January 22
NEW HAMPSHIRE:
A death penalty question
On the death penalty, a long-standing question: Why do we kill people who kill
people to show killing people is wrong?
GINNY TIMMONS
Boscawen
(source: Letter to the Editor, Concord Monitor)
NORTH CAROLINA:
Jury selection to begin in Pender County death penalty case
Jury selection is scheduled to begin Tuesday afternoon in a Pender County
murder case that could lead to the death penalty.
James Opelton Bradley is charged with the murder of Elisha Tucker.
Tucker, 34, went missing in 2013. Her body was found in Pender County in 2014
as investigators searched for Shannon Rippy Van Newkirk.
Investigators have never found Van Newkirk’s body, but Bradley was convicted of
her murder in 2017. Last year a state Court of Appeals panel ruled Bradley did
receive a fair trial in that case. It was the 2nd time Bradley had been
convicted of murder. He pleaded guilty to killing his 8-year-old stepdaughter
in 1988 and spent 25 years in prison. He is currently serving 30-37 years for
Van Newkirk’s death.
District Attorney Ben David told WWAY earlier this month that hundreds of
people received a jury summons for the case. He said the selection process
could take several weeks, because it is a capital case.
(source: WWAY TV news)
ALABAMA:
Authorities Pursuing Death Penalty Against 19-Year-Old Accused of Murdering
Officer Sean Tuder
A 19-year-old man Alabama man who was arrested 4 times in 2018 will face the
death penalty for the slaying of 30-year-old Mobile Police Department police
officer Sean Tuder. He is survived by his wife, Krissy.
Marco Perez is accused of murdering Tuder on Sunday afternoon in Mobile,
Alabama, as Tuder and others attempted to arrest him. Perez’s mother Tiffany
Perez, 38, was also arrested in connection with the crime. She’s accused of
faking her son’s kidnapping so he could elude police. Officially, the woman is
charged with filing a false report.
Police reportedly spent 90 hours searching for Marco Perez after his mother
reported him kidnapped. Marco Perez had previously been arrested in connection
with numerous car break-ins and was on the run from police for weeks.
Police announced that Tuder was shot when he and “several other officers” tried
to arrest Perez on local and federal warrants. While Perez would be arrested at
the scene, Tuder did not make it.
Tuder started working at the Mobile Police Department in March 2016 and went on
to be recognized as Officer of the Month.
Mobile County District Attorney Ashley Rich said that capital murder charges
are being filed.
“We will be asking for Perez to be held without bond and he will be booked into
Metro Jail tonight. I am authorizing charges against the suspect for capital
murder for killing a law enforcement officer,” the DA said.
Mobile Police Chief Lawrence Battiste said the investigation is ongoing.
“An arrest is the easy part, but a conviction is the hard part so we will
continue to do our research and conduct interviews in the coming days,” he
said.
Tuder is also being mourned by the Palatka Police Department, where he
previously worked.
(source: lawandcrime.org)
MISSOURI:
Missouri Supreme Court to consider capital punishment case and whether state’s
death penalty is unconstitutional
The Missouri Supreme Court in Jefferson City will determine whether a man was
wrongly given capital punishment and whether the state’s death penalty law is
unconstitutional.
Former US Army soldier and Dent County Sheriff’s Deputy Marvin Rice was
convicted of murdering the mother of his child and her boyfriend in December
2011. Rice was fired from his position as a deputy in 2009 after he and the
mother, Annette Durham, who had been incarcerated several times, had an affair.
Durham gave birth to Rice’s child while in prison and he took custody of the
child during her incarceration. Upon her release from prison, Durham had
supervised visits with the child. According to court documents, during her
first unsupervised visit, she called up Rice and told him that she would not
bring the child home that night as promised.
Rice, who had been honorably discharged from the Army and classified as a
disabled veteran after suffering from a knee injury and being treated for his
1st episode of major depressive disorder, sank further into depression after
losing his job at the sheriff’s department. By the time of the shooting
incident, he’d also discovered that he had a pituitary gland tumor, which
caused a thyroid abnormality, affecting some of his hormone levels, which
further worsened his depression.
Court documents filed by his attorney before the Supreme Court, Assistant State
Public Defender Craig Johnston, noted Rice was taking 17 different medications
and had been diagnosed with 12 various medical and psychiatric conditions by
the day of the shooting, December 11, 2011.
