[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.H., LA., MO., USA
June 2 NEW HAMPSHIRE: After death penalty repeal, what’s next for Michael Addison? Midway through debate over whether to abolish New Hampshire’s death penalty, Sen. Sharon Carson issued a warning. “If you think you’re passing this today and (Michael) Addison is still going to remain on death row, you are confused,” she said, referring to New Hampshire’s lone death row inmate. “Mr. Addisons’s sentence will be commuted to a life sentence.” The Senate voted to pass the repeal measure after an impassioned campaign that supporters said had more to do with the principle than one person. Now, as the dust settles, the question of Addison’s fate persists. Addison, convicted in the 2006 slaying of Manchester police officer Michael Briggs, is still fighting his conviction through state and federal appeals. But advocates on both sides of the debate have conceded that Thursday’s repeal could spell the end of his death sentence. The law passed Thursday deliberately applies only to capital murder convictions from that day on. What the courts do with it, though, is far from clear. For now, many are looking to other states. Enter Connecticut. In 2012, the Legislature repealed its capital punishment, 3 years after a previous effort had been vetoed by the governor. But the state still bore the scars of recent tragedy: the 2007 murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit and her 17 and 11-year old daughters during a home invasion. To exempt the convicted perpetrators – Steven Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky – from escaping execution, lawmakers explicitly limited their repeal bill to future convictions. But the courts thought otherwise. In 2015, the state supreme court invalidated the death penalty in State v. Santiago, pointing to shifting “contemporary standards of decency” after the repeal. In a flash, Hayes, Kominsarjevsky, and nine other death row inmates had their sentences commuted to life without parole. The Connecticut case featured heavily in New Hampshire’s repeal discussions this year and last: an example of repeal applying backward whether or not lawmakers allowed it so. Whether or not it would apply to New Hampshire’s case is a different story. To start, there may be a difference in court philosophy. Connecticut’s 4-3 decision was driven by the concept of an evolving standard of cruel and unusual punishment, and a recognition that a death penalty repeal bill – even a non-retroactive one – heralded a societal shift. It is not unlike the way the U.S. Constitutional equivalent of cruel and unusual punishment has been interpreted, said Miriam Gohara, a clinical associate professor of law at Yale who has spent 16 years defending death row inmates. “It’s evolving standards of decency,” she said. “Meaning that by today’s standards, would this punishment amount to cruel and unusual punishment, or in the language of the Connecticut state constitution, would it be excessive or disproportionate punishment?” In Connecticut, the answer was yes, if by a slim majority on the court. But New Hampshire’s highest court has historically taken a different tack. In one of several decisions to deny Addison’s appeal and uphold his capital punishment sentencing, the New Hampshire Supreme Court rejected the idea that the death penalty was at odds with the state constitution’s “cruel or unusual punishment” prohibition. For that, they used something of an originalist argument. “Given that, at the time the State Constitution was adopted, capital punishment was a sanctioned penalty for specific crimes and that the plain language of the constitution anticipates its use, the framers could not have considered capital punishment to be ‘cruel or unusual,’ ” the court wrote. Whether or not the repeal of the law in question changes that calculus is difficult to predict. “The short answer is: It’s up to the court,” said Buzz Scherr, criminal justice professor at the University of New Hampshire School of Law. “Just because the Connecticut Supreme Court did that does not have any binding authority over the New Hampshire court.” Scherr said the New Hampshire Supreme Court’s earlier decisions to speak directly to the constitutionality of capital punishment could give weight to the state in upholding the sentence, even despite the appeal. “The language of the Addison opinion is different than the language in the Connecticut Santiago opinion,” he said, pointing to the “common norms of decency” argument used in that state. “New Hampshire has in the Addison cases said they think the death penalty is constitution based on common norms of decency.” “I could see the court going either way,” Scherr added. “I don’t think it’s a clear place one way or another.” Of course, for any of this to be tested, the argument would need to be raised in court on appeal. Presently, Addison is appealing his conviction on habeus corpus grounds. Progress on that petition, launched in 201
