Oct. 27
SOUTH DAKOTA----impending execution
South Dakota: Second execution in a month slated for Tuesday
A man convicted in the 1990 slaying of a 9-year-old girl is set to die by
lethal injection Tuesday, the state Department of Corrections announced
Saturday.
The execution of Donald Moeller, 60, will be the second within a month in a
state where executions are rare. Moeller's will bring to 18 the number of
executions in the state or Dakota Territory since 1877, and just the fourth
since 1913.
Moeller is scheduled be executed at approximately 10 p.m. Tuesday at the state
penitentiary in Sioux Falls, the same site of Eric Robert's Oct. 15 lethal
injection.
Authorities say Moeller kidnapped Becky O'Connell from a Sioux Falls
convenience store, drove her to a secluded area near the Big Sioux River, then
raped and killed her. Her naked body was found the next day; she had been
stabbed and her throat was slashed.
The girl's mother, Tina Curl, plans to drive with her husband to Sioux Falls
from New York state to witness the execution.
Moeller fought his conviction and sentence for years, but in July, he said he
was ready to accept death as the consequence of his actions.
"The law has spoken," Moeller said at an Oct. 4 hearing. "I killed. I deserve
to be killed."
Moeller initially was convicted in 1992, but the state Supreme Court overturned
it, ruling that improper evidence was used at trial. He was again convicted and
sentenced to die in 1997.
The state Supreme Court affirmed the sentence, and Moeller lost appeals on both
the state and federal levels.
But even as Moeller has insisted he's ready to die, a flurry of motions have
been filed on his behalf to stop the execution over his protests.
Earlier this month, a federal judge dismissed a pending suit challenging South
Dakota's execution protocol after Moeller insisted he wanted no part of it.
Moeller also distanced himself from a motion filed by a woman with loose family
ties who argued that his decades in solitary confinement have made him
incapable of voluntarily accepting his fate.
South Dakota has carried out death sentences just 3 times since the 1913
hanging of Joseph Rickman for the murder of a woman and her daughter.
George Sitts was electrocuted in 1947 for killing 2 law enforcement officers,
and Elijah Page died by lethal injection in 2007 for the murder of Chester
Allan Poage.
On Oct. 15, Eric Robert was put to death for killing South Dakota prison guard
Ronald "R.J." Johnson during a failed escape attempt.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
Former executioners share their misgivings about death penalty----As
Californians prepare to vote on Proposition 34, which would end the death
penalty, 2 former executioners tour the state describing their experiences.
Ron McAndrew, a former prison warden, said he began to have doubts about the
death penalty after seeing flames dance from the head of an inmate strapped
into Florida's electric chair.
"There was no way I could stop the execution," said McAndrew, who was in charge
of the electrocution that night in 1997. Smoke and a putrid odor filled the
death chamber as the witnesses outside watched, agape. "I had to let it go on
for 11 minutes."
McAndrew, 74, was 1 of 2 former executioners who came to California this week
to tell tales from the death chamber during a 4-day tour of some of the state's
most conservative communities: Riverside, Bakersfield and Fresno.
The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty sponsored the tour of
churches and college campuses as Californians prepare to vote on Proposition
34, next month's ballot measure to replace the death penalty with life in
prison without parole.
McAndrew, speaking in an interview Friday before an appearance at Cal State
Fresno, said being an executioner caused him psychological problems. He said he
finally sought help after seeing the dead men he executed sitting on the side
of his bed at night.
Peter DeMarco, a strategist for the opposition, said the executioners' tour
demonstrated that out-of-state forces were working to abolish California's
death penalty. "We don't use the electric chair, and to bring that up is
offensive," DeMarco said. He also noted that the targeted communities strongly
support the death penalty.
Supporters of the death penalty have launched a $100,000, 10-day radio
advertisement campaign to remind voters of the victims of California's 725
death row inmates. The ads say Proposition 34 would "protect the killers" and
guarantee Richard Allen Davis, killer of 12-year-old Polly Klaas; Scott
Peterson, convicted of murdering his pregnant wife; and Night Stalker Richard
Ramirez "a lifetime of free housing and healthcare."
As the ads began airing in Southern California, Abraham J. Bonowitz, a staff
member of the Washington-based anti-death-penalty coalition, traveled through
the state's interior with the executioners. He said a California affiliate of
the coalition requested the tour and chose communities that some believe the
Proposition 34 campaign has neglected.
The executioners addressed audiences of 20 to 160 people. The coalition paid
their expenses and gave each a $550 stipend for the tour, which ended Friday.
Jerry Givens, 59, who worked on Virginia's execution team, told audiences he
presided over 62 executions - 25 electrocutions and 37 lethal injections - out
of duty and a strong belief in the death penalty.
He said his misgivings about execution began when former Virginia death row
inmate Earl Washington Jr. was exonerated. Givens had come within 2 weeks of
executing Washington. "It would have been with me for the rest of my life," he
said.
Givens said in an interview that he preferred the electric chair to lethal
injection because electrocution, even with the occasional smoke and sparks, was
simpler and quicker. Givens described witnessing a lethal injection in Texas,
where he had gone for training: The inmate strapped to the gurney sang "Amazing
Grace" and "almost completed the hymn before the chemicals kicked in and killed
him."