After hearing Durham tell him she would not be returning the child, Rice
confronted Durham and her boyfriend, Steven Strotkamp, at their residence in
Dent County. In an altercation with both of them after breaking down the front
door, he shot and killed Durham outside the home and Strotkamp inside. An
autopsy revealed that Durham died from 4 gunshot wounds while Strotkamp was
killed by 2 gunshot wounds.
After the incident, Rice swapped his car for his wife’s car and headed to the
V.A. hospital in Columbia. His wife informed police of his intention during a
phone conversation, and a high-speed chase ensued that covered over 90 miles
and ended in Jefferson City. After spike strips flattened his vehicle’s tires,
Rice traveled through 2 intersections and ended up in the parking lot of the
Capital Plaza Hotel.
As Rice drove underneath the awning of the front of the hotel, he jumped out of
the moving car, leaving the car to roll through the parking lot with some
officers chasing it. From behind a wall inside the hotel, he exchanged gunfire
with an officer in pursuit. The hotel was particularly busy because the
Jefferson City Medical Group was hosting a Christmas party at the hotel and
there was a hockey tournament in town. An officer who was working an off-duty
job at the hotel got behind Rice and shot him. He sustained bullet wounds to
his hand, arm, and lower back and was taken into custody. Rice was charged with
two counts of first-degree murder, and the state also filed notice it was
seeking the death penalty. It offered aggravating circumstances, including that
the murders were committed while Rice was engaged in the commission or
attempted commission of another unlawful homicide, and that the murders were
“outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that they involved
torture or depravity of mind”
A trial court sentenced Rice to death after the jury became deadlocked in St.
Charles County where his case was moved on a change of venue. The jury returned
a verdict of life imprisonment without parole for 2nd-degree murder in the
death of Strotkamp but was hung over the 1st-degree murder count in the death
of Durham. 11 jury members favored giving him an additional life in prison
sentence while one favored the death penalty.
Rice’s appeal in the Supreme Court argues seven points, including that evidence
should have been suppressed and a mistrial should have been granted. It further
asserts that Missouri’s law requiring a judge to make independent factual
findings supporting a death sentence when a jury is deadlocked is
unconstitutional.
In its first count, Rice’s appeal argues he was denied a fair trial and a right
to be free from self-incrimination because the prosecutor for the state
commented upon failure to testify during the trial.
In addition, the appeal claims he should have been granted a mistrial because
the prosecution violated a Supreme Court ruling that a defendant’s silence in
response to a Miranda warning can’t be used against him.
It also claims Rice’s statement describing the incident in which he killed
Durham and Strotkamp during interrogation at a hospital should have been
excluded because police continued to question him after he said he didn’t want
to answer questions.
His defense further claims the jury should have been given the option of
considering manslaughter charges because there was evidence that Marvin caused
Strotkamp’s death under the influence of sudden passion given his mental state.
Finally, the appeal claims the Missouri death penalty arrangement is
unconstitutional because it permits the trial court to impose a death sentence
when the jury has failed to unanimously agree it is warranted, and it allows
only 2 people, in this case, the judge and 1 juror, to decide that a defendant
should receive death in a jury-tried case.
The appeal also contends Missouri’s death penalty law violates a core Supreme
Court holding – for states to limit capital punishment to a ‘narrow category’
of the most egregious murderers for whom the death penalty is reserved. It says
a Missouri prosecutor is currently free to pursue the death penalty in
virtually any murder case as a result of the failure.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri, the ACLU Foundation Capital
Punishment Project and Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty filed
a brief as friends of the Court. They argue Missouri’s capital sentencing
statute is unconstitutional because it allows a judge rather than the jury to
make factual findings supporting a death sentence and then sentence the
defendant to death when the jury is unable to agree unanimously on a
punishment.
Missouri and Indiana are the only states that legislatively authorize a judge
to impose a death sentence when a jury is deadlocked.
The appeal from Rice is asking for a new trial over his 2nd-degree murder
charge of Strotkamp and a life without parole sentence for his 1st-degree
murder conviction of Durham. In court documents submitted by Assistant Attorney
General Nathan Aquino, the state argues against all 7 points raised in Rice’s
appeal to the Supreme Court.
The high bench will hear oral arguments in the case Wednesday morning. Rice is
currently incarcerated at the Potosi Correctional Center where all inmates
under a death sentence are housed.
(source: missourinet.com)
WYOMING:
Wyoming Legislature to Weigh Ending Death Penalty
In 2019, the Wyoming state House will weigh whether or not their state should
become the 21st to end capital punishment.
