April 17
NEBRASKA:
Pardons Board denies clemency hearing for death-row inmate Carey Dean Moore
The Nebraska Board of Pardons removed an obstacle to the state's 1st execution
in 21 years Tuesday by denying a clemency hearing for death-row inmate Carey
Dean Moore.
Gov. Pete Ricketts, Attorney General Doug Peterson and Secretary of State John
Gale voted unanimously to reject Moore's application for a commutation hearing.
The votes from Ricketts and Peterson were expected, given that both are vocal
proponents of capital punishment.
None of the board members commented about their votes during Tuesday's brief
meeting. Like all inmates who petition the board, Moore was not permitted to
attend and no one spoke for or against his application.
The governor declined to comment on his way to an appointment after the
meeting.
The attorney general said he believes the Nebraska Supreme Court may now act on
a recent motion for Moore's death warrant, which cannot be issued while a
clemency request is pending.
Gale, however, said there's still a chance Moore could get a commutation
hearing.
If the Supreme Court orders Moore's execution to be carried out, the board
could reconvene and take up the question again, Gale said. Typically the board
places a 2-year moratorium for new clemency requests following a denial, but an
exception could be made for an inmate facing imminent execution, he added.
Gale said the board routinely denies hearing requests except under
extraordinary circumstances.
Few inmates have escaped death row via a commutation by the Pardons Board. The
last was 1964.
Moore, 60, was sentenced to death for the 1979 killings of 2 cabdrivers in
Omaha. He has spent nearly 2/3 of his life under the threat of execution and is
by far the longest serving of Nebraska's 11 death row inmates.
Moore recently told The World-Herald that he is no longer fighting to block his
execution in the courts. In his clemency application, however, he said since
Nebraska officials "are either lazy or incompetent to do their jobs, or both, I
should receive a full pardon."
The attorney general recently petitioned the Supreme Court to issue a death
warrant for Moore. Peterson's court filing said Moore has no pending appeals or
motions for postconviction relief that would impede the execution.
Peterson, however, did not mention Moore's application for a pardon hearing in
the death warrant filing. Although Moore filed the application in September,
the attorney general said Tuesday his office was unaware of it until after he
filed the document seeking the death warrant.
Moore, 60, shot and killed Omaha cabdrivers Reuel Van Ness and Maynard
Helgeland in summer 1979. Both men were 47-year-old fathers and military
veterans.
The state has not carried out an execution since 1997 and has never used lethal
injection to end the life of a condemned inmate.
In November, prison officials announced they had obtained supplies of 4 drugs
they planned to use to carry out a lethal injection. Prison officials then
notified Moore in January that they intended to proceed with his execution.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska has filed legal actions
challenging the state's death penalty protocol, which it argues should force a
delay in Moore's execution until they are resolved.
(source: Omaha World-Herald)
USA:
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Still Gagged As Death Penalty Appeal Grinds On
As the 5th anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing comes and goes, we can't
help but wonder what Dzhokhar Tsarnaev might have to say for himself - if he
were allowed to speak.
For one thing, we'd like to ask him if he could fill in some details about his
brother Tamerlan's mysterious activities in the years leading up to the
bombings - much of which the government continues to withhold as "classified."
Dzhokhar is being held at the maximum-security federal penitentiary in
Florence, Colorado - known as the "Alcatraz of the Rockies" - under extreme
confinement conditions called Special Administrative Measures (SAMs). He was
convicted and sentenced to death in 2015 for his role in the bombing near the
finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon. Tsarnaev is appealing his federal
death penalty conviction. (All death penalty convictions are automatically
appealed.)
Essentially a form of solitary confinement, SAMs prevent inmates from
communicating with all but a few pre-approved individuals. Tsarnaev is not even
allowed to communicate with other inmates in the facility. The government
justifies the imposition of SAMs by pointing to the possibility that Tsarnaev
could try to secretly communicate with criminal compatriots or incite violence
of one kind or another.
It's not clear who that might be, since the government insists that Dzhokhar
and his brother Tamerlan acted on their own.
The few statements Dzhokhar made that we heard about actually sounded
apologetic and remorseful in nature.
For instance, Sister Helen Prejean, Catholic nun and death penalty opponent,
testified at trial that Tsarnaev "had pain in [his voice] when he said what he
did, about how nobody deserves that. I think he was taking it in and he was
genuinely sorry for what he did." Prejean had met with Tsarnaev in jail
multiple times over the course of 2 months.
In a final statement in court, Tsarnaev said he "would like to now apologize to
the victims, to the survivors," and, "I am sorry for the lives I have taken,
for the suffering that I have caused you, for the damage I have done -
irreparable damage."
Does this sound like what one would expect from an extremist hell-bent on
inciting violence?
In justifying the imposition of the SAMs, prosecutors cited, in part, a phone
conversation the defendant's mother recorded and then played for the public "in
an apparent effort to engender sympathy," they wrote. The defense team
characterized that concern as "telling."
"While the government may not want anyone to feel 'sympathy' for Mr. Tsarnaev,"
a defense motion reads, "that is not a proper basis to impose SAMs."
Nonetheless, Tsarnaev can't speak with members of the news media, although the
reasoning for that comes across as a little overwrought:
Communication with the media could pose a substantial risk to public safety if
the inmate advocates terrorist, criminal, and/or violent offenses, or if he
makes statements designed to incite such acts. Based upon the inmate's past
behavior, I believe that it would be unwise to wait until after the inmate
solicits or attempts to arrange a violent or terrorist act to justify such
media restrictions.
The warden at the US Penitentiary in Florence recently refused our third
interview request citing the SAMs. We've written previously about our efforts
to interview Tsarnaev. Each time the request was denied. A second letter to
Dzhokhar was also recently returned - unopened this time.
The warden suggested we take up the matter with "the US Attorney's Office in
the district he was sentenced in," i.e. Boston. The US Attorney's office in
Boston has not responded.
Ironically, when we previously requested the underlying justification for the
SAMs from the Department of Justice (DOJ), it refused to provide it because to
"confirm or deny" the mere existence of SAMs would be a violation of Tsarnaev's
privacy.
Tsarnaev's appellate team has until August to present its written brief
opposing the decision of the lower court. A brief is the legal team's argument
about why the trial court's decision was legally incorrect. The government then
files its own brief responding to the appellant's brief - which the appellant
then responds to in a final brief. At that point the case will be fully
"briefed" and would then move on to an oral arguments stage.
As far as how long all this will take? "That requires a bit of a crystal ball,"
Cliff Gardner, one of Dzhokhar's attorneys wrote in an email to WhoWhatWhy.
Gardner could not guess how long it will take the government to file its brief,
but did say that it is certain to be "long and complex."
Whenever the actual appeal trial finally gets underway, the government will
still be firmly in control of the narrative that is fed to the public about
Dzhokhar.
(source: whowhatwhy.org)
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