September 14
NEW HAMPSHIRE:
NH death penalty stands as override falls short
Lawmakers in New Hampshire on Thursday failed to override Republican Gov. Chris
Sununu's veto of a bill that would have abolished the death penalty but managed
to do so with one offering support to the beleaguered biomass industry.
The state Senate Thursday voted 14-10 to overturn the governor's veto on the
death penalty, 2 votes shy of the 16 needed to override a gubernatorial veto.
In the case of bills supporting the biomass industry and net metering, the
Senate overrode the vetoes. Environmentalists claimed victory in the override
of a veto of a bill that provides help to the state's biomass industry but fell
short on net metering in the House.
New Hampshire's death penalty applies in only 7 scenarios: the killing of an
on-duty law enforcement officer or judge, murder for hire, murder during a
rape, certain drug offenses or home invasion and murder by someone already
serving a life sentence without parole. The state hasn't executed anyone since
1939, and the repeal bill would not have applied retroactively to Michael
Addison, who killed Manchester Officer Michael Briggs and is the state's only
death row inmate.
Death penalty opponents argued that courts might have interpreted it
differently, however. Others argued that imposing the death penalty doesn't
give victims the closure that repeal advocates assume it would.
But Sununu, with widespread support from police, vetoed the bill and argued
that he had an obligation to support law enforcement and deliver justice for
victims.
2 Democrats from Manchester, Sens. Kevin Cavanaugh and Lou D'Allesandro, voted
with 8 Republicans to uphold the governor's veto. The other 8 Democrats in the
chamber joined 6 Republicans in supporting a veto override.
"It's a very narrow death penalty. It has been used in this state 1 time, in
1939. One time," argued D'Allesandro, in support of upholding Sununu's veto.
But Republican State Sen. Bob Guida, in urging an override of the veto, claimed
that "the death penalty is not a deterrent."
"An eye for an eye is not what this country is about," he said.
(source: Associated Press)
***************
Amnesty International USA Will Continue Its Fight for New Hampshire to Abolish
the Death Penalty
Reacting to news that the New Hampshire state legislature has failed to
override the Governor's veto, which would have ended the death penalty in New
Hampshire once and for all, Kristina Roth, Senior Program Officer at Amnesty
International USA stated:
"The death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights. It is a cruel,
inhuman and degrading punishment. By vetoing this bill, which had broad
bipartisan support, the Governor defends a practice that serves no legitimate
public interest, neither deterring crime nor improving public safety.
"Amnesty International and New Hampshire citizens who believe in the
illegitimacy of the death penalty will continue their fight to abolish it in
their home state."
(source: amnestyusa.org)
FLORIDA:
Mastermind behind Billings murder case loses appeal but could still avoid
execution
Leonard Gonzalez Jr., the mastermind behind the 2009 murders of Beulah
philanthropists Byrd and Melanie Billings, had an appeal denied by the Florida
Supreme Court on Thursday.
The finding means that Gonzalez is out of chances to appeal his convictions in
the 2 murders. However, the case is not quite closed as jurors still have to
determine whether Gonzalez's current death sentence will stand.
In July 2009, Gonzalez led a group of men who forced their way into the
Billings' home in black "ninja garb" and gunned the couple down during an
attempted robbery. The couple had 17 children - 13 of them adopted and many of
them with special needs - and 9 of kids were home at the time of the murders.
Gonzalez was convicted in 2010 and sentenced to death in a 10-2 jury vote. In
April 2014, the Florida Supreme Court unanimously upheld his death sentence,
finding that despite Gonzalez's claim of errors in his trial, evidence
supported the conviction.
Still, Gonzalez and many other Florida inmates got an unexpected second chance
from the Supreme Court of the U.S. in 2016. That year, Supreme Court justices
struck down Florida's capital sentencing process as unconstitutional. The
ruling - based on the Pensacola case Hurst v. Florida - found that juries must
be unanimous when issuing a death sentence.
In the wake of the SCOTUS ruling, Gonzalez was one of the many Florida death
row inmates who petitioned the courts for "Hurst relief," a repeat penalty
phase where a new group of jurors would decide the question of life or death.
Gonzalez's Hurst appeal was unique in that he also re-raised two of his
previously rejected claims: that his counsel provided ineffective assistance by
failing to seek a new venue for his trial in the midst of "inflammatory media
coverage," and that Sheriff David Morgan "interfered" with the case through his
then-customary practice of greeting prospective jurors outside the courthouse.