A bill introduced by State Rep. Jared Olsen (R.) would abolish the death
penalty in the state and replace it with a maximum sentence of life without the
possibility of parole (LWOP), the Wyoming Tribune Eagle reported. Olsen told
the Tribune Eagle that his decision was partially motivated by a concern for
cost—death penalty trials costs can run into the millions, a bill footed by the
taxpayer.
"I think when members looked at how much we spent, I think that sells a lot of
people really quickly," Olsen said.
State legislators have tried to repeal capital punishment in Wyoming every year
since 2013, the Casper Star Tribune reported. But past bills were generally
minority efforts from Democrats in the legislature's lower chamber. Olsen's
bill, by contrast, has the backing of Republican leadership, including House
Speaker Steve Harshman, House Majority Leader Eric Barlow, and House Majority
Whip Rep. Tyler Lindholm.
It also has the support of a bevy of abolitionist groups, including the
American Civil Liberties Union, the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Cheyenne, and
the Wyoming League of Women Voters.
Although capital punishment is a live issue in the state legislature, Wyoming
barely uses the death penalty to begin with. Just 1 person—Mark Hopkinson,
convicted of the bombing death of a family of 3 and the murder of a 4th
15-year-old girl—has been executed in the state since the death penalty was
reinstated nationwide in 1977.
In 2014, a federal judge vacated the sentence of Wyoming's last capital
offender, Dale Eaton, leaving Wyoming's death row totally vacant. The state's
low homicide rate—there were just 15 murders there last year—means it is likely
to remain so.
Still, repeal has an uncertain road ahead of it. Olsen's bill has the support
of four Senate minority Democrats, including their leader, but will still need
to pass the Senate and garner the support of newly elected Governor Mark Gordon
(R.), who has not publicly commented on the proposal.
If abolition does pick up these supporters, however, it will mean Wyoming is
the second state in a matter of months to end capital punishment. Specifically,
it will follow Washington, where the state supreme court ruled the death
penalty unconstitutional in October. (That ruling, notably, applies only to the
death penalty as currently enacted, meaning capital punishment may still return
to the Evergreen state.)
The post Wyoming Legislature to Weigh Ending Death Penalty appeared first on
Washington Free Beacon.
(source: thetribune.com)
NEVADA:
Martinez-Guzman Could Face Murder Charges This Week
The suspect accused of killing 4 people in 2 northern Nevada counties is
scheduled to make his 1st court appearance, Thursday at 1:30 PM in Carson City.
Wilbur Martinez-Guzman's arraignment is for 6 counts including burglary,
possession of stolen property and obtaining money by false pretenses. Douglas
County District Attorney Mark Jackson says his office will file its criminal
complaint this week, charging the suspect with murder.
"The next step in the process is for our prosecuting attorney offices to
continue to work collaboratively with the lead detectives in the case," Jackson
said.
Officials will file the charges after they serve an arrest warrant for murder.
Investigators say Martinez-Guzman killed Connie Koontz, 56, and Sophia Renken,
74, in Gardnerville. They also say he is responsible for the deaths of Jerry
David, 81, and his wife Sherri, 80, in south Reno.
"Our communities were shaken by these brutal murders and our local law
enforcement needs to be commended for their dedication in apprehending
Martinez-Guzman," Chris Hicks, Washoe County District Attorney said.
Hicks and Jackson are working together to determine whether or not
Martinez-Guzman can be tried for murder in all four cases at the same time. If
they do, they will have to decide which venue to hold the trial since the
murders happened in two different jurisdictions.
"A conviction for these crimes is our highest priority," Hicks said.
Many northern Nevadans have a lot of unanswered questions about the crimes and
the evidence that led authorities to Martinez-Guzman. Some are even fearful
that the killer may still be on the loose. The sheriffs from Washoe, Carson
City and Douglas County are all confident that they have the right man in
custody. Hicks says he knows there are a lot of questions and says the answers
will come over time.
"This is to ensure a fair and impartial process," Hicks said. "Our system rests
on the defendant's presumption of innocence."
Many others residents are relieved that an arrest has been made, and Hicks is
hopeful that it brings some solace to the victims' families.
"Our northern Nevada community needs to embrace the family members of these
victims and show them what kind of community we are," Hicks said.
The murder charges against Martinez-Guzman could include enhancements, since a
deadly weapon was used in the crimes and because 3 of the 4 victims were older
than 60. Each enhancement adds one to 20 additional years in prison per charge.
