October 17
TEXAS:
Is the Death Penalty Worth It? It’s a Question More States Should Ask
The Washington Supreme Court recently abolished the death penalty in that
state, saying the practice was racially biased. That conclusion and the fact
that the death penalty is extraordinarily expensive and does not do much to
deter violent crime may help propel other states to abolish it.
The ruling makes Washington the 20th state to halt the death penalty in recent
years. Currently there are 2,800 convicted inmates on the death rows of the
remaining 30 states with the death penalty. 3 states, California, Florida and
Texas, have nearly 50 % of the death row population. Not only have more states
been abolishing the death penalty in recent years, death sentences in the
states that still have it have been declining. There were 300 death sentences
imposed in 1995. In 2012, that dropped to 82. Last year, there were 39 death
sentences.
One reason is that states have been giving judges and juries options in the
form of life without parole sentences.
There aren't many ways to be tougher on crime than the ultimate punishment of
death. The United States is not alone in the use of the death penalty, but we
do belong to an ever-shrinking group of nations that have it. 2/3 of the
world's countries have abolished the death penalty, including all of the
nations of the European Union, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and every other
major U.S. trading partner with the exception of China and Japan. The top 5
countries in terms of executions are China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the
United States. Interesting company we keep.
Public support for the death penalty is related to political party. Nearly 75 %
of Republicans, just over 50 % of independents and 45 % of Democrats support
it. The support seems related to a belief that the death penalty is morally
acceptable, a view expressed by 61 % of those polled.
At the same time, there is concern about getting it right. Just under 40 %
expressed confidence that the criminal justice system sentences to death those
who are truly guilty. 3/4 believe that because mistakes are made, there should
be a higher standard of proof in death penalty cases.
The Innocence Project is the primary driver of exonerations in the U.S. It has
been able to use DNA evidence to obtain exonerations of 18 death row inmates
and 16 inmates convicted of capital felonies but not sentenced to death. There
have been an additional 140 death row inmates who have been exonerated based on
evidence other than DNA.
The death penalty is also expensive. For example, capital cases in Texas cost
about $2.5 million each. The death penalty costs about 10 times the cost of a
comparable non-death penalty case. The excess cost to try, convict, sentence
and execute an offender compared with the cost of life in prison without parole
is about $8.5 billion for the inmates currently on death row in the United
States.
Is it worth it? Prosecutors charge capital offenses, prosecute them and argue
for the death penalty under a presumption that the death penalty deters.
The bottom line is that there is no scientific evidence that supports the
assertion that the death penalty deters, a conclusion voiced by the National
Research Council of the National Academies as recently as 2012.
One can certainly appreciate that a victim's family and friends may desire
retribution for a murder. An eye for an eye is well ingrained in Western
philosophy and religion. But we must ask: At what cost?
In light of the ever-present potential for error and bias, the absence of a
deterrent effect and the extraordinary cost to prosecute, appeal and execute
someone, we are left with the basic question: Is the death penalty worth it?
It's a question more states ought to ask.
(source: Commentary; William R. Kelly is a professor of sociology at the
University of Texas and the author of four books on criminal justice reform----
Austin American-Statesman)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Another state ends the death penalty and it’s past time for NC to follow suit
Last week, Washington became the 20th state to end the death penalty after its
Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment is arbitrary and racially biased.
If those are reasons to outlaw the death penalty, then it is surely time for
the North Carolina death penalty to go.
How much more proof can you ask for that the death penalty is racist and
arbitrary in our state?
More than 63 % of North Carolina's death 141 row prisoners are people of color,
even though they make up less than 30 % of the state population. More than 2
dozen of the people on death row were sentenced to die by all-white juries.
A comprehensive statistical study found that defendants who kill white victims
are more likely to get the death penalty, and that across the state, African
American citizens are systematically, and illegally, excluded from capital
juries.
If that's not enough, let's talk about arbitrariness.
A new report from the Center for Death Penalty Litigation shows that most of
the people on N.C. death row are only there because they had the bad luck to be
tried under outdated laws, before there were basic legal protections to ensure
fairness at their trials. Had they been tried under modern laws, most wouldn't
be on death row today.
Watch the story of Nathan Bowie, who because there was no indigent defense
agency at the time of his trial, ended up with an alcoholic lawyer who came to
court drunk.
Today, after the enactment of many reforms, only a handful of people each year
face capital trials. Yet, the selection of that handful remains arbitrary. It
has more to do with the practices of the local DA, the county where the crime
occurred, and the defendant’s willingness to accept a plea bargain than it does
with the severity of the crime.
