[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----N.Y., TEXAS, IOWA, COLO., GA.
April 12 NEW YORK: New York State Legislative Committee Defeats Death Penalty; Vote Comes as Skepticism of the Death Penalty Increases Nationwide Contact: Shari Silberstein of Quixote Center, 301-699-0042, ext. 119 (office); or sha...@quixote.org The New York State Assembly Codes Committee today defeated a bill to reinstate New York's death penalty. The vote comes after five full days of public testimony that the death penalty is riddled with flaws and wastes millions of dollars. The Assembly's report of the hearing was released last week, adding to a growing wave of voices questioning the death penalty across the country. New York is not alone. There is a growing consensus in this country that as a matter of policy, the death penalty is an expensive failure, said Shari Silberstein, Co-Director of the Quixote Center, a national faith-based organization working for a moratorium on executions while questions of fairness are studied and addressed. The system is so riddled with flaws that even those who philosophically believe the death penalty is acceptable are expressing concerns and, in some cases, deciding that it simply isn't worth it, Silberstein continued. This recognition explains why virtually all of the 170 citizens who offered testimony in New York wanted to leave the death penalty off the books. New York has been without a death penalty since last summer, when the state's Court of Appeals declared the statute unconstitutional. Efforts to reinstate the death penalty have so far been unsuccessful, in part because some former supporters of capital punishment have changed their positions as a result of new information. For the past five years, the conversation around the death penalty has expanded to include questions of innocence, fairness, and alternatives, said Silberstein. It is increasingly clear that the very real risk of executing the innocent, not to mention the expense and effort required to even try and improve the system, has led people to turn away from the death penalty in recent years. Observers point to a growing skepticism about the death penalty among local, state, and federal legislators and within the judiciary. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops recently reinvigorated their call to abolish the death penalty citing new statistics that shows less than 50% of Catholics now support the capital punishment. New Jersey remains under court- ordered moratorium. Legislation to abolish the practice passed the New Mexico House of Representatives in February, and a similar bill received 60 votes in the Connecticut legislature last month. The U.S. Supreme Court also barred the execution of juveniles earlier this year. Nearly 4,000 groups, churches, business, and professional associations have called for a moratorium on executions, including 142 city, town, and county councils. Even President Bush expressed open concern about the quality of death penalty trials during his most recent State of the Union Address. Also recently, Republican Senators Rick Santorum (PA) and Sam Brownback (KS) have expressed reservations. Over the past five years we've learned a lot about the realities of capital punishment. We know it costs far more than life in prison, that it creates ongoing anguish for victims' families, that it diverts scarce resources from other critical programs, that it is used unevenly and unfairly, and that it risks executing the innocent, said Silberstein. New Yorkers have expressed today what the rest of us across the country are continuing to learn - that our nation's death penalty system is broken. -- The Quixote Center is a national organization founded in 1976. The Center's Equal Justice USA program pioneered the national grassroots movement for a moratorium on executions in 1997. Nationwide, over 3,700 national and local groups, businesses, and faith communities have called for a halt to executions, including 142 local governments. (For a complete listing, call 301-699- 0042 or see the National Tally at http://www.ejusa.org ). To learn more about the Quixote Center's Equal Justice USA program, visit http://www.ejusa.org . (source: US Newswire) *** Powerful committee in New York state Assembly kills death penalty bill A powerful committee of the state Assembly voted Tuesday not to send legislation aimed at reinstating New York's death penalty to the full house, a move that may effectively kill the effort for this year. Such legislation has been pushed hard by Republican Gov. George Pataki and the state Senate's Republican majority leader, Joseph Bruno. I'm very pleased, Albany's Roman Catholic bishop, Howard Hubbard, said after the 11-7 vote by the Assembly's Codes Committee. I think the death penalty has not proven effective and is morally repugnant. New York's death penalty was reinstated in 1995 by the Legislature and Pataki, who had vowed to bring capital punishment back during the 1994 campaign when he ousted incumbent
