June 19
OKLAHOMA:
Lawyers, Activists seek Clemency for Julius Jones
Lawyers for Oklahoma death row inmate Julius Jones plan to press for clemency
for their client. The news was shared at a recent event supporting Oklahoma’s
leading organization coordinating efforts to end capital punishment in
Oklahoma.
Lawyers announce clemency campaign to seek “Justice for Julius”
At that dinner, Dale Baich, a federal public defender from Arizona who has been
legal counsel to Jones during recent appeals, said, “In the coming months, we
will be asking the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, and Governor Stitt, to
commute Julius’s death sentence. We have a heavy lift. Julius is grateful for
the outpouring of support he has received from the people of Oklahoma and
around the world. Soon, we will be coming to you again to ask for your support
and to ask you to take action when we file the clemency application for
Julius.”
In a recent news story, Baich expanded on his grounds for further action to
save Jones’ life: “Julius had never had an execution date because his case was
in court. Now that it’s out of court, the state can ask for a date, but they
still don’t have a protocol in place to carry out executions.”
Baich told The City Sentinel, “Julius’s case is out of court. The next step is
to ask for mercy through the Oklahoma clemency process.” He added that there is
some time before Julius will ask for his death sentence to be commuted because
“Once the Oklahoma protocol is final, there will be a waiting period of five
months before the state can ask for an execution date for any death row
prisoner. And, there will likely be litigation challenging the new protocol
that will follow.”
Baich and his co-counsel, Amanda Bass, came to Oklahoma City to participate in
the annual dinner of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
(OK-CADP). The two lawyers received the Opio Toure Courageous Advocate Award,
named for the former state legislator who spent much of his career advocating
for an end to executions in Oklahoma.
The pair have battled tirelessly to save the life of Jones, who was accused,
tried and convicted for the July 1999 murder of Edmond insurance executive Paul
Scott Howell.
The local District Attorney announced last fall that DNA evidence on a red
bandana central to the prosecution’s case had proven Jones’ guilt. However, the
results call into question whether the bandana found in the home was even the
bandana worn by the shooter. In that case, without saliva being on it, the
bandana can no longer be linked to the crime.
Innocence Project leader details concerns in Jones case, and broader problems
In another speech here at the OK-CADP event, Vanessa Potkin, who is Director of
Postconviction Litigation for the Innocence Project, a national organization
based in New York, reviewed in detail problems with the criminal justice system
in general, the death penalty in particular, and specifically faults in the
prosecution (and conviction) of death row inmate Julius Jones.
She pointed out there have been 2,460 exonerations nationwide to date, with 35
of those from Oklahoma. Of that total 365 exonerations were driven by DNA
evidence. And, of the 365 exonerations for major crimes, 20 freed individuals
who had been sentenced to death.
Since reinstitution of capital punishment in the modern era, 165 persons have
been exonerated from death row, 10 in Oklahoma. In her OK-CADP speech, Potkin
reported on a comprehensive examination of death row inmates’ cases and of
underlying factors in those cases. The 2014 study was published in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In all, 2,721 people were on death rows in the United States as of October
2018. Based on the cited analysis, Potkin and other analysts believe an
estimated 4.1 percent of those facing execution are innocent. That translates
into 109 presumptively innocent people presently on death rows who are facing
execution.
In her speech, Potkin frequently pointed to the historic work of the Oklahoma
Death Penalty Review Commission to bolster her challenge to the death penalty
process generally, and in Oklahoma. As that Commission concluded, “In light of
the extensive information gathered from this year-long, in-depth study, the
Commission members unanimously recommend that the current moratorium on the
death penalty be extended until significant reforms have been accomplished.”
The commission pointed repeatedly to weaknesses in the state’s legal process,
including unreliability in forensic sciences. The commissioners concluded,
“Based on its extensive review, the Commission views the role of forensic
evidence and testimony in capital trials with serious concern.”
Potkin highlighted problems with use of eyewitness testimony, including in
cases where witnesses are incentivized to support the prosecution’s position.
