on a sustained basis. This particular protocol is dangerous, he said, because
there's a risk an inmate will suffer extreme pain from potassium chloride if he
or she is not anesthetized. Midazolam, he said, is not an anesthetic but is
used to calm patients before an anesthetic is used for surgery.
Bob Evnen, a co-founder of Nebraskans for the Death Penalty, said Nebraska can
have a successful drug protocol. Its current protocol was adopted because it
was the protocol of the federal government.
"It is a shame that death penalty opponents are trying to politicize this issue
and confuse Nebraskans at a time when ballots have been mailed to early voters
and we are less than 5 weeks before Election Day," Evnen said.
Coash said the problem that really needs solving in the state is not where to
get death penalty drugs, but how to reform the prison system and restore safety
for corrections officers.
"I would much rather spend that money supporting (the officers)," he said.
Frakes is a competent leader, Coash said.
"(He) does not need to be running on a fool's errand to find drugs we know he
can't get. He needs all hands on deck protecting and supporting his officers."
(source: Journal Star)
************************
Nebraska better off without death penalty, Catholics say
Catholic leaders in Nebraska spoke out in favor of a vote to maintain a ban on
the death penalty, calling it unnecessary and "unjustified." "The Catholic
Church and Nebraska bishops oppose the death penalty because it is not
necessary to protect society," Tom Venzor, executive director of the Nebraska
Catholic Conference, said at a Sept. 29 press conference. "We urge Catholics
and all people of good will to vote to retain the repeal of the death penalty
on Referendum 426."
This November, voters can decide whether to approve or reject the Nebraska
Death Penalty Repeal Veto Referendum, Referendum 426. The referendum would
repeal the Nebraska legislature's May 2015 vote to ban the death penalty. Gov.
Pete Ricketts vetoed the bill, but the legislature overrode it.
The Catholic conference is hosting speaking events about the referendum at each
cathedral parish and other parishes and venues. Venzor said Nebraska's bishops
and the Catholic conference will engage in "significant efforts" to ensure
Catholics understand Catholic teaching on the death penalty and are encouraged
to vote to retain the legislature's death penalty repeal.
Archbishop George Lucas of Omaha spoke in favor of retaining the ban in an Oct.
3 video. "In our particular circumstance, the death penalty is unnecessary and
therefore unjustified. This principled Catholic response is shaped by our
commitment to the life and dignity of every human person and the common good,"
he said. He cited Catholic teaching that the state may impose the death penalty
if it is "the only available means to protect society." The option should not
be exercised when "other non-lethal means that are more respectful of human
life are available."
Father Douglas Dietrich also backed a vote to retain the ban. He is pastor of
St. Mary's Catholic Church in Lincoln, not far from the capitol building, Human
lives are "unrepeatable, intrinsically valuable gifts that we must not deprive
others of," he told the Sept. 29 press conference. "Along with my brother
priests we are taking a principled pro-life stance in proclaiming we do not
need the death penalty in Nebraska," he said adding "what human life God
creates, we must not destroy."
About 49 % of Americans support the death penalty for convicted murderers, down
from 80 % in 1995. In 1995 only about 16 % of Americans opposed the death
penalty. That figure has risen to 42 %. Since 1936, opposition to the death
penalty peaked in the mid-1960s when 47 % of Americans opposed it and only 42 %
supported it, according to the Pew Research Center. Death penalty opposition is
the highest since 1972. About 72 % of Republicans support the death penalty,
compared to 44 % of unaffiliated voters and 34 % of Democrats. 43 % of
Catholics support the death penalty, while 46 % oppose it. White Catholics are
somewhat more likely to support the death penalty.
Fr. Dietrich said alternatives to the death penalty offer the convict the
chance at rehabilitation and conversion. He cited St. John Paul II's words
during his 1999 visit to the United States: "A sign of hope is the Increasing
recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in
the case of someone who has done great evil."
Sister Jean O'Rourke, a Sister of Mercy from Omaha, Neb., said that women
religious have advocated for the abolition of the death penalty for decades.
