[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., ORE., USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 3



CALIFORNIA:

Assemblyman Tom Lackey Amends Bill To Review Commutations Of Death Sentence



Assemblyman Tom Lackey, R-Palmdale, amended a bill Monday, which he introduced 
in February, that would extend the review time before the governor would make 
the decision to approve or deny an application for commutation of a death 
sentence.


Currently, the California Constitution allows the governor, on conditions the 
governor deems proper, to grant a reprieve, pardon and commutation, after 
sentence, subject to application procedures provided by statute, according to 
Assembly Bill 580.


“On March 13, Governor Newsom directly contradicted the will of the people of 
California by placing on a definite hold on the 737 inmates currently sentenced 
to death,” said Lackey. “In 2016, California spoke loud and clear by rejecting 
a plan to repeal the death penalty by decisive margin.”


Lackey added that in order to give “a voice back to the people,” he introduced 
Assembly Bill 580.


Lackey says that AB 580 could potentially accomplish 3 objectives:

Change the amount of time required for the governor to act on an application 
for commutation of a death sentence from 10 days to 30 days.


Require the district attorney to notify the family of the victim that the 
inmate is up for commutation of their sentence 25 days before the governor can 
act.


Allow the victim’s family the opportunity to explain why a perpetrator should 
remain on death row.


“The board (Board of Parole Hearings) will then supply the office of the 
governor with the recommendation to either approve or deny the application for 
commutation,” said Lackey.


Lackey says that the people Newsom is working to protect are people like serial 
killer Robert Rhodes.


“Rhodes kidnapped, raped and tortured 8-year-old Michael Lyons before stabbing 
him 70 times. The people on death row are not the victims — they are not who 
the state should be working to protect,” said Lackey. “They’ve abused, they’ve 
raped, they’ve kidnapped, they’ve tortured and some of them have even murdered 
their own children.”


AB 580 seeks to empower the families of victims and show “that their loved ones 
have not been forgotten.”


(source: hometownstation.com)








OREGON:

Oregon lawmakers may narrow death penalty



A bill that would defang Oregon’s death penalty without a statewide vote got 
its first hearing before a Senate committee Monday, drawing testimony that was 
overwhelmingly supportive of the novel approach.


Senate Bill 1013 would leave the little-used death penalty in the Oregon 
Constitution — only voters can take it out. The bill instead would sharply 
narrow the definition of aggravated murder, the only crime punishable by death 
in Oregon.


Today, aggravated murder can encompass a variety of crimes, including murders 
of multiple people, torture, and killing a child or law enforcement officer.


Under the change being proposed in SB 1013, the crime would only apply to acts 
of terrorism in which two or more people are killed. The remaining factors that 
are currently classified as aggravated murder would fall under a new crime in 
Oregon statute, murder in the first degree.


If passed, the bill could make it unlikely that inmates would be sentenced to 
death in the future. Unlike a similar proposal in the House, the 30 Oregon 
inmates currently on death row would remain there.


Supporters of the bill on Monday testified that it would save the state 
millions of dollars currently spent in the resource-intensive death penalty 
process, which includes expensive appeals that can drag on for years.


A study published in 2016 concluded that death penalty cases cost from $800,000 
to upwards of $1 million more than cases where a defendant is sentenced to 
life.


Proponents also argued the law would spare victims’ families years of hearings 
with little closure, and pointed out that the death penalty is little-used as 
is. Even before then-Gov. John Kitzhaber announced a moratorium on capital 
punishment in 2011 — a stay that has continued under Gov. Kate Brown — it had 
been 14 years since an Oregon inmate was executed.


Just 2 inmates have been executed in Oregon in the last 50 years, and both of 
them had given up fighting their sentences.


“Regardless of your stance on the death penalty, the Oregon system is failing 
you,” said state Rep. Jennifer Williamson, D-Portland. Supporters, she said, 
may believe that the punishment “offers victims and families certainty and 
justice, but what we do know is it doesn’t do that.”


Among the most impassioned supporters of the bill was Stephen Kanter, emeritus 
dean of Lewis & Clark Law School, who has spent decades fighting capital 
punishment in Oregon.


He said the question of what crimes should be punishable by death is 
unquestionably a decision that should fall to lawmakers.


“We are talking about the Legislature doing its job,” Kanter said. “Trying to 
figure out, after careful 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

February 18




CALIFORNIA:

DA: Gang Member Charged With Triple Murder At Torrance Bowling Alley



A 47-year-old man has been charged with killing 3 men at a bowling alley in 
Torrance last month.


Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney John Chang said Reginald Leander Wallace, 
of Los Angeles, is charged with opening fire at Gable House Bowl, located in 
the 22000 block of Hawthorne Blvd., on Jan. 4.


Victims Michael Radford, 20, Astin Edwards, 28, and Robert Meekins, 28, were 
killed.


Reginald Leander Wallace, of Los Angeles, is charged with opening fire at Gable 
House Bowl, located in the 22000 block of Hawthorne Blvd., on Jan. 4.


Wallace faces 3 counts of murder, 4 counts of attempted murder and 1 count of 
possession of a firearm by a felon.


The charges announced by the D.A.’s office Friday include special circumstance 
allegations of multiple murders and killing to further the activities of a 
criminal street gang as well as allegations of using a handgun which caused 
great bodily injury and death.


The criminal complaint alleges Wallace was convicted as a juvenile in 1989 of 
1st-degree murder and that he was convicted as an adult of bringing or 
possessing a gun within a school zone in 1997 and assault with a firearm in 
1998.


Wallace’s arraignment is scheduled for Tuesday.

He is being held without bail. If convicted as charged, Wallace faces death or 
life in prison without the possibility of parole. A decision on whether to seek 
the death penalty will be made a later date.


The case remains under investigation by the Torrance Police Department.

(source: CBS news)



Brothers charged with killing missing teen could face death penalty



2 brothers could be facing the death penalty after being charged in connection 
with the murder of a 16-year-old girl who has been missing in Southern 
California since last month.


Owen Shover, 18, and his brother, Gary Shover, 21, were returned to custody 
last Friday after being formally refused bail.


Authorities allege the brothers killed Aranda Briones after she was last seen 
alive on January 13.


Prosecutors have filed a special circumstance allegation of “lying in wait” 
against both defendants - the act of hiding and waiting for an individual with 
the intent to kill that person - making them eligible for the death penalty if 
convicted.


The sheriff’s office said the brothers became early suspects in the 
investigation after the victim’s family painted them as potential people of 
interest to law enforcement.


The victim and Owen Shover were high school friends who had recently 
reconnected.


Owen was the last person to be seen with Briones.

He told sheriffs he had not seen Briones since he dropped her at a park where 
he saw her get into another vehicle the day she disappeared.


However, a police review of surveillance in the area didn’t corroborate 
Shover’s story.


“We destroyed the timeline of events that he gave us and replaced it with what 
we knew to be true based on video surveillance footage,” he told ABC News.


Riverside County Sheriff's Deputy Michael Vasquez said the homicide squad and 
FBI joined the investigation on January 20.


Gary and Owen Shover were arrested after a raid of their home on February 11.

The sheriff’s office said it had collected evidence indicating Briones was 
killed, but did not give specifics of what had been located.


Investigations continue with the sheriff’s office calling for the public’s help 
in locating her remains.


“We still don’t have a body,” said Vasquez. “We still don’t know where she is.”

The brothers will appear before the courts on March 1.

(source: 9news.com.au)


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[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

October 28



CALIFORNIA:

Judge Rules Man Accused of Killing 2 Palm Springs Officers Is Mentally Fit for 
Execution If Convicted



A judge has ruled that the man accused of killing two Palm Springs police 
officers during an ambush-style attack is mentally fit to be executed if found 
guilty.


In his ruling on Friday, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Anthony R. 
Villalobos rejected a motion filed by defense attorneys to strike the death 
penalty for John Hernandez Felix, 28, asserting he was too intellectually 
disabled to face capital punishment.


Felix faces two counts of murder with the special circumstances of multiple 
murders, murder of a police officer in the line of duty and lying in wait.


Authorities say that during the Oct. 8, 2016, slayings, Felix used an assault 
rifle with an extended magazine to fire on Officers Lesley Zerebny, 27, and 
Jose “Gil” Vega, 63, through a metal security gate.


(source: KTLA news)









USA:

Sessions: Death penalty possible in hate crime synagogue massacre


The Department of Justice will be filing hate crimes and other criminal charges 
against the man accused of killing 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue, a move 
that could result in him receiving the death penalty, according to a statement 
from Attorney General Jeff Sessions.


“Hatred and violence on the basis of religion can have no place in our 
society,” Sessions said. “Every American has the right to attend their house of 
worship in safety."


He described the massacre as "reprehensible and utterly repugnant to the values 
of this nation."


President Trump earlier in the day called the mass shooting an " anti-Semitic 
act" and said such crimes should result in the death penalty. He lamented that 
these types of cases can take years to make their way through appeals courts 
and said laws on capital punishment should be more harsh.


"They should pay the ultimate price," he said of people who commit mass murder 
in places of worship and other areas where people gather. "I have felt that way 
for a long time."


The suspected gunman in custody, Robert Bowers, is accused of killing at least 
11 people who had gathered at the Tree of Life Synagogue, located in 
Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood.


Bowers, 46, allegedly entered the Tree of Life Synagogue yelling that "all Jews 
must die," though local and federal officials have told reporters that they 
were still collecting information about what was said.


Four male officers were shot as they worked to rescue the people inside the 
synagogue. Two other people were injured, according to local officials. They 
did not find any evidence of explosives.


Sessions praised the work of law enforcement officials in his statement.

"These officers ran to danger to save others, which reflects the highest 
traditions of policing in this country," Sessions said. "There can be no doubt 
that they saved lives today."


(source: Washington Examiner)
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[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., ORE., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 1



CALIFORNIA:

California's new lethal injection plan already faces hurdles



California moved a step closer to resuming lethal injections this week but 
still faces significant hurdles before inmates can be executed.


The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has unveiled a revised 
single-drug method of execution, allowing the state to use either pentobarbital 
or thiopental in a single infusion to put condemned inmates to death.


But the barbiturates are extremely difficult to obtain, lawyers on both sides 
of the death penalty debate said Tuesday, and their lack of availability could 
eventually doom plans to restart the death chamber at San Quentin State Prison.


The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has barred the import of thiopental, and 
the manufacturer of pentobarbital has prohibited the drug from being used in 
executions.


"The state cannot lawfully procure either of those drugs through a reputable 
channel," said Ana Zamora, criminal justice director of the American Civil 
Liberties Union of Northern California.


The protocol allows for compounding pharmacies to make the drugs, but the state 
would need to import the necessary ingredients, said Kent Scheidegger, legal 
director of the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation. "That is a 
problem."


Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the corrections department, said she couldn't 
comment on whether the drugs might be impossible to obtain.


"I can tell you that CDCR will comply with all applicable laws in the 
procurement of the lethal injection chemicals," she said.


Several states have had to place holds on executions because of the difficulty 
of obtaining the needed drugs.


The shortage stems in part from pressure placed by death penalty opponents on 
manufacturers to prevent their products from being used in executions.


A previous lethal injection protocol proposed by California would have allowed 
officials to choose 1 of 4 different drugs for executions. But the ACLU 
strongly opposed the use of 2 of them, arguing they had never been used in an 
execution.


The state later withdrew those 2 drugs from its proposed protocol, saying it 
was questionable whether the chemicals could be obtained in a form needed for 
lethal injection.


Scheidegger said that was a mistake. "Every drug has to have a first use," he 
said.


Even if compounding pharmacies could obtain the ingredients needed for the 2 
drugs now permitted, there is no guarantee that the chemicals would be 
processed correctly, Zamora said.


She said drugs made by compounding pharmacies have led to botched executions in 
other states.


"Will they engage in a covert mission to swap drugs with other states?" she 
asked. "We have a lot of concerns about how they are going to legally procure 
these 2 drugs."


She said the new protocol was essentially the same one rejected last year by a 
state law office before Proposition 66 became final.


It "contains a lot of the same problems -- legal and practical problems -- that 
the courts have been pointing to for years and years," she said.


California has the largest death row in the nation, with nearly 750 condemned 
inmates.


Scheidegger and his group joined prosecutors in winning passage of Proposition 
66 in 2016, which was intended to speed up executions. The measure was 
immediately challenged.


The California Supreme Court eventually upheld most of it, including a 
provision that exempted lethal injection protocols from a state administrative 
procedures law.


As a result, the new protocol should become final in a month or 2, Scheidegger 
said.


The next step for death penalty supporters will be to try to remove court 
injunctions blocking executions.


Scheidegger's group has moved to end an injunction issued by a state court, 
arguing it was based on the law prior to Proposition 66. The measure, in fact, 
was written in part to get around that injunction.


He said efforts also are being made to end the federal injunction, issued in 
2006 after a judge found the state's former 3-drug method of execution 
unconstitutional.


"None of (the injunctions) have any legal basis, but it does take time to get 
these hurdles removed by the courts," Scheidegger said.


He said he was hopeful the injunctions could be removed by the end of the year.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg, an Obama appointee presiding over 
the Northern California lethal injection case, will eventually have to 
determine whether the new protocol violates the Constitution's ban on cruel and 
unusual punishment.


About 18 inmates have exhausted their appeals and could be executed relatively 
swiftly if the court battles were resolved and the state obtained the needed 
drugs.


Because of all the hurdles, though, Gov. Jerry Brown could leave office next 
year without having to preside over a single execution.


Brown is known to personally oppose capital punishment, but he took no position 
on ballot 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., WASH., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 11



CALIFORNIA:

Drifter ordered to trial in arson death of San Diego homeless man



A drifter charged with stabbing a homeless man last year, bashing in his skull, 
then setting him on fire along the San Diego River could face the death 
penalty, a judge ruled Wednesday.


At the end of a 1-day preliminary hearing, Sergio Padilla Chavez, 26, was 
ordered to stand trial on charges of 1st-degree murder, with a 
special-circumstance allegation that the murder was committed during an arson.


The district attorney will make the decision on whether to seek the death 
penalty at some future time, as Chavez's trial draws closer, Deputy District 
Attorney Kyle Sutterley said.


Jose Hernandez, 63, died more than 6 weeks after the July 4 attack at his camp 
along the river bottom in Grantville, near a Kaiser medical clinic off San 
Diego Mission Road.


Hernandez died of pneumonia on Aug. 19, but the cause of his death was 
determined to be complications from blunt head trauma, a forensic pathologist 
testified Wednesday.


Dr. Vivian Snyder said Hernandez suffered skull fractures, burns over 15 % of 
his body, and a scissors stab wound in his torso that caused him to be 
hospitalized for weeks, leading to the pneumonia.


A San Diego police officer testified that after Chavez was arrested near the 
scene of the fire, he made a statement in Spanish that he had lit the man on 
fire.


A detective testified that Chavez and Hernandez, who camped near each other, 
had been drinking beer and smoking crystal meth for hours before the 9 p.m. 
assault.


Chavez told the detective that he showed his mother's photo to Hernandez, 
saying she had died in a car crash when he was 8 years old. He said Hernandez 
made a crack, saying with a serious face, "Oh, I killed her," followed by other 
uncomplimentary comments.


The comments may have enraged Chavez. Sutterley said Chavez followed Hernandez 
inside his tent, stabbed him, got a rock and hit him on the head, then tossed a 
wooden pallet on top of the older man's tent.


He used a can of aerosol deodorant as a torch, igniting the spray over the 
pallet.


Friends of Hernandez from other homeless encampments saw the flames and ran to 
help, dragging him out of the incinerated tent. The friends testified that they 
yelled for help. One man said he doused most of the flames with a water bottle 
and by urinating on them.


At the end of the day, Superior Court Judge Sharon Majors-Lewis found there was 
sufficient evidence against Chavez for him to stand trial.


(source: San Diego Union-Tribune)








WASHINGTON:

It's time to abolish the death penalty



It's been 15 years since Robert Yates, a 1970 graduate of Oak Harbor High 
School, was sent to death row.


The serial killer confessed to killing 13 people and was convicted of killing 2 
additional women. Most of the murders occurred in Spokane County, but he also 
killed in Skagit, Walla Walla and Pierce counties.


It took more than a decade for Yates to exhaust his appeals, but then his 
execution date was indefinitely postponed after Gov. Jay Inslee placed a 
moratorium on executions. State Attorney General Bob Ferguson recently 
re-introduced a bill that would do away with the death penalty altogether. 
Lawmakers should pass the bill and clear up the uncertainty about the future of 
state executions.


There are many reasons why the death penalty should be abolished.

It's unequally applied. Study after study has shown that people of color are 
more likely to get the death penalty than white defendants.


"Black people make up 13 % of the population, but they make up 42 % of death 
row and 35 % of those executed," the NAACP reports. "In addition, many studies 
have found the race of the victim to affect who receives the death penalty, 
with homicides of white victims more likely to result in the death penalty."


It's justice delayed.

Yates' experience is typical. Death row inmates average about 15 years between 
conviction and execution. That means families of the victims have to wait 
through all those painful years to learn the final resolution of a case.


It's expensive.

The taxpayers foot the bill for the costly death-penalty trials, the 
multi-million dollar appeals process as well as all those years of waiting on 
death row. There's a concern that prosecutors, particularly in smaller 
counties, may make the decision of whether to pursue the death penalty based on 
the budget.


There's a chance an innocent person will be executed.

The Death Penalty Information Center reports that there's no way to know for 
certain how many of the more than 1,450 people executed since 1976 were 
innocent. There's strong evidence that at least 14 executed people were 
innocent, the center reports. 9 of those cases were in Texas.


For these reasons and more, it's time for Washington state to close down death 
row permanently.


(source: Opinion, Jessie Stensland, South Whidbey Record)








USA:

Dealing with 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 10




CALIFORNIA:

Justice Delayed: Murder cases still piling up in Stanislaus courts



Judges, attorneys and Stanislaus court administrators have not removed a glut 
of local murder cases, 2 years after The Modesto Bee highlighted the troubling 
backlog with its high costs, financial and emotional.


Adjusted for population, murder cases here remain twice as high as the 
statewide average, according to data gathered from 50 of California's 58 
counties in a new Bee analysis. And old Stanislaus murder cases, defined as 
waiting 5 years or more for trial, continue stacking up at a rate triple the 
statewide average.


2.6 Murder cases in Stanislaus courts, per 100,000 population, waiting at least 
5 years for trial


0.7 California average

Players in the local system insist they're working hard and making progress. 
Others are frustrated that more hasn't been done to move the needle. Some 
families of murder victims are worried that witnesses' memories will fade as 
files grow moldy.


"We're all doing the best we can with what we have," said Ricardo Cordova, 
Stanislaus presiding judge. "There is no easy answer to this situation."


$4.2 million Annual cost for housing Stanislaus' 112 defendants awaiting trial 
for murder


Meanwhile, taxpayers are forced to cough up $4.2 million a year to house, in 
local jails, the 112 murder defendants still waiting for trial. That's about 
$102 a day for each, up from $99 2 years ago.


It wasn't always this way.

The startling rise in unresolved murder cases roughly coincides with 2 events: 
a 2005 change in how judges handle cases, and the 2006 election of District 
Attorney Birgit Fladager. She continues to blame the subsequent spike on the 
2005 change, while some judges have suggested that Fladager's must-win approach 
to justice is bogging down the system. It's clear also that demands for 
continuances from defense teams, whose clients generally benefit from delays, 
have contributed to the logjam.


All agree that limited resources - a shortage of prosecutors, judges and 
courtrooms - is keeping them from clearing the pileup. In that respect, not 
much has changed in the past 2 years.


Evidence blunders cause delays

A new look at the problem turns up another potential factor which could become 
a campaign issue, as Fladager seeks a 4th term in elections next year. Her 
office's problems with handling of evidence has marred some court proceedings, 
including delays in murder cases.


Challenger Patrick Kolasinski said, "It's simple disorganization and 
mismanagement. It's a matter of what are your priorities, what matters most to 
you." He is a defense attorney, but doesn't represent murder suspects.


Another challenger from within the District Attorney's office, John Mayne, does 
prosecute murder cases and acknowledges problems caused by evidence 
mishandling, several documented in Bee reports. But he's not convinced that's a 
significant reason for the glut of 14 old murder cases; currently he's not 
assigned to any of them.


Fladager and members of her technology team say they're nearing a years-old 
goal of providing evidence to all attorneys digitally, erasing the need for 
paper changing hands, as well as chances for muffing it.


We are mindful of families impacted by homicides. Everyone is doing their best 
to try to move these cases so defendants' rights are honored, and victims' 
also. A major focus is to keep them moving through the system.Birgit 
Fladager, Stanislaus District Attorney


Fladager says her office has made significant progress since The Bee shined a 
light on the accumulation of murder cases 2 years ago. Her prosecutors since 
have resolved 64 murder cases, she said, with a total of 79 defendants; some 
cases have more than one defendant.


"A lot of good work has been done in the last 2 years to address the backlog," 
she said.


The trend ' finishing 64 murder cases in 2 years, while absorbing 45 more in 
that time - suggests gradual improvement.


Making progess

Others say they sense that things are going in the right direction.

"I've noticed in the last few months a concerted effort to try to resolve some 
of these homicides," said Sonny Sandhu, Stanislaus County public defender (he 
is appointed, while Fladager is elected). "It's led to convictions, and good 
results for defendants as well."


For example, Andrew and Alicia Paffendorf in October were convicted in the 
death of their 16-month-old son after a wait of nearly nine years. Also in 
October, Andrew Briseno and Adolfo Leyva were sentenced for their roles in the 
murder of Erik Preciado, in a botched carjacking attempt, in 2007 (the shooter, 
Gary Spray, 2 years ago was sentenced to 30 years in prison).


"I've been waiting 10 1/2 years for this day," sobbed the victim's mother, 
Julie Preciado, at the sentencing for Briseno and Leyva. In an emotion-packed 
proceeding, she forgave the men and hugged their mothers in the audience, and 
both men cried 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., ORE., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 14




CALIFORNIAfemale may face death penalty

Caregiver pleads not guilty to Desert Hot Springs murder


A caregiver pleaded not guilty to committing a Desert Hot Springs murder that 
involved circumstances that make her eligible for the death penalty if 
convicted.


Kelly Lee Phillips, 45, entered her plea during her arraignment Tuesday morning 
in Riverside County Superior Court at Larson Justice Center in Indio. She's 
charged with the murder of Chandra Saras, 59, who police found about 10 a.m. 
Aug. 15 at a home in the 64-100 block of Mount Blanc Court.


Phillips qualifies for the death penalty because her charges include murder 
during the commission of a felony and murder for financial gain, Riverside 
County District Attorney's office spokesman John Hall said. He added District 
Attorney Mike Hestrin will decide at a later date whether or not prosecutors 
will pursue the death penalty.


"If the DA does not decide to seek death, the defendant's potential sentence 
would be life in prison without the possibility of parole," Hall said.


Phillips' hearing lasted a matter of seconds and was far shorter than the 90 
minutes she waited in the courtroom.


She arrived about 9 a.m. and was directed to the jury box on the right side of 
the room. She sat silently and mostly stared straight with her hair combed to 
her left and shielding her face from the crowd. On the rare moments she turned 
her head, she was expressionless.


Phillips' next court appearance is scheduled for Sept. 22. It will be a routine 
hearing focused on a case where little information has been released.


In addition to the murder charges, Phillips also is accused of dissuading a 
witness, burglary, driving without a license, misusing a vending or slot 
machine and two misdemeanor counts of forgery.


Other homicides Cathedral City woman killed, problem roommate suspected

A criminal complaint indicates Phillips used Saras' name to cash 2 checks for 
$200 each at a Wells Fargo bank branch. Other specifics haven't been provided 
and Desert Hot Springs police say they're not releasing additional details on 
the investigation, including the cause of Saras' death.


Deputy District Attorney Kristi Kirk, who's handling the case, referred all 
questions to Hall, who reiterated Saras' cause of death is under investigation.


Phillips' attorney, Daniel Yu, also declined to comment to The Desert Sun.

She remains in custody at the Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility in Banning 
without bail.


This was Desert Hot Springs' 3rd homicide of 2016, according to data maintained 
by The Desert Sun.


This year, there have been 16 homicides across the Coachella Valley.

There have been 5 homicides in Indio, 3 in Cathedral City, 2 in Coachella and 1 
each in Thermal, Whitewater and on Interstate 10.


(source: The Desert Sun)



Death Penalty Still Has Plenty Of Bay Area Support, Poll Suggests


New numbers show the push to end the death penalty in California is facing an 
uphill fight.


Our exclusive KPIX 5 SurveyUSA poll shows that 52 % of statewide voters are 
opposed to Proposition 62, that's compared to 36 % who favor replacing the 
death penalty with life in prison. Perhaps even more surprising is that the 
death penalty still has plenty of bay area support.


Once again the death penalty is on the California ballot. Voters considered 
whether to abolish it in 1972 and again in 2012. Both times, the death penalty 
survived.


For a state known for its lefty politics, where Democrats hold every statewide 
office, Californians have a history of supporting the death penalty when it is 
on the ballot.


It's easy to forget that Democrats in California are not a majority, 
Independents are.


Carson Bruno, a research fellow at the Hoover Institute, said, "California is 
definitely a blue state there's no doubt about that, but we're not a uniformly 
progressive blue state up and down the state."


San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said, "When you get into the 
valley, into Southern California, you realize, the Bay Area's attitude does not 
cover the whole state in this issue."


Even right here in the Bay Area, the poll showed 47 % of likely voters are in 
favor of keeping the death penalty. Only 42 % oppose it.


Wagstaffe is opposed to Prop 62. He wants to keep the death penalty. He says 
his Bay Area constituents want the death penalty to be used sparingly.


"I think they appreciate that we're very, very cautious and limited in our use 
of this most significant of all punishments in our criminal justice system," 
Wagstaffe said.


Law Professor Ellen Kreitzberg is in favor of Prop 62. She she's confident that 
the death penalty will be repealed.


Kreitzberg, law professor and director of the Death Penalty College at Santa 
Clara University School of Law said, "California voters know that the death 
penalty is arbitrary and unreliable and dysfunctional system...When the people 
of California review 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., ORE., WASH.

[Rick Halperin]

August 25



CALIFORNIA:

Prop 62: Death to the death penalty


Is there a problem right now with California's death penalty?

Yes there is.

Activists on both sides of the death penalty debate agree the process in 
California is broken. Right now convicts as well as families of victims wait 
for years for as the legal system grinds on. A convict on average spends 18 
years on death row before he is executed, and executions almost never happen. 
The last one was in 2006. Inmates are more likely to die of natural causes or 
suicide than to be put to death. On top of that the protracted legal process is 
expensive. It costs taxpayers about $150 million a year in attorneys' fees.


Each side takes different approaches to the problem. One wants to reform the 
process. They have proposed Prop 66. The other side wants to abolish the death 
penalty. They have proposed 62.


What would Prop 62 do?

Prop 62 would repeal the death penalty in California.

Who is for Prop 62 and what are their arguments?

Supporters include long-time death penalty opponent and actor, Mike Ferrell as 
well as actor Edward James Olmos, Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom and Jimmy and 
Rosalynn Carter. Organizations in favor of Prop 62 include the ACLU, state 
employee unions, innocence projects and some families of murder victims.


They say we should pass Prop 62 because:

-- It would save taxpayers millions of dollars by getting rid of California's 
costly and inefficient death penalty process. A death sentence costs 18 times 
more than a life sentence. Taxpayers have spent $5 billion dollars since 1978 
to carry out only 13 executions.


-- Inmates on death row would still have to spend the rest of their lives in 
prison and a greater portion of the wages they earn would go toward victim 
restitution.


-- It would provide victim???s families with closure instead of waiting for 
years for executions that never happen.


-- It would eliminate the chance that an innocent person is executed. In 
California 66 innocent people have had their murder convictions overturned.


-- Murder trials are biased against minorities and Latinos are 
disproportionately represented on death row


-- Botched executions make the process inhumane.

Who is against Prop 62 and what are their arguments?

Many law enforcement groups and district attorneys associations are against 
Prop 62 along with LA Sheriff Jim McDonnell, former governor Pete Wilson and 
some families of murder victims.


They say:

-- It lets the worst of the worst criminals stay alive at taxpayers' expense 
long after their victims have lost their lives.


-- People who get the death penalty are guilty of 1st degree murder with 
special circumstances. They are serial murders, or they have tortured their 
victims, or killed children or police officers. They should be punished more 
than other murderers.


-- Prop 62 will cost taxpayers money because inmates must be kept in prison at 
a cost of about $47,000 a year for the rest of their lives.


-- The answer to our broken capital punishment process is to reform it, not 
repeal it as we propose in Prop 66.


What does a "yes" vote on Prop 62 mean?

A "yes" vote means you want to abolish California's death penalty. Those 
already on death row would get life in prison without parole.


What does a "no" vote mean?

A "no" vote means you want to keep the death penalty as part of California's 
criminal sentencing laws.


There's another ballot measure, Prop 66, dealing with the death penalty on the 
ballot. How do these 2 props effect each other?


If 1 proposition passes and the other fails, then obviously the winning 
proposition becomes law.


If they both fail, things stay the way they are now.

If they both pass, then the proposition that received the most votes becomes 
law.


(source: KCET news)

***

Tossed death penalty may signal shift on California Supreme Court


In a ruling that could signal tougher scrutiny of capital cases by California's 
highest court, Gov. Jerry Brown's 3 appointees have joined a 4th justice to 
overturn a death sentence that a previous majority had voted to uphold.


Monday's 4-3 vote by the state Supreme Court granted a new penalty trial to 
Gary Grimes, to determine whether he should be resentenced to death or to life 
in prison without parole for his role in the murder of a 98-year-old Shasta 
County woman. State voters could take that issue off the table in November if 
they approve Proposition 62, which would repeal the state's death penalty law 
and resentence the nearly 750 death row inmates to life without parole.


In the meantime, however, the ruling suggests a shift on a court in which the 
death penalty has been an overriding issue for nearly 4 decades.


After legislators passed a death penalty law in 1977 and voters expanded it in 
1988, the court under Chief Justice Rose Bird reversed nearly every death 
sentence it considered until 1986. The voters removed Bird and 2 other Brown 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

July 19



CALIFORNIA:

The Deterrence Myth: Prop 66 Death Penalty 'Reform' is just 'Fools Gold' for 
Californians



When Mike Ramos, the current district attorney for San Bernardino County (and 
candidate for California Attorney General), pleaded for Californians to send 
him one million dollars at the end of April -- so he could afford "paid 
petition gatherers" to collect enough signatures to qualify "the Death Penalty 
Reform and Savings Act of 2016" for placement on the November 8 ballot -- he 
asserted, "the threat, and application, of a working death penalty law in 
California is law enforcement's strongest tool to keep our communities safe."


Other than the proverbial bridge in Brooklyn, no bigger, more bald-faced 
balderdash has heretofore been sold to Californian voters.


Eviscerating the myth that the death penalty acts as a valuable deterrent, the 
Washington Post's Max Ehrenfreund soberly observed in 2014, that "there's still 
no evidence that executions deter criminals." Delving into scientific studies 
done on the subject for Newsweek, including a 2012 study by the National 
Academy of Sciences (comprised of our nation's brightest scientific minds), 
Stanford Law Professor John Donohue's assessment of the death penalty's 
deterrent value at the end of last summer was even bleaker. In a column called, 
"Does the death penalty deter killers?," Donohue resoundingly concluded: "There 
is not the slightest credible statistical evidence that capital punishment 
reduces the rate of homicide."


Instead of continuing such a deeply flawed policy, Donohue wrote: "A better way 
to address the problem of homicide is to take the resources that would 
otherwise be wasted in operating a death penalty regime and use them on 
strategies that are known to reduce crime, such as hiring and properly training 
police officers and solving crime." (Formerly a professor at Yale and 
Northwestern Law School, Donohue is one of the leading empirical researchers in 
legal academia.)


The shibboleth that the death penalty acts as a deterrent is just 1 of many 
reasons why "Proposition 66, 'The Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 
2016,' is Fool's Gold for Californians."


Savvy, streetwise, sophisticated Californians have a superlatively better, more 
effective alternative to vote for, called Proposition 62, "The Justice That 
Works Act of 2016." Proposition 62 would (1) replace the death penalty with 
life in prison without the possibility of parole; (2) require death row inmates 
to work and pay wages to their victims' families; and (3) save taxpayers a 
projected $150 million dollars a year.


Apart from finally ending California's ignominious and failed experiment with 
capital punishment -- making us a standard-bearer for other states where 
already, "practically speaking, the death penalty is disappearing" - do you 
know what's best about Proposition 62?


Unlike Proposition 66, the prospective benefits of Proposition 62 are not 
illusory, based on a bunch of baloney, glorified ballyhoo, or like death 
penalty proponents' deterrence argument - bunk.


(source: Stephen A. Cooper is a former D.C. public defender who worked as an 
assistant federal public defender in Alabama between 2012 and 
2015citywatchla.com)







USA:

Roof's mental state emerging as key issue in Charleston church killings  
State of mind would come into play when jurors weight death penalty or life in 
prison without parole



The mental state of Dylann Roof of Columbia, an avowed white supremacist, has 
emerged as a key issue in his upcoming federal death penalty trial for killing 
9 African-American church members.


Prosecutors and defense lawyers discussed procedural issues connected to Roof's 
state of mind at a hearing Monday before U.S. Judge Richard Gergel without 
revealing details about what conditions he might have.


Roof, 22, is scheduled to go on trial Nov. 7 for the hate crime killings at 
Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston.


Before the June 2015 church shootings, Roof published a manifesto on the 
Internet in which he said he was going to start a race war.


His state of mind would come into play when jurors deliberate whether to 
recommend the death penalty or life in prison without parole.


His lead attorney, David Bruck, has repeatedly said Roof will plead guilty in 
return for a sentence of life without parole.


That offer came after Roof confessed to law enforcement to killing the 9 
parishioners during a Bible study meeting, with evidence against him also 
appearing to be overwhelming. The gun that Roof is said to have used has been 
recovered.


Much of the hearing was devoted to discussing when and how much of the results 
of separate pre-trial mental tests of Roof conducted by the prosecutors and 
defense lawyers would be divulged to each other in advance of the death penalty 
phase of the trial.


Evidence offered by defense lawyers against the death penalty is called 
"mitigation" 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

June 23



CALIFORNIA:

Public defender demands DA's recusal


The man accused of killing an Exeter toddler has been behind bars for the last 
5 years. In August, a jury will decide if that's where Christopher Cheary will 
stay.


A jury trial has been set for Aug. 22 in Department 5 of Tulare County Superior 
Court.


Cheary is charged with the gruesome death of a 3-year-old child, Sophia Acosta. 
There are also special allegations that he committed forcible lewd acts on the 
child, which contributed to her death.


Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Cheary was in court on Tuesday where his public defender argued against a 
motion, filed by prosecutors, to reveal the names of additional subpoenaed 
witnesses.


"At this point we have disclosed all the witnesses we intend to call." 
Supervising Attorney Angela Krueger said. "We don't think we need to call those 
witnesses."


The defense will release witness names in a timely manner if they are 
subpoenaed, she said.


"This completely undermines the whole concept of a fair trial for the people," 
Assistant District Attorney David Alavezos said. "If they intend to call a 
witness they have to disclose that witness."


Judge Joseph A. Kalashian denied the motion by the district attorney.

"I'm relying on your representation of good faith," Kalashian told the defense.

At a hearing today, the defense will argue that due to the district attorney's 
office involvement at a bench dedication made in Sophia's honor, the DA's 
office should recuse itself from the case. Additionally, they are requesting 
the judge toss the possible death penalty sentence, if convicted, and change 
the venue of the trial to a different county.


"The District Attorney's continued participation in this trial is compromised 
by its participation in the Farmersville rally," court documents stated.


In April, the Tulare County Child Abuse Prevention Council held a bench 
dedication in Farmersville in memory of Sophia and all children of abuse. The 
Council invited a number of public officials including District Attorney Tim 
Ward, who spoke during the dedication.


"Because of constitutional violations in this case, the court should preclude 
the death penalty," the motion filed by the public defender stated.


However, the prosecution is arguing there is no evidence of misconduct in this 
case.


"District Attorney Tim Ward attended the event in support of Child Abuse 
Awareness Month," court documents stated. "He did not mention Sophia."


--Officers arrived at an Exeter apartment complex in the 800 block of west 
Visalia Road on May 7, 2011. There they found 3 people - Sophia's mother Erica 
Smith, Cheary and a neighbor.


--Sophia dies at Children's Hospital Central California, May 11 from internal 
brain hemorrhage and other injuries.


--An autopsy showed that the child died from blunt force trauma to the head. 
Reports also showed the child was sexually assaulted prior to her head being 
hit.


--Formal charges were filed by the district attorney's office against Cheary on 
June 1, 2011. If convicted, Cheary is facing the death penalty.


(source: Visalia Times Delta)


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[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

May 30



CALIFORNIA:

Man on death row claims a Mexican loan shark is to blame for his mother and 
stepfathers deaths



A Scot accused of shooting dead his mother and stepfather has blamed the 
killings on a Mexican loan shark.


Derek Connell, 29, was arrested after the bodies of Paisley-born Kim 
Higgin-botham and husband Christopher were found in a pool of blood at their 
home in Bakersfield, California, on April 30.


Connell will face the death penalty if convicted.

According to newly released police transcripts, he initially blamed a Mexican 
money lender called "Nacho" for the killings.


He said his stepdad had run up massive debts to Nacho - and that the mysterious 
loan shark was responsible for shooting him.


Detective David Brooks, who grilled Connell, said: "I told him he was a coward 
and that he should admit what happened to provide closure to the family."


Californian police were tipped off by concerned family members in Scotland who 
had received a mobile phone message from Connell which read "mom is dead".


When officers arrived at the house they found Connell - originally from 
Shawlands, Glasgow - trying to drive away in a 4x4 smelling of alcohol.


They also noticed he had blood on his trousers and marks consistent with bleach 
stains.


He told them, "My parents are shot in the house", and was immediately 
handcuffed and taken into custody.


Then over a series of interviews lasting more than 5 hours, unemployed oil 
worker Connell gave officers his side of the story.


Senior detective Kenneth Sporer said throughout the grilling he "did not show 
any emotion".


Connell claimed that, after discovering the bodies, he "lay down next to mom" 
before attempting to clean up the crime scene using "that stuff you put in the 
dishwasher".


He said he also planned to take the bodies to a funeral home "to avoid issues 
with the police".


Asked what he would say to his mother and stepfather if they were in front of 
him, he replied: "I love them."


Connell's next court appearance will be in July.used of shooting dead his 
mother and stepfather has blamed the killings on a Mexican loan shark.


Derek Connell, 29, was arrested after the bodies of Paisley-born Kim 
Higgin-botham and husband Chris-topher were found in a pool of blood at their 
home in Bakersfield, California, on April 30.


Connell will face the death penalty if convicted.

(source: sundaypost.com)

*

Death penalty is not effective


After reading about our sheriff's support of a revision to the state's death 
penalty law and also seeing his picture in your newspaper, a couple of 
questions as well as a personal opinion came to mind. First, I wonder if the 
sheriff could touch his toes or run a 50-yard dash in a reasonable time 
commensurate with his age, but probably not his weight.


The news conference also brought to mind the fact that we are the only 
so-called civilized, most powerful country in the world still executing people 
for criminal behavior. The only difference between us and the Saudi Arabians is 
they behead and mutilate people in public, but we don't have enough guts to do 
the same.


If our law enforcement agencies believe that capital punishment reduces crime, 
why do we have so many prisoners on death row in San Quentin? Hey, let's join 
proud Texas in its fun and delight assassinating criminals.


Well, I guess it is one way of reducing the problem of crowded jail 
populations.


(source: Letter to the Editor, Carl Larkin, Record Searchlight)






SUDAN:


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[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 4



CALIFORNIA:

THE EXECUTIONER'S TALE: Former San Quentin warden reveals how he killed 
prisoners in the jail's 'coughing box' without any training . . . or remorse 
Dan Vasquez performed 2 executions while warden at San Quentin



Without any experience or medical training, Dan Vasquez was employed by the 
government to kill other human beings.


As warden of San Quentin, one of the most notorious prisons in the world, put 
inmates to death in the gas chamber - known by his staff and those on death row 
as the 'coughing box'.


The day before an execution he would bring in a psychologist to help his team 
prepare to watch a condemned criminal die, in a bid to avoid post-traumatic 
stress.


Then, just hours later, he would ask the prisoner for his last words as he was 
strapped into a chair inside a tiny metal green room.


Then he would start the chemical reaction that has been deemed the most 
dangerous and expensive way to kill an inmate.


Vasquez insists he was never fazed by putting an inmate to death, as it was his 
job.


In his 1st interview since stepping down as California's state executioner, 
Vasquez has told Daily Mail Online his role as California's state executioner 
has never haunted him.


For more than 30 years he has been involved in the death penalty, either 
carrying it out or testifying as consultant at capital murder trials.


The grandfather-of-2 also believes in an 'eye-for-an-eye' when it comes to the 
death penalty - that condemned inmates should be killed in the same manner they 
killed their victims.


A controversial policy like that, he believes, would send a strong message to 
would-be criminals and act as a deterrent,


'In my opinion, if you want to stop human beings killing other human beings, 
when you execute the 1st person in the manner that they killed their victim.


'I think it would get rid of the need for the death penalty.

'For example, if I rape a woman and strangle her, then they would rape and 
strangle me.'


'If that happened, maybe other people would get the message of murder under 
special circumstances.


'I shoot you to death, then maybe I should be executed by being shot.

'It should be an eye-for-an-eye. If it's done that way, I guarantee you that 
you are going to go a long way to stopping the criminal offense of killing 
another person.


'If I stab you to death and cut you into pieces, maybe I should be stabbed and 
cut into pieces.'


Vasquez is a father-of-2 who has been married for 51 years to wife Juanita.

As warden at San Quentin, Vasquez was the state executioner between 1983 and 
1993.


For the first 9 years, he didn't put any inmates to death, as the 1976 US 
Supreme Court decision of Gregg v. Georgia had put a moratorium on the death 
penalty.


But when it was lifted, he carried out the 1st execution in San Quentin for 
almost 25 years.


'I knew it was part of the job.

'I prepared for it by preparing the procedure and putting it all together.

'I made sure the gas chamber was working, made sure maintenance was done on it. 
I prepared in that manner.


'I also practiced in running the lethal gas. We had a chemical engineer from 
Indiana who would come in and measure the toxicity of the lethal gas inside the 
chamber.'


The 1st person he put to death was Robert Alton Harris, who killed 2 teenage 
boys in San Diego in 1978. He was originally scheduled at 12.01am on April 21, 
1992, but stays meant his death was delayed for 6 hours


'I didn't receive any training, but I prepared myself. I didn't need the 
department to help me with anything.'


He killed 2 inmates by lethal gas - Robert Alton Harris and David Edwin Mason.

The gas chamber was never as popular as the electric chair in the United States 
but was used widely in Arizona, Wyoming, Missouri, Mississippi and California.


Still, it was considered the most expensive and most dangerous way to kill an 
inmate.


The prisoner, strapped into a metal chair inside a tiny chamber, waits as 
potassium cyanide pellets are dropped into a bath of sulfuric acid below. The 
chemical reaction would generate fumes of lethal hydrogen cyanide.


As a result, the inmate would then suffer terribly before dying of hypoxia, a 
form of oxygen starvation


Harris, who killed 2 teenage boys in San Diego in 1978, was originally 
scheduled at 12.01am on April 21, 1992.


He finished his last meal - a 21-piece bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, 2 
large Domino's pizzas, a bag of jelly beans, a 6-pack of Pepsi, and a pack of 
Camel cigarettes - before he was led into the death chamber.


But a series of 4 stays of execution issued by 9th circuit appeal court delayed 
the execution until just after 6am.


At one point he was strapped into his seat in the gas chamber when the phone 
rang. According to witnesses, he urged the prison guards to get over and done 
with, but they couldn't.


Moments later, the guards opened the doors and Alton Harris became the 1st 
prisoner to leave the gas 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., ORE., USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 26



CALIFORNIA:

Trial delayed for man accused of killing Sierra LaMar

A trial has been delayed to next month for a man charged with kidnapping and 
murdering 15-year-old Sierra LaMar nearly four years ago. Antolin 
Garcia-Torres, now 25, is accused of killing Sierra, who was last seen on the 
morning of March 16, 2012. She left her home in unincorporated Morgan Hill and 
never showed up to her bus stop for school.


Garcia-Torres' trial was scheduled for today but Santa Clara County Superior 
Court Judge Deborah Ryan continued the case to May 23 for his defense attorneys 
to submit additional evidence for testing.


Garcia-Torres withdrew his waiver for a speedy trial within 60 days, his 
defense attorneys said.


Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney David Boyd told the judge that 
prosecutors were prepared to proceed with the trial during today's hearing at 
the Hall of Justice in San Jose.


Sierra's Juicy-brand purse and clothes were found two days after she went 
missing and her cellphone was later discovered in an agricultural area south of 
San Jose.


Garcia-Torres was identified as a suspect in the death on May 21, 2012, after 
Sierra's DNA was found in his red Volkswagen Jetta, prosecutors said.


The 25-year-old man, who remains in custody at Santa Clara County Main Jail in 
San Jose, is facing the death penalty in the case.


A grand jury indicted Garcia-Torres in 2014 on charges for Sierra's 
disappearance and death, in addition to kidnapping and carjacking charges 
involving 3 women in Morgan Hill supermarket parking lots in 2009.


Sierra's body hasn't been found despite numerous organized search groups 
through southern Santa Clara County.


Roger Nelson had helped coordinated the search efforts, which ended last year, 
and was present during today's hearing.


Nelson, along with a handful of other supporters of the LaMar family, said 
outside of court that they were bothered the trial was continued to a later 
date, but look forward to justice being served.


Debbie Nunes, a search volunteer who lived down the street from Sierra's bus 
stop, said after today's hearing that the community would like closure in the 
case.


"The family deserves answers and it's been 4 years too long," Nunes said.

(source: ABC news)






OREGON:

Trial underway for man accused of killing inmate


The trial of a convicted murderer from Minnesota accused of killing his 
cellmate at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem in 2013 is underway at 
Marion County Circuit Court following an indictment made in late 2015.


Craig Dennis Bjork, 56, was charged with aggravated murder after another 
convicted murderer, Joseph Akins, 45, was discovered dead, strangled in their 
shared cell in August 2013. If found guilty, Bjork could face the death 
penalty.


In 1982, a Minnesota court convicted Bjork of killing his 2 young sons, his 
girlfriend and a Minneapolis prostitute, according to the Associated Press. He 
was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. At the time 
of the killings, Bjork went by the name Craig Dennis Jackson.


It is not Bjork's 1st time standing trial for murder inside a correctional 
facility.


In 1997, while serving his sentence at a Minnesota prison, Bjork beat another 
inmate to death with a pipe. According to court records, Bjork told Minnesota 
corrections department investigators the killing was "not personal." He said he 
wanted to get prison officials' attention and punish them for moving him to a 
different cell block. Bjork said he wanted to kill a staff member but instead 
killed inmate Edwin Curry, 41, because he was nearby.


"There's a saying in the business world, location, location, location, huh, 
location is everything," Bjork told investigators, according to court records.


The Associated Press reported that Bjork was transferred from Minnesota to an 
Oregon prison in January 2013 as part of an interstate compact.


The compact allows prisoners to be sent to out-of-state facilities due to the 
high-profile nature of their crimes, inmate safety or security issues, 
according to Oregon Department of Corrections spokeswoman Betty Bernt. Oregon 
has interstate compacts with 32 states.


Even though Bjork faces charges for a crime that allegedly took place in an 
Oregon Department of Corrections facility, Bernt did not have information 
available on Bjork. She referred any information requests on Bjork's 
incarceration status to his home state of Minnesota.


No motive was provided for the slaying of Akins, and Bjork has not lodged a 
plea with Marion County Circuit Court. Akins was convicted of murder in 2008 
for the 1994 rape and killing of a woman in Multnomah County and was in the 
midst of serving a 22-year, 6-month sentence.


According to the Associated Press, Bjork was immediately held in a segregation 
after Akins was discovered dead in his cell at the Oregon State Penitentiary.


An autopsy found that he died of asphyxiation 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

March 29




CALIFORNIAdeath row inmate dies

San Quentin death row inmate dies of natural causes


A death row inmate at San Quentin State Prison died of natural causes at a 
medical center in the community, California Department of Corrections and 
Rehabilitation officials said Monday.


Bernard L. Hamilton, 64, was pronounced dead at 10:45 a.m. A San Diego County 
jury sentenced Hamilton to death on March 2, 1981, for 2nd-degree burglary and 
the 1st-degree murder of Eleanore Buchanan on May 31, 1979, corrections 
officials said.


Hamilton kidnapped, murdered and dismembered Buchanan's body after she caught 
him burglarizing her van, Robinson said. Hamilton also had a conviction for 
burglary in 1973, and was on death row since March 4, 1981, according to 
corrections officials.