Citing the commission’s report: “Of the 34 exonerations in homicide cases in
Oklahoma, 4 — 2 capital and 2 non-capital — involved jailhouse informant
testimony.” Jurors in the Jones case, she pointed out, were never given full
details of the promises prosecutors made to Chris Jordan, co-defendant in the
Jones prosecution. While more than 30 years of incarceration was Jordan’s
stated prison term, he actually served half that amount.
A related systemic problem in capital cases is weak legal counsel for the
defense, as Potkin stressed. Specifically in the Jones’ case, she noted, Jones’
defense lawyers “failed to adequately cross-examine the co-defendant, on the
six different and inconsistent statements that he gave to the police after his
arrest or demonstrate that he may have been the shooter and may have been
testifying against Mr. Jones to avoid the death penalty.” And, “failed to
present the testimony of 2 available witnesses who overheard Mr. Jordan
bragging about having pinned his crime on Julius to avoid the death penalty,
and with the assurance that he would serve just fifteen years in prison.”
Further, they “failed to show the jury a photograph showing Mr. Jones’ very
short, crew-cut hair at the time of the crime, proving he could not be the
person who the victim’s sister described.”
Despite an earlier promise that Jones’ lawyers could examine files relating to
the prosecution, that commitment was not fulfilled. The Oklahoma Death Penalty
Review Commission anticipated such lack of transparency, recommending, “All
Oklahoma district attorneys’ offices and the Office of the Attorney General
should be required to allow open-file discovery at all stages of a capital
case, including during the direct appeal, state post-conviction review, federal
habeas corpus review, and any clemency proceedings.”
Summing up the Commission’s recommendations, Potkin said, Oklahoma system is
laced with problem touching on eyewitness identification, recorded
interrogations, weak training in interrogation best practices, jailhouse
informant reliability hearings & training (data tracking, including with
officers), addressing faulty forensics, and avenues to get into court with
evolving science.
Racial disparities apparent in Jones case
In her address, Potkin focused, as have other analysts, on evidence of racial
animus in the Jones case, including retention of a juror who had used the
“n-word” to assert Jones should be taken behind the jail and shot, and removal
of all potential black jurors from the case (save one).
As the Commission concluded in its review, “In 1910, the Oklahoma Court of
Criminal Appeals (OCCA) likewise recognized that race-based exclusion violates
the Fourteenth Amendment. However, in practice, many jurisdictions across the
nation routinely excluded — and often continue to exclude — blacks from jury
service.”
(source: The City Sentinel)
WYOMING:
State public defender showed courage, not contempt
Anyone who is surprised that embattled State Public Defender Diane Lozano needs
more state money to properly do her job simply hasn’t been listening to her.
A Gillette judge last month held Lozano in contempt of court after her Campbell
County office declined to represent 2 poor defendants accused of misdemeanor
crimes, even though those crimes carry a penalty of jail time. The Wyoming
Supreme Court is now considering her appeal of the decision.
Lozano told Natrona and Campbell County circuit courts that her Casper and
Gillette offices were woefully understaffed and overworked and could not accept
any new misdemeanor cases because the attorneys will not be able to provide
constitutionally adequate defenses.
It was not the 1st time she’d made the assertion. In January 2018, Lozano asked
lawmakers on the Joint Appropriations Committee for a $4.5 million addition to
her agency’s standard $26.7 million budget request.
“The public defender’s office is essentially in an ethical and a constitutional
crisis,” Lozano told lawmakers. After the meeting she told WyoFile reporter
Andrew Graham that her office would have to turn away an estimated 4,191
clients per year who can’t afford legal representation if it didn’t get the
additional funds to hire more attorneys.
The Legislature followed then-Gov. Matt Mead’s recommendation and approved $2.1
million more — enough to fill only 8 of the 18 new attorney and staff positions
she requested. What would happen, Graham asked her, if her offices began
refusing cases?
“That’s the question,” Lozano said. “People can’t go to jail or prison if they
don’t have a lawyer. It could get messy.”
For Lozano, it has gotten messy. Campbell County Circuit Court Judge Paul
Phillips declared her in contempt and began fining her $1,500 per day. The
fines were stayed pending action by the Wyoming Supreme Court, but even if they
are reinstated, Lozano is immune from such penalties under Wyoming law and her
office — obviously already under a budget crunch — would have to be billed.