Appellate judges found both of Gonzalez's claims legally insufficient, and the
Florida Supreme Court's opinion Thursday upheld that finding.
State Attorney Bill Eddins said that Gonzalez still has a window to fight this
decision before it becomes final, but that "once it becomes final, we will be
ready for trial court to schedule a re-trial on the penalty portion of the case
to determine what penalty - life or death - is appropriate."
The penalty phase will consist of prosecutors presenting the majority of that
was originally shown to jurors in the 2010 trial. Jurors will not be tasked
with deciding Gonzalez's guilt or innocence, only whether he should be
sentenced to life or death based on the aggravating and mitigating factors of
the crime.
Eddins said the new penalty phase will grant Gonzalez a renewed set of appeals
related strictly to that specific hearing. But even then, the best possible
outcome available to Gonzalez would be life imprisonment.
(source: Pensacola News Journal)
***************
Judge Reads First 14th Circuit Death Sentencing Since Law Changes
In June, Daniel Craven Jr., went to trial for stabbing his Graceville
Correctional Facility cell mate, John Anderson, to death.
2 1/2 months later, he received his official sentence, after the 12 person jury
in that trial recommended to enforce the death penalty.
"As to the charge of 1st degree murder on John H. Anderson, in the indictment,
the court adjudicates you, Daniel Jacob Craven Jr., guilty of that offense and
now sentences you to death in a manner prescribed by law," said Christopher
Patterson, 14th Judicial Circuit Judge.
Craven was already serving a life sentence for a 2011 murder out of south
Florida.
He will be housed by the Florida Department of Corrections, until the day of
his execution.
"It is further ordered that on such scheduled date, you, Daniel Jacob Craven
Jr., shall be put to death," Patterson said.
That date is not yet known.
"You are hereby notified that this sentence is subject to automatic review by
the Florida Supreme Court," Patterson said. "May god have mercy on your soul."
Craven was seen smiling as the verdict was read.
Prosecutors said Craven is the 1st in the 14th judicial circuit to receive the
death penalty since the supreme court's amendment changes to the capital
sentencing law in 2017.
(source: MyPanhandle.com)
OHIO:
Former Sandusky County detective sentenced to prison
A former Sandusky County Sheriff's Office detective who admitted he tampered
with evidence during the Heather Bogle death investigation was sentenced to
prison Thursday afternoon.
Sean O'Connell, 54, of Fremont, had been charged with 3 counts of tampering
with evidence, 3rd-degree felonies; 1 count of unauthorized use of Ohio Law
Enforcement Gateway, a 5th-degree felony; 1 count of falsification, a
1st-degree misdemeanor; and 1 count each of coercion, dereliction of duty and
obstructing official business, all 2nd-degree misdemeanors.
He had pleaded guilty to 1 count of tampering with evidence, a 3rd-degree
felony, in July. The rest of the charges were being dismissed.
Visiting Judge Patricia Cosgrove sentenced O'Connell to 2 years in prison, with
credit for 5 days served, during a hearing in Sandusky County Common Pleas
Court Thursday. O'Connell not only dishonored himself, but all of the thousands
of police officers across the country, Cosgrove said.
O'Connell apologized to Bogle's family and 3 people who had been accused of
being involved in the crime.
"I have been remorseful," he said.
O'Connell had been the lead investigator for the death of Heather Bogle, 28, of
Fremont and formerly of Tiffin, whose body was found in the trunk of her
vehicle at Somerton Apartments in Clyde in April 2015. She last was seen
leaving work at Whirlpool, and her mother reported her missing.
In June 2017, Daniel R. Myers, 49, of Fremont, was indicted by a Sandusky
County grand jury in connection to Bogle's death.
Keyona Bor, who had been identified as a "person of interest," spoke before
O'Connell's sentencing and said O'Connell had destroyed her life, her
children's lives and the lives of Bogle's family. She said she and her children
had received death threats, and she had to keep her children out of school.
"I have to see myself labeled as a murder suspect. My kids have to see that,"
she said.
Jennifer Bogle, Bogle's sister, said O'Connell was a "disgrace" to law
enforcement everywhere. He thought he was above the law, she said.