Since 1978 when California reinstated the death penalty, 70 condemned inmates, 
including Hamilton, have died of natural causes, 25 have committed suicide, 13 
have been executed in California and 1 was executed in Missouri, 1 in Virginia, 
8 have died of other causes and one cause of death is spending, according to 
the CDCR.


There are 747 inmates on the state's death row, corrections officials said.

(source: San Francisco Examiner)

**

Trial's penalty phase begins in killings of 4 at Valley Village memorial 
gathering



A man who opened fire at a memorial event at a Valley Village restaurant, 
killing 4 people and wounding 2 others, should be sent to death row, a 
prosecutor said Monday, but a defense lawyer asked jurors to consider their 
"individual morals" and spare the man's life.


Nerses Galstyan, 32, was convicted earlier this month of 2 counts of 1st-degree 
murder for the shooting deaths of Vardan Tofalyan, 31, and Harut Baburyan, 28, 
along with 1 count of 2nd-degree murder for the killing of Hayk Yegnanyan, 25, 
and 1 count of voluntary manslaughter in the death of Sarkis Karadjian, 26.


A jury found true the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders, 
making Galstyan eligible for a death sentence.


The 9-man, 3-woman jury is now charged with recommending whether the defendant 
be put to death for the crimes or spend the rest of his life in prison.


Anticipating a defense argument that Galstyan had no prior convictions and 
behaved well during his 6 years in jail awaiting trial, earning an education 
certificate, Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Chung told jurors none of that 
"lessens the fact that he killed 4 people."


Chung also reminded the panel of 2 surviving victims, 1 of whom lost an eye. 
The other has a bullet which remains lodged 2 inches from his spine, the 
prosecutor said.


Galstyan was convicted of the attempted voluntary manslaughter of the 2 men.

"We're going to ask that you give him the death penalty," the prosecutor said.

Defense attorney Alex Kessel told the jury panel it was enough that his client 
would spend the rest of his life in prison.


"He'll never get out again," Kessel said.

Kessel said jurors had the opportunity to consider "your individual conscience, 
your individual morals."


"Death is not appropriate," the defense attorney said, adding that the 
voluntary manslaughter convictions - originally charged as attempted murders - 
showed "a belief that there (were) issues of protection, self-defense" behind 
the killings.


Galstyan "never had any acts of violence in his life,' prior to the shooting, 
Kessel said. "My client doesn't deserve the death penalty."


Yegnanyan's mother took the stand and told jurors, "The whole world turned dark 
and cold for me," when she learned her eldest son had died.


Under cross-examination, she described 2 of her son's tattoos as memorializing 
the death of his stillborn daughter and 1 of his brothers, who had died as a 
toddler. She said she had "never, ever seen him carrying a knife."


The younger sister of Baburyan said her brother had virtually raised her 
following the death of her mother when she was 5 years old.


"He was my world, he was everything to me," Hermine Baburyan said.

Dealing with his death is "a daily struggle. I can't say it gets better," she 
told jurors.


It was undisputed during trial that Galstyan shot and killed Yegnanyan, 
Karadjian, Baburyan and Tofalyan, who was described as the defendant's best 
friend, at the Hot Spot restaurant on April 3, 2010.


Kessel argued, however, that the shooting was carried out in self- defense. He 
told jurors that Yegnanyan pulled a knife on Galstyan's brother, Sam, outside 
the restaurant prior to the shooting.


Kessel said his client tried to defuse the situation by picking up Yegnanyan, 
hoisting him over his shoulder and turning in circles before putting him down. 
Yegnanyan then called Karadjian and Baburyan, who came armed to the memorial 
gathering, according to Kessel.


"My client, Nerses Galstyan, was the one targeted that day," Kessel said, 
telling the jury that Galstyan only fired when Karadjian pulled a gun on him.

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 17




CALIFORNIA:

Wozniak case likely to illustrate long road to execution in California


Steve Herr assumes he won't live to see the execution of the man convicted of 
murdering and then decapitating his son in the attic of an Orange County 
theater.


"Realistically, I'm not going to be around when he's put to death," Herr, 67, 
said a few days after a jury recommended the death penalty for Daniel Wozniak. 
"I'll be dead."


Orange County Superior Court Judge John Conley is scheduled in March to render 
the official sentence for Wozniak, 31, for the slayings of 26-year-old Army 
veteran Sam Herr and his friend Juri "Julie" Kibuishi, 23, in May 2010.


Wozniak, a community theater actor from Costa Mesa, was desperate for money to 
fund his upcoming wedding, so he killed the 2 as part of a plan to steal 
$62,000 from Herr's bank account, according to prosecutors.


After his conviction last month, jurors took less than an hour of deliberation 
Monday to decide that Wozniak deserved death for the murders. Orange County 
District Atty. Tony Rackauckas said it was the fastest decision on capital 
punishment he could recall.


*

Executions take decades to be carried out

Wozniak's case took more than 5 years to go to trial, and despite the jury's 
decisiveness, its death sentence verdict is just the beginning of another long 
process that may or may not end with Wozniak's execution.


In California, where capital punishment has been on hold for a decade, it's an 
open question whether convicts sent to death row today will ever have their 
sentence carried out.


The state put a moratorium on the death penalty in 2006 when a judge ruled that 
a 3-drug lethal injection could cause inhumane suffering.


In November, officials unveiled a 1-drug injection that could restart 
executions, but the method still faces months of public vetting and possible 
legal challenges.


Even before the moratorium, however, "the reality in California is that, of 
those who are sentenced to death, very few have been executed and it's taken an 
enormously long time," said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Irvine law 
school.


Since the death penalty was reinstated in California in 1977, juries have sent 
900 inmates to death row - 13 have been put to death, according to court papers 
authored by Judge Cormac Carney of the U.S. District Court in Orange County.


On average, there is a 25-year delay between a death sentence being handed down 
and it being carried out, and that gap is getting longer, according to the 
judge.


*

Why does it take so long?

Many factors add up to the decades of lag time between a death sentence and an 
execution, according to Chemerinsky.


To begin with, all death sentences in California are automatically appealed.

Before any work can be done on the case, a lawyer must be appointed. That in 
itself can take years.


A 2004 report commissioned by the California Legislature blamed that on budget 
cuts at the state public defender's office and on a low rate of pay offered to 
private attorneys willing to take the assignments.


Another factor is that all such appeals go directly to California's Supreme 
Court, which hears only about 20 to 25 such cases a year, according to Carney.


After years of reviewing and briefing their cases, attorneys might wait 2 to 3 
more years before the court has time to hear their arguments, the judge wrote.


Inmates who lose their appeal to the Supreme Court can appeal again for the 
court's consideration. If those appeals are exhausted, inmates can petition a 
federal court for review, further extending the process.


*

Is it cruel and unusual?

The future of capital punishment in California became even more uncertain in 
2014 when Carney ruled the state's death penalty unconstitutional, saying the 
long and unpredictable waits had made the system cruel and unusual and 
undermined its effectiveness.


In November, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overruled Carney, but the 
decision was on procedural grounds, leaving the possibility of another 
challenge at the state level based on the same arguments, Chemerinsky said.


More condemned inmates die of natural causes than are put to death, according 
to California Department of Corrections figures that Carney cited in his 
decision.


"As for the random few for whom execution does become a reality, they will have 
languished for so long on death row that their execution will serve no 
retributive or deterrent purpose and will be arbitrary," Carney wrote.


But such arguments and the death penalty's murky future did not deter the 
Orange County district attorney's office from pursuing capital punishment for 
Wozniak.


"Cases like this are a perfect example of why the death penalty is 
appropriate," Senior Deputy District Atty. Matt Murphy said in a news 
conference after the jury's decision.


Prosecutors in Orange County seek capital punishment on only about 4% of 
eligible cases, but the brutality of 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 30



CALIFORNIA:

DAs, police, family of slain push for death penalty reform


California prosecutors, police officers and family members of murder victims 
have launched a campaign to speed up executions for murderers sentenced to 
death.


Members of the group said Friday that the death penalty reform initiative is 
aimed at the inefficient process that has left hundreds of killers languishing 
on death row for decades.


San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos says voters who rejected a 
ballot measure to eliminate the death penalty in 2012 showed they support the 
punishment.


Ramos says appointing appeals lawyers to the process and other proposed reforms 
could shorten the time from conviction to execution from as long as 30 years to 
10 to 15 years. The initiative is likely to duel with another proposed ballot 
measure that seeks to abolish capital punishment.


(source: Associated Press)






USA:

A potential record Supreme Court term for the death penalty


The current U. S. Supreme Court term is barely a month old, but the justices 
have already heard argument in four death penalty cases - and will hear a 5th 
on Monday - making the term the most important for capital punishment issues in 
decades, legal experts say.


The justices themselves fueled speculation near the end of last term that the 
court might finally address the death penalty's viability under the Eighth 
Amendment, with Justice Stephen Breyer (joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg) 
opining in Glossip v. Gross that it was "highly likely that the death penalty 
violates the Eighth Amendment." And Justice Antonin Scalia last week told an 
audience at the University of Minnesota Law School that he "wouldn't be 
surprised if the Supreme Court eventually strikes down capital punishment."


That question has not yet been squarely put before the high court, but the term 
is young and with 5 death penalty cases already their collective belt, the 
justices still have plenty of time to take it on.


Monday's case, Foster v. Chatman, raises an issue well known to North 
Carolinians - racial bias in juror selection in capital cases - and comes at a 
time when the state Supreme Court itself is grappling with cases arising under 
the now-repealed Racial Justice Act.


As described by Rory Little at SCOTUSblog:

Foster, an 18-year-old African American at the time, was convicted of killing 
an elderly white woman during a burglary in Georgia. During jury selection, the 
prosecutor struck all 4 black potential jurors, and Foster was convicted and 
sentenced by an all-white jury. When an objection was raised under the Court's 
1986 decision in Batson v. Kentucky, the prosecutor offered "race neutral" 
reasons for striking the black jurors, while protecting his file from 
discovery.


Some 19 years later, the prosecutor's jury selection notes - produced pursuant 
to an Open Records Act request - revealed a direct targeting of black jurors, 
but state courts refused to entertain Foster's request for relief.


(source: ncpolicywatch.org)

***

Timeline In Federal Death Penalty Appeal Extends Into 2017


Lawyers in the case of a man sentenced to death for killing a University of 
North Dakota student in 2003 have discussed the timeline for his appeal - and 
it stretches into 2017.


Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., of Crookston, Minnesota, filed a so-called habeas motion 
in October 2011. It is generally considered the last step in the appeals 
process.


U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson posted an updated briefing schedule for the 
appeal following a closed-door meeting with attorneys on Thursday. One of the 
hearings on forensic issues is not scheduled until January 2017.


The 62-year-old Rodriguez was convicted in 2006 of kidnapping and killing Dru 
Sjodin, of Pequot Lakes, Minnesota. Authorities say Sjodin was raped, beaten 
and stabbed.


(source: Associated Press)


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[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 21



CALIFORNIA:

When it comes to the death penalty, California should follow Nebraska



If 32 members of the Nebraska legislature hold firm, the Cornhusker State could 
become the 19th state to end the death penalty, a slow but important step - I 
hope - toward nationwide abolition (an effort in Delaware recently stalled, 
unfortunately).


It's also significant that Nebraska is a conservative Republican state, and the 
vote reflects a bit of ground-shifting in that political sector.


I'm a conservative guy - I've been a Republican my whole life, Sen. Colby 
Coash, a sponsor of the bill, said before the vote. A lot of my conservative 
colleagues have come to the conclusion that we're there to root out inefficient 
government programs. Some people see this as a pro-life issue. Other people see 
it as a good-government issue. But the support that this bill is getting from 
conservative members is evidence that you can get justice through eliminating 
the death penalty, and you can get efficient government through eliminating the 
death penalty.


However the Nebraska legislators reached the decision, they wound up in the 
right place. And the California Legislature should take note, because no system 
in the nation seems to be as dysfunctional as ours.


To remind, California has by far the nation's largest death row, with 750 
people awaiting execution. Yet the state hasn't carried out that sentence since 
2006 because of legal challenges to its three-drug lethal-injection protocol. 
The state finally stopped defending it two years ago and announced that it 
would try to develop a new single-drug protocol. But the Department of 
Corrections and Rehabilitation has been silent on where it stands, and no 
timetable has been announced.


Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney ruled last July in the Ernest 
Dewayne Jones v. Ron Davis case that the state's death penalty system was so 
dysfunctional it arbitrarily selected who died when, and thus didn't clear 
constitutional muster.


The random few who ultimately get executed, he wrote, will have languished 
for so long on death row that their execution will serve no retributive or 
deterrent purpose and will be arbitrary. He added: No rational person can 
question that the execution of an individual carries with it the solemn 
obligation of the government to ensure that the punishment is not arbitrarily 
imposed and that it furthers the interests of society.


As I wrote at the time, California's system is underfunded, under-staffed, and 
all but stalled. Yet juries keep sentencing people to death. Death penalty 
proponents argue that the solution is to streamline the process and execute the 
condemned faster.


The problem with that, though, is the growing realization that the judicial 
system is so flawed that there are innocent people on death row. One study 
estimates (conservatively) that at least 4% of condemned inmates nationwide are 
innocent of the crimes for which they have been convicted. That means of the 
750 people on California's death row (many of whom are severely mentally ill), 
at least 30 are likely not murderers.


And this is where I would hope more conservatives would come to realize that 
the system is too flawed. Once the penalty is exacted, there is no way to 
reverse it should the errors come to light, as they have here and here. If 
people distrust government to get most things right, why is there faith in its 
ability to get the death penalty right? Especially in a legal system that is 
based more on advocacy than on achieving justice?


California voters rejected a 2012 initiative to repeal the death penalty, but 
that was before the flood of exonerations began headlining the news. It's not 
an often-polled subject here, but support seems to be waning. It's been a hard 
sell in the legislature, too, as detailed in this amicus curiae brief filed by 
state Sens. Loni Hancock and Mark Leno and former Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner 
in the Jones v. Davis.


But the legislature should take it back up. Beyond the pragmatic arguments 
against capital punishment - add in the absurdly high costs to taxpayers - 
there's the underlying immorality of it all. If it's wrong to kill, it's wrong 
to kill.


Executing murderers, no matter how heinous the crime, is still state-committed 
homicide, and out of step with the rest of our sentencing (do we rob robbers? 
Embezzle from embezzlers?). The death penalty doesn't deter - if it did, our 
murder rate wouldn't be what it is - it comes too long after the crime to be 
considered punishment, and it is not justice. It is vengeance. And we need to 
end it.


(source: Opinion; Scott MartelleLos Angeles Times)








USA:

Appealing the death sentence? On a good day it's at least a 10 year process



The Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute is home to more than 1,000 of the 
country's most hardened criminals.


An official with the United States Department of Justice confirms 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., ORE., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 10



CALIFORNIA:

Defendant makes 1st appearance in teen shootingA Riverside Poly High teen 
was shot to death in 2012. A co-defendant is in state prison and will answer 
charges at a later date




1 of 2 defendants charged in the shooting death of a Riverside Poly High School 
student nearly 3 years ago appeared in court Friday afternoon, Feb. 6, but his 
arraignment was postponed.


Riverside County Superior Court Judge Richard T. Fields continued the hearing 
for Cristian Velasquez, 23, of Riverside, to Feb. 20.


He and Manuel Barbarin Jr., 24, of Riverside, are charged with the murder of 
Lareanz Simmons, 14. As convicted felons, they are accused of criminal use of a 
handgun. Enhancement charges, including being a hate crime and a murder 
benefiting a criminal street gang, could add to their sentences if they're 
convicted.


Barbarin is in Wasco State Prison serving a 28-month sentence after being 
convicted of possession of a handgun by a convicted felon and narcotics addict. 
No date has been set yet for his 1st court appearance.


The charges make the defendants eligible for the death penalty, if convicted, 
but no decision has been made by the District Attorney's Office whether to 
prosecute the case as a death penalty case.


Lareanz was a member of the Junior Army ROTC at Poly and his teacher, Army Maj. 
Joe Dominguez, said earlier Friday a few students brought roses and balloons 
into the ROTC class to celebrate the arrests.


On Thursday, Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz said that Barbarin and 
Velasquez are well-known, documented, self-admitted members of the East Side 
Riva gang who killed an innocent teenager gunned down for no other reason than 
his race.


Lareanz was shot to death Feb. 23, 2012, by someone who jumped out of a car as 
the teenager walked to the Georgia Street home where he lived with his 
grandmother. Lareanz was black and not a gang member.


Riverside police said earlier they knew gang members were involved, but they 
had no proof and initially had only anonymous tips that Velasquez and Barbarin 
were responsible. Police said Eastside residents who feared retaliation from 
gangs would not come forward with information.


Velasquez was serving a 1-year, 4-month sentence in jail for felony illegal 
possession of ammunition when he was charged in the murder case. In some court 
cases, his first name is spelled Christian, his last name as Velasques and 
sometimes shows a double last name that includes Rosales.


He was on probation in 2010 for battery on a corrections employee and 
possession of a jail-brewed alcoholic beverage. He was sentenced to 2 years in 
state prison for violating probation and a new conviction of battery on a 
deputy, according to court records. He is due in court next month on a 
violation of probation and a hearing in a 2014 assault case.


Barbarin was sentenced to 150 days in jail in 2011 for obtaining a vehicle by 
theft or extortion, and the next year was sentenced to an additional 90 days in 
jail in a burglary and vandalism case, according to court records.


In 2013, he was allowed to enroll in a diversion program after he pleaded 
guilty to possession of methamphetamine. A 2014 probation violation resulted in 
a 31-day jail sentence.


(source: Press-Enterprise)








OREGON:

Juror's alleged action adds new wrinkle to Eugene death penalty case



It's been nine months since a Lane County jury convicted Eugene resident David 
Ray Taylor of murder and instructed a judge to send him to Oregon's death row.


Case closed, right?

Not quite.

Aside from a potentially lengthy appeals process that will at least temporarily 
delay Taylor's execution, a bizarre allegation of juror misconduct has now 
brought the case back to a courtroom in Eugene.


Part of the issue involves whether a Lane County Circuit Court clerk who served 
as an alternate juror in Taylor's trial lied under oath when she told attorneys 
during the jury selection process that she knew really nothing about the case 
at the time - despite an email that suggests she felt Taylor needs to die.


While that's a potentially criminal allegation, there's an even bigger question 
now under investigation.


It deals with whether the now-former court clerk - who as an alternate heard 
all trial evidence but did not participate in the jury's closed-doors 
discussions that produced the unanimous verdicts last May - said anything to 
other jurors during Taylor's trial that might have influenced the subsequent 
deliberations.


The Oregon Supreme Court in January ordered a probe into the matter, which 
first arose last fall when Lane County Circuit Judge Charles Zennache obtained 
a copy of an email that Holly Moser purportedly sent to another person about 
her jury summons. The email was written last February, w months before Moser 
was picked to serve as an alternate in the capital murder case.


The email recites the basic allegations against Taylor and mentions that 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 3



CALIFORNIAdeath row inmate dies

Death row inmate from Tulare County dies of natural causes


Death row inmate Charles Keith Richardson, 52, 1 of 2 men found guilty in the 
rape and murder of 11-year-old April Holley in Tulare County, has died.


The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation made the 
announcement Tuesday. He died of natural causes at the treatment center at 
Corcoran State Prison.


Richardson was sentenced to death in 1992 and had been on death row at San 
Quentin State Prison, but he was transferred to Corcoran because it has a 
licensed medical treatment facility for maximum security inmates, deputy press 
secretary Terry Thornton said.


April's murder on Dec. 3, 1988, was one of the most notorious crimes in Tulare 
County history.


Tammy Holley, April's sister, was 20 when April was killed.

Hallelujah, thank you God, Holley said when she learned that Richardson had 
died.


She said she thinks of April often: It hurts today, like the day I lost my 
sister.


Retired Tulare County District Attorney Phillip Cline prosecuted the case 
against Richardson when he was assistant district attorney.


It was a notorious case and a difficult case, but justice was done in this 
case, Cline said.


The California Supreme Court upheld the death penalty sentence against 
Richardson in 2008.


April's body was found in the family's squalid home in Matheny Tract by Roger 
Rummerfield, a friend of the family who went to the Holley home to use the 
bathroom. He testified that she was clothed only with a shirt and her face was 
partially covered with water.


She had been raped, sodomized and killed by drowning, medical experts 
testified.


She was a nice little girl, Rummerfield said Tuesday from his home in 
Modesto. She had her whole life taken from her. She didn't do anybody any 
wrong.


Richardson abruptly left the area but was arrested about a week later.

If April were alive today, she would be 37. Her mother, Naomi, died 5 years 
ago.


In 1996, Steven Allen Brown, 46, a co-conspirator, was sentenced to death in 
the case and is on death row. In June, the California Supreme Court upheld the 
death penalty against Brown.


(source: Fresno Bee)

**

AG Files Opening Brief in Jones v. Chappell California Death Penalty Appeal


The California Attorney General filed her opening brief on December 1, 
beginning the long and drawn-out process of appealing the District Court's 
order vacating Jones; death sentence and invalidating California's death 
penalty. (Jones v. Chappell, No. CV 09-02158-CJC (CD Calif. 7/16/14); Jones v. 
Chappell, No. 14-56302 (9th Cir. 12/01/2014)) The decision and is discussed at 
http://images.law.com/sites/jamesching/2014/07/18/ninth-circuit-preview-jones-v-chappell-invalidates-california-death-penalty/#ixzz3KmG2V9Bn.


The AG's opening brief simply begins the appeals process and the Ninth Circuit 
appeal will not be completed within a year. This is especially so because the 
District Court stayed Jones' sentence until the completion of the appeal and 
therefore Jones has no incentive to hurry the appeal.


The opinion, by ruling directly on the validity of the death penalty itself, 
rather than on procedural matters involved in its implementation, is the 1st 
state-wide invalidation of the death penalty issued during the Attorney 
General's current term and many viewed the handling of the case as an 
indication of the AG's commitment to the death penalty.


As District Attorney of San Francisco, the AG had declined to seek the death 
penalty against a cop killer, stating that her opposition was a principle that 
she considered non-negotiable. At that time, her was partly based on its 
being applied disproportionately to members of minority groups, something she 
learned about growing up in Berkeley. 
(http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/12/us/killing-of-officer-stirs-death-penalty-debate.html)


As AG, she declined defense of Proposition 8, the gay marriage initiative. The 
defense of the death penalty in Jones, then, was no less than a matter of 
putting professional responsibility over personal politics. 
(http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-death-penalty-kamala-harris-appeal-20140824-story.html) 
Based on this, the Jones case brought up the possibility that the AG would not 
defend the death penalty based on her personal scruples.


The basic facts of the Jones case are undisputed. Jones was convicted of 
1st-degree murder and rape accomplished with use of a knife. He had been 
released on parole after a conviction for rape and burglary 10 months before 
the murder. After Jones was sentenced to death in April 1995, his sentence was 
affirmed on March 17, 2003 by the California Supreme Court. (People v. Jones, 
29 Cal. 4th 1229 (2003))


After certiorari was denied by the United States Supreme Court, the judgment 
became final on October 21, 2003. (Jones v. California, 540 U.S. 952 (2003)) In 
total, 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 25


CALIFORNIA:

Tracking led to confession in deaths of 4 prostitutes, officials say


Old-fashioned detective work and high-tech data gathering led investigators to 
track down the 2 men now charged with killing at least 4 female prostitutes who 
were swept off the streets of Orange County, according to grand jury testimony.


The body of the final victim was found on a conveyor belt at a trash sorting 
facility. Items found with the body pointed Anaheim police to an industrial 
garbage bin where they believed the woman had been dumped, the testimony 
revealed.


From there, police used the GPS tracking devices of registered sex offenders 
and the cellphone records of the missing women to help identify 2 career 
criminals as the possible killers.


The phone records of the men themselves - mostly rapid-fire text messages - 
offer a gruesome play by play leading up to the final victim's death last 
March, a phone records analyst told the grand jury.


Bye-Bye, kitty, one of the suspects texts the other the night it's believed 
the woman was killed, according to testimony.


Franc Cano, 28, and Steven Dean Gordon, 45, are now charged with raping and 
murdering four women and could face the death penalty if convicted.


Hundreds of pages of grand jury testimony made public Monday outline the case 
that detectives built against the pair of convicted child molesters who police 
say prowled the streets of Santa Ana and Anaheim looking for women. The men are 
set to appear in court Jan. 16 for a pretrial hearing.


The crimes date back to the fall of 2013, when Kianna Jackson, 20, vanished 
shortly after speaking to her mother while taking a bus to Santa Ana to keep a 
court date.


20 days later, Josephine Monique Vargas, a 34-year-old mother of 3, left a 
relative's birthday party to walk to a market and never returned.


And 20 days after that, Martha Anaya, 27, asked her boyfriend to pick up their 
child from school so that she could work - which, when she was desperate for 
cash, sometimes meant looking for customers along East 1st Street, relative 
said.


Though Santa Ana police investigated the cases, the women were never found, 
their disappearances never explained.


It was the discovery of Jarrae Estepp's battered body at the Anaheim trash 
facility, identified by a tattoo of her mother's name on her bruised neck, that 
caused detectives to conclude the cases were related, and most likely the work 
of a serial killer.


The whole thing unravels and becomes the case that we have here today, Deputy 
Dist. Atty. Larry Yellin told jurors.


Scanning the GPS monitoring devices for all registered sex offenders in the 
area, detectives testified that they found only one person who was near the 
Beach Boulevard location when Estepp used her cellphone for the last time and 
at the trash bin when it's believed her body was dumped: That was Franc Cano.


His GPS data also matched the place and date of disappearance for the other 3 
women, according to the grand jury testimony.


Police set up around-the-clock surveillance on Cano, according to testimony, 
and lured him to the police by saying he needed to do his monthly check-in, 
required of registered homeless sex offenders. On his way, undercover officers 
said they saw Cano toss out a piece of chewing gum that they quickly gathered 
up as possible DNA evidence. During the meeting, they also took a mouth swab. 
Prosecutors said there was a match with DNA found on Estepp's body.


After identifying Steven Dean Gordon as a possible second suspect, he was taken 
into custody and confessed during a 13-hour interview, according to testimony.


Det. Julissa Trapp said that during the interview, Gordon picked all 4 women 
out of a photo lineup and carefully put them in the order they disappeared. 
Trapp testified that he knew roughly when each had been killed and pointed out 
to her that a 5th victim appeared to be missing from the lineup. That person 
has never been identified.


At first, Gordon left Cano's involvement out of his account, Trapp said. But 
she said he later revised his story and described Cano as an active, aggressive 
participant in the killings.


Recounting his exchange with the first woman, Kianna Jackson, Gordon allegedly 
confessed that he picked her up on Harbor Boulevard with Cano hiding in the 
back seat and took her to an industrial area the two were known to frequent. 
Gordon said he decided to strangle her when he realized that her street name 
Kayla was the same as his daughter's, Trapp testified.


Trapp testified that Gordon told her that hearing the name triggered him.

One by one, he continued through his account of each of the killings, according 
to the testimony. Vargas was kind of crazy and pulled on the car's steering 
wheel, he told Trapp. Anaya was the one that put up the most fight.


After the men allegedly picked up Estepp in Anaheim and drove her to the 
industrial area, testimony showed the men exchanged a 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA, US MIL.

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 6


CALIFORNIA:

Hit man in 'Yom Kippur murders' dies of natural causes on death row


A San Quentin State Prison inmate convicted in the murder-for-hire deaths of a 
Brentwood couple in 1985, dubbed the Yom Kippur murders, died Wednesday of 
natural causes, authorities said.


Steven Homick, 74, died at a nearby hospital, according to California 
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.


The former Los Angeles police officer was sentenced to death in 1995 for the 
murders of Gerald and Vera Woodman. They were gunned down Sept. 25, 1985, while 
parking their Mercedes after a dinner marking the end of Yom Kippur.


Authorities said Gerald Woodman opened the door to his car and was fatally shot 
by Homick, armed with a .38-caliber pistol. Woodman, 67, was struck twice, and 
Vera Woodman, 63, 3 times.


Authorities determined that Homick and his brother Robert Homick, a Westside 
attorney, were hired by the couple's sons as hit men.


They were both convicted of 1st-degree murder, but Robert Homick was sentenced 
to life in prison.


1 of the couple's sons, Neil Woodman, was sentenced to 25 years to life for his 
role. A 2nd son, Stewart, was convicted of 1st-degree murder and given a life 
sentence. He escaped a possible death sentence by agreeing to testify against 
Neil.


The case also gained notoriety as the ninja murders because a witness 
confused a black-hooded sweatshirt worn by one of the assailants with the garb 
worn by ninjas.


At the time of the slayings, the Woodman family was in a bitter business 
dispute.


Prosecutors said the Woodman brothers expected to collect $506,000 from their 
mother's insurance policy. They said Neil and Stewart Woodman needed the money 
to prop up a failing Chatsworth-based plastic company their father had founded.


Since 1978 when California reinstated the death penalty, 65 condemned inmates 
have died from natural causes, 23 committed suicide and 13 have been executed. 
1 was executed in Missouri and 6 have died from other causes, the state 
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said.


There are 749 people on California's death row.

(source: Los Angeles Times)






USA:

Court will cast wide net for bombing trial's jury


In a matter of weeks, the federal court in Boston will be looking for people 
over 18 to perform a civil service for about 5 months, with compensation of 
about $40 a day. If you are 70 or older you can refuse, and active duty 
soldiers, police officers, or firefighters won???t be asked to serve, either.


But if you can speak and read English, you could be enlisted, and unless you 
have an extreme hardship - such as a young child to care for, or a terminally 
ill relative - you have few chances of being excused.


Those who make the final list will become part of one of the most significant 
trials the country has seen in recent times, one that will become part of the 
history of the Boston Marathon bombings and their aftermath.


Jury selection in the case of accused Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is 
slated to begin in January, and US District Court Judge George A. O'Toole Jr. 
plans to begin by calling at least 1,000 people to the court for what could be 
a long, complex process to impanel a jury of 12, with 6 alternates.


Most people from Eastern Massachusetts could qualify, as long as they assure 
lawyers and the judge that they are capable of handing out the death penalty, 
if the punishment is warranted.


The unique part about this case is you need what's called a death-qualified 
jury, said Robert Sheketoff, a prominent Boston lawyer. You have to find 
people who are willing to impose the death penalty.


Tsarnaev and admitted serial killer Gary Lee Sampson, who goes before a jury in 
February, both face the possibility of the death penalty. That is a rarity in 
Massachusetts, where there is no death penalty for state crimes.


A Boston Globe poll in July found that 62 % of respondents supported US 
Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to seek the death penalty for Tsarnaev, 
while 29 % opposed.


O'Toole in September rejected a defense request to relocate the trial, ensuring 
that a local jury will be seated at the courthouse in South Boston, only a few 
miles from the Boston Marathon finish line. That raises the possibility that 
potential jurors could also have a personal connection to the bombings because 
they were at the Marathon that day, know someone who was, or know someone 
involved in the extraordinary manhunt afterward.


I bet you everybody you know is only three degrees of separation from someone 
who was there, said David Hoose, a Northhampton-based attorney who specializes 
in death penalty cases. If people are honest, and I think most people are, I 
think it's going to be very difficult to get most people to say, 'I'm not going 
to be influenced by the emotional reaction of what was going on.'


With the trial slated to begin Jan. 5, legal analysts outlined for the Globe 
the 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news:----CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 19


CALIFORNIA:

Motive for fatal knife attack on Pasadena couple still unknown


Jacob Bersson accepted his cousin's offer and moved to California from Florida 
in June.


He told a friend he needed change and it was a good opportunity. He described 
how nice people the Bressler's were and how good a time he was having.


The 29-year-old now stands accused of stabbing to death the Pasadena couple who 
opened their home to him - his 2nd cousin, Chefs Center general manager Larry 
Bressler, and Bressler's wife, Denise.


Wearing a county jail jumpsuit of a yellow top and blue pants, a handcuffed 
Bersson appeared Friday at Pasadena Superior Court to answer to 2 murder 
charges. But his arraignment was continued to Nov. 3 so he could be assigned an 
attorney.


Unlike his profile picture on Facebook, Bersson wasn't wearing glasses, had a 
mustache and the beginnings of a beard. He spoke clearly when asked questions 
by the judge.


In addition to the two counts of murder, the criminal complaint includes an 
allegation that Bersson personally used a knife to commit the killings. Because 
there is a special circumstance allegation of multiple murders, he could face 
the death penalty or life in prison without parole. The District Attorney's 
Office will decide later if it will seek the death penalty.


Bersson stayed with the Bresslers in the 200 block of North Madison Avenue in 
Pasadena. For reasons still unknown, authorities allege he forced his way into 
the couple's bedroom and stabbed them with a kitchen knife on Oct. 13.


Larry Bressler summoned help by calling 9-1-1 around 6:20 a.m. He identified 
Bersson as the suspect and told police his cousin left the apartment.


Police found Bersson in bloody clothing and with a cut on his left arm about a 
block away. Pasadena fire officials described his injury as minor.


Laura Simpson, who is Larry Bressler's niece, described him as a good-hearted 
person who loved music, food and cared about others.


Everyone is shocked, Simpson said.

He was wonderful, funny, always laughing. He was a good person. Denise was 
this tiny sweet lady. She had a beautiful voice, taught piano a long time. They 
were a nice happy couple.


She only met Bersson once when they were children. He was a distant cousin to 
her.


Larry Bressler's mother Ellin Snow, 75, who lives near Seattle, Washington, 
knew Bersson was living with her son and her daughter-in-law. Her son often 
called her.


Her impression was Bersson was somewhat lost and that he needed some direction.

Snow said she didn't really know him.

I can tell you Jacob came from one of the loving families I know, Snow said. 
She described Bersson's mother and grandmother as truly loving people.


Snow said she loved her daughter-in-law, Denise, very much.

She was sweet, loving. She was a dear person to me, Snow said.

Larry Bressler was joyful, loving, gregarious, a wonderful cook, creative and 
artistic, according to his mother.


I called him my Larry Boy. From the time he was my baby, he was a wonderful 
guy to me and what I'm finding out, to a lot of friends, she said.


Snow said she always knew her son cared about people but she didn't realize how 
he was a big part of people's lives until she saw the emails and comments from 
his friends.


It also didn't surprise her that Larry Bressler extended a helping hand to 
Bersson.


News that Bersson is suspected of 2 murders shocked Chris Phillips, who has 
known the 29-year-old since middle school. He said Bersson isn't a violent 
person, wasn't the type to throw temper tantrums and loves animals.


My heart goes out to his cousin and his cousin's family. I'm just in shock, 
Phillips said. Such a tragedy. I'm so sorry. I can't believe this has 
happened.


He said no one could believe it when he told them.

Phillips wondered if drugs were involved.

But he was someone who would experiment with psychedelic drugs, Phillips 
said. I know he experimented. Drugs that mess with your mind, He was into 
mind-bending stuff.


The stabbings happened in the morning. He pointed out that waking up at 6 a.m. 
wasn't normal for Bersson.


The kid would stay up late and go to bed at 2 or 3 am., Phillips said.

A couple of weeks ago, he said Bersson started posting really weird stuff on 
Facebook.


He said Bersson wrote about getting up in the middle of the night, seeing a 
praying mantis and taking a picture of it. Phillips said there was a 
description of how Bersson felt like he was the praying mantis.


Phillips mentioned an Oct. 5 posting by Bersson.

He says, 'Now I fully understand why as a kid my favorite video games were 
ones where the protagonist descends into dark labyrinth and confronts demonic 
formations,' Phillips read. Now that is kind of odd to me. He doesn't speak 
like that.


Bersson has gone through a lot, according to Phillips.

He said Bersson has been battling depression since high school and was obese.

Bersson was happy when he lost a lot of 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 11


CALIFORNIA:

Hearing set for man accused in Mecca hate-crime deathBrother: Juan was 
bringing home dinner for the family when he was shot



A Sept. 5 preliminary hearing was scheduled Monday for a Thermal resident 
accused of killing a 20-year-old man because of his sexual orientation.


Miguel Angel Bautista Ramirez, 25, of Thermal was arrested July 28 in Coachella 
for the deadly shooting of Juan Ceballos in Mecca on July 13.


Ramirez is being held without bail. A bail hearing that was scheduled to be 
held Tuesday was postponed to Sept. 5.


The criminal complaint filed July 30 charging Ramirez with murder includes a 
hate crime allegation that Ramirez killed Ceballos because of a bias against 
the victim's sexual orientation. An amended complaint was filed Aug. 1 with 
broader language that includes sexual orientation, disability, nationality and 
race.


Ramirez also faces a special circumstance allegation of lying in wait and 
committing a hate crime. He is potentially eligible for the death penalty or 
life imprisonment without parole if convicted.


News Channel 3 and CBS Local 2's Laura Yanez sat down with the Ceballos family. 
They say Juan was the son of a farm worker and the eldest of 5 children. 
Ceballos was bisexual, according to his 17-year-old brother Sergio Ceballos. 
The College of the Desert student worked 2 jobs, 1 at TA of America gas station 
and at Pizza Hut.


His brother, Sergio, told Yanez that Juan was bringing home pizza dinner for 
his family when he was shot in the front yard.


He was coming home from work. He had pizza, said Sergio. He was messaging 
me. As soon as he parked it happened.


Hear more from the family here.

The Riverside County District Attorney's Office is not commenting about the 
facts of the case or a possible motive for the killing, spokesman John Hall 
said.


Riverside County sheriff's deputies were called to the 65-000 block of Dale 
Kiler Road in Mecca shortly before midnight July 13 and found Ceballos with 
several gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene, sheriff's Sgt. Jim 
Erickson said.


(source: KESQ news)






USA:

Death penalty decision on LAX gunman due in fall


Federal prosecutors should know by mid-November whether they will seek to 
execute the man charged in a deadly shooting rampage at Los Angeles 
International Airport.


A prosecutor told a judge Monday that the case has been forwarded to the 
attorney general's office in Washington for review.


Paul Ciancia has pleaded not guilty to murdering a Transportation Security 
Administration officer and 10 other federal charges.


Public defenders say they may not be ready in time to present their own case to 
the Department of Justice on the death penalty.


There are over 10,000 pieces of evidence and 150 DVDs with material in the case 
so far.


The judge says he wants the case to go to trial next year, but the defense says 
it could take longer to prepare.


(source: Associated Press)

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[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., US MIL., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 6



CALIFORNIA:

Seal Beach killer will face death penalty despite prosecutor 'misconduct'


An Orange County judge has ruled that prosecutors had engaged in misconduct in 
the case of a man who killed 8 people at a Seal Beach salon but declined to 
dismiss the death penalty against him or to bar the district attorney's office 
from trying the case.


Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals did grant a motion by the defense to 
prevent prosecutors from presenting in court recorded statements allegedly made 
by defendant Scott Dekraai to a jailhouse informant.


Prosecutors had earlier said they would no longer seek to use the evidence.

The failures in this case, although disappointing, even disheartening, to any 
interested member of this community, were negligent rather than malicious, 
Goethals wrote in a 12-page ruling.


The ruling stems from a months-long hearing in which Dekraai's defense 
attorneys argued that prosecutors had engaged in widespread misconduct, 
including unconstitutionally deploying jailhouse informants and concealing 
their work from defense attorneys.


But after hearing months of testimony from prosecutors, law enforcement and 
others and reviewing thousands of pages of documents, Goethals said the conduct 
did not rise to the level of outrageous government conduct that would have 
required more serious sanctions.


Dekraai pleaded guilty in May to 8 counts of murder and 1 count of attempted 
murder in the 2011 mass shooting and is now awaiting a hearing to determine 
whether he should face death for the crimes.


During the misconduct hearing, which began in March, members of the district 
attorney's office acknowledged that they had failed to turn over evidence in 
recent cases.


In June, the district attorney's office agreed to vacate the murder conviction 
of a Santa Ana man following revelations that emerged from the hearing that key 
evidence was not turned over. And prosecutors have said additional defendants 
will be notified about evidence that was not turned over.


But they said the failures were the result of lack of legal understanding, 
heavy caseloads and intervention by federal agents among other reasons.


In his ruling, Goethals said he was unconvinced by those arguments.

Time and again this court heard prosecutors explain, in so many words, that 
their failures in this and other cases were the result of a misunderstanding of 
the law; or heavy caseloads; or complex investigations; or orders they received 
from federal authorities, he wrote. None of these explanations constitutes a 
legitimate excuse for the failures demonstrated.


Though he stopped short of adopting the most serious remedies, Goethals found 
prosecution and law enforcement failures in several areas.


He found that informants and inmates were at times intentionally moved inside 
the Orange County jail by staff...in the hope that inmates would make 
incriminating statements to those informants.


The movements were not documented by law enforcement, he wrote. Additionally, 
he wrote, false documentation was probably provided to jailhouse informants so 
that they could increase their credibility with targeted inmates.


The activities should have been disclosed to defense counsel, Goethals wrote.

The judge also said he found the cavalier attitude of one gang prosecutor 
toward the discovery of evidence patently inappropriate and legally 
inadequate.


And he faulted Dekraai's prosecutor, Assistant Dist. Atty. Dan Wagner, for not 
looking into the criminal history and relationship with law enforcement of the 
informant he hoped would testify against Dekraai.


Soon after Dekraai arrived in jail, informant Fernando Perez told deputies and 
prosecutors the defendant, who was housed in the cell next to him, had talked 
about his crimes. Officials responded by putting a recording device in 
Dekraai's cell that captured their conversations.


D.A. ran illegal snitch operation in O.C. jail, attorneys say

When prosecutors sought to use the information, they did not tell Dekraai's 
defense attorney's about Perez's long history as a jailhouse informant. And 
Wagner later filed a sworn statement saying Perez would not be given any 
leniency for his efforts on the case.


The statement, Goethals wrote, was at least seriously misleading. But he said 
he believed Wagner when he testified that he was never intentionally false.


Susan Kang Schroeder, chief of staff for Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas, said the 
D.A.'s office is looking to reduce caseloads and has implemented additional 
training for prosecutors in response to the hearing.


The D.A. agrees that errors were made, that there were mistakes that were 
made, but none of them were intentional or malicious, she said.


Lt. Jeff Hallock, a spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department, said 
in a written statement that the department has also made changes based on the 
issues raised by Goethals, including requiring more detailed 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 31



CALIFORNIA:

DA could seek death penalty in taqueria slayings


Giovanni Pacheco's allegedly low IQ could become a factor in his defense should 
the Monterey County District Attorney's Office opt to seek the death penalty in 
his triple murder case, defense attorney Monique Hill said Friday.


Pacheco, 22, of Salinas, is accused of killing 3 people and attempting to kill 
4 more in a shooting last year outside a Williams Road taqueria.


Wrapping a 2-day preliminary hearing, Monterey County Superior Court Judge 
Julie Culver ruled Friday there is sufficient evidence to hold Pacheco for 
trial on all charges, which also include special allegations for the use of 
firearms and multiple murders.


The latter allegation makes the case death-penalty eligible. Prosecutor Rolando 
Mazariegos would only say DA Dean Flippo will make a decision in the next few 
months on whether to pursue the ultimate sentence.


On Thursday, Pacheco's IQ of 59, as stated by Hill, earned the 22-year-old 
special court accommodation. Culver promised to speak slowly and repeat herself 
should Pacheco become confused.


Pacheco's IQ has yet to be proven in court, but Hill said she ordered a test 
herself after speaking with her client. Should the DA decide to go after the 
death penalty, Pacheco's IQ could come into greater play, she said.


Earlier this week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Florida's IQ cutoff was too 
rigid to spare mentally incapacitated individuals the death penalty. In the 
Florida case, the cutoff was 70.


Friday continued with further testimony from Salinas police Detective Rodolfo 
Roman, who said Thursday the argument, fight and eventual mass shooting started 
with a dispute over a cigarette.


John Doe 5 said Mr. Pacheco asked him why he'd given a cigarette to his 
girlfriend, Roman said.


In the 1st hour of Aug. 5, a shoving match then ensued between 7 or 8 men, 
Roman said. Pacheco then pulled a firearm from his waistband and shot into the 
air before firing into the crowd, Roman said.


Pacheco and Ernesto Ramos, his stepfather, then left the bloodied parking lot, 
Roman said. Ramos, who was captured on audio recording en route to the Salinas 
Police Department, told his wife he was attempting to calm Pacheco, Roman said.


Later that morning, Pacheco's brother picked him up in Greenfield, Roman said. 
Officers stopped the vehicle outside Pacheco's residence several hours later, 
holding the brothers at gunpoint, Roman said.


Inside, officers recovered clothing Pacheco had been wearing earlier that day, 
Roman said. That same clothing - a black jacket and baseball cap - are visible 
in video surveillance footage.


Under cross-examination, Hill harped on the fact officers hadn't recovered the 
firearm involved in the shooting and that Pacheco was one of few whose clothing 
was collected in the aftermath.


Salinas police Officer Ernesto Sanchez later testified to a conversation he had 
with Jane Doe 1, a 53-year-old woman who was shot in the buttocks inside Taco's 
Choice.


Jane Doe 1 said she, her sister and a group of male friends were at Taco's 
Choice when she heard a heated argument outside. A male friend who went to 
investigate later told her to go back inside, that everything was OK, Sanchez 
said.


However, everything was not OK, Jane Doe 1 said, according to Sanchez. She 
said she saw her friend being pushed around by several other men, Sanchez said.


As she turned to go inside, Jane Doe 1 said she heard shots fired and felt 
pressure near her head. Diving for the ground, the woman felt sudden pain to 
her back and buttocks, Sanchez said.


Hill, while cross examining Sanchez, emphasized the questions he didn't ask. 
When Sanchez followed up with Jane Doe 1 in the hospital, he acknowledged he 
didn't ask if she was on painkillers nor where the woman's sister was.


2 sisters, one 22 years old and the other a teenager younger than 18, later 
testified they'd sat with Pacheco and his family in the hours leading up to the 
shooting. Also in attendance was the sisters' cousin, the cousin's boyfriend 
and the elder sister's boyfriend.


Both sisters acknowledged drinking that night - a point Hill continued to bring 
up throughout the preliminary hearing.


Shortly after midnight, the younger sister said she and her cousin went outside 
to smoke. There, a man in a black cowboy hat asked if they wanted a cigarette. 
The girl said her cousin accepted.


The testimony contradicted interviews several officers testified to Thursday in 
which other witnesses said the girls approached the man asking for cigarettes.


Hill later questioned why the younger sister was 100 % certain Pacheco was 
the man involved in the shooting.


He looks the same, the girl responded.

Wrapping up his presentation, Mazariegos brought into scrutiny the question of 
moment of reflection - a legal term for the opportunity a potential killer 
has to stop himself before completing the action. Ultimately, this case 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., ORE., USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 12



CALIFORNIA:

Death Penalty Sought In Forestville Triple Murder Over Marijuana Deal


Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch said she will seek the death 
penalty for Mark Cappello, the alleged gunman in a triple homicide during a 
marijuana deal in Forestville last year.


It will be up to a jury of Sonoma County residents to determine whether the 
death penalty is appropriate in this case involving the alleged execution of 3 
unarmed individuals for the purpose of financial gain, Ravitch said in a news 
release late this afternoon.


It's the 1st time the Sonoma County District Attorney's Office has sought the 
death penalty since Robert Scully was sentenced to death row for the murder of 
Sonoma County sheriff???s Deputy Frank Trejo in 1995.


Cappello, 47, of Central City, Colorado, is charged with the shooting murders 
of Raleigh Butler, 26, a former Sebastopol resident, Todd Klarkowski, 42, of 
Boulder, Colorado and Richard Lewin, 46, of Huntington, New York on Feb. 5, 
2013.


Cappello's co-defendants Odin Dwyer, 39, of Denver, Colorado, and Odin's father 
Francis Dwyer, 66, of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, also are charged with 
the murders and being an accessory. The murder complaint alleges the killings 
were for financial gain, were committed while lying in wait and involved 
multiple victims.


Investigators believe Klarkowski, Lewin and Cappello traveled separately to 
California to buy marijuana from Butler, and that Cappello recruited the Dwyers 
to transport it to Colorado.


Cappello allegedly shot Klarkowski, Butler and Lewin in Butler's mother's 
Forestville cabin while the victims were packaging the marijuana for transport. 
Then Cappello and Odin Dwyer allegedly left the cabin with 69 pounds of 
processed marijuana.


Cappello and the Dwyers then allegedly split the marijuana into thirds, but 
Cappello then gave his share to the Dwyers and told them to give him $90,000 
when they sold it, according to testimony at Cappello's preliminary hearing.


The Dwyers, who do not face the death penalty, waived their right to a 
preliminary hearing. All 3 defendants are scheduled for a trial on May 23.


(source: CBS news)

*

Death penalty sought in Sonoma County triple killing


Sonoma County prosecutors said Monday that they are seeking the death penalty 
against a man accused of a triple killing near Forestville tied to a marijuana 
deal that went bad.


Mark Cappello, 47, was seeking money when he shot and killed Raleigh Butler, 
26, of Sebastopol; Richard Lewin, 46, of Huntington, N.Y.; and Todd Klarkowski, 
42, of Boulder, Colo. on Feb. 5, 2013, said District Attorney Jill Ravitch.


