Feb. 7 NEW JERSEY: State weighs amendments to death penalty procedures 9 University students joined community members and religious leaders for a public hearing on proposed changes to the state's lethal injection regulations in a full conference room Friday. Held by New Jersey's Department of Corrections (DOC), the hearing provided concerned citizens a chance to speak about the proposals before the DOC votes on whether to approve or change them. The 1st proposed amendment would allow media access to death row prisoners in the 3 days prior to execution. The second proposal would supply additional medical equipment in the execution chamber to resuscitate prisoners if a stay is issued after the injection. A 3-judge panel of the Appellate Division voted unanimously last year to impose a moratorium on executions until the proposed amendments are passed or rejected. The last execution in New Jersey was in 1963, and 11 people are currently on death row. Princeton Coalition Against Capital Punishment (PCACP) head Danilo Mandic '07 organized a trip to the hearing, and most of the students who attended were PCACP members. The group, a branch of the Princeton Justice Project, worked with a statewide organization to sponsor a letter-writing campaign in November to push for the hearing. After 200 letters were collected, a hearing was announced. The speakers at the hearing all favored the amendments, and most were opposed to the death penalty. Many of those who spoke against capital punishment had family members who had recently been murdered or executed. Galloway Township resident Eddie Hicks, whose daughter was murdered, read a statement signed by 13 people who had lost a family member to murder. "We oppose the State of New Jersey and its Department of Corrections executing anyone, including the killer of our loved ones," Hicks said. "We need justice, not more killing." The group requested that if the DOC does carry out an execution, they follow the guidelines set forth in the two amendments. Lorry Post, the first speaker who also lost his daughter to murder, asked the DOC to "let the public know everything." Many speakers stressed the importance of public awareness of executions, saying they believed such awareness would elicit dismay at the process. "As long as the DOC keeps people in the dark, it hinders the democratic process," said Kirk Bloodsworth, the first prisoner whose capital conviction was overturned by DNA evidence. Other speakers included doctors, community members and representatives from groups such as the League of Women Voters and New Jerseyans Against the Death Penalty (NJADP). NJADP precipitated the amendments in 2001 when they sued the DOC for not having taken "adequate steps to ensure that it could perform an execution in a constitutionally sound manner." "[The DOC] is trying to sterilize the process by not having the press available," associate director of NJADP Karen Sisti said to The Daily Princetonian. The DOC argued that press limitation was justified by "considerations of the inmate's privacy, legitimate penological objections and the security and safety needs of the correctional institution." (source: Daily Princetonian) NEVADA: Court ruling puts many death row cases in question Many of Nevadas death row inmates could have a shot at a new sentence under a state Supreme Court ruling that limits the way prosecutors can seek the death penalty. The practice of charging a person with 1st-degree murder for a killing that occurs while another felony is being committed - such as a robbery, kidnapping or sexual assault and then using that same charge as an aggravator to seek a death sentence, is unconstitutional, the justices said. Prosecutors from across the state have asked the court to reconsider the ruling which they say reverses a commonly used system that has been in place for 20 years. The court has not indicated whether it will rehear the case. Were still trying to sort this out, but the impacts could be huge, said Steve Owens, a chief deputy district attorney in Las Vegas. It has given a lot of people on death row new grounds for a challenge. Washoe County District Attorney Richard Gammick agreed. Weve followed the law and then they come out with this case and change it, he said. What do we do with all the cases we followed for years? But defense lawyers say the decision was long overdue. Its an argument Ive been making for quite some time that those factors should not be double-counted, said Deputy Public Defender Cheryl Bond, who wrote the original appeal. Its a necessary change to the states capital sentencing scheme because double counting was inappropriate, unfair and unconstitutional, she said. Bond agreed that the Supreme Court did not make clear whether the ruling applied retroactively to all death row inmates who were charged under the felony murder-aggravator system. But, she said: I argue it should apply to everybody (in that category). The landmark ruling came out Dec. 29 in response to an automatic appeal by Robert McConnell of Reno, who pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to death for killing his former girlfriends fianc, Brian Pierce. The high court affirmed McConnells conviction and sentence, but within the opinion agreed with Bond that one of Nevadas 14 aggravators in death penalty cases is unconstitutional. Under Nevada law, people can be charged with first-degree murder if they killed someone with premeditation and deliberation. But they also can face the same charge if they are involved in committing a felony and someone dies: A person tries to rob a convenience store, for example, and ends up fatally shooting the clerk. This charge is felony murder. Premeditation must not be proved. In arguing for a death sentence in such cases, prosecutors must prove to a jury at least one of a list of 14 aggravators such as a police officer was killed or the slaying involved mutilation. Among the list of aggravators is one stating that the murder occurred while the person was committing a robbery, 1st-degree arson, burglary, home invasion or kidnapping, according to state statutes. In its ruling, the justices said that prosecutors can no longer use this aggravator when a person is charged with felony murder for killing someone while committing a crime because it duplicates the felony murder charge and fails to narrow the punishment. In making this decision, the court looked to the U.S. Constitution. The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishments, the court said. In past decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court has said that