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----N.H., LA., OHIO, CALIF., USA
June 13 NEW HAMPSHIRE: End the death penalty in NH To the Editor: There are many reasons to be concerned about New Hampshire's death penalty. Our local group, Monadnock Concerned Citizens, and the New Hampshire Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty are working together to bring information to the public about candidates who are running for offices this fall and support the repeal of the death penalty. The death penalty system kills innocent people, and the numbers are sobering. Studies estimate that at least 340 people executed since 1972 were likely innocent. Also since 1972, 156 inmates have been exonerated from death row. The existing system is arbitrary and biased, including economic bias, geographical bias and racial bias. The death penalty does not deter violent crime. Studies by the National Research Council concluded that the death penalty does not deter homicide rates. The costs in New Hampshire, with one person on death row, have risen to over $5 million, and more expenses will be forthcoming. These dollars could have been put to better use, examples being investigation of cold cases, prevention of crime, rehabilitation of offenders, restoring victims' families, and protecting the public better. Killing others is a traumatic experience. Executioners, wardens, nurses, doctors and witnesses are bound legally to be at all executions. These participants suffer greatly after taking part in the killing of an inmate. The death penalty does not help inmates' families. Killing is not justice, nor does it give closure to the families. DALE PREGENT Keene (source: Letter to the Editor, Union Leader) LOUISIANA: U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether to review Angola inmate's death sentence The U.S. Supreme Court doesn't weigh in often on whether convictions should be overturned because prosecutors failed to turn over evidence - 4 times in the past 2 decades. 3 of those cases came from Louisiana. Each time, the high court chastised prosecutors for violating the rights of defendants and the state's courts for letting the problem slide. Yet, according to defense advocates and national legal scholars, Louisiana still hasn't gotten the memo. They're urging the Supreme Court to step in again with a stronger lesson. The high court is expected to decide this week whether to hear the case of David Brown, the "Angola 5" member who was accused of plotting to kill a prison guard in 1999. His death sentence was endorsed in February by the Louisiana Supreme Court after a district judge had overturned it. Brown's attorneys, in their petition for a U.S. Supreme Court hearing, say the facts of the case are alarmingly similar to Brady v. Maryland, the landmark 1963 ruling that required prosecutors to turn over to the defense all evidence favorable to a defendant. The similarities point to a pattern of stubborn refusal by Louisiana state courts to follow the Supreme Court's directive, according to a group of law professors and legal ethicists who have filed a "friend of the court" brief in the case. Louisiana courts have "an abysmal history of consistently misinterpreting and misapplying the Brady doctrine, and there's very little accountability," said Ellen Yaroshefsky, a law professor at the Cardozo School of Law in New York who co-authored the brief. "The lesson has not been learned." Brady violations rarely turn up until long after a conviction and sentence - when Louisiana convicts have the right to review the state's complete case file. Since only those condemned to death are afforded a state-appointed lawyer after their convictions, such allegations of misconduct arise frequently in death penalty cases. Of the 127 death sentences reversed in Louisiana from 1976 to 2015, convictions were overturned due to prosecutorial misconduct 25 times, including 9 cases of Brady violations, according to a recent study by University of North Carolina political science professor Frank Baumgartner and statistician Tim Lyman. Only 2 of those cases were overturned at the state level, Lyman said. "It gives a good insight as to what's going on in Louisiana (in regard) to Brady," he said. "It's mostly federal court" where convictions or death sentences get reversed. Federal district courts and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have vacated numerous convictions when they've found that Louisiana courts botched the decision. Parallels to earlier case In their petition for Brown, attorneys Billy Sothern and Letty DiGiulio highlighted parallels between their defendant's situation and the original Brady case. In the Brady case, the high court faulted prosecutors for not turning over a statement from John Brady's alleged accomplice in which he admitted killing someone during an armed robbery. Brady acknowledged he was present at the murder, and there was evidence that he urged the other man to strangle the victim. But the U.S. Supreme Co
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news-----N.H., LA.