Cappello has been charged with murder and the special circumstances of murder 
for financial gain, murder by lying in wait and alleging committing multiple 
murders.


I have decided that this case warrants seeking the ultimate penalty, Ravitch 
said, adding that it would be up to a jury to decide whether Cappello, if 
convicted, will die by lethal injection or instead be sent to prison for the 
rest of his life with no chance of parole.


The victims intended to buy a large quantity of marijuana but were shot dead 
instead in a home rented by Butler's mother, authorities said.


Cappello, of Central City, Colo., was arrested in Alabama nine days after the 
slain men were found.


2 other defendants, Francis Dwyer, 66, and his son, Odin Leonard Dwyer, 39, are 
also facing trial. The father and son were seen traveling with Cappello through 
Wyoming, Nevada and into Napa County in the days before the victims were found, 
authorities said.


Ravitch said this is the first time Sonoma County prosecutors have sought the 
death penalty since the 1995 shotgun slaying of Deputy Frank Trejo. Robert 
Scully Jr. was sentenced to death two years later and is still on death row.


(source: Associated Press)

**

Jury to decide if killer gets death in 2004 murders and robbery spree


A gang member convicted of killing 3 men during a string of robberies in 2004 
has had a record of violent crime including pulling off 2 other armed heists, 
fought with other inmates, had a prior weapons conviction and punched his 
pregnant girlfriend during a fight, prosecutors said.


As they argued for the death penalty, deputy district attorneys Frank Santoro 
and Tamar Tokat played surveillance video of a store robbery where a clerk 
begged Leonardo Cisneros and an accomplice not to hurt them plus showed photos 
of the slain victims Joseph Molina of Whittier and Dianqui Wu of San Gabriel.


They listed the number of times razors were found in Cisneros' cell while in 
custody and also played a recording of his girlfriend, Mitzi's Oso, crying and 
telling a friend that Cisneros hit her on the face.


Tokat told the jury they will also hear from relatives of the victims.

She said the jury heard about the last few minutes of Wu and Molina's life 
during the trial.


The 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 16



CALIFORNIA:

Favor it or not, death penalty changes needed


Few topics divide California as consistently or as evenly as the death penalty. 
The last time voters had their say on it, they opted by a vote of just over 
51-49 percent to keep it around.


How avidly do supporters of capital punishment maintain their opinions? 2 years 
ago, when the Proposition 34 ballot initiative aimed to dump capital punishment 
in California and disband the state's only death row, in San Quentin Prison, 
its supporters raised $7.3 million while those wanting to keep the death 
penalty had barely $300,000. The no's prevailed despite that huge financial 
disadvantage.


So death row persists, with 736 denizens at last count, all convicted of the 
most vicious crimes, some of them repeat killers. As of March 1, 233 had killed 
children and 42 were cop killers.


It takes so long for any of them to exhaust their appeals that the most common 
causes of death on death row are linked to old age. It's just wrong for these 
people to live that long after they have deprived others of their lives and 
taken the victims away from their families, says former Gov. Pete Wilson.


While the death penalty is opposed by groups from the California Nurses Assn. 
to the League of Women Voters and by every Roman Catholic and Episcopal bishop 
in the state, it is still reality, and the reasons for making it less time 
consuming include everything from finances to better justice for convicts. No 
one is talking about a rush to the gas chamber here.


Little has ever united Wilson and his predecessor and fellow Republican George 
Deukemjian with Democratic ex-Gov. Gray Davis. But all back a proposed new 
ballot initiative to clean up the capital punishment process.


How flawed is that process? It normally takes 5 years before a person under 
sentence of death has a lawyer assigned to his (almost all are men) case. It 
often can take 4 times that long before death penalty appeals are heard by the 
state Supreme Court, even longer before they reach the U.S. Supreme Court.


One argument against the death penalty is that California has the nation's 
highest rate of wrongful convictions, running as high as 7 percent in some 
categories. But that???s also an argument against the current inefficient 
administration of capital punishment cases. For the longer the appeals process 
drags on, the longer a victim of a mistaken or manipulated conviction is 
penalized. Appointing appeals lawyers right after death sentences are dispensed 
would likely cut that time.


The 30 years it can now take for the entire process to be resolved is also far 
too long for the families of victims, said Davis. They need resolution, too.


Phyllis Loya's son Larry Lasater, an ex-Marine and a policeman in the East San 
Francisco Bay suburb of Pittsburgh who was slain in 2005, is an example of the 
delayed process. My son's killer was sentenced in Aug. 2007, but didn't get an 
appeals lawyer appointed until late in 2011, almost 4 1/2 years, the bereaved 
mother said. Then the lawyer got 9 extensions of the deadline for filing his 
opening brief over the next 2 years. That's ludicrous, it's nonsense.


Kermit Alexander, a former UCLA football player who was a pro-bowl defensive 
back for the San Francisco 49ers, shares her frustration. His mother, sister 
and 2 nephews were murdered in 1984 - 30 years ago - when gang members seeking 
someone else mistakenly invaded their home.


These vultures are still alive, Alexander said. I have not slept well since 
my mother was murdered. He also wants the process speeded.


Then there's the issue of how to house death row inmates, each of whom now gets 
an individual cell, usually outfitted with radio and TV. Backers of the death 
penalty efficiency initiative, led by San Bernardino County District Attorney 
Michael Ramos, want them housed two to a cell, a change the state's 
non-partisan legislative analyst says could save $10 million yearly.


Why should the worst criminals live more comfortably than the general prison 
population? Ramos asks.


While death penalty opponents say this is all strictly about retribution and 
note that killing criminals can't reverse their crimes, most Californians still 
want capital punishment. And if California is going to have it, what sense is 
there in dragging cases out decade after decade because of bureaucratic delays, 
thus frustrating everyone from victims' families to the wrongly convicted?


(source: Handford Sentinel)



Police: Sex Offenders Killed 4 Women While Wearing GPS Ankle Monitors


2 convicted sex offenders who allegedly killed and raped 4 women in Orange 
County while wearing their required GPS monitoring devices may have had 
additional victims, police said Monday.


Steven Dean Gordon, 45, and Franc Cano, 27, who were both described as 
transients who frequented the Anaheim area, were arrested Friday night, Anaheim 
police Lt. Bob Dunn said.

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., ORE., USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 4



CALIFORNIA:

Berkeley Couple Charged In Hatchet Murder Of 'Noteman' Bandit


A Berkeley man and his girlfriend were arraigned in Alameda County Superior 
Court Thursday on special circumstance murder charges for the hatchet killing 
of a man convicted years ago of using polite notes to rob businesses.


Michael Diggs, 28, and Kneitawnye Sessoms, 40, his girlfriend, also of 
Berkeley, were charged in connection with the slaying of 54-year-old Sylvan 
Fuselier, who was found dead at his Berkeley apartment in the 1100 block of 
Addison Street, just east of San Pablo Avenue, at about noon on Feb. 28.


Police had been dispatched there for a welfare check after a community member 
told them that they were concerned because they hadn't seen Fuselier for 
several days.


Berkeley police Sgt. Peter Hong wrote in a probable cause statement that 
Fuselier died from wounds consistent with several sharp instruments, 
including a hatchet.


Fuselier was arrested in 1996 for a series of robberies at businesses that 
involved him handing clerks politely-written notes demanding cash. He was 
dubbed the Noteman Bandit


According to court records cited by the San Francisco Chronicle, Fuselier was 
convicted of 2nd-degree robbery and sentenced to 5 years in prison.


Hong said a surveillance camera at Fuselier's apartment complex filmed him, 
Diggs and Sessoms going into his apartment on Feb. 21, a week before his body 
was found.


The next morning, the camera filmed Sessoms leaving the building and apparently 
wiping off the door handles, according to Hong.


Diggs was filmed leaving the back of the apartment several hours later, he 
said.


Physical evidence indicated that Diggs, who was convicted of carjacking in 
2008, had been inside Fuselier's apartment and on March 12 he was arrested and 
a search of his home turned up an item belonging to Fuselier, Hong wrote.


When Diggs was interviewed on Tuesday he admitted that he and Sessoms had been 
inside Fuselier's home and he confessed to killing the victim with 2 different 
sharp instruments, according to Hong.


Diggs also admitted that he and Sessoms had fled the apartment on the morning 
of Feb. 22 and he had taken Fuselier's property, Hong said.


Sessoms was interviewed by police on Monday and admitted she was the woman 
captured on the video leaving the apartment, according to Hong.


The Alameda County District Attorney's Office has charged Diggs and Sessoms 
with murder and the special circumstances of murder during the course of a 
burglary and robbery.


Diggs was also charged with an enhancement for allegedly using a hatchet to 
kill Fuselier.


The 2 could face the death penalty or life in prison with no possibility of 
parole if convicted. Both are being held without bail.


(source: CBS News)






OREGON:

'God can get you out of anything'; Former death row inmate says faith saving 
him from resentment



Gregory Wilson, once an inmate on Oregon's death row, felt like a cave man 
when he was released last year after 21 years in prison.


A steadfast Catholic faith has helped Wilson manage the rocky re-entry process, 
including complicated cell phones, grocery store scanners and skeptical 
employers. Prayer has allowed him to grapple with the crime and ever-evolving 
punishment that left a young woman dead and his life stalled for decades.


No one denies that Wilson, now 47, was present around the time a Portland 
street kid named Misty Largo was slain in 1992. But there is contention over 
what role he played.


At first convicted of murder and sentenced to death, in 1996 he was acquitted 
of homicide by the Oregon Supreme Court. But kidnapping and assault convictions 
remained. Wilson resolutely refused plea deals for decades, insisting he did 
not take part in the crimes.


A model prisoner from the start, he eventually pled no contest to manslaughter 
on the eve of a third trial, saying his wife had waited for him long enough. 
Though it irked him to stop fighting to proclaim his innocence, the move saved 
an estimated 5 years of trials and got him a set release date.


Wilson grew up in North Portland and was an altar boy at now-closed Queen of 
Peace Church. He attended Peninsula grade school and Jefferson High School. He 
entered the Navy and was assigned to the submarine fleet.


He was 25 at the time of the Largo murder, running with a bad crowd and causing 
trouble, he admits. But killing people was not on his agenda.


In his 1st trial, his lawyers simply put up no defense, even though the 
prosecution's case relied on accomplices to the murder who exchanged testimony 
for greatly reduced sentences. The prosecution also shifted the reported date 
of Largo's death to make it look more like Wilson was guilty.


I couldn't blame the jury, Wilson says.

In 1994, while on death row, Wilson had what he calls an epiphany. He had 
been watching his fellow inmates lapsing into mental and spiritual decay. With 
nightmares beginning to 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 9



CALIFORNIA:

Man who raped and stabbed pregnant newlywed is sentenced to death


A man who raped and fatally stabbed a pregnant newlywed in her Orange County 
apartment has been sentenced to death.


A district attorney's statement says 43-year-old Jason Balcom was sentenced 
Friday for the 1988 attack that killed Malinda Gibbons.


Prosecutors say Gibbons and her husband had just moved from Utah to Costa Mesa 
and she was unpacking when Balcom attacked her.


She was bound, gagged, raped, sodomized and stabbed.

Her husband found her body when he returned from work.

Authorities say 6 days later, Balcom raped another woman in Santa Ana at 
gunpoint then fled to Michigan.


Balcom was sentenced for the Santa Ana rape and for another rape in Michigan.

He was serving a 50-year prison sentence in Michigan when DNA linked him to the 
Gibbons killing.


(source: Sunday World)






USA:

Seeking death sentence in Boston bombing is dead wrong


For all of my critics who have wondered when I would ever disagree with, 
challenge or outright defy U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, this might be 
your day.


Then, again, it might not.

I have the utmost respect for the attorney general and deem him to be an 
excellent student of the law, protector of the Constitution and a loyal 
defender of the current administration's actions on many fronts, including the 
Justice Department encouraging clemency for those sentenced under the harsh 
crack cocaine laws.


But I strongly oppose his decision to seek the death penalty for the suspect in 
the Boston Marathon bombing, 20-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is charged with 
the deaths of three people and injuries to 260 others.


The nature of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this 
decision, Holder said.


This is one instance when I believe he's wrong.

Dead wrong.

I've fought against capital punishment all my adult life and debated against it 
from my high school years.


Yes, I've been challenged on it. Every time there is any heinous crime, locally 
or nationally, I get the same question: If anyone deserves the death penalty, 
don't you think he/she does?


Usually my answer is Yes, but ... I don't think anyone deserves to be put to 
death. A state or a country ought not be in the business of taking a life, no 
matter what the crime is.


Every time someone is executed in this nation, it diminishes us as a people. I 
honestly believe that, and I make no exceptions based on one's nationality or 
the magnitude of the crime.


I'm on record opposing the execution of Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people 
in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.


There's a long list of other notorious killers for whom I've raised my voice, 
objecting to the use of capital punishment in their cases. Among them are Nidal 
Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter; John Allen Muhammad, the Washington-area sniper; 
and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.


Of course, in Texas, which has executed more than 500 people since capital 
punishment was reinstated, I've cried out constantly against this barbaric act. 
It is even more disturbing here because this is a state that has a long 
reputation of convicting innocent people.


Although federal executions are much rarer, it is troubling every time the 
government decides it will seek the ultimate punishment for an individual.


For the young Tsarnaev, the government cites the defendant's lack of remorse 
and the fact that one of the victims was an 8-year-old boy as reasons that 
qualify him for the death penalty.


Prosecutors also pointed out that he received asylum from the United States; 
obtained citizenship and enjoyed the freedoms of a United States citizen; and 
then betrayed his allegiance to the United States by killing and maiming people 
in the United States.


Terrible acts indeed.

The very thought of what happened near the finish line of the Boston Marathon 
last year is painful. To see some of the victims who survived, minus some of 
their limbs, is heartbreaking.


There's no way to comprehend how anyone could plan such an attack on innocent 
people, but then, attacks on innocent people have become a common occurrence in 
our country.


We don't know how to respond to them, except when the guilty parties are 
apprehended we cry for vengeance, not justice.


So, in the eyes of the government - and I'm sure in the eyes of many 
individuals - Tsarnaev, like many before him, deserves to die.


Holder and his prosecutors will make their case and, should Tsarnaev be found 
guilty and be executed, they will declare that justice has been served.


And I will declare that once again the nation itself is a killer.

(source: Bob Ray Sanders is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram)



Is The Death Penalty Dying A Slow Death?


This week, the state of Louisiana delayed the execution of Christopher 
Sepulvado, who was convicted of killing his 6-year-old 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., WASH., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 19



CALIFORNIA:

SoCal Businessman's Killer Faces Death Penalty


A man convicted Aug. 28 of murdering a Southern California businessman in 2008 
now faces the death penalty.


Jurors deliberated for three days before finding Jeffrey Aguilar, 27, guilty of 
the 1st degree murder of Oxnard, Calif., businessman Gurmohinder Singh. Aguilar 
was also found guilty of 2nd-degree robbery and lying in wait.


Aguilar was 1 of 5 defendants charged with the murder of Singh, a 55-year-old 
Indian American father of 2 children, who owned convenience stores and grocery 
stores in Southern California with his brothers Nirmal and Kulwinder.


According to police reports, as Singh walked out of U.S. Bank on the morning of 
Aug. 16, 2008, he was confronted by a man - Aguilar - who immediately shot him 
and took his bag of cash, then ran off on foot. Aguilar had 4 accomplices: 
Mario Cervantes, who allegedly surveilled the area around the bank the night 
before the shooting; Lance Brown, who was convicted in 2010 of being an 
accessory to murder and is currently serving a 3 1/2 year sentence; Christina 
Deleon, Aguilar's girlfriend, who is awaiting trial on murder, 2nd degree 
robbery, and receiving stolen property charges; and Maria Lissette Bucio, 
Aguilar's aunt, who is serving 25 years to life for orchestrating the attack.


Cervantes and Deleon - who are awaiting trial - testified against Aguilar as 
part of a plea-bargaining agreement. Cervantes is facing 22 years in prison, 
while Deleon, who may have been the get-away driver, faces a 20-year sentence.


Prosecutors refuting Bucio's appeal earlier this year said that Singh and his 
brothers owned several check-cashing businesses. Bucio herself had a 
check-cashing store which was doing poorly; she started writing bad checks and 
trafficking stolen goods in an attempt to raise $1 million that she owed to 
several people and businesses, they alleged.


Prosecutors said Bucio talked to Aguilar, a member of a local gang, and 
discussed with her nephew how to get money from Singh. Bucio solicited a gang 
member (Aguilar), selected a target she believed had slighted her (Singh 
refused to buy her stolen goods), noted prosecutors in their argument against 
Bucio's appeal.


Bucio's appeal was denied.

Family and friends charted Singh's journey to financial success during the 
penalty phase of Aguilar's trial. Gurmohinder Singh had come to Camarillo, 
Calif., almost 25 years ago with the dream of owning his own business. He and 
his brothers, Nirmal and Kulwinder, worked together to own a small chain of 
grocery stores, known as GNK, Inc.


He was very happy, Nirmal Singh told the Ventura Star in 2008. He wanted to 
see GNK everywhere. He wanted to open at least 10 stores, and he was working 
hard for that every day. It was his dream.


Gurmohinder Singh was called doc by his friends, as he was a medical doctor 
in India.


Singh leaves behind his brothers, his wife Manjit Kaur, and 2 grown children, 
Jagdeep and Rajdeep.


The penalty phase for Aguilar is expected to conclude this week.

(source: India West)



Moreno Valley Gang Member Charged With Murder of 6-Year-Old


A murder charge was filed Wednesday against a documented gang member who 
allegedly shot a 6-year-old girl to death in Moreno Valley earlier this month.


Keandre Narkie Johnson, 21, appeared in court Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2013. He is 
charged with the murder of Tiana Ricks, 6.


Keandre Narkie Johnson, 21, a known gang member and parolee, was arrested 
without incident Monday in Hemet, according to the Riverside County District 
Attorney's Office.


During a hearing at Riverside Superior Court Wednesday afternoon, Johnson's 
arraignment was postponed to Oct. 1.


Tiana Ricks, of Victorville, and her father, 26-year-old Tyrell Ricks Jr., were 
shot while attending a party at a house in the 25000 block of Harker Lane on 
Sept. 7. Tiana was pronounced dead at Riverside County Regional Medical Center 
after the shooting.


The victims and others were reportedly standing in the driveway about 9:45 p.m. 
when 2 men walked up to them, asked a question and then opened fire.


Johnson was charged with 1 count of murder, 1 count of attempted murder and 
participation in a criminal street gang, the the DA's office said in a news 
release.


He faces allegations that the shooting was committed to further gang activities 
along with other additional allegations that could affect sentencing. He could 
be eligible for the death penalty, a prosecutor said.


Johnson is a documented member of the Edgemont Criminals, a Moreno Valley-based 
street gang, according to the DA's office. He was on parole from a 2011 
burglary conviction and had not reported to his parole officer as required, 
according to the DA's office.


The Riverside County Sheriff's Department called Johnson a self-admitted gang 
member in announcing his arrest Tuesday.


Tiana Ricks' death generated widespread interest, and 2 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., ORE., WASH., US MIL., USA

[Rick Halperin]

July 16



CALIFORNIA:

Reality Check: Future of California Death Penalty Unclear


In California, the capital punishment system has prompted decades of debate, 
from the costliness of the process to the constitutionality of the state's 
3-drug lethal injection method.


Yet despite all the procedural hiccups and complex questions, the subject now 
before both advocates and opponents is much simpler: Will California ever 
execute another prisoner?


I would say that on the probability of the evidence, it is as likely that 
California has seen its last execution in the foreseeable future, as it is that 
executions will resume, said Professor Franklin Zimring, a death penalty and 
criminal justice expert who currently serves as a William C. Simon Professor of 
Law at Berkeley Law School.


The topic is timely because California recently announced that it would no 
longer defend the 3-drug method in court, ending a legal saga that dates back 7 
years.


Professor Zimring observed that if California were really determined to 
continue its death penalty system, defending the 3-drug protocol in state 
court, long after the Supreme Court had approved the method on the federal 
level, was an odd choice.


The real question, posed Zimring, is what took them so long?

The state of California, rather than defend or find the shortest distance 
between 2 points to resume executions, instead pursued a [lengthy] legal 
battle.


Texas, by comparison, Zimring said, went to what I think is a one-drug 
cocktail, very quickly. California fought kicking and screaming through this 
process.


Texas perhaps makes the best comparison because of its large population (second 
only to California) and relative proficiency in performing executions.


According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Texas has executed 500 
people since 1976. California, by contrast, has performed 13 executions in that 
time frame.


In a telling statistic, Zimring says that if you applied the Texas execution 
rate to California's death row inmate population, the golden state would 
experience somewhere between 65 and 70 executions a year.


Oh my, it would create a civil war in California, Zimring opined, alluding to 
those numbers. But, that's why we don't have it.


The professor highlights the comparison with Texas because he says it 
demonstrates both why California's execution rate has been so much lower, 
comparatively, and why resuming capital punishment again in California could 
prove a challenge.


Zimring points to a number of conditions working against a continuation of 
capital punishment in this state:


--Governor Brown's vehement opposition to California's death penalty system

--The state's years-long defense of a 3-drug protocol that could have been 
replaced


--A public that's losing enthusiasm for keeping capital punishment, as the 
results of last year's Prop 34 ballot measure might suggest (the voting total 
was 52 to 48 % in favor of keeping the death penalty)


--And a legal system aimed at providing death row inmates with high-quality, 
expensive legal aid if they can't afford it


These things that look like accidents, and very expensive accidents - the fact 
that we pay for good lawyers [on behalf of capital defendants] that can fight 
the system to the draw - maybe that isn't as much of an accident as it looks 
like, Zimring said.


Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, 
thinks the death penalty will eventually return to California.


They came close to having some executions in California a year or 2 ago, said 
Dieter. The appeals are not endless, and the process is certainly slow but 
it's not interminable.


So what would the process look like for resuming capital punishment?

First, the state would have to outline new regulations for a single-drug 
procedure. According to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation 
Spokesperson Terry Thornton, the CDCR has no timetable for when those 
regulations will be released.


Then once the regulations are issued, there are a series of steps that must be 
completed that could take years to resolve.


According to the ACLU of Northern California, the state must hold a public 
comment period within 60 days of releasing the new protocol, the state must 
then review and respond to each comment, write a modified set of regulations 
based on the comments/concerns, gain approval from the Office of Administrative 
Law and if that happens, and only if that happens, the legal challenges can 
ensue.


How long would that timeline be?

Dieter said the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court estimates that 
executions are probably about 3 years away.


This seems like a reasonable estimate, Dieter said, given that litigation 
under the present protocol has taken 7 years.


Zimring contests the notion California will see executions any time soon.

I would not make that assumption, because all of the conditions that led to 
the 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 30



CALIFORNIA:

Walking death row at San Quentin State Prison


San Quentin State Prison has 4 massive cell blocks, each identified by their 
cardinal direction: north, south, east, and west. Of the 4, only one houses 
inmates sentenced to death. None of the cell blocks have been visited by a 
reporter since 2007.


KALW's Nancy Mullane asked Matthew Cate, the secretary of the California 
Department of Corrections, for press access to death row. Eventually, Cate 
agreed to allow Mullane to go inside all three of San Quentin's death rows. 
Last week we visited the adjustment center, where new death row inmates begin 
their sentence and where the most violent are kept indefinitely.


Today, we go to East Block, which houses 537 men facing execution in the state.

Into the East Block

Before entering East Block, public information officer Sam Robinson and I first 
have to pass through a walled sally port. Inside the entrance to the cellblock, 
there's a large rotunda with high arched windows.


Robinson leads me through 2 ancient-looking steel doors toward a set of black 
gates. An officer unlocks the gate to the left and we head for the tiers of 
cells. As we approach the cells, we pass a table piled up with opened and 
unopened letters that have been sent to the inmates. Mail sent to prisoners is 
read and reviewed before it is delivered. A sign on the wall in bright red 
letters warns prisoners that feeding the birds will result in a CDC 116, or 
disciplinary write up. There are no birdmen on death row.


Robinson tells me all condemned inmates at San Quentin are evaluated and 
classified in 1 of 2 categories.


Here on death row, we classify them as grade A and grade B, he says. Grade A 
are individuals who are programming and follow our rules, for the most part. 
Grade B are the individuals who are the opposite of that, who are 
non-programmers or gang affiliates or whatever the case may be.


Robinson says that all inmates on east block are grade A. As he talks, we make 
our way around the end of the block to see what looks like endless rows of 
cells. There are 57 on each tier and the double sided block is 5 tiers high, 
making a total of more than 500 cells. Looking down the 1st tier, a half dozen 
wheelchairs are parked on the polished cement walkway, waiting.


East Block structurally mirrors the majority of our housing units at San 
Quentin, he explains, They're all 5 stories high and the dimensions of the 
cells are 4 1/2 feet by 10 feet, 8 inches.


That means each cell is 48 square feet and 7 feet, 7 inches tall - about the 
size of a walk-in closet. From inside their individual cells, the inmates can 
look out through a row of black bars, a sheet of perforated metal, a railing 
and 40 feet of open space to a wall of windows that fill the cavernous space 
with natural light and air.


Here in East Block, these guys are confined to their cells for the most part 
of the day with the exception of the 5 hours a day they are allowed for 
recreation yard activities, Robinson says.


500 people have recreation access 5 hours a day? I ask.

He told me they did.

Showers? I ask.

They shower every other day, he says - and not in a community shower but a 
single shower.


For the most part, your neighbor may not be compatible with you, he tells me. 
The guys we house next to each other could be, in theory, mortal enemies and 
so we may not be able to put them in the same space together and so their 
showers are individualized showers also.


While I'm standing listening to Robinson, I watch as white sheets of paper fly 
up in the air from a 1st floor cell to 1 on the 2nd defying gravity. These 
messages passed from 1 inmate to another are called 'kites,' and they're 
considered contraband by prison authorities.


See there goes another one! It's really like kites, see there it goes! I 
point.


There it goes, Robinson says.

We walk down toward the cells. Pushed up against some of the cell doors are 
shoulder high, A-frame metal structures with telephones attached.


Robinson tells me, Because these guys can???t exit their cells freely, we 
actually have a phone apparatus on wheels as we say and we push it in front of 
the individual cell, we leave his food port open and he is allowed to extend 
his hand out, grab the receiver and place a call.


I ask Robinson if I can interview the inmates in their cells. He says I can 
interview any inmate willing to talk to me...


Below are the three interviews that Mullane conducted in the East Block region 
of San Quentin.


Walter Cook. In 1994, a jury convicted him of 3 counts of murder and sentenced 
him to death.


NANCY MULLANE: So you have a phone in front of your cell. Why?

WALTER COOK: To make legal calls. Talk to family. Friends.

MULLANE: How often do you have access to the phone?

COOK: We get the phone every other day. Once in the morning and once at night.

MULLANE: And how long have you been here?

COOK: 20 years.

MULLANE: 20 years? 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., ORE., USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 9



CALIFORNIA:

Man faces death penalty for fire that killed mom, sister


A man accused of intentionally setting a fire in his Mira Mesa home, killing 
his mother and sister, pleaded not guilty Monday to murder and other charges 
that could lead to the death penalty if he's convicted.


Thongsavath Sphabmixay, 44, was ordered held without bail in the deaths last 
Friday of 69-year-old Bouakham Sphabmixay and his sister, 48-year-old Pamela 
Sphabmixay. The women died a day after they were overcome by smoke in the fire 
at the family's home in the 11200 block of Featherhill Lane.


The defendant lived at the residence with the victims and a male roommate.

About 1:30 a.m. last Thursday, the roommate noticed the smell of gasoline 
outside his bedroom door, said Deputy District Attorney Nicole Rooney.


He (the roommate) opened his door and noticed the landing was on fire, which 
was blocking the only exit to the stairs out of the 2nd story, the prosecutor 
told reporters.


Rooney said the roommate was able to go through the flames and jump down to a 
lower landing to escape.


As he was leaving, the roommate heard the victims - who shared a bedroom - open 
their door, scream and shut the door, according to the prosecutor.


Rooney said the roommate called for help to the defendant - who was still in 
the house - but he fled the scene.


She said the roommate went across the street to get help and tried to go back 
in the house to rescue the victims, but was unable to do so because the smoke 
was so heavy.


When contacted by police, the defendant initially gave them his brother's name, 
Rooney said.


In addition to 2 counts of murder, the defendant is charged with charged with 
premeditated attempted murder and arson, with special circumstance allegations 
of multiple murders and murder by arson.


District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis will decide later whether the defendant will 
face the death penalty or life in prison without parole if he's convicted.


A status conference is scheduled for Wednesday and a preliminary hearing for 
April 19.


(source: Fox5 News)

***

Trial Begins for Marines in Torture Murders of Sgt. and Wife


Opening statements got underway Monday in the trial of 3 former Marines charged 
with murdering another Marine and his wife in 2008 in Riverside County.


Sgt. Jan Pietrzak, 24, and his wife, Quiana Jenkins-Pietrzak, 26, were bound 
and gagged before they were shot in the head.


Jenkins-Pietrzak was raped while her husband was forced to watch, and a fire 
was set to destroy evidence, according to court documents.


The Riverside County district attorney's office is seeking the death penalty 
against Kevin Cox, 25; Tyrone Miller, 25; and Emrys John, 22.


A 4th former Marine, Kesaun Sykes, 25, also faces the death penalty but will be 
tried separately in August, the district attorney's office said.


Each defendant is charged with 2 counts of 1st-degree murder, with special 
circumstance allegations of killing in the course of a robbery and taking more 
than 1 life in the same crime.


There is also a sentence-enhancing allegation that a sexual assault occurred 
during the robbery.


All 4 have pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors said the attackers stormed the couple's new home in the French 
Valley neighborhood in southern Riverside County as part of a robbery scheme.


Pietrzak, an Iraq war veteran, was stationed at Miramar Marine Corps Air 
Station in San Diego.


His wife was a counselor with a Riverside County infant care program.

They had been married for 68 days.

(source: KTLA News)






OREGON:

Oregon's Death Penalty Is Being Reviewed For Repeal


A bill seeking to repeal the death penalty in Oregon is scheduled for a work 
session next week.


Under House Joint Resolution One, executions would be replaced by life in 
prison, without the possibility of parole.


Restitution to victims' families would also be part of the amended proposal.

The bill will move to the Rules Committee for further work before its work 
session.


The House Judiciary Committee will hear the bill on the 16th.

(source: KOBI news)






USA:

Death Row  Exoneration


These 3 very scary words--DEATH-ROW EXONERATION-- are enough to make you 
upchuck.


Consider what it must be like if you have been convicted for a crime you did 
not commit and are now being sentenced to death.


This Op-Ed is concerned with the relationship between the growing number of 
exonerations and the death penalty.


In 1972 the US Supreme Court in a vote of 5 to 4 invalidated all death-penalty 
laws in the country, saying they were being arbitrarily applied. Justice Potter 
Stewart concurred, saying: the Constitution could not permit this unique 
penalty to be so wantonly and freakishly imposed.


The arbitrary nature of applying the death penalty and especially the issue of 
class status of the majority of the defendants eventually sentenced to death 
warns that caution definitely needs to be practiced.

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., WASH., USA

[Rick Halperin]

April 5



CALIFORNIA:

DA seeks death penalty in east Modesto triple homicide


The Stanislaus County district attorney's office is seeking the death penalty 
against 3 of 7 men indicted in the shooting deaths of 3 people last year inside 
an east Modesto home.


Deputy District Attorney Marlisa Ferreira announced the decision to seek the 
death penalty during a continued arraignment hearing this afternoon in 
Stanislaus County Superior Court.


Ricky Javier Madrigal, Robert Palomino, Juan Jose Nila, Armando Osegueda, Jose 
Osegueda Jr., Richard Tyrone Garcia and Joseph Luis Jauriqui have been charged 
with 3 counts of premeditated murder, 1st-degree burglary and participating in 
a criminal street gang.


The DA is seeking the death penalty against Armando Osegueda, Garcia and 
Jauriqui. Ferreira said the death penalty would not be sought against the other 
suspects.


The defendants are accused of participating in the March 3, 2012, killings of 
16-year-old David Siebels, 19-year-old Alyxandria Tellez and 31-year-old Edward 
Joseph Reinig inside a home on McClure Road across from Creekside Golf Course.


The slayings, officials have said, are connected to the alleged torture of a 
19-year-old woman about a month before the murders. That woman later was the 
only survivor in the attack inside the McClure Road home.


The defendants face enhancements, alleging they used a gun and committed the 
crime for the benefit of a street gang. They face special circumstances in 
connection with a multiple murder committed during a burglary, and being active 
participants in a criminal street gang.


Authorities have said the men are known Nortenos.

Garcia and Armando Osegueda have been charged in the indictment with torture, 
assault with a deadly weapon and false imprisonment. Garcia also is charged 
with spousal abuse and enhancements of inflicting great bodily injury, using a 
knife and a gun and committing the crimes while out on bail.


(source: Modesto Bee)

*

DA: Murder Trial Begins Monday for 3 Former Marines; Kevin Cox, 25, Emrys John, 
23, and Tyrone Miller, 25, are being tried for murder in the October 2008 
deaths of a Marine sergeant and his wife in their French Valley home.



Opening statements are slated to begin Monday in the trial of 3 of 4 former 
U.S. Marines charged with the 2008 murders of another Marine and his wife in 
their French Valley home.


Kevin Cox, 25, Emrys John, 23, and Tyrone Miller, 25, have each been charged 
with 2 counts of murder with special circumstances including murder during the 
commission of a burglary, robbery and rape by instrument, as well as double 
murder.


Nearly 5 years ago - in October 2008 - Marine Sgt. Jan Pietrzak, 24, and his 
wife, Quiana Jenkins-Pietrzak, 26, were found brutally murdered in their home 
in French Valley, in the unincorporated area of Winchester near Murrieta.


Both victims were found bound and had been shot in the head, according to a 
statement issued Thursday by the Riverside County District Attorney's Office 
about the upcoming trial proceedings.


Riverside County District Attorney Paul Zellerbach is seeking the death penalty 
for the trio, as well as for a 4th defendant, Kesaun Sykes.


Sykes' case has been severed from the others - in 2011, Sykes' attorneys 
claimed he was mentally unfit to stand trial, but a jury subsequently found 
that he was competent - and has a trial readiness conference scheduled for Aug. 
2 for his separate trial.


Defendants Cox, John, and Miller all worked with Sgt. Pietrzak at one time as 
Marines while stationed at Camp Pendleton, according to the statement sent by 
John Hall, spokesperson for the DA's office.


It is believed that all 4 defendants went to the home to rob the victims, 
forced their way inside, and then physically assaulted Pietrzak, sexually 
assaulted Jenkins-Pietrzak, and murdered both victims, Hall stated.


The trial is being held at the Hall of Justice in Riverside.

Deputy District Attorney Daniel DeLimon of the Homicide Unit is prosecuting the 
case.


(source: Murrieta Patch)






WASHINGTON:

Man pleads not guilty to murdering grandparents


The man accused of murdering his elderly grandparents hours after his release 
from a Washington state prison has pleaded not guilty. Michael Chadd Boysen, 
26, appeared in a King County courtroom Thursday to be arraigned on 2 counts of 
aggravated murder. Prosecutors have 30 days to decide whether to seek the death 
penalty in the case.


Boysen is accused of strangling Robert Taylor, 82, and Norma Taylor, 80, 
shortly after the couple picked him up from the correctional complex in Monroe, 
where he served 9 months for attempted burglary.


Their bodies were found in the closet of a spare bedroom in their Renton home 
on March 9.


According to court documents, Boysen stole thousands of dollars in cash, credit 
cards and jewelry from the home. Several items, including Robert Taylor's 
wedding band, were 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., MASS., USA, N.H., WIS.

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 7



CALIFORNIA:

Death Penalty Could be Sought For Sierra LaMar Suspected Killer; Antolin Garcia 
Torres' plea date is now scheduled for April 4



The death penalty could be sought for Morgan Hill teen Sierra LaMar's suspected 
kidnapper and killer Antolin Garcia Torres, a county prosecutor said Wednesday.


Death can be sought [in this case] but a decision to seek death has not been 
made, said Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney David Boyd.


Boyd's comments came after a brief court hearing in Department 23 of the San 
Jose Hall of Justice where Garcia Torres' new plea hearing was set for 9 a.m. 
April 4.


Boyd said such a hearing will be preceded by a motion's hearing for subpoenaed 
records by Garcia Torres' attorneys on Feb. 20.


The prosecutor said he had agreed to file his response to their motion by the 
end of this week.


Every document being filed on the case is being posted online due to Santa 
Clara County Superior Court Judge Richard Loftis Jr.'s order that all records 
in the case must be scanned and uploaded to the Santa Clara County Superior 
Court's website.


Garcia Torres, 21, was arrested May 21, 2012 and has sat incarcerated for more 
than 8 months without entering a plea, but Boyd said such a delay in not 
unusual.


Sierra, who was 15 at the time, vanished the morning of March 16, 2012 on her 
way to Sobrato High School in Morgan Hill. Her body is still missing.


His DNA was found on the girl's clothing located in a field near her school bus 
stop and two miles away from her home. And Sierra's DNA was found in Garcia 
Torres' red Volkswagen Jetta.


Torres lived about seven miles from Sierra's home. In April of 2012, 
investigators seized the vehicle and submitted it to the crime lab for 
processing and analysis.


When you're dealing with a case that involves a kidnapping and a murder and 
special circumstances where death can be sought this is quite common, he said.


Boyd said he believes Garcia Torres is guilty and wants to make sure he's held 
accountable for the crime.


If the death penalty is not sought and he's found guilty of the charges, he 
could face life in prison without the possibility of parole.


If Boys seeks the death penalty, a trial could take longer to occur. If not, a 
trial could come sooner, he said.


Garcia Torres is also facing felony kidnap and carjacking charges related to 3 
incidents in 2009 in Morgan Hill, where's he's from.


Tom Barrett, of Hollister, drove all the way to San Jose Wednesday to attend 
the hearing. He said he's been helping search for Sierra's body since she was 
reported missing.


I'm one of her searchers, he said. We're still looking for her, but our hope 
is starting to diminish.


Barrett said missing-children advocate Marc Klaas has worked hard to bring 
attention to the case and has been attending court proceedings.


About 40 people gather at Morgan Hill's Burnett Elementary School to search for 
the girl on Saturdays in South County, he added.


(source: Los Gatos Patch)

***

High court upholds death penalty in 1995 murder of 2 Orinda women


The California Supreme Court Thursday unanimously upheld the death penalty of a 
man who killed a Concord restaurant owner and her disabled adult daughter 
during a robbery of their Orinda home in 1995.


Corey Williams, 36, was sentenced to death in Contra Costa County Superior 
Court in 2000 for the 1st-degree murders of restaurant owner Maria Corrieo, 74, 
and her daughter, Gina Roberts, 53.


Another of Corrieo's daughters discovered the 2 women dead of gunshot wounds to 
their heads and with their hands tied behind their backs on Aug. 16, 1995.


Williams, then 19, was 1 of 3 men who had planned to rob Corrieo. They had 
learned from a restaurant cook that the owner, who mistrusted banks, carried 
large amounts of cash and had an estimated $30,000 in the trunk of her car.


1 of the other men, David Ross, testified against Williams at his trial and 
said Williams told him he shot the women because Ross called him by his 
nickname, C-Dog, during the robbery, and Williams was afraid he could be 
recognized. The nickname was tattooed on his hand.


The men stole between $40,000 and $50,000 as well as a television set.

Ross was sentenced to 20 years in prison and the third defendant, Dalton 
Lolohea, was sentenced to life in prison.


The high court, in a ruling issued in San Francisco, rejected Williams' appeal 
claims of errors in jury selection and in evidence rulings.


The panel also turned down Williams' claim that he should not have been allowed 
to act as his own lawyer during the penalty phase of the trial.


Justice Carol Corrigan wrote for the court that Williams had a right to 
represent himself and that the trial judge, Superior Court Judge Richard 
Arnason, adequately questioned him at length about his request for 
self-representation and his understanding of the consequences.


During the penalty proceedings, Williams 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., MD., N.C., ARIZ., OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 11



CALIFORNIA:

1-time death row inmate suspect in Vallejo slaying


A Vallejo man who gladly accepted a death sentence after killing 2 Pinole 
teenagers more than 45 years ago, has been arrested at his home for killing his 
mother.


Vallejo Police said that Dennis Stanworth, 70, called the Vallejo Police 
Communications Center about 11:55 a.m. Wednesday, and claimed during the span 
of about a 7- or 8-minute call with a dispatch supervisor that he had killed 
his own mother, Vallejo police Lt. Jim O'Connell said Thursday.


Officers responded to Stanworth's home at 2500 block of Marshfield Road, near 
the Hiddenbrooke Golf Club, where the suspect directed them to an undisclosed 
area where they discovered the deceased victim.


Police said a search warrant was obtained for the residence, a house

Lt. Jim O'Connell talks to the media during a press conference about Dennis 
Stanworth, 70 year-old man, who allegedly killed his mother and was arrested 
Wednesday at his home in Vallejo. (Chris Riley/Times-Herald)Stanworth lives in 
with his wife and father-in-law, and a subsequent search revealed evidence of 
the crime. Police have refused to release details about where they found 
Stanworth's mother, Nellie Turner Stanworth, 90. It also remained unclear 
Thursday why Stanworth's mother was at the Vallejo home.


American Canyon resident

The victim had been a resident of the Olympia Mobilodge of Napa in American 
Canyon. Ronda Bensing, another park resident, told the Times-Herald that 
Stanworth had moved his mother out of the park about 10 weeks ago and told her 
she was going to be placed in an assisted living facility in Vallejo.


Bensing said Stanworth's mother returned 2 weeks later, complaining about her 
new living situation.


Later, Bensing said Stanworth told her he was taking her to live with her 
sister. Then, about 6 weeks ago, Stanworth visited the mobile home park and 
said his mother had passed away, Bensing said.


We have been so distraught, Bensing said. We were friends and neighbors for 
8 years ... we are just trying to find closure ... it is just wrenching.


Bensing said Stanworth had frequently visited his mother, taking her shopping 
and administering insulin shots in the afternoon.


On Wednesday, detectives interviewed Stanworth, who O'Connell said was 
cooperative with police, and later arrested him on suspicion of murder.


O'Connell declined to say how or where police believe the victim was killed or 
where her body was found. He said police investigators were still interviewing 
witnesses Thursday and did not want any news reports to influence their 
answers.


As for motive, O'Connell would not speculate, but said police have a couple 
different ideas and expect witness interviews to flesh out the details.


Violent background

The suspect has a long and violent criminal history that had apparently ceased, 
at least since his arrival in Vallejo in the late 1990s, O'Connell said. 
Stanworth is apparently unemployed, and described as retired on his sex 
offender registration, O'Connell said.


Our registration detective talked to him every year, but no complaints 
regarding him had come in, O'Connell said of Stanworth. (He did not stand 
out) other than for the nature of the crimes for which he was convicted. Those 
are fairly egregious.


As Stanworth had completed his parole, he would not have been under police 
oversight if it were not for his sex offender status dating back more than 4 
decades.


O'Connell was referring to 2 murder convictions in 1966. Stanworth had pleaded 
guilty to kidnapping, raping and shooting two Pinole girls, both 15, on Aug. 1, 
1966 after he picked them up hitchhiking.


According to Times-Herald reports at the time, Stanworth, then 24, a Pinole 
house painter and cook, admitted killing and raping Susan Box and Caree Lee 
Collison at a Point Wilson beach area in Pinole. Their bodies were discovered 2 
days after the attacks. Found at the crime scene in a coma with head wounds, 
Collison never recovered consciousness and died on Sept. 12, 1966.


Months after the attacks, Stanworth also admitted abducting and raping at least 
4 other women, including three in Contra Costa County and one in San Mateo 
County, court records show. He eventually was caught after raping 1 woman who, 
after briefly passing out during the attack and coming to, untied herself, and 
reported to police who arrested Stanworth several hours later in her car.


When Stanworth testified during his trial's penalty phase, his defense attorney 
asked him why he had confessed to police about the killings.


I couldn't live with it no more... I just had to tell somebody, Stanworth 
replied in a sobbing voice. I told them everything I done and wanted to get it 
all off my chest. I was always sorry after I got through and even apologized 
sometimes.


Stanworth mounted no opposition to being sentenced to execution, and published 
reports at the time said that after the 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., MD., VA., ORE., NEV., R.I.

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 8




CALIFORNIA:

Accused Old Sacramento shooter faces possible death penalty


Sacramento prosecutors have filed a special-circumstance allegation against the 
accused gunman in the fatal New Year's Eve bar shooting in Old Sacramento that 
has made him eligible for the death penalty.


The complaint against Carlito Montoya, 22, contains the special allegation of 
multiple murders in the shooting deaths of Daniel Ferrier, 36, a U.S. Army and 
National Guard veteran, and Gabriel Cordova, 35, the father of 3.


Prosecutors also charged Montoya with 2 counts of attempted murder in the 
shootings of Cordova's wife, Christina, and Stephen Walton, 46, a security 
guard at the Sports Corner Cafe where the shooting took place less than an hour 
after a 9 p.m. fireworks show in Old Sac.


A 2nd man who is charged in the case, Charles Wesley Fowler-Scholz, 34, is 
facing a 3-strikes allegation that could land him in prison for 25-to-life if 
he is convicted. The complaint says that Fowler-Scholz has 2 prior robbery 
convictions arising out of the same 1996 case in Sacramento.


The DA's office has charged Fowler-Scholz with assault with a deadly weapon on 
Gabriel Cordova -- apparently a beer mug he used to hit the victim in the 
deadly New Year's Eve skirmish.


Fowler-Scholz's wife, Amber Olivia Scholz, 36, also is charged with assault 
with a deadly weapon on the slain man. She is the reputed instigator of the 
fight, having turned on Cordova after he accidentally spilled a drink on her.


Authorities believe Montoya first shot Ferrier when he tried to break up the 
fight that had erupted between the Scholz couple and Cordova, before turning 
his gun on his 2nd victim.


The 3 defendants were scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon in front of 
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Lawrence G. Brown.


Montoya is being held in the downtown jail without bail.

Bail on the Scholz couple has been set at $1 million each. The warrant for 
their arrests says that both of them are at risk of fleeing to the Bahamas if 
they are released.


(source: Sacramento Bee)






MARYLAND:

O'Malley's push to repeal Maryland death penalty could be within 1 vote


With Maryland lawmakers set to reconvene Wednesday, the powerful Senate 
president has offered Gov. Martin O'Malley an unusual bargain on legislation to 
repeal the death penalty that has remained bottled up in a committee for years.


If O'Malley can show he has the 24 votes needed to pass the bill on the floor, 
Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) has promised to spring it free from the 
committee.


The outlay is on par with what O'Malley has sought from the legislature during 
recent years.


So, where are the votes? A Washington Post count suggests the legislation - a 
long-stymied objective for O'Malley - could become one of the most dramatic to 
play out in the 90 days of the General Assembly session.


The Post identified 23 likely Senate votes for a repeal bill, 1 short of 
passage. But another 4 members have said they would consider supporting 
O'Malley-backed legislation, which is a priority this session for the NAACP and 
Catholic Church.


I think the numbers are very close to a majority, if not already there, 
O'Malley (D) told reporters as he arrived Tuesday at an annual pre-session 
luncheon sponsored by the Maryland Democratic Party.


The governor renewed his criticism of capital punishment, saying, You 
shouldn't do things that are expensive and don't work.


But O'Malley stopped short of saying whether he would sponsor a repeal bill 
this session, a move that would almost certainly increase the chances of 
nailing down wavering votes, proponents say.


It doesn't become a priority for the General Assembly unless the governor 
strongly supports the bill and pushes for it, said Sen. Brian E. Frosh 
(D-Montgomery), chairman of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.


Repeal activists say support for the bill is stronger in the House of 
Delegates, making the Senate the primary battleground.


O'Malley has announced several other priorities this year, including 
jump-starting the wind power industry and advancing gun-control measures that 
have come to the fore after last month's mass shootings in Newtown, Conn. He 
told the luncheon audience that he wants to do what he can to avert the 
insanity of the sort of carnage we saw in Connecticut.


Some lawmakers have suggested the Connecticut massacre could complicate efforts 
to repeal the death penalty, however, because it highlights the type of killer 
who they believe should be eligible for execution.


The death penalty debate comes at a time when Maryland has not executed a 
prisoner since 2005, when former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) was in 
office. There are 5 people on Maryland's death row.


In December 2006, during Ehrlich's last full month in office, the Court of 
Appeals ruled that the state's death penalty procedures had not been properly 
adopted, halting executions until 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 8


CALIFORNIA:

Calif. voters retain death penalty despite costs


California voters rejected the latest attempt to repeal California's death 
penalty, dealing a blow to activists who saw the election as their best chance 
in 35 years to end capital punishment in the state.


Officials were still counting ballots, but it was apparent Wednesday that 
voters rejected Proposition 34 by a margin of 52 % to 48 %. The defeat came 
even though recent polling showed concern growing over the cost of capital 
punishment and its paltry results in California.


