February 22
INDIANA:
Judge grants death penalty trial postponement
An Allen County judge today granted a request by lawyers for a man facing the
death penalty to postpone his trial.
Marcus Dansby, 23, had been scheduled to stand trial in April, but defense
attorneys Michelle Kraus and Robert Gevers pushed for more time to prepare.
Allen Superior Court Judge Fran Gull set an Oct. 1 trial date, and the trial is
expected to last a month.
Dansby is charged with 4 counts of murder in the Sept. 11, 2016, slayings of
Traeven Harris, 18, Consuela Arrington, 37, Dajahiona Arrington, 18, and the
fetus she was carrying. The child was later determined to be Dansby's.
A 5th person was shot and stabbed but survived, and Dansby is charged with
attempted murder in that alleged attack.
(source: The Journal Gazette)
****************
Man accused in 4 killings loses fight to avoid death penalty
A northeastern Indiana judge has rejected efforts by a man awaiting trial in 4
slayings to avoid a possible death penalty in the case.
An Allen County judge ruled Monday against 23-year-old Marcus Dansby’s bids to
have the death penalty thrown out as an option and to have Indiana’s capital
punishment statute declared unconstitutional.
Dansby’s attorneys argued that the Fort Wayne man was too young to get a
possible death penalty if he’s convicted because he was 20 years old at the
time of the killings.
The Journal Gazette reported that Dansby is charged in the fatal September 2016
shootings and stabbings of 3 people in Fort Wayne, including his ex-girlfriend,
who was eight months pregnant.
Dansby’s trial is scheduled for April, but his lawyers are seeking a
postponement.
(source: theindianalawyer.com)
COLORADO:
Armstrong: Colorado Republicans should let the death penalty go
Last fall, a man broke into a family’s home in Wisconsin, murdered both parents
and kidnapped their 13-year-old girl. After suffering three months in
captivity, the girl escaped, thank goodness, and authorities arrested the
suspect.
When I read about this story, my immediate reaction was that “they” should kill
the perpetrator, after due process, of course. He richly deserves it. (This
won’t happen because Wisconsin was one of the first states to outlaw the death
penalty.)
As human beings, we often seem to have a visceral desire to hurt those who
perpetrate such horrific crimes. For good reason, we’ve outlawed torture and
other cruel punishments. But we still have the death penalty for the worst
crimes. So long as the criminal dies a relatively painless death, is there
anything wrong with that?
I used to think the case for the death penalty was a slam dunk. Now I think we
should stop using it.
It looks like I’ll get my way, as far as the state goes. The Democratic
legislature appears ready to abolish the death penalty in Colorado, and Gov.
Jared Polis has indicated that he’ll support the move and even commute existing
sentences.
The political question, strategically, is whether Democrats should spend their
political capital repealing the death penalty and whether Republicans should
spend theirs trying to salvage it. My sense is that many Republicans are ready
to let this one go, but some will oppose the move.
Why should Republicans be skeptical of the death penalty? David Williams, a
long-time Libertarian activist and a Colorado lawyer who once worked on a death
penalty case in North Carolina, summarizes:
“Conservatives are supposed to believe in limited government. Yet there is no
greater power to give to the state than the authority to decide whom to
execute.
“Conservatives are also supposed to recognize the incompetence of government.
Far too many are willing to overlook the government’s incompetence when it
comes to putting innocent people on death row.
“Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1973 by the U.S. Supreme Court, 164
people on death row have been exonerated. How many more are there wrongfully?”
The argument that government often screws things up strikes me as a compelling
one. If the state executes an innocent person, there is no going back. On the
other hand, if the state sentences an innocent person to life in prison, at
least there is a chance to correct the mistake and let the person go free
(hopefully with compensation).
The death penalty also raises troubling constitutional issues. The Eighth
Amendment explicitly bars “cruel and unusual punishments.”
Yet there is a nontrivial risk of the executioners botching the job. For
example, just last year, Alabama did such a bad job of trying to kill someone
via lethal injection that the prisoner survived to sue over the matter.
It’s hard to think of a punishment crueler than the horrific agony of a botched
execution. But merely sentencing a person to death, knowing that the killing
might be botched, is cruel.
Cruel, too, is the psychological torture of being sentenced to death, knowing
that the legal process likely will take many years, and never knowing if you’re
actually going to be killed on any given scheduled date.
Many will think, “The cruelty of the death penalty cannot match the cruelty of
the suffering that the criminal inflicted on his victims.” I agree, but that is
not a good reason to ignore the Eighth Amendment or to violate our principles
of human decency.
Another constitutional problem is that the death penalty undermines the Sixth
Amendment right to trial. John Herrick’s article for the Independent perfectly
summarizes the problem: “District attorneys can use the threat of the death
penalty to prompt a confession.”