She said the death penalty is an "ineffective and unfair" policy, given the
risk of executing innocent people, the costs of appeal, and the personal
effects of the lengthy appeals process on victims' families. "It promises
closure, but all too often brings prolonged agony," Sister O'Rourke said.
"The Death penalty is not merciful, because it views a person as not deserving
God's gift of life," she said. "When the state kills, in our name, we have
blood on our hands."
The Nebraska Catholic Conference has a webpage about the death penalty measure
at http://www.necatholic.org/deathpenalty
(source: angelusnews.com)
*****************
Innnocent Man Who Spent Time on Death Row Speaks Out Against Capital Punishment
A man wrongfully placed on death row for 17 years is speaking out against the
death penalty.
Juan Melendez-Colon was wrongfully convicted of murder in Florida in 1983, and
spent 17 years on death row, before being released in 2002. Melendez said while
in Norfolk Wednesday that he's used his time since getting out to speak out
against the death penalty.
"The problem with the death penalty is all about details and education,"
Melendez-Colon said. "People need to know that it's racist. People need to know
that it does not deter crime. People need to know that it costs too much.
People need to know that it's cruel and unnecessary."
Nebraska lawmakers repealed the death penalty in the 2015 session, but voters
will decide if that repeal will stand in next month's general election.
(source: KWBE news)
NEW MEXICO:
Archbishop, other faith leaders blast GOP for death penalty push
Faith leaders around the state blasted House Republicans on Thursday for not
just passing a bill to reinstate the death penalty but for doing it in the
predawn hours when most New Mexicans were still asleep.
The House's efforts were ultimately made futile when the Senate refused to take
up the legislation Thursday and both chambers adjourned, ending the special
session and effectively killing the bill. But the condemnations by religious
leaders could set the stage for an emotional clash over the issue when the
Legislature reconvenes for its regular 60-day session in January.
At a news conference at the Roundhouse on Thursday, Santa Fe Archbishop John C.
Wester said it's "offensive" that House Republicans voted to reinstate the
death penalty "in the dark of night."
"I find it blasphemous that the state wants to take a human life," Wester said
as he stood alongside former state District Judge Michael Vigil at the Capitol.
The House voted 36-30 - strictly along party lines - to reinstate the death
penalty for those condemned of killing a child or a police officer following an
all-night debate that ended near 6 a.m. Thursday.
When the Senate reconvened later Thursday morning, it took no action on that
bill or 2 other crime-related bills that Gov. Susana Martinez and House
Republicans were pushing, voting only on balancing the budget before adjourning
around 1 p.m. House Republicans, in a news release late Thursday, criticized
their Democratic colleagues for refusing to take up the crime bills, including
a "3 strikes" bill on repeat offenders and a bill amending penalties for child
abuse resulting in death. Unlike the death penalty bill, the 2 other crime
bills cleared the House of Representatives by large bipartisan margins.
"Despite personal pleas from New Mexicans who have lost loved ones to violent
crime, New Mexico Senate Democrats have turned their backs and refused to vote
on the three bipartisan crime bills that passed the House," the House GOP said
in a statement.
The crime bills were part of a push by Republican Gov. Susana Martinez to
insert law-and-order issues into a special session that was initially intended
to be a 1-day effort to fix nagging budget deficits. Instead, the session
stretched into a week as the House worked on the budget but also spent
considerable time dealing with the crime bills.
Martinez argues that the death penalty will serve as a deterrent to crime and
provide proper punishment to criminals who prey on children and police
officers.
But many faith leaders disagree, arguing that such a decision should be left in
the hands of God and that innocent people could be wrongly convicted and
executed.
Even those who welcome a debate on the issue - like Rabbi Harry Rosenfeld of
Congregation Albert in Albuquerque - say it is one better suited for the
regular legislative session, which is just 3 months away. Rosenfeld cited the
House Republicans' failed efforts as "a totally political move ... that is in
and of itself unethical."
The Rev. Michael L. Vono, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande in
Albuquerque, offered harsher criticism in a news release Thursday. He said Oct.
7, 2016, "will be sorely remembered as one of the most disturbing and sad days
of our political history."