capital sentencing schemes that fail to adequately guide the sentencers discretion and permit the arbitrary and capricious imposition of the death penalty violate the eighth and 14th amendments. Therefore, a sentencing scheme must genuinely narrow the class of persons eligible for the death penalty and must reasonably justify the imposition of a more severe sentence on the defendant compared to others found guilty of murder, the court said. The Supreme Court said if you use the felony to get a 1st-degree murder charge in the 1st place, you cant use the same felony to get a death sentence, Bond explained. You already enhanced it to get the murder charge, you cant enhance again to get death, she said. It cant be used twice. She said prosecutors still have a long list of aggravators to chose from. But Owens of Clark County said this one was important. They have, in effect, found one of our primary ones unconstitutional, he said. A good number of those on death row have one or more of the felony aggravators. Those are now all in question. In a brief filed in January with the Supreme Court, Owens joined the Washoe County district attorneys office in asking for a new hearing on the ruling. The states felony murder and felony aggravator statute has been upheld by the Nevada Supreme Court in several cases, he said, and should continue to be used. Plus, he said, the court failed to give guidance on how the ruling should impact past and pending cases. Conceivably, a large segment of the death row population whose convictions and death sentences have been final for some time will have new grounds for post-conviction relief, Owens wrote. Rather than bringing clarity and certainty to the issue, the ruling leaves the status of the felony aggravator uncertain. (source: Reno Gazette-Journal) KENTUCKY: Local Killer Awaits Possible Death Sentence Today A man convicted of murder for three killings in the 1980s could get the death sentence Monday. Sherman Noble was convicted in December, 18 years after he was first arrested in connection with the crimes. Jurors recommended two death sentences and life without parole for 25 years Noble spent some of the time between his arrest and trial in a state mental hospital after being diagnosed with schizophrenia. (source: TheLouisvilleChannel) CONNECTICUT: Execution rate to remain slow -- Experts say death row cases to receive same scrutiny as Ross For now, the execution of serial killer Michael Ross is on hold. But when it looked like he would be put to death late last month, it raised the question of whether executions in Connecticut would become commonplace. The answer appears to be no. Even if the legislature does not abolish the death penalty, experts say it will probably take years for the next person in line on death row to exhaust his appeals. The most likely candidates are Sedrick Cobb of Naugatuck, who killed a 23-year-old Watertown woman in 1989, and Daniel Webb, who in 1989 murdered a 37-year-old bank official. Some observers believe their fate is hinged to that of Ross, who now awaits a new hearing to see if he is mentally competent to make the decision to exhaust his appeals. If Ross' execution is rescheduled and carried out relatively quickly, some believe the wheels of justice will turn faster in the cases of Cobb, Webb and the state's four other officials death row inmates. "It's human nature," said defense lawyer Michael Courtney. If Ross is executed, he said the attitude of Connecticut officials could be: "The sky didn't fall in, so let's move to the next one." Cobb appears closest to the end because he has gone farther in his appeals process, said Ronald Gold, who defended Cobb at his trial. Cobb, a former delivery man from Naugatuck, was convicted of kidnapping, rape and murder in the Dec. 16, 1989, attack on 23-year-old Julia Ashe of Watertown. He flattened her tire in a store parking lot, and then offered to help her. But he pushed her in the car, forced her to drive to a secluded area, raped her, bound and gagged her and drowned her. Webb, 42, was convicted for kidnapping Diane Gellenbeck, a Connecticut National Bank vice president, from a Hartford parking garage. He took her to a nearby park, raped her and shot her 5 times as she tried to escape. Casey Jordan, a criminal justice professor at Western Connecticut State University, said predictions that Connecticut will pick up the pace of executions is a "valid concern, but I don't think it's the reality." Cobb, Webb and the others will get the same judicial scrutiny Ross' case has received, slowing the rush to execution, Jordan said. "Connecticut doesn't just execute at whim," Jordan said, noting the state has not put anyone to death in 45 years. "Connecticut has proven the death penalty is only going to be used in the most extreme cases." Gold, a death penalty public defender who represented Cobb, said he has heard people say that this execution will "open the floodgates" to more state killings. But he's not sure that's the case. "To me, it's pure speculation," he said. Gold did note the state Supreme Court seemed to signal a willingness to move forward by some of its final decisions in the Ross case that lifted barriers to his execution. Courtney said he's heard in other states, executions have proceeded quicker once the 1st one happened. "The 1st one is always the toughest," Courtney said. Even though "nobody is close to execution in this state," judges could subconsciously make decisions that could hasten the process, even if it's ever so slightly, Courtney said. "Subconsciously, if someone has already been executed they feel they don't have to look as hard at the next one," Courtney said. One other thing could slow the executions complaints about conditions on Connecticut's death row. Last week, 5 death row inmates went on a hunger strike. At present, the inmates are alone in their cells 23 hours a day, and each gets an hour of solitary recreation outside the cells. They said they should be able to interact with one another and called their years of solitary confinement "inhumane and tantamount to psychological torture." The statement mentions the phenomenon know as "death row syndrome," a theory that solitary isolation can cause severe mental health problems and suicidal tendencies. Public defenders also have mentioned the syndrome in connection with the Ross case. They plan to argue harsh prison conditions, and not sympathy for the families of the women he raped and killed, led him to give up his appeals. The syndrome is expected to come up during Ross' mental competency hearings. (source: Danbury News Times)