DAs in such cases say, in effect, “If you don’t plead guilty without a trial,
we’re going to try our hardest to kill you through legally established
procedures.”
If there is no death penalty, will more criminals who are guilty as sin and who
are caught red-handed go to trial? Probably. But jury trials don’t exist for
our convenience.
Republicans take seriously the Constitution’s principles about the free
exercise of religion and the right to keep and bear arms; they should take
equally seriously the principles about punishments and jury trials.
What about deterrence? Doesn’t the death penalty deter other would-be
criminals? As Herrick points out, Colorado has killed only one person since
1976. Not even the Aurora theater shooting gunman, one of the worst
mass-murderers in state history, got the death penalty. Practically speaking,
if the death penalty as used today has any deterrent effect, it is minuscule.
Government prosecutors sometimes get things wrong, sometimes through
incompetence or malice. Government can guarantee neither that it will kill the
right person nor that it will properly conduct the killing. Government is
largely capricious in whom it executes and when it executes them.
If we are skeptical of government power and mindful of constitutional
principles, abolishing the death penalty seems the logical conclusion.
(source: Colorado Sun)
IDAHO:
Man arrested in decades-old cold case; girl was fatally stabbed 24 years ago
A Southeast Idaho man could be facing the death penalty after he was arrested
for the 1995 murder of a 14-year-old girl.
The Cassia County Sheriff’s Office said Gilberto Flores Rodriguez, 56, of
Burley, was arrested on Wednesday afternoon and charged with 1st-degree murder
for killing Regina Krieger.
Krieger’s death is a well-known Idaho cold case that has long baffled
authorities.
She disappeared from the basement of her father’s Burley home on Feb. 28, 1995,
just days before her 15th birthday. A large amount of blood was found in the
basement, but Krieger couldn’t be located.
That changed on April 15 of that same year when horseback riders found
Krieger’s decomposed body in a portion of the Snake River where the water had
receded near the Montgomery Bridge east of Rupert.
Krieger’s throat had been slashed and she had been stabbed in the heart. An
autopsy showed her body had been in the river for at least 30 days.
She is buried in Pleasant View Cemetery in Burley.
Police made mistakes in their handling of the case, former Cassia County
Sheriff Randy Kidd said in 2015. Investigators initially did not consider
Krieger’s death a murder, but thought she ran away or committed suicide.Growing
up in Burley, Regina’s younger brother Cliff heard talk about what may have
happened to his sister.
“Everyone talks in a small town,” he said.
The people Regina had become involved with were drug dealers who were using
children to deliver drugs, Cliff said.
The night she went missing she had a conversation with their father telling him
she wanted to move back to Twin Falls to live with her mother because she was
uncomfortable with a situation she had gotten into and wanted out of it, Cliff
said.
“What she didn’t know was there wasn’t any way out,” Cliff added.The Krieger
case went cold until 2017 when Boise-based FBI Special Agent Chris Sheehan said
he and another investigator had been assigned to the case.
“There is new evidence that has come out,” Sheehan said in 2017, declining to
give details.Rodriguez was taken into custody without incident in Minidoka
County on Wednesday afternoon and was transported to the Mini-Cassia Criminal
Justice Center in Burley, where he is being held on a no-bond warrant issued by
Cassia County Magistrate Court.If convicted of 1st-degree murder Rodriguez
could face the death penalty. Prosecutors haven’t yet commented on whether
they’re going to pursue capital punishment in the case. If they don’t,
Rodriguez will face a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.
In an attempt to draw attention to Regina’s death, East Idaho Cold Cases has
continuously posted information about her murder in recent years.
Crystal Douglas is the founder of East Idaho Cold Cases, a non-profit group
aimed at finding missing people and raising public awareness of unsolved
murders.
In response to Rodriguez’s arrest, Douglas said, “I’m very happy for the
(Krieger) family. They waited 24 years for this.”
Regina’s murder was one of the cases featured in a deck of playing cards issued
by East Idaho Cold Cases. Every card included in the deck includes the face of
an Idaho missing person or unsolved murder victim along with a description of
their case.
Douglas said Rodriguez’s arrest will help the families of other cold case
murder victims feel that closure is possible.
“It gives other families hope,” Douglas said.
(source: idahostatejournal.com)
ARIZONA:
GOP bill scales back death penalty eligibility
A GOP bill with unanimous support would remove 3 reasons for justifying an
execution and combine 2 others, marking the 1st time since 1973 – if passed –
the Legislature has diminished the death penalty law.