Vono said Martinez and Rep. Monica Youngblood, R-Albuquerque, who co-sponsored
the bill, "lack moral and ethical leadership and should be ashamed of
themselves. ... One can only hope and pray that the upcoming elections will
provide us with more responsible leaders in this state."
Wester said the 36 House Republicans who voted to reinstate the death penalty
engaged in "political jockeying." The general election in which all 70 House
seats will be filled is only a month away, and Republicans are fighting to
maintain control of the chamber. They now have a 37-33 advantage.
New Mexico repealed the death penalty in 2009. 3 sitting House Republicans who
voted to end capital punishment then reversed themselves Thursday. Reps. Dianne
Hamilton of Silver City and Jimmie Hall and Larry Lara???aga of Albuquerque
joined other Republicans in voting for reinstatement of death sentences in
select cases. All 30 Democrats on hand Thursday voted against the death penalty
bill.
Wester said he had not yet spoken to the governor about his concerns because of
the speed and manner in which Thursday morning's House vote occurred. He said
he would like to meet with her to voice his opposition but has the sense that
no one who is in support of the death penalty wants to have such a discussion.
He said other Catholic faith leaders around the state support him in his
initiative, which he said will continue during the 60-day session if the death
penalty issue comes up again.
Other faith leaders said they, too, will unite in opposing the death penalty
during that session.
"We will not sit idly by while New Mexico tries to take more lives," Rabbi Neil
Amswych of Temple Beth Shalom in Santa Fe said Thursday.
Vono said by phone Thursday he will meet with Wester to discuss ways to build a
coalition of opposition, if need be, for the 60-day session.
"I suppose our influence may be used to mobilize voters," he said. "We have 2
or 3 months to get voters to tell their representatives, 'No way.'"
Religious leaders said the issue is not political but moral.
"We don't live in a biblical society where an eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth works," Amswych said. "That expression leaves a world of blind and
toothless people."
He and Wester, among others, said the death penalty leaves open the possibility
of killing the innocent. And they want legislators to put more time and money
into creating resources to prevent crime rather than react to it after the
fact.
Others, including Ruth Hoffman, director of Lutheran Advocacy Ministry for the
New Mexico Conference of Churches, believe that life imprisonment without
parole "is what keeps us safe, not the state killing someone ... people are put
away, never to be heard from again."
Amswych - who said a good friend of his was murdered 15 years ago - agrees.
"I understand why some people feel that they want revenge for terrible crimes,"
he said. "At the same time, I put my faith in the court system and the person
responsible went to jail for the rest of his life. I have lost somebody who was
extremely dear to me, and I am still able to say, 'This is not appropriate.'"
Wester - who said the Catholic Church's anti-abortion stand is clear to most
people - said that attitude falls in line with being against the death penalty.
"Human life is sacred from conception to natural death," he said. "We are
against assisted suicide, abortion and the death penalty."
Speaking of those who oppose abortion but support the death penalty, Wester
said, "You can't pick and choose which life you are saving. ... It's not like a
cafeteria menu."
The "death penalty club," Wester said, "is not one the United States or New
Mexico wants to be on."
*****************************
The death penalty backlash has begun
For the past 6 days Republican legislators have insisted - sometimes with
righteous indignation - that the bill to bring back the death penalty had
nothing to do with politics. On the House floor a few days ago, Rep. Paul
Pacheco, R-Albuquerque, huffed, that the crime bills certainly weren't
political. The governor proposed them, he explained.
"Political" or not, at least 2 Republican Senate candidates already have sent
out mailers attacking their opponents for voting against the death penalty ...
even before any vote was taken.
There was no Senate vote. The body voted to go home before considering the
death penalty or other crime bills that passed the Republican-controlled House.
The most recent was an attack mailer sent by Diego Espinoza attacking incumbent
John Sapen, D-Corrales.
It features the grainy mugshots of Andrew Romero and Devon Lymon with the
caption "Why is John Sapien protecting killers like these?"
Romero last week was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility for
parole for the murder of Officer Gregg "Nigel" Benner in 2015.
Lymon also is a convicted killer. He was convicting of in the 2001 shooting
death in Albuquerque of Ron Chanslor Jr., but he got out in less than 11 years
in prison because he was allowed to enter into a plea deal by some liberal
district attorney.