Across the country, people have become unwilling to ignore the obviousness
unfairness that infects the death penalty. Last week, Washington admitted the
truth about its death penalty. It's time for North Carolina to do the same.
(source: Kristin Collins is the Associate Director of Public Information at the
Center for Death Penalty Litigation. This post appeared originally on the North
Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
blog----ncpolicywatch.org)
SOUTH CAROLINA:
He is on death row for killing a Myrtle Beach cop. Now he wants a new trial
The man facing the death penalty for murdering a Myrtle Beach police officer in
2002 says he deserves a new trial because his lawyer didn't strike 2 jurors who
found him guilty.
This week Luzenski Allen Cottrell filed a post conviction rights request in
Horry County Circuit Court.
A jury convicted Cottrell for the murder of Myrtle Beach police officer Joe
McGarry outside a Dunkin Donuts on Dec. 29, 2002. McGarry and his partner, Mike
Guthinger, were walking into the shop when Guthinger recognized Cottrell as a
suspect in another shooting, according to court testimony.
The officers confronted Cottrell outside and a brief struggle ensued. Cottrell
pulled out a .45 caliber gun and shot McGarry. Guthinger returned fire and shot
Cottrell in the leg as he fled.
McGarry had just proposed to his girlfriend days before the shooting.
In 2014, Judge Larry Hyman sentenced Cottrell to death.
That was after the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned Cottrell’s previous
murder conviction and death sentence during an April 2005 trial. The court
overturned the case because the jury did not have the option of convicting
Cottrell of a lesser charge.
Cottrell is also serving a life sentence for a 2004 murder indictment in Marion
County.
In Cottrell’s post conviction right request, he says he was denied effective
lawyers during the 2014 trial. Cottrell argued attorneys failed to strike 2
potential jurors - out of hundreds who were called.
The jurors stated they would not consider Cottrell's background as relevant
when considering the death penalty,according to the filing. Mitigating evidence
can be considered by a jury when deciding on the death penalty.
Lawyers objected to the jurors, but the judge overruled that objection,
according to the filing. Lawyers then did not use strikes to remove the jurors
who were eventually part of the jury.
"Because of their self-professed unwillingness to consider a broad range of
constitutionally relevant mitigating evidence, it is at least reasonably
probable that one or both jurors adversely affected the outcome of the penalty
phase deliberations," the filing reads.
(source: myrtlebeachonline.com)
FLORIDA:
Convicted killer faces death penalty in 2002 Waffle House murder
Hours after police found the bodies of waitress Christina Delarosa and cook
Willie Absolu inside a Davie Waffle House in March 2002, a detective told
Gerhard Hojan something he did not want to hear.
"Barbara Nunn survived."
After hearing that, according to Broward State Attorney Mike Satz, Hojan
lowered his head. Nunn had been shot and left for dead, a witness who could
identify Hojan as "Chip" and a 2nd suspect, Jimmy Mickel. The suspects were
former Waffle House co-workers who decided to rob the restaurant in western
Davie on March 11, 2002.
Hojan did not plan to leave any living witnesses, but Nunn was able to tell
police enough to identify him as the shooter, Satz said.
Now Hojan is back in a Broward courtroom, the beneficiary of a change in
Florida's death penalty law. Originally convicted and sentenced to die, Hojan
was given a reprieve when the state's capital punishment procedure was
determined to be unconstitutional.
The new jury will have to decide unanimously that Hojan deserves to be put to
death.
Satz said there is plenty of reason: Hojan committed 2 murders and an attempted
murder as well as an armed kidnapping. The crimes were committed to eliminate
witnesses and for financial gain. The victims were aware of what was happening,
locked in a freezer waiting for Hojan to call them out, order them to their
knees and open fire.
Mickel was acquitted of the murders and is serving 5 life sentences for his
role in the kidnapping and robbery.
Hojan's defense lawyer, Mitch Polay, deferred his opening statement until after
Satz has finished putting on his case.
Nunn took the stand at 1:45 p.m. Tuesday to describe the robbery and shooting
to the jury.
(source: Sun-Sentinel)
OHIO:
3 judges to decide death penalty trial in Warren County
3 judges, rather than a jury, will decide whether a Warren County man will be
convicted and possibly sentenced to death for the death of his adoptive sister
in September 2017.