First degree murder convictions in Nevada can result in life in prison with or
without parole, 50 years in prison with parole after 20 years, or the death
penalty. According to the Nevada legislature, the average death penalty trial
costs $532,000 more than other murder trials.
Once Martinez-Guzman is charged with murder, he will plead either guilty or not
guilty at his arraignment in Justice Court, followed by a preliminary hearing
and potential trial in District Court. The court would also appoint
psychiatrists and psychologists.
(source: KTVN news)
USA:
Death by Fentanyl: Should the Powerful Opioid Be Used in Lethal Injections?
When it comes to executing people by lethal injection, “Fentanyl is just an
obvious choice. You have unfortunately an inexhaustible supply of this drug in
state custody - why can’t it be used?”
As the end drew near, Carey Dean Moore’s face turned red, and then purple. He
breathed heavily, according to the witnesses who were there to see it, and
coughed. Roughly 20 minutes later, he died.
In his final weeks, the 2-time killer had given up efforts to seek a reprieve.
He’d expressed his scant apologies and written the final words condemned men
write.
It was the 1,481st execution in the modern era of capital punishment, but
Moore’s death was a first on more than one front. Not only was it the
Cornhusker State’s 1st execution in more than 2 decades, but also it was the
nation’s 1st ever lethal injection using fentanyl, the deadly drug at the
center of the opioid crisis.
More than 28,000 Americans — none of whom were on death row — died in
connection with the powerful painkiller in 2017, according to federal data.
Yet, as politicians and public advocates wrung their hands over how to stem the
flow of drugs and stop the scourge of overdoses, behind closed doors
corrections officials quietly asked a very different question: Can we use this
drug in executions?
As long as it’s available, the answer is yes.
But as death penalty states struggle to obtain lethal drugs, it’s unclear
whether fentanyl is the future of death chambers or just a fleeting interest.
Will more states switch to opioid-based execution? Or will the course of
capital punishment take a different direction?
“It’s Not Like Anyone Thinks This Makes It Less Painful”
Nationally, executions have been on the decline for close to 2 decades. But
last year saw new legal developments and twists in the process. Washington
outlawed capital punishment, Alabama witnessed a badly botched execution
attempt, Tennessee returned to using the electric chair and Nebraska carried
out Moore's execution, which was the first time fentanyl was used as part of
the lethal injection.
Initially, Nevada was slated to be the 1st state to use the powerful painkiller
in its death protocol, for the planned July execution of Scott Dozier. But a
last-minute lawsuit halted the procedure after a pharmaceutical company — the
maker of 1 of the other drugs in Nevada’s 3-drug cocktail — accused the state
of illegitimately acquiring the sedative midazolam. (Dozier later killed
himself before the state could execute him.)
For the execution of Moore, the state used a previously untested 4-drug
cocktail. The protocol first called for a dose of diazepam, which is the
generic name for Valium. Executioners followed that with a dose of fentanyl —
at which point Moore began coughing and breathing heavily before turning
purple, according to the Lincoln Journal-Star. One minute later, Moore was
given cisatracurium, a paralytic that would have rendered him unable to
breathe. Finally, the protocol ended with a shot of potassium chloride to stop
the heart.
All 3 of the other drugs have previously been used in executions, with some
controversy — especially in the case of the cisatracurium, which experts worry
could just mask signs of suffering with its paralytic effect.
Supposedly, the fentanyl ensures the condemned is not conscious to feel the
effects of the drugs that follow, but Dr. Joel Zivot, an associate professor of
anesthesiology at Emory University School of Medicine who has testified as an
expert in lethal injection litigation, questions that assumption.
“Having given narcotics to maybe 10,000 or more people in my career, I can’t
tell you that everybody gets high or gets pleasure out of it and even the pain
relief is uneven,” he told The Fix. “I have certainly never given narcotics and
thought, ‘This is going to take away the pain of dying.’ It’s not like anyone
thinks this makes it less painful per se to die - it’s unmeasurable and
unknowable.”
It may be tempting to think that using a painkiller is a humane final gesture,
but Zivot cautions against seeing it that way.
“The Constitution doesn’t ask that you trade off cruelty for being stoned,” he
said. “It’s not one or the other, or that being stoned takes away cruelty. It
seems like a rather horrible and insensitive way of taking advantage of a
terrible national epidemic.” To death penalty supporters, the opioid’s efficacy
in killing — along with the ready abundance of the drug in confiscated supplies
— is a selling point.