The state has executed just 13 convicts, and its death row has ballooned to 726 
inmates since 71 % of the electorate voted to reinstate capital punishment in 
1978. No executions have taken place since 2006 because of federal and state 
lawsuits filed by death row inmates.


The Legislative Analyst has said ending the death penalty would save the state 
$130 million annually.


Still, it appears a majority of California voters still support capital 
punishment in California as the best way to deal with the state's most heinous 
killers, but would like to see reforms.


They are frustrated with the ineffectiveness and excessive cost of the present 
system, said Michael Rushford, president of the politically conservative 
Criminal Defense Legal Foundation,


He said the election was a call for California officials to streamline the 
appeals process, expand the pool of defense attorneys qualified to handle 
capital cases, and execute inmates with a single lethal drug instead of the 
3-drug mixture now used.


Activists seeking to repeal the death penalty said the voting results showed 
that a growing number of Californians are moving toward opposing the punishment 
on all grounds. Amnesty International noted that the number of people 
supporting repeal was an improvement over the 29 percent who voted against 
reinstating the death penalty in 1978.


California is now deeply divided on the question of capital punishment, said 
Amnesty International's Brian Evans, who noted that 5 states have repealed the 
death penalty in the past 5 years.


Proposition 34 would have repealed capital punishment in California and 
shuttered death row, converting the death sentences of 726 inmates to life 
without the possibility of parole. The measure also would have created a $100 
million fund to help investigate unsolved murder and rape cases.


The measure's backers, including the American Civil Liberties Union, vowed to 
continue fighting to end the death penalty in California.


The mere fact that the state is evenly divided is nothing short of 
extraordinary, said Jeanne Woodford, a former warden of San Quentin Prison, 
where death row is located.


Woodford worked for the Proposition 34 campaign and is now an anti-death 
penalty crusader.


Supporters had pointed to an influential study published by a federal appeals 
court judge and law professor that concluded California has spent $4 billion to 
carry out just 13 executions and cover other death penalty costs since capital 
punishment was reinstated in 1978.


Influential law enforcement officials and 3 former governors opposed the ballot 
measure. They argued that the condemned inmates would escape justice and that 
there were no true cost savings from closing death row.


The people of California sent a clear message that the death penalty should 
still be implemented for those who commit the most heinous and unthinkable 
crimes, said McGregor Scott, a former U.S. attorney for Sacramento who served 
as the opposition's co-chairman.


The measure's backers vastly outspent opponents $6.5 million to $1 million. 
Billionaires Nicholas Pritzker and Charles Feeney, through his philanthropic 
fund, each donated $1 million to the campaign for repeal. The American Civil 
Liberties Union contributed more than $700,000 and ran the campaign.


Federal and state judges have halted executions in the state since 2006 after 
ordering prison officials to develop new lethal injection procedures. Those 
lawsuits are still being litigated.


(source: Associated Press)

**

Panel Upholds Death Sentence in Mojave Motel Murders


The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday upheld the death sentence 
imposed on a man convicted in the 1982 murders of a couple who managed a motel 
in the Kern County town of Mojave.


In a 10-1 en banc ruling, the court held that Chief U.S. District Judge Anthony 
W. Ishii of the Eastern District of California did not err in denying 
Constantino Carrera's habeas corpus petition, which was based on claimed 
ineffective assistance of counsel.


Even if Carrera's trial lawyer was deficient in failing to raise a claim of 
racial bias in jury selection under People v. Wheeler, 22 Cal. 3d 258 (Cal. 
1978), Judge William A. Fletcher wrote for the appeals court, there was no 
prejudice. Carrera could not, based on the state of the law in 1990 when his 
conviction was affirmed on direct 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 6



CALIFORNIA:

End the Death Penalty in California


A ballot initiative in California, Proposition 34, gives voters the chance to 
abolish capital punishment in the state. Initiatives are generally a bad way to 
make law, but a vote by the people is the only way to overturn the death 
penalty in California because that was how it was adopted in 1978.


Statewide polls about the measure have moved favorably toward repeal of the 
penalty in the past few months, but it is one of the important choices on 
Tuesday that remains too close to call. We encourage every California voter to 
support the initiative.


It would shift more than 725 inmates from death row to life in prison without 
the possibility of parole, and it would reduce by almost 1/4 the number of 
inmates in the United States waiting to be executed.


Passage of the initiative would end a capital punishment system that is almost 
certainly unconstitutional on the most fundamental basis: many who have 
received the state death sentence do not rank as the worst of the worst among 
convicted criminals. California clearly imposes the sentence in ways far 
broader than the narrow category of the most serious crimes that the Supreme 
Court has said is allowed by the Constitution.


The state penalty is likely unconstitutional for other reasons, too. For 
example, excessive delays in appointing counsel for appeals and in holding 
state appeals hearings make the wait for resolution, often in solitary 
confinement, cruel and inhumane.


The measure's passage, according to the state's legislative analyst, would save 
the state more than $100 million a year in the first few years and then $130 
million a year after that. The savings would come from putting an end to long 
death penalty trials that require spending on extra lawyers, investigators and 
experts for both the prosecution and the defense; protracted mandatory appeals 
that take a decade or more even for those wrongly convicted; and special prison 
housing that triples the normal costs.


The initiative would require that convicted murderers work in prison and put 
their earnings in a fund for victims' families. It would improve public safety 
by committing $100 million of the expected savings to the investigation of the 
state's high percentage of unsolved rapes (56 %) and murders (46 %).


California has executed 13 men out of the more than 800 people sentenced to 
death since the state adopted the penalty by initiative in 1978 (84 inmates on 
death row have died without being executed). A 2011 study led by Arthur L. 
Alarcon, a senior judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth 
Circuit, found that the state system has cost $4 billion - $308 million per 
execution. Judge Alarcon, who was a pro-death penalty prosecutor, now opposes 
the penalty as a costly and complete failure. Proposition 34 is backed by 
federal, state and local government officials, including many in law 
enforcement and corrections. It's time to shut down the state???s immoral, 
barbaric and broken system of capital punishment.


(source: Editorial, New York Times)

*

Replace the Death Penalty in California


Imagine for a minute that all the public busses in California sat dormant in a 
parking lot, never to run again. Imagine that the public schools sent all the 
kids home for good. Imagine also that state's hospitals shuttered their doors 
and turned the ill away. Now imagine that, despite a total shutdown of the 
transportation, education and health care systems, California taxpayers still 
paid millions every year to fund these non-functioning systems.


This idea may seem ludicrous - but it's no different than the reality in 
California, where taxpayers spend millions every year to fund a death penalty 
system that hasn't been put to its ultimate use since 2006, and only 13 times 
since 1967. In fact, most death row inmates in California die of old age, after 
decades of taxpayer-financed appeals.


Worse still, when the death penalty IS carried out, we risk executing an 
innocent person. Hundreds of innocent people have been wrongfully convicted of 
serious crimes in California, only to be exonerated later. 3 of them were 
sentenced to death. Some people say an innocent person has never been executed 
in California. How do we know?


This election offers the opportunity replace the death penalty in California 
with justice that works for everyone. Prop 34 means California will never 
execute an innocent person. It also means the state will save $130 million per 
year - money which could be better spent on public safety, education, and 
social services. The initiative even establishes the SAFE California Fund, 
which would redirect $100 million of the savings to local law enforcement for 
the purpose of solving more rapes and murders.


It's time to stop wasting money on a system that is broken beyond repair and 
that always will carry the risk of executing an 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., GA., OHIO, ORE., USA, S.DAK.

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 25


CALIFORNIA:

Former executioners say it's time to kill the death penalty


Jerry Givens is no stranger to the death penalty. As former chief executioner 
for the state of Virginia, Givens executed 62 convicted criminals.


I carried out 37 executions by lethal injection and 25 by electrocution, said 
Givens on Wednesday night.


Givens, along with fellow former executioner and warden Ron McAndrew, of 
Florida, were in Bakersfield as guest speakers advocating for the passage of 
Proposition 34 on California's November ballot.


Like Givens, McAndrew also carried out executions, but has since come to oppose 
the death penalty.


I supported it through ignorance, said McAndrew.

The pair were invited to speak at Grace Episcopal Church, sponsored by 
California People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, an interfaith group.


Givens and McAndrew are touring the Central Valley, sharing their 
transformation from executioners to supporters of Prop 34, which abolishes the 
death penalty in California and replaces it with life in prison without the 
possibility of parole.


Givens said he came dangerously close one time to executing an innocent man. 
The inmate was eventually exonerated for his crime.


If I carry out the execution, I have to carry the burden with me until I die 
that I took an innocent life, said Givens.


Kern County's top cops recently have come out against Prop 34 and in favor of 
the death penalty, saying executing a criminal gives closure to a victim's 
family.


Nothing is more false! said McAndrew.

Prop 34 has been struggling in the polls, but is gaining ground among the 
voters. According to the state's Legislative Analyst Office, California could 
save as much as $130 million a year if the death penalty is abolished.


(source: KBAK News)






GEORGIA:

Georgia Catholics Unite To Stop Death Penalty


Deacon Norm Keller recently visited the Hall County Detention Center and prayed 
with a man charged with a capital offense who is discerning a plea bargain 
decision. If he goes to trial, he could face the death penalty.


Deacon Keller first ministered to the prisoner 2 years ago at the Fulton County 
Jail. The inmate was transferred to the Gainesville facility but asked to meet 
again with the deacon, who made the trip out of his desire to be Christ's 
presence to the imprisoned.


He asked if I could come up and pray with him about it. I went to basically 
visit with him and listen to what he had to say and pray with him and read 
Scripture and have contact with him so he knows there is hope and doesn't fall 
into despair, the deacon said. His ministry is spiritual.


In weekly visits to 2 jails and a state prison, Deacon Keller finds that even 
though these men have committed heinous crimes, the mercy of the Lord reaches 
them if they are repentant and contrite. The Lord's mercy goes to their soul 
just like the Lord forgave the people on the cross.


He added, We need to do the same thing. Not that they shouldn't be punished, 
but we don't need to take their life.


During October, Deacon Keller, and other members of the archdiocesan task force 
of Georgia Catholics Against the Death Penalty (GACADP), invite Catholics to 
join them in efforts to end use of the death penalty, making it part of the 
church's mission to uphold the dignity of all human life from conception to 
natural death. The church calls October Respect Life month.


Deacon Richard Tolcher, a retired federal chaplain and coordinator of the 
archdiocesan Prison and Jail Ministry, established GACADP with others 13 months 
ago. The task force collaborates with the archdiocesan Respect Life Ministry 
and Justice  Peace Ministries to offer workshops and build a network of parish 
leaders and others to foster ongoing prayerful witness against the death 
penalty. Working in broader partnerships with Georgians for Alternatives to the 
Death Penalty and the Catholic Mobilizing Network, GACADP has a growing list of 
around 500 who have signed up through their website to receive updates and 
alerts.


I had the idea to form a task force to see where we could go to make it more 
relevant to a million Catholics in the archdiocese. The 1st thing we realized 
was we need education so we built a website, said Deacon Tolcher. I think 
conversion will take place gradually. It's a matter of education, knowledge and 
awareness (on) the ills of fighting violence with violence.


The task force educates Catholics on social teaching on the death penalty and 
galvanizes persons to action whether by participating in vigils, contacting 
their legislators, praying for the criminals, victims and their families, or 
writing the Georgia Board of Pardon and Paroles to seek clemency. Among recent 
activity, in July the Georgia Supreme Court stayed the execution of Warren Hill 
to consider an appeal by the inmate challenging Georgia's recent switch to a 
single drug execution method.


Attorney Frank Mulcahy of the Georgia Catholic 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 22


CALIFORNIA:

Making Communities Safer By Abolishing The Death Penalty: Live Internet Video 
Teleconference To Explore Views of Law Enforcement Professionals; Former 
Executioners Tour Central Valley - Available for Comment



As Californians prepare to vote on a measure to repeal the death penalty, the 
National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty will present a live online 
conference exploring how communities will be safer without the death penalty 
starting at 11 a.m. Pacific time on Thursday, October 25, 2012. The event will 
be moderated by Professor Charles Ogletree, founder of the Charles Hamilton 
Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard University.


This is a conversation that all Californians need to be a part of, said Diann 
Rust-Tierney, Executive Director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death 
Penalty. Especially with the election coming up, we want to help people look 
at the resources that go into maintaining capital punishment and explore how 
those resources can be better spent to make our communities safer.


Joining the conversation will be Kirk Bloodsworth, the 1st person exonerated 
from death row using DNA technology, Ron McAndrew, former warden of Florida 
State Prison who conducted that state's final electrocutions, and Jerry Givens, 
former corrections officer from Virginia who put 62 men to death during his 17 
years as an executioner.


The interactive conference may be seen on the website 
http://abolition2012.ncadp.org/ and viewers are invited to submit questions to 
the panelists using the hashtag #abolition2012.


Givens and McAndrew are participating in the on-line conference as they 
traverse the Central Valley on a speaking tour in support of Proposition 34. 
The Proposition 34 ballot initiative will end the death penalty in California 
and redirect some of the savings to law enforcement efforts to solve unresolved 
homicides and rapes. The 2 are among 8 former corrections officials who 
participated in executions across the country who have signed an open letter to 
the voters of California urging passage Proposition 34. Details may be found 
here: http://bit.ly/executionersyes34 (sources: National Coalition to Abolish 
the Death Penalty  Sacramento Bee)







OHIO:

Fine pleads innocent to murder, may face death penalty


A scant crowd got a look at murder suspect Albert Fine this morning as he 
appeared for an arraignment via video in Lorain Municipal Court.


Fine, 33, of Lorain, may be facing the death penatly for the murder of his 
live-girlfriend and the mother of his child Catherine Hoholski, 26. Her body 
was found by Lorain police in a storage container in a storage locker at their 
Tower Boulevard apartment on Aug. 8. The coroner's office believed she was 
choked to death on June 28. Fine fled after her body was found and was arrested 
in Lexington, Ky. on Aug. 9.


He was assigned attorney Dan Wightman who is certified to handle capital cases. 
Fine was arrainged for charges of aggravated murder, kidnapping and misuse of a 
credit card. Wightman entered a plea of innocent on Fine's behalf.


Fine, who appeared from Lorain County Jail, didn't speak other than to say 
yes that he understood what his attorney was saying.


Lorain Prosecutor Jeffrey Szabo requested no bond. Szabo said the case will 
likely have a captial specification which means the state will be seeking the 
death penatly for Fine. The state also believes he would be an extreme flight 
risk since he already left the state and the state spent a lot of time trying 
to bring him back, Szabo added. Judge Thomas Elwell took his recommedation to 
hold Fine at no bond.


(source: Morning Journal)


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[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., N.C., FLA., OKLA., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 10



CALIFORNIA:

Death row inmate hoping California Supreme Court sides with him; He's a crook 
with a long rap sheet, sure, but not a killer, says John C. Abel, sentenced to 
death for a 1991 slaying. He's got someone else's confession on his side, but 
the case is complicated.



John C. Abel is the first to admit he's led a crook's life.

He robbed banks and convenience stores, grocery marts and check-cashing joints. 
He terrified people with Uzi-style Mac 11s and .22-caliber handguns, Browning 
pistols and Dirty Harry-style Magnums. His stickup jag dated to the 1960s and 
sliced through the country from Massachusetts to California.


Even a couple islands up there by Seattle, he adds, in the genial voice of an 
old ballplayer reminiscing about a far-traveling career.


15 years ago, a jury concluded he deserved to die for killing a man outside a 
Tustin bank. Now 68, gray-bearded and diabetic, he waits in his cell on San 
Quentin's death row and insists he doesn't belong there.


I'm the furthest thing from John Q. Citizen, but it bothers me to be called a 
killer, says Abel, chewing a Hershey bar in one of the visiting room's mesh 
cages.


He is accustomed to lockup - he has spent most of his life in cells - but 
describes death row as a particularly lonely place of loathsome company: mass 
murderers, child-killers, serial rapists.


The psychos and the weirdos, he calls them. I don't talk to none of them 
creeps.


Abel's lawyers, who say his notorious reputation made him a convenient fall guy 
for the Tustin killing, are asking the California Supreme Court for a new 
trial.


At the heart of their case is something few condemned men possess: a signed 
confession by another man admitting to the murder.


--

On an overcast morning in January 1991, 26-year-old Armando Miller left the 
Sunwest Bank in Tustin with a bag containing $20,000 in cash. He'd just 
withdrawn the money for his family's nearby check-cashing business and was 
walking to his van.


A robber pumped a .22-caliber slug into his forehead and disappeared with the 
cash. A witness described the shooter as a sharp-featured, middle-aged man with 
a mustache and wearing a cuffed watchman's cap.


Abel, who roughly fit the description and sometimes wore a similar cap during 
holdups, had been paroled the year before on bank robbery charges and was 
drifting around Southern California.


He gambled heavily at blackjack and poker tables. He chased a cocaine and 
heroin habit. By his own admission, he was a man desperate for money.


Abel said he had been part of a planned armed robbery of some Colombian drug 
dealers in Northern California in early '91, a potential humdinger of a score 
that fell apart when an accomplice - who plotted the job - died of a heart 
attack.


That's when I more or less went south, he said. I ran out of money. In come 
the weapons, in come the robberies. It wasn't pretty, and it wasn't the plan of 
a mastermind or none of that.


He robbed banks in Hacienda Heights and Rowland Heights, a pizzeria in 
Lakewood, a pharmacy in San Pedro, a flower shop in Harbor City. He planned the 
jobs hastily, he said, giving himself an hour or so to stake out the target.


I just go by feeling, he said. Pretty much played it by ear. I guess I 
wasn't that good at it.


In October 1991, Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies tracked Abel to a Simi 
Valley parking lot. He was walking to his Toyota Tercel, where a loaded .22 
waited under the seat. If I had made it to the car, there would have been a 
shootout, Det. Steve Rubino recalled Abel telling him.


The string of robberies sent him to Folsom State Prison for a 44-year term.

Meanwhile, the Miller slaying moldered unsolved until 1995, when a tip led 
Tustin Det. Tom Tarpley to Lorraine Ripple, Abel's former crime partner, in 
state prison, where she was serving a 45-year robbery sentence.


Ripple told the detective Abel had confessed to the bank slaying, calling it an 
easy score.


At trial 2 years later, prosecutors produced 2 witnesses who said they had seen 
the shooter briefly. One, a bank teller, expressed certainty that Abel was the 
culprit. The 2nd, who worked near the bank, couldn't identify him in court, 
saying, Too much time has gone by.


Prosecutor Lew Rosenblum described the robbery as an inside job, telling 
jurors that Abel had been tipped to the score by a mortgage lender who knew the 
Miller family and their habit of withdrawing large sums of cash. The prosecutor 
showed a photo of Abel in a cap similar to the one seen on the shooter.


When Ripple took the stand, saying that Abel had confessed to her, the defense 
tried to portray her as a mentally unstable woman who was angry that Abel had 
spurned her romantic advances.


After his conviction, Abel's attorneys tried to spare him the death penalty but 
could offer jurors little that he'd ever contributed to the world. His record 
was ghastly: more than two dozen robbery convictions in Los 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 6


CALIFORNIA:

California has chance to change Three Strikes, repeal death penalty


For a state long considered loosey-goosey liberal, California has been 
rock-ribbed conservative on crime. Only 4 times in the past century have the 
state's voters supported ballot measures designed to ease the state's 
tough-on-crime laws.


But on Nov. 6, voters will have the rare option of changing that pattern. For 
the 1st time in the state's history, 2 major crime-related initiatives that 
would soften the toughest laws on the books will appear on the same ballot.


Proposition 34 would repeal the death penalty, while Proposition 36 would ease 
the nation's harshest Three Strikes sentencing law.


Experts say Proposition 34 will face a tougher go. It requires voters to do an 
about-face and reject their historical embrace of capital punishment.


In contrast, Proposition 36 asks voters to change the Three Strikes Law by 
reserving life sentences for the baddest of the bad -- while leaving many of 
its central features intact for violent, repeat criminals.


But with crime rates relatively low statewide, proponents say there has never 
been a better time to test whether voters in this blue state are in the mood to 
be less red on public safety.


Criminal offenders have not been terribly attractive in the politics of 
California initiatives, said crime expert Franklin E. Zimring, a UC Berkeley 
law professor. But it's not inevitable they all get turned down.


According to an analysis by this newspaper, the only measures approved by 
voters since 1912 to curb the power of the state's criminal justice system 
involved:


Due process rights for the accused in 1934.

The right to the assistance of an attorney in 1972.

Legalization of medical marijuana in 1996.

Drug treatment rather than incarceration for certain offenders in 2000.

8 years ago, Proposition 66, a more far-reaching attempt to weaken the Three 
Strikes Law, narrowly lost.


In the past 100 years, voters embraced 38 measures to strengthen the criminal 
justice system.


During the 1980s and early 1990s, they approved nine measures to build prisons 
and jails when violent crime was soaring. And in the 2000s, when it was 
plummeting, they beefed up penalties for gang-related felonies and sex crimes.


Even liberal politicians like former Govs. Gray Davis and Jerry Brown have 
advanced tough-on-crime policies. Davis didn't parole a single lifer during his 
5 years in office. And Brown was instrumental in defeating Proposition 66 in 
2004 by joining GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Republican Gov. Pete 
Wilson in a last-minute TV blitz that swung the electorate against the measure.


But legal experts and proponents of the 2 independently run campaigns say 
California may well be ripe for change. With voters' attention more focused on 
economic worries and the state's multibillion-dollar deficit, the spiraling 
cost of the justice system may be more of a concern.


In a time when all sorts of programs are being cut back, I think it's rational 
for people to decide whether they want the death penalty, said former Chief 
Justice Ronald George.


George, who has taken no public position on Proposition 34, is a death penalty 
supporter who has called California's version of it dysfunctional.


The state also is under a federal court order to relieve prison overcrowding, a 
predicament that proponents of a more lenient Three Strikes measure are using 
to bolster their proposal to send fewer people to prison for life.


It won't hurt supporters of Propositions 34 and 36 that the state's crime rate 
has dropped to 1960s levels.


Proponents of these measures see an opportunity that might not exist at a time 
when voters are worried about public safety, said Dan Schnur, director of the 
University of Southern California's Unruh Institute of Politics.


Proposition 34 gives voters the first opportunity in more than three decades to 
consider whether to scrap the death penalty and clear the largest death row in 
the nation's history. It would replace execution with life in prison without 
the possibility of parole and create a $100 million fund to be distributed to 
law enforcement agencies to help solve more homicide and rape cases.


It is opposed by law enforcement, victims' rights groups and former Republican 
Govs. Wilson and George Deukmejian, who argue that the death penalty should be 
preserved for the state's most heinous killers and that the system should be 
fixed and sped up, not scrapped.


With 726 inmates now on death row, California has executed just 13 murderers 
since 1978. No one has been executed since February 2006 because of legal 
challenges to the state's lethal injection procedures. Death row inmates' 
appeals now take decades to resolve.


The cost of carrying out the death penalty has grown so large that it has 
become the cornerstone of the Proposition 34 campaign. Rather than raising 
traditional arguments against the 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., PENN.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 23



CALIFORNIA:

Former death penalty supporters now working against itA lawyer, a county 
supervisor and a retired San Quentin Prison warden are backing Proposition 34, 
which would make life without possibility of parole California's toughest 
punishment.



Donald Heller wrote the 1978 ballot measure that expanded California's death 
penalty. Ronald Briggs, whose father spearheaded the campaign, worked to 
achieve its passage. Jeanne Woodford, a career corrections official, presided 
over four executions.


The lawyer, El Dorado County supervisor and retired San Quentin Prison warden 
now want California's death penalty abolished, contending the state no longer 
can afford a system that has cost an estimated $4 billion since 1978 and 
executed 13 prisoners.


We started with six people on death row in 1978, and we never thought that 
there would one day be 729, said Briggs, a conservative Republican. We never 
conceived of an appellate process that is decades long.


Backing Proposition 34, which would make life without possibility of parole the 
state's toughest punishment, the three have joined with retired Los Angeles 
County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti to try to dismantle a system in which each has 
played a role.


Death penalty supporters concede the system is not working but argue that cost 
estimates are inflated and that changes in law and court rulings could speed up 
the process. Mend it, don't end it, the opponents of Proposition 34 argue.


They insist that executions could resume if the state were to move quickly to 
adopt a 1-drug method of lethal injection.


A federal judge in 2006 halted executions out of concern that the state's 
3-drug method might cause excruciating pain in violation of the constitutional 
prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. A state judge who examined 
subsequent revisions to the state's execution method ruled that the required 
administrative procedures had not been followed.


Although some polls show narrow majorities of Californians prefer life terms to 
executions, the political odds this November favor supporters of capital 
punishment, according to analysts. California voters tend to be liberal on 
candidates but conservative on propositions, passing only about a third of 
them.


Whatever the outcome, the debate over Proposition 34 has shown that forces once 
solidly behind capital punishment are now splintered, in part because of the 
system's costs and the relatively few executions.


Heller said he began speaking out against capital punishment after coming to 
believe that California had executed a factually innocent inmate. Even before 
that 1998 execution, Heller was having doubts, he said. He had become a defense 
lawyer and saw attorneys he considered marginal assigned to represent capital 
defendants.


Woodford's Roman Catholic upbringing had long made her leery of capital 
punishment, but she said she did not become passionate about the issue until 
after she saw executions up close. On execution nights, she met with family 
members of condemned inmates' victims.


When you meet prior to the execution, they are looking at you with such hope, 
that this is somehow going to make them feel better, she said. And then 
afterward, looking in their faces, it seems like it clearly didn't give them 
what they were looking for. What is closure? I don't think it is watching an 
individual get a needle in his arm and go to sleep.


Most experts believe that if Proposition 34 is rejected, executions won't 
resume for at least another year. Only 14 of the 729 death row inmates have 
exhausted their primary appeals. But barring last-minute reprieves, those 14 
could be put to death relatively quickly, death penalty backers said.


The Proposition 34 campaign, managed by an ACLU policy director, has focused 
more on the cost than the ethics of capital punishment. The campaign cites a 
study that estimated that between now and 2050, the death penalty will cost 
California as much as $7 billion more than life without parole.


The study said more than 740 additional inmates will be added to death row in 
those years, while more than 500 condemned prisoners will die of old age or 
other causes.


California's legislative analyst has said annual savings from Proposition 34 
could start at $100 million and reach $130 million. The savings are attributed 
to cheaper trials, less expensive incarceration and fewer appeals. Opponents of 
Proposition 34 counter that healthcare for lifers could eat up those savings.


Death row inmates would have their sentences converted to life without parole, 
be moved into the general prison population and be expected to work.


Proposition 34 also would give law enforcement agencies grants totaling $100 
million over 4 years for murder and rape investigations, an amount a spokesman 
for the No on 34 campaign dismissed as budget dust.


In ballot materials, the opposition argument implies the measure would cost, 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., ALA.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 21



CALIFORNIA:

NEW POLL: 50% of Likely Voters in CA Prefer Life in Prison Without Parole to 
Death Penalty -- Statewide Poll Released as YES on 34 Campaign



The latest statewide survey by the Public Policy Institute of California 
(PPIC), released today, found that 50% of likely voters prefer a sentence of 
life in prison without parole to the death penalty, with only 42% choosing the 
death penalty. In November, California voters will be presented this choice for 
the 1st time ever when they are asked to decide on Proposition 34, an 
initiative that will replace the death penalty with a sentence of life in 
prison with absolutely no chance of parole.


The survey results were released the same week that the YES on 34 Campaign 
launched its first paid ads.


This poll shows, once again, that more and more California voters are ready to 
replace our broken and outrageously expensive death penalty system, said 
Jeanne Woodford, official proponent for the ballot initiative and a former 
warden of San Quentin State prison who oversaw four executions. Proposition 34 
stops the waste of taxpayer dollars on special housing and lifetime legal 
counsel for death row inmates. It will save California $130 million each year 
and directs a portion of the savings to law enforcement to solve more crimes.


Support was strongest among most Democrats (66%) while most Republicans (58%) 
prefer the death penalty, and independents are split (42% life imprisonment, 
43% death penalty). Results were similar in September 2011 (50% life 
imprisonment, 45% death penalty). The poll did not ask specifically about 
Proposition 34.


According to the non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office, Proposition 34 will 
save California voters $130 million a year. The initiative directs a portion of 
the money saved, for a 3 year period, to investigate rape and murder cases. 
Almost 1/2 (46%) of California murders go unsolved every year, while more than 
half (56%) of rapes remain unsolved. Proposition 34 will also require that 
inmates work and pay restitution into the victim's compensation fund.


The YES on 34 Campaign launched its paid advertising effort with 6 online video 
ads and a series of online banner ads. The ads highlight the steep fiscal and 
social costs of the death penalty in California. They feature three individuals 
who explain how the death penalty punishes taxpayers:


Jeanne Woodford (http://www.safecalifornia.org/stories/enforcement/woodford) 
details the high costs to taxpayers because of the special treatment that death 
row inmates receive;


Franky Carrillo (http://www.safecalifornia.org/stories/innocent/carrillo), an 
innocent man who was released after 20 years in prison for a crime he did not 
commit, talks about the risk of executing an innocent person; and


Lorrain Taylor (http://www.safecalifornia.org/stories/victims/taylor), whose 
twin sons were murdered, explains that while we waste hundreds of millions of 
dollars on the death penalty, crime labs are shuttered and nearly half of all 
murders in California go unsolved.


These are the first ads we are running in our comprehensive campaign to 
educate voters about who really pays for California???s $4 billion death 
penalty, said YES on 34 Campaign Manager Natasha Minsker. Many voters are 
shocked to learn that the death penalty is far more expensive than life in 
prison without possibility of parole. The truth is that public safety money is 
now wasted on death row when we need it for education and to prevent crime. 
Proposition 34 is justice that works for everyone.


To see the full package of ads, please contact Erin Mellon at 
e...@safecalifornia.org or at the number listed above. More information about 
the YES on 34 Campaign is available at www.yeson34.org


(source: Safe California)

*

Why It's Time to End the Death PenaltyYour Take: Troy Davis' nephew on his 
uncle and on efforts in California to end state executions.



A year ago, on Sept. 21, the state of Georgia killed my uncle. Before Troy 
Davis' name buzzed all over the news and was known around the world, I called 
him Uncle Troy.


I was born in 1994, after he went on death row. I went regularly with my family 
to visit him in prison, before I could speak and before I could comprehend what 
prisons and executions meant. As I got older, I started asking my mother tough 
questions about her brother.


She wanted me to have a relationship with Troy; after all, he was my uncle. But 
she also wanted to protect me from the harsh reality of his situation. She 
explained why he was on death row and how the government wanted to put him to 
sleep, the way they do with dogs that can't be adopted. I asked, But Troy 
didn't kill anybody, so why do they want to kill him? She had a hard time 
explaining why, because she had the same question.


2011 was a very hard year for my family. I lost my grandmother just after 
Troy's final appeal was lost and before his 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., KY., N.Y., UTAH, S. DAK., GA.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 20



CALIFORNIA:

DA to seek death penalty for L.A. serial killer already on death row


Prosecutors today said they planned to seek the death penalty for a man already 
on death row for killing 10 women and now charged with killing 4 other women.


Los Angeles Superior Court Judge George G. Lomeli ordered Chester Turner, 46, 
to return to court Nov. 14 for a pretrial hearing.


Turner -- who was sentenced to death in 2007 for murdering 10 women between 
1987 and 1998 -- was charged last year with murdering 4 women between 1987 and 
1997.


The newest charges involve the deaths of Debra Williams, who was found dead 
Nov. 16, 1992, at the bottom of a stairwell that leads to a boiler room at 97th 
Street School, and Mary Edwards, who was found dead Dec. 16, 1992, in a carport 
outside a motel at 9714 S. Figueroa St., less than a quarter-mile from the 
school where Williams' body was discovered.


He also is charged with the June 5, 1987, slaying of Elandra Bunn and the Feb. 
22, 1997, killing of Cynthia Annette Johnson.


Turner, an Arkansas native, was described by prosecutors as the city of Los 
Angeles' most prolific serial killer when he was sentenced to death in July 
2007.


In addition to his death sentence, Turner was sentenced to a separate 15- 
year-to-life term for the 2nd-degree murder of the unborn baby of 1 of his 
victims, Regina Washington, who was found dead in September 1989.


Along with Washington's slaying, Turner was convicted in April 2007 of 
1st-degree murder for the killings of:


-- Diane Johnson, who was found dead in March 1987 and is not related to 
Cynthia Johnson;


-- Annette Ernest, who was found dead by a passing motorist in October 1987;

-- Anita Fishman, who was killed in January 1989;

-- Andrea Tripplett, who was 5 1/2 months pregnant with her 3rd child when she 
was strangled in April 1993. Turner was not charged with killing her unborn 
child because it was not considered viable under the law in place at that time.


-- Desarae Jones, who was killed in May 1993;

-- Natalie Price, whose body was found outside a home in February 1995;

-- Mildred Beasley, whose body was found in a field in November 1996;

-- Paula Vance, who was strangled in February 1998, during the commission of a 
rape, which was caught on a grainy black-and-white surveillance videotape in 
which the assailant's face cannot be seen; and


-- Brenda Bries, who was found dead in the Skid Row area in April 1998.

Turner lived within 30 blocks of each of the killings -- with Bries' body 
discovered in downtown Los Angeles just 50 yards from where he was living at 
the time, according to prosecutors.


Turner was linked to those killings through DNA test results after being 
arrested and convicted of raping a woman in the Skid Row area in 2002.


After Turner was sent to death row, detectives from the Los Angeles Police 
Department's Robbery-Homicide Division continued to investigate the 4 murders 
with which he has since been charged.


(source: Contra Costa Times)






KENTUCKY:

Prosecutor to seek death penalty in double-homicide case


A man accused of murdering his mother and girlfriend in 2010 could be sentenced 
to the death penalty if he is convicted by a jury.


Commonwealth's Attorney David Smith said Wednesday he will file a motion next 
week indicating he will seek the death penalty if John Payne's case goes to 
trial.


Under Kentucky law, a prosecutor can seek a sentence of death in a murder case 
only if certain aggravating factors are present in the alleged crime. In 
Payne's case, he is accused of killing more than 1 person, which is one of 
those factors.


Payne, 38, was set for trial Oct. 8. However, the trial has been pushed back to 
April 15 so an older murder case can be tried on that date.


Payne's April trial is expected to last 2 weeks, Smith said at the status 
hearing in Madison Circuit Court.


Payne is accused of shooting his mother, Cornelia Gayle Mullins, 55, and 
girlfriend, Meredith King, 32, to death in the Hillsdale Avenue home the 3 
shared. The women's bodies were found Dec. 4, 2010 by police.


Judge Jean Chenault Logue ruled in February that Payne was mentally competent 
to stand trial.


Several of King's family members wearing ribbons and T-shirts emblazoned with 
King's photo attended the status hearing.


Payne also is charged with 2nd-degree escape after detention center officials 
say he tried to leave the jail Oct. 22 when the trash was being taken out.


Payne is scheduled to be court again at 1:30 p.m. Feb. 20 for another status 
hearing.


(source: Richmond Register)






NEW YORK:

Theater ReviewWhen Justice Makes You Gasp; 'The Exonerated,' Revived at the 
Culture Project



There's a distinct sound made by audience members watching The Exonerated. 
It's a sharp exhale, part incredulous, part angry, and delivered with a wince 
or a shake of the head. That sound is a visceral reaction to stories of people 
unjustly sentenced to die. 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., GA., ARIZ., ARK., FLA., N.C.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 19



CALIFORNIA:

Yes on Prop. 34, death penalty repeal


California's death penalty has not satisfied anyone since it was reinstated 35 
years ago. Those who are morally opposed to capital punishment decry the 13 
lives taken by the state. Those who believe the death penalty brings justice 
and closure are frustrated that the average time between sentence and execution 
is 25 years.


I have concluded that it is dysfunctional and cannot be fixed, said Gil 
Garcetti, former Los Angeles district attorney who supports capital punishment 
but argues that the way it is imposed in California is a colossal waste of 
money.


Garcetti has become a leading spokesperson for Proposition 34, which would 
reduce the maximum penalty for murder to life without the possibility of 
parole.


Taxpayers have spent about $4 billion in expenses related to California's 
capital cases since its reinstatement - working out to more than $300 million 
for each execution, according to a 2011 analysis by federal judge Arthur 
Alarcon and Loyola Law School professor Paula M. Mitchell. They called the 
state's death-penalty system a debacle - with its costs expected to reach $9 
billion by 2030.


Donald Heller, an attorney who authored a 1978 ballot initiative that greatly 
expanded the definition of capital crimes, has become a prominent advocate for 
repealing the death penalty. Heller said he wrote the measure to meet 
constitutional muster - which it did - without analyzing its fiscal impact.


I thought the ultimate punishment would save money and end victim grief with 
finality, he wrote in the Los Angeles Daily News. I did not account for 
multiple defense lawyers, expert witnesses including scientists, jury 
consultants and investigators; nor did I consider the cost of countless appeals 
and habeas corpus petitions. Among the many factors contributing to delays: a 
severe shortage of experienced death-penalty lawyers.


To streamline the process would require a huge additional expenditure that 
would include a special court for death penalty appeals, Heller noted.


And there are limits to how much the process can be expedited without elevating 
the risk of executing an innocent person.


It would be far wiser for California to concentrate its resources on the most 
indisputable deterrent to violent crime: raising the odds that a perpetrator 
will be found and convicted.


Prop. 34 advances that goal by directing most of the savings toward 
investigations of homicide and rape cases. Vote yes.


What it does

Key elements of Prop. 34:

-- Repeals death penalty and establishes life without the possibility of 
parole as the maximum punishment for convicted murderers.


-- Applies retroactively to the more than 700 inmates on death row.

-- Directs $100 million from the savings to law enforcement agencies to help 
solve homicide and rape cases.


(source: Editorial, San Francisco Chronicle)

***

State legislators discuss death penalty proposition


One of the most important measures on the November ballot would abolish 
California's death penalty. The pros and cons of Proposition 34 were debated 
Wednesday in Sacramento.


Oakland State Senator Loni Hancock and San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano 
hosted a discussion between two panels of experts, one for repeal, the other 
against.


It boiled down to an argument over which alternative will cost taxpayers the 
least.


The taxpayers of this state would then be required to fund housing and medical 
care for these absolute worst of the worst murderers into their 60s into 70s 
into their 80s, former U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott said.


Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner added, The money saved, by doing the life without 
parole can be re-directed into our law enforcement.


There hasn't been an execution in California since 2006.

(source: KGO TV News)

**

Why The Bee changed stand on death penalty


Each workday at The Bee, members of the editorial board gather and decide what 
editorials we will pursue for the next day's page or the pages to come. Often, 
in deliberating on topics we haven't commented upon for a while, we ask 
ourselves this question:


What did we say in the past?

We ask this question because readers expect an editorial page to stay true to 
its convictions. If you saw us zigzagging down the highway of opinion - saying 
one thing one day and another the next - we'd have a credibility car wreck.


Yet there have been times when The Bee has stopped and taken a U-turn, 
reversing a longstanding editorial position. One of the biggest came last week, 
when we ended the editorial board's long-standing support for California's 
death penalty.


We didn't make this change lightly. It came after years of debate and 
discussion that preceded the current makeup of the editorial board. It came 
after many months of research and meetings with legal scholars and groups on 
both sides of the death penalty debate.


The position we 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., PENN., ARIZ.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 13



CALIFORNIA:

Study: Death Penalty Will Cost California Up To $7.7 Billion By 2050


California's prison system is severely overcrowded and expensive, but 
incarceration for those sentenced to life without parole is not the state's 
most costly form of punishment. With a state initiative to eliminate capital 
punishment on the ballot this November, an updated study by a law professor and 
a federal appeals court judge projects that California's death penalty system 
would cost taxpayers between $5.4 and $7.7 billion more between now and 2050 
than if those in death row were sentenced to life in prison without parole.


During that time, the study projects, about 740 more inmates will be added to 
death row and 14 executions will be carried out, while more than 500 of those 
prisoners will die from suicide or natural causes before the state executes 
them. Compared to life without parole - the state's 2nd-most-severe punishment 
- the costs of the death penalty system include higher incarceration costs due 
to security and other requirements, and astronomical litigation costs - both 
for individual appeals and for lethal injection litigation.


Ninth Circuit Senior Judge Arthur L. Alarcon and Loyola Law School Los Angeles 
adjunct professor Paula M. Mitchell explain in the Loyola of Los Angeles Law 
Review:


[T]here is absolutely no support for the contention, advanced by some 
pro-death-penalty organizations, that replacing the death penalty with LWOP 
[life without parole] will increase housing or medical care costs for the 
state. Death-row inmates grow old and need costly medical care, just as LWOP 
inmates do. Indeed, death row inmates receive the same medical care that LWOP 
inmates receive, but it is provided at a premium due to logistical problems and 
security concerns that are endemic to providing healthcare to aging inmates on 
San Quentin's death row. The vast majority of death-row prisoners who have died 
in California have lived out the remainder of their natural lives in state 
prison, just as LWOP inmates do. This is because most death-row inmates die in 
prison of natural causes. They just do so in a much more costly manner than do 
LWOP inmates.


If the state were to pass the proposed SAFE California Act (Proposition 34), 
$30 million per year would be reallocated toward the 46 % of homicide cases and 
56 % of rape cases that go unsolved, according to statistics from the 
California Attorney General's office.


Since 1989, California has sentenced 2 men to death who were later exonerated 
and released from prison. In 2011 and 2012 alone, five California men who were 
wrongfully convicted of murder but received lesser sentences were exonerated 
and released from prison, according to the study.


The National Registry of Exonerations - a database of those who were wrongfully 
convicted and later exonerated since 1989 - reports that California had the 
2nd-highest number of wrongful convictions in the country at 97 (tied with 
Texas). The state with the highest number, Illinois, eliminated the death 
penalty in 2011.


(source: DPIC)

***

It's time to dump California's death penalty by passing Prop. 34The state's 
death penalty already effectively has been abolished. The question now is 
whether we should keep throwing away tax money on a broken system.



California has executed only 13 people in the last 34 years, and none since 
2006. A study last year found that the state had spent $4 billion to administer 
capital punishment since 1978. That's about $308 million per execution.


So for me, Prop. 34 is not about the merits of capital punishment. It's about 
whether we should keep paying extravagantly for something we're not getting.


The November ballot measure is relatively simple compared to most other 
initiatives. It would repeal California's death penalty and replace it with 
life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.


It would apply retroactively to the 729 convicted killers already sentenced to 
death. They and future murderers would be tossed into the general prison 
population and treated like other convicts - double-bunked and required to 
work.


Current death row inmates at San Quentin are relatively coddled - in their own 
private cells with personal TVs and extensive access to the recreation yard.


They're allowed to go to the exercise yard seven days a week, up to 6 hours a 
day, or they can lay in their cell and watch TV 7 days a week if they want, 
says Jeanne Woodford, a former San Quentin warden and ex-director of the state 
corrections department. She's a leading proponent of Prop. 34.


They don't work because there's no work for death row inmates. So they're not 
required to pay restitution to victims' families. They would be under Prop. 
34.


The legislative analyst estimates that state and county governments ultimately 
would save about $130 million annually by repealing the death penalty.


Over an initial 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., ARIZ., GA., OHIO, US MIL., MO., PENN.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 12


CALIFORNIA:

LA judge refuses to order 1-drug executions


A judge turned down a bid Monday by the Los Angeles County district attorney to 
order the immediate execution of 2 death row prisoners by a new single-drug 
injection method.


Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler said he did not have jurisdiction to 
order the procedure that has never been used in California.


Executions in the state have been on hold for years while appellate courts 
consider the legality of the 3-drug protocol now in place.


There are currently 725 prisoners on death rows in California, where voters 
will consider a ballot initiative in November that would replace the death 
penalty with life in prison without possibility of parole.


At Monday's hearing, Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley 
suggested a virtual end-run around the current logjam in the 9th U.S. Circuit 
Court of Appeals over the way executions are done.


Deputy District Attorney Michelle Hanisee said the 3 drugs used previously are 
no longer available, and a pharmaceutical company plans to stop making 1 of 
them.


The decision by Judge Fidler came as San Mateo County District Attorney Steve 
Wagstaffe asked a judge to set an execution date for Robert Fairbank, who was 
sent to death row for the murder of a San Francisco woman in 1985. A judge is 
expected to consider Wagstaffe's request in October.


Cooley's motion involved the requested execution of 2 murderers who have been 
on death row for more than 25 years.


Mitchell Sims and Tiequon Cox have exhausted all of their appeals. Cox, a gang 
member, was convicted of shooting a grandmother, her daughter and 2 
grandchildren in 1984.


Sims was convicted of shooting a pizza deliveryman in Glendale in 1985 after 
killing two co-workers at a restaurant in Hanahan, S.C. He fled to California 
with his girlfriend, who also was convicted and is serving a life sentence. 
Sims also faces a death sentence in South Carolina.


The most recent execution in California came in 2006, the same year a federal 
judge imposed a moratorium following complaints that the t3-drug method was 
causing excruciating pain and was cruel and unusual punishment. A state ruling 
in 2011 cited the same issue.


There have also been objections from the medical community to having medical 
personnel, including anesthesiologists, participate in executions.


At a hearing in July, expert witness John McAuliffe, a former corrections 
officer who has been contracted to develop the new single-drug protocol, 
disclosed that a California team of executioners was rehearsing how to use a 
new lethal injection to end the lives of death row prisoners with a single 
drug. The team included registered nurses who knew how to insert IV lines, he 
said.


A representative of the attorney general objected that the single drug protocol 
had not been approved by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.


Proposition 34, the upcoming ballot initiative, argues that California has 
spent $4 billion on a dysfunctional capital punishment system that has resulted 
in just 13 executions since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978. For a 
brief period beginning in 1972, the death penalty was held as unconstitutional 
in the state and death sentences were commuted to life.


In his remarks in court, Fidler referred to the upcoming ballot measure and 
said the people of California will have the opportunity to decide the future of 
capital punishment.


If they set aside the death penalty, that's it, he said. Then they're 
expressing what their will is at this time in society, and that they don't want 
it to take place.


If they reject the ballot proposition, the death penalty for those who have 
exhausted their legal remedies will have to be done in an efficient manner, 
Fidler said.


He said a trial court cannot make the decision to change the death penalty 
protocol.


I don't think this court is the appropriate forum, he said.

(source: Associated Press)

***

Death penalty deters murders? Evidence doesn't bear that out


Ever since California added the death penalty to its penal code in the 1870s, 
supporters have argued that the threat of executions would make potential 
murderers think twice before committing heinous crimes.


The Bee made that argument numerous times in its early years, and many 
politicians and prosecutors have offered it since. But does the evidence show 
that capital punishment deters murders, even when applied frequently and 
expeditiously? Research suggests it does not.


One obvious way to look at the problem is to compare the murder rates in states 
with executions and those without.


For example, compare the homicide rates in California, New York and Texas, as 
the National Research Council has done. From 1974 to 2009, the homicide rates 
in those 3 states tracked virtually identically - going up at the same time in 
the late 1970s and late 1980s and all declining dramatically since 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., ALA., OHIO, ARIZ., S. DAK.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 5



CALIFORNIA:

Saving money is weak argument for abolishing death penalty


If you're going to argue against the death penalty, then argue against the 
death penalty.


Call it cruel and unusual. Argue that God - and not governments - should decide 
life and death. Cast doubt on it as a deterrent to violent crime or expand on 
the words of former President Jimmy Carter.


Perhaps the strongest argument against the death penalty is extreme bias 
against the poor, minorities or those with diminished mental capacity, Carter 
wrote in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in April.


But to argue against the death penalty by stating it's too expensive for 
California is intellectually dishonest and disrespectful to the victims of the 
state's most heinous criminals.


Yet that is what proponents of Proposition 34 are doing. The November ballot 
initiative seeks to repeal California's death penalty law and allow death row 
inmates to be resentenced to life without parole.


The same people pushing for Proposition 34 - the American Civil Liberties 
Union, among others - are the ones primarily responsible for California 
spending too much on death row prisoners in the 1st place.


Legal delays caused by the ACLU and others are a big reason why California has 
executed only 13 people since 1978 at a cost of $4 billion. And yes, those 
numbers are obscene - just as it's obscene that California has 729 death row 
inmates.


But Proposition 34 will fail as an argument about money because 68 percent of 
Californians support the death penalty, according to a 2011 Field Poll.


What gives Proposition 34 proponents hope is that within that 2011 poll, there 
was increasing support for life without parole over the death penalty - 48 % to 
40 %. Support for life without parole was even stronger among women, Latinos 
and African Americans.


Herein lies the fatal flaw of Proposition 34 as a money argument - people 
choose life without parole over the death penalty for emotional reasons. Some 
African Americans and Latinos have long-standing grievances with a legal system 
that many feel is either stacked against them or can be. Argue against the 
death penalty within that context and people listen. People of faith listen to 
arguments for putting California out of the killing business.


But a money argument? Who in California believes it anymore when ballot 
initiatives claim big savings being one yes vote away?


It's not extremely expensive to house serial killers and child rapists until 
they die? This is not to mention the horrific stories of people victimized by 
death row inmates ??? stories that will be detailed in future columns.


