May 5
NEW HAMPSHIRE:
Reaction swift, strong to death penalty repeal veto
Reaction was swift and strong on both sides to Gov. Chris Sununu’s veto of
legislation to repeal the state’s death penalty.
“The time to end the death penalty in New Hampshire is now. The overwhelming
evidence is that state-sanctioned murder is not a deterrent to criminals;
putting criminals to death is significantly more expensive than life in prison,
and too many innocent people have been executed, or (are) exonerated just
before executions,” said state Sen. Martha Hennessey, D-Hanover.
“Life in prison without parole is the appropriate and humane form of punishment
for perpetrators of the most heinous of crimes.”
Sununu’s veto came at the Michael Briggs Community Center in Manchester on
Friday where he was surrounded by local and state police officers.
Within a few hours of Sununu’s own post on Facebook, he attracted more than 500
comments, many praising the 2-term Republican for maintaining support for
capital punishment.
Michael “Stix” Addison, the convicted killer of Manchester patrolman Briggs
nearly 13 years ago, is the only one on New Hampshire’s death row.
“I was 12 when officer Briggs was shot. I’m supporting his memory and police
officers all over this state. I’m supporting my governor on his veto,” said
Rep. Joe Alexander, R-Goffstown.
Former U.S. Sen. and past N.H. Attorney General Kelly Ayotte said while state
laws can’t be applied retroactively, there would be no legal way to carry out
Addison’s execution if repeal of the death penalty became a reality.
The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and state Senate have passed
this bill (HB 455) by veto-proof majorities.
Rep. Renny Cushing, D-Hampton, wrote his first death penalty bill 21 years ago
and said he believes the Legislature will take up the override question by the
end of this month.
Cushing doesn’t take for granted that he could be just weeks away from the
dream he’s had since becoming a capital punishment repeal advocate after his
father was murdered at his home in 1988.
“We’ve seen before the pressure that can be brought to bear. What I do feel
good about is that in both parties this remains a deeply held vote of
conscience and as long as that is the case it’s possible we can bring this
home,” Cushing said during a telephone interview.
Former governor and now Sen. Jeanne Shaheen vetoed a death penalty repeal bill
in 2000. At that time, however, the Legislature was much more closely split and
Shaheen, a Democrat, knew lawmakers would sustain her veto.
The same was true last year when Sununu vetoed an identical bill. Sununu knew
that with GOP control of the Legislature at the time, there was no chance that
veto was going to be overridden.
“We’ve really built such an eclectic group. Along with progressives you’ve got
libertarian Republicans who don’t want government to have this kind of power,
some conservatives who see it as just another failed government program and
pro-life Republicans who oppose murder from cradle to grave for any reason,”
Cushing said.
Senate President Donna Soucy, D-Manchester, stressed each senator will make up
their own mind.
“While I continue to believe it is time for New Hampshire to repeal capital
punishment, I have the utmost respect for my State House colleagues, the votes
they have taken, and those they will cast in the future on this important
matter of public policy and personal conscience,” Soucy said.
Rev. Jason Wells, executive director of the New Hampshire Council of Churches,
was grateful at the strong support for repeal in the religious community.
“The Council’s many member denominations are diverse in their practice of the
Christian faith but are unanimous in regarding capital punishment ‘problematic
and unacceptable,’?” Wells said. “This belief is rooted in our understanding of
the sacredness of God’s gift of life. It is also rooted in the Christian
commitment that God can bring redemption to any person, an opportunity which
the death penalty closes off.”
Sununu’s supporters insist it remains a deterrent even in a state that’s not
put someone to death since 1939.
“Excellent move, governor. Now we should not be reluctant to use it when
absolutely necessary so that it will actually be a deterrent to further
senseless premeditated murders,” said former state Rep. Fred Rice of Hampton.
(source: Union Leader)
SOUTH CAROLINA:
Prosecutors seek death penalty in killings of mom, daughter
Prosecutors say they plan to seek the death penalty against a 33-year-old man
charged with killing a woman and her 8-year-old daughter.
WPDE-TV reports prosecutors filed their intention for a death penalty trial for
Jejuancey Harrington last month in Marlboro County.
Authorities say 36-year-old Ella Lowery was found dead in her Bennettsville
home in May 2017, prompting a nearly 2 week search for her missing daughter.
Investigators say Iyana Lowery's body was then found in a swamp and her DNA was
found in the trunk of Harrington's car.
