[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, OHIO
July 25 TEXASimpending execution Texas death row inmate facing execution this week loses appeals Texas' highest criminal court and a federal judge have refused to stop this week's scheduled execution of the convicted killer of a woman in San Antonio in 2004. Taichin Preyor is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Thursday evening in Huntsville for killing Jami Tackett, 24, during a break-in at her apartment. Tackett is described in court documents as a drug dealer and Preyor, 46, as a customer and dealer. Preyor's attorneys contend his trial lawyers didn't properly investigate and tell jurors about his abusive childhood and that an earlier inexperienced appeals attorney relied on a disbarred lawyer for guidance. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and U.S. District Judge Fred Biery in San Antonio rejected their appeals. Preyor's attorneys said Tuesday they're appealing to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. (source: Associated Press) OHIOimpending execution Condemned killer in Ohio arrives at death house ahead of execution A condemned killer in Ohio arrived at the death house a day ahead of his scheduled execution Wednesday with several requests for a delay pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. Ronald Phillips arrived at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville around 10:15 a.m. Tuesday, about 24 hours before he was set to die in Ohio’s first execution in more than three years, a prisons spokeswoman said. The last execution in Ohio was in January 2014, when a condemned inmate repeatedly gasped and snorted during a 26-minute procedure with a never-before-tried drug combination. Gov. John Kasich put several scheduled executions on hold. The delays have continued, prompted by shortages of acceptable drugs and legal challenges by death row inmates to Ohio’s plans for a new three-drug execution method. A federal court last month upheld the use of the sedative midazolam, which has been problematic in several executions, including Ohio’s in 2014 and others in Arkansas and Arizona. The ruling clears the way for the state to move forward with three executions, but it isn’t a decisive ruling on the constitutionality of the three-drug method. On Monday, 15 pharmacology professors argued in Phillips’ favor that midazolam is incapable of inducing unconsciousness or preventing the unconstitutional infliction of serious pain. Phillips, 43, was convicted for the 1993 rape and killing of his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter in Akron. He also has requested that the execution be halted based on his age at the time of the killing. He was 19, older than the Supreme Court’s cutoff of 18 for purposes of barring executions of juveniles, and argues the cutoff age should be 21. The latest delay request on that issue was filed Tuesday. Attorneys for the state argued against Phillips’ request, saying he made meritless, often conflicting, legal claims. “Phillips argues that youth, like IQ, cannot be reduced to a number. But he also argues that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the execution of adults under age twenty-one,” they wrote in a court document filed Tuesday. “He cannot have it both ways; if age cannot make one eligible for death, it cannot make one ineligible for death.” The state of Ohio also has told U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, who handles such appeals for Ohio, that continued delays in Phillips’ case are harming the state by costing time and resources. Phillips has had several previous delays to scheduled executions, most notably in 2013 when he made a last-minute plea to donate his organs. He said he wanted to give a kidney to his mother, who was on dialysis, and possibly his heart to his sister. His request was denied. His mother has since died. As he awaited action from the high court, Phillips was being permitted to see family, friends and spiritual advisers and to meet with his attorneys. For his last meal, to be served Tuesday evening, he requested a large cheese pizza with bell peppers and mushrooms, a 2-liter bottle of Pepsi and strawberry cheesecake, along with grape juice and a piece of unleavened bread. (source: Toledo Blade) ___ A service courtesy of Washburn University School of Law www.washburnlaw.edu DeathPenalty mailing list DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty Unsubscribe: http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/options/deathpenalty
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----worldwide
July 25 INDIA: No pardons please: Disposing mercy petitions has been President Mukherjee's foremost legacy In a recent interview, when asked what his legacy would be, President Pranab Mukherjee quoted Prospero from The Tempest and said that he would "leave not a rack behind". His record in dealing with mercy petitions from convicts makes good his claim. Contrary to many of his predecessors Mukherjee disposed of 34 petitions, rejecting 30 of them and leaving none pending for his successor. Ironically, by literally leaving nothing behind, he leaves a clear legacy for future presidents to follow - reject mercy petitions in principle as an anachronism that has no place in the Constitution of a democratic republic. The power of pardon, a prerogative power exercised by the sovereign of England, has been described as "the brightest jewel in the British crown, and the most precious of the rights of the people". Representing the fiction that the sovereign was the embodiment of divinity, the power extended to commuting sentences and pardoning death row convicts, as he pleased. Its practical workings however were less exalted and more mundane. As described by Vic Gatrell in The Hanging Tree, often judges themselves would commute death sentences, replacing them with transportation to America. When the sovereign was petitioned, usually the matter was dealt with by the home secretary without any fixed rules or procedures in this regard. The entire operation of the power to pardon was arbitrary and ad hoc, presumably because that's how the English believed the Almighty worked. In India, which established itself as a democratic, secular republic, the power to pardon ought to have been seen as a colonial relic. However, the mai-baap sarkar that soon took root seamlessly transplanted the provision into the Constitution, not because the President was expected to have shades of divinity but because he would act on the aid and advice of government. This foundational belief was belied because the President often acted on his own, contrary to the aid and advice of his ministers. This was most apparent during the tenures of KR Narayanan and Pratibha Patil who disagreed with the home ministry's recommendation to confirm death sentences in a majority of cases before them. More importantly, the very premise of this belief, that a democratic government could be the repository of mercy, was anathema in a Constitution built on separation of powers and the rule of law. The death penalty, when awarded, is confirmed by multiple courts, including the Supreme Court, pursuant to a law made by Parliament. In such a situation, ordinarily no question