Dec. 10 NEW HAMPSHIRE: Bar high for death penalty New Hampshire hasn't executed anyone since 1939 Before the sun rose on Oct. 16, the Manchester police received a report of gunfire at a city apartment. Officer Michael Briggs, a bicycle patrolman and Concord father of 2, responded to the call. An hour later, the police say, Briggs was shot in the head while chasing 1 of the suspects down a dark alley. The police soon arrested Michael "Stix" Addison, an unemployed 26-year-old living in Manchester, and charged him with capital murder. Addison has spent the past month in prison, awaiting a trial that could take years and end with his execution. But the lawyers attempting to prove his innocence, those attempting to prove his guilt and the 12 citizens who will decide his fate have no playbook to work from. Neither does the judge. That's because New Hampshire last executed someone in 1939, and the law has since changed. "In law, we turn to precedent," said Jim Rosenberg, a Concord lawyer and former homicide prosecutor for the state attorney general's office. The lawyers in the Addison case "operate in a vacuum," he said. As one of 38 states where the death penalty is legal, New Hampshire has, in recent history, charged people with crimes punishable by death. But so far, none of those cases has resulted in a trial. Of all the states with the death penalty on the books, New Hampshire is the only one without an inmate on death row. It's not only a lack of legal history, however, that makes trying a capital murder case in New Hampshire tough, lawyers and judges said. It's also the procedure. For one, the case doesn't necessarily end with a verdict. "What people have to understand is if Mr. Addison is convicted of capital murder, that does not lead to anything close to an automatic conclusion that he will get the death penalty," said Chuck Temple, head of the criminal law clinic at Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord. Instead, if a jury decides the accused is guilty, the law says jurors must then make another decision, one based on a whole new crop of deeply personal evidence. In a subsequent hearing, they must decide whether he will live the rest of his life in prison or whether he will die by lethal injection. It's a delicate process. And everyone involved knows that any mistakes could be grave. "Any lawyer will tell you death is different," said Jim Moir, a Concord attorney who once helped defend a man accused of hiring 2 people to kill his wife, a capital crime. "If you make mistakes, a person will die." A narrow law The state's capital murder law is narrow. So narrow that former state attorney general Phil McLaughlin, who oversaw three potential capital murder cases during his tenure, likened the law to a fine sieve. "If a case gets through and the jury finds for the death penalty, it's a remarkable thing," he said. There are only 6 circumstances in which someone can be charged with capital murder in New Hampshire, including killing a police officer, killing someone during a rape or killing someone for pay. To be found guilty, a jury must decide that the accused acted "knowingly," a distinction sandwiched between "purposely" and "recklessly" in the state criminal code. Afterward, jurors face the task of choosing the sentence, an untested process in New Hampshire, by weighing opposing factors, known as aggravating and mitigating factors. An aggravating factor is something that shows the person deserves the ultimate punishment. It could be that he has a heinous criminal record or that he committed the murder to avoid arrest. A mitigating factor is something that shows he deserves mercy; maybe he had a traumatic childhood or was under severe pressure when he committed the crime. The factors are not equal. Aggravating factors are harder to prove and the jury has to unanimously decide their truth. Mitigating factors, on the other hand, are considered true if just one juror believes them. A sentence of death can only be imposed if all 12 jurors think the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors. That complicated balance is why some local lawyers said the death penalty law is invoked so infrequently. To prove that someone deserves to be executed, no matter how solid the criminal evidence, isn't easy, they said. "Factually speaking, even if it seems . . . the state would have a compelling murder case, it's not necessarily so that they've got a slam-dunk for a death penalty case," Rosenberg said. The last time The state's last attempt at a capital murder case was in 1997, when then-22-year-old Gordon Perry was charged with fatally shooting Epsom Officer Jeremy Charron. The police said Perry pulled the trigger after Charron approached him and a friend while they slept in a car near a popular Epsom swimming hole. Perry was assigned several public defenders, including Richard Guerriero and Barbara Keshen. A year after the shooting, Perry pleaded guilty to murder as part of a d