Christopher Fiegl, O'Connell's attorney, said O'Connell is a husband, father,
grandfather and decorated veteran who has led an "outstanding" life. O'Connell
took responsibility, he said.
Fiegl told Cosgrove there were alternatives to incarceration.
"His life will never be the same. ... People make mistakes," he said.
Myers was charged with 2 counts of aggravated murder, unclassified felonies;
aggravated robbery and kidnapping, both 1st-degree felonies; and tampering with
evidence, a 3rd-degree felony.
The grand jury had specified Myers had a firearm while allegedly committing the
crimes. It also specified he had a sexual motivation while allegedly committing
aggravated robbery and found him to be a sexually violent predator, according
to his indictment.
He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The aggravated murder charge carries a maximum sentence of the death penalty.
(source: The Advertiser-Tribune)
TENNESSEE----impending execution
Haslam weighs clemency for inmate about to be executed----Edmund Zagorski, 63,
was convicted in 1984 of shooting two men in Roberston County, slitting their
throats and stealing their money.
As Gov. Bill Haslam considers a request for mercy from a man facing an Oct. 11
execution, state attorneys are blasting legal maneuvers by condemned offenders
looking to delay or prevent their own deaths.
Edmund Zagorski, 63, was convicted in 1984 of shooting 2 men in Roberston
County, slitting their throats and stealing their money.
Haslam recently said he's reviewing a clemency petition from Zagorski, the
second such request from a death row inmate considered by the governor this
year.
"We have the case before us now," Haslam said. "We're reviewing that just like
we did with Billy Ray Irick."
Irick, of Knoxville, was put to death Aug. 9, after Haslam and a bevy of courts
declined to stop his death by lethal injection. Before he died, Irick -
convicted of the rape and murder of 7-year-old Paula Dyer in 1985 - joined 32
other inmates in a lawsuit alleging the state's use of toxic chemicals to kill
the condemned amounts to unconstitutional torture.
A Davidson County court found death row offenders may feel pain during the
execution process, but that pain doesn't necessarily rise to the level of
violating the Constitution. While the Tennessee and U.S. supreme courts
declined to stop Irick's execution, the remaining death row inmates are
appealing the Davidson County court's decision.
Attorneys for the inmates last week filed a lengthy motion. They asked the
Court of Appeals to consider testimony from a doctor who said Irick was
tortured to death, based on a review of statements from witnesses at his
execution. They said the evidence bolstered an argument from the trial: that
the three drugs used in a lethal injection inflict pain similar to drowning and
being set on fire.
Lawyers for the Tennessee attorney general said none of that information should
be considered by the appellate court.
The death row offenders are not allowed to simply retry the same case before
the appeals court, the state said in a response brief filed Wednesday. And the
court should not consider information not presented at the original trial from
a "medical opinion offered by an un-cross-examined expert, which opinion is
based entirely on hearsay and media accounts," the filing states.
"By filing the motion after having improperly included non-record material in
the brief, they seem to be operating not under the rules, but under the old
saw: don???t ask permission in advance, just ask forgiveness afterward," the
state argued in the filing.
Dwight Aarons, a law professor at the University of Tennessee who studies death
penalty cases, said the new information from Irick's execution presents "an
interesting procedural conundrum because typically you have to have this stuff
done at the trial level first."
Tennessee rules allow new information at the appellate level under limited
circumstances. One requirement is that the information can be easily proven.
The inmates say the information from Irick's execution can be readily proven,
while the state argues that the information - that Irick was tortured - is
unreliable and debatable.
After reviewing the documents, Aarons said the state seemed to have the
stronger argument.
'Rocket docket' speeding up appellate process
The appellate schedule is substantially condensed; state Supreme Court Justice
Sharon Lee has called it a "rocket docket" that jeopardizes the inmates'
chances for a fair trial.
Noting they are on the same schedule, attorneys for the state say they should
not be forced to respond to every issue included in the 360-page filing by the
death row offenders.
The Tennessee Supreme Court is set to consider the legal fight over lethal
injections during oral arguments on Oct. 3.
(source: WBIR news)
NEBRASKA:
Friday is judgment day for Anthony Garcia, the doctor turned killer
Anthony Garcia's day of reckoning has come.
Friday, the former Creighton pathology resident-turned-serial killer will find
out his fate in the revenge-fueled slayings of 11-year-old Thomas Hunter and
57-year-old Shirlee Sherman in March 2008 and of Dr. Roger Brumback and his
wife, Mary, in May 2013.
