[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., GA., FLA., OHIO, OKLA., USA
June 28 TEXASnew death sentence Nueces County jury sentences man to death in West Texas deputy's 2013 slaying A Nueces County jury convicted Gary David Green on June 18 of capital murder in connection with the death of Upton County deputy Billy "Bubba" Kennedy. The same jury handed down the death sentence Wednesday afternoon. In Texas, capital murder is punishable by either life in prison without parole or the death penalty. The trial was moved from West Texas because of a change of venue. The Associate Press reported that Green was arrested in October 2013 following a shootout at a McCamey convenience store. His card was declined at the store and he demanded free gas, the Odessa American reported. The man was approached by Kennedy and another deputy, who ran a check on the vehicle's license plate and discovered it was stolen. More: Trial underway in fatal 2013 shooting of West Texas deputy Kennedy went to the vehicle's side door and unfastened his gun from its holster, according to the newspaper. Green opened his door and fired, it states. Both officers reportedly returned fire. The jury found that Green would be a continuing threat to society and determined there were no "mitigating circumstances," such as Green's character and background, that warranted life in prison over the death penalty, court records show. (source: Corpus Christi Caller-Times) NORTH CAROLINA: US Drops Case Against Man Sentenced to Death 43 Years Ago U.S. prosecutors have dropped their case against a North Carolina man 43 years after he was sentenced to death for a murder he says he did not commit. Charles Ray Finch, 81, was freed in May after his case was dismissed on the grounds that police mishandled the investigation of the 1976 shooting of a storekeeper during an attempted robbery. Prosecutors have since decided a new trial would be impossible since so many of the witnesses are either dead or have moved away, the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) said Wednesday. The African-American defendant had been sentenced to death in North Carolina in July 1976 for the grocery store clerk's murder, but the sentence was later commuted to life in prison. In 2002, a group of law students went back to study the case and found a number of problems that threw doubts on the conviction, including police manipulation of witnesses during a line-up and lying about a ballistics report. In the line-up, a witness had told the police that the suspect had been wearing a coat at the time of the killing. Finch was the only one in the room made to wear a coat. In January an appeals court ruled that if the jury had been aware of such manipulations it would not have convicted Finch, and overturned the verdict. Family reunion Finch was released from jail in a wheelchair in May and reunited with his family. DPIC said Finch was the 166th person to be exonerated after being wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death since 1973, and the 18th to have spent more than 25 years behind bars. "Mr. Finch's exoneration illustrates the continuing failure of the judicial system to protect the innocent in death-penalty cases, and particularly prisoners of color," said DPIC director Robert Dunham. (source: voanews.com) GEORGIA: Tracing the racist history of the death penalty in GeorgiaR.J. Maratea argues that lynching declined when white people began to realize that the courtroom would work just as well. Killing with Prejudice: Institutionalized Racism in American Capital PunishmentBy R. J. Maratea, New York University Press Of the nearly 1,500 executions in the United States since 1976, over 70 % have occurred in the 11 southern states of the former Confederacy. Sociologist R. J. Maratea posits a direct line of racialist social control in these states extending from slavery to the modern criminal justice system. Maratea focuses on the case of Warren McCleskey, who was executed by Georgia in 1991 for killing a white police officer during an armed robbery. McCleskey’s crime “hit squarely in the face of expected racial etiquette in the Deep South and singled out Warren McCleskey as a black man in need of killing.” To support this claim, Maratea surveys Georgia’s history, observing that prior to the Civil War, Georgia’s criminal statutes expressly subjected black men to death for a wider array of crimes than white men. For years after the Civil War, mobs of white men lynched black men for violating unwritten racial codes.M State and local government officials often looked the other way, and the federal government’s response to lynching was repeatedly stymied with filibusters by southern senators. Nevertheless, Maratea argues, incidents of lynching declined in the 1920s and 1930s when southerners began to realize that “mob violence could be enveloped into the existing justice system and effectively accomplished