No charges were filed against Lozano in Natrona County, where her office
recently lost many staff members, including Rob Oldham, the veteran county
public defender who retired. Several other attorneys went into private practice
or took other legal positions.
But the wheels of Wyoming justice don’t just stop spinning if the state can’t
afford to appropriately fund the public defender’s office, because as anyone
who watches TV police or courtroom shows knows, under the Constitution all
defendants “have a right to an attorney, and if you cannot afford one, one will
be appointed by the court.”
Lozano said her Campbell County public defenders have an average of 168% of the
maximum workload allowed by the state office’s standards. Those standards are
based on a 1973 federal study. That means they don’t have time to effectively
defend many of the indigent clients they represent now, much less take on any
new ones for anything other than felony charges.
But someone must defend them, and when the public defender’s staff cannot
handle any more cases it falls on private attorneys to do the work. There are
major problems going that route, though.
One is that the state reimbursement is only about a quarter of the private
rate. Another challenge is the fairness of court-assigned pro bono
representation. Free legal aid may sound nice, but it obviously opens the
question of how much time a qualified attorney can afford to devote to criminal
pro bono work.
Natrona County Circuit Court Judge Brian Christensen felt “blindsided” by
Lozano’s notice refusing to take any more cases, he told Judiciary Committee
members in Gillette. But this problem didn’t materialize out of thin air.
Surely the judiciary has been made aware of the state public defender’s budget
woes; Lozano certainly hasn’t been reticent about sharing them with the public
and officials.
In February, for example, Lozano pleaded with members of the Senate Judiciary
Committee to repeal the death penalty in Wyoming by approving a measure the
House had already passed.
While others primarily offered arguments against capital punishment on moral
and religious grounds or the obvious inability to do anything to correct the
mistake if the state executes an innocent person, Lozano focused on what the
death penalty means to her budget.
“Our office lives in abject fear that we will get more than one death penalty
case per year,” she testified. The agency must budget at least $2 million
annually in anticipation of a prosecutor filing capital charges against one of
their defendants.
Such cases set forth a chain of required prep work that breaks the bank and
figuratively breaks the backs of the attorneys assigned to them. The office
must hire extra private investigators and mitigation specialists who Lozano
said must “investigate back 3 generations to get the client’s life story.”
Attorneys must get updated training at least every 2 years.
The cost of not doing its homework can be astronomical. Lozano told lawmakers
that her office spent $145,000 defending Dale Wayne Eaton, who was convicted of
murder but had his case overturned on appeal because a federal judge determined
his public lawyers did not use his possible mental illness in his defense.
The court ruled the state of Wyoming must retry the case at a cost of at least
$2.1 million. That’s not counting all the public money that must be spent by
the Department of Corrections to house death-row inmates, nor the prosecutors’
expenses.
State lawmakers should consider taking 3 major steps to keep the public
defender’s office operating on a fiscally sound basis, not jeopardize
defendants’ rights to a fair trial, or unnecessarily disrupt already crowded
court dockets.
First, abolish the death penalty. The House backed the bill 36-21, only to see
the Senate kill it, 12-18. Supporters thought they had the necessary 16 votes
to win passage before four conservative senators apparently changed their minds
at the last minute.
Not having capital punishment on the books means it will no longer be a threat
that prosecutors can dangle in front of defendants to obtain guilty pleas, but
it would enable $2 million or more per year to be spent on hiring attorneys and
related staff.
Second, fund the agency at the proper level.
Casper attorney Dallas Laird, a former state public defender, told the Oil City
News that the Legislature has not provided enough funding to attract and retain
attorneys to accept public defender positions.
“It’s all based on money,” Laird told OCN reporter Brendan LaChance. “People
don’t really care about funding that has to do with criminals.”
Third, stop criminalizing victimless behavior. “Tough on crime” sentencing laws
don’t reduce bad behavior, but they do compound the strains on our criminal
justice system, including on jails, prisons and public defender offices. While
they’re at it, lawmakers should remove some of the potential jail sentences for
possession of small amounts of marijuana.