In truth, executions could be sped up if not for the efforts of Proposition 34 
proponents.


It would be nice if some of them argued the courage of their convictions before 
Election Day.


(source: Marcos Breton, The Modesto Bee)

*

Ex-San Quentin Warden Takes Up Banner Against Death Penalty  Jeanne 
Woodford is among those joining the debate over the death penalty and Prop. 34 
during public meetings this week.



In her time as warden of San Quentin State Prison, Jeanne Woodford oversaw 4 
death row executions at the infamous California prison.


On Sept. 7 as part of the Mill Valley Library's First Friday series, Woodford 
will talk about her background in the criminal justice system and explain why 
she's been working to pass Prop. 34, a ballot measure that seeks to replace the 
death penalty in California with life in prison without possibility of parole.


The Marin Coalition will host a luncheon presentation Wednesday, Sept. 5, in 
Fairfax, with attorney Aundre Herron, a member of the Board of Directors for 
Death Penalty Focus and a member of the ACLU National Board of Directors, and 
Mark Peterson, District Attorney for Contra Costa County. The topic will be: 
Proposition 34 - Death Penalty Reform - For  Against. The presentation will 
be at Deer Park Villa at 11:30 a.m.


Woodford started her work at San Quentin in 1978 as a correctional officer 
during a time when female officers were somewhat of a rarity. She rose through 
the ranks to become the prison's first female warden in 2000, gaining respect 
from colleagues and inmates alike.


In early 2011, Woodford became executive director of Death Penalty Focus and is 
also currently a senior fellow at the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice. 
Woodford is the official proponent of Yes on 34, the SAFE California Act of 
2012.


We asked Woodford why she supports Prop. 34 and what she's doing about it.

Patch: Was there a particular moment in your career that solidified your 
opposition to the death penalty?


Jeanne Woodford: I've always been morally opposed to the death penalty, but I'm 
in public policy now so for me it's about the policy. In 1978, there were 6 
inmates on death row at San Quentin. Today there are 723 inmates, which is the 
largest number in the country. We've spent 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., CONN., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 3



CALIFORNIA:

Marin DA skirts Proposition 34 stand despite death penalty 'reservations'


Marin County supervisors are expected to support a Nov. 6 ballot measure 
abolishing the death penalty in California, but District Attorney Ed Berberian 
isn't likely to join them.


Supervisor Steve Kinsey, noting Marin supervisors have historically opposed the 
death penalty, asked Berberian to consider joining them in opposing it when the 
county board considers Proposition 34 in several weeks. The initiative would 
replace the death penalty with life without parole and require inmates to get 
prison jobs to pay restitution.


ii I am one of the DA's that has certain reservations about that particular 
punishment, Berberian told the board at a recent planning session, quickly 
adding that the penalty has merit in some cases.


Yes, I have discretion, but I don't think I have a blank check to say 'No, I 
will never do that,' he said of seeking the death penalty. There are very, 
very few cases in Marin where the death penalty has been sought, he said. We 
have not had that many, he said. I need justification for doing that, he 
said of seeking a death sentence.


Asked by a reporter how he intended to vote on Proposition 34, Berberian 
skirted an answer, saying the matter was between him and the ballot box. I as 
an individual will cast my ballot, the DA noted as the session concluded.


Sheriff Bob Doyle, questioned later about his view, pulled no punches on 
Proposition 34, saying he is voting against the measure. I believe that the 
death penalty has its place in our society, the sheriff said. It's the 
ultimate punishment for very heinous crimes.


California, with more than 700 inmates on death row, has not put a prisoner to 
death since 2006, when a federal judge halted executions until changes in how 
the penalty was administered were made. 13 inmates have been executed in 
California since the penalty was reinstated in the state by Proposition 7 in 
1978.


Death penalty foes point to a study this summer indicating death row cases cost 
taxpayers far more than life without parole in light of appeal and related 
expenses, with the state spending roughly $308 million each on the 13 cases 
that ended in execution since 1978.


(source: Marin Independent Journal)






CONNECTICUT:

Trial challenging Conn.'s death penalty to begin


One of the most unusual trials in recent memory in Connecticut is set to begin 
next week, when 7 of the 11 men on the state???s death row will be brought into 
a makeshift courtroom at a prison in Somers as they challenge the fairness of 
the death penalty.


The inmates are suing the state, alleging racial and geographic biases in how 
prosecutors seek the death penalty and seeking to have their death sentences 
overturned. After 7 years of legal wrangling, the trial is scheduled to start 
Wednesday.


The issue is whether the death penalty in Connecticut has been administered in 
a discriminatory or arbitrary way, said David Golub, a Stamford attorney 
representing condemned killer Sedrick Cobb.


Prosecutors and defense lawyers agreed to hold the trial in a vacant housing 
unit at the Northern Correctional Institution and provide a video feed for the 
public about 15 miles away at Rockville Superior Court. The inmates will sit at 
tables in a prison day room with their attorneys, while other tables will be 
set up for Judge Samuel Sferrazza and prosecutors, according to lawyers in the 
case and Correction Department officials.


Correction Department spokesman Brian Garnett declined to discuss specifics of 
security, including how many correctional officers will be in the room and 
whether the inmates will be shackled to the tables.


A similar arrangement was made for a hearing in the case in December 2007, when 
5 death row inmates involved in the lawsuit were shackled in cubicles in a 
gymnasium at the Northern prison, home of the state's death row. Members of the 
media and public watched the proceeding on a video screen in the Rockville 
courthouse.


The key evidence for the inmates is a study by Stanford University professor 
John Donahue, a former Yale University professor who reviewed the nearly 4,700 
murders in Connecticut from 1973 to 2007. Among those, Donahue said 205 were 
death penalty-eligible cases that resulted in a homicide conviction, and 
defendants in 138 of the 205 murders were charged with capital felony.


The end results of those murder prosecutions were 66 capital felony 
convictions, nine death sentences and the execution of serial killer Michael 
Ross in 2005.


Donahue said he found that minority defendants who murder white victims are 
three times as likely to receive a death sentence as white defendants who 
murder white victims. He also found that minority defendants who commit death 
penalty-eligible murders of white victims are 6 times as likely to receive a 
death sentence as minority defendants who commit death 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., KAN., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 27



CALIFORNIA:

Prop 34 Would End California Death Penalty


A perfect alignment of advantageous factors enabled opponents of capital 
punishment to place its abolition on the ballot for the 1st time in California.


Among these elements, the release of a study exposing the exorbitant cost of 
maintaining capital punishment was key to ensuring that voters this November 
will get to decide whether to scrap the death penalty in favor of a life 
sentence without the possibility of parole.


Organizers of the statewide coalition behind Proposition 34 met frequently last 
year to mull over and prepare their strategy and tactics to qualify for the 
ballot.


But our efforts really turned a corner when a new, comprehensive study showed 
the steep financial cost of capital punishment, said Natasha Minsker, campaign 
manager for the SAFE California Campaign (Savings, Full Enforcement for 
California Act).


Fiscal Bombshell

The study conducted by U.S. Ninth Circuit Judge Arthur L. Alarcon--who 
prosecuted capital cases when he was a Los Angeles County deputy district 
attorney in the 1950s--and a Loyola Law School professor, Paula M. Mitchell, 
was a fiscal bombshell in light of the state's severe budget crisis.


Their report revealed that the state had spent $4 billion on the death penalty 
while carrying out 13 executions since 1978, when the punishment was revived.


Moreover, the study projected that by 2030, death-penalty expenditure will 
balloon to $9 billion for death-row housing, health care, legal appeals and the 
actual executions. In addition, today's California death-row population of 724 
inmates???already the largest in the nation--would grow to more than 1,000.


Based on previously unavailable Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation 
records, the highly credible study shifted the balance of forces in the 
death-penalty debate practically overnight.


Gil Garcetti, a former Los Angeles district attorney, who had sought numerous 
death penalty convictions, immediately and publicly renounced his support for 
capital punishment.


The astronomical cost of maintaining the death penalty, he explained, turned 
him around. He's now one of SAFE California's spokespeople.


Death-Row Exonerations

Also, highly publicized exonerations of death-row inmates over the years led 
Garcetti to wonder if some of the inmates awaiting execution in California may 
have been wrongfully convicted.


According to the American Civil Liberties Union, 138 inmates have been released 
from death rows nationwide since 1973 because they were proved innocent.


It's not surprising that some on death row were wrongfully convicted, if they 
went through similar settings that I did, said Franky Carrillo. He spent 20 
years of a 30-year term in prison for murder, starting when he was age 
16--after he was mistakenly tagged as the perpetrator.


Carrillo recalls a process marked by an error-filled photo line-up, testimony 
by a single uncorroborated witness and lack of forensic evidence, which led to 
a conviction that took him and his supporters two decades to overturn. He now 
actively campaigns for Prop. 34.


Besides Garcetti's, other prominent defections boosted Prop. 34's momentum.

Ron Briggs, the son of State Sen. John Briggs, who sponsored the current death 
penalty law, soured on capital punishment after seeing its fiscal demand and 
the lengthy process that, he said, added to the suffering of the victims' 
families.


Similarly, Donald Heller, a former federal prosecutor who in the late 1970s 
helped Briggs toughen the death penalty law, had a change of heart. Both Heller 
and the younger Briggs are today vocal supporters of Prop. 34.


Worst Possible Option

Their names reinforced the already powerful voices supporting the proposition, 
such as former San Quentin warden Jeanne Woodford, now executive director of 
Death Penalty Focus. She often speaks of the personal stress on corrections 
personnel, including her, who had to carry out executions.


Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is listed as a signer of the Prop. 34 
argument in the official state election booklet. State Supreme Court Chief 
Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye called retaining capital punishment the worst 
possible option.


However, former California Governor Pete Wilson signed the official argument 
against Prop. 34, which does not necessarily help to support his side of the 
issue.


Wilson is highly unpopular among Hispanics for leading the charge in 1994 to 
deprive undocumented immigrants of public services through Proposition 187. The 
state's Republican Party has yet to recover from its loss of support from the 
state's largest minority community.


But even before the Alarcon-Mitchell report, said Minsker, anti-death penalty 
forces felt hopeful about their chances of successfully gathering more than the 
required 504,000 voter signatures to get their proposition on the ballot.


Organizers were aware of the growing preference 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., S.C.

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 15




CALIFORNIA:

Ending death penalty would fuel crime


Should California preserve the death penalty for vicious murderers?

That's the real question for voters considering Proposition 34. It's not about 
saving money or preventing the execution of innocent people. Those are 
political statements by special interests who have consistently fought against 
capital punishment. Prop. 34 is their latest effort, complete with a catchy 
name and slick sales pitch.


We oppose Prop. 34 from the perspective of a father forced to bury his 
12-year-old little girl after she was raped and murdered, and a district 
attorney who has taken an oath to defend and protect innocent citizens.


Should it pass, Prop. 34 would embolden violent criminals. Make no mistake; 
criminals will take advantage of leniency and act brazenly without fear of 
consequences.


A death sentence is given to fewer than 2 percent of convicted murderers. It is 
reserved for cases with a separate finding of special circumstances attributed 
to crimes so violent that juries unanimously decided capital punishment was 
warranted.


For example, serial killer Robert Rhoades kidnapped 8-year-old Michael Lyons as 
he was walking home from school. Rhoades tortured and raped the little boy for 
10 hours, stabbing him 70 times, before slitting his throat and dumping his 
body in a river.


Prop. 34 lets these killers escape the death penalty and requires taxpayers to 
spend tens of millions of dollars to provide them with lifetime health care and 
housing benefits.


Supporters also claim eliminating capital punishment ensures innocent people 
won't be executed. They blur the significant difference between not guilty and 
innocent, which is dishonest. Gov. Jerry Brown has stated there are no innocent 
people on California's death row.


Prop. 34 proponents believe that life in prison without parole should be 
California's maximum punishment. Patricia Pendergrass has experience with how a 
life sentence can mean nothing. Behind the walls of Folsom Prison, while 
serving a life sentence for the murder of a teenage girl, Clarence Ray Allen 
planned and ordered the execution of Pendergrass' brother Bryon Schletewitz and 
2 others. For that, he earned a death sentence.


The harshest insult Prop. 34 supporters make is that the death penalty is too 
expensive. Never mind that the initiative takes $100 million from California's 
general fund. Proponents' born-again fiscal conservatism is hypocritical 
because they are the ones who have for decades disrupted the system by filing 
endless legal appeals.


Other states afford criminals due process while enforcing the death penalty. We 
can, too. Join us and protect California by voting no on Prop 34.


(source: Opinion; Stephen M. Wagstaffe is the San Mateo County district 
attorney. Marc Klaas is the father of 12-year-old Polly Klaas, who was murdered 
by Richard Allen DavisSan Francisco Chronicle)







SOUTH CAROLINA:

Death penalty under serious consideration in Irmo double homicide


Fifth Circuit Solicitor Dan Johnson said Wednesday morning he is seriously 
considering going for the death penalty in the double homicide case against 
Brett Parker.


It's on the table and being given serious consideration, Johnson said. We 
are looking at it.


Johnson declined to set a date by which he might make a decision on whether to 
seek the death penalty against Parker, accused of killing his wife and a friend 
in April at his Ascot Estates home in what law officers have called a 
premeditated crime.


The Richland County Sheriff's Department in July charged Parker, 42, with 2 
counts of murder. Warrants in the case say on April 13 he shot to death his 
wife, Tammy Jo, 44, and family friend Bryan Capnerhurst, 46, at the Parkers' 
$760,000 home in the upscale Ascot Estates subdivision in the Irmo area.


Prosecutors have said the motive in the case was to collect his wife's life 
insurance, which they said was nearly $1 million. They said Parker used 2 guns 
in the incident.


Parker has told officers that Capnerhurst killed his wife, and then, in 
self-defense, he grabbed a gun and killed Capnerhurst.


In July, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott, whose detectives investigated the 
case, said that Capnerhurst worked for Brett Parker's illegal sports gambling 
business. Lott, who called Parker a bookie, said gambling was behind the 
shootings but was not the sole motive.


Federal authorities are also examining alleged sports betting evidence found at 
the Parkers' home.


On July 26, Judge DeAndrea Benjamin denied bond for Parker from the Richland 
County jail, despite pleas from his defense lawyers that he has no criminal 
record and posed no public threat.


Parker remains in custody at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center off Bluff 
Road.


(source: The State)


___
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[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., IND., MASS., CONN., USA

[Rick Halperin]

July 16


CALIFORNIA:

California Votes to End Death Penalty


Last week, the attorney for convicted murder Scott Peterson filed a thick 
packet of legal briefs calling for an appeal of his death sentence. For many, 
the heinous killing of Peterson’s wife Laci and unborn child makes him a poster 
child for the death penalty. Yet Peterson’s appeal, presumably the first of 
what will be many, could also be seen as the poster child against the death 
penalty.


Peterson’s lawyer argues, “The case against Mr. Peterson was anything but 
overwhelming …There were no eyewitnesses, no confessions, no admissions and 
scant physical evidence connected him to the crime.” Peterson’s attorney went 
on to allege incorrect rulings, juror misconduct, and a host of other errors in 
Peterson’s case which preventing his client from getting a fair trial.


This November, the Saving, Accountability, and Full Enforcement for California 
Act, or SAFE California Act, will appear on the ballot as a state measure 
(under the title Death Penalty Repeal). The official language of the bill 
states:


“Repeals death penalty as maximum punishment for persons found guilty of murder 
and replaces it with life imprisonment without possibility of parole. Applies 
retroactively to persons already sentenced to death. Requires persons found 
guilty of murder to work while in prison, with their wages to be applied to any 
victim restitution fines or orders against them. Creates $100 million fund to 
be distributed to law enforcement agencies to help solve more homicide and rape 
cases.”


A summary of the estimated fiscal impact of the bill was prepared by the 
California Legislative Analyst’s Office and the Director of Finance. According 
to the ballot: “Net savings to the state and counties that could amount to the 
high tens of millions of dollars annually on a statewide basis due to the 
elimination of the death penalty. One-time state costs totaling $100 million 
from 2012-13 through 2015-16 to provide funding to local law enforcement 
agencies.”


One of the state’s leading advocates for the repeal of the death penalty is the 
former warden of San Quentin and former Director of the California Department 
of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Jeanne Woodford. Woodford is now the 
Executive Director of Death Penalty Focus and, along with the ACLU, have led 
the way in getting the SAFE California Act on the ballot.


Backers of the measure have argued the total saving to the state could actually 
add up to $1billion over the next five years. Along with the costs associated 
with running the nation’s largest Death Row, the state will save hundreds of 
millions of dollars on defense lawyers, prosecutors, and other courtroom 
expenses involving the death penalty. “Our system is broken, expensive, and it 
always will carry the grave risk of a mistake,” said Woodford in a recent press 
statement.


It is that grave risk of mistake that often looms in the back of many of the 
advocates for ending the death penalty. The non-profit organization the 
Innocence Project has now help exonerate, using DNA testing and other top 
forensic methods, 292 convicted men, including 17 men sentenced to death. Many 
believe Texas has recently put to death several men, including the cases of 
Carlos De Luna and Cameron Todd Willingham.


According to the Innocence Project, “The common themes that run though these 
cases – from global problems like poverty and racial issues to the criminal 
justice issues like eyewitness misidentification, invalid or improper forensic 
science, overzealous police and prosecutors and inept defense counsel – cannot 
be ignored and continue to plague our criminal justice system”.


Nonetheless, there are also outspoken opponents for ending the death penalty in 
California. Former Sacramento U.S Attorney and chairman of the Californians for 
Justice and Public Safety, McGregor Scott, argues the problem with the death 
penalty is not the law but rather the lawyers filing “frivolous appeals”. In a 
statement, released immediately after the SAFE California Act was approved for 
the ballot, Scott writes:


“On behalf of crime victims and their loved ones who have suffered at the hands 
of California’s most violent criminals, we are disappointed that the ACLU and 
their allies would seek to score political points in their continued efforts to 
override the will of the people and repeal the death penalty.


Make no mistake; Californians are smart. They know the ACLU is the reason why 
California’s capital punishment system is costly and broken. Frivolous appeals, 
endless delays and the ongoing re-victimization of California is their status 
quo. Now they think they can fool voters by promoting an initiative that would 
reward cop-killers and child-murders under the guise of alleged cost savings. 
Voters know better. They oppose the ACLU, support the death penalty and will 
not be fooled by hollow promises and political rhetoric.

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., OKLA.

[Rick Halperin]

May 10



CALIFORNIA:

Client dies in prison, but lawyer still seeks to prove innocenceATTORNEY 
ASKS THE CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT TO DECIDE THE CASE OF DENNIS LAWLEY, WHO WAS 
CONVICTED AND SENTENCED TO DEATH IN A 1989 MURDER FOR HIRE. THE BID FOR FREEDOM 
WAS FILED IN 2008 AND HAD LANGUISHED.


A convicted killer who died on death row while his appeal languished before the 
California Supreme Court should have his case decided posthumously, his 
attorney told the state high court.


Scott F. Kauffman, who represented Dennis Lawley for 19 years, contends that 
his client was innocentof a 1989 murder for hire that sent him to San Quentin. 
Lawley, he said, deserves a ruling on his claims, even if the outcome will have 
no practical consequence.


Mr. Lawley's death does not erase the injustice of his conviction and 
sentence, Kauffman told the court in a written motion. It would be a 
disservice to justice and to Mr. Lawley, who has always maintained his 
innocence, for this court to [dismiss the case] as moot.


Lawley was sentenced to death after he was convicted of hiring 2 men to kill 
Kenneth Stewart, a recently released prisoner who had been robbing drug 
dealers. Prosecutors contended that the murder weapon was a gun found in 
Lawley's cabin in Modesto.


Years after Lawley's conviction, Brian Seabourn, the admitted triggerman, said 
he was ordered to shoot the victim by the Aryan Brotherhood, a prison gang. 
Seabourn, serving a life sentence, had long confided in others that he had 
buried the murder weapon in a Modesto field.


A search of that field in December 2007 turned up a rusty revolver, the type of 
gun Seabourn had described.


The discovery came too late for an innocence case that Lawley had pending 
before the California Supreme Court. The court rejected that petition, ruling 
that Lawley had not proved his innocence, but gave him the opportunity to file 
a new challenge based on the gun's discovery.


Kauffman filed the new challenge in April 2008, and written arguments were 
completed in January 2009.


After hearing nothing from the court for 23 months, Lawley filed another motion 
in December 2010 asking the court to move more quickly.


15 additional months had passed when Lawley, 68, was found dead in his cell 
March 11, a victim of heart failure triggered by methamphetamine use. His 
motion asking for a speedy resolution was still pending.


Courts sometimes decide cases after they have become moot, to resolve important 
legal issues. But in fact-specific cases such as Lawley's, they generally 
decide that their time would be spent better elsewhere.


Deputy Atty. Gen. David A. Eldridge, representing the prosecution in the case, 
could not be reached for comment. Kauffman said he wants the state of 
California to acknowledge there was a giant miscarriage of justice.


Mr. Lawley is dead, but his case should not be buried with him, Kauffman told 
the court.


The court has not responded to his request.

(source: Los Angeles Times)



see: a link to a current poll on the S.A.F.E. California Initiative; 
http://www.mountain-news.com/opinion/poll_a172c6c6-9a27-11e1-afba-0019bb2963f4.html


(source: Mountain News)






OKLAHOMA:

Anatomy of an American Execution


In 2010, while making an episode of Fault Lines on the death penalty in the US, 
Josh Rushing interviewed death row inmate Michael Selsor. It was the only 
interview Selsor ever granted. 2 years later, Rushing returned to watch Selsor 
die. In this special report, he takes an unflinching look at an American 
execution.


I came to Oklahoma to witness a killing, a homicide in fact.

At a microphone Debbie Huggins fights tears and with a strong southern drawl 
says slowly, emphatically: What we did to him today was much kinder than what 
he did to my dad.


Him refers to Michael Selsor and what to the murder of Clayton Chandler, a 
clerk shot 6 times during a gas station robbery in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Selsor 
pulled the trigger even after Chandler had complied and volunteered the loot.


In 1975 I never would have thought that it would take 37 years for justice, 
Huggins says.


Today's justice was delivered about half an hour before Huggins approached the 
microphone; it is why I am here. The only interview Michael Selsor ever granted 
was to Al Jazeera's Josh Rushing.


There are few acts graver than when a government takes the life of one of its 
own citizens. Executions often get a lot of coverage in the US, when there is 
something controversial about the case or enough people believe the condemned 
might be innocent. These scenarios attract media attention and fuel vigils. 
This was not the case with Michael Selsor. Everyone agreed that he did it, 
including him. The reporters who cover Selsor's execution will focus on Huggins 
and her family. Perhaps you cannot blame them. The only interview Selsor ever 
granted was to me.


Even though executions are conducted on behalf of the citizens of the 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., NEB., OKLA., UTAH, FLA.

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 21


CALIFORNIA:

Occupy Wall Street Takes On U.S. Prison Conditions


Hundreds of anti-Wall Street demonstrators and prison reform activists joined 
forces outside San Quentin State Prison in California on Monday to protest high 
incarceration rates and living conditions for inmates.


Speakers said the state's sentencing laws were too strict. They called for an 
end to solitary confinement and the death penalty and said children should not 
be tried as adults.


I myself experienced more than 14 months of solitary confinement, said Sarah 
Shourd, 33, an American imprisoned in Iran after being arrested while hiking 
near the Iraq border in 2009. After only two months, my mind began to slip.


She was joined at the protest by Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, who spent more 
than two years in prison in Iran after being arrested with Shourd, and by 
former members of the Black Panthers African-American activist group who spoke 
of a history of problems at the San Quentin prison.


The prison is California's oldest correctional facility and houses the state's 
only gas chamber.


Activist Barbara Becnel said prisoners were drawing inspiration from the Occupy 
movement, which spread across the country last autumn with calls for greater 
economic equality. The movement has lost ground as many U.S. cities evicted 
protesters from their tent camps.


We have merged the prison rights movement with the Occupy movement, Becnel 
said, quoting a message she said came from San Quentin death row prisoner Kevin 
Cooper. The 99 % has to be concerned about the bottom 1 %.


Marin County Sheriff's Office Sergeant Keith Boyd estimated the crowd numbered 
600 to 700 people at its height.


Demonstrators held a moment of silence for Christian Alexander Gomez, 27, who 
died on Feb. 2 while on a hunger strike in California's Corcoran State Prison.


Gomez was among thousands of California prisoners who have staged hunger 
strikes in waves since July, starting with protests against isolation units at 
Pelican Bay State Prison.


The strikes began after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in May that California 
prison overcrowding was causing needless suffering and death and ordered the 
state to reduce the number of prisoners to 110,000, still well over the maximum 
capacity, from 140,000.


In an interview with Reuters, California Department of Corrections and 
Rehabilitation spokeswoman Terry Thornton contradicted speakers who said they 
had been held in isolation while in prison in the state.


Inmates held in segregated units are not isolated, she said. Some inmates 
are single-celled. But they converse with other inmates. They can get visits 
and they interact with staff.


(source: Huffington Post)



Arraignment delayed for death row inmate charged in Long Beach girl's murder 
 Arrest of suspect for 1989 strangulation of Wilson student made possible 
by DNA analysis.



Arraignment was delayed for the 2nd time Tuesday in the case of a death row 
inmate charged with capital murder in the 1989 strangulation of a 15-year-old 
Wilson High School sophomore.


Royal Clark Jr., 49, was tied to the 22-year-old murder of Danielle Marie 
Haddon through DNA analysis.


Without that analysis, funded by a federal grant in 2008, the already-convicted 
killer of a 14-year-old Fresno girl might have never been suspected in the Long 
Beach case, officials said earlier this year.


Clark - who was 27 at the time of the Oct. 30, 1989, killing - allegedly used 
an electric cord to strangle the local teen, who was home alone while her 
grandmother was at work, Deputy District Attorney Carol Rose said.


Clark appeared briefly at the Long Beach Superior Court Tuesday morning to 
enter a plea in the case, but his arraignment was postponed until March 5.


He is being held without bail since his transfer from San Quentin Prison, where 
he has been awaiting execution on death row since his 1995 conviction for 
1st-degree murder for the strangulation and attempted rape of a 14-year-old 
Fresno girl and the attempted murder of a 15-year-old girl.


Prosecutors have not yet decided if they will seek the death penalty in the 
matter.


(source: Contra Costa Times)






NEBRASKA:

Sister Of Condemned Man's Victim Fights Death PenaltyMiriam Thimm's Brother 
Tortured, Killed By Michael Ryan



Barring a successful appeal, the state of Nebraska will execute Michael Ryan on 
March 6, but the sister of one of Ryan's victims is doing all she can to keep 
that from happening.


It's been 30 years since Miriam Thimm lost her younger brother James Thimm. He 
was beaten, tortured and killed at a cult compound just outside of Rule, Neb.


Ryan was the cult's leader and was convicted of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder 
in 1985 for the deaths of Thimm and 5-year-old Luke Stice. Ryan was later 
sentenced to death.


Despite the graphic details surrounding her brother's death, Miriam Thimm said 
she forgives Ryan and said he's a sick 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----CALIF., MONT., NEB., OHIO, LA., MO., S.DAK.

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 3



CALIFORNIA:

California Supreme Court overturns O.C. killer's death sentence


The California Supreme Court on Thursday voted unanimously to overturn the 
death penalty for an Orange County man convicted of burning a woman to death 
over $100 of methamphetamine.


The high court ruled that Orange County Superior Court Judge John J. Ryan 
failed to properly instruct the jury that recommended the death sentence for 
Gary Galen Brents, who was convicted of the 1995 murder of Kelly Gordon.


Gordon was a prostitute who worked for Brents and had agreed to sell $100 in 
methamphetamine for him. When he tried to collect, she had neither the drugs 
nor the money.


Brents then tried to suffocate her, choked her and finally put her in the trunk 
of a car he doused with gasoline and ignited.


Attorneys in the case were not immediately available for comment. Brents could 
be sentenced to life in prison or prosecutors may seek to retry the penalty 
phase of his case.


(source: Los Angeles Times)






MONTANA:

Family of Cgy. man on U.S. death row pleads for his life


After 30 years of silence while Ronald Smith sat on death row in Montana, his 
family is finally speaking out with an impassioned plea that his life be 
spared.


Smith, who was from Red Deer, Alta., was convicted and sentenced to death for 
the 1982 murders of Thomas Running Rabbit and Harvey Mad Man near East Glacier, 
Mont.


Smith and an accomplice were hitchhiking when the victims offered them a ride. 
The group partied for a while and then Smith and the other man, both high on 
drugs and alcohol, marched Running Rabbit and Mad Man into the woods and shot 
them in the head so they could steal the car.


Smith originally requested the death penalty but later changed his mind and has 
been fighting a battle ever since to simply live out his days at Montana State 
Prison in Deer Lodge.


But an application for clemency has now been filed with the final decision on 
whether he lives or dies ending up in the hands of Montana Gov. Brian 
Schweitzer.


I had said to my father that I thought it was time to maybe step forward and I 
haven't seen that much protection come out of my father in a very long time. He 
told me no, his daughter Joan told The Canadian Press in a tearful interview.


I told him that he was my family and I was willing to do anything to help save 
him. I don't want to lose him. That's why I made the decision, she said 
softly.


Joan was 5 years old when her father went to prison. She had been living with 
her mother and remembers a loving father who would flip her up in the air. Now 
35 with 2 children of her own, she has come to know a man who is gentle and 
supportive.


She said she wasn't even a teenager when she learned what Smith had been 
convicted of, and it created a lot of emotional trauma.


For a long time I blamed myself because I wasn't a bigger part of his life, 
she said, weeping. I used to think if my mom had let me have contact with him 
more that maybe it wouldn't have happened. I was angry with him for a while 
because I thought, `how dare you - you have me.' 


Smith's sister Sandy had just finished high school when he was convicted.

She said the entire family was ostracized because of what had happened. She 
moved away from Red Deer soon after and said anger and the shame of what Ron 
had done kept her from contacting him for 16 years.


She said he had always been their protector from an abusive father and someone 
she could always count on.


It was very hard on me to fathom what he had done and I felt I just had to 
take myself away from the situation for a while, which wasn't fair to him, 
Sandy said from her home in northern Alberta.


I decided I would never step away from him again but he understood, she 
sighed.


A clemency hearing will likely be held this spring. The board of pardons and 
paroles will make a recommendation but it will be the governor that has to make 
the tough decision.


I want people to know that he is not that monster - that piece of scum that 
people call him. He has taken responsibility. He has to live with what he has 
done every single day and that is part of the punishment, Sandy said.


This could happen in any family and I want people to know he is real. He is 
loved and he is so remorseful. I think the governor is in quite the position. I 
would just hope that he could see Ronald is a changed man and the devastation 
of Ron's death to so many people will be so hard.


Sandy still has the last gift Ron ever gave her -- a pair of heart shaped 
earrings that she received on Christmas Day 1978.


She would like to give him one special gift of her own.

When I visit we are always behind glass. Touching isn't allowed but more than 
anything I wish I could give him a hug.


Joan isn't sure she will go to the clemency hearing but hopes Schweitzer will 
hear her plea.


I want to let people know that the man I know is not the man that everybody 
thinks he is. I 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., W. VA., IND., MONT.. MD., CONN.

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 16



CALIFORNIAnew death sentence

Man gets death for fatal car-to-car shooting

A death sentence was handed down Friday for a Compton drug dealer who killed 2 
men in a vehicle-to-vehicle shooting on the Riverside (91) Freeway and later 
attempted to gun down three boys near his house.


Jawaun Deion Graham, 35, was convicted last July of carrying out the Jan. 22, 
2006, attack that claimed the lives of Manuel Gomez, 24, of Anaheim and Joel 
Rio-Sosa, 26, of Moreno Valley.


Jurors recommended the death penalty on July 16, about a week after convicting 
Graham of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder, special circumstance allegations that 
multiple victims were targeted, 5 counts of attempted murder and 1 count of 
shooting at an occupied vehicle. In affirming the jury's recommendation, 
Riverside County Superior Court Judge Christian Thierbach rejected a motion by 
defense attorneys Richard Swanson and Christine Juneau to reduce the death 
sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.


Thierbach ordered sheriff's deputies to transport Graham to San Quentin State 
Prison, where he'll join more than 700 other inmates on California's death row.


According to testimony at the defendant's trial, Graham shot into a car 
occupied by four men during a nighttime encounter on the 91 Freeway. Graham's 
ex-girlfriend, Brenda Ardon, testified that he was provoked into shooting the 
victims.


According to the witness, she and Graham were arguing when a vehicle approached 
fast from behind, with the driver flashing his bright lights.


Ardon alleged that the other car's occupants — all Hispanic men — shouted 
insults, including a number of racial slurs, calling Graham the “n” word and 
her a “bitch.”


The witness said neither she nor Graham knew the men and couldn't understand 
why they were being verbally assaulted.


According to Ardon, Graham pulled a rifle from the back seat and told her to 
duck, at which point he fired 5 or 6 rounds at the other vehicle. According to 
Deputy District Attorney Michelle Paradise, Graham used a .30-caliber rifle 
that he purchased 2 weeks before the attack.


Gomez and Rio-Sosa succumbed to their injuries shortly after they were shot. 
One man was seriously wounded in the shooting but survived, while the 4th man 
escaped injury.


8 days after the fatalities, Graham got into an argument with 3 Hispanic boys 
near Seventh Street and Douglass Avenue in Riverside, where he leased a house 
and stored illegal drugs, which he sold, according to trial testimony.


Graham grabbed his rifle from inside the house and shot at the victims, 
wounding one in the buttocks and another in the back, according to Paradise.


(source: MyDesert.com)






WEST VIRGINIA:

Former W.Va. Gov. Hulett C. Smith, who signed bill abolishing state death 
penalty, dies at 93



Former West Virginia Gov. Hulett C. Smith, who signed bills in the 1960s that 
abolished the state’s death penalty and implemented its 1st strip mining laws, 
has died. He was 93.


Smith’s family announced Monday that the former governor died Sunday in 
Arizona, where he had moved to an assisted living facility last fall. Smith, a 
Democrat, first ran for governor in 1960, but failed to win his party’s 
nomination. He was elected 4 years later, at a time when governors were limited 
to a single term.


During his tenure as the state’s 27th governor, the Legislature enacted 
measures to control air and water pollution and to protect human rights. When 
he signed the bill ending the state’s use of the death penalty, Smith noted 
West Virginia was the ninth state to do so and said it would prevent wrongful 
convictions leading to executions.


“All of this is part of a groundswell of public opinion favoring the 
abolishment of the death penalty, for the possibility of judicial error in such 
cases is a wrong that can never be righted, because it is almost always too 
late,” he said in prepared remarks for the March 1965 signing.


Another significant measure enacted during his term was the Modern Budget 
Amendment, which made the governor responsible for developing the state’s 
budget.


Born in Beckley on Oct. 21, 1918, Smith was the offspring of a political 
family. His father, Joe L. Smith, served 8 terms in the U.S. House of 
Representatives, from 1929 to 1944, and founded Beckley’s 1st radio station, 
WJLS, in 1939.


Hulett Smith attended public schools in Raleigh County, and graduated with 
honors from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance and 
Administration, where he majored in economics.


Following his graduation from the Wharton School, Smith worked in the insurance 
business and at his family’s radio station. During World War II he served in 
the U.S. Navy, rising to the rank of lieutenant, and ultimately became a 
lieutenant commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve.


He was a licensed private pilot, and in 1947, Gov. Clarence Meadows appointed 
him to the state aeronautics agency, on 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., NEB., PENN.

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 9



CALIFORNIA:

California Supreme Court overturns death penalty of Long Beach man


The California Supreme Court decided unanimously Monday to overturn the death 
penalty for a Long Beach man convicted of rape and murder because a prospective 
juror was improperly removed for having ambivalent views on capital punishment.


In a ruling written by Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar, the state high court 
said that Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Tomson T. Ong erred when he 
removed the prospective juror after she said she was uncertain about her 
position on the death penalty but would impose it if justified.


“To exclude from a capital jury all those who will not promise to immovably 
embrace the death penalty in the case before them unconstitutionally biases the 
selection process,” Werdegar wrote.


As long as a potential juror is capable of considering all sentence 
alternatives, including the death penalty, he or she is qualified to serve on a 
death penalty case, the court said.


The ruling requires Los Angeles County prosecutors either to ask another jury 
to sentence Kevin Darnell Pearson to death or to reduce his sentence to life 
without the possibility of parole. The state high court upholds the vast 
majority of capital sentences it reviews.


Pearson was convicted of the murder of Penny Sigler, also known as Penny 
Keptra, who was raped, beaten and robbed of $6 in food stamps after leaving her 
home to go to the store about 11 p.m. on Dec. 19, 1998.


Pearson committed the crime with 2 other men and left the victim, whose right 
ear was partially torn off, nude and battered near a freeway embankment, the 
court said.


(source: Los Angeles Times)






NEBRASKA:

Heineman sees bigger agenda behind latest filing in death penalty case


Gov. Dave Heineman sees much more behind the latest legal paperwork filed to 
keep Michael Ryan from being executed.


Heineman says Ryan’s legal team hopes to undermine the state’s ability to carry 
our executions.


“This is about whether we’re going to have a death penalty or not in this 
state,” according to Heineman. “And all those who are opposed to it are trying 
to think of every reason known to mankind to delay it.”


The Swiss pharmaceutical company, Naari, claims it never intended to sell 
sodium thiopental to be used in lethal injections. The state Attorney General 
has filed paperwork claiming that the drug was appropriately and legally 
obtained.


Heineman asserts the latest filing by Ryan’s attorneys have a bigger agenda in 
mind.


“But what this is all about from the other side is they’re trying to make sure 
we don’t have a death penalty,” Heineman says. “Most Nebraskans agree with me 
that we need to have one.”


Ryan, a former religious cult leader, has been sentenced to death for the 1985 
torture and killing of James Thimm, a member of his religious cult in Rulo. 
Ryan has also been convicted of 5-year-old Luke Stice, the son of a cult 
member. Ryn is 63. An execution date has not been set.


(source: Nebraska RadioNetwork)






PENNSYLVANIA:

Mumia Abu-Jamal is Off Death Row—but Some Supporters Say That May be Worse


Citing scant evidence against him and harsh conditions in his new prison, 
supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal are gathering to get his new prison location 
changed with the eventual goal of freeing him.


Yesterday, supporters of Abu-Jamal gathered at the Calvary Church in West 
Philadelphia to discuss recent high- and lowlights of the former Black 
Panther’s case. Abu-Jamal was convicted of murdering Philadelphia Police 
Officer Daniel Faulkner in 1982. The conviction and death sentence created a 
firestorm of controversies that persists today. Some supporters claim his 
innocence, while others insist he was not given a fair trial. Anti-Mumia 
activists often say they want to see Abu-Jamal die for the crime of which he 
was convicted.


Last month, District Attorney Seth Williams announced he would no longer seek 
the death penalty. “Every reviewing court has found the trial fair and the 
guilty verdict sound,” Williams said at a press conference alongside Faulkner’s 
widow Maureen. “Our best remaining option is to let Mr. Abu-Jamal die in 
prison.”


Many of Abu-Jamal’s supporters were at first elated by the news. They held a 
gathering at the National Constitution Center, which was attended by over 1,000 
people, including Dr. Cornel West and hip hop artist Immortal Technique. 
However, many now say that Abu-Jamal’s current state may be worse than death 
row. Abu-Jamal is reportedly being held in solitary confinement.


“The isolation conditions are considerably worse than death row,” says Kevin 
Price, an Abu-Jamal supporter who attended yesterday’s meeting on Baltimore 
Ave. “He’s only allowed 1 hour a week outside, no access to a typewriter, no 
access to the commissary, and his ability to make phone calls is worse. It’s 
more austere and degrading, essentially.”


When PW contacted the Pennsylvania 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., ORE., PENN.

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 4



CALIFORNIA:

California Department of Justice Releases Latest California Homicide Rate 
Statistics



The California Department of Justice on Friday released the annual Homicide in 
California 2010 report showing the rate of homicide crimes per 100,000 in 
population decreased 7.8 percent from 2009. The total number of homicides 
declined from 1,970 in 2009 to 1,809 in 2010.


The homicide clearance rate, or percentage of reported crimes that have been 
solved, has increased for the 5th consecutive year. This year's rate of 63.8 % 
is the highest since 2001.


The Homicide in California 2010 report details information about the crime of 
homicide and its victims, demographic data on persons arrested for homicide, 
and information about the response of the criminal justice system. Also 
included is information on the death penalty, the number of peace officers 
killed in the line of duty and justifiable homicides.


Among the highlights:

-80.3 % of homicide victims were male, 19.7 % were female.

-44.5 % of homicide victims were Hispanic, 29.6 % were black, 18.2 % were 
white, and 7.4 % were categorized as other.


-Females were more likely to be killed in their residence, while males were 
more likely to be killed on streets or sidewalks.


-When the victim-offender relationship was identified, 44.4 percent (the 
largest proportion) involved victims who were killed by friends or 
acquaintances. However a greater percentage of black victims were killed by 
strangers than were white or Hispanic victims (47.7 vs. 25.4 and 35.4, 
respectively).


-Of homicides where the weapon was identified, the majority (71.2 %) involved a 
firearm.


-Of the homicides where the contributing circumstances were known, 36.1 percent 
were gang-related.


By the end of 2010, there were 709 persons under sentence of death in 
California. Of these, 34 were sentenced in 2010, 10 of which were in Los 
Angeles County.


4 California peace officers were feloniously killed in the line of duty in 
2010.


(source: Highland News)






OREGON:

Governor withholds execution emailsCounsel cites attorney-client privilege, 
need for 'frank communication' with staff as rationale for refusing release



Gov. John Kitzhaber's administration is refusing to release more than 150 
emails dealing with internal advice the governor received prior to his 
controversial decision to grant a reprieve for condemned killer Gary Haugen and 
to ban capital punishment while he's in office.


The action came last week in response to a public records request filed by the 
Statesman Journal.


Liani Reeves, Kitzhaber's chief legal advisor, released numerous emails to the 
newspaper, but she withheld the meatiest ones — those dealing with legal advice 
and messages to and from the governor and his staff that are discussing 
whether and how to handle Haugen's case.


In an email to the newspaper on Wednesday, Reeves said these messages are 
exempt from disclosure under provisions of Oregon's public records law. She 
cited attorney-client privilege as grounds for withholding 135 emails and 
internal advisory communications as justification for withholding 24 other 
messages.


Having the governor and his senior staff be able to have frank communications 
and give uninhibited advice to the governor on such a matter outweighs the 
public interest in disclosure, she wrote.


The Statesman Journal intends to petition the Oregon Attorney General's office 
for an order requiring the governor's office to hand over the withheld records. 
Here's why:


-Kitzhaber's ban on capital punishment effectively nullified Oregon voters 
reinstatement of the death penalty in 1984. Accordingly, Oregonians have a 
right to know, in much greater detail than Kitzhaber has revealed to date, how 
and when he decided to take his extraordinary stand against the death penalty. 
The withheld emails could shed light on his decision-making process.


-The public interest served by disclosing the emails trumps the governor's 
office stated desire to keep the messages secret in order for his advisors to 
give uninhibited advice to Kitzhaber.


-Keeping the emails under wraps runs counter to the governor's call for all 
Oregonians to engage in a long overdue debate about capital punishment.


Debate opens

The Democratic governor threw open the door for such a debate on Nov. 22. 
Speaking at a Capitol news conference, Kitzhaber slammed Oregon's 
capital-punishment system, describing it as broken and a perversion of 
justice.


At the same time, the governor stunned many Oregonians — pleasing some, 
angering others — when he announced that he won't allow any executions to 
happen under his watch. In issuing a temporary reprieve for Haugen, Kitzhaber 
unilaterally canceled the scheduled Dec. 6 execution of the 49-year-old, 
twice-convicted killer, who dropped his appeals and repeatedly stated his 
desire to be executed.


A former emergency-room physician, Kitzhaber allowed 2 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., OHIO, VA., N.Y., PENN.

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 26



CALIFORNIA:

Death row inmates' desire to die renews debate--Legal experts are divided on 
whether a condemned prisoner who drops resistance to execution should be 
allowed a dignified end



Serial wife-killer Jerry Stanley wants to die.

Imprisoned on death row for the past 28 years, Stanley insists he deserves 
execution for the cold-blooded killing of his fourth wife in 1980 and for 
shooting to death his second wife five years earlier in front of their 2 
children.


Despairing of the isolation and monotony of San Quentin's rooftop fortress for 
the purportedly doomed, Stanley earlier this year stepped up his campaign for a 
date with the executioner by offering to solve the cold case of his third 
wife's disappearance 31 years ago — by disclosing where he buried her body.


When bartering failed to secure him a death warrant, he offered himself up as 
the test case for resuming the three-drug lethal injections, which had been 
suspended for six years and remain under judicial review.


I am willing to be the experimental guy to see whether or not they work, 
Stanley, 66 and ailing, said in a statement to The Times. Assuming I can't get 
lethal injection because of the injunction on the chemicals, I am willing to 
accept the gas chamber. I understand the gas chamber is available and I insist 
on getting a date.


One of 718 prisoners on California's death row, Stanley has renewed an ethical 
debate among legal experts about whether a condemned prisoner who drops 
resistance to execution has been driven insane by his confinement or has 
accepted his fate and should be allowed a dignified end.


An Alameda County judge has ruled that Stanley is competent to decide his own 
legal matters. He is one of at least three condemned men on the nation's death 
rows volunteering to expedite their sentences. Gary Haugen, an Oregon man 
convicted of killing his former girlfriend's mother in 1980, and a fellow 
inmate in 2003, was ruled competent in September and faced a Dec. 6 death by 
lethal injection until Gov. John Kitzhaber just days ago banned further 
executions during his term. The third, Eric Robert, killed a guard at his South 
Dakota prison in April while serving an 80-year sentence for kidnapping. He has 
vowed to kill again until his death wish is granted.


Since the modern era of capital punishment began with the 1977 execution of 
Gary Gilmore in Utah, civil rights advocates and death penalty supporters have 
debated whether a state would run afoul of laws prohibiting execution of the 
mentally ill if they bow to a condemned inmate's suicidal impulse.


Most of these people aren't dropping their appeals because they believe it's 
the punishment they deserve, said John Blume, a Cornell University law 
professor and author of Killing the Willing, a 2005 study of those who 
abandon pursuit of reprieve.


Texas, Virginia, Oklahoma, Florida and other states with more frequent 
executions see more inmates asking their lawyers to drop appeals, said Blume, 
who believes that more than 10% of the 1,277 executed nationwide since 1977 had 
lost the will to live by the time they were executed.


California has never had a lot of volunteers, maybe because you have lawyers 
that are better funded and better able to establish relationships with their 
clients, and there's not a pattern of systematic executions to demoralize 
others on death row, said Blume.


In a videotaped plea from San Quentin in September, Stanley told retired 
Alameda County Superior Court Judge William McKinstry he wanted an end to the 
maneuverings by lawyers standing between him and the execution machinery four 
floors below his cell.


Stanley has spent much of his time on death row hand-writing letters to 
governors, attorneys general and lawmakers. He complains of corrupt guards and 
self-interested lawyers bent on riding the public defense gravy train that 
costs California taxpayers more than $100 million a year for death row inmates' 
cases.


Once a backcountry guide and hunter with a vague resemblance to Clark Gable, 
Stanley is withered, his black widow's peak and mustache gray and thinning. He 
suffers from diabetes, hypertension and paranoia.


I disagreed with trying to get me life when I deserved the death penalty, he 
told McKinstry in the video linkup from San Quentin, during which he also said 
he had been fighting his lawyers since his trial began nearly 3 decades ago.


In a recent letter to The Times, Stanley vowed to stop taking his medications 
and food if there were any further delays in setting an execution date.


Bay Area attorney Jack Leavitt, who has represented Stanley for the last 13 
years, says Stanley deserves representation of his own wishes, not those of the 
death penalty opponents who dominate the capital defense bar.


In 1998, he came to me and said he felt like a caged coyote, that he wanted an 
end to the confinement, Leavitt said. I promised I would do my best to get 
that for him.

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., S. DAK.

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 11


CALIFORNIA:

Convicted '70s Calif. killer: Don't send me to NY


A convicted serial killer sentenced to death in five grisly stranglings in 
California is fighting to avoid being brought to New York to face new charges 
in 2 1970s murders here, saying he needs to work on his appeal more than New 
York authorities need to prosecute him. Rodney Alcala says he needs to stay on 
California's death row to work on his appeal — especially because he 
represented himself in a sometimes surreal southern California trial last year.


Extraditing Alcala to New York pits his right to a meaningful capital appeal 
against a non-death penalty case in another state that is more than 30 years 
old, public defenders wrote on his behalf in court papers filed last month in 
California's Marin County. Authorities haven't yet responded, and a judge's 
decision is months away.


Alcala's move marks the latest turn in authorities' decades-long legal joust 
with the former amateur photographer and TV dating-show contestant, who's said 
to have an IQ that tops 160.