McAndrew, who presided over 3 executions in Florida and shadowed five lethal
injections in Texas for training purposes, insisted that the executions did not
provide closure for victims.
He recalled arranging for a woman to watch the Florida execution of a man who
had murdered her twin sister. She was "seething with hate" when she arrived and
still seething when she left, he said.
During the appearance at Cal State Fresno, which was streamed live on the Web,
the executioners expressed bitterness toward elected officials who support the
death penalty but don't have to carry it out.
McAndrew, now a correctional consultant, said he believes his execution work
has left him "damaged goods" and argued that other executioners also have
suffered psychologically from their assignments.
"It is not right," he said, "for a government official to say ... 'I want you
to go into that dirty little room and kill this guy for me so I get some
votes.'"
Givens' corrections career ended when he was convicted of money laundering and
lying to a grand jury for allowing an old friend, who was selling drugs, to buy
cars under his name, according to published reports. Givens, now a truck
driver, denied having committed any crimes. He said his own conviction caused
him to worry he might have executed an innocent person.
(source: Los Angeles Times)
****************************
No on Prop. 34: Let the death penalty live; A former prosecutor and judge
argues in favor of California's capital punishment law, saying it is a
deterrent and the right moral choice.
My entire professional life has been entwined with the death penalty. As a
prosecutor, I asked for the death penalty. As a judge, I imposed it. As a
citizen, I will vote next month to retain it as a punishment option in
California.
I have often encountered the argument that the death penalty is not a deterrent
because it did not deter someone from carrying out a particular murder. But the
actual issue is a larger one: Would there have been more murders in California
without its deterrent effect? That's a hard question to answer with certainty,
of course, but there has been considerable research to suggest the death
penalty is a significant deterrent.
Additionally, I am all too aware of one case in which the death penalty,
imposed in a timely fashion, might have prevented additional killings.
Clarence Ray Allen was the last man to be put to death in California before a
moratorium on executions in the state was issued in 2006. His first murder
conviction came in 1977 for arranging the 1974 killing of a potential witness
against him in a burglary. I was the prosecutor on that case. We won a
conviction, and Allen was sentenced to life in prison. Then, in 1980, while
behind bars, Allen arranged the killings of witnesses who had testified against
him in his murder trial. That was the last case I worked on as a prosecutor
before I was elected as a judge.
In that case, he was finally sentenced to death, but even then it wasn't until
26 years after the killing that he was finally executed. During all that time,
the loved ones of the deceased had no closure. Retribution is not only a need
of society; it is a right of those victimized.
Our system is not infallible. Opponents say the fact that it's possible that
someone could be wrongfully executed is enough to conclude we shouldn't have
the death penalty. They can't, however, point to a case in California in which
the system has allowed an innocent person to be executed.
Every criminal conviction should be based on the highest degree of certainty,
and we should certainly shore up weaknesses in the system. No one should be
convicted, for example, by eyewitness and informant testimony that is not
substantiated by independent evidence. But eliminating the death penalty does
nothing to address these issues.
A number of independent empirical studies have reached the conclusion that the
existence and imposition of the death penalty results in a statistically
demonstrable reduction in murders. And that means human beings are alive today
instead of dead as a result of a law.
We have no way of knowing for certain, of course, how many people are not
murdered because of the existence of the death penalty, and there have been
studies that concluded the death penalty had no deterrent effect, but I don't
find them convincing.
Why? In part because of what I saw over a long career. In cases of premeditated
murder, considerable planning often goes into the act, and that planning can
include the weighing of what is to be gained against the potential penalties.
Any penalty can have some deterrent effect, but the more severe the penalty,
the greater the disincentive to commit the crime.
If you knew that by executing one guilty person you could save even one or two
innocent people from being murdered, the moral choice seems clear. Those who
criticize aggressive sentencing laws often ignore the most important moral
issue. If we can, through effective sentencing, reduce victimization, then it
seems to me we are morally obligated to impose sentences that have that effect.
I respect those who have moral reservations about the death penalty. But moral
choices can carry consequences too. If the death penalty has prevented some
people from being murder victims, then doing away with it would create
additional murder victims. I would far rather face the moral consequence of the
death penalty than the consequence of innocent victims being killed. I choose
innocent lives over guilty lives.
(source: Oop-Ed; James A. Ardaiz is the former presiding justice of
California's 5th District Court of Appeal. His new book, "Hands Through Stone,"
chronicles the Clarence Ray Allen case----Los Angeles Times)
********************************
Why California's Death-Penalty Repeal Is Surging in the Polls; Political ads
work. So do proposed ballot measures that explain clearly in their text how and
why the law ought to change.
On the front page of Friday's Los Angeles Times is a story headlined, "Support
for end to California death penalty surges." Journalists Maura Dolan and Jack
Leonard write in the lede: "Voter support for a ballot measure to repeal
California's death penalty has jumped dramatically, though not enough to ensure
its passage, a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles times poll has found." With 11 days
to go before Election Day, 42 % of voters back the measure, and 45 % oppose it.