Some may accuse Lozano of grandstanding to make her point to judges, lawmakers
and the governor. But I think what she did — defying a judge and being charged
accordingly — was an honest effort to back up the truth of what she had been
warning these parties and the public about for several years.
Not every state employee is willing to go to the mat for a cause that matters
so much. The proper term for such integrity is courage, not contempt.
(source: Opinion, Kkerry Drake----wyofile.com)
ARIZONA:
Court: Man on death row for killing DPS officer not entitled to new trial
A California man who killed a Department of Public Safety officer while on a
1995 road trip in a stolen car is not entitled to a new trial, the 9th Circuit
Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.
The three-judge panel rejected claims by attorneys for death-row inmate Ernesto
Salgado Martinez that Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Hotham, who
presided over the trial, was biased because the judge’s bailiff was friends
with the widow of DPS Officer Robert Martin.
Hotham excluded the bailiff from the courtroom during the testimony of an
expert witness to avoid raising the question of whether the bailiff’s reaction
to “gory photographs” would have some effect on the jury. Martinez’s new lawyer
said that showed how the judge was concerned that the bailiff’s feelings “might
spill over inappropriately.”
Judge Milan Smith, writing for the appellate panel, said that Martinez could
not cite a single case where a bailiff’s relationship to the victim’s family
created the appearance of impropriety.
“At bottom, Martinez’s judicial bias claim is based on unfounded speculation,”
Smith wrote.
Court records stated Martinez stole a vehicle in California and used it to
drive to Arizona to visit friends and family. He also met a friend, Oscar
Fryer, in Globe.
Martin, who had patrolled the area for about 2 decades, pulled over the stolen
car for speeding on the Beeline Highway. Martinez shot him 4 times, striking
him in the hand, neck, back and head, with the last 2 being fatal.
Police arrested Martinez in Indio, California, the following day, using
information furnished by a couple who was driving along the same road — but not
before Martinez killed a convenience-store clerk there during a robbery.
He was found guilty on a charge of 1st-degree murder, 2 counts of theft and 2
counts of misconduct involving weapons in the Arizona case.
Before sentencing, however, Ronald Reinstein, the presiding judge of the
criminal division, heard arguments about the bailiff.
Reinstein said Martinez had demonstrated no prejudice from Hotham presiding
over the case. But Reinstein said that because “death is different,” it would
be better “to assign another judge to the sentencing.”
That ended up being Judge Christopher Skelly, who imposed the death penalty,
which was upheld by the Arizona Supreme Court.
(source: tucson.com)
CALIFORNIA:
In Los Angeles, only people of color are sentenced to death----The county’s
prosecutor has won death sentences for 22 defendants, none of them white,
report shows
Los Angeles has sentenced more people to death than any other county in the US,
and only people of color have received the death penalty under the region’s
current prosecutor, a new report shows.
LA county’s district attorney, Jackie Lacey, has won death sentences for a
total of 22 defendants, all people of color, and 8 of them were represented by
lawyers with serious misconduct charges prior or after their cases, according
to a new analysis by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Lacey’s office has also continued to pursue death penalty trials this year
despite the fact that California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, issued a moratorium
on capital punishment, with an executive order officially halting executions in
the state.
In addition to severe racial disparities and ethical concerns around legal
representation, LA’s system is costing taxpayers millions of dollars in pursuit
of a punishment the region’s voters and California leaders have rejected,
activists said. Some key findings:
In California, 222 people currently sentenced to death are from LA county,
representing 31% of all death sentences in the state. (The LA population is
only 25% of the statewide figure.)
LA is 1 of only 3 counties in the country to have more than 10 death sentences
from 2014 to 2018.
In the last 5 years, LA produced more death sentences per capita than any large
county in Texas, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Utah or Washington – and sent
more people to death row than the states of Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi,
Tennessee and Virginia combined.
Last year, out of 3,100 counties nationwide, LA was 1 of only 4 to have more
than 1 death sentence.
Under Lacey’s tenure, which began in 2012, zero white defendants have been
sentenced to death, and her capital punishment sentences disproportionately
targeted cases involving white victims. Although 12% of homicide victims in LA
county are white, 36% of Lacey’s death penalty wins involved white victims.