Initially arrested in California in 1979, he was found guilty twice in one of 
the California killings and had both verdicts overturned before his latest 
conviction last year. It came after a trial where prosecutors depicted him as a 
killer with a habit of sexually abusing and torturing his victims, and Alcala 
offered a diffuse defense that included questioning one victim's mother, 
playing Arlo Guthrie's 1967 song Alice's Restaurant and showing a TV clip of 
himself on a 1978 episode of The Dating Game.


Meanwhile, Alcala had been suspected in one of the New York cases for more than 
30 years before Manhattan prosecutors announced in January that they had 
finally gotten an indictment in the two cases here — the 1971 strangling of a 
flight attendant and the death of a Hollywood nightclub owner's daughter whose 
remains were found in 1978 after she disappeared the year before.


While Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. faced questions about 
expense and point of prosecuting an out-of-state prisoner already sentenced to 
die, he said the New York women's cases deserved to be pursued and he was 
determined to bring Alcala to New York.


The ends of justice require the arrest and return of Alcala to this state, 
Vance wrote in an extradition request in May. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and 
California Gov. Jerry Brown signed off on the move in August.


But Alcala and lawyers working with him say he needs to stay in California to 
prepare for his appeal by reviewing the trial transcript for accuracy and 
participating in any related hearings — defense work only he can do because he 
chose not to have a lawyer for the trial, he and his advocates say. They note 
that his life may ultimately be at stake.


His ability to defend against . . . impending execution should be given 
precedence over New York's wish to prosecute him on charges carrying a maximum 
of life in prison, Michael G. Millman, who runs the nonprofit California 
Appellate Project, wrote to accompany Alcala's Oct. 24 filing in Superior Court 
in Marin County, where he's being held in San Quentin State Prison.


The Marin County Public Defender's office, which filed Alcala's bid to halt the 
extradition, didn't immediately return a call Thursday. State Attorney General 
Kamala Harris's office has several weeks to respond. The Manhattan DA's office 
declined to comment.


Alcala, now 68, was convicted of strangling 4 women and a 12-year-old girl in 
California. He raped 1 victim with a claw-toothed hammer and posed several 
victims nude in sexual positions after their deaths, prosecutors said.


After last year's conviction, authorities released more than 100 photos of 
young women and girls found in Alcala's storage locker, and prosecutors said 
authorities were looking into whether Alcala could be connected to cases in New 
York and other states.


He's now charged in New York with killing Cornelia Crilley, a Trans World 
Airlines flight attendant found raped and strangled with a pair of stockings in 
her Manhattan apartment, and Ellen Hover, whose remains were found in the woods 
on a suburban estate. Hover, who had studied biology and music, was the 
daughter of comedy writer Herman Hover, a former owner of the one-time 
Hollywood hotspot Ciro's. Both women were 23.


(source: Associated Press)

*

Juror cites death penalty reluctance in case of Yolo deputy's killer


A juror's extraordinary request to be removed from the death-penalty 
deliberations in the trial of convicted cop killer Marco Antonio Topete brought 
the months-long trial to an abrupt halt Thursday.


Jurors swiftly convicted Topete last month for gunning down Yolo County 
Sheriff's Deputy Jose Antonio Diaz in a June 2008 ambush. They began death 
penalty deliberations Wednesday.


In a brief note to Yolo Superior Court Judge Paul Richardson on Thursday 
afternoon, the unidentified juror 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., N.C., OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 26



CALIFORNIA:

Death penalty foes launch initiative drive


Capital punishment opponents launched a drive Tuesday to place an initiative on 
the November 2012 ballot to replace the death penalty in California with a 
sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole.


Organizers must collect 504,000 valid voter signatures by the March 18 deadline 
to qualify the initiative for the election. They've dubbed their measure the 
Savings, Accountability and Full Enforcement for California Act.


Californians are ready for the SAFE California Act because now they realize we 
have wasted literally billions of dollars on a failed death penalty system, 
said Natasha Minsker, statewide campaign manager for the effort. It's time to 
take our resources and put them instead toward public safety.


Minsker, an attorney in the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern 
California who has long specialized in opposing executions, said the campaign 
has 800 volunteers and expects to have 2,000 by March. She estimated the 
campaign to qualify for the ballot will cost as much as $1.5 million, and we 
have some great donors.


The drive was announced at a news conference on the steps of San Francisco City 
Hall.


California has not executed anyone since January 2006, shortly before a federal 
judge halted enforcement of the death penalty because of the possibility that 
flawed procedures were inflicting agonizing deaths on condemned prisoners. The 
state is still trying to satisfy the court's concerns.


A Field Poll released last month showed that 68 percent of California voters 
surveyed favored keeping the death penalty. But for the 1st time since the poll 
began asking the question 11 years ago, more voters - 48 % - said they would 
prefer that someone convicted of 1st-degree murder serve life without the 
possibility of parole. 40 % preferred the death penalty.


Proponents who spoke at Tuesday's event included 2 women who lost relatives to 
homicide. Others supporting the measure include retired or active law 
enforcement officials, including San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey.


They pointed to a study by a federal judge and a law professor, released in 
June, showing California has spent $4 billion on the death penalty since the 
Legislature restored it in 1977. That works out to $308 million for each of the 
13 executions carried out since then.


Abolishing the death penalty, they said, would save the state $1 billion in 5 
years.


(source: San Francisco Chronicle)





**

Death-penalty trial gets started  Jury, courthouse must meet special 
requirements



The capital murder trial of Sherhaun K. Brown got under way here last week, 4 
1/2 years after the Moreno Valley man was charged with the stabbing death of a 
Yucca Valley woman.


In a phone interview, Susan M. Israel, deputy public defender, said attorneys 
in the case are arguing motions, and the jury will begin assembling Nov. 9. 
Jurors will be chosen from a pool of about 600 people, and the process will 
likely take quite a while, she said.


Israel explained potential jurors must first be time qualified, meaning they 
must be able to take the time off work for a lengthy trial. In addition, 
potential jurors must be death qualified.


The person has to at least be willing to consider the death penalty in order 
to serve on a capital murder trial, she said.


Israel said she and prosecutors likely will address the jury panel beginning 
Dec. 5.


Brown is accused of breaking into a house in the 57000 block of Canterbury in 
the Yucca Mesa area around 6:30 a.m. May 7, 2007, and stabbing 54-year-old 
Kristy Vert to death. He also is charged with raping and slashing the throat of 
Vert's daughter-in-law, who lived at the home with her 2 young children.


The children were home at the time of the violent attack, but were not harmed.

Despite her traumatic injury, Vert's daughter-in-law was able to get to a 
neighbor's home and summon help.


Brown was taken into custody later that day in Moreno Valley after a be on the 
lookout alert was issued. He allegedly was driving the victim's car.


Brown was charged with nine felonies, including murder, attempted murder, rape, 
burglary and robbery.


The district attorney's office upgraded the charge to capital murder in August 
2007, and the case was transferred to Victorville, which along with Rancho 
Cucamonga and San Bernardino is one of only three courthouses in the county 
equipped to deal with capital cases.


California Penal Code Section 190.2 states murder committed during the 
commission of a robbery, kidnapping, rape, arson and burglary are all special 
circumstances that qualify a crime as a capital offense.


Riverside County court records indicate Brown has several prior convictions. In 
1998, he pleaded guilty to burglary, possession of a controlled substance and 
driving under the influence. In 2001, he was charged with attempted burglary, a 
felony, but 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., FLA., PENN., ORE., TENN., OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 29



CALIFORNIA:

Field Poll: Less voter support for death penalty


As they have for more than 5 decades, California voters overwhelmingly support 
the death penalty - but in a marked shift, more voters now prefer that 
convicted murderers be sentenced to life without parole instead of death, 
according to the latest Field Poll.


The survey, conducted this month, comes as criminal-justice-reform advocates 
are gathering signatures for a 2012 ballot measure that would ban capital 
punishment in California.


The poll shows they have their work cut out for them: A solid 68 % of voters 
favor keeping the death penalty, with conservatives overwhelmingly in support 
and nearly half of liberals opposed. But for the 1st time since the poll began 
asking the question 11 years ago, more voters - 48 % - say they would prefer 
that someone convicted of 1st-degree murder serve life without the possibility 
of parole. 40 % prefer the death penalty.


Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo noted that 11 years ago, 44 % of those 
polled said they preferred death as punishment for 1st-degree murder and only 
37 % in favored life in prison. Last year, it was nearly evenly split.


But this year, the debate has gathered steam in California and elsewhere. The 
recent execution of a Georgia man many believe was innocent reignited the 
debate nationally, and executions have been on hold in California since 2006 
because of a lawsuit challenging the state's lethal injection method.


43 % of voters surveyed by the Field Poll said they think the death penalty is 
cheaper than life imprisonment, while 41 percent think it is more expensive.


A recent study, however, found that maintaining the death penalty costs $184 
million a year more than it would cost taxpayers to simply leave the state's 
condemned killers in prison for life. The higher cost is largely the result of 
legal fees associated with death sentence appeals. The same study found the 
average execution takes place 25 years after conviction.


The Field Poll also found that a majority of voters, 52 %, believe that 
innocent people are executed so rarely that it is unimportant; that voters 
are nearly evenly split on whether a life without parole sentence really means 
someone will never get out of prison; and that by a 45 to 41 % margin, voters 
believe that minorities are no more likely to receive the death penalty than 
whites.


How voters answer those 4 questions is directly tied to whether they support 
life in prison over death, DiCamillo said. But overall, he said, voters are far 
more skeptical of capital punishment than they were 2 decades ago.


There has been a change in attitude, he said. 22 years ago, the death 
penalty side argument prevailed by a large majority - now voters are divided in 
their opinions on many statements, including the cost of death versus life in 
prison, does a life sentence actually guarantee they will stay in prison, 
whether innocent people are executed, and their views of how it is administered 
to the ethnic population.


The telephone poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 % points and was 
conducted between Sept. 1 and 12 among 1,001 registered California voters.


(source: San Francisco Chronicle)






FLORIDA:

The multiple injustices of Manuel Valle's death penaltyFlorida's determination 
to execute a man with an untried lethal drug, after botched trials, is a tragic 
mockery of legal process



The 3 decades Manuel Valle has spent on death row in Florida are set to dwindle 
to their final minutes this afternoon. At around 4pm local time (9pm GMT) – 
barring any last minute stays -–the primary executioner will adminster the 
lethal chemicals into Mr Valle's bloodstream, as set out in the state's 
execution protocol.


While there has been a range of international opposition to the execution of 
Manuel Valle – including the Catholic Church, the European Union, the Spanish 
government, British members of parliament and the Washington-DC based 
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, to name a few – we haven't heard as 
much about Manuel Valle as we did about Troy Davis in recent weeks, but this 
should not be taken as meaning either that the former is undeserving of such 
attention or that the latter was overhyped. Both cases provide glaring examples 
of the inadequacies and inhumanities of the US death penalty system, and both 
highlight the sad fact that public attention – and outrage – often comes too 
late to change the outcome.


Manuel Valle has been unlucky enough to unite in one case a great number of the 
failures of the US capital system. Subjected to repeated miscarriages of 
justice resulting in multiple retrials, then held under the Damoclean sword of 
the death penalty for an unimaginable 33 years, he was finally picked earlier 
this year, in an apparently arbitrary manner, by Florida's governor, Rick 
Scott, to be the first execution of his term of office.


In many countries around 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----CALIF., NEV., ARIZ., WASH.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 3



CALIFORNIA:

Should California abolish its death penalty?


A California legislator has attempted to advance a bill to once again abolish 
the state's death penalty, banned in 1972 and reenacted in 1977. In the 
proposed measure, withdrawn Aug. 25 because its sponsor said it lacked 
sufficient votes to advance out of committee, Sen. Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) 
claimed that the death penalty costs the state $184 million a year to keep more 
than 700 people on Death Row. Only 13 criminals have been executed since 1992; 
each execution costs about $300 million. An average prisoner spends 25 years on 
Death Row before being put to death.


“The death penalty is not the swift and certain punishment that experts tell us 
most effectively deters crime,” Hancock told a state legislative panel 
considering the bill, SB490. If SB490 had passed, the option to replace the 
death penalty with life without parole would have been placed on a ballot for 
voters to decide upon.


Assemblyman Curt Hagman (R-Chino Hills) opposed the measure, saying the state 
should instead reform the system to “speed up the process.” Other opponents of 
SB40 said that getting rid of the death penalty would remove a deterrent.


But even Donald Heller, the author of the 1978 law that expanded the list of 
crimes eligible for the death penalty, has had a change of heart. “When I wrote 
[the bill], I believed in capital punishment,” he told the L.A. Times. “But the 
thing I regret most that I cannot change — except by what I do now — was 
drafting the death penalty initiative.”


Should California abolish its death penalty?

Yes, indeed. If it is wrong to kill, how then is it legal for the state to 
commit murder in the name of justice? Think about it: We tell everybody that it 
is wrong to kill somebody. And then we (the state) say, in effect, “To show 
you, murderer, how wrong it is to kill somebody, on such-and-such a day at 
such-and-such a time, we are going to kill you.”


What kind of logic is that? We all decry premeditated murder — and yet when we 
plan an execution, that's exactly what we do: commit premeditated murder.


Now, aren't there miserable excuses for human beings out there who don't 
deserve to be allowed to live? Possibly so, but is it up to us to end their 
lives? I think not. St. Paul says, quoting Deuteronomy, “'Vengeance is mine, I 
will repay', says the Lord.” (Romans 12: 19)


Also, what if we make a mistake and execute the wrong person? We are all human 
beings and we make mistakes — but how do you right a wrong such as killing the 
wrong person?


And there is another issue: revenge. We call it justice when we execute a 
murderer, but I believe what we're really doing is taking revenge.


Angry and grieving loved ones who have lost a member of their family are amazed 
when the person they want to see pay for the awful thing that was done to their 
loved one is finally put to death and they're as angry and as sad as before. 
They expect closure, but there is none until — guess what? — they try to start 
forgiving the awful person who killed their loved one.


Forgiving is not easy and it's not quick, and it may not even bring closure. 
But practicing forgiveness gives us a chance at closure, whereas waiting for 
the day when we get to throw the switch that ends the life of the criminal does 
not.


Should every convicted murderer go free? Of course not. Society needs to be 
protected, and life in prison without the possibility of parole is a much 
better choice, I believe, than putting the guilty to death. And it would be one 
helluva lot cheaper.


The Rev. Skip Lindeman

La Cañada Congregational Church

La Cañada

**

Just over a year ago, I sat in a courtroom in Los Angeles filling out a 
99-question questionnaire in a capital murder case with special circumstances — 
2 individuals brutally murdered in their home. I was one of about 450 people 
summoned as potential jurors.


A number of questions asked were on our personal views of the death penalty. I 
readily admit that I struggled with those questions. This was the 1st time I 
had to address such questions in an actual situation with a real defendant 
sitting in the courtroom.


In listening to attorneys providing a brief overview of the case, it became 
quite evident that the focus of the case would be on the penalty phase of the 
trial.


When the prosecutor asked me specifically if I could vote for the death penalty 
if the requirements of the law where otherwise met, I struggled to answer the 
question, which frustrated both the prosecutor and me. The logical answer would 
be yes; but could I really condemn someone to death?


Despite my inability to clearly answer the written or spoken questions, I was 
initially seated in the jury box. But I was later dismissed, so I never had to 
finally answer the question.


This week’s In Theory question is a related, but easier, question for me to 
answer. Given the current state of the law, the 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., KY., ALA., OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 26



CALIFORNIA:

California death penalty foes to try for ballot initiativeAfter an 
anti-death-penalty bill in California's Legislature is withdrawn, Taxpayers for 
Justice announces its push for the November 2012 election.



Abolitionists have gained momentum in their campaign to ask California voters 
to replace the death penalty with lifelong imprisonment, winning over 
influential prosecutors, police chiefs and other law enforcement leaders who 
have turned against the ultimate punishment as a failure on all fronts.


But one key forum has yet to join the battle against spending billions on a 
dysfunctional death row: the California Legislature. On Thursday, backers of a 
bill that would ask voters to renounce capital punishment withdrew the 
legislation when it became apparent it was stalled.


Taxpayers for Justice, a coalition of death penalty foes galvanized by the 
spiraling costs of keeping execution as a sentencing option, immediately 
announced a citizens initiative aimed for the November 2012 ballot.


Civil rights groups have been attempting to call attention to the costs of the 
death penalty for years. That message gained traction in June with the release 
of a comprehensive study by a federal judge and a law professor showing that 
taxpayers have spent $4 billion over the last three decades to carry out only 
13 executions.


The authors, U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Arthur L. Alarcon and 
Loyola Law School professor Paula M. Mitchell, testified before the Senate 
Public Safety Committee earlier this week that the death penalty has become a 
multibillion-dollar debacle.


Their findings show that taxpayers spend an extra $184 million each year to 
keep death row inmates fed, guarded and represented by lawyers, money that 
would be better spent putting cops on the street and investigators on the 46% 
of murder cases that go unsolved, said Jeanne Woodford, the former San Quentin 
State Prison warden now heading Death Penalty Focus.


Gov. Jerry Brown in April scrapped plans to build a new $356-million death row, 
saying scarce budget funds were better spent on children and the elderly than 
on prisoners.


Sensing opportunity to erode support for capital punishment with the fiscal 
argument, Taxpayers for Justice conscripted more than 100 law enforcement 
leaders in their campaign for replacement of death sentences with life without 
the possibility of parole. While a few counties already have renounced capital 
prosecutions for ethical or expense reasons, a statewide initiative would need 
to be passed by voters for the death penalty to be eliminated as an option.


Among the recruits to the anti-death-penalty forces is former Los Angeles 
County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti. Dozens of capital murder cases were brought to 
trial during his 32 years in the nation's biggest prosecution office.


My frustration is more about the fact that the death penalty does not serve 
any useful purpose and it's very expensive, said Garcetti. Most people 
understand and appreciate that the death penalty has never proven to be a 
deterrent. It is simply retribution for family and friends of the murdered 
individual.


There are 714 people on California's death row, but only seven of them have 
exhausted all appeals and would be eligible for execution once legal challenges 
to the state's lethal injection procedures are concluded. The last execution in 
the state was nearly 6 years ago, and none are expected in the near future 
because of new lawsuits questioning the origin and safety of one of the 
lethal-injection drugs.


(source: Los Angeles Times)



Bill to abolish death penalty in California killed


A bill that would have allowed voters to abolish the death penalty in 
California was withdrawn by state Sen. Loni Hancock Thursday in Sacramento.


“The votes were not there to support reforming California’s expensive and 
dysfunctional death penalty system,” Senator Hancock said in a statement. “I 
had hoped we would take the opportunity to save hundreds of millions of dollars 
that could be used to support our schools and universities, keep police on our 
streets and fund essential public institutions like the courts.”


Hancock was pushing the legislation based on a widely circulated study that 
said the state has spent $4 billion on capital punishment since voters decided 
to reinstate it in 1978. In that time, only 13 death row inmates have been 
executed, according to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation 
data. There are currently 714 inmates sentenced to die in California.


The lone death row inmate from San Francisco is 56-year-old Clifford Bolden, a 
male escort who was convicted in 1991 for the 1986 murder of Michael Pederson. 
Bolden has twice unsuccessfully appealed his case in state Supreme Court and he 
is currently pursuing another appeal in federal court.


(source: San Francisco Examiner)

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., ORE., WASH., TENN.

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 18


CALIFORNIA:

DA to seek death penalty for Schaefer's alleged prison killer


Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty against a San Quentin inmate charged 
with murdering Edward Schaefer, the man who killed a Novato girl with his 
motorcycle, the district attorney said Wednesday.


Frank Souza, 31, is eligible for capital punishment because he is charged with 
2 special circumstances: having a prior murder conviction, and lying in wait 
to ambush Schaefer. Prosecutors notified Souza's lawyer this week that they 
planned to pursue the death penalty.


Souza is already serving 60 years to life for the murder of a homeless man in 
San Jose, likely making any sentence in the Schaefer homicide a moot point. 
Souza's defense attorney, Gerald Schwartzbach, said the death penalty decision 
is irrational and fiscally irresponsible.


One, he's never going to be released, Schwartzbach said. Two, a capital 
trial, and the preparation for a capital trial, is enormously more expansive, 
consumes a great deal more time, money and resources.P Even if the 
prosecution were successful and obtained the death verdict, Mr. Souza would 
likely be on death row —— if the death penalty were to survive as a penalty — 
20 to 25 years.


District Attorney Ed Berberian said there is still the possibility of parole in 
Souza's prior murder case, or some unforeseen development in the courts.


It's never easy to seek the death penalty on anyone, but he is someone who has 
killed before, Berberian said. He's responsible, clearly, for the deaths of 
two individuals, and I just cannot find that there are mitigating 
circumstances.


Souza is accused of stabbing Schaefer seven times in a prison yard on July 26, 
2010. The attack occurred less than two weeks after Schaefer started his prison 
sentence for killing 9-year-old Melody Osheroff and maiming her father in a 
Novato crosswalk during a drunken ride in 2009.


All I got to say is, 9-year-old girl, Souza said after Schaefer's slaying, 
according to grand jury testimony by a prison Officer William Eberly.


Schaefer, who was convicted of murder, manslaughter and other charges, was not 
eligible for the death penalty in his case.


(source: Marin Independent Journal)

**

Calif Supreme Court upholds Ninja Prowler sentence


The California Supreme Court has upheld the 1998 death sentence for the Ninja 
Prowler whose sex assaults terrorized Riverside County nearly 2 decades ago.


Prosecutors say 40-year-old David Lynn Scott III was sentenced to death for the 
1992 rape and murder of 38-year-old Riverside librarian Brenda Gail Kenny and 
other sex attacks during a 5-month period ending in January 1993.


The Riverside Press-Enterprise (http://bit.ly/olp5vI ) reports Thursday that 
the state high court upheld Scott's death penalty in a 7-0 decision on Aug. 11.


Scott was dubbed the Ninja Prowler because survivors described a masked 
intruder dressed in dark clothing who carried a pistol and two swords. 
Prosecutors say Scott broke into homes at night, telling residents they should 
get better home security.


(source: Associated Press)






OREGON:

Oregon holds execution rehearsal


The Oregon State Penitentiary has held a practice run for what could be the 
state's 1st execution in almost 15 years.


The rehearsal was held Tuesday, which had been Gary Haugen's scheduled 
execution date, The Portland Oregonian reported. The execution was postponed 
when the state Supreme Court ruled in June that a mental competency hearing is 
required before Haugen can waive further appeals. Another hearing is set for 
Sept. 27.


Haugen complained to the newspaper about the way the rehearsal was carried out. 
In a telephone interview Tuesday night, he said his lawyers were not notified 
about it or given the chance to observe and that no spiritual adviser came to 
see him.


He said earlier Tuesday a corrections official tossed a belt to him and told 
him to measure his ankles, wrists, neck, arms and legs. He was not told 
anything about the procedure but assumes the prison needs the measurements for 
the straps to be used to secure him to the execution table.


It needs to be done in not only an ethical way but in a moral and dignified 
manner, he said.


Haugen, 49, has spent his adult life in prison. He was sentenced to death for 
killing another inmate in 2007.


Oregon has held only two executions since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the 
death penalty in 1978. The most recent was in 1997.


(source: United Press International)






WASHINGTON:

Kennewick candidate who advocates death penalty for illegal immigrants 
advances1 in 4 voters in Tuesday's primary race for a seat on the Kennewick 
City Council have supported candidate Loren Nichols, whose unabashed views 
about illegal immigrants include ordering them out of Kennewick and subjecting 
them to the death penalty if they refuse. Nichols garnered enough votes to move 
on to the general 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., ORE., TENN., WASH., MONT.

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 17



CALIFORNIA:

Judge sends Ricardo Villa to death row for 1993 Hueneme slaying


Ricardo Villa told a judge today that he never killed an elderly Port Hueneme 
woman 18 years ago — that the jury made a mistake in finding him guilty of 
1st-degree murder — but the judge still sent him to death row.


I did not kill. I did not commit the crime, Villa said in an anxious voice. 
I never even thought of doing that.


After denying Villa's motions for a new trial and to strike the death penalty 
and listening to pleas from lawyers to spare his life, Ventura County Superior 
Court Judge Kevin McGee reaffirmed the jury's recommendation for death.


You shall be put to death in a manner described by law, the judge told the 
36-year-old Port Hueneme man.


Villa sat straight up and looked at the judge as he read his decision after 
considering the evidence against Villa and other factors in his case.


According to court testimony, Villa entered Beatrice Bellis' third-floor 
apartment at the Mar Vista senior project in Port Hueneme through her unlocked 
front door as the 87-year-old woman slept in her bedroom on June 27, 1993. 
Villa, a janitor at the apartment complex, later used three kitchen knives to 
repeatedly stab Bellis.


McGee said Villa brutally raped an elderly person who lived alone and was among 
the most vulnerable members of the community. He said Villa savagely and 
viciously attacked Bellis, who had been deaf since childhood, while she was in 
bed. He stabbed her 27 times as she tried to defend herself and killed her to 
prevent her from identifying him. The attack was so severe that the tip of a 
knife broke off in her skull. Villa raped Bellis as she bled to death in bed, 
prosecutors said.


The judge also noted Villa attacked 3 women after Bellis' murder, including a 
15-year-old girlfriend when Villa was 21. Police finally arrested Villa in 2004 
after DNA evidence linked him to hairs found at the crime scene.


Jurors in April found Villa guilty of first-degree murder. Jurors also found 
true that he used a knife during the murder and that the killing occurred 
during the commission of a burglary and rape.


Villa's lawyers, Monique Hill and Willard Wiksell, pleaded with the judge to 
sentence him to life in prison without parole, pointing out he had a uniquely 
strange and bizarre upbringing. They said Villa raised a much younger 
sister, his mother had mental problems and he was forced to be a man at 13 or 
14 years old.


His mother walks around talking to a doll, and the doll talks to other 
people, Wiksell told the judge.


Wiksell said Villa has always maintained that he didn't commit the slaying.

It was terrible. It was wrong, but he didn't do it, said Wiksell.

He said Villa hasn't caused any problems in county jail since his arrest seven 
years ago, calling him as close to a model prisoner as you can be without a 
hiccup or 2.


Villa told the judge the DNA evidence used to convict him was unreliable. He 
said he never carried a knife.


Villa said God had appointed McGee to the bench. He said God bless you to the 
judge, turned to the victim's family and blessed them, too.


Prosecutor Bill Haney urged the judge to follow the jury's recommendation, 
saying Villa earned a trip to death row because of the cruel, sadistic and 
horrible crime he committed. Haney said Villa showed no mercy for his elderly 
victim.


Haney credited former Port Hueneme detective Dennis Fitzgerald for never giving 
up on the case. Fitzgerald convinced the Ventura County Sheriff's Department 
crime lab to run DNA tests using new advances in technology.


In an interview, Fitzgerald said he decided to doggedly pursue the case after 
he went to the crime scene, looked at the body and said, Whoever did this 
horrible crime needs to found.


And I got lucky. I got results.

Villa will be sent to death row at San Quentin State Prison, where he will wait 
for the outcome of an automatic appeal.




Ventura County inmates on death row


Ventura County death row list

- Ricardo Villa — Convicted in April 2011 for the 1993 slaying and rape of an 
87-year-old Port Hueneme woman, Beatrice Bellis.


- Randolph Randy Kling — Sentenced in February 2010 for the 2003 murder of 
Michael Budfuloski, 31, of Simi Valley, 5 months after Kling murdered the 
victim's father, businessman William Bill Budfuloski, 53, of Simi Valley.


- Douglas Dworak — Convicted in April 2005 of murdering and raping Crystal 
Hamilton, 18, of Oxnard. Hamilton's naked body was found floating along the 
shore of Mussel Shoals in 2001.


- Vincent Sanchez — Convicted in 2003 of shooting Moorpark College student 
Megan Barroso, 20, kidnapping her from her car, attempting to rape her, then 
leaving her to die in 2001.


- Michael Schultz — Raped and strangled Cynthia Burger, 44, in 1993 in her Port 
Hueneme condo. Schultz was convicted in 2003.


- Cora Caro — Shot and killed her 3 Santa Rosa Valley sons in 1999. 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., MONT., N.C., MD.

[Rick Halperin]

Feb. 4



CALIFORNIA:

Judges Question Whether Death Penalty Appeal Is Premature


A panel of Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges voiced uncertainty
yesterday as to whether it could hear an appeal by 2 defendants who claim
they were not given sufficient notice of the prosecution's intent to seek
the death penalty.

Michael Dennis Williams and Antoine Lamont Johnson are challenging the
decision of then-Attorney General Michel Mukasey to seek the death penalty
in connection with an armored car robbery in which they allegedly shot and
killed a guard.

Evelio Suarez Jr., 61, was killed March 1, 2004 after the robbers fired
more than 50 shots as he made a cash delivery behind a Bank of America
branch in South Los Angeles. Police said at the time that they suspected
at least 8 people were involved in a sophisticated plot to rob the armored
car.

An indictment brought in 2005 alleges that Williams, Johnson, and Patrick
Holifield were among the shooters and that Larry Jordan drove the getaway
van.

The defense argues that the government deprived Williams and Johnson of
due process by waiting until 75 days before their scheduled trial date to
notify them that it was seeking the death penalty.

The prosecution counters that the defense should have realized that there
was a high probability that the death penalty would be sought, that
counsel has had 32 months from the time of appointment to get ready, and
that the trial in any event has been continued and will not take place
until next month, a year after the death penalty notice was given.

But in order to reach that issue, the panel must first rule that it has
jurisdiction over the appeal from Senior U.S. District Judge Ronald S.W.
Lew's denial of the defendants' motion to remove the death penalty from
the case.

Defense attorney Amy Jacks, who represents Johnson, told the panel
yesterday that Lew's order falls under the collateral order exception to
the general rule barring interlocutory appeals in federal criminal cases.
Requiring defendants in her client's situation to choose between the right
to speedy trial in the guilt phase and the need for counsel to be prepared
for a possible penalty phase would practically eviscerate the speedy trial
right, Jacks argued.

But prosecutor Tamara Phipps said the order is not appealable because the
issue will be fully reviewable on appeal if the death sentence is imposed,
and that even if the order was erroneous, it would not be considered
structural error, which might trigger the collateral order exception. She
also defended the lengthy process that the Justice Department went through
before deciding to seek the death penaltyincluding allowing the defense to
make written and oral submissions both to prosecutors here and to
department officials in Washington, D.C.as reasoned and deliberative.

Phipps agreed with Judge Consuelo Callahan's suggestion that while the
most efficient use of the courts resources would be to address the merits,
this pesky thing called the law might not permit it.

Judge Barry Silverman suggested that if the court finds it lacks appellate
jurisdiction, it could still treat the appeal as a mandamus petition and
reach the merits that way. Jacks said she'd have to give the issue some
thought, while Phipps said the court could proceed in that manner, but
noted that the standard for granting relief is higher than on direct
appeal.

Joining Callahan and Silverman on the panel is Senior U.S. District Judge
Richard Mills of the Central District of Illinois. Mills, who is based in
Springfield, Ill., was appointed to the federal bench by then-President
Reagan in 1985 and has been a state and federal judge for 40 years.

(source: Metropolitan News Company)

**

Double jeopardy argument rejected


A convicted killer can be tried in California for the 1997 murder of a
Beaumont boy, even though the case was used in a federal trial in Idaho.

Judge David B. Downing made the ruling Tuesday and also ordered a court
psychiatrist to meet with Joseph Edward Duncan III to determine if he's
competent enough to act as his own attorney.

Duncan, 45, sat through most of the 90-minute hearing with his eyes closed
and head bowed in a jury box in an Indio courtroom. He wore an orange jail
uniform, a bulletproof vest and chains.

Duncan insisted that he was competent to represent himself.

He faces the death penalty if convicted on Riverside County charges that
he kidnapped, tortured and murdered Anthony Martinez, 10, nearly 12 years
ago. Anthony disappeared while playing in an alley with his brother in
Beaumont.

His brother reported a tall skinny man with a mustache asking for help to
find his lost cat. The man held a knife to Anthony's throat, forcing him
into the car before driving away.

Anthony's body was found 15 days later south of Joshua Tree National Park
about 10 miles north of Indio, bound with duct tape and partially covered
in rocks in a ravine.

Last year, the courts imposed 3 death 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., NEB., MD., VA.

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 28



CALIFORNIA:

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown will ask U.S. to end oversight of
California prisons---Officials say receivership has become a government
unto itself. Overseer says such action would prolong unnecessary deaths
and suffering among inmates.


Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown will ask a federal
judge today to end court oversight of healthcare in California prisons and
return the inmate medical system to the state's control.

In a filing with U.S. District Judge Thelton E. Henderson, who seized
prison healthcare from the state nearly 3 years ago, Brown and
Schwarzenegger administration officials are expected to contend that the
receivership has exceeded its authority and violated federal law with an
$8-billion plan to renovate healthcare clinics and build seven holistic
facilities for 10,000 inmates.

We believe the receivership has become a government unto itself,
operating without accountability, without public scrutiny and without
clear standards, Brown said Tuesday. Tremendous sums have been spent,
and tremendous progress has been made, but we feel that it's time to place
the responsibility on the director of corrections and not have this
parallel government operating on its own.

The state intends to ask Henderson to replace the receiver with a special
master who could report on the state's progress and work with state
officials but would not have the same broad powers.

J. Clark Kelso, the receiver appointed by Henderson, has the ability to
hire, fire and manage employees and make contracts. He oversees $1.8
billion in state spending annually to overhaul a healthcare system that
the judge ruled was causing many inmates to die needlessly.

Although Schwarzenegger and his aides initially cooperated with the
receiver, their relationship has soured. And as state officials grapple
with a $42-billion budget gap projected by the middle of next year, they
have clashed with Kelso. The receiver has been unable to secure funding
for his construction plans so far in the Legislature, from the governor or
in federal court.

In an interview, Kelso called the state's impending move outrageous. He
said he had sought a review from the state for all of his efforts, and
that only months ago the Schwarzenegger administration had asked him to
move ahead with construction. Kelso said he expected that the judge would
reject the state's request because the receivership is the only entity
that has improved inmates' healthcare.

State officials have conceded in the past that they cannot do that job, he
said, and officials' promises of change are empty.

Terminating the receivership would only increase and prolong unnecessary
deaths and suffering, and the state, the governor and the attorney general
would be responsible for that, Kelso said.

In a filing to Henderson earlier this month, he took a swipe at
Schwarzenegger for reneging on pledges of cooperation, writing that court
orders are not Hollywood contracts . . . where promises are cheaply given
and then ignored when convenient.

And in a jab at Brown, who is exploring a run for governor, Kelso wrote
that public officials who choose to run their political campaigns for
higher office by trying to block judges' orders actively promote
disrespect for the courts.

Brown, who has adamantly fought Kelso's plans for months in court, said he
was shocked that the receiver would politicize the issue.

The receiver's plans, he said, violate the federal Prison Litigation
Reform Act, which prohibits prison construction from being ordered by a
judge. The attorney general also said Kelso's proposed facilities flout
the federal requirements that he use the least intrusive means to improve
healthcare.

State officials estimate that the facilities would cost up to $2.3 billion
a year to operate, and draft plans have included exercise rooms, music and
art therapy areas, natural light and landscaping.

The environment should be 'holistic,'  Kelso's plan says.

Schwarzenegger's corrections secretary, Matthew Cate, said the
receivership has already met many of its initial goals by filling
vacancies for doctors and nurses, improving the skill level of the
providers and ensuring better access to care. Cate and other state
officials say California's expenditures on prison medical care, more than
$10,000 per inmate, dwarf the spending levels in other states.

If he were to take control from Kelso, Cate said, he would analyze the
receiver's construction proposals and other factors before deciding if any
new medical facilities are needed.

We certainly wouldn't do it in the way he has currently proposed, Cate
said. The receiver's plans obviously have a lot of good aspects to them,
but they're definitely not cheap.

Henderson has already embraced Kelso's plans, ordering the state last year
to turn over $250 million to the receiver. The state protested that ruling
in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, where it remains pending.

Donald Specter, 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., PENN.

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 26



CALIFORNIA:

Man charged with murder in homeless burning


Prosecutors say a man has been charged with murder in the death of a
homeless man who was set on fire.

In the case filed Monday, 30-year-old Benjamin Matthew Martin is also
charged with 1 count each of torture, arson causing great bodily injury
and arson of property.

Martin is expected to be arraigned later Monday.

Prosecutors have not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty against
Martin, who is being held without bail in the death of 55-year-old John
Robert McGraham on Oct. 9.

(source: Associated Press)






PENNSYLVANIA:

Governor Signs Death Warrant for Convicted Killer


Governor Ed Rendell has signed an execution warrant for a man convicted of
murder in Berks County. In 1993, Ronald Puksar was found guilty of 1st
degree murder for killing his brother and sister-in-law. The Pennsylvania
Supreme Court affirmed the sentence in 1999 and an appeal to the U.S.
Supreme Court was denied. Execution is set for March 26.

(source: WFMZ News)




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[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., NEB., N.H., ARIZ., TENN.

[Rick Halperin]

Jan. 22




CALIFORNIA:

Death penalty sought against Marines accused of murderDistrict
attorney: Decision 'wasn't a close call'


Calling the murder of a Marine and his wife in their Winchester home last
year brutal and savage, District Attorney Rod Pacheco on Wednesday said he
will seek the death penalty for 4 Marines accused of killing the couple.

They each played their own horrific part in the savagery that occurred in
that house, Pacheco said. These 4 guys crossed the line between life
without parole and the death penalty. It wasn't a close call.

Lance Cpl. Emrys John, 19; Lance Cpl. Tyrone Miller, 21; Lance Cpl. Kesaun
Sykes, 21; and Pvt. Kevin Cox, 21, each have been charged with fatally
shooting Marine Sgt. Jan Pietrzak, 24, and his wife, Quiana Faye
Jenkins-Pietrzak, 26, at their home Oct. 15.

Riverside County sheriff's homicide investigators have said both victims
were bound, gagged and shot at least twice in the head.

All 4 men are charged with 2 counts of murder, each with
special-circumstance allegations of committing multiple murders,
committing the crime during a robbery, and rape by instrument, according
to Riverside County Superior Court records. Investigators believe the
defendants targeted the couple to rob them.

Parts of the 2-story home had been ransacked and belongings, including
jewelry, were stolen from the Pietrzaks, authorities said at the time.

Each of the men has pleaded not guilty to all charges. A hearing to
determine if the four should face trial is tentatively scheduled for
February.

Their attorneys could not be reached for comment Wednesday on Pacheco's
decision to seek the death penalty.

The 4 defendants were assigned to Camp Pendleton and 2 of them, Miller and
John, worked directly for the Marine they are accused of killing.

They all remain in custody, held without the possibility of bail, jail
records state.

Pacheco said many factors were involved in making his decision, including
the pleas of about 20 family members and close friends of the Pietrzaks, a
majority of whom called for the ultimate punishment when they met with the
district attorney Wednesday.

The parents of the slain couple could not be reached for comment
Wednesday, but Pacheco said that during his meeting with their family and
friends, much of the conversation dwelled on the kindness of the Pietrzaks
and their deep love for each other.

They had this tremendous love for each other and they were so young, he
said.

On the other hand, I know what these 4 guys did, the brutality of it, the
savagery of it, the horrific nature of their actions. You couldn't have 2
things further apart.

The Pietrzaks were a mixed-race couple and all 4 men accused are black,
causing some to allege the crime was racially motivated. But homicide
investigators dismissed that notion, saying that even though a racial slur
was found spray-painted inside the Pietrzaks' home after the murders, it
was done to throw off the investigation.

The official motive is borne out by the special circumstances, Pacheco
said.

Financial gain, double murders, robbery, burglary, and rape with a
foreign object. That is a fair description of the motives that we will be
able to prove.

In a recent New York Daily News article, Henryka Pietrzak-Varga, the
mother of Jan Pietrzak, called for the death penalty.

They will get as much sympathy from me as they gave my son and my
beautiful Quiana, which is none, Henryka Pietrzak-Varga told the Daily
News on Monday. I will ask for the highest punishment possible, and
that's the death penalty. For what they did, for what they took from us,
let them pay with their lives.

She said she wrestled with her decision.

I had problems with this as a Catholic, said Pietrzak-Varga, who lives
in Bensonhurst. But death is death, murder is murder, and for this they
deserve punishment. They didn't give them a chance to say goodbye, to say
a final 'I love you.'

Court records indicate that authorities believe John fired the fatal
shots, but Pacheco said all of the men played major roles in the crimes.

There will be no plea bargains available, either, he said.

We don't plea bargain death penalty cases, Pacheco said. I made that
very clear to family members. We are going to do the right thing here.

Currently, the death penalty is under scrutiny in California as lawmakers
and judges grapple with whether lethal injection is cruel and unusual
punishment and other issues. The last time someone was executed in the
state was 2006.

The death penalty is broken right now, but we intend to fix it, Pacheco
said.

Our office is leading the way for an initiative to be on the ballot in
2010 to expedite the death penalty, to make it work more efficiently and
fairly.

(source: North County Times)






NEBRASKA:

Prosecutors Drop Death Penalty Against Man Accused In Double Slaying


Prosecutors dropped 8 charges against a man accused in a double murder in
Lincoln last year as part of a plea deal.

They also won't seek 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----CALIF., PENN., ALA., N.C., USA

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 6



CALIFORNIA:

Death penalty to be sought in murder case


A City Heights man faces the death penalty on charges that he fatally shot
his pregnant ex-girlfriend after delivering roses to her Mission Valley
office last year.

Deputy District Attorney Matthew Greco told a judge today that he would
seek the execution of Roger McDowell.

McDowell is accused of murdering Dawna Denize Wright, 31, and Wright's
unborn child in June 2007.

McDowell, 35, had been slated to go on trial in April 2009, but San Diego
Superior Court Judge John S. Einhorn said that date was unrealistic
given the severity of the penalty McDowell now faces.

A new trial date will be set at a Dec. 19 hearing, the judge said.

(source: San Diego Union-Tribune)






PENNSYLVANIA:

Federal court orders DA to watch death row case


Blair County's district attorney has been ordered by a federal judge to
monitor the state Supreme Court's handling of a death row case involving
an Altoona man convicted of murder.

In August, William L. Wright III said he was tired of waiting for the
state court to decide his appeal and would rather be executed.

U.S. District Judge David S. Cercone of Pittsburgh, in a 12-page opinion,
had no comment on the request by Wright to be executed, but he did not
dismiss outright the inmate's complaints that the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court has violated his rights to speedy disposition of his appeal.

Wright was sentenced to death by Blair County Judge Hiram Carpenter in
2000. He was convicted of first-degree murder for the death of James
Mowery of Altoona, which occurred on Thanksgiving Day in 1998.

The appeal of Wright's conviction and death sentence was argued before the
state's highest court in March 2004. There has been no action on the
appeal for the past 57 months.

The Supreme Court's Capital Appeal Docket lists the case as active, but
confirms no rulings have been made.

In the meantime, 3 of the 7 justices who heard the argument no longer are
on the court.

Chief Justice Ralph J. Cappy retired this year. Justice Sandra Schultz
Newman retired in 2006, and Justice Russell M. Nigro lost his bid for
retention in 2006.

Cercone said it would be unusual for the federal court to interfere with
the state court's handling of a case, saying, This court has no authority
over the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and cannot order it to issue a legal
decision on a case before it.

The federal court, however, can take action if there is inordinate
delay, which could include granting an exception to the rule that a
convict must exhaust his state appeals before taking his case to the
federal court, Cercone said.

The federal court eventually could order a new trial or the release of the
prisoner because of inordinate delay, he said.

Cercone said there is no evidence the Wright case has fallen through the
cracks of the Pennsylvania justice system but said more than four years
of delay is a substantial amount of time.

District Attorney Richard Consiglio, who tried the Wright case, said
Thursday that he has no problem with the time it has taken for the Supreme
Court to decide the matter, pointing out that there were 59 issues raised
on appeal.

The federal court has ordered Consiglio to file a written notice of the
status of the Wright case with the federal court on the 28th of every
month.

Consiglio said he was baffled by the order, saying he has no way of
knowing the status of the case.

I don't tell the Supreme Court what to do. It tells me what to do. I
don't know how I have standing to monitor the Supreme Court, he said.

Wright is requesting a new trial because, among many reasons, he contends
that his attorney had only 12 days to prepare his defense, Consiglio's
closing arguments was prejudicial and pictures of the crime scene
presented to the jury were inflammatory.

(source: Altoona Mirror)






ALABAMA:

Birmingham man convicted on reckless murder charge in tot's death


Reckless murder verdict rendered

Markeith Williams Jr. faces 20 years to life in prison after his
conviction Friday of reckless murder in a 2006 shooting in which a stray
bullet killed a 2-year-old child asleep with his mother.

The jury, which also considered capital murder charges in the Sept. 18,
2006, death of George Amerson, convicted Williams on the lesser charge
after 11 hours of deliberations Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

The jury reached the verdict about an hour after Circuit Judge Tommy Nail
delivered what is known as an Allen charge, or dynamite charge, to the
jury, which had been unable to reach a verdict. The purpose of the Allen
charge is to encourage jurors to re-examine their opinions and attempt to
reach a unanimous verdict.

Nail set sentencing for Jan. 30.

I think the jury's verdict was a message regarding the use of violence in
the community and to the extreme indifference to the value of human life,
said Jefferson County prosecutor Patrick Lamb.

Defense attorney Eric Guster, who tried the case with lawyer Emory
Anthony, 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., ALA.

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 9



CALIFORNIA:

As DNA test backlogs soar, U.S. cuts funding Law enforcement agencies
that had not used full allocations from previous years found their grants
reduced despite an estimated 400,000 untested cases.


Last summer, the Los Angeles Police Department was dealt a rude shock.

Expecting nearly $1 million in federal grant money to help cover the cost
of analyzing DNA evidence in rape cases and other violent crimes, the
department was awarded only half that much.

U.S. Department of Justice officials, who distribute the money to police
agencies nationwide, told LAPD staff that the fault was their own. The
LAPD had been too slow to spend about half the DNA grant money awarded in
prior years, so its 2008 allotment was reduced. Meanwhile, an audit found
that more than 7,000 rape kits are waiting to be analyzed, the largest
known backlog in the country.

As dire as LAPD's problem is, it is hardly unique.

The Justice Department cut backlog funding this year to crime labs in 17
states, including California, because they had not spent federal grants
dating as far back as 2004. About 1/4 of the 105 law enforcement agencies
that receive these grants had their funding docked, Justice Department
officials said.

The cuts coincide with a soaring national DNA backlog. Although the
federal government hasn't estimated the backlog in recent years, Human
Rights Watch, which advocates for rape victims among others, has put it at
about 400,000 cases.

Smaller jurisdictions are not immune. In Erie County, N.Y., the
year-to-year backlog increased from 620 to 920 in 2007. In Ventura County,
the backlog increased from 53 cases to 156 during the same period.

Potentially hundreds if not thousands of rapists nationally could be
apprehended if the frozen evidence of their crime was analyzed, said Los
Angeles City Councilman Jack Weiss, who has complained about the backlog
for years. It is the ultimate no-brainer.

Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) wrote a letter last week to Atty. Gen.
Michael Mukasey expressing her strong concerns about how the money is
being spent. Maloney, who sponsored legislation that secured the funding,
asked Mukasey for a detailed accounting.

It would be outrageous if the backlogs are the result of the Department
of Justice's negligent administration, Maloney said in a statement to The
Times and ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative reporting newsroom.

It has been nearly a decade since Congress ordered the Justice Department
to help crime labs reduce their backlogs. Since 2004, Congress has given
the department $474 million for this purpose through the Debbie Smith Act,
written by Maloney and named after a woman who advocates for eliminating
backlogs. Smith was raped in 1989, but her attacker's DNA went untested
for 6 years.

With this funding, the Bush administration said, the backlog would be
eliminated in 5 years, a period that soon will expire.

But at the same time, an unprecedented number of DNA samples entered the
nation's crime labs. New laws mandated that DNA be taken from more people,
often including those arrested but not charged with a crime. Meanwhile,
new technologies made it possible to analyze small or degraded samples.

It remains unclear why the LAPD and many other labs have not used all
their grant money. Several labs contacted by ProPublica had no explanation
for why the money hadn't been spent.

LAPD Assistant Chief Sharon Papa acknowledged that, on paper, the
department had nearly $2 million in unspent federal DNA funds as of
August. She and her staff said those figures did not account for about
$500,000 of DNA work sent to private labs but not yet reflected on balance
sheets.

The spending delay was largely the result of confusion about the time
frames the Justice Department sets for spending the money, Papa and others
said. She also said the cash flow problem hasn't slowed the pace of the
department's DNA testing.

Renee Artman, director of the Ventura County Sheriff's lab, which used
nearly all its 2006 federal funding, said many labs would like to use the
money to hire more DNA analysts. But the grants cover only a fixed period
(usually 12 months), which means labs can guarantee jobs for only that
time.

Not too many people are willing to take a risk and accept this position,
Artman said.

The Justice Department would not allow anyone to speak on the record about
DNA backlogs. Speaking anonymously, a department official said the agency
is available to answer questions from labs and holds an annual conference
for its grantees. We've done an enormous amount of work to deal with rape
kit problems, the official said.