Oooops! Sorry! That district attorney was Susana Martinez!
But despite the claim on Espinoza's mailer that says Lymon "savagely took the
life of Officer Daniel Webster," Lymon has yet to be charged with murder in the
case of Officer Webster's killing. He did plead guilty to several federal
charges for selling guns and heroin to undercover agents. And he's also facing
a federal charge for being a felon with a firearm in connection to Webster's
killing.But he has not been convicted for murdering the officer.
But such legal niceties mean nothing in the rough and rumble of campaign
attacks.
There was no vote on the death penalty in the Senate. But Sapien did vote to
repeal capital punishment in 2009.
The other Democratic candidate to get attacked on the death penalty was Rep.
Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces. Well before the session, his opponent, incumbent
Sen. Lee Cotter, R-Las Cruces, sent a mailer saying, "Jeff Steinborn has
crossed the line." (this right above a photo of crime scene tape.) "We can't
trust Jeff Steinborn to keep us safe."
Steinborn, currently in the House, voted against the death penalty bill
Thursday morning.
House Republican Leader Nate Gentry surprised some people when his news release
on the end of the session didn't even mention the death penalty or the other
crime bills that died on the line.
But not to fear. The Governor's Office quickly took up the slack, taking direct
aim at the Senate Majority Leader.
"Michael Sanchez has said that the Senate is often the place where bills go to
die," Martinez said in a news release. "It is sadly also the place where
victims and their families are often left voiceless, discouraged, and
disrespected by those who are supposed to represent them. To not even grant a
hearing or a vote on these crime bills reeks of arrogance and cowardice."
Yes, the non-political special session is over and the campaign is on.
(source for both: Santa Fe New Mexican)
USA:
A Road Map For Death Penalty Abolition
The turbulent post-war years of the 1950s made it imperative that the United
States to confront the way it treated black citizens. When the Supreme Court
ended support for public school segregation in 1954 it was after many decisions
had undermined "separate but equal" but the Justices, aware they were entering
disruptive territory, were influenced by Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal's
exhaustive yet best selling study, "An America Dilemma." Despite overwhelming
data demonstrating a society permeated by racial injustice, Myrdal's was
optimistic: the "American Creed," a belief in equality and fair treatment,
would ultimately triumph over seemingly entrenched racism.
Now that the Court potentially faces a less daunting but still divisive
challenge regarding the death penalty, another book may shape the way the
Justices view the constitutional issue. Capital punishment is a dwindling
sanction but it's still authorized by law, entrenched in the South and
supported by millions of Americans. Carol and Jordan Steiker, professors at
Harvard and the University of Texas Law Schools respectively, are the leading
contemporary scholars of the death penalty. In Courting Death: The Supreme
Court and Capital Punishment they have brilliantly defined - in language
accessible to the general reader - the massive dysfunction of the current
system and the course that a future Supreme Court could take to do away with
it.
In the 1960s responding to rampant racial decision-making in state courts and
expressions from several Justices, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF)
challenged the procedures employed in capital cases. By 1967, the campaign
achieved a de facto moratorium on executions while the litigation proceeded but
the Court ultimately rejected the key LDF positions. Then in 1972, a 5-4
majority in the Furman case, reversed course, quashing all outstanding death
verdicts, largely because of the random way the condemned were selected. Every
Justice wrote an opinion but the core defect of arbitrariness was aptly
captured by Justice Potter Stewart's claim that receiving a death sentence was
like being struck by lightening.
Many believed capital punishment would wither away, an assumption so misguided
it evokes Yogi Berra's famous apothegm, "It's tough to make predictions,
especially about the future." In 1976, after expressions of outrage from a
public previously largely indifferent and new legislation from 35 states, the
Court turned to a system of discretionary sentencing, requiring jurors to
consider aggravating and mitigating circumstances before ordering execution.
The expectation, evidence of more wishful thinking, was that the death penalty
would be reserved for the "worst of the worst."