“Every day people die from this, so it’s obviously effective,” said
Houston-based capital punishment advocate Dudley Sharp. “Fentanyl is just an
obvious choice. You have unfortunately an inexhaustible supply of this drug in
state custody - why can’t it be used?”
“Raised More Questions Than It’s Answered”
Despite the finality of the outcome, some experts say it’s not entirely certain
that the first fentanyl execution went as anticipated — because the witnesses
couldn’t actually see key parts of the process.
“The Nebraska execution has raised more questions than it’s answered,” said
Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. “It
isn’t clear that the execution went as planned because the Nebraska prisons
dropped the curtain before Carey Dean Moore died, and so none of the witnesses
saw the actual death.”
For 14 minutes, witnesses weren’t privy to the goings-on inside the execution
chamber.
And given the facial discoloration and signs of “air hunger” before the curtain
closed, Dunham said, there’s a possibility the procedure “did not go properly,”
a concern that could make fentanyl death protocols less appealing for other
states considering the switch.
“Had it been more transparent,” he said, “it might produce a different response
from the other states - but the absence of transparency and the questions
resulting from that make it unclear whether this was a quote-unquote
‘successful’ execution or just another problematic protocol.”
Because They Could Get It
Even though it’s come to be associated with overdoses, there’s no particular
pharmacological reason to start adding fentanyl to death cocktails, according
to experts.
“Narcotics are not poison. You can die as a consequence of them,” Zivot said,
“but they’re not poison; fentanyl is not made to kill.”
It doesn’t kill better or quicker, and it’s not clear that it does so less
painfully. But that’s not necessarily what states are looking for when they
pick a new death drug; instead, they’re concerned with availability.
“The way states have selected the drugs is pretty much: they see what other
states do and then if it appears to work, they do it too,” Dunham said. “The
history of which lethal injection drugs are used can be traced to which ones
became unavailable and once drugs became unavailable — because drug companies
didn’t want to sell them to prisons for executions — then states began looking
for different drugs.”
In recent years, drug companies have refused to provide their products to
prisons planning to use them for executions and in some cases, as in Nevada,
they’ve even filed suit to ensure their products aren’t used to kill. As a
result, some drugs have become harder to get into the death chamber and new
combinations have become more appealing.
“When Nevada officials were asked why they chose fentanyl, they essentially
said, ‘Because we could get it,’” Dunham said. But even fentanyl could become
harder to obtain.
“Eventually with any drug that the drug companies learn is being used in
executions,” he continued, “the distribution controls will get progressively
stricter.”
But there’s one way to avoid the hurdles of those particular supply-side
controls: use something that’s not a drug.
“You Can’t Withhold Nitrogen Gas”
6 years later, Brooks became the 1st man in America executed by lethal
injection. It was widely touted as a more “humane” way to kill, but the
40-year-old’s death gave pause to that claim.
The 4 reporters who witnessed it all “appeared shaken by the experience” which
“did not appear to be painless,” according to the New York Times.
More than 3 decades later, the amount of pain condemned prisoners feel is still
a source of debate and legal wrangling. It’s made its way into multiple
lawsuits over the past year, formed the basis of last-minute appeals and
requests for reprieve, and prompted some inmates to beg for alternate methods
of execution.
When Doyle Lee Hamm — who survived Alabama’s painfully botched execution
attempt early in the year after executioners couldn’t find a suitable vein —
sued the state, he cited the bloody procedure as reason not to try again. In
June, Houston serial killer Danny Bible unsuccessfully argued that he, like
Hamm, was in such bad health that any attempts to execute him could result in a
similarly gruesome spectacle. (They did not.) Then in November, Joseph Garcia —
one of the notorious “Texas 7” escapees — challenged his pending execution with
questions about the safety record of the compounding pharmacy that allegedly
supplied the drugs earmarked for his death. The courts refused his last-minute
legal claims.
And this winter in Tennessee, death row prisoners begged to die by a different
method, ultimately choosing a return to electrocution rather than face the
possibility of a botched injection.
These concerns combined with the spread of roadblocks preventing states from
getting the drugs they want could be enough to prompt a shift away from lethal
injection altogether, some experts believe.
“Lethal injection in the long-term is not viable,” said Sharp. “That’s why a
lot of people have been saying to use nitrogen gas because you can’t withhold
nitrogen gas.”
In fact, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Mississippi have included nitrogen as part of
their execution protocols, though none has actually used it yet. But, experts
say, nitrogen might be the next logical option for executions, rather than
fentanyl or any other injected drug.
So far, though, it’s an untested procedure.
(source: thefix.com)
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