The department is aware of the LAPD's problem and is going to do what we
can to assist them directly, the official said.

L.A. isn't the only city where the money sits unused for years.

In progress reports filed in early 2008, 26 labs said they had not yet
fully tapped into 2006 DNA money. A lab in Allegheny County, Pa., hadn't
used all of its 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----CALIF., FLA.

[Rick Halperin]

Nov. 4



CALIFORNIA:

Prosecutor says SoCal man deserves death penalty


Prosecutors say a man deserves the death penalty after being convicted of
murdering 3 people, including a married couple he tied to an anchor and
threw off their yacht.

A defense attorney countered on Tuesday that Skylar Deleon was scarred by
his father's physical, emotional and sexual abuse and should be sentenced
to life in prison with no parole.

Lawyers for both sides delivered closing arguments to a Santa Ana jury
hearing the penalty phase of the case involving the 2004 murders of Thomas
and Jackie Hawks, and the 2003 killing of Jon Jarvi.

Prosecutor Matthew Murphy says the bad dad argument was no excuse for
murder. Defense lawyer Gary Pohlson argues the abuse should exempt Deleon
from death row.

(source: Associated Press)






FLORIDA:

Retrial Of Dollar General Murder Suspect Almost Forced To End


The retrial of a man accused of a bloody double murder at a Deltona Dollar
General store almost ended early Tuesday.

A witness in the Roy Lee McDuffie trial mistakenly mentioned his 1st
trial, which the St. Johns County jurors aren't supposed to know about.

McDuffie was convicted and sentenced to death for killing 2 store clerks
in 2002, but last year the Florida Supreme Court overturned the
conviction.

Despite calls by the defense for a mistrial, the judge allowed questioning
to continue.

(source: WFTV News)

**

Killer Wants Death Sentence Overturned In 1983 Case


A man sentenced to die for killing his girlfriend's 15-year-old daughter
in 1983 filed a petition in U.S. District Court today seeking to have his
sentenced overturned.

Wayne Tomkins, a former roofer, was sentenced to death in 1985 for killing
Lisa DeCarr and burying her in a shallow grave beneath her east Tampa
home. A unanimous jury recommended the death penalty. His case has been
through numerous state and federal appeals. The Florida Supreme Court last
upheld the conviction and sentence in May 2007.

The new petition asserts several arguments, including that Tomkins' death
warrant since 2001 constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and that the
state of Florida's method of execution is cruel and unusual. The petition
also says prosecutors withheld favorable evidence and improperly
communicated with the trial judge about Tomkins' sentence.

DeCarr disappeared from her home in March 1983. Her skeletal remains, her
pink bathrobe and pieces of her jewelry were found under the home 3 months
later.

A friend of DeCarr testified at the trial that she entered the home on the
morning of the disappearance and saw DeCarr struggling with Tompkins while
Tompkins was on top of her on a couch trying to remove her clothes.

The friend said the victim asked her to call police, but instead the
friend told DeCarr's boyfriend and went to school.

The petition contends that the defense was unaware at the time of the
trial of evidence that could have helped discredit prosecution witnesses.

Tompkins had a previous conviction in Pasco County for kidnapping and
rape.

(source: Tampa Tribune)

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., GA., OHIO, DEL.

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 29



CALIFORNIA:

L.A. announces plan to reduce backlog of unexamined DNA evidence from
violent crimes City officials acknowledge that the funding of the $700,000
effort is uncertain. The proposal is scheduled for a City Council vote
Wednesday.


Top city officials Tuesday unveiled a plan to help the Los Angeles Police
Department's crime lab reduce its massive backlog of unexamined DNA
evidence from violent crimes, but they acknowledged that the funding for
the proposal was less than certain.

Under the terms of the plan, which the City Council is expected to vote on
today, the LAPD would allocate $700,000 to hire 16 more DNA analysts and
support staff -- a boost of about 33% over current staffing. The city
would also increase by $250,000 the funds earmarked to pay private
laboratories that the LAPD hires to help with the daunting workload.

200 sex assault cases pass prosecution...Video: Thousands of DNA rape kits
never processed Our fundamental duty as elected officials is to ensure
the safety and well-being of each of our residents, Mayor Antonio
Villaraigosa said at a late afternoon news conference attended by Police
Chief William J. Bratton and City Council members. When crimes are
committed, particularly the heinous crimes of rape -- we have a solemn
obligation to seek justice.

Despite the rhetoric, however, the proposal is not a panacea and does not
guarantee that the LAPD will have the funds it needs to process the entire
backlog of roughly 7,000 cases, authorities acknowledged. Even if
approved, the plan would still fall about $900,000 short of what is needed
to keep pace with new crimes and meet the LAPD's goal of clearing about
2,500 of the older cases this year. Also, at least $4.2 million in
additional funds would be needed in coming years to fill 20 more analyst
positions and continue the contracts with outside labs. LAPD and city
officials expressed hope that the shortfall could be made up from private
donations and increased federal funding.

I hope the political commitment being made here today continues in the
next several years, Bratton said. Then, referring to Councilman Jack
Weiss, he added: As Mr. Weiss has also pointed out, this is not a
one-time fix. Weiss has long fought for increased funding for DNA
analysis and spearheaded the city's current proposal.

The hastily arranged news conference was the culmination of several months
of mounting concern for the mayor, Bratton and top advisors as the LAPD
came under increasing criticism for its efforts to reduce the backlog. In
August, The Times reported that bookkeeping mistakes had resulted in the
LAPD losing nearly $500,000 in federal grant money earmarked for DNA
analysis. And, last week, City Controller Laura Chick released an audit of
the DNA lab, which found that 200 potential sex crime cases have not been
prosecuted because Los Angeles police officials failed to meet legal
deadlines to test DNA evidence.

Rapes, homicides and other violent crimes have fallen dramatically in the
six years since Bratton took over the department. With too few DNA
analysts on staff and too little funding for outsourcing, however,
department officials have said they were helpless to eliminate the
backlog.

In a tight budget, the funding for the DNA analysts would come at a cost
for the LAPD: It would forgo filling some other civilian positions this
year. The additional outsourcing funds were expected to come from a pool
of healthcare money turned over to the city by a coalition of unions as
part of a cost-saving agreement reached earlier in the year.

At its best, DNA analysis provides detectives investigating violent or
property crimes with nearly airtight evidence to link a suspect to a
crime. The DNA contained in semen collected after a rape, for example, can
be examined through an elaborate process to produce a genetic profile of
the rapist.

The most pressing cases for the LAPD are the roughly 520 cases of sexual
assault, homicide and other crimes in which detectives have requested DNA
analysis to help in their investigation, but have had to wait because of
the lab's limited resources. The remainder of the backlog -- evidence from
about 6,600 alleged sex crimes -- is from cases in which the detectives
have not yet requested DNA analysis. It is unknown how many of those cases
have already been resolved and how many might benefit from an examination
of the genetic evidence. Regardless, LAPD officials, like officials in
other law enforcement agencies facing similar problems, have said they
want to analyze the DNA evidence from all the cases.

Sarah Tofte, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, which has drawn
attention to DNA backlog issues in law enforcement agencies around the
country, raised concerns about whether the LAPD had a comprehensive plan
in place that was needed to take advantage of the increased funding. Tofte
said the LAPD would have to make a commitment similar to the one made by
the New York Police Department, which 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----CALIF., N.H., KT., OHIO, ALA.

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 17


CALIFORNIA:

Jury recommends death penalty for double murderer


Jurors have recommended the death penalty for a gang member convicted of
murdering 2 people, including a 14-year-old girl shot while crouching
outside a Compton market.

The Los Angeles Superior Court jury deliberated for about a day before
recommending Thursday that Steven Dewayne Cheatham be sentenced to death.

Cheatham was convicted last week of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder.

The charges involved the slaying of 14-year-old Elvira Ramirez in 2001 and
the murder of Phillip Ovalle in 1998.

The 31-year-old will be sentenced Nov. 13.

(source: Associated Press)






NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Brooks guilty; jury to weigh death penalty  Each murder count ends in
conviction


John Jay Brooks was found guilty of 2 counts of capital murder, 1 count
of 1st-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit capital murder
yesterday.

It took jurors about 9 hours over 3 days to convict John Jay Brooks
yesterday of all charges: 2 counts of capital murder, 1 count of
1st-degree murder and 1 count of conspiracy to commit capital murder for
the 2005 death of Jack Reid Sr.

Brooks, whose wife, Lorraine, was in the courtroom, did not visibly react
to the verdicts. Reid's family members did, quietly. They sighed, and some
cried; one relative pumped his fist in the air.

It was Reid's family that mounted the search for him, which led to the
discovery of his body in a Massachusetts parking lot in July 2005, several
days after he went missing. It was also Reid's family that first pieced
together the clues linking Brooks to Reid's murder.

The Reid family declined comment yesterday because Brooks has not yet been
sentenced. Attorneys on both sides also declined comment.

In convicting Brooks, the jury rejected the defense's argument that Brooks
had only wanted to talk to Reid about stolen goods when he and 3 other men
lured Reid to a Deerfield barn in June 2005. Instead, the jury of 7 women
and 5 men concluded that Brooks's purpose was to kill Reid and that Brooks
had hired the men to kidnap Reid and then kill him.

In New Hampshire, murder during a kidnapping and murder for hire are 2
crimes punishable by death. The state's star witnesses were 2 of Brooks's
hired hit men, Michael Benton and Joseph Vrooman. Both pleaded guilty to
lesser charges and testified against Brooks.

Now jurors must decide if the death penalty is warranted or whether
Brooks, 56, should be sentenced to life in prison without parole. Judges,
not juries, typically sentence defendants. But in capital murder cases,
the jurors decide punishment by weighing aggravating factors from the
state against mitigating factors from defense attorneys.

Brooks, 56, would be the 1st person executed in New Hampshire in 69 years,
and his lawyers moved quickly yesterday to challenge the state's case for
execution.

Immediately after the jury delivered its verdicts, Brooks's lawyers filed
a 20-page motion asking that prosecutors be barred from presenting
evidence of other alleged bad acts.

That evidence, which state prosecutors have described as a big piece of
their penalty case, includes allegations that Brooks has a history of
having his enemies assaulted or terrorized. According to the state,
victims include a jail inmate and a high school friend of Brooks's son.
Brooks also once punched a woman in the face after she damaged his lawn
while leaving his house, according to the state.

Prosecutors say that type of information shows Brooks is too dangerous to
prison staff and other inmates to be housed in prison for the rest of his
life. Therefore, prosecutors say, he must be put to death.

Brooks's defense team argued in its filing that future dangerousness
allegations are not credible and, even if they were, are too minor to
justify putting Brooks to death. They said the allegations, at best, show
Brooks to be a controlling and unpleasant character.

Prosecutors and Brooks's defense attorneys will return to court this
afternoon to argue the defense's motion before Judge Robert Lynn.

Lynn will have to rule quickly. Jurors are due back in court Wednesday to
begin hearing evidence in the penalty phase of the case. Lynn told jurors
it will take about a week and a half to present that evidence; after it's
in, jurors will begin deliberating punishment.

As mitigating factors, defense attorneys can use Brooks's lack of a prior
record and the fact that his co-defendants received more lenient
sentences. If he's shown remorse, they can mention that, as well.

(source: Concord Monitor)






KENTUCKY:

2 death row appeals heard


The state Supreme Court on Thursday heard arguments on whether the state
adopted its lethal injection protocol correctly and whether the 1993 trial
of a man who killed 2 cops was held in the appropriate court.

The 2 appeals  brought on behalf of death row inmates Thomas Clyde Bowling
Jr. and Ralph Baze  are some of the last remaining appeals for both men.

Baze, who shot Powell 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., MONT., OHIO, FLA.

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 10



CALIFORNIAdeath row inmate commits suicide

Orange County killer is found dead in his prison cell


A California inmate condemned to die for the 1988 murder of an Orange
County attorney was found dead in his cell Thursday, authorities said.

Suicide is suspected in the death of Edward Dean Bridges, 55, said Terry
Thornton, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation.

Bridges had been on San Quentin State Prison's death row since 1992 for
the robbery and murder of William Seiler, an attorney who was kidnapped in
Tustin and forced to drive to a remote area in Riverside County.

Bridges tied Seiler's hands with the attorney's own necktie, then shot him
twice in the head.

In the 30 years since California reinstated capital punishment, 15
condemned inmates have committed suicide, exceeding the 14 who have been
executed. Another 41 died from natural causes.

(source: Associated Press)

***

Sister of boy slain in 1968 by a serial killer plans vigil


The Oklahoma woman will watch as authorities dig along a Ventura County
freeway for Roger Barlow's remains. Before he committed suicide in prison,
Mack Ray Edwards admitted killing the 16-year-old.

She knows it won't be easy.

It will be noisy and dusty. It will bring back awful memories from decades
ago. And it might ultimately prove fruitless.

But Sherry Barlow plans to spend this morning standing alongside the 23
Freeway in eastern Ventura County, hoping to provide her brother with a
long-delayed memorial.

Authorities believe a serial killer fatally stabbed her 16-year-old
brother, Roger Madison, in 1968 and buried him alongside the freeway. This
week, armed with new clues, authorities began digging up sites along the
freeway, prompting Barlow to fly in Thursday from Oklahoma to mount a
vigil.

Even if they don't find anything, I can stand there close to where he is
and say goodbye, said Barlow, 53. Because I never got a chance to say
goodbye.

The last time anyone in his family saw Roger alive was in December 1968,
when he left the family's Sylmar home after an argument with his father
about smoking.

The family thought he had run away. 2 years later, her mother sat down
with Barlow and her younger sister Annie to tell them the bad news.

She said she had something to tell us about Roger, Barlow said. Me or
my sister asked when he was coming home. She started crying and said he's
not coming home.

Roger had been murdered, police told the family -- and not by a stranger
but by a trusted friend and neighbor, Mack Ray Edwards. Married and the
father of 2 children, Edwards lived five houses down from the Madisons and
was a regular visitor.

He was practically a part of the family, Barlow said.

Edwards, a heavy-equipment operator, got along well with her father
because the two had worked in construction, Barlow said. He also displayed
a soft side and the ability to relate to the children, especially the
boys, she said.

Edwards' teenage son was a frequent companion of Roger and his older
brother, Rick.

It was Edwards who taught Barlow's 2 older brothers to drive and once
stayed at their home all night helping nurse Barlow's sick dachshund,
Lady, back to health, she said.

Throughout it all, he never revealed a dark side.

After a botched kidnapping of 3 local girls in 1970, Edwards turned
himself in to police and confessed to killing 6 children, including Roger,
over 15 years. Edwards said he stabbed the boy in an orange grove in
Sylmar and dumped his body somewhere near the 23 Freeway, which was under
construction at the time.

He later told a Los Angeles County sheriff's jailer that the real number
of his victims was closer to 2 dozen. Edwards hanged himself in his cell
at San Quentin in 1971.

But before his death, he provided key details that led investigators to
the site where he disposed of his 1st victim, 8-year-old Stella Darlene
Nolan, who disappeared in 1953. Her remains were discovered in Downey,
under 8 feet of earth, near a bridge abutment under the 5 Freeway.

Edwards also told detectives about killing Roger and using a bulldozer to
dispose of his body in a compaction hole, used during freeway
construction to determine if the soil can support the structures being
built above it. But Edwards did not give a precise location.

Without additional information, police didn't know where to look. Barlow,
whose family left California more than 12 years ago, said she had thought
about her brother a lot over the years but never believed authorities
would find his body.

The monstrous nature of Roger's killer was something that Barlow struggled
for years to come to grips with as she sought out details of his death.
Barlow said she read and reread an article about her brother's killing and
Edwards' other victims in True Crime magazine.

I couldn't comprehend a person doing that, she said, especially to
Roger.

There was one other haunting detail Barlow's mother told her about the
police investigation: 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., OHIO

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 10



CALIFORNIA:

Death penalty discussion


Activist Mike Farrell criticized state-sponsored killing under Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger in an address at Pitzer College Wednesday night.
Calling the governor a coward for refusing to stand on principle, the
former star of the television series M*A*S*H spoke to an audience of
roughly 200 students and community members on behalf of the newly formed
Inland Valley Death Penalty Focus.

Mr. Farrell said that the justice system is inherently flawed and
occasionally condemns innocent people. Since the death penalty was
reinstated in 1979, 130 death row inmates have been exonerated, he said.
Of course, we dont know how many innocent people have been killed in the
history of the US under this system.

He also argued in economic terms against the death penalty. In July, the
California Commission of the Fair Administration of Justice found that
abolishing capital punishment would save $125 million a year. It costs an
extra $90,000 per prisoner per year to hold on death row rather than in
the general maximum security prison population, the commission found.

The report has been ignored entirely by the governor, Mr. Farrell said.

With 670 prisoners on death row, the figure adds up to $63.3 million
annually just to house them, he said, even though most die of natural
causes or commit suicide before they are executed. California has executed
13 prisoners since 1979.

Death Penalty Focus advocates sentencing violent criminals to life in
prison without the possibility of parole and channeling the extra money
into prisoner rehabilitation programs, child abuse programs, enhancing law
enforcement capabilities and crime labs and compensation for victims.

Mr. Farrell believes that the death penalty continues because many
politicians want to appear to be tough on crime. In response to questions,
Mr. Farrell said that Presidential Candidate Barack Obama privately
opposes the death penalty and believes we will move closer to the
direction of abolishment of the death penalty if Obama is elected.

In an interview before the address, Mr. Farrell said Death Penalty Focus
has made concrete advancements since its inception in 1986. Last year, the
state of New Jersey repealed the death penalty. National opinion polls
show that support for capital punishment is slowly eroding, Mr. Farrell
said.

If the death penalty will end in the United States is no longer the
question, Mr. Farrell said. It's a question of when.

2 other speakers also addressed the audience. Gloria Gillian, was wrongly
accused of a crime she did not committee; an armed robbery that resulted
in a death. Prosecutors sought the death penalty in her case but she was
instead charged with life in prison. Her former boss was later found to be
guilty of the crime but not before Ms. Gillian spent 17 years behind bars.

The system is too flawed and there's no way we can ever take the chance
of executing another innocent person in this country.

David Leverings 13-year-old daughter was the victim of rape and murder as
she walked home from church. To refer to this experience as devastating,
doesn't come close, he said. When he was asked what should be done to the
perpetrator, he would tell people, Of course, he should be separated from
society, but there is no punishment that could be inflicted upon him that
would bring our daughter back.

(source: Claremont-Courier)






OHIOimpending execution

Ohio Death Row Inmate Appeals to US Supreme Court


Lawyers for an Ohio death row inmate who unsuccessfully argued that his
obesity prevents humane lethal injection filed an appeal Friday with the
U.S. Supreme Court to halt his execution, planned for next week.

The Ohio public defender's office filed the application on behalf of
Richard Cooey a few hours after Gov. Ted Strickland declined clemency.
Cooey, 41, is scheduled to be executed Tuesday for killing two University
of Akron students in 1986.

The Ohio Supreme Court and the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on
Thursday denied Cooey's requests for a stay of execution. The Ohio Parole
Board unanimously rejected his request for clemency last month.

His attorneys had argued that prison food contributed to a weight problem
that would make it difficult to access a suitable vein for lethal
injection. Cooey is 5 feet 7 and weighs 267 pounds.

''Even today, Cooey is not certain how Ohio intends to execute him,'' his
lawyers told the court.

They also said a drug he is taking for migraine headaches could reduce the
effect of the anesthetic used in the execution process. In the appeal
Friday, the lawyers said the state has not offered other ways to
anesthetize Cooey during the 3-drug lethal injection.

State and federal courts have rejected Cooey's arguments, saying he failed
to appeal his sentence within time limits.

(source: Associated Press)

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., USA, FLA., DEL., VA.

[Rick Halperin]

Oct. 2


CALIFORNIA:

Death row realismDo executions make us safer? San Quentin's former
warden says no.


As the warden of San Quentin, I presided over four executions. After each
one, someone on the staff would ask, Is the world safer because of what
we did tonight?

We knew the answer: No.

I worked in corrections for 30 years, starting as a correctional officer
and working my way up to warden at San Quentin and then on to the top job
in the state -- director of the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation. During those years, I came to believe that the death
penalty should be replaced with life without the possibility of parole.

I didn't reach that conclusion because I'm soft on crime. My No. 1 concern
is public safety. I want my children and grandchildren to have the safety
and freedom to pursue their dreams. I know from firsthand experience that
some people are dangerous and must be removed from society forever --
people such as Robert Lee Massie.

I presided over Massie's execution in 2001. He was first sentenced to
death for the 1965 murder of a mother of two. But when executions were
temporarily banned in 1972, his sentence was changed to one that would
allow parole, and he was released in 1978. Months later, he killed a
61-year-old liquor store owner and was returned to death row.

For supporters of the death penalty, Massie is a poster child. Yet for me,
he stands out among the executions I presided over as the strongest
example of how empty and futile the act of execution is.

I remember that night clearly. It was March 27, 2001. I was the last
person to talk to Massie before he died. After that, I brought the
witnesses in. I looked at the clock to make sure it was after midnight. I
got a signal from 2 members of my staff who were on the phone with the
state Supreme Court and the U.S. attorney general's office to make sure
there were no last-minute legal impediments to the execution. There were
none, so I gave the order to proceed. It took several minutes for the
lethal injections to take effect.

I did my job, but I don't believe it was the right thing to have done. We
should have condemned Massie to permanent imprisonment -- that would have
made the world safer. But on the night we executed him, when the question
was asked, Did this make the world safer? the answer remained no. Massie
needed to be kept away from society, but we did not need to kill him.

Why should we pay to keep him locked up for life? I hear that question
constantly. Few people know the answer: It's cheaper -- much, much cheaper
than execution.

I wish the public knew how much the death penalty affects their wallets.
California spends an additional $117 million each year pursuing the
execution of those on death row. Just housing inmates on death row costs
an additional $90,000 per prisoner per year above what it would cost to
house them with the general prison population.

A statewide, bipartisan commission recently concluded that we must spend
$100 million more each year to fix the many problems with capital
punishment in California. Total price tag: in excess of $200
million-a-year more than simply condemning people to life without the
possibility of parole.

If we condemn the worst offenders, like Massie, to permanent imprisonment,
resources now spent on the death penalty could be used to investigate
unsolved homicides, modernize crime labs and expand effective violence
prevention programs, especially in at-risk communities. The money also
could be used to intervene in the lives of children at risk and to invest
in their education -- to stop future victimization.

As I presided over Massie's execution, I thought about the abuse and
neglect he endured as a child in the foster care system. We failed to keep
him safe, and our failure contributed to who he was as an adult. Instead
of spending hundreds of millions of dollars to kill him, what if we spent
that money on other foster children so that we stop producing men like
Massie in the first place?

As director of corrections, I visited Watts and met with some
ex-offenders. I learned that the prison system is paroling 300 people
every week into the neighborhood without a plan or resources for success.
How can we continue to spend more than $100 million a year seeking the
execution of a handful of offenders while we fail to meet the basic safety
needs of communities like Watts?

It is not realistic to think that Watts and neighborhoods like it will
ever get well if we can't -- or won't -- support them in addressing the
problems they face.

To say that I have regrets about my involvement in the death penalty is to
let myself off the hook too easily. To take a life in order to prove how
much we value another life does not strengthen our society. It is a public
policy that devalues our very being and detracts crucial resources from
programs that could truly make our communities safe.

(source: Opinion; Jeanne Woodford is the former director of the 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., LA., NEB.

[Rick Halperin]

Sept. 25



CALIFORNIA:

New Journal Lends Victims a Voice


Today, the Institute for the Advancement of Criminal Justice (IACJ)
announced the release of the first of many compelling stories that will be
posted to the Victim's Voice Webpage (
http://www.iacj.org/VictimVoices.htm) in connection with the recent
publication of The Death Penalty in California, the most comprehensive
look at the death penalty in California to date.

Too often, victims voices, especially those whose murderers now sit on
death row, are hidden behind those of death penalty abolitionists and the
voice of murderers themselves during news coverage and on Websites and
blogs. IACJ seeks to give victims that voice -- a place to express their
feelings about their loss and their views on capitol punishment in
California.

No decision by a prosecutor carries more gravity of purpose or duty than
to seek death, wrote Greg Totten, Ventura County District Attorney in The
Death Penalty in California. That is why our exercise of discretion has
consistently reserved the death penalty for only the worst of the worst
crimes and murderers.

As Barbara Christian, mother of Terri Lynn Winchell, points out in her
statement, her daughter's killer falls in to that category.

As long as the murderer is alive and breathing, the crime scene is
replayed constantly before the eyes of the loved ones of the victim,
wrote Christian. Let these victims see the case closed, and put to rest
the murder scene. The pain and loss will never end, but they can rest by
realizing that justice has been served.

Her daughter's life was ended by Michael Morales more than 27 years ago in
Woodbridge, Calif. Christian writes about the painful details that are now
often left out of news coverage and high level discussions relating to the
death penalty and the legality surrounding its implementation.

Morales tried to strangle her with his leather belt which she broke by
fighting so hard for her life in that car. Her thick, lustrous hair was
pulled out in chunks from her scalp as he beat her head in 27 times with a
claw hammer, her body stabbed repeatedly with a butcher knife, and then
her body thrown out in the cold dark night where she was raped repeatedly
as she died. This scene I have lived with now for 27 years, she wrote.

Morales was scheduled to be executed more than 2 years ago, but just 2
hours before his scheduled execution, 2 court-appointed anesthesiologists
withdrew from the procedure, refusing to administer the lethal injection
and forced the state to call off the execution.

The US Supreme Court has ruled that lethal injection procedures are legal,
however, California's lethal injection process is still being heard in the
California Court of Appeals. If the death penalty is reinstated in
California, Morales is presumed to be the next inmate executed.

Unfortunately, Christian is just one of the victims of more than 650
condemned inmates on death row. IACJ will continue to give victims a voice
on its Website until their voices are as loud as those of the convicted
criminals.

Please check in each week as IACJ publishes a new statement by a victim of
a California capital punishment case.

For Christian's complete story and for more information on The Death
Penalty in California, please visit www.iacj.org.

Interview requests should be directed to Mitch Zak at (916) 448-5802.

[SOURCE: Institute for the Advancement of Criminal Justice]

(source: Market Watch)





LOUISIANA:

Serial killer gets 8 life sentences for killing 23 men in South Louisiana


Serial killer Ronald Dominique, 44, exits a Terrebonne Parish courtroom
Tuesday after pleading guilty to 8 counts of 1st-degree murder. Dominique
is suspected of killing as many as 23 men in south Louisiana over a
10-year period.

A Terrebonne Parish man suspected of killing as many as 23 men in south
Louisiana over nearly 10 years -- including 6 in St. Charles Parish --
pleaded guilty Tuesday to 8 counts of 1st-degree murder.

Ronald Dominique, 44, of Bayou Blue was sentenced to serve 8 consecutive
life terms. He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in a deal to avoid
the death penalty.

Terrebonne Parish District Attorney Joe Waitz Jr. says Dominique's guilty
pleas were reached after consulting with the families of the eight
victims, all of whom were thought to have been killed in Terrebonne
Parish.

Dominique was arrested in December 2006 on a Jefferson Parish warrant at a
homeless shelter in Houma after DNA evidence apparently linked him to a
murder in Terrebonne Parish.

Once arrested, authorities say, Dominique confessed to several murders
that occurred between July 1997 and July 2005, offering information they
say only the killer would have known.

St. Charles Parish authorities think Dominique might be responsible for 6
killings there during that time frame.

Sheriff Greg Champagne said Tuesday that he will consult with the district
attorney's office to inspect the confessions to see whether the St.
Charles 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., PENN., N.H., VT., IDAHO, COLO.

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 13



CALIFORNIA:

Jury recommends death penalty in 'Dead Presidents' case


A jury recommended the death penalty today for 2 gang members convicted in
the so-called Dead Presidents quadruple slaying in July 2000.

The verdicts for defendants Luis Alonzo Mendoza and Lorenzo Inez Arias
were read aloud about 11:30 a.m. in San Bernardino Superior Court. The 2
men are scheduled to return to court Sept. 10 for motions and sentencing.

Mendoza, 32, and Arias, 29, were part of a 4-man crew who fired gunshots
and killed 4 men and wounded 2 others at a West Vine Street duplex in July
2000, according to San Bernardino Police.

The victims who died were: Johnny Agudo, 33; his brother Gilbert Agudo,
27; Anthony Daniel Luna, 23; and Luna's half-brother, Marselino Gregory
Luna, 19.

Because the Agudo brothers were presidents of 2 local street gangs, some
in law-enforcement circles have dubbed the case Dead Presidents. Another
defendant in the case, John Adrian Ramirez, 34, recently took a plea
bargain. A fourth man, Froylan Chiprez, 33, remains a fugitive.

(source: San Bernardino Sun)

*

Calif. bill bans unsupported jailhouse testimony


California lawmakers have voted to ban use of uncorroborated testimony
from jailhouse informants that is used to convict criminal defendants.

The state Assembly on Tuesday approved a bill by Sen. Gloria Romero, a Los
Angeles Democrat, that would prohibit use of the unsupported testimony.
The Senate passed the measure in May.

Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, said jailhouse informants
frequently have an incentive to lie. He said Romero's bill would help
prevent wrongful convictions.

But Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange, said the bill would make it
difficult to prosecute crimes committed in jails and prisons. He said
jurors should be the ones to judge the validity of an informant's
testimony.

The 80-member Assembly passed the bill with a bare majority, 41-37.

(source: Associated Press)






PENNSYLVANIA:

Convicted Killer Could Get Death PenaltyCletus Rivera Convicted In
Killing Of Reading Officer


Closing arguments are scheduled for Wednesday in Berks County on whether a
man convicted of killing a Reading policeman should get the death penalty.

A psychologist testifying on behalf of Cletus Rivera said he had a
troubled childhood and now has attention-deficit disorder and depression.

But a psychiatrist testifying for the prosecution said Rivera didn't have
any psychological impairment when he killed Officer Scott Wertz in 2006.

Rivera was convicted of 1st-degree murder on Friday.

If jurors can't agree on whether he deserves the death penalty, he'll
automatically get a life sentence with no chance for parole.

(source: Associated Press)






NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Judge denies another Addison challenge to death penalty


A judge denied another request by a Manchester police officer's accused
killer to rule the state's death penalty law unconstitutional.

Attorneys for Michael K. Addison, 28, argued the death penalty should be
barred because of the risk an innocent person will be wrongfully convicted
of capital murder and executed.

They also argued that jurors will fail to understand sentencing
instructions and wrongly sentence someone to death as another reason to
bar the death penalty.

Hillsborough County Superior Court Judge Kathleen A. McGuire denied the
motions in an Aug. 6 order.

Addison is charged with capital murder in the October 2006 shooting death
of Officer Michael L. Briggs, 35.

Addison is set to go on trail next month.

(source: Associated Press)






VERMONT:

Death penalty experts join Jacques' defense


2 lawyers with extensive experience in capital cases have joined the
defense team of Michael Jacques in anticipation that prosecutors will seek
the death penalty against the convicted sex offender accused of kidnapping
12-year-old Brooke Bennett.

At the request of public defender Michael Desautels, U.S. District Judge
William Sessions III on Monday appointed Jean deSales Barrett and David
Ruhnke of Montclair, N.J., to help Desautels. Jacques, 42, the girl's
uncle, is scheduled to appear in court today for a hearing in which a
judge will decide whether there is probable cause to believe he committed
the offense alleged in the complaint.

Brooke disappeared June 25 and was found dead a week later. The cause of
death has yet to be released.

Depending on how Brooke died, prosecutors said, Jacques could face the
death penalty under the federal kidnapping law.

U.S. Attorney Tom Anderson said the 2006 Adam Walsh law  named for another
abducted child  allows federal prosecution of such crimes when they are
facilitated by the Internet.

Prosecutors say Jacques used Brooke's MySpace page and fictitious e-mail
identities to orchestrate her abduction.

The decision about whether to seek the death penalty is months away,
Anderson said Tuesday. It will be made after the investigation is
complete, the case is presented to a 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

Aug. 11



CALIFORNIA:

Serra Mesa man convicted of murdering girlfriend; could face death penalty


A Serra Mesa man accused of beating then strangling his girlfriend in the
apartment they shared was convicted Monday of 1st-degree murder and
torture.

After deliberating for about 6 days, a jury found Jack Henry Lewis Jr.,
39, guilty of the felony charges and a special circumstance allegation of
torture, which makes Lewis eligible for the death penalty.

A 2nd part of the trial is scheduled to begin Thursday in San Diego
Superior Court, when the same jury will be asked to decide whether Lewis
should be executed or sent to prison for life without the possibility of
parole.

Ultimately, Judge John S. Einhorn will decide how Lewis will be sentenced.
But judges rarely go against a jury's recommendation in capital cases.

Lewis was charged in connection with the death of his girlfriend, Jan
Hasegawa, 48, whose nude body was found Sept. 8, 2005, in the bedroom of
the couple's apartment on Daley Center Drive. The body was covered with
more than 150 bruises.

Although hair and fecal matter were found throughout the small residence,
Hasegawa's body was clean, as though she had showered before her death or
been wiped off afterward.

A bowl of water and ice were found near the body and a large flashlight
was on a nearby mattress.

Deputy District Attorney Nicole Cooper argued that Lewis inflicted the
bruises on Hasegawa with the flashlight, his fists and his feet. The
prosecutor said Lewis and Hasegawa had a 12-year romantic relationship
that turned abusive in later years.

Lewis, a longtime drug user, repeatedly injected Hasegawa with
methamphetamine, Cooper said.

Lewis' attorneys, Juliana Humphrey and Douglas Miller, argued that Lewis
did not intentionally kill Hasegawa, and that her death was a result of a
drug-fueled sexual encounter that turned violent.

That particular night, the line between sex and violence vanished,
Humphrey told the jury during closing arguments.

According to testimony in the trial, Lewis made repeated calls to 911 the
day Hasegawa's body was found, but left the apartment before authorities
arrived. He drove around the county, as far north as Bonsall, but
eventually turned himself in to police at a station near his home.

Cooper said Lewis told one person he had fought with Hasegawa because she
wouldn't perform a sex act on him.

Humphrey said Lewis had no reason to kill Hasegawa because she took care
of him. The attorney argued that Lewis may be guilty of the lesser crime
of manslaughter, but did not commit murder.

(source: San Diego Union-Tribune)

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----CALIF., MD., FLA., USA, TENN.

[Rick Halperin]

July 30



CALIFORNIA:

DEATH ROW COST OVERRUN: $40 MILLION-New San Quentin housing also could
run out of room, report says


The cost of new housing for San Quentin State Prison's growing number of
death row inmates will exceed estimates by nearly $40 million, and the
compound could run out of space soon after it is completed, according to a
state auditor's report released Tuesday.

The auditor's new $395.5 million price tag for the project, which is
expected to be completed by 2011, is new bad news for a state facing
billions of dollars in budget shortfalls. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and
the Democrat-controlled Legislature are still trying to hammer out a
spending plan for the fiscal year that began nearly a month ago.

California's prison system is already a big-ticket item, representing
about 10 % of roughly $100 billion general fund spending. And with severe
inmate overcrowding and claims of inadequate health care for prisoners, a
federal receiver appointed by a judge in 2006 has asked the Legislature
for an additional $7 billion to get the prison system to run adequately.

This is a giant black hole, said Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles,
chairwoman of the Senate public safety committee. It's a never-ending
gravitational force that'll continue to suck away money that should be
spent on local government, education, health and human services and higher
education.

Seth Unger, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation, said the latest figures for the San Quentin project are
estimates at best. He added that the report does validate that California
needs a newly constructed, modern facility to house our condemned inmate
population.

The new complex would house a maximum of 1,152 inmates, providing adequate
capacity until 2035 if most inmates are housed two per cell, the report
said. But if plans for double-celling are challenged in court and the
state loses, San Quentin could run out of space in 3 years.

We would simply go back to square one after spending all this money,
said Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, whose district includes San
Quentin.

Since the state Legislature reinstated the death penalty in 1977, there
have been 14 inmates executed, starting with Robert Alton Harris in 1992,
while the number of condemned inmates has risen steadily to the current
number at 674.

The vast majority of those prisoners - 635 - are held at San Quentin; 15
are held at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, and the
rest are being held near courthouses, in long-term medical care facilities
or in other states.

Plans for new housing for San Quentin's death row inmates got its initial
boost five years ago when state prison officials requested $220 million
and the state Legislature approved the spending. New facilities were
needed, prison officials said, because the 3 existing units - built in
1930, 1934 and 1960 - don't meet the state's standard for maximum-security
facilities.

Prison officials later said construction costs would be far greater as a
result of rising prices of construction materials, design changes and
unforeseen problems such as cleaning up contaminated soil.

The corrections department also reduced the number of housing units from
eight to six, which reduced the number of cells from 1,024 to 768. Despite
the smaller size of the complex, the corrections department placed its
latest construction cost estimate at $356 million, with the funds to be
raised by selling lease-revenue bonds.

California's Public Works Board would borrow the money to build the
facilities and lease the building to the corrections department, whose
rent payment would be used to repay the bond debt.

But the state auditor concluded that prison officials underestimated the
cost of construction by nearly $40 million. In addition, the report said
operating costs for the facility would require an additional $1.2 billion
over 20 years.

It looks very, very likely that we would be forced to build additional
facilities whether we like it or not, Huffman said. Frankly, I think we
ought to be stepping back and taking a look at all of our alternatives in
a comprehensive way.

Huffman argued that the state should consider housing death row inmates in
other areas of the state, given its plans to build more prisons.

Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange, said he has little doubt that the
corrections department has underestimated the cost of building the new
housing units. But the lawmaker, who supports death penalty, said the San
Quentin project is the kind of prison infrastructure work that the state
has ignored too long.

Costs are going up because we don't pay attention to our prisons on a
regular basis, Spitzer said. We've seen prisons largely as a place where
you send people and don't think about them. Now, the chicken's come home
to roost.

Condemned in California

1,152--Inmate capacity in planned new death row housing at San Quentin

674--Number of California's 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., OHIO, USA

[Rick Halperin]

July 11



CALIFORNIA:

Death penalty case: 'Years of no closure' SENTENCE, HANDED DOWN IN
'79, STILL UNFULFILLED


David Ghent, Santa Clara County's longest-serving death row inmate, could
have been Exhibit A in last week's report from a state justice commission
on problems and delays in California's death penalty system.

Nearly 30 years after first being condemned to death for murdering a San
Jose woman in her home, Ghent's case is remarkable for the lengths of time
in which nothing happens. The latest delays recently prompted the
California Attorney General's Office to urge a federal judge to end more
than 3 years of waiting for a ruling that would unlock Ghent's languishing
case.

It has barely budged since early 2002, when a federal appeals court set
aside his 1979 death sentence for murdering 25-year-old Patricia Bert. The
Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office immediately pledged to retry
Ghent to seek the death penalty again, but trial dates have come and gone
without action.

Kathy Orr, who testified at Ghent's original trial that she'd been
sexually assaulted by him several years before the Bert murder, has tried
to keep tabs on the case because she knows she'll have to take the stand
again if there is a trial. The delays have kept her from putting her
ordeal behind her.

It has been 33 years of no closure, she said recently.

The state's court system has been unable to move the case along because of
a side legal fight in the federal courts. 4 years ago, Ghent's lawyers
asked San Jose U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte to block

local prosecutors from using materials unearthed during the federal
appeals - including psychiatric evaluations. However, Whyte, a widely
respected judge with a docket full of complex Silicon Valley legal
battles, has yet to rule on the issue, despite receiving all the arguments
by March 2005. In late June, Deputy Attorney General Joan Killeen wrote to
Whyte after discovering that the Ghent case had not yet been resolved.

I was just trying to get things moving, she said Monday.

Whyte said this week that he was unaware that Ghent's motion had frozen
the case in the state system. The judge acknowledged that he mistakenly
believed everything was on hold until legal challenges to the state's
lethal injection method are resolved. He vowed to decide the matter as
soon as this week.

Maybe it's an assumption I shouldn't have made, the judge said. I
thought it was dormant for the time being.

In the meantime, Ghent, now 58, remains on death row at San Quentin
awaiting a retrial, which could still be delayed well into next year even
if Whyte quickly rules on the federal issue.

Ghent became one of the first inmates sent to death row after voters
restored California's death penalty in 1978. A jury convicted Ghent for
the February 1978 murder of Bert, who was found in her house stabbed
repeatedly. Ghent never denied committing the murder, but maintained he
blacked out during the crime and was suffering from post-traumatic stress
syndrome from a combat tour in Vietnam.

Deputy District Attorney Charles Gillingham, who is prosecuting Ghent's
retrial, referred questions to office spokesman Nick Muyo. Muyo would only
say: We'd like to see it moved along as well. But, quite frankly, it's
out of our hands.

Molly O'Neal, Ghent's public defender, could not be reached for comment.

Even if Ghent is sentenced to death again, he will go to the back of the
line on the state's death row, where there are now more than 670 condemned
inmates.

To legal experts, Ghent's odyssey through the legal system illustrates one
of the key concerns expressed last week by the California Commission on
the Fair Administration of Justice, which issued a lengthy report decrying
delays in the state's death penalty system.

What happens is that the net result of the delay is it is just impossible
to retry and put on a convincing case for death after all that time, said
Gerald Uelmen, a Santa Clara University law professor and executive
director of the state justice commission.

(source: Mercury News)






OHIO:

Ohio plans 1st execution since moratorium


Ohio is planning its 1st execution since a U.S. Supreme Court decision
ended a national pause on killing inmates.

The Ohio Supreme Court on Friday set an execution date of Oct. 14 for
Richard Cooey, who was convicted of raping and murdering two University of
Akron students in 1986.

Executions had been put on hold nationally for several months until the
U.S. Supreme Court decided in April to allow Kentucky's lethal injection
process, which is similar to the one used in Ohio. Opponents argued the
procedure is unconstitutionally cruel.

(source: Associated Press)






USA:

Amnesty International USA

Guantnamo: Day two of military judge questioning 9/11 accused about
self-representation

11 July 2008 AI Index: AMR 51/077/2008

On 10 July 2008, military commission judge US Marine Colonel Ralph
Kohlmann held further proceedings to question the men 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., ARK., USA, N.C.

[Rick Halperin]

July 10



CALIFORNIA:

Turn to other options for the death penalty


Coinciding with the release of the California Commission on the Fair
Administration of Justice report on the death penalty was the release of
Paul House, cleared on DNA evidence after 22 years on Tennessees death
row.

There was also the release from duty of 2 Los Angeles police officers
because of an investigation into their probable perjurious evidence that,
unknown to the officers, was contradicted by a videotape, resulting in a
case dismissal.

The state-ordered report underscores what Paul House knows firsthand, as
do more than 100 previously freed men and women from this countrys death
rows. The inescapable conclusion is that every day in courtrooms around
the country (or do we think Los Angeles is unique?) men and women are
unfairly convicted with testimony that is perjured or given in good faith
but mistaken.

While there are many able lawyers, men and women are represented by other
lawyers who have been drunk or asleep during the trial and/or are having
intimate relationships with witnesses, wives or girlfriends of the
accused. Also, deals with witnesses too often concealed are made for
shorter sentences. Is it any wonder that California  like Illinois and
others before ithas now received a report on the status of the death
penalty that states the death penalty is in need of costly repair, with no
guarantee that it will work were we to put it up on the hoist and do all
that is recommended?

Is it not foolhardy, especially in difficult economic times, to spend
hundreds of millions of dollars for a system that may not be fixable?
Nothing in the report indicates repairs will end perjury, mistaken
witnesses, clandestine lawyer-party relationships or other built-in human
frailties.

It is not the death penalty law that is broken as much as it is we who are
broken. We are broken, as most preachers, priests and nonbelievers would
admit, because we are human. And as with most human endeavors, including
the ones done with the utmost care, mistakes will be made.

There is a solution to our understandable fury with horrible crimes and
those who commit them: life in prison without the possibility ofparole a
sentence less costly than the death penalty; a sentence imposed in less
time than the death penalty; a sentence that does not clog our trial and
supreme courts; and a sentence that takes the drama and spotlight away
from those who are not entitled to a great deal of societys valuable time
and resources.

One of the dirty little secrets of the death penalty is that a death row
inmate is specially handled and guarded on the row. It is ironic that so
much is invested in protecting the safety of death row inmates when we are
planning to kill them.

They, as homicide defendants in general, are some of the best behaved of
inmates. Place them in a general prison population, a crowded life with
safety always a concern, and they go from semi-celebrity status to just
another face in prison blues spending days not huddled with lawyers,
psychologists and chaplains but just walking back and forth, doing time.

(source: LettersSusan Pyburn, a photographer, writer and advocate for
the homeless, is the founding member of Death Penalty Focus in San Luis
Obispo. Howard Gillingham is a Southern California high school principal
and former lawyer and defense expert in death penalty matters; San Luis
Obispo Tribune)






ARKANSAS:

Clemency Hearing OK'd For Death-Row Inmate


The state Parole Board on Wednesday scheduled an August hearing to
consider the executive clemency request of a death-row inmate who is
scheduled to be executed in September.

Lawyers for inmate Frank Williams Jr. requested the hearing earlier this
month, arguing their client's life should be spared for a variety of
reasons, including a low intelligence quotient.

The Parole Board scheduled the clemency hearing for 10 a.m. on Aug. 4 at
the state Department of Correction's Varner Supermax Unit located at
Varner in southeast Arkansas.

Williams' family and other supporters will be allowed to speak at the
hearing on the merits of the condemned killer's clemency application. The
victim's family and friends will be allowed to speak against the request
at a meeting that afternoon in Little Rock.

Following the hearings, the Parole Board will provide a nonbinding
recommendation to the governor who has the authority to grant or deny the
clemency request, the board said in a release.

Gov. Mike Beebe set a Sept. 9 execution date for Williams, sentenced to
death for the 1992 murder of Bradley farmer Clyde Spence.

The execution date was the 1st the governor has set since the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled in April against a legal challenge to the use of lethal
injection to put an inmate to death.

The governor set 2 execution dates last year but stays were issued in
federal court pending a high court ruling in a Kentucky case.

Williams' lawyers said in their request for a clemency hearing 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., MD., GA.

[Rick Halperin]

July 10


CALIFORNIA:

Death penalty's survival uncertain, state finds  El Dorado County
prosecutor agrees


Some 71 years after the last hanging of an inmate at Folsom Prison,
California's death penalty is fatally flawed, according to a state
commission report.

The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice was
established in 2004 in part to determine the extent to which the state's
legal system has caused wrongful executions. It reported June 30 that the
state must narrow its death penalty, in part because the penalty is
impossibly expensive to continue in its current broad form.

Under the statute now in effect, a full 87 % of California's 1st-degree
murders are death eligible, and could be prosecuted as death cases, the
commission noted. Any of a total of 22 special circumstances can be
cited by local prosecutors in seeking a death penalty. The list includes
drive-by murder. A federal Justice Department study in 2000 found numerous
racial and geographic disparities applied to death penalty sentences.

Bill Clark, chief assistant district attorney for El Dorado County, said
the state report seemed to blame local district attorneys for too much of
the state's problem. One commission recommendation is that each county
district attorney be required to file a copy of a policy on how his or her
office decides to seek a death penalty.

They said, 'The system is screwed up, and it's the DA's fault,' Clark
said. But, to be honest, we don't have the money to continue. The penalty
is dysfunctional.

Clark referred to murderer James Odle, convicted in 1983, in saying, I
was a 26-year-old police officer when Odle was sentenced. I'm a
52-year-old prosecutor now. I've got a better chance of dying than he
does.

Excessive delay in appointing counsel for appeals, a severe backlog in
reviewing appeals and ineffective counsel combine to put the system on the
verge of breakdown, ready to fall of its own weight, the commission
reported.

The death penalty is the law of this state -- however, it is the law in
name only, and not in reality, the commission's report states. Thus far,
federal courts have rendered final judgment in 54  challenges to
California death-penalty judgments. Relief in the form of a new guilt
trial or a new penalty hearing was granted in 38 of the cases, or 70 % .
Whether the death penalty has a deterrent effect is a hotly contested
issue. If there is a deterrent value, however, it is certainly dissipated
by long intervals between judgment of death and its execution.

California now takes more than 20 years between judgment and execution. It
has the largest death row in the nation, with 673 people awaiting
execution at San Quentin State Prison in Marin County. And, the state has
planned since 2003 to build a new death row at San Quentin, whose
estimated cost has burgeoned since that time from $220 million to more
than $336 million, said Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the state
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The report studied, but rejected, alternative recommendations of
abolishing the death penalty in California in favor of life imprisonment
without parole, and of increased funding to speed up availability of
qualified legal counsel to inmates for appeals of the penalty.

The commission estimated annual costs of the present system at $137
million per year. Reforming the system to make it more just would cost
around $233 million a year, it found. Significantly narrowing the
special-circumstances list would cut costs to $130 million per year, and
imposing a maximum penalty of lifetime incarceration would cut cost to
$11.5 million a year.