Authorities have not given a motive for the killings and a gag order was issued
in the case six days after the girl's body was found.
(source: Associated Press)
LOUISIANA:
Don't ban the death penalty, kill the people on death row now
I read in the newspaper that there is a movement to do away with the death
penalty in Louisiana.
The death penalty has 2 purposes: to deter others from committing murder and to
be sure the person executed will never escape prison and murder again. In other
words, the purpose of the penalty is to protect the public and make its members
feel that it they are being sufficiently protected, so that they will not
resort to vigilantism.
Last I heard, there are 70 condemned prisoners on death row, and not one has
been executed since 2010. As an ADA in 1997, I handled an appeal by the man
who, in 1985, murdered Rev. Lea Joyner. He was scheduled for execution and
brought an appeal based on the claim that he couldn’t be executed because,
although he was sane when he was convicted, he had become insane. He argued
that it is unlawful to execute a condemned person who cannot understand why he
is being executed, because the sentence has lost its “retributive value.”
Believe it or not, this argument was actually supported by a U.S. Supreme Court
ruling. The ruling makes no sense, for the feeling of retribution is for the
friends and family of a murder victim, not the murderer. We had a hearing, and
the defendant was declared sane. He appealed that decision to our State Supreme
Court and lost. He was rescheduled for execution, but then brought a Petition
for Writ of Habeas Corpus, claiming that although he was sane at the time of
the sanity hearing, he had since gone insane. When I retired at the end of 1998
the Writ was still pending.
How can anyone expect a death penalty to have deterrent value when it is not
enforced? To not enforce the penalty is the same as not having one. As matters
now stand, we are not being properly protected.
— John Spires, West Monroe
(source: Letter to the Editor, Monroe News Star)
**************************
Let Louisiana citizens be heard on the death penalty
2 years ago, with support from a broad coalition of Louisiana civic, religious
and government leaders, Gov. John Bel Edwards joined with lawmakers to approve
sweeping reforms of the state’s criminal justice system — measures aimed at
reducing Louisiana’s prison population, the largest in the nation on a per
capita basis, and using the savings to strengthen rehabilitation. Last year,
reflecting a similar bipartisan consensus, Louisiana voters overwhelmingly
approved a constitutional amendment to require unanimous jury verdicts for
felonies, bringing the state in line with most of the country.
We believe these changes express an underlying sense of pragmatism within
Louisiana’s electorate. Regardless of party or faith, race or walk of life, the
state’s citizens share a fundamental interest in a justice system that works.
Such a desire seems to be at the heart of legislation that would allow
Louisiana voters to decide whether to abolish the death penalty. Republican
state Sen. Dan Claitor of Baton Rouge is pushing a bill that would give voters
a chance to weigh in. Claitor opposes capital punishment, although he's a
former prosecutor.
Claitor's primary arguments against the death penalty are practical. A fiscal
conservative, he notes its whopping cost. The state has spent hundreds of
millions of dollars on capital punishment but rarely executes anybody. He
suggests the death penalty wastes money and doesn’t make citizens safer.
Many others share those criticisms, and even Louisiana’s most ardent supporters
of capital punishment are challenged by a fundamental reality. For years,
Louisiana has pretty much had a death penalty in name only. Constitutional
protections give death row inmates the right to lengthy appeals, which seems
justified given the high number of such cases that are eventually overturned.
Louisiana has not executed anyone since 2010.
Even an inmate who’s exhausted all appeals has no chance of being executed in
Louisiana these days. The pharmaceutical industry, fearing bad publicity, won’t
sell prison officials the drugs required for lethal injections. A federal court
order stemming from a legal challenge to Louisiana’s execution protocols has
blocked executions since 2014.
Meanwhile, grieving families of murder victims, seeking the closure an
execution presumably provides, languish in limbo, enduring an agony they don’t
deserve. The lack of urgency among Louisiana’s elected officials to address the
problems paralyzing the current capital punishment system suggests a diminished
appetite for putting prisoners to death. But Louisiana’s justice system cannot
remain viable by professing one thing and practicing another. It must speak
with moral clarity on capital punishment — a question that is, in its most
fundamental sense, an issue of life or death.
That clarity can only come if citizens are given the chance to decide at the
ballot box whether Louisiana should keep its death penalty. We urge lawmakers
to let the voters be heard.