of mercy ought to arise thereafter. Further, the Supreme Court itself through a series of orders, has made it amply clear that circumstances pertaining to the criminal - which presumably might be key considerations for granting him mercy - would be factored in while awarding the death penalty. Sentencing guidelines laid down in Bachan Singh (1980) required the court to take into account every relevant circumstance relating to the crime as well as the criminal; Machhi Singh (1983) required the sentencing court to draw up a balance sheet of aggravating and mitigating circumstances and Gurvail Singh (2013) drew up the crime-criminal-rarest-of-rare test holding that "to award death sentence, the aggravating circumstances (crime test) have to be fully satisfied and there should be no mitigating circumstance (criminal test) favouring the accused." For the President, and by extension the government, to sit above the Supreme Court, take similar factors into account and overturn the court???s decision appears to be a case of bypassing the rule of law and unjustifiably breaching separation of powers in the process. In practice, the overwhelming rate of rejection of mercy petitions, whether for commutation or remission, is evidence that it holds out a hollow hope to convicts. Further, as noted by the Supreme Court in a judgment overturning the rejection by Mukherjee of the mercy petition of 15 convicts, the delay in disposing of such petitions is often tortuous for death row convicts. At the same time, the presence of such a constitutionally sanctioned escape clause for convicts may putatively be a reason for the courts handing down a large number of death sentences, often erroneously. The real question for a democratic republic like India to consider is whether the death penalty for the crimes for which it is sanctioned, provides an effective deterrent for potential offenders in today's sociocultural milieu. By taking the surest step yet towards relegating the pardoning power to a meaningless constitutional footnote by desuetude, Mukherjee has hopefully left a legacy that forces us to ask and carefully debate this critical question. Further, contrary to some of his predecessors who raised this question implicitly by di
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, OHIO, ARIZ., NEV., USA
July 25 TEXASimpending execution Set for execution, death row inmate alleges legal fraud in hopes of a stayWith 2 days left before TaiChin Preyor's scheduled execution, his lawyers have tried just about everything to stop it. That includes alleging that his previous counsel committed fraud. With 2 days left before TaiChin Preyor's scheduled execution, his lawyers have tried just about everything to stop it. That includes alleging that his previous counsel - a disbarred California attorney and a probate and real estate lawyer who reportedly relied on Wikipedia to research Texas legal procedure - committed fraud against a federal court. So far, they've had no luck. Preyor, 46, is set to be executed Thursday night for the 2004 killing of a 20-year-old San Antonio woman during a home invasion. If he doesn't receive a stay, it will be the state's 5th execution of the year - and end the unusually long 4-month lull in Texas' death chamber. In recent weeks, Preyor's attorneys have filed a flurry of pleas, with the Texas governor and in state and federal court. They have argued Preyor should be spared the death penalty because his original attorney overlooked an abusive childhood and because his appellate attorneys were incompetent. The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one. "Even if you are someone who believes that there is a role for the death penalty to play with respect to certain crimes, there has to be a baseline there that the person ... was capably and competently represented throughout all of his proceedings," said Cate Stetson, one of Preyor's current attorneys. "And that baseline clearly was not met here." On Monday afternoon, both the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and a federal district court rejected Preyor's requests for a stay. Preyor will appeal now to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Texas and Bexar County have requested that the execution proceed, noting that it "has been postponed for over a year in order to accommodate [Preyor] and his attorneys, but at the expense of the victims and the state's interest in finality." In court, Bexar County prosecutors accused Preyor of breaking into Jami Tackett's apartment in the early hours of a February morning. Tackett was in bed with Jason Garza, who testified that Preyor attacked and stabbed him before he ran away to call for help. With Garza gone, Preyor stabbed Tackett multiple times, killing her. He was arrested at the scene covered in her blood. Preyor claimed he acted in self-defense. In a statement to police, he said Tackett, who sold him drugs, had invited him over and ambushed him with Garza. Preyor said he pulled out his knife after the 2 began attacking him and that he didn't intend to hurt Tackett "that bad." A jury was unconvinced. They found him guilty and sentenced him to death. Preyor's current attorneys aren't focusing on his conviction but on his death sentence. They argue the lawyer who represented Preyor during his sentencing, Michael Gross, failed to present evidence about Preyor's abusive childhood, which they argue could have swayed a jury to give him life in prison. "Gross failed to hire a mitigation specialist, failed to investigate known red flags regarding Preyor's childhood, neglected to interview family members regarding Preyor's childhood and social history, and neglected to follow up on not 1, but 2, medical professionals' recommendations that Preyor be screened for mental illness or other executive-function issues affecting his capacity and judgment," Stetson and attorney Hilary Sheard wrote in a filing to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals last week. "The cumulative effect of these omissions was disastrous." But Gross said in an affidavit filed to the court that he "adequately" represented Preyor, and talked to many family members, school officials, friends and even Preyor himself, none of whom mentioned abuse. "If they had given me any such information, I would have developed that evidence and presented it as mitigation at trial," Gross said in his affidavit. Sheard and Stetson argue concerns about Gross' representation should have been raised during Preyor's appeals. Preyor blames this on his unusual appellate lawyers. After becoming frustrated with Preyor's court-appointed lawyer during his post-conviction appeal, Preyor's mother turned to Philip Jefferson, a disbarred California attorney who claimed he was retired, according to Preyor's most recent court filing. Preyor claims Jefferson did most of the heavy lifting in the case and had Brandy Estelle, a California attorney who specialized in probate and real estate law, file documents to the court. Estelle relied on Wikipedia to research Texas habeas procedures, Preyor alleged, and Preyor's appeals were denied in federal court. "The federal habeas petition filed in this court ... was so abysmal that it subsequently became an exemplar, circulated among