On Monday, Judge Donald Oda II cleared up remaining issues leading up to the
trial of Christopher Kirby, 38, of South Lebanon.
Oda, along with Judges Joe Kirby and Robert Peeler, will hear the cases made by
lawyers for and against Kirby.
John Kaspar, one of the lawyers representing Kirby, said they decided to make
their case to the judges, rather than a jury, after reviewing responses of
potential jurors in the case.
The 2-week trial is scheduled to begin next Monday in Warren County Common
Pleas Court.
During Monday's hearing, Kirby's other lawyer, Timothy McKenna, said
prosecutors had turned down an offer for Kirby to plead guilty to all charges
and be sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Kirby is charged with aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, murder, felonious
assault, grand theft and tampering with evidence.
Assistant County Prosecutor John Arnold said the offer was rejected for several
reasons, but he did not elaborate.
Kirby is accused of murdering Deborah Power and badly beating her husband,
Ronnie Power, at the home they shared with Kirby, his wife and children in
South Lebanon.
In April, Jacqueline "Jackie" Kirby, 31, was sentenced to 3 years on probation
for her part in the case and ordered her to enter the Women's Recovery Center,
an outpatient substance abuse program in Xenia.
It was unclear whether she will testify in her husband's trial.
Authorities were summoned by a 911 call from an 8-year-old boy. During a
hearing Monday, Oda indicated a young witness was expected to testify.
Deborah Power, 63, of South Lebanon, was found under a blanket and "cold to the
touch with blood underneath" by sheriff's deputies called to 59 W. Broadway,
according to a search warrant.
Christopher Kirby was first interviewed at West Chester Hospital, the day after
the incident. At the hospital, detectives recovered the victims' truck and 3
credit cards allegedly taken from them as the Kirbys tried to raise more money
to buy drugs.
His lawyers motioned for his statements to police to be thrown out, citing the
likelihood he was feeling the effects of heroin or withdrawal from it when he
was questioned.
They also argued that a detective secretly recorded the man's statements during
a "smoke break."
But Oda rejected the defense motions, ruling the statements were obtained
lawfully.
(source: Dayton Daily News)
CALIFORNIA:
The death penalty is now unconstitutional in Washington state. California
should be next
The California Supreme Court should follow the lead of the Washington state
Supreme Court, which on Oct. 11 declared that state's death penalty to violate
the state constitution "because it is imposed in an arbitrary and racially
biased manner."
California's death penalty suffers the same flaws and likewise should be struck
down.
In its carefully reasoned opinion, the Washington Supreme Court explained that
the "use of the death penalty is unequally applied - sometimes by where the
crime took place, or the county of residence, or the available budgetary
resources at any given point in time, or the race of the defendant."
The same could be equally said about the death penalty in California. In fact,
in 2014, federal Judge Cormac Carney declared the state's death penalty
unconstitutional because of the very arbitrary way in which it is administered.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned Carney’s ruling on
procedural grounds, but never questioned his reasoning about the death penalty.
Opinion
Carney's analysis of the death penalty in California was stunningly similar to
that of the Washington high court.
"Since 1978, when the current death penalty system was adopted by California
voters, over 900 people have been sentenced to death for their crimes," he
explained. "Of them, only 13 have been executed. For the rest, the
dysfunctional administration of California's death penalty system has resulted,
and will continue to result, in an inordinate and unpredictable period of delay
preceding their actual execution. Indeed, for most, systemic delay has made
their execution so unlikely that the death sentence carefully and deliberately
imposed by the jury has been quietly transformed into one no rational jury or
legislature could ever impose: life in prison, with the remote possibility of
death.
"As for the random few for whom execution does become a reality, they will have
languished for so long on death row that their execution will serve no
retributive or deterrent purpose and will be arbitrary," the judge added.
Carney's facts are unassailable. Countless factors - the process of direct
review by the California Supreme Court, the lack of qualified attorneys to
handle death penalty cases, the need for multiple levels of review - contribute
to long delays and unpredictability in carrying out death sentences. The
average delay between sentencing and execution in California is 25 years. In
the case before Carney, the defendant was sentenced to death in 1995 and there
are still appellate proceedings in his federal case.
Nor is there any fix for this.
Short-circuiting appeals or proceeding without competent counsel increases the
risk of executing innocent people, or imposing the death penalty when there has
been a serious constitutional violation. The U.S. Supreme Court long has
recognized that arbitrary punishments violate the Eighth Amendment. Carney's
opinion shows, as many judges and law professors have concluded, that
California death penalty system is irreparably broken.