Judges Gary Randall and Russell Bowie of Omaha and Ricky Schreiner of southeast
Nebraska will decide whether Garcia receives the death penalty or life in
prison. Garcia was convicted in October 2016 of killing the 4 as a result of
his festering grudge over his 2001 firing from Creighton.
"It's been a long road," Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said Thursday. "We
need to bring this to a close for everyone involved."
Put in numbers, it has been:
-- 3,838 days - 10 years, 6 months - since Garcia stumbled his way through
Omaha's historic Dundee neighborhood on a sunny afternoon, made his way into
the home of his former boss, Dr. William Hunter, and knifed to death Hunter's
youngest son, Thomas, 11, and 57-year-old Shirlee Sherman, a mother and grandma
who cleaned the Hunters' house.
-- 1,952 days - 5 years, 4 months - since Garcia reared his head again on a
sun-splashed Sunday near 114th and Pacific Streets. After an alarm scared him
away from the home of another former boss, Dr. Chhanda Bewtra, Garcia stopped
and ate some chicken wings before finding his way to the home of Dr. Roger
Brumback and his wife, Mary. The Brumbacks - packing and painting their house
after Roger had retired from his Creighton University post - were ambushed.
Garcia shot Roger in the Brumbacks' foyer, then brawled with Mary before
finally killing her.
-- 1,887 days - 5 years and 2 months - since Garcia was arrested on his way to
Louisiana State University, with only a gun, a crowbar, a sledgehammer and an
LSU lab coat in his car. Authorities say he was on his way to kill another
professor there.
-- 668 days - almost 2 years - since a jury convicted him of the 4 killings.
In the time since, the man who used to ask that everyone call him "Dr. Tony"
hasn't responded to anyone, no matter what they have called him. Not to Judge
Randall, who has often referred to him as "Doctor," though Garcia only barely
held a medical license. Not to his own attorneys. Not even to his parents.
Instead, Garcia has been forcibly removed from his cell on the day of each
hearing and hauled to court. He has slumped in his wheelchair, his eyes closed
and his torso curled like his overgrown toenails. He either sleeps or feigns
it.
It's a far cry from the once thin and smiling and braggadocious defendant.
Taking on the persona of his brash former attorneys, he once told a
World-Herald editor: "When I go free, I plan to tell my story to '60 Minutes'
for millions. My attorneys and I were talking, 'We're going to kick their ass.'
You can print that."
Then came the blitz of evidence. The stripper who testified that he made a
bizarre comment about being a bad boy, about killing a young boy and an old
lady. The neighbors who described a Honda CRV that resembled the one Garcia
drove. The surveillance video that showed Garcia buying a case of beer on his
way into Omaha on Mother's Day 2013. DNA on a door handle that generally traced
back to Garcia. Parts of a gun - broken as Mary Brumback fought for her life -
that led back to Garcia.
The trademark poking and prodding and cutting along the necks of his victims -
befitting a former pathology resident. The pile of rejection letters after
Brumback and William Hunter informed others that Creighton had fired Garcia,
back in 2001.
As the evidence mounted, Garcia seemed to shrink in court. He went from
scoffing and scribbling notes in protest during pretrial hearings to sleeping
during the sentencing phase of the case.
Sherman's brother, Brad Waite, said he expects more of the same Friday.
"He'll just sit there and pretend he's asleep," Waite said. "He's never showed
any emotion yet. I don't know why it would change (Friday)."
Waite said he has a "million things" going through his mind. His big sister was
a hardworking, salt-of-the-earth grandmother with 6 grandkids, a garden and "a
lot of years left to live."
Friday "is going to be a tough day," Waite said. "It's just been a long road. I
really can't take my mind off of it."
(source: omaha.com)
ARIZONA:
Arizona court affirms sentence in murder case
The Arizona Supreme Court has affirmed the conviction and sentence of a man who
got the death penalty for fatally beating his live-in girlfriend's daughter.
The high court issued a 29-page ruling Thursday after considering more than a
dozen issues in Dauntorian Lydel Sanders' case and said substantial evidence
supported the conviction.
A jury found the then 28-year-old Sanders guilty of 1st-degree murder and two
counts of child abuse. He was sentenced in 2014.