Of the 22 defendants sentenced under Lacey, 13 were Latinx, 8 were black and 1
was Asian.
“This should be profoundly troubling to all of us,” Cassy Stubbs, director of
the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, told the Guardian. “Los Angeles is really
in a class of its own … It is just such an enormous producer of death sentences
in a way that really does not make sense for where we are today.”
Asked about the ACLU’s findings, Lacey sent a general statement to the Guardian
on Monday defending her continuing support for capital punishment: “As a career
prosecutor, I believe the death penalty is the appropriate punishment for some
crimes – a serial killer, someone who tortures and kills a young child, the
person who rapes and then kills the victim to silence his only witness or
someone who kills a police officer trying to do her job safely.”
The governor’s moratorium affects the 737 inmates currently awaiting execution
in California, who will not be put to death while Newsom is in office. Lacey,
however, is continuing to seek the death penalty, despite the fact that a
majority of voters in LA county have twice voted in favor of death penalty
repeal measures.
Defense lawyers in 5 of the 22 cases under Lacey were suspended or disbarred,
which is the most serious discipline for ethics violations, the ACLU said.
Defense counsel for 2 other defendants was put on probation, and the attorney
for another is currently facing multiple bar charges.
The ACLU, which reviewed lawyer misconduct records, cited one particularly
egregious case in which an attorney declined to make an opening statement –
offering no defense at all – and then repeatedly fell asleep during the trial.
“I have serious doubts about the constitutionality of these sentences,” said
Stubbs, noting that inadequate representation can have long-lasting
consequences.
Failures of defense counsel are key contributors to wrongful convictions, but
problems with California’s appellate system means these kinds of mistakes are
often exposed decades later, the ACLU said. The last two California death row
inmates who were exonerated gained their freedom roughly 25 years after
conviction, and those delays could get worse, as the state has an expanding
backlog of cases and appeals.
All 5 people removed from death row after exoneration in the state were people
of color.
In California, death penalty expenses total at least $139m per year, and LA
county spent an estimated $48.4m seeking executions from 2000 to 2007. Death
penalty trials cost over a million dollars, draining county funds that could be
used for community anti-violence programs, education and services for families
of victims, said Diane Lucas, senior legal counsel with the Justice
Collaborative.
The LA district attorney’s office has recently defended its continuing efforts
to seek the death penalty despite Newsom’s order.
In her statement this week, Lacey noted that California voters had not
abolished the death penalty, saying: “I will follow the law as prescribed by
the citizens of California – whether that is seeking the death penalty for the
most heinous crimes or, with the abolition of the death penalty, life without
parole.”
The district attorney’s office has “extensive review processes” in place to
decide whether to pursue the death penalty and makes recommendations “based on
the facts without regard to the race of a defendant or a victim”, Lacey said.
Her office sought the death penalty in less than 3% of all eligible cases last
year, she said.
Lacey has also faced intense scrutiny for her refusal to prosecute police
officers who kill civilians, even in the most egregious circumstances.
Stubbs said it was within Lacey’s power to immediately halt her death penalty
cases, accept outstanding plea agreements, and no longer seek capital
punishment in new cases.
But if she continued in her current path, the cases would just drag on, said
Stubbs, adding: “The extended delays are painful for a lot of the community,
including victims.”
(source: The Guardian)
****************************
ACLU Calls LA County DA Out Over Pursuit of Death Penalty
A report released Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union blasted Los
Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey, finding she has only secured
death penalty convictions against people of color since taking office in 2012.
The ACLU says LA’s top prosecutor continues to pursue these convictions despite
a moratorium issued by California Gov. Gavin Newsom this year.
Lacey’s office has secured 22 death penalty convictions since she took office
six years ago. All involved people of color, including 13 Latino defendants, 8
black defendants and 1 Asian defendant, according to the ACLU report.
“LA County is an example of everything wrong with the death penalty,” said
Cassandra Stubbs, director of the Capital Punishment Project at the ACLU, said
in a statement.
The report also says unfit attorneys who were either previously or subsequently
disbarred, suspended, or charged with misconduct represented 9 of the 22
defendants.