In 2016, California voters approved Proposition 66 to speed up the death
penalty by requiring that all state appeals be completed within 5 years. No one
believes this is possible given the complexity of the cases and the lack of
qualified lawyers to handle them. In 2017, the California Supreme Court upheld
this initiative by saying that despite the mandatory language of the
initiative, it should be regarded as only advisory. Proposition 66 does not
deal with any of the reasons why there are inevitable delays and does nothing
to address the arbitrary imposition of the death penalty.
There is no doubt that in California, as in Washington State and every other
state with capital punishment, the death penalty is imposed in a racially
discriminatory manner. Of the 743 people on California's death row, 2/3 are
individuals of color. Careful studies have shown that in California, as
elsewhere, a jury is far more likely to impose a death sentence when the victim
is white compared to when the victim is African American or Latino.
In the past 15 years, 7 states - Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, New
Jersey, New Mexico and New York - have abandoned capital punishment through
court order or legislative act. 3 - Colorado, Oregon and Pennsylvania - have
adopted moratoriums.
Gov. Jerry Brown should impose such a moratorium before leaving office.
And California Supreme Court justices should show the same fidelity to
constitutional principles and judicial courage as the Washington Supreme Court
and declare the state's death penalty to be unconstitutional.
(source: Opinion; Erwin Chemerinsky is dean and professor of law at the UC
Berkeley School of Law----Sacramento Bee)
WASHINGTON:
USCCB welcomes end to death penalty in Washington State
Following the Washington Supreme Court's ruling striking down the state death
penalty statute, Bishop Frank J Dewane of Venice, Florida, Chairman of the
USCCB's Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, welcomed the news
and reiterated the Church's teaching on capital punishment.
The full statement of Bishop Dewane follows:
"The Washington Supreme Court is to be commended for its unanimous decision to
strike down the state death penalty statute. In his 2015 address to the US
Congress, Pope Francis called for 'the global abolition of the death penalty,'
as he explained, 'I am convinced that this way is the best, since every life is
sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society
can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes. . . . A
just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the
goal of rehabilitation.'
"In the Court's opinion, the death penalty was deemed 'invalid because it is
imposed in an arbitrary and racially biased manner.' This echoes one of the
reasons to oppose the death penalty that the bishops gave in their 2005
statement A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death:
[The death penalty's] application is deeply flawed and can be irreversibly
wrong, is prone to errors, and is biased by factors such as race, the quality
of legal representation, and where the crime was committed.
"We join the Catholic Bishops of Washington, the Washington State Catholic
Conference, the Catholic Mobilizing Network, and all people of good will in
welcoming this development and persevering in the work to end the death
penalty."
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, USCCB, Bishop Frank Dewane
(source: indcatholicnews.com)
USA:
The Death Penalty Makes America Less Safe
There are many misconceptions about the death penalty that contribute to
supporters’ defense of it. High on the list are the arguments that the system
enhances public safety by sending a warning to would-be perpetrators and
preventing violent crime.
But in reality, studies show that those who commit violent crimes (like murder)
do not think about the potential consequences when acting. Moreover, states
with the highest rates of executions also tend to have the highest rates of
murder and violent crime.
Rather than acting as a deterrent, the death penalty is, in fact, partly to
blame for the reality that the majority of crimes are never even solved. I’ll
explain why.
The murder clearance rate in the U.S. is among the lowest in the world, with
fewer than 60 % of homicide cases cleared on average. A clearance rate refers
to a case where an arrest is made or a suspect is identified but not
apprehendable, so the % of homicides that actually lead to a conviction is even
lower.
Why is this? There are a multitude of problems within the justice system that
contribute, but reports show that at the top of the list is a lack of law
enforcement resources. In a 2009 study, Police Chiefs also ranked a lack of
resources as the top barrier for effective law enforcement. Tellingly, they
ranked the death penalty as the least effective measure for combating crime in
that same study.
Justice is expensive and resources are limited. Therefore, if the primary
purpose of the criminal justice system is to make society safer, resources must
be dedicated to the programs that have proven most successful at preventing,
deterring, and solving crime.
The death penalty certainly isn’t one of them. 88 % of criminologists agree
that the death penalty is not a deterrent, and the data backs them up.
Regions of the country with the most executions continue to have the highest
rates of violent crime (the South), while regions that have very few executions
or that have repealed the death penalty have very low violent crime (the
Northeast). In fact, in 2016 the murder rate in non-death penalty states was
4.49 compared to a murder rate of 5.63 in states with the death penalty. That's
a 25 % difference.