Chandler police say 3-year-old Schala Vera wasn't breathing when she was found
lying between a toilet and a bathroom sink where she crawled to hide in August
2009.
Police say the girl was covered with bruises and belt marks on her arms, legs,
torso and head.
An autopsy showed Schala died of massive blunt force trauma.
(source: KGUN news)
********************
Aussie Madness: Death-Penalty Case in Phoenix Creates a Stir Down Under----The
death-penalty case in Phoenix against Australia native Lisa Cunningham has
created a media sensation Down Under.
Headlines scream across Australian tabloids and broadsheets about the lurid
tale of the woman from Adelaide who is accused, along with her husband, an
ex-Phoenix cop, of murdering his 7-year-old daughter, Sanaa.
"I Really, Truly Believe Lisa is Innocent," trumpets her hometown paper, The
Advertiser.
"Australian Mother's Text Messages Key to Murder Trial," says another.
But it was the headline in one of the leading national papers, The Australian,
that explains why the plight of Lisa and Germayne Cunningham has caught
wildfire down under in the past week:
"Australian Mother Lisa Cunningham Facing Death Row in US for Murder".
The paper assigned one of its top reporters on the case, a woman who's won the
country's most prestigious prizes for investigative reporting twice.
Here in Phoenix, despite shocking allegations that the couple tied up, locked
up, and locked out the severely ill child, the case has barely registered in
the press. After a brief flurry of coverage when the Arizona Department of
Child Safety first unveiled its accusations and a bizarre court hearing in
January, all but these pages fell silent.
But in Australia, it isn't just the murder charge that has gripped the nation.
No Australian has been executed in the United States since the California Gold
Rush, and no Australian woman has ever received the death penalty in the U.S.,
several newspapers have reported.
In 1851, a street-justice outfit called the Committee of Vigilance hanged
Australian James Stuart at the end of the Market Street Wharf, according to a
write-up by the Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco.
Moreover, the last time Australia executed a convict was in 1968. The federal
government abolished the death penalty in 1973. Lisa Cunningham's home state of
South Australia banned executions in 1976.
That's a far cry from Arizona. Currently, 117 people sit on Arizona's death
row, according to the Arizona Department of Corrections.
The last execution here was of double-murderer Joseph Wood in 2014, who took 2
hours to die. Since then, executions have been suspended because of concerns
about the cocktail of drugs used in lethal injections.
The different attitudes about capital punishment lie at the heart of
Australians??? appetite for news about Lisa Cunningham.
"If convicted, Mrs. Cunningham would be the 1st Australian woman executed
anywhere in America," said Andrew Hough, a senior journalist with The
Advertiser, the leading tabloid in Adelaide, pointing out that Cunningham is
innocent until proven guilty.
"That is significant, because the Australian government is vehemently opposed
to the death penalty," Hough added, noting the public, across the political
spectrum, agrees.
Consequently, the Cunningham case is morphing into a diplomatic and political
issue in Australia. The government has a program to provide as much as
$500,000, or about $360,000 in U.S. currency, for Australian nationals facing
the death penalty abroad.
Australian media report the government have provided that legal aid to a woman
accused of trafficking cocaine in Colombia, another woman convicted of
smuggling marijuana in Indonesia, a convicted terrorist who trained with the
Taliban and met Osama bin Laden, and 2 people convicted of heroin smuggling in
Indonesia in a case made famous as the Bali 9.
Hough says high-ranking federal officials told him that the Australian
government has not decided whether to help Cunningham. He reported the family
has yet to apply for legal aid.
Both 39-year-old Germayne Cunningham and 43-year-old Lisa Cunningham pleaded
not guilty in the case. They insist that everything they did was to protect
Sanaa from herself, from the demons in her head.
The Maricopa County Superior Court has set a tentative trial date for July
2020. As that date nears, or as the possibility of a capital conviction looms,
the Australian public may apply political pressure.
Also, the case could "run the risk of creating a diplomatic problem," Hough
said.
Journalists at The Australian declined to comment for this story.
But there are other reasons beyond politics that the Cunningham case has
gripped Australia.
As in many countries around the world, U.S. crime shows are popular there.
"A lot of people here are fascinated by the American justice system," Hough
said.
And this case has been unusual from start to finish.
"It's caught the imagination of the Australian public for a number of reasons,"
Hough said. "Any crime involving children and their parents will gain
significant attention."