(source: Opinion; The Advocate)
TENNESSEE:
Tennessee's 3 Catholic bishops call on Gov. Bill Lee to stop 2019 executions
The 3 Catholic bishops in Tennessee are calling on Gov. Bill Lee to spare death
row inmate Donnie Johnson's life and stop all other executions scheduled this
year.
Nashville Bishop J. Mark Spalding, Knoxville Bishop Richard F. Stika and
Memphis Bishop David P. Talley penned a joint letter to the governor on April
23 and the Nashville diocese published it Friday.
"We urge you to use your authority as governor to put an end to the fast-track
executions planned for later this year, and particularly the execution of
Donnie Johnson scheduled for May 16. As you know, he was convicted of the
brutal murder of his wife, but even their daughter has spoken against his
execution," the letter states.
Johnson, who is scheduled to be executed on May 16, has been on Tennessee's
death row since he was sentenced to death for the 1984 murder of his wife,
Connie Johnson. She died in Memphis.
Johnson is the 4th person scheduled to die since Tennessee resumed executions
in August. Gov. Bill Haslam, who was wrapping up his final term when Lee was
elected, did not intervene in any of the previous executions, but Johnson's
request for clemency is the 1st Lee will be weighing as governor.
The Nashville and Knoxville bishops issued similar appeals ahead of the three
2018 executions. The Memphis bishop is new; he was installed April 2.
The Catholic Church has a history of speaking out against capital punishment
and in August, Pope Francis changed church catechism to assert that the death
penalty is inadmissible.
"We clearly state our strong opposition to the state carrying out the death
penalty," the letter from the Tennessee bishops states.
"Nationally, we have seen many people released from death row after they have
been found to have been innocent of the crime for which they were convicted.
Based on a human system as it is, there is always the chance that the state
executes an innocent person. Even when guilt is certain, the execution is not
necessary to protect society."
(source: The Tennessean)
CALIFORNIA:
Kamala Harris feels “awful” about role in keeping apparently innocent man on
death row
Advocates of abolishing the death penalty claim that innocent defendants have
often been executed. I’m not sure whether these advocates have been able to
show that this has ever happened in modern times, but a New York Times piece by
Nicholas Kristof makes a pretty good case that Kevin Cooper, a death row
inmate, is innocent of the murders he was convicted of committing.
Cooper, an African-American, was convicted of murdering four people in 1983.
The victims, all White, were a couple, their daughter, and a boy who was
sleeping over at the couple’s house.
The couple’s son, who survived the attack, told police that the assailants were
White. Hairs found in the victims’ hands seemed to confirm this account. In
addition, a woman told police that her White boyfriend, a convicted murderer,
was probably involved in the attack. To support this statement, she gave
deputies his bloody overalls.
The deputies, says Kristof, threw away the overalls and arrested Cooper. He
awaits execution.
Kristof’s lengthy article is worth reading in full. I want to focus on the role
of Sen. Kamala Harris, a candidate for her Party’s presidential nomination, in
the long legal battle that followed Cooper’s conviction.
Readers will recall that Harris was California’s Attorney General before she
became a Senator. By the time of her involvement in the Cooper saga, DNA
testing had become available for use in cases like this one. The availability
of such testing is part of what gives supporters of the death penalty a high
degree of confidence that the innocent won’t be executed.
Harris, though, refused to allow the use of DNA testing in Cooper’s case.
Indeed, according to Kristof, she “showed no interest in the case.”
It’s almost as if Black lives don’t matter to Kamala Harris.
Harris did become interested in the case after the online version of Kristof’s
article appeared. She emailed him to say “I feel awful about this.”
Harris also put out a statement saying:
My career as a prosecutor was marked by fierce opposition to the death penalty
while still upholding the law and a commitment to fixing a broken criminal
justice system. I’ve long been an advocate for measures to improve and make our
system more fair and just.
As a firm believer in DNA testing, I hope the governor and the state will allow
for such testing in the case of Kevin Cooper.
Harris did not explain why, as a firm believer in DNA testing, she refused to
allow it in Cooper’s case. Nor did she explain why, if she’s a “fierce
opponent” of the death penalty, she couldn’t be bothered to look into whether a
man who faced that penalty was innocent.
As for “fixing a broken criminal justice system,” a good start would be not
electing grandstanding opportunists like Harris to positions as prosecutors.
Harris should feel awful. She is a hypocrite and a disgrace.
(source: Paul Mirengoff, powerlineblog.com)
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