[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TEXAS, N.C., GA., FLA., OHIO, OKLA., USA
July 3 TEXAS: Death penalty nearing historic lows in Texas and nationwide The death penalty is on the downswing - not just in Texas, but nationwide. A mid-year review by the Death Penalty Information Center found that the use of capital punishment is likely to hover near historic lows in 2017, with just 13 executions completed and 12 more slated to occur. Last year, just 14 executions had been carried out by mid-point in the year. Even the Lone Star State, which has typically been a heavy user of capital punishment, has seen a long-term drop in executions. In 2016, the state executed the fewest inmates it had in 2 decades, as the Chronicle reported in December. "There is clearly a political climate change under way in the United States on the death penalty," Robert Dunham, DPIC executive director, said last year. "It has many different causes - you can't attribute it to any single thing - but there are a combination of factors that have led to substantial change in America's view of the death penalty." Some of the factors at play in the changing trend could include legal uncertainties, moratoriums, and death penalty drug shortages, according to The Washington Post. And on top of those logistical issues, public opinion has slowly shifted away from the practice. A Pew Research Survey in 2016 found that support for the death penalty had fallen below 50 % for the 1st time in almost half a century. While a Gallup poll a year earlier found a slightly higher level of support in the general populace with 60 % favoring the practice, even that higher number represents a decline. "People feel much more comfortable with that alternative because if you make a mistake, you can fix it later," ACLU senior staff attorney Brian Stull said last year. "That is certainly lurking in the background." But the current dip may not be record-setting; as of now, 2017 execution figures look to be slightly above the 26-year-low seen in 2016. But, that could change depending on whether Ohio is able to carry out the 5 executions scheduled between now and December. And it's also possible 2017 could see a new low in death sentences handed out. So far, states have only doled out 16 death sentences. Last year saw just 31 by the end of the year. But even though Texas has witnessed a marked decrease in the use of capital punishment, it's still near the head of the pack for the remainder of the year, with 5 executions scheduled for the 2nd half of 2017. (source: Houston Chronicle) NORTH CAROLINA: Bradley found guilty in murder of Shannon Rippy Van Newkirk More than 3 years after Shannon Rippy Van Newkirk was last seen, a Pender County jury on Thursday found James Opelton Bradley guilty of 2nd-degree murder in her presumed death. Superior Court Judge Paul Jones sentenced Bradley to 30.4 to 37.5 years in prison. Bradley's defense attorneys said they would appeal the verdict. New Hanover County District Attorney Ben David David said he is "thrilled" with the verdict and is confident it will hold up under appeal. Bradley, 54, of Wilmington was charged with 1st-degree murder April 29, 2014, after Wilmington Police Department detectives looking for Van Newkirk unearthed a woman's nude and bound body from a shallow grave in a Pender County farm field. Missing Van Newkirk, 53, of Wilmington was last seen April 5, 2014, at the Husk Bar in downtown Wilmington. Her mother Roberta Lewis reported Van Newkirk missing after she didn't show up for a brunch to celebrate her 54th birthday on April 6, 2014. Van Newkirk and Bradley were employed by Steve Mott's landscaping company and occasionally went to work on a farm Mott owns in Hampstead. It was on that farm where the woman's buried body was found, wrapped in garbage bags. Detectives at first thought the woman's body was Van Newkirk's. Tattoos observed during an autopsy confirmed it was not Van Newkirk, but the body of Elisha Tucker, 33, of Wilmington, who had been missing since August 2013. A DNA expert testified during the trial that Tucker's DNA was found on the carpet pad of Bradley's Chevrolet Tahoe. Crystal Sitosky, a Wilmington woman who said she had seen Bradley with Tucker in the summer of 2013, also testified she went to meet with Bradley on the property where Tucker's body eventually was found. Bradley also is charged with 1st-degree murder in Tucker's death, but a trial date has not been set. The state has said it will seek the death penalty in that case. (source: Wilmington Star News) GEORGIA: Alleged gunman in Savannah gang revenge slaying makes court appearance The alleged shooter in what prosecutors call a gang revenge slaying of Dominique Powell in Tatemville today appeared in court as officials begin new death-penalty proceedings on a June re-indictment. Timothy Coleman Jr., 21, appeared with his lawyer from the state Capital Defense Office in a "first apperance" before