The high-profile nature of the crime, the fact that the father is a cop, some
of the harrowing details of Sanaa's final months, and the prevalence of family
photos all drum up interest, he added.
"It's unusual, but not unheard of, for a woman to be charged with murder. It's
even rarer for a mother," Hough noted. "Also there are lot of family dynamics
and family politics at play."
Some of Lisa Cunningham's family have come forward. Her 21-year-old daughter,
Cierra Anderson, who lives in metro Phoenix, is not speaking locally, but has
granted exclusive interviews to The Australian.
"She would become catatonic, or else she'd throw things, try to hurt us. She'd
scream, and my parents would sit up and cry all night with her," Anderson told
the newspaper. "She tried to kill our dog once with a river rock."
Other family members have been speaking to The Advertiser.
"This time the Americans got it wrong," Cunningham's uncle, 70-year-old Rob
Topsfield, told the paper. "I'm really angry with the American judicial system
at the moment."
He's not alone. Cunningham's cousin, Donna Roesler, said she'd disgusted and
"worried sick angry" by the case.
"I believe the justice system over there is corrupt", she recently told Phoenix
New Times in a telephone interview. "I don't think she can get a fair trial."
(source Phoenix New Times)
NEVADA:
Nevada's execution drug supply won't expire until 2019
The Nevada prison system's supply of execution cocktail drugs will not expire
until at least February, the head pharmacist for the Department of Corrections
testified Wednesday.
Lawyers for the state are pushing to set prisoner Scott Dozier's execution in
November. Linda Fox, the pharmacy director, told District Judge Elizabeth
Gonzalez that 1 of the 3 drugs used in the lethal injection cocktail expires
three months later.
"Is it your understanding that the state still possesses sufficient drugs to
carry out the execution?" asked attorney James Pisanelli, who represents drug
company Alvogen. "In other words, Nov. 30 is no deadline at all, is it?"
Fox responded, "If you're asking me if a sufficient drug would remain, yes."
Prison Director James Dzurenda testified a day earlier that he received letters
from drugmakers, including Alvogen, saying that they didn't want their
medications used in executions. The state acquired Alvogen's sedative midazolam
through a 3rd party to use in Dozier's execution, Dzurenda said.
The 3-day hearing in a lawsuit over the use of the state's capital punishment
cocktail is expected to wrap up Thursday. Makers of the drugs in the cocktail,
which also include a painkiller and a paralytic, have argued that their
companies would suffer irreparable harm if their drugs were used to kill
someone.
Alvogen executive Richard Harker testified Wednesday that the company could
lose customers opposed to the death penalty, and investors could back out.
In September 2016, the state received no response after delivering 247 requests
for bids because its stockpile of at least one drug used in executions had
expired.
Dozier's execution was halted in July, for the 2nd time in 9 months, after
Alvogen sued the prison system. Dozier would be the 1st prisoner executed in
Nevada since 2006. The inmate, who waived his legal appeals in late 2016, was
sentenced to die in 2007 after 1st-degree murder and robbery convictions in the
slaying of Jeremiah Miller. Dozier had a murder conviction in Arizona before he
was brought to Nevada to face charges in Miller's death.
(source: Las Vegas Review-Journal)
USA (re: INDIANA):
No decision yet on possible death penalty for Gary gang leader, prosecutor says
An assistant U.S. attorney said at a federal court hearing Wednesday his office
was still waiting for a decision from superiors on whether to seek the death
penalty against alleged Gary gang leader Teddia Caldwell.
Meanwhile, the case against Caldwell and 8 other defendants will proceed, with
a trial possible by May.
Caldwell, 43, of Gary, is indicted on allegations he operated a violent
drug-trafficking conspiracy in Gary. Caldwell is the estranged husband of Gary
City Councilwoman Linda Caldwell-Barnes.
The other defendants are Victor Young, 44; Devonte "Lil Bro" Hodge, 26;
Devontae Martin, 24; Taquan "Boonie" Clarke, 24; Cornell "Knuckles" Allen, 39;
Terry Brown, 32; Paronica Bonds, 34; and Demetrius "Detroit" Brinkley, 31.
4 of the defendants - Caldwell, Hodge, Martin and Clarke - are eligible for the
death penalty because of their alleged roles in 2 Gary murders.