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Eddie Farnsworth, R-Gilbert, said the Maricopa County
Attorney’s Office is behind the proposal to get rid of some of the “aggravating
factors,” or circumstances that make a murder more heinous, listed in Arizona’s
death penalty law.
“The courts have expressed concerns about constitutionality for all aggravators
that exist in death penalty sentencing,” Farnsworth said. “The county attorney
said they would look at some of the aggravating factors … and take some of them
away that haven’t been used for some time.”
Rebecca Baker, a lobbyist with the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, told the
Senate Judiciary Committee on February 7 “the death penalties [Arizona has] in
place are constitutionally sound,” but in response to ongoing litigation over
the death penalty, she said the factors used and how the statute can best be
enhanced to ensure they are sustainable for the future was discussed
internally.
Baker said the county attorney wants to remove the factors they deem are not
the most persuasive or the strongest in death penalty cases.
Arizona has 14 aggravating circumstances to the death penalty and in order for
it to be imposed when a defendant is found guilty of 1st degree murder, the
aggravating circumstance must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
The Legislature has more than doubled the number of aggravators since 1973, a
year after the United States Supreme Court ruled death penalty laws in 32
states, including Arizona, were unconstitutional.
Criminal defense attorneys have argued for years there are too many aggravating
factors, and in a 2017 Arizona case in which the U.S. Supreme Court denied
certiorari, a minority of the court issued a statement raising that same
concern.
Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the minority, said the Arizona case asks an
important question about the Eighth Amendment.
“Whether Arizona’s capital sentencing scheme, which includes so many
aggravating circumstances that virtually every defendant convicted of
1st-degree murder is eligible for death, violates the Eighth Amendment,” the
statement read.
Farnsworth’s SB 1314 would eliminate three of those circumstances: If the
defendant created a grave risk of death to another person in addition to the
person murdered; if the offense was committed in a cold, calculated manner
without pretense of moral or legal justification; and if the defendant used a
remote stun gun in the commission of the offense as defined in statute.
Dale Baich, who heads the capital habeas unit of the Federal Public Defender’s
Office in Arizona, said the latter two aggravators are used very infrequently,
which is why the bill would eliminate them; the first is used more often.
The bill, which has already passed through both the Senate Judiciary Committee
and the full Senate unanimously and now awaits assignment to a House committee,
also combines aggravators related to murder-for-hire.
Ellie Hoecker, also with the Federal Public Defender’s Office, said combining
those 2 aggravators “would apply to both people in a murder-for-hire situation
– the person who solicits someone to kill someone else, and the actual killer.”
Hoecker found that in cases before the Arizona Supreme Court since 2006, 20
instances involved the aggravator in which someone was paid for a murder.
Baich said this bill is “a good start, but there is more that can be done to
further narrow the statute.”
He said the aggravator that involves an offense committed in a heinous, cruel
or depraved manner used to be determined by a judge, someone who knows when to
use it, but as of 2002 is now determined by a jury, which could lead to the
aggravator being used more often.
The last time Arizona executed somebody was in 2014 in what became a national
story. Joseph Wood murdered his estranged girlfriend and her father in 1989,
and was sentenced to death by lethal injection 2 years later.
His execution took nearly 2 hours to complete and people in attendance reported
hearing Wood gasp several times throughout. Wood was injected with an
experimental drug mixture 15 times, even though only 1 dose should have been
sufficient to kill him. Prior to his execution, that specific mixture of drugs
was only used 1 other time.
Baich said that in 2014, there was also an attempt to add an aggravator to
Arizona’s capital punishment, which then-Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed after it passed
through both chambers of the Legislature.
HB 2313 would have included a substantial likelihood that the defendant would
commit criminal acts of violence that constitute a continuing threat to
society; it would also expand the list of serious offenses. Brewer vetoed the
bill saying in a written statement the changes would potentially make the death
penalty unconstitutional.
If Farnsworth’s bill gets approved, the death penalty would decrease from 14 to
10 aggravators, but there’s no telling if Arizona would ever repeal capital
punishment entirely.
Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Scott Bales said he thinks that is possible
given that the number of executions nationally have declined over the past
decade. Bales said he thinks there’s at least a growing sense for it to be
limited.
“People can reasonably question whether the death penalty in the United States
serves its goals,” he said.
Bales also mentioned how Arizona at one time did suspend capital punishment,
but after a notorious murder the abolition was repealed.
“Looking at what the trends are around the [country], I think it’s possible in
Arizona [to repeal the death penalty,]” Bales said.
(source: Arizona Capitol Times)
CALIFORNIA:
Despite defense move, judge says death penalty trial will stay in Fresno
A Fresno County judge on Thursday denied a request to move the death penalty
trial of Kori Ali Muhammad, who is accused of killing 3 people in a crime spree
2 years ago as well as another homicide.
