Oct. 20
FLORIDA:
Florida Supreme Court removes 2 longtime inmates from death row
A week after the Florida Supreme Court effectively halted executions in the
state indefinitely, justices Thursday removed 2 longtime inmates from death
row.
The court ordered a new trial for Jacob Dougan, 69, who has been on death row
for more than 4 decades for a Jacksonville murder. He was accused of joining a
handful of accomplices calling themselves the Black Liberation Army and
randomly killing an 18-year-old white man.
In a rare unanimous decision, justices sided with a lower court in ordering a
new trial for Dougan, citing a host of legal missteps in his original trial.
The lower court found his lawyer had a conflict of interest because he was
cheating on his wife with Dougan's sister, who he later married.
Justices also agreed that prosecutors concealed evidence of a deal they had
with another defendant in the case, who testified against Dougan.
In a separate 5-2 ruling, justices also ordered a new hearing for Frank Walls,
49, on death row for the 1987 murders of a couple at their Okaloosa County home
during a burglary.
The majority agreed that Walls was entitled to having a court review his claim
that his intellectual disability prevented him from receiving a fair trial.
Walls has been assessed by doctors as functioning at the level of a 12-year-old
and suffering from brain damage, brain dysfunction and major psychiatric
disorders. The rulings follow a pair of decisions last week that threw out the
state's existing death penalty sentencing law, likely halting executions at
least for months in a state with nearly 400 death row inmates.
Justices said that juries must unanimously recommend death sentences before a
judge can impose them and vacated the death sentence of Timothy Lee Hurst,
convicted of killing a co-worker at a Pensacola fast-food restaurant in 1998.
In a separate decision involving Larry Darnell Perry, accused of killing his
3-month-old son in Central Florida in 2013, justices also blocked the law from
being used in ongoing prosecutions - essentially freezing the death penalty in
the state.
(source: Palm Beach Post)
KENTUCKY:
Lexington judge erred in prohibiting death penalty in murder trial, state
Supreme Court rules
A Fayette Circuit Court judge erred when she decided to exclude the death
penalty as a possible sentence in a murder and robbery trial last year, the
Kentucky Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
Fayette Circuit Judge Pamela Goodwine made headlines when she ruled in April
2015 that the death penalty would be a "disproportionate" punishment for
Trustin Jones and Robert Guernsey in the 2013 shooting death of 23-year-old
Derek Pelphrey, a student at Bluegrass Community and Technical College.
But in a unanimous opinion, the high court ruled Thursday that Goodwine should
have heard evidence at trial before deciding whether the death penalty was
appropriate.
"While the circuit court has the authority to determine whether a death
sentence would be inherently disproportionate, the exercise of that power is
proper only after the circuit court has heard all of the evidence relevant to
the indicted charges, evidence subjected to the adversarial process in the
guilt phase of the trial," the Supreme Court ruled.
In her pre-trial ruling, Goodwine noted that Pelphrey had a "significant amount
of narcotics" on him when he was killed and the judge knew of no jury that had
recommended capital punishment in a case involving suspected drug trafficking.
"The death penalty is the ultimate punishment and should be reserved and sought
in cases involving only the most egregious set of facts one could possibly
imagine," Goodwine ruled.
Goodwine also pointed out that then Fayette Commonwealth's Attorney Ray Larson
sought the death penalty in every case that met the criteria.
"In the circuit court's view, this practice unnecessarily consumes time and
resources that could be spent on other cases," Goodwine ruled, according to the
Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court justices noted, however, that while the death penalty has
"fallen into disfavor in recent years, it remains a viable penalty in Kentucky,
authorized by our legislature in specific types of cases."
The case, which was put on hold awaiting a decision by the high court, has been
sent back to Fayette Circuit Court.
(source: WDRB news)
CALIFORNIA:
Poll: California Measure To End Death Penalty In Danger, Most Other
Propositions Have Strong Support
A statewide survey released Wednesday found almost all of California's 17
ballot measures are on track to pass next month, with the proposition to end
the death penalty in California the only measure to have significant
opposition.
The poll from Sacramento State's Institute for Social Research and its
CALSPEAKS public-opinion project asked Californians about 14 ballot measures. A
sample of 622 likely voters favored Proposition 67, the statewide plastic bag
ban, 45-39, which was within the poll's 7 point margin of error, and opposed
Proposition 62, which would end the death penalty in the state, 45-37. All
other propositions in the poll had comfortable support.
"Most striking in the big picture is that almost all of these are going to
pass, if our polling is instructive," Institute for Social Research director
David Barker said. "That's remarkable in our history. (Ballot measures) tend to
fail more often than they pass."
More than 20 % of respondents were undecided in 8 of the propositions, with 34
% undecided over Proposition 59, which would advise the legislature to work
towards a Constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. That U.S.
Supreme Court decision cut back limits on campaign spending by corporations and
unions.
"If you're a typical voter, there's a good chance you've never heard of
Citizen's United," Barker said. "You can't respond to that with your gut."
The poll also found Attorney General Kamala Harris still has a double-digit
lead against Rep. Lorerra Sanchez in their race for California's open U.S.
Senate seat, 49-24. A previous CALSPEAKS poll found Harris had a 51-19 lead
over Sanchez.
(source: KPBS news)
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