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news --- N.Y., TEXAS
death penalty news August 11, 2004 NEW YORK: Pataki Introduces Bill to Restore Death Penalty Gov. George E. Pataki introduced a bill this week to fix a provision of the state's capital punishment law that was recently invalidated by New York's highest court. But even the governor's aides said it stood little chance of passing. The governor's bill, introduced in the State Senate late on Monday, would overhaul a central part of the law that the Court of Appeals said was flawed and violated the State Constitution. The June 24 ruling effectively suspended the death penalty in the state. Specifically, the court found that the statute improperly required judges to tell jurors in capital cases that if they deadlocked and failed to reach a verdict during the penalty phase of a trial, the judge would impose a sentence that would leave the defendant eligible for parole after 20 to 25 years. The bill to fix the flaw proposed two changes. First, juries would be given a third option, imposing a sentence of life in prison with parole when sentencing convicted murderers. Previously, they could only dole out sentences of either capital punishment or life in prison without parole. Second, if a jury deadlocked, a sentence of life without parole would be imposed, and juries would be told of that provision before sentencing. The proposal would apply both to pending cases and to crimes committed prior to the effective date of any change in the law, a legislative analyst said. Viewed politically, the governor's release of the bill seemed to put the Democratic Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, in a bit of a spot before the fall elections, raising the issue of whether he would help push through the measure or let stand a sense of satisfaction among some Democrats that there is now a de facto moratorium on imposing the death penalty. Even before the details of the bill could be digested, however, an aide to the governor was saying that the legislation was effectively dead, because of a perceived lack of interest in the Assembly. But a spokeswoman for Mr. Silver said the governor's bill was still being studied and the matter was still the subject of negotiation. There were broad conversations on a variety of different options,'' Eileen Larrabee, the spokeswoman, said Tuesday. After the court ruled, the governor, Mr. Silver and Joseph L. Bruno, the Republican State Senate majority leader, all pledged to correct the flaw in the death penalty law. Nevertheless, Democrats in the Assembly held a meeting in which many members expressed serious misgivings about reviving the law, enacted in 1995 after Mr. Pataki pushed for it in his successful election campaign against Mario M. Cuomo, an ardent opponent of capital punishment. Still, with support from Republican Assembly members, many lawmakers said a fix to the death penalty law could still pass in the Assembly, and Mr. Silver weeks ago had said it would be helpful for him to see a proposal. John E. McArdle, a spokesman for Mr. Bruno, said the bill the governor sent up was identical to the latest proposal put forth by the Assembly, a contention that Ms. Larrabee disputed. For his part, Mr. Bruno said he would like to fix the death penalty law this week. (source: New York Times) TEXAS: Acuna jury sequestered until sentence decided Robert Aaron Acuna's mother implored a Harris County jury Tuesday to spare her son's life, while the adult son of James and Joyce Carroll asked the same jury for justice for his slain parents. Acuna, 18, of Baytown, was convicted Friday for the Nov. 12 shooting deaths of the elderly couple in their Country Club Estates home. Following closing arguments in the penalty phase of the capital murder trial, jurors spent more than five hours deliberating before District Judge Mike Anderson sequestered them for the night in a downtown hotel. Jurors will resume deliberations at 9 a.m. today. Acuna, who was 17 when he killed his elderly neighbors, faces the death penalty or life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 40 years. Barbara Acuna, the defendant's mother, called her middle son a wonderful child and denied that he was involved in the Carrolls' deaths during her testimony. She was the last witness to testify during the defense's case in the penalty phase. Under questioning by lead defense attorney Bob Loper, she described Acuna as a shy and caring son who loved spending time at home and with other relatives. Acuna said that on Nov. 13, the night the Carrolls' bodies were discovered by their daughter, Acuna made the decision not to consent to a police search of her son's pickup truck, which the family found abandoned in the neighborhood the night before. She said the decision was made after consulting with Candy Elizondo, the attorney representing Acuna in an aggravated robbery charge in which the teenager was accused of accosting a 75-year-old