The commission quoted a remark this year by U.S. Supreme Court Justice
John Paul Stevens, who said, The time for a dispassionate, impartial
comparison of the enormous costs that death penalty litigation imposes on
society with the benefits that it produces has certainly arrived.

(source: El Dorado Hills Telegraph)






MARYLAND:

Md. governor names panel to study death penalty


Former U.S. Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti will head the Maryland
Commission on Capital Punishment, along with 22 other people chosen to
study the death penalty in Maryland, Gov. Martin O'Malley announced today.

Civiletti, attorney general from 1979 to 1981 under President Jimmy
Carter, said he intends to listen to both sides of the debate and reserve
judgment in the 5 months the commission has to study the issue.

I come in with views but they are not fixed views, and so I am anxious to
learn as much as I can in the short period of time that we have to do this
important work, said Civiletti, a former attorney in the law firm of
Venable, Baetjer  Howard in Baltimore.

The commission was established in the last legislative session to address
several specific concerns, including racial, jurisdictional and
socio-economic issues in the use of capital punishment in Maryland.

The commission also will study the risk of an innocent person being

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., ALA., GA., USA

[Rick Halperin]

July 9



CALIFORNIA:

Metrolink victim's widow opposes death penalty for Juan Manuel
AlvarezLien Wiley blames Metrolink for the crash that killed her
husband and 10 others


The widow of a Metrolink train crash victim told a judge today that she
blamed her husband's death on the train company and does not support
execution for the man convicted last month on 11 counts of 1st degree
murder for causing the derailment.

I don't want one more life to be lost innocently, Lien Wiley, whose
husband Don Wiley was killed in the crash, told presiding Judge William R.
Pounders. I don't want more people to go through what I had to go
through.

Killer's family opposes death penalty in fatal Metrolink crash

Wiley spoke to the judge outside the presence of the jury. Her words today
stood in contrast to much of the emotional testimony in the second day of
the penalty phase of the trial.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Juan Manuel Alvarez, 29, of
Compton, who parked his sport utility vehicle on the train tracks near
Glendale on Jan. 26, 2005, setting off a chain-reaction train crash that
killed 11 people and injured at least 180.

A jury rejected Alvarez's claim that he had planned to commit suicide but
changed his mind and then could not dislodge his vehicle from the tracks.

Wiley told Pounders that she did not want Alvarez to be used as a
scapegoat. She said she believed Metrolink was responsible for the
severity of the crash because of its use of a controversial push-pull
system to operate trains.

The trains are very dangerous, Your Honor. I did my own investigation,
Wiley said. I don't want to use Mr. Alvarez as a scapegoat so that the
train company doesn't do anything to make it safe for thousands of
people.

More than 100 victims and their survivors are suing Metrolink for
liability. The train company has denied culpability.

Wiley sobbed as she told Pounders that she did not want to testify as a
prosecution witness in the trial of Alvarez.

I don't want to relive it, Wiley said.

Pounders told Wiley that he understood but that she was being asked only
to talk about her husband. He warned Wiley not tell jurors that she had
forgiven Alvarez or that she believed he should be spared the death
penalty.

If you don't follow my orders, I will sanction you, Pounders said. I
will not hesitate to put you in jail.

The judge had previously cautioned prosecutors not to ask the relatives of
victims testifying about the impact of the deaths on their lives whether
they thought Alvarez should live or die.

Wiley did take the stand, reluctantly. Shaking and weeping, she told
prosecutors that she and her husband were very close.

We were always together, she said. He was very loving, romantic, a man
with high integrity, very responsible. I miss him very much. My home is
cold and empty and my life is cold and empty.

But when prosecutors tried to show family photos of her husband, Wiley
said no. Relatives of other victims have viewed photos, including
snapshots of Christmas and vacations, and recalled their loved ones for
jurors.

Jurors heard from relatives of Leonardo Romero,53.His daughter, Nicole
Beniquez, praised him as a good father who cared about us so much.
Crying, she told the court that without the income from her father, an
ex-Marine who had worked at a pipe-fitting company, the family had too
little money to stay in California and had moved to Florida.

Some jurors and witnesses had tears in their eyes when Livia Kilinski
described her life since losing her son Henry Kilinski, 39. He had been an
aspiring firefighter who worked in insurance claims. He was devoted to his
wife, stepdaughter, parents and sisters, she said.

I can't deal with it. I can't live with it, Kilinski said. It's a wound
in my heart. I will never heal.

Elaine Parent Siebers stared directly at Alvarez as she spoke of losing
her brother William Parent, 53. Parent's family had searched frantically
for him after he gave his phone number to a stranger on the day of the
crash and asked the man to let his family know he had been hurt.

The pain and anguish that we're going through, I wish on no one, she
said.

(source: Los Angeles Times)



LA Co. sues Metrolink to get out of crash lawsuits


Los Angeles County is suing Metrolink over the commuter train system's
demand that the county help cover costs of a civil lawsuit filed by
victims of a deadly derailment in 2005.

The county, which filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court on
Thursday, said it is not responsible for defending or making insurance
payments to Metrolink.

The rail authority has claimed the county is partially at fault for the
derailment because the Sheriff's Department failed to prevent a man from
leaving his vehicle on the railroad tracks when the collision occurred
Jan. 26, 2005, in Glendale.

The derailment prompted 113 victims and their survivors to sue Metrolink,
claiming negligence and inadequate inspection caused the disaster.

Juan 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----CALIF., USA

[Rick Halperin]

July 2


CALIFORNIA:

Death penalty system requires a major overhaul


California has the death penalty basically in name only. With 13
executions in 30 years and 673 inmates now on the nation's largest death
row, capital punishment has turned into life without parole - at a stiff
price for taxpayers.

Fixing a system marred by delays and poor legal representation would
cost an additional $95 million per year, according to the California
Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice. That's money that
California, facing a $15 billion deficit, doesn't have - and if it did,
should have plenty of spending priorities higher than executions.

We agree with a minority of the 22-member commission who call for
abolishing the death penalty. It is vulnerable to error, ineffective as a
deterrent, subject to racial bias and expensive to administer. But
persuading voters to repeal 21 capital punishment statutes, many of which
they passed by initiative decades ago, faces improbable odds, even though
the public is increasingly ambivalent about putting criminals to death.

There is a pragmatic alternative: Pare back the number of crimes subject
to execution and commit full resources to fair trials and full appeals for
those cases. The commission estimates that would save taxpayers about $100
million a year by eliminating drawn-out appeals. Many of those now
sentenced to death would instead serve life in prison with no possibility
of parole - essentially what they are serving now, only at lower cost.

The commission could not get a majority to back this proposal, but we
believe it's the best plan at this point.

Nearly 7 of 8 1st-degree murders in California now qualify for the death
penalty, including murder while committing a felony, such as a robbery.
Accomplices theoretically can be put to death, too.

Limiting the death penalty to a few of the most heinous murders would
substantially reduce the docket and the cost. Those might include multiple
homicides; killing a law enforcement official, a witness, a prosecutor or
others involved in a case; committing murder while in prison; and murder
involving torture.

The current implementation of the death penalty insults families of
victims, who wait decades for closure that never comes, and it abuses the
accused, who often lack adequate legal representation. Although the
commission found no credible evidence that the state executed an innocent
person, 98 inmates once on death row have had their convictions or
sentences overturned.

The commission called the system dysfunctional and close to collapse.
It's also inconsistently applied from county to county. That's why the
commission recommended creating a Death Penalty Review Panel to analyze
cases and recommend safeguards and improvements to the Legislature.

This marks the final report of the commission, which the state Senate
created four years ago to review California's criminal justice system.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unwisely vetoed earlier recommendations to
prevent false confessions and faulty eyewitness testimony and to reduce
the use of jailhouse informants. Many of the commission's other sound
recommendations have not yet been seriously considered.

The report on the death penalty must not be ignored. The costs, in so many
respects, are just too high.

(source: Editorial, Mercury News)



Commission Finds Serious Problems With Death Penalty


A state commission on the death penalty concluded today that the
administration of capital punishment in California is dysfunctional and
close to collapse.

This commission did not recommend abolishing the death penalty, but it did
bring to light some staggering problems with a system designed to punish
the worst of the worst. In its 117 page report, the California Commission
of the Fair Administration of Justice concluded that the state's death
row, with 670 inmates, will continue to swell unless drastic changes are
made.

The time from sentence to execution in California is 20 to 25 years,
compared to a national average of just 12 years. 30 inmates at San
Quentin's death row have been there for more than 25 years and 119 have
been there for more than 20 years.

Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978, 38 inmates have died of
natural causes, 14 have committed suicide while only 13 have been
executed. Another 98 have left death row because their sentences have been
overturned. 79 inmates on death row haven't even been appointed a lawyer
yet. Of those that do have a lawyer, only one appeal filed since 1997 has
been fully resolved.

While the commission did not take a position on whether the death penalty
should continue in California, it did conclude that replacing capital
punishment with a life sentence would save tax payers up to $100,000,000 a
year.

Despite rumors to the contrary, the commision found no credible evidence
that an innocent person has ever been executed in California.

(source: CBS News)






USA:

USA: Capital charges sworn 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., OHIO, GA., ALA.

[Rick Halperin]

June 30


CALIFORNIA:

California's death penalty process is 'dysfunctional,' panel findsThe
time from sentencing to execution is twice the national average. Panel
recommends limiting crimes eligible for capital punishment or sentencing
inmates to life without parole instead.


California's administration of the death penalty is dysfunctional and
close to collapse, plagued by delays of nearly twice the national
average from sentencing to execution and drowning under a backlog of
cases, a state commission reported today.

In its final report, the California Commission on the Fair Administration
of Justice said the state's death row of 670 inmates -- the largest in the
nation -- will continue to swell unless the state nearly doubles what it
now spends on attorneys for inmates or changes sentencing laws.

In an interview, Santa Clara University law professor Gerald Uelmen,
executive director of the commission, called today's report kind of like
poking a stick in a hornet's nest and predicted it would receive wide
attention.

The 22-member commission, created by the Legislature to recommend
improvements in the criminal justice system, includes law enforcement and
defense bar representatives and victim advocates.

Although commissioners strongly disagreed on some issues, they were
unanimous in concluding that the current death penalty system was failing
and in agreeing that a large amount of money was needed for significant
change. The report offers alternative proposals for reform.

The commission did not advocate abolishing the death penalty but did note
that California could save $100 million a year if the state replaced the
punishment with sentences of life in prison without possibility of parole.
Death row prisoners cost more to confine, are granted more resources for
appeals, have more expensive trials and usually die in prison anyway, the
commission said in its 117-page report.

The time from death sentence to execution in California is 20 to 25 years,
compared with the national average of 12 years, the commission said. 30
inmates have been on death row more than 25 years, 119 for more than 20
and 240 for more than 15.

The system's failures create cynicism and disrespect for the rule of law
. . . weaken any possible deterrent benefits of capital punishment,
increase the emotional trauma experienced by murder victims' families and
delay the resolution of meritorious capital appeals, the commission said.

The commission learned of no credible evidence that the state had
executed an innocent person but said the risk remained. 14 people
convicted of murder in California from 1989 through 2003 were later
exonerated. 6 death row inmates who won new trials were acquitted or had
their charges dismissed for lack of evidence.

Among the panel's findings:

* After sentences of death, cases are automatically appealed to the
California Supreme Court, which upholds the sentence 90% of the time,
compared with an approval rate of 73.7% in 14 other death penalty states
from 1992 to 2002. Since 1978, 70% of the cases upheld by the state and
then appealed to federal courts have been overturned.

* A 1978 voter initiative that helped make 87% of first-degree murders
subject to the death penalty dramatically increased the number of death
sentences in the state. In the year before passage of the so-called Briggs
Initiative, seven people were sentenced to death. By 2000, death sentences
were averaging 32 a year. They have since leveled off to about 20 a year.

* California's death row inmates whose sentences or verdicts were later
overturned waited an average of 16.75 years for their reprieves.

* 79 death row inmates have not obtained lawyers to handle their first
appeals, which are by law automatic, and 291 inmates lack lawyers to bring
constitutional challenges based on facts that the trial courts did not
hear. It takes inmates an average of 12 years to obtain a state high court
ruling on their first appeals.

* The California Supreme Court has such a backlog that only one appeal
from a conviction after 1997 has been resolved.

* California does not meet the federal standard for paying private lawyers
to handle death cases, and the state's method of paying these attorneys --
sometimes with flat-fee contracts -- violates American Bar Assn.
standards.

* Since the death penalty's restoration in 1978, 38 death row inmates have
died of natural causes, 14 have committed suicide, 13 have been executed
and 98 have left death row because their convictions or sentences were
overturned.

Delays grow worse every year, the commission said.

The commission attributed the unusually high rate of reversals by federal
courts in California death cases to the availability of more federal money
for investigations, the opportunity to develop a more complete factual
record in federal hearings, and the greater independence of federal
judges with lifetime appointments.

Law professor Uelmen, an expert on the state high court, said the

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., N.Y., ILL.

[Rick Halperin]

June 27


CALIFORNIA:

Widow pleads for death penaltyShe says home is cold and silent after
husband, 2 sons slain in S.F.


Danielle Bologna can't go back home.

Just a week ago, her 2-story house on a quiet street in San Francisco's
Excelsior district was a bustling place, crammed with sports gear and
trophies and team portraits, where she and her husband of 21 years were
raising their 4 children.

But in just seconds on Sunday, her family was torn apart: Her husband,
Tony, 48, and the couple's sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, were shot
and killed as they drove home from a family barbecue in Fairfield.

What is left at home, for Danielle Bologna, is only stark silence.

I went back there one time, she said Thursday. It was extremely cold.
It was empty. It was the cold, the silence.

It was hard seeing my kids' things all over ... my husband's shoes, his
work stuff, his clothes, jackets all over.

Danielle Bologna says she wants San Francisco District Attorney Kamala
Harris - who has pledged never to seek the death penalty - to understand a
little of what she must endure and to seek the death penalty for her
family's killer.

The district attorney really needs to pay attention - she doesn't have
kids, she doesn't know what this means, Bologna said.

Prosecutors filed 3 counts of murder and other charges Thursday against
Edwin Ramos, 21, of El Sobrante, an alleged street gang member who police
say opened fire on the Bolognas after their car briefly blocked Ramos from
completing a left turn down a narrow street. The charges include special
circumstances that could carry the death penalty.

But Harris had long promised to not seek the death penalty in the city.
After taking strong criticism for quickly ruling out the death penalty
against the gang member ultimately convicted of killing San Francisco
police Officer Isaac Espinoza in 2004, Harris has since delegated such
decisions to a committee of prosecutors in her office. Capital punishment,
however, has yet to be sought.

On Thursday, Harris' office said that no decision has been made on the
issue in the Bologna slayings. This is a horrific tragedy most painfully
felt by the family and friends of these innocent victims and shared by our
entire city, the office said in a statement.

Danielle Bologna, 47, an educational adviser and coach at Rooftop
Elementary, recalled how her husband spent his days coaching sports with
his 4 kids and nights as a supervisor at Draeger's market in San Mateo.

Michael, a standout athlete, was their eldest son at 20 and was attending
the College of San Mateo. Matthew, their youngest son, was 16 and
attending Lincoln High in San Francisco.

On Sunday, the Bolognas - she, her husband and their three sons and a
daughter - joined other relatives and friends for a barbecue in Fairfield.
It was the last time the family was together.

Encounter on street

She said the family parted at the gathering because Tony wanted to get
some sleep before work. He was driving on Congdon Street only blocks from
home, police said, when he encountered a Chrysler 300 as it was trying to
get by his car after making a left turn. Tony backed up, but soon shots
were fired, fatally wounding him and two sons, who were riding with him in
the car.

There was no altercation between this maniac man and my husband, she
said. My husband would never put his own children in jeopardy.

My husband moved back to let the guy go. Instead, he had blocked my
husband and opened fire. There was not a peep or a word out of my
husband's mouth.

With the help of a tip from a man arrested after the slayings, police
quickly made an arrest of a member of a notoriously violent street gang,
MS-13.

This animal, Danielle Bologna said. I just feel that I can't even give
him a name - who can just drive around looking for victims to take out. He
has no conscience. Just to kill people when you feel like it?

Widow's plea to D.A.

Danielle Bologna said the district attorney needs to realize the enormity
of the crime in this case.

Seeking the death penalty, this will make a statement so people won't
just kill families for no reason, said Bologna, who is left to raise a
son and daughter on her own. They have the power to stop this. They have
to stop with the excuses - this is not her family, this is my family. '

Violence in the city, Bologna said, has gone too far. Nothing is getting
done. Why did we put her here, if she is not going to stop this? This is
huge. I have lost a husband and 2 kids.

Danielle Bologna thanked the police for their efforts. She says she prays
that justice will be done. I'm going to let the courts do their job. I'm
going to let the police officers, who have been fabulous, do their job. I
just feel the district attorney needs to do her the job.

She said she is still stunned by what happened.

'A senseless crime'

All I can tell you - this was a senseless crime. I never in a million
years thought I would have to live this life and lose my family.

To be 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----CALIF., USA, MISS., COLO.

[Rick Halperin]

June 13



CALIFORNIA:

Time for alternatives to San Quentin death row


The Legislature and the governor, like governors and Legislatures before
them, are ducking hard decisions on what to do about the old death-row
facilities at San Quentin Prison in Marin County.

Now the California state auditor has issued a report, Building a
Condemned Inmate Complex at San Quentin May Cost More Than Expected. That
report, and another to follow in July on alternative sites, should cause
the governor and Legislature to step back and chart a new course. San
Quentin is the wrong place for a new death-row complex.

The state auditor now estimates that it will cost $395.5 million to build
a 768-cell complex at San Quentin. That's an outrageous cost of more than
$515,000 per cell  for a complex that would reach capacity in 2014, less
than three years after it is expected to open. If the state built a
1,024-cell complex (the original plan which would reach capacity in 2030),
the cost would be $459.6 million  a still outrageous $449,000 per cell.

So what's driving the high cost at this site? Instead of solid ground, it
turns out most of the site is bay muds. The unstable soils will have to be
removed and replaced with rock. This will require 15- to 20-foot-deep
excavations and extensive measures to prevent seawater incursions. Oh, and
they'll have to use a pile foundation, not the conventional spread
footing.

Back in 2003, then-Gov. Gray Davis proposed a new 1,024-cell death-row
complex at San Quentin. That original proposal had countless problems, as
the Legislative Analyst's Office pointed out at the time. First and
foremost, the department did not consider alternative sites. Legislators
approved it anyway. In 2003, the estimated cost was $220 million  or
$215,000 per cell.

When Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor, he could have taken a
closer look at the project. Instead, his administration pressed ahead,
asking for more and more money as higher costs became evident. The
Legislature balked, so the project has been on hold. But now the governor
is back again, asking for money so construction can begin on a 768-cell
complex. Lawmakers should reject this proposal, too.

Legislators should bear in mind that this is only Phase I of the San
Quentin project. If the 768-cell death-row complex gets built at San
Quentin, you can be sure that the Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation will return to the Legislature in two years for more money
to build 260 more death-row cells.

As the state auditor has pointed out, the administration has failed to
consider the long-term, ongoing operating costs for the proposed new
768-cell facility. The existing facility at San Quentin, which houses 635
men on death row, has 169 employees. To staff the new facility the state
would have to hire 156 more prison guards, plus 180 other staff. In
high-cost Marin County, that adds $39.5 million in new costs for salaries,
benefits and overtime for 336 new employees in the first year of operation
(and an average of $58.8 million a year thereafter)  adding to already
out-of-control prison system budgets.

As the state auditor and others have pointed out, neither the department,
the governor nor the Legislature has considered alternative sites to a new
death-row complex at San Quentin. It's time to end this nonsense and get
some other ideas on the table.

(source: Editorial, Sacramento Bee)






USA:

Justices Rule Terror Suspects Can Appeal in Civilian Courts


The Supreme Court on Thursday delivered its third consecutive rebuff to
the Bush administrations handling of the detainees at Guantnamo Bay,
ruling 5 to 4 that the prisoners there have a constitutional right to go
to federal court to challenge their continued detention.

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Guantnamo inmates could use the
federal courts. The court declared unconstitutional a provision of the
Military Commissions Act of 2006 that, at the administration's behest,
stripped the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus
petitions from the detainees seeking to challenge their designation as
enemy combatants.

Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the truncated
review procedure provided by a previous law, the Detainee Treatment Act of
2005, falls short of being a constitutionally adequate substitute
because it failed to offer the fundamental procedural protections of
habeas corpus.

Justice Kennedy declared: The laws and Constitution are designed to
survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.

The decision, left some important questions unanswered. These include the
extent of the showing required of the government at a habeas corpus
hearing in order to justify a prisoner's continued detention, as Justice
Kennedy put it, as well as the handling of classified evidence and the
degree of due process to which the detainees are entitled.

Months or years of continued litigation may lie ahead, unless the Bush
administration, or the 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

June 2



CALIFORNIA:

Brittany Hart's Killer Could Face Death Penalty


A prosecutor may announce Monday morning whether he'll seek the execution
of a convicted sex offender accused of killing a young Santee woman whose
body was found in a trash can in the East County mountains.

Robert Steven Carson, 40, is scheduled to appear before Judge Allan
Preckel in a hearing to determine the status of his case. He's charged
with murder, attempted forcible rape and possession of methamphetamine in
connection with last year's death of 24-year-old Brittany Hart.

The young woman went missing May 24 last year and her body was discovered
off Interstate 8 near Buckman Springs. Carson was arrested on June 5 by
sheriff's detectives who say they linked the two through cell phone
records.

A judge in April refused to drop a special circumstance allegation against
Carson of murder during an attempted rape, making him eligible for the
death penalty.

In a preliminary hearing last year, detectives testified that Hart met
Carson at a Costco in La Mesa where she worked, and the next day she made
an Internet search of a sexually suggestive name of a clothing line he had
started.

The woman left a cell phone message to her mother that day and was never
heard from again.

In a television appearance several months later, Carson claimed he killed
Hart when she came at him with a knife.

Carson has previous convictions for attempted residential burglary and
misdemeanor sexual battery.

(source: News 8)

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., VA., MO., FLA., ILL.

[Rick Halperin]

May 28



CALIFORNIA:

William Noguera creates art on death row


Every day for hours on end, William Noguera huddles over paper propped on
his steel bed, stippling thousands on thousands of dots that form the
images in his fine photo-realist ink drawings.

I have a sense of urgency when I work, a drive that's inside me. Because
I don't know how much time I have, said Noguera, who's been on Death Row
at San Quentin State Prison since 1988. When the rhythm and flow are
going, there's no stopping me. I go for 2 to 3 days.

Convicted of murdering his girlfriend's mother in 1983 when he was 18,
Noguera has had a quarter century to contemplate his life and develop the
remarkable technique that lets him express himself in dreamlike montages
whose style he calls hyperrealistic, neo-cubism. There's an intensity to
these subtly shaded black-and-white pictures, a batch of which are on view
at the Braunstein/Quay Gallery in San Francisco.

Someone told me this was the most unbelievable use of black-and-white
they'd seen in years, said longtime gallery owner Ruth Braunstein, who
saw the work and wanted to show it. She'd heard Noguera was in prison but
didn't know why.

He's an unbelievable draftsman, and I like this kind of storytelling
art, said Braunstein, standing before Noguera's Voices Carry. It's a
montage of images that speak of loss and loneliness: a little girl seen
from behind, gazing out a window (Noguera was thinking of his little
sister at the time of their parents' divorce), empty bar stools and
tables, a pair of calla lilies, a curtain blowing in an empty room, an
ice-chilled cross.

I don't know what the story is, but I can use my imagination. What I love
is that he's using a very old form of mark-making, stippling, and making
it work.

Braunstein was intrigued by Noguera's story - his appeals are exhausted at
the state level but will be heard in federal court - but I think the work
holds up in and of itself.

Taught to draw as a child

A surfer and martial artist from the Southern California town of Hacienda
Heights, Noguera, who's of French Colombian ancestry, learned to draw from
his parents, both artists. From his father, a mechanic who sculpted in
marble, wood and titanium, I learned the art of patience, said Noguera,
sitting in a tiny visiting room at San Quentin.

A fit, charismatic man with a graying goatee, intelligent brown eyes and a
polite, proud manner, he was brought into the room handcuffed and then
released before greeting a reporter and Cassandra Richardson, his friend
and art agent. Scott Peterson, the infamous star of Death Row, sat in the
next glass birdcage.

I'm a fundamentalist when it comes to art, said Noguera, 43, who speaks
passionately about Rembrandt, Titian, Rubens, modernists like Rothko and
contemporary figures like Brice Marden and Christopher Wahl. He studies
their art in journals and prison library books. Da Vinci said, 'Learn to
imitate the masters, and whatever else you do, people will accept it,' 
he said.

Art is not a luxury for me, it's a necessity, Noguera said. There's a
transcendence. I rise above the situation. As soon as I pick up the pen,
I'm gone from this place. Art gives me the freedom I crave. The only thing
I have is my imagination. Art for me is about childhood, going back to
when things were simple and innocent. The man before you is just a vehicle
for that little boy.

Drawn freehand mostly from photographs, the work may look beautiful, but
there's a lot of pain. If I draw a beautiful woman, I miss that woman. He
wants to trigger an emotion for you, whatever it might be - love, hatred,
passion. I'm not concerned if people understand my work. My intentions are
irrelevant, added Noguera, who calls his 4-by-10-foot cell his studio.

By law, Noguera can't profit financially from his work. Forty percent of
the proceeds from the sale of his drawings - which fetch between $5,000
and $12,000 - goes to Richardson's company, Camorra Fine Art, and the rest
goes to Noguera's family (his parents, 2 sisters and a son live in
Southern California). Richardson, who picks up the work at the prison
hobby shop, first met Noguera in 2004, when she worked for the San
Francisco-based Institute for Unpopular Culture. He'd written asking for
help getting his work out there.

Richardson fell in love with Noguera's art. But knowing he'd killed
somebody - Jovita Navarro, a La Habra woman whose then-16-year-old
daughter was also convicted of murder - she was leery about speaking with
him. When they finally did talk by phone, she said, she was struck by his
candor and sincerity, and eventually began visiting him in San Quentin.

Case is on appeal

He'd been sent up by a jury that believed he killed for financial gain
because Dominique Navarro stood to inherit some insurance money and the
home of her mother, who'd been brutally beaten and choked. The more she
learned about it, Richardson said, she came to agree with Noguera's
appellate lawyer, Robert R. Bryan, that Noguera 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., VA.

[Rick Halperin]

May 23



CALIFORNIA:

Judge in death penalty case begins rarely used method of jury selection


William Jennings Choyce, a garbage man from Stockton charged with raping
and murdering 3 prostitutes a decade ago, might not get a lot of sympathy
if he ever argues that jury bias tainted his upcoming death penalty trial.

San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Linda Lofthus has begun a rarely
used method of selecting jurors in Choyce's case that receives criticism
for taking a long time. Supporters say it weeds out those who have already
made up their mind on capital punishment before coming to court.

Opening statements for the Choyce, 54, aren't expected until mid-July. By
then, the judge and attorneys will have culled through 800 potential
jurors. Half of them will be called into the courtroom one at a time to
answer 15 minutes worth of heart-to-heart questions.

Under the so-called Hovey voir dire, jurors undergo individual questioning
without other jurors listening. They're asked to explain things like their
position on capital punishment, religious convictions and if they think a
person can blame child abuse for adult behavior.

(source: Stockton Record)





***

Man Facing Death Penalty Found Living In Hawaii


A man who has been living in Hawaii for at least a decade has been taken
back to California, where he may face the death penalty.

Honolulu police arrested Richard Curtis Morris Jr., 54, on a warrant from
Orange County.

Court documents said he is charged with murder for financial gain while
committing robbery and rape. In California, conviction of that charge can
lead to the death penalty.

California authorities would not comment about the case.

The crime happened more than 20 years ago, and that the arrest may have
been the result of a match in the national DNA database, sources said.

In Hawaii, Morris' record shows no violent crime, but he recently served a
year in prison for habitual drunk driving.

(source: KITV News)






VIRGINIA:

Death row inmate given 2 more death sentences


A man already on death row in California for a different murder has been
given 2 more death sentences for the killings of college sweethearts
almost 2 decades ago.

Alfredo Prieto was convicted in February of the 1988 rape and murder of
Rachael A. Raver and the murder of Raver's boyfriend Warren H. Fulton III.
The jury recommended death sentences.

Tears came to Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Randy I. Bellows' eyes as he
addressed the 42-year-old Prieto. Bellows told him he had ruined the
families' lives and they will never recover.

Prieto declined to make a statement.

The cold case was solved after California entered a sample of Prieto's DNA
into a national database that matched samples from the crime scene.

(source: Associated Press)

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----CALIF., VA., MISS., COLO.

[Rick Halperin]

May 10



CALIFORNIA:

The view from death row


Richard Adams, a producer in TODAY's Los Angeles bureau, visited
California's San Quentin State Prison as part of this week's Access
Granted: TODAY segment. Here, he offers observations from the trip.

It's a view that people would pay millions for, but for now, it's reserved
for those who would rather be almost anywhere else. California's only
death row happens to be located in one of the country's most expensive
real estate markets. Tucked into a cove of San Francisco Bay, the San
Quentin State Prison offers panoramic views across the water, and of Marin
Countys Mt. Tamalpais to the north.

In Larkspur, the next town over, the average 2-bedroom home costs more
than a million dollars. One can only imagine the frustration and envy that
real estate developers have felt over the years, looking over this
432-acre site that houses a prison complex. But there's little chance this
place will change hands anytime soon.

As the site of all the state's executions, the prison is justly infamous
for housing notorious killers and high-profile convicts. The list includes
former Crips leader Stanley Tookie Williams, Richard Alan Davis (the man
convicted of killing Polly Klaas), and serial killer Richard Ramirez, or
the notorious Night Stalker of Los Angeles.

Scott Peterson is here too, but one gets the impression that people here
are tired of talking about him. Contrary to some reports, some of the
guards told us that Peterson has adjusted pretty well to prison life, and
by this point has become just another guy on death row.

But the 654 prisoners on condemned row are only a small part of San
Quentin's population. The vast majority of inmates here are not considered
the worst of the worst. With the exception of condemned row, San Quentin
is not a maximum-security prison. In practical terms, that means that most
inmates aren't actually behind bars for most of the day. Some guys we met
said they're up and out of their cells by 6:30 in the morning and dont
come back until the 9 p.m. lockup. What do they do all day? Many have
full-time jobs, (making furniture, for example). There are art classes to
take, bands to play in, a full range of religious services  including a
sweat lodge for those followers of the Native American Church  and even
yoga.

Still, I must admit feeling a bit nervous at times, especially in the
dining hall and in the dormitories where our camera crew is free to roam
about and film amongst some 400 inmates. It's not like I expect anyone to
hassle us, but there's a nervous, edgy energy in the room, and it tends to
follow the camera around. Also, I know we won't be able to interview
everyone, and Im sure some people will end up feeling slighted.

In fact, the people we meet are friendly and happy to see us. I'm a little
surprised by how many of the inmates we meet turn out to be fans of TODAY.
(It probably shouldnt have surprised me  our viewers really are
everywhere.) One gentleman serving an indeterminate life sentence tells me
that were his favorite morning show  he doesn't bother with the others.
Even if the Nielsen ratings people dont count San Quentin, it feels good
to know that were bringing this guy a piece of the outside world.

(source: MSNBC News)






VIRGINIA:

Lawyer: DC sniper now wants to fight his death sentence


Convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad has changed his mind again and now
wants to go forward with a federal appeal of his conviction and death
sentence, according to his lawyers.

In a handwritten letter from death row made public this week, Muhammad
told the Virginia attorney general that he wanted to suspend all appeals
on his 2003 death sentence and that appeals filed on his behalf were not
authorized.

But Muhammad's lawyer, James Connell, wrote a letter Thursday to a U.S.
District judge saying Muhammad now wants to go forward with his appeal.

''Mr. Muhammad expressly authorized me to represent that (1) he does not
wish to be executed; (2) he does not wish to abandon the (appeals)
process; and (3) he does not wish to discharge his legal team,'' Connell
wrote.

Katherine Baldwin, a senior assistant attorney general who is representing
Virginia, said Friday in a letter that she accepts Connell's
representation and that she sees no reason to take action based on
Muhammad's earlier letter.

In that letter, Muhammad said he was writing to prosecutors for assistance
''because I know you will make sure this letter will get to the right
people -- so that you can murder this innocent black man.''

Defense lawyer Jonathan Sheldon, who is also representing Muhammad,
declined to comment specifically on his client's thought process but said
it is not unusual for death-row inmates to vacillate in their commitment
to the appeals process.

''This is largely due to the relatively new and legally questionable
phenomenon of solitary confinement for death row inmates and partly due to
the reduced opportunity to have the fairness of their 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----CALIF., KY., USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 8



CALIFORNIA:

Jury recommends death penalty for Gonzalez


After 3 days of deliberation, a jury recommended Thursday the death
penalty to the man convicted in April of murdering off-duty Los Angeles
County Deputy Maria Cecilia Rosa, 30, during a bungled robbery in March
2006.

Frank Christopher Gonzalez, 27, dressed in a tie and a long-sleeved dark
blue shirt, did not show any outward emotion as the verdict was read in
Judge Joan Comparet-Cassani's courtroom at the Long Beach Courthouse. When
asked how they voted, each juror responded yes.

Friends of Rosa's said they were pleased with the outcome.

This is the closest to justice you get, said one deputy, who was present
in the courtroom when the verdict was read.

Grieving loved ones of Gonzalez gathered outside of the courtroom. They
declined to comment, but attorney Katie Murff Trotter said they were
surprised and hurt by the outcome and said it is an automatic appeal.

Gonzalez and his accomplice, Justin Ashley Flint, apparently had been
riding their bicycles looking to rob someone that March 26 morning when
they saw Rosa in the 2900 block of Eucalyptus Avenue.

Rosa, who was leaving her girlfriend's house to go to work, was loading
things in her trunk when she was encountered by the pair and Gonzalez
demanded her wallet.

Rosa reached into her trunk for her service weapon, but it jammed as she
pointed it at Gonzalez.

Gonzalez fired two rounds and the 2 sped away.

Flint has already been convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

During Monday's closing arguments, attorneys painted 2 pictures of
Gonzalez - one whose troubled past led him inevitably to his fate and one
who showed no remorse for the crimes he committed.

(source: Press-Telegram)






KENTUCKY:

An Interview on Death Row


The Kentucky State Supreme Court is going to hear a case that would send
chills down anyone's spine.

A convicted murderer isn't fighting for his life. Instead he's involved in
the fight for his death.

Marco Chapman wants the high court to move up his execution date.

He's from Kanawha County, but is on death row in Kentucky for raping and
stabbing a young mother and killing her 2 small children.

Chapman is on death row. He's a man who wants to die sooner, rather than
later.

Chapman said, You'd have to be surely screwed up to kill a child.

With his hands held tight, and a face that showed little emotion, March
Chapman talked about life and death decisions. In a controversial twist,
this death row inmate isn't appealing his execution, he's fighting to make
it happen faster.

He said, Me living, their children dead. I'm ready to accept my fate.

Back in 2002, at a home in Warsaw, Kentucky, Chapman, in a drunken rage,
brutally raped and stabbed a young mother Carolyn Marksberry. Then he
stabbed all 3 of her children. 7 year old Chelbi Sharon and 6 year old
Cody Sharon died. Carolyn and her 10 year old daughter Courtney survived.

Chapman was from Cabin Creek in West Virginia.

Within hours of the murders, he was back in Kanawha County, caught and
arrested after being spotted at a convenience store.

He never denied his guilt and instead has been fighting to be put to death
ever since, I took 2 lives, they should be able to take mine.

The case is unprecedented in Kentucky. The battle is built on the argument
that moving up Chapman's execution date is court assisted suicide. Chapman
readily admits that he's begging for death because life in prison is not
worth the wait.

Chapman said, A life sentence here would be death. There's no life here,
you're just existing and death is just something they're going to do
eventually.

He says he can see clearly now and realizes the true impact of what he's
done. In Marco's mind, death is the only answer, Like I said I can't ask
for forgiveness, but I'd like them to know how sorry I truly am.

He also knows that sorry won't bring back Cody and Chelbi. It can never
erase the pain their mother and sister still feel today, I'm ready to have
closure on this thing and give the family closure.

Now, the high court must decide if he should be forced to live longer with
what he's done, or if his mind and life can be put to rest. Its a fight to
the death that might never bring peace for anyone involved.

Other inmates have asked for voluntary executions. But Chapman's case is
groundbreaking because he waived his right to a trial, sentencing by jury
and is begging to be sentenced to death.

The Kentucky Supreme Court will soon rule on his request to stop all
appeals and issue the death warrant.

If the court approves, Chapman could be put to death as early as late
June.

(source: WSAZ News)






USAnew book

Women and Capital Punishment, 1840-1899: Death Sentences and Executions
in the United States and CanadaBy Kerry Segrave


Capital punishment is one of those political issues that always seems to
stir the waters of conversation and debate, and in an election year, what
better topic to address from a historical 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news---CALIF., COLO., ILL., GA., VA.

[Rick Halperin]

May 2



CALIFORNIA:

No death penalty for San Pablo woman charged in deaths of 2 children


The District Attorney's Office will not pursue the death penalty for a San
Pablo woman awaiting trial for the deaths of 2 of her children, a
prosecutor said today.

Lavida Davis, 25, is accused of intentionally smothering 6-week-old Darion
Lee Johnson in San Pablo in September 2006, and 3-week-old Emmanuel Lee
Beals in Oakland in February 2004.

Emmanuel's death was not considered a homicide until police took another
look at the circumstances in the wake of Darion's death. Charged with 2
counts each of murder and assault on a child resulting in death, the
multiple murder charges made a candidate for capital punishment if she had
been convicted.

Deputy district attorney Lynn Uilkema said the District Attorney Robert
Kochly made the final decision not to seek death based on a recommendation
by a committee comprised of top prosecutors.

No trial date for Davis has been set because of an unresolved issue of
whether she can be prosecuted at the same time for 2 deaths that occurred
in different counties. A hearing on the issue is pending.

(source: Contra Costa Times)






COLORADO:

Death penalty mulled at forum


Michael Radelet had Ted Bundy's ashes in his closet for several months. A
little weird, maybe, but all part of a day's job for one of the nation's
leading death penalty experts and activists.

Radelet, chair of the Sociology Department at CU-Boulder, has made it his
mission to ask Amerians: Is the bang worth the buck? Are there other ways
we can achieve the goals of crime deterrence and punishment, other than
lethal violence?

On Tuesday evening, Radelet was joined by Sister Maureen Fenlon, national
coordinator of the Dead Man Walking School Theater Project, to lead a
forum in Ouray on the death penalty.

Something has to happen to the American soul to rethink how we handle
punishment, Fenlon told audience members. Punishment is always done in
the name of the people. Do we, the people, think this punishment is a good
one?

While Radelet and Fenlon are accustomed to speaking in front of much
larger audiences (Radelet's last speaking engagement drew 800 people),
Ouray High School drama teacher Nancy Nixon, who organized the forum, said
that both were pleased with the modest turnout at Tuesday's forum.

They thought our community was receptive, and asked great questions,
Nixon said. I just thought it was incredible. A friend told me it was
life-altering for her. It was such a mixture of fact and act  a testament
to the power of activism.

Nixon organized the forum as part of the Dead Man Walking Theater Project,
which culminates with student performances of the play Dead Man Walking,
this Thursday and Friday at the Ouray School.

Radelet had to return to his duties at CU earlier this week. But Fenlon
(who lives in New Orleans) has stayed on in Ouray, speaking with students
at Ouray School, and leading a discussion with audience and cast members
following each performance of the play on Thursday and Friday nights. Her
main message is one of activism through the arts.

It is the only way to provoke a discourse, she said. Knowledge is not
enough to move people, and change history. When the human heart comes face
to face with suffering; you don't argue with that suffering. People are
changed by having their hearts moved. This, she said, is the reason she
is so deeply involved with the Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project.

Radelet was trained as a medical sociologist, but soon found that
...hanging out in prisons was much more interesting than hanging out in
mental institutions.

He has since made a career out of studying the history and merits of the
death penalty in the U.S., and has spent extensive time with prisoners on
death row, as well as with their families.

The United States is the only western, developed country in the world
which has the death penalty, (and one of only a handful of countries
worldwide which executes juveniles). According to Amnesty International,
in the year 2007, 88% of all known executions took place in the following
five countries: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the U.S.

These are not countries we generally share human rights goals with,
Radelet noted.

In the United States, the estimated cost of each execution varies from
state to state. In Florida, as an example, it is $3.2 million, compared to
the $600,000 estimated cost of life imprisonment without parole.

The proportion of Americans who support the death penalty is currently
split right down the middle, according to a recent Gallup poll. Statistics
indicate that it is not an effective deterrent to violent crime; states
without the death penalty have lower homicide rates.

Actor, author and director Tim Robbins wrote the stage play Dead Man
Walking in 2002 at the suggestion of death row activist Sister Helen
Prejean, with the idea of having it performed for one year at several
school and universities. However, 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

April 28


CALIFORNIA:

Cathedral City man who could face death penalty continues trial Tuesday in
Indio


A Cathedral City man, who contends he is mentally retarded, has been
convicted of 14 counts of various offenses in a string of arsons and
burglaries that resulted in the deaths of 2 people 10 years ago.

Prosecutors in the case against Michael Cook, 36, of Cathedral City, who
was convicted last week, are seeking the death penalty.

But before any kind of sentence is handed down, Cook will head to a second
court proceeding on at 9 a.m. Tuesday at the Riverside County Superior
Court, Department 3R, 46-200 Oasis Street in Indio, to determine if his
claims of mental retardation are true.

Cook has spent the decade since his arrest in a state mental hospital when
he hasn't been in a Riverside County jail cell. If he is found to be
mentally retarded he cannot be executed under existing law, in which case
he could be sentenced to life in prison.

(source: The Desert Sun)

***

Weighing the question of capital punishment


Our question about the death penalty drew responses from more than 300
people from Sacramento to Lincoln and San Diego, Canada, France, Italy,
Norway, Romania and Australia. The majority of responses opposed capital
punishment, but several said it serves the purpose of punishment for
heinous crimes.

The question: Should California continue to impose the death penalty for
the most serious crimes?

* * *

The recent statements of U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens must
be taken to heart. The death penalty serves no useful societal purpose. It
is time for our state and country to join the rest of the Western world
and abandon this barbaric practice.

-- Joseph Ossmann, Carmichael

* * *

Keep the death penalty intact. Even if it doesn't act as a deterrent, it
is a proper remedy in some cases and should not be abolished.

-- John E. Dyer, Clovis

* * *

I pray for the day when we are no longer numbered among the nations that
descend to the level of barbaric practices like the death penalty.

-- Rev. John M. Lagomarsino, Citrus Heights

* * *

The death penalty may not be perfect, but when it is proven beyond any
doubt that a person callously took the life of another and/or has total
disregard for the norms of society, then that person needs to be executed
in a very public manner. It is not revenge, it is protecting society. It
is not only civilized, it is necessary.

-- John Webb, Lincoln

* * *

I am opposed to the death penalty for many reasons. With each state having
its own criteria and method for imposing the death penalty, there is no
uniform justice possible, and the chance of executing an innocent person,
wrongly convicted, is too great.

Lethal injection, the method used in California, has proved to be
unreliable at best, and cruel and unusual punishment at worst.

Even if a national policy was adopted, the cost of a death penalty case,
including trial, appeals and special prison housing, all of which is borne
by the state (that means we pay for all of it), far exceeds the cost of a
life without parole case. Since there is no economic incentive and there
is always a slim chance of an irreversible miscarriage of justice, I feel
there is no case to be made in favor of the death penalty.

Is an eye for an eye the criminal justice philosophy we follow? I hope
not.

-- Helene Frommer, Oakland

* * *

I am opposed to the death penalty, for both moral and practical reasons.

On the moral side I believe that the death penalty amounts to
state-sanctioned revenge that serves no other real purpose. Added to that
is the clear history of numerous unjustified convictions. Even one life
lost to a mistake is objectionable.

Practically, the administration of the death penalty has proven to be far
more expensive than the logical alternative, life in prison without
possibility of parole. What justifies this additional expense?

-- Mike Reid, Oceanside

* * *

First, the death penalty does bring closure, the guilty have paid the
price for their actions. They no longer have the joy of life.

Second, why are we so concerned with the rights of the criminal who
committed the brutal crime? How do the victims get justice?

Third, the death penalty isn't a deterrent, it's a punishment.

Fourth, we are so worried about humane and painless punishment for the
criminal. I wonder if their victims were tortured, raped and murdered
humanely and without pain.

My heart goes out to Barbara Christian and I pray that we have the guts to
do the right thing.

-- Paula Noell, Roseville

* * *

I don't believe in the death penalty. The individuals who end up being
sentenced to death are disproportionately non-white and poor, having
little access to strong defense attorneys.

Further, it takes literally years (emotional torture for the individual
and their families, not to mention thousands of dollars) of sitting on
death row to actually be executed.

-- Connie Adachi, Oakland

* * *

I think the 

[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----CALIF., MO.

[Rick Halperin]

April 20


CALIFORNIA:

The death penalty is law of God, state


A mother's dream is to have a little child she can love and raise. That
child is part of her  part of her life, her hopes and her dreams.

No one has the right to take that child and destroy that life and end
those dreams.

Life is precious.

I am a grieving mother who has suffered the brutal and savage rape and
murder of her only daughter. She was a precious 17-year-old, just
beginning to blossom into womanhood. She was killed the night of Jan. 8,
1981, more than 27 years ago. It was the night my hopes and dreams
perished.

My daughter, Terri Lynn Winchell, was a beautiful, talented, honor-roll
student looking forward to being one of the first graduates from Tokay
High School in Lodi. She was gentle, soft-spoken and loved life. She was a
gifted singer, pianist and songwriter.

The murderer was Michael Morales, who, with his cousin Ricky Ortega,
abducted Terri in Stockton, drove to a Lodi vineyard and brutally
tortured, raped and murdered her. He tried to strangle her and beat her
head in repeatedly with a claw hammer. If that wasn't enough, he also
stabbed her with a butcher knife. She fought for her life and wanted so
much to live. Morales laughed about it later, saying she put up quite a
fight. Then they discarded her like a piece of garbage and left her
mutilated body in the cold, dark night. The details of the murder are
horrendous and tell how she fought so hard to live.

Terri's father, brothers and I have lived with this demonic crime for more
than 27 years. It is a 24/7 scenario that will never leave my mind. I see
that gruesome scene when I go to bed each night and when I awaken each
morning. I hear her calling for help and fighting to live, and I feel
helpless to be there for her.

Morales and Ortega showed no mercy. They bludgeoned the life and breath
out of her, and yet these inhuman beings are still living and breathing.
They should have paid for this crime many years ago. I have been praying
that justice would prevail, and we could have some closure for this
nightmare that never ends. The knife of pain that Morales inflicted will
never leave my heart or the hearts of Terri's father and brothers.

Morales is alive on death row in San Quentin. His execution by lethal
injection is on hold pending a ruling in U.S. District Court. Ortega is
serving a sentence of life without parole for his role in Terri's murder.

I've been asked the question: Are you for the death penalty? I answer this
question as a mother who has suffered the torment of years of waiting for
justice for the murder of my little girl.

The answer is yes!

Why?

The Bible says, Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be
shed: for in the image of God made he man. Genesis 9:6.

The California Penal Code, Section 187 (a) states: Murder is the unlawful
killing of a human being or a fetus, with malice aforethought.

The only person responsible for putting someone on death row is the person
himself, and that happens when he chooses to kill another human being. It
is his choice. He forfeits his right to live when he commits murder.

What is the value of a life? A million dollars can't bring back a loved
one who was murdered. A murderer destroys more lives than just the
victim's alone. Families and friends will never be the same. They will
live with the horror and loss of their loved one until the end of their
days.

The question being reviewed by several courts is whether the inmate might
feel pain in the process of lethal injection. Did the murderer consider
the pain he inflicted on the victim? No, the killer did not. If lethal
injection is the problem, why not let the inmate choose a form of
execution? Different states have different methods. Let the inmate choose
one of those means of execution. I would be willing to bet that the inmate
would choose lethal injection as the least-painful way to pay for his
crime.

Morales didn't give my daughter a choice.

Opponents might say that a life sentence is better than the death penalty.
Better for whom? That only prolongs the pain of the victims' families.

Who are the real victims here? The nightmare continues as long as the
murderer lives and breathes. We do not deserve to suffer like this,
knowing that our loved one's killer is still alive. Please consider the
pain in our hearts that we have to bear.

Should the death penalty stay in effect as punishment for capital crime?
The answer is yes.

In our case, 27 years is too long. It is one third of a lifetime, and that
is too long.

(source: Opinion, Barbara Christian, Sacramento Bee)

*

California still has legal issues on lethal injection executions


Former Folsom resident Aba Gayle, left, opposes the death penalty. Her
daughter, Catherine Blount, 19, was killed in 1980 in Ophir, near Auburn.


Every night, when Barbara Christian shuts her eyes and tries to go to
sleep in her rural Sacramento County home, the same nightmare haunts her.

It's