Feb. 4 KANSAS: State may not rule on death penalty The Kansas Legislature may decide to do nothing regarding the death penalty issue. "The big discussion up here is if we do anything to try to correct the death penalty for what the courts said, it could hender the attorney general with his request for the U.S. Supreme Court (to hear the case)," Rep. Don Myers said. Barbara and Duane Oblander, of Goddard, attended a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Monday on a bill drafted in response to a Kansas Supreme Court decision in December that struck down the 1994 law. Attorney General Phill Kline plans to appeal the ruling to the nation's high court. (source: Derby Daily Reporter) SOUTH CAROLINA: Full appeals court rejects new sentencing for S.C. death row inmate A federal appeals court on Friday rejected the appeal of a South Carolina killer who was sentenced to death after a prosecutor compared the defendant's life with that of the victim. The full 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a court panel's 2-1 decision last May vacating the death sentence given to Shawn Paul Humphries for the 1993 murder of Simpsonville, S.C., convenience store owner Mendel Alton "Dickie" Smith. The full court agreed with the South Carolina Supreme Court and U.S. District Judge Joseph F. Anderson Jr. that there was nothing improper in the prosecutor's closing arguments that contrasted Humphries' long criminal record with Smith's contributions to the community. The prosecutor merely showed the uniqueness of the victim and pointed out the defendant's criminal record to rebut defense witnesses who testified about hardships in Humphries' life, the court said. "The bulk of the solicitor's argument was not that Humphries should die because his life was worth less than Dickie Smith's," Judge Clyde H. Hamilton wrote for the 10-4 majority. Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III wrote in dissent that the prosecutor's argument was clearly improper. "No person should be executed in America on the theory that his life is of less worth than that of someone else," Wilkinson wrote. Humphries' attorney, Joseph Savitz of the South Carolina Office of Appellate Defense, did not immediately return a telephone message Friday afternoon. (source: Associated Press) NORTH CAROLINA: N.C. Supreme Court upholds death sentences for 2 men A man convicted of killing his stepmother received adequate counsel at his trial, the state Supreme Court ruled Friday in upholding a death sentence for Danny Dean Frogge. A lower court had ordered a new sentencing hearing for Frogge after appeals lawyers argued that the defendant's trial lawyers didn't present sufficient evidence about possible brain damage he suffered during a 1990 bar fight. Frogge was convicted in Forsyth County in 1995 and again in 1998, after the state Supreme Court granted Frogge a new trial because tainted evidence was allowed into the 1st trial. At both trials, Frogge's lawyers, David Freedman and Danny Ferguson, presented mitigating evidence about years of physical, verbal and sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of his father. But Frogge was never given neurological tests to determine whether he suffered brain damage in the bar fight. In January 2004, Forsyth County Superior Court Judge Lindsay Davis ruled that Frogge should get a new sentencing hearing based on the lack of such testing. The Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Justice Robert Edmunds, said expert doctors hired by the defense never indicated the testing was needed. "(We) are unwilling to find that the decisions of defendant's attorneys constituted ineffective assistance of counsel or represented inattention to other possible defenses," the opinion said. In another case, the court upheld the death penalty for Reche Smith, who was convicted of smothering a man in Plymouth as he robbed his house in March 2001. The court denied claims of improper jury selection, violation of his right to present expert evidence during trial and that the judge improperly allowed the jury to determine that robbery and kidnapping were aggravating circumstances to the crime. (source: Associated Press) UTAH: Riverton Teen Pleads Guilty to Murder A Riverton teenager charged with capital murder pleaded guilty today in an effort to escape a possible death sentence. Seth Broomhead entered the guilty pleas this morning and will now spend life in prison without parole. Broomhead admitted to shooting and killing Pablo Montoya and Maritza Aguilar in an Orem orchard. Broomhead met the pair to buy drugs, but instead shot them. He will be formally sentenced in March. (source: KSL News)