[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----N.Y., TEXAS
March 4 NEW YORK: Albany Tries to Unmuddy Its Budget-Making No walls have come tumbling down yet, but there are a few signs here that glasnost may finally be coming to Albany. But reform, the legislative leaders have taken to saying, is in the eye of the beholder. Take one of the most important issues before the Legislature: the death penalty. After the state's highest court acted last year to strike down the death penalty law, the Democratic-led Assembly held hearings across the state taking testimony about whether or not it should be restored. It appears that support for the death penalty among Assembly Democrats is waning, and the bill restoring it is unlikely to make it to the floor. But Senate Republicans, who want to reinstate the death penalty, accuse the Assembly of keeping the bill bottled up in committee, and say that the death penalty would pass if it made it to a full vote. Democrats retorted that Senator Bruno had announced that its death penalty bill would be passed from committee to the full Senate - even before the committee had begun debate on the issue. Jeremy M. Creelan, one of the authors of the report issued by the Brennan Center, said that while the changes made this year have been minimal so far, he was hopeful. I think, he said, it will take a full session at least to understand the ramifications of even these minor changes, he said. (source: New York Times) TEXAS: Texas Expected to Commute 28 Death Sentences to Life in PrisonU.S. Supreme Court says executing juvenile offenders unconstitutional When the U.S. Supreme Court dropped its latest capital punishment bomb, which forbids the execution of juvenile offenders, it hit Texas harder than any other state. The opinion affects the nation's 70 death row inmates who committed crimes while juveniles -- 28 of those in Texas. The 5-4 majority in Roper v. Simmons found that executing juvenile offenders is no longer constitutional, a dramatic reversal of precedent that laid bare angry divisions among the justices. Citing moral imperatives as well as a growing consensus in the United States and abroad against executing those who were under 18 when they committed murder, Justice Anthony Kennedy announced the long-awaited ruling in Simmons from the bench. From a moral standpoint, it would be misguided to equate the failings of a minor with those of an adult, for a greater possibility exists that a minor's character deficiencies will be reformed, Kennedy said. Noting that even the handful of nations that have executed juveniles in recent years have stopped doing so, Kennedy said it was relevant, if not controlling, to recognize that the United States now stands alone in a world that has turned its face against the juvenile death penalty. Kennedy said it was proper for the Court to refer to international legal trends as respected and significant confirmation of the Court's judgments. Immediately after Kennedy spoke, Justice Antonin Scalia read from his scathing dissent, attacking the majority for positioning itself as the sole arbiter of our nation's moral standards. And in the fullest exposition of deep disagreements over the value of foreign law in the Court's jurisprudence, Scalia upbraided the majority for selectively invoking the international consensus against executing juveniles while ignoring it in other contexts, such as abortion rights. To invoke alien law when it agrees with one's thinking and ignore it otherwise is not reasoned decision-making, but sophistry, Scalia said. Scalia is the most outspoken opponent of invoking international law and has recently become more visible on the issue. He relented in his usual opposition toward broadcast coverage of his remarks on Jan. 13 when he allowed C-SPAN to air a debate between him and Justice Stephen Breyer on the issue at American University. Kennedy sat stone-faced as Scalia scoffed at his decision in one of the most vituperative dissents in years. Scalia's dissent was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote a separate dissent, which also came under attack from Scalia. TEXAS IMPACT Simmons has the greatest impact in Texas, which is expected to result in the largest commutation of death row sentences to life imprisonment since the 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Furman v. Georgia. In Furman, the Court temporarily suspended all executions in the nation because of the arbitrariness of capital punishment laws. In the nation's busiest capital punishment state, Texas prosecutors, defense attorneys and legal scholars alike believe Simmons signals that the high court may eventually do away with the death penalty. In 2002's Atkins v. Virginia, the Court forbade states from executing mentally retarded inmates. This case, together with Atkins, creates a blueprint for the judicial abolition of the death penalty altogether, because it discerns evolving standards of decency even in the
