August 11
OKLAHOMA----execution
Tulsa man executed for 1994 slaying of ex-girlfriend
In McAlester, a Tulsa man was put to death Thursday evening for killing
his ex-girlfriend in a jealous rage that prosecutors said claimed 3 other
lives, including the women's children.
Kenneth Eugene Turrentine, 52, died at 6:10 p.m. in Oklahoma's death
chamber, shortly after an injection of drugs stopped his heart.
Less than an hour earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court had denied his
last-minute appeal, clearing the way for the state to carry out his death
sentence for the June 4, 1994 shooting of Anita Richardson, 39.
Turrentine originally was convicted and sentenced to death as well for the
killings of Richardson's 13-year-old son, Martise, and her 22-year-old
daughter Tina Pennington. But a federal appeals court last year threw out
the convictions in the case of Richardson's children because of a judge's
error during the trial.
After the slayings, Turrentine called police and admitted the killings,
police said. He said he was under the influence of antidepressants and
alcohol at the time.
On Thursday, while strapped to a gurney in the death chamber, Turrentine
said he was innocent.
"I've always maintained I've been innocent of crimes charged," he said.
"This is a violation of my 14th Amendment rights. It's not over. With that
being said, Mom, Dad, I love you all. Be strong."
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ensures due process of the law
and equal treatment of all citizens and was adopted to protect former
slaves after the Civil War.
Turrentine received a no-parole life term for killing his sister, Avon
Stevenson, 48, the same day.
Prosecutors said Turrentine believed Richardson was seeing other men and
that his sister was helping her deceive him.
He first went to his sister's home and confronted her with his
accusations, they said. When she laughed at him and called him a "punk,"
he shot her in the head. He then went to Richardson's Tulsa home, where
the other shootings occurred.
A week ago, Turrentine told the Pardon and Parole Board about the alcohol
and the antidepressants he'd taken at the time. But in the end, he
couldn't answer the board members' questions about motive.
"I've been struggling with that for years," he said, just before the board
declined to spare him.
Turrentine's mother, Dorothy Vinson, who is also Stevenson's mother, had
begged the board to spare his life, saying, "it wasn't the Kenneth that
everyone knows" who had committed the murders.
But Richardson's sister, Teresa Youngblood, told the board in a letter
about the pain of her family's loss.
"A very small and close-knit family with many years of happiness, love and
joy (as well as problems just as any other family may have) suddenly and
abruptly became even smaller on that sad and horrific night," she wrote.
She described Richardson as "a vibrant, fun-loving, joyful person to be
around." Pennington had been born blind and mentally disabled and had
survived several life-threatening surgeries, she said. And Martise was a
quiet and smart boy, "who loved no one more than his mother," she said.
"The man of the family, he tried to protect his mother on may occasions,
even the night of her death," Youngblood wrote.
Prosecutors contended the killings were calculated. They argued that
Turrentine obtained a .22-caliber pistol from his ex-wife the morning of
the murders and shot all four victims in the head.
Turrentine becomes the 4th condemned inmate to be put to death this year
in Oklahoma, and the 79th overall since the state resumed capital
punishment in 1990.
Turrentine becomes the 35th condemned inmate to be put to death this year
in the USA and the 979th overall since America resumed executions on
January 17, 1977.
(sources: Associated Press, Reuters & Rick Halperin)
ALABAMA:
Prosecutor to seek death penalty in inmate stabbing
Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against an inmate charged with
murder in the stabbing of a fellow prisoner last month.
Kenneth Henry Justus, 38, was serving 2 consecutive life sentences for
killing Upstate store clerks during robberies nearly a decade ago when
investigators said he entered 22-year-old Justis Matthew Bergenzer's cell
at the Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeland and stabbed him about
13 times in the head and chest with a homemade knife.
Prosecutor David Pascoe said those previous killings are why he plans to
serve a notice to seek the death penalty on Thursday morning at the
Dorchester County courthouse.
No other inmate currently on South Carolina's death row was sentenced to
die for killing an inmate. One of South Carolina's most notorious
prisoners, serial killer Donald "Pee Wee" Gaskins, was put to death in
1991 for a killing inside the prison walls. Gaskins also admitted to
killing 13 other people.
Corrections Department director Jon Ozmint said he wants Justus to be
sentenced to death as a deterrent to other inmates serving life sentences.
"Otherwise, a guy doing life might think he could get a killing for free,
so to speak," said Ozmint, who plans on being in the courthouse Thursday
when the death penalty notice is issued.
Justus' lawyer, Marva Hardee-Thomas, did not immediately return a phone
call Tuesday seeking comment.