Caldwell and Hodge are accused of fatally shooting Akeem Oliver, 29, on Oct. 8,
2016, in an alley south of 20th Avenue and Virginia Street in Gary. Caldwell,
Martin and Clarke are accused of fatally shooting Kevin Hood, 43, on July 28,
2017, outside his car wash business near 15th Avenue and Massachusetts Street.
U.S. Attorney Thomas L. Kirsch II cannot unilaterally seek the death penalty.
He must make a formal request to the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.,
for a so-called capital review.
A committee of senior department attorneys then review the case, and U.S.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has final approval for any death penalty
charges.
7 men in chains and jail jumpsuits crowded into a jury box Wednesday in U.S.
District Court. An eighth defendant, Hodge, is in state custody facing
attempted murder charges in Lake Criminal Court. Bonds, who was allowed to be
released under court supervision, sat at a defense table.
Assistant U.S. Attorney David J. Nozick told Judge Andrew P. Rodovich Wednesday
his office was still waiting to hear from Washington, D.C., regarding the
penalty phase of the murder cases.
He said the government had tendered all discovery in the cases to defense
attorney John Maksimovich, who is representing Caldwell.
Maksimovich said he had reviewed the evidence and would serve as lead counsel
for defendants for the purpose of filing pretrial motions. Rodovich set a
deadline of Nov. 30 for pretrial motions. The government is ordered to respond
to motions by Feb. 15.
Rodovich said that timeline suggested a trial by mid-May. Nozick said he
expected it would be a 5- to 6-week trial.
(source: nwitimes.com)
**********************
Medical laws and ethics: What to do when conflicts occur
There are times when practicing physicians may encounter a situation where what
a law requires conflicts with what the AMA Code of Medical Ethics says about
how physicians must conduct themselves.
The Code's preamble warns physicians that the "relationship between ethics and
law is complex." But the preamble adds that even though "ethical values and
legal principles are usually closely related," the "ethical responsibilities
usually exceed legal duties."
"Conduct that is legally permissible may be ethically unacceptable," the Code
says. "Conversely, the fact that a physician who has been charged with
allegedly illegal conduct has been acquitted or exonerated in criminal or civil
proceedings does not necessarily mean that the physician acted ethically."
The Code's preamble tells physicians that "in some cases, the law mandates
conduct that is ethically unacceptable.
"When physicians believe a law violates ethical values or is unjust, they
should work to change in law," the Code says. "In exceptional circumstances of
unjust laws, ethical responsibilities should supersede legal duties."
The Code's preface further says that the AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial
Affairs:
Recognizes that circumstances at times impinge on physicians' ability or
opportunity to follow the guidance of the Code strictly as written. Recognizing
when such circumstances exist and determining how best to adhere to the goals
and spirit, if not the absolute letter, of guidance requires physicians to use
skills of ethical discernment and reflection. Physicians are expected to have
compelling reasons to deviate from guidance when, in their best judgment, they
determine it is ethically appropriate or even necessary to do so.
The Council also recognizes that guidance is not always equally applicable to
every individual physician, depending on the nature of the physician's
practice. Nonetheless, physicians are expected to be aware of guidance that may
not be routinely relevant to their practice, to be sensitive to occasions when
such guidance might be pertinent, and to respond in keeping with guidance when
such situations occur. In this respect too, then, the Code relies on the
reasonable exercise of judgement.
Where law and ethics have collided
One prominent example of this dilemma is that some state laws require that a
physician be present for executions, yet the Code clearly states that
"physicians must not participate in capital punishment." In 2006, a federal
court ordered that an anesthesiologist had to personally supervise an execution
in California, or the state had to change its standard protocol for lethal
injections.
The AMA and other associations opposed the ruling. 2 anesthesiologists agreed
to supervise, but withdrew before the execution because an appellate court
further said a physician would need to personally administer additional
medication if the prisoner remained conscious or was in pain.
Recently, the AMA filed an amicus brief in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court
that involves the State of Missouri saying a prisoner must offer expert
testimony comparing the risk of severe pain of execution protocols if he wanted
to be put to death by something other than standard lethal injection. An
anesthesiologist wouldn't give an opinion, saying it would violate medical
ethics.
The AMA's brief doesn't support either party; it offers justices background and
confirms that "testimony used to determine which method of execution would
reduce physical suffering would constitute physician participation in capital
punishment and would be unethical."
(source: ama-assn.org)
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