Not only is the death penalty not a deterrent, it's a resource zapper. It is
far more costly than any other sentence, including life without the possibility
of parole.
When you consider the fact that the death penalty is the most expensive part of
the justice system on a per-offender basis, then couple that with the fact that
the death penalty does not deter or reduce crime, it becomes pretty obvious
what needs to go. The resources wasted pursuing death sentences for a
cherry-picked number of cases would be more effectively used staffing,
equipping, and training police departments so they could solve more crimes.
And while we're focusing on unsolved homicides here, let's not forget that
limited resources also mean many other violent crimes go unsolved (and only
about 50 % are reported in the first place).
For every 1,000 rapes in this country, only 310 are reported to police, 11 are
referred to prosecution, and merely 6 will result in incarceration. Meanwhile,
hundreds of thousands of rape kits sit untested across the country, while the
sands run out on the statute of limitations for victims to press charges. That
problem has gotten so bad that the federal government has given grants to over
20 jurisdictions to pay for the processing of this evidence - something that
should already be in their budget.
To top it off, only 1/3 of property crimes are reported in the U.S. each year,
and of those only 19 % are cleared. Resources wasted on the death penalty are
resources that can't be used towards solving these crimes as well.
It is in no way just to waste millions of dollars a year pursuing death for a
few cases while most victims receive no justice whatsoever, nor is it just to
waste millions of hard-working Americans' tax dollars on a system that provides
them nothing in return.
If the primary purpose of the system is to make society safer and actually
advance justice, then the death penalty not only fails to contribute to that
goal, it acts as a huge barrier.
(source: Hannah Cox is the National Manager of Conservatives Concerned About
the Death Penalty. Hannah was previously Director of Outreach for the Beacon
Center of Tennessee, a free-market think tank. Prior to that, she was Director
of Development for the Tennessee Firearms Association and a policy advocate for
the National Alliance on Mental Illness----newsmax.com)
******************
Pope Francis has unshackled the church from the death penalty
In his Sept. 24, 2015, speech before a joint session of the U.S. Congress, Pope
Francis said, "Recently my brother bishops in the United States renewed their
call for the abolition of the death penalty. Not only do I support them, but I
also offer encouragement to all those who are convinced that a just and
necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of
rehabilitation."
What was it - a fear of being preachy, a hesitancy of offending his hosts who
might support capital punishment - that kept Francis from condemning the
American passion for the death penalty? Whatever the reason, the pope had his
chance and he blew it.
Perhaps atoning for his tepidity, he returned to the topic this year on Aug. 2
to declare to a larger audience of 1.2 billion Catholics that executions are
"inadmissible" in all cases: meaning no exceptions for killers who massacre
schoolchildren, no leniency for assassins whose murdering was declared
"heinous" by judges and prosecutors.
The papal absolutism put Francis in a league of his own, well separate from
wafflers like Pope John Paul II who intoned that in some cases killing killers
was "the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively
against the aggressor." Such thinking echoed the early church arguments of
Augustine and the medieval Thomas Aquinas.
In one stroke, Francis did what no pope ever attempted: unshackling the church
from supporting capital punishment.
In a Vatican address on Oct. 11, 2017, to mark the 25th anniversary of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Francis argued that "no one ought to be
deprived ... of life."
"No matter how serious the crime that has been committed, the death penalty is
inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and the dignity of
the person," Francis said.
Predictably, the assertion brought on a storm surge of criticism, including
from Edward Feser, co-author of By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic
Defense of Capital Punishment. Obviously rattled that Francis was not only out
of line but was something of a heretic, Feser wrote: "In our book ... Joseph
Bessette and I assemble a mountain of evidence from Scripture, the Fathers and
Doctors of the Church, the popes, saints and theologians, and catechisms and
other church documents, that shows conclusively that the legitimacy of capital
punishment is irreformable Catholic teaching [emphasis in original]. And if
that is so, then it follows that a pope who taught that capital punishment was
always and intrinsically wrong would be as manifestly guilty of doctrinal error
as he would be if he denied the Trinity."
According to the Pew Research Center, public support of the death penalty is 54
percent, a tick higher than 53 percent among Catholics. Not among that group
was Fr. Matthew Regan, a California priest who before his death in 2003 had a
singular ministry that included weekly visits to death row inmates in the San
Quentin prison.
(source: National Catholic Reporter)
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