Justus and Bergenzer, who was a month away from completing a one-year
sentence for grand larceny and escape, were both in the same wing of the
maximum security prison when the stabbing took place.
A guard locking the wing down for the night on July 26 noticed a group of
inmates around Bergenzer's cell and found the prisoner lying on the floor.
Paramedics could not revive him, prison officials said.
Other prisoners saw Justus leaving Bergenzer's cell with blood on his
clothes and said he tried to flush the knife down the toilet in his own
cell, according to a sworn statement from a State Law Enforcement Division
agent.
Justus had been disciplined several times by prison officials for having
drugs, but Ozmint could not recall any infractions for assaulting other
inmates.
Bergenzer was being held in maximum security because of a previous escape
attempt, Ozmint said.
(source: Associated Press)
USA:
2 new resources available relevant to capital punishment deterrence
arguments:
1. Columbia Univ. Law Prof Jeffrey Fagan provides a responds to recent
studies in support of capital punishment's deterrence effect. This is a
24-page pdf transcript of his testimony before the Mass Legislature's
Joint Committee on the Judiciary.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/MassTestimonyFagan.pdf_
2. Just published today is a new study authored by Emory Univ. Asst Low
Prof Joanna Shepherd that looks at deterrence/brutalization effects of
capital punishment on a state-by-state basis. Below is the abstract of the
study to be published in the next issue of the Michigan Law Review.
Deterrence versus Brutalization: Capital Punishment's Differing Impacts
Among States
JOANNA SHEPHERD --
(http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=263018) Emory
University School of Law
*********************
Abstract:
This paper is the first study to establish that capital punishment's
impact is different among U.S. states, deterring murders in some states,
but actually increasing murders in many others. Studies by economists,
including myself, have typically used large data sets of all 50 states or
all U.S. counties to show that executions, on average, deter murders. In
contrast, studies by sociologists, criminologists, and law professors
often examine only one or a few jurisdictions and usually find no evidence
of deterrence. Using a well-known data set and well-tested empirical
methods, I find that the impact of executions differs substantially among
the states. Executions deter murders in 6 states and have no effect on
murders in 8 states.
In 13 states, executions increase murders - what I call the "brutalization
effect." In general, the states that have executed more than 9 people in
the last twenty years experience deterrence. In states that have not
reached this threshold, executions generally increase murders or have no
significant impact. On average across the U.S., executions deter crime
because the states with deterrence execute many more people than do the
states without it. The results of this paper help to explain the
contrasting conclusions of earlier papers: whether deterrence exists
depends on which states are examined. My results have three important
policy implications. First, if deterrence is the objective, then capital
punishment generally succeeds in the few states with many executions.
Second, the many states with numbers of executions below the threshold may
be executing people needlessly. Indeed, instead of deterring crime, the
executions may be inducing additional murders: a rough total estimate is
that, in the many states where executions induce murders rather than deter
them, executions cause an additional 250 murders per year. Third, to
achieve deterrence, states must generally execute many people. If a state
is unwilling to establish such a large execution program, it should
consider abandoning capital punishment.
JEL Classifications: K00, K14, K42, H00, C00, C33
Accepted Paper Series
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Suggested Citation
Shepherd, Joanna, "Deterrence versus Brutalization: Capital Punishment's
Differing Impacts Among States" . Michigan Law Review, Forthcoming
http://ssrn.com/abstract=781504
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The author of this study says there is a deterrent effect attributable to
executions in one group of states: Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Texas,
South Carolina, and Nevada;
She finds another group of states with no deterrent effect: Alabama,
Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Pennsylvania,
and Wyoming;
And says there is a third group of states with a brutalization effect
Arizona, Arkansas, California, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana,
Maryland, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Virginia, and Washington, and increased
murder rates.
She will be speaking in Waco at Baylor University later this month:
Former Economics Student to Speak About Capital Punishment Oct. 21
Joanna Mehlhop Shepherd (Baylor Outstanding Economics Major, 1997) is
returning to Baylor to present at the next Economic Research Seminar on
Thursday, October 21, at 3:30pm (location TBA). Joanna received her PhD in
Economics from Emory University and now has a joint appointment in the
Emory Law School and Economics department.
Her talk, "Deterrence Versus Brutalization: Capital Punishment's Differing
Impact Among States."
You may access the paper at:
http://business.baylor.edu/Steve_Green/shepherd1.doc
Shepherd has gotten quite a bit of national attention for her research in
this area. She has testified before the U.S. Congress on capital
punishment issues. This particular paper shows that for capital punishment
to deter murder and other crime, a state must exceed a certain threshold
in the number of executions. Her results reconcile some conflicting claims
about capital punishment in the Economics and Sociology literatures.
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