LA County produced the highest number of death sentences than any other county
in the nation, the ACLU said. The group noted of the 723 people on death row,
31% were convicted in Los Angeles.
White victims represented 36% of cases that led to a death sentence, but made
up only 12% of homicides each year in Los Angeles.
In a statement, Lacey said the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for
serial killers, a person who kills an on-duty police officer and for other more
serious crimes.
“California voters have twice failed to abolish the death penalty,” Lacey said.
“I will follow the law as prescribed by the citizens of California – whether
that is seeking the death penalty for the most heinous crimes or, with the
abolition of the death penalty, life without parole.”
She said her office only pursued the death penalty in 3% of cases and did so
based on facts, without consideration of race of the defendant or victim.
Lisa Holder, criminal defense attorney and professor at UCLA School of Law,
said the political tide in California is changing and moving away from the
death penalty. Nearly all Democratic presidential candidates oppose the death
penalty, including Kamala Harris, a former San Francisco DA and state attorney
general.
“Given the changing mores, the dramatic shift away from the death penalty, it
is very clear that it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment at the state
level and at the community level,” Holder said in a phone interview.
While the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled the death penalty does not violate the
Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, there are specific
procedures a jury needs to follow during a capital trial. Holder said district
attorneys can decline to pursue the death penalty and instruct their offices
accordingly, which Lacey has chosen not to do.
Holder said Lacey’s pursuit of the death penalty is extreme and feeds into a
systemically racist and procedurally unfair process. She’d rather see the
millions of dollars spent on prosecuting death penalty cases go to bias
training for officers or social equity programs for communities that have been
affected by racial injustice.
“Social scientists and behavioral scientists have evaluated the efficacy of the
death penalty and found there is an overwhelming agreement that it’s not an
effective deterrent,” said Holder.
The ACLU estimates LA County has spent $48.4 million since 2000 pursuing death
penalty convictions. Lacey – the first female and first black DA in LA County
history – is up for re-election in 2020.
(source: Courthouse News)
OREGON:
Death Penalty Reform Adds Exemption For Killing Police
A bill to narrow one of the only crimes in Oregon still punishable by death
will likely be amended to allow the death penalty in cases when a police
officer is killed.
Senate Bill 1013, which The Advocate reported on in May, redefines some of the
crimes considered “aggravated murder” as first-degree murder charges,
punishable by life in prison rather than death.
Lawmakers cannot simply overturn the death penalty by statute, as it is written
into the Oregon constitution, so instead sought to “de-fang” the law and narrow
the number of cases which are eligible for capital punishment.
SB 1013 would restrict aggravated murder to incidents in which 2 or more people
are killed “to intimidate a civilian population or influence a government,”
premeditated murder of children (under the age of 14), or killing another
inmate while in prison for murder. This change would not be retroactive for
those currently on death row.
The new amendment would add the killing of police officers to the list of
crimes which qualify as “aggravated murder,” which are eligible for the death
penalty.
Democrats like Rep. Jennifer Williamson (D-Portland) acknowledged their
acceptance of the amendment came after a public hearing in the House, when they
heard testimony from the families of Rick Best, one of the men killed during
the 2017 MAX Train stabbing, and the family of Thomas Tennet, a Woodburn police
captain who was killed during a bank robbery in 2008.
The Senate’s passage of this bill is one reason a Portland court recently
delayed the trial of Jeremy Christian, the man accused of killing 2 people,
including Best, and hospitalizing a third. Best’s father argued that removing
the option of the death penalty was equivalent to removing “the ability of the
jury to enforce justice.”
(source: The Corvallis Advocate)
****************************
Rep. Mitch Greenlick Cut a Backroom Deal to Reduce Oregon Death Penalty
Sentences----He traded a vote for PERS cuts.
BILL OF THE WEEK: Senate Bill 1013
CHIEF SPONSOR:
The Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by state Sen. Floyd Prozanski
(D-Eugene), who carried the bill on the floor. WHAT PROBLEM IT SEEKS TO SOLVE:
Oregon courts continue sentencing people to death at great expense, yet none of
the 30 people currently on death row is likely to be executed. Both Govs. John
Kitzhaber and Kate Brown placed personal, unofficial moratoriums on executions,
which many advocates and lawmakers believe are unjust and immoral.