Judge Jonathan Conklin said defense attorneys who filed the change of venue
motion did not present enough valid reasons to move the trial.<>P> For
instance, a survey of 100 people showed only one or two recognized the
defendant’s name, so with a county the size of Fresno there shouldn’t be a
problem finding an impartial jury, the judge said.
Muhammad’s trial starts May 13.
He faces the death penalty because the Fresno County District Attorney filed 2
special circumstance allegations of multiple murder and that the homicides were
based on race.
Muhammad, 41, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. He has a documented
history of schizophrenia, delusions and hearing voices. Police say Muhammad has
confessed to several shootings, saying they were fueled by his hatred for white
people.
He has been charged with 3 counts of murder in the shooting deaths of Mark
Gassett, David Jackson and Zackary Randalls on April 18, 2017. He is also
charged with the attempted murders of Stephen Walter, Michael Flores and Mark
Greer.
In addition, he is charged with the murder of Motel 6 security guard Carl Allen
Williams III, who was shot while working 5 days earlier, and the attempted
murder of security guard Oscar Menjivar.
Under state law, a not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity plea applies when the
defendant is unable to know right from wrong at the time of the crime. If found
innocent by reason of insanity, a defendant would be locked up in a state
hospital and treated with the goal of returning to sanity so trial proceedings
could resume.
In January 2018, Conklin ruled that Muhammad was competent to stand trial.
(source: fresnobee.com)
**********************
California prosecutors will hit legal roadblock in seeking death penalty
against suspect in 1973 murder
California prosecutors have said they're weighing capital punishment for the
man accused of strangling an 11-year-old girl in 1973 — but legal experts
insisted Thursday that's not possible.
James Alan Neal, 72, was charged Wednesday with murder for the slaying of
elementary school student Linda O’Keefe in Newport Beach and Orange County
District Attorney Todd Spitzer said at news conference that seeking the death
penalty is an option.
But when O'Keefe vanished while walking home from summer school on July 6,
1973, and was found dead a day later, there was no capital punishment on the
books in California.
"I'm certain that you can’t impose a higher penalty for a crime than that which
existed at the time of the crime," veteran Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer
Steve Cron said. "That’s what the prohibition against ex post facto laws is all
about."
California's Supreme Court, in February 1972, ruled that capital punishment
amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. State lawmakers re-enacted the death
penalty statute in 1977 before voters reaffirmed capital punishment at the
ballot box in 1978.
California resumed executions in 1992. The state now executes prisoners by
lethal injection.
"If the crime had been committed 5 years later, I have no doubt DA Spitzer
would seek the death penalty," said Leif Dautch, vice chairman of the Criminal
Law Executive Committee of the California Lawyers Association.
"Under settled law from the California Supreme Court, District Attorney Spitzer
is barred from seeking the death penalty for a crime that was committed at a
time when California did not have a valid death penalty." he said.
Still, at the press conference Wednesday announcing Neal's arrest, Spitzer
insisted the death penalty is possible.
"And death may be a consideration in this case. As a district attorney, we have
a process in place by which we would consider death and I will follow that
process," he said. "I will make a decision about whether death is appropriate
in this case."
Neal, arrested Tuesday morning in Colorado, made a brief appearance in an El
Paso County courthouse Thursday. He is being held without bond and was ordered
to return to court Feb. 28 to determine if he will be extradited to California.
1 of O'Keefe's 2 surviving sisters said she's long ago forgiven the suspected
killer.
“This is the additional closure for me that’s there’s a person they’ve
arrested, but I forgave the individual a long time ago because unforgiving to
me is like taking poison and wanting the other person to die,” Cindy Borgeson
told NBC Tucson affiliate KVOA on Wednesday.
“He’s not a monster to me. He’s a man who made a bad decision that affected my
family, and I believe in justice and that’s not up to me to decide what that
looks like,” she said.
(source: NBC News)
USA:
Guilty Plea Denied While Death Penalty Considered in NY Case
A man's guilty plea in the deaths of two former co-workers is on hold as
federal prosecutors decide whether to pursue the death penalty.
Syracuse.com reports William Wood of Syracuse was prepared to plead guilty to a
state charge of first-degree murder Wednesday and serve a life sentence for the
September shooting inside a Chili's restaurant where he used to work.
But Chief Assistant District Attorney Melinda McGunnigle blocked the plea under
a law that requires prosecutor consent for a guilty plea to first-degree
murder.
The move gives federal prosecutors, who are pursuing separate charges, more
time to consider a capital case.
Wood's lawyer objects, calling the law unconstitutional.
The judge gave prosecutors a week to put in writing why the plea should not be
allowed.
(source: US News & World Report)
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