Over 1,400 executions later with almost 3,000 mostly men lingering for years on
the nation's death rows, capital punishment looks increasingly dysfunctional
due to the continued judicial failure to satisfactorily regulate the way death
sentences are reached. The current debate over capital punishment is no longer
focused on contested moral visions about taking a life but rather on the
effectiveness, accuracy and cost of the agonizingly detailed, superficially
rational, regulatory universe the Court has brought into being. The key
conflict exposed in often contradictory judicial opinions is an effort to
accomplish 2 inconsistent goals - to individualize selection of the condemned
so punishment fits the offender and offense while at the same time attempting
to assure that the states avoid arbitrary or racially based sentencing. But
once a single jury is instructed to see a defendant as unique there is no way
the life-death choices of different juries over time can be anything but
random.
As a result of the Court's failed regulatory efforts to resolve this dilemma,
capital punishment is more vulnerable than at any time since it was
reinstituted. 7 Justices and former Justices have indicated that the death
penalty is no longer constitutional. 3 of the 7 had previously voted to uphold
it, reflecting a learning curve derived from encountering hundreds of death
cases, an experience that radically changed previous dispositions.
Activists debate whether reduction in public support reflects the more than 150
exonerations, often but not exclusively based on DNA evidence, or the
availability of life without parole sentences as an alternative sentence. Few
disagree, however, that the movement away from capital punishment is
pronounced. Both Steikers clerked for Thurgood Marshall who in the 1972 case
took the novel position that the legitimacy of the death penalty should be
measured by the views of those who had knowledge of its actual operation rather
than by merely pollster nose counting. This approach assumes that combining a
more searching view of public opinion - abstraction is the enemy of
understanding how the capital system works - with the informed views of the
Justices themselves results in the proper legal test to measure whether capital
sentencing amount to cruel and unusual punishment.
After taking the reader through the Court's failed project to rationally
regulate the death penalty, the Steikers set out "A Blueprint for
Constitutional Abolition," a path they believe builds, on precedent, takes
seriously language used by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the key swing vote in many
previous decisions narrowing the death penalty, and protects the Court from the
another backlash of the sort that occurred after the Furman decision.
Unless one believes that the definition of what makes a cruel and unusual
punishment is trapped in its 18th Century meaning, the need for proportionality
between harshness of a sentence and the extent to which it advances a
legitimate purpose of the criminal law is essential. In modern terms, most
Justices have adhered to the 1958 statement of Chief Justice Warren that the
proper test measures "evolving standards of decency." In short, cruelty
reflects what sanctions society regards as intolerable, a standard that
inevitably requires analysis of the present context and frequency of a
punishment.
The Court has a mixed record deciding what is a proportional sentence. In
non-death penalty cases, it has approved state laws mandating long sentences
for minor crimes, but recently the Justices have struck down capital sentences
for criminal conduct that does not involve directly taking a life and for the
intellectually disabled and juvenile offenders. More important than the results
in these cases is their enlarged the criteria for judging proportionality -
relying on the direction of change as in the increased number of states
abolishing, the reduced number of actual executions, the number death sentences
imposed and the actions of "expert legal organizations" (The American Law
Institute, sponsor of the approach the Court adopted in 1976, withdrew it in
2009.) A majority of Americans now live in states that have no active record of
execution. For more that 80 % of death row inmates a death sentence has turned
out really to be a life sentence under demeaning, isolated conditions that in
some settings border on inhumane treatment.
But no one expects an immediate end to capital punishment. Not only is
abolition still avoided by politicians fearful of soft on crime rhetoric but a
Court whose prestige was damaged by repudiation of its 1972 effort will be
hesitant to move precipitously. When Justice Stephen Breyer recently urged the
constitutional question be reargued only Justice Ginsberg joined him. The
present divided Court is a reminder that the greatest force for resolution of
the status of capital punishment is the 2016 presidential election. In addition
to the one vacancy on the court, there are 4 Justices of a vulnerable age. The
Court is unlikely to act before more executions take place and if Donald Trump
wins the election it may be composed of more Justices like those members of the
present Court who seem to have no problem with the status quo.
(source: Michael Meltsner, Matthews Distinguished Professor of Law,
Northeastern University School of Law; author, 'The Making of a Civil Rights
Lawyer'----Huffington Post)
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