WHAT IT WOULD DO:
Narrow the definition of crimes that qualify for the death penalty so as to
greatly reduce the number of people who can be sentenced to death. Under the
current version of the bill, the only people who could be sentenced to death
are those who kill 2 or more people in a terrorist act; convicted murderers who
kill in custody; and those who murder children under 14, or a police,
corrections or parole officer.
WHO SUPPORTS IT:
The Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association; several nonprofits and current
and former law school deans; and numerous Democratic lawmakers, most notably
state Rep. Mitch Greenlick (D-Portland), who wants it so much he changed his
vote on the public pension reform bill from no to yes, in exchange for a
promise from Speaker Tina Kotek (D-Portland) that SB 1013 would get a vote on
the House floor.
WHO OPPOSES IT:
Oregon Crime Victims United, the Oregon District Attorneys Association and some
lawmakers, such as state Rep. Jeff Barker (D-Aloha), who believe that since the
death penalty was approved by voters in 1984, only the voters should repeal it.
“If the voters want the death penalty repealed,” Marion County deputy district
attorney Katie Suver testified June 5, “let the voters tell the Legislature
that is what they want.”
(source: Willamette Week)
*************************
Man formerly on death row agrees to life for prison murder
After spending a decade in and out of jail, waiting years on death row and
having his death sentence overturned, a 41-year-old convicted murderer will be
sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The Statesman Journal reports Isacc Agee agreed to waive his right to a jury
sentencing Monday.
The Oregon Supreme Court in 2015 affirmed Agee's conviction but overturned his
death sentence, ordering a new hearing to determine whether he is
intellectually disabled.
(source: Associated Press)
WASHINGTON:
Killer's death in prison sparks fruitless search for his next of kin
True to the sentence given in 1990 after persuading a Kitsap County Superior
Court jury to spare his life, Timothy Eric Caffrey died last week alone in a
cell at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.
Since then, to no avail, the coroner's office in Walla Walla County has been
searching for Caffrey’s next of kin to conduct the formal notification of his
death. The office has tried contact numbers left with prison staff and even
tried querying his fellow inmates to see if Caffrey, 52, left any clues about
his family.
“All of our normal sources that we use just led us to a dead end,” said Walla
Walla County Chief Deputy Coroner Allison Barnett. She hopes media attention
might draw the attention of somebody related to Caffrey, an effort she
described as a courtesy.
“So we can sleep at night, we need to feel like we did our due diligence,”
Barnett said, adding that the predicament is unusual for her office.
“We don’t run into this,” Barnett said. “I’ve been doing this for 8 years. This
is probably the 2nd time I’ve had to do this.”
Caffrey pleaded guilty to aggravated 1st-degree murder for shooting and killing
Dennis Spriggs, a clerk at a Navy Yard City store, in the early morning of
March 27, 1990. Caffrey then drove to Silverdale and shot another clerk in the
face. That clerk did not die.
Caffrey turned himself in and after he was found competent to stand trial,
pleaded guilty to the crime, which at the time could have resulted in the death
penalty.
Instead, during the sentencing phase of the case, Caffrey testified on the
stand and asked jurors to spare his life. Jurors ultimately obliged him, so
Caffrey was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of early
release.
Even though he was successful in avoiding a death warrant, he later asked the
court to sentence him to death, saying he wanted and deserved to die but blamed
his lawyers for ignoring him.
An appeals court, however, wouldn't give him what he wanted.
Caffrey's "preference for a death sentence instead of an unhappy existence in
prison does not constitute a restraint entitling him to the relief requested,"
the court ruled.
His sentence expired June 10, when at about 4 p.m. a corrections officer found
him in his cell during a regular check. Barnett said investigators were waiting
for blood tests to determine Caffrey’s cause of death. There were no signs of
trauma or injury.
Caffrey had heart issues, and an autopsy found he had an enlarged heart and
marked pulmonary edema, or fluid in his lungs. Both conditions are possible
results of drug abuse, Barnett said.
(source: kitsapsun.com)
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