But it's 4 paragraphs in the press release by the pollsters themselves that are
particularly revealing here. They help explain why the race for this important
measure is tightening and why partisans all over the country fight so hard, and
often so bitterly, over the language that makes it onto ballots. First, money
and advertising matter. And, second, it turns out that the more California
voters read the text of the initiative the more they endorse the idea of ending
California's capital punishment regime. Here are the paragraphs:
In September, 38 % of voters supported Proposition 34, and 51 % opposed it.
"There's no question that there has been a sharp shift in favor of a ban on the
death penalty, which seems to have resulted from the fact that the initiative's
supporters have been able to fund a much larger advertising campaign than the
opposition," said Dan Schnur, director of the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times
Poll and director of the Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. "The Proposition
34 campaign has been on the air and making up ground, but it is historically
difficult to pass a ballot measure after it's been below 50 %."
The fight over the death penalty actually reverses when voters were read the
ballot language for Proposition 34, rather than a brief statement. The ballot
language includes an explanation of the fiscal impact of the measure, with
estimated savings from trials and appeals of $100 million in the first few
years, growing to $130 million annually after. It also states that persons
found guilty of murder must work while in prison, with their wages applied to
victim restitution.
When read the ballot language including fiscal impact, a plurality of voters
support repealing the death penalty: 45 % of voters support Proposition 34 and
42 % oppose it, with 11 % undecided. This is a reversal from a month ago when
Proposition 34 was behind 44-46, with 8 % undecided.
You have to have a decent pitch, in other words, and you have to pitch it
consistently well. If I'm an opponent of Proposition 34, this poll tells me
that many voters are no longer buying the "weak-on-crime" argument I've been
making, especially when confronted with the economics of the death penalty and
the fact that the alternative punishment is a life sentence without the
possibility of parole. If this poll is correct, and California voters are
seriously considering an end to their state's failed experiment with the death
penalty, it would be a very big deal.
(source: Andrew Cohen - Andrew Cohen is a contributing editor at The Atlantic
and legal analyst for 60 Minutes. He is also chief analyst and legal editor for
CBS Radio News and has won a Murrow Award as one of the nation's leading legal
analysts and commentators; The Atlantic)
***************************
Death penalty repeal is on Calif. ballot
California will vote Nov. 6 whether to repeal its death penalty and replace the
maximum punishment for murder with life in prison without parole.
Those calling for its repeal in California argue its use is flawed and too
expensive, and that its repeal will save the financially strapped state $1
billion within 5 years.
Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary President Jeff Iorg said California's
practice of capital punishment is indeed flawed, but Proposition 34 -- as the
initiative is called -- isn't the solution.
"The way death penalty cases are handled in California needs reform, but
Proposition 34 is the wrong set of solutions," Iorg said. "We need reform of
the process, not abolition of the death penalty as a sentencing option." Golden
Gate's Northern California campus operates a prison ministry at San Quentin
State Prison, where California houses its death row inmates.
Prop 34 addresses a complex issue, says Eugene Curry, pastor of First Baptist
Church of Granada Hills. He said authors and backers of the proposition were
wise to emphasize practical considerations of the death penalty, rather than
the "abstract moral status of execution."
"Given the complexity of the issue, I've yet to decide how I'll vote on the
proposition and I have no intention to endorse one side of the debate or the
other from the pulpit," Curry said.
"On the basis of a number of factors, including biblical passages like Romans
13:3-4, I think that capital punishment is, at least in theory, an acceptable
option for the punishment of very serious crimes," Curry said. "However, when
we move from abstract theory to actual practice, the matter is complicated by
other considerations including the reliability of court convictions, the
enormous costs involved in the context of our current legal system, and so on."
California has not executed anyone since 2006, when a federal judge halted
executions in the state pending various changes in the administration of the
penalty.
Prop. 34 is on the ballot as an initiated state statute, having received at
least the required 504,760 qualified signatures.
Prop. 34 would apply retroactively to those currently on death row,
transferring their sentences to life in prison. It would require those found
guilty of murder to work while in prison, applying their wages to victim
restitution, and would use state funds to create a $100 million fund to help
law enforcement agencies solve more homicide and rape cases.
Supporters of Prop. 34 say California has spent $4 billion on capital
punishment since 1978, executing only 13 people at a cost of $308 million per
execution. During the same period, 78 people on death row have died from
natural and other causes, according to proposition supporters. They also argue
that across the U.S., 140 innocent people on death row have been exonerated.
Opponents of Prop. 34 say the death penalty could be repaired by instituting
single-drug executions, reducing the cost of appeals and discontinuing the
costly practice of housing death row inmates in single cells at San Quentin.
They say less than 2 percent of all convicted murderers in the state are
sentenced to death.
As expressed in a 2000 resolution, the Southern Baptist Convention supports
"the fair and equitable use of capital punishment by civil magistrates as a
legitimate form of punishment for those guilty of murder or treasonous acts
that result in death" and urges that "capital punishment be administered only
when the pursuit of truth and justice result in clear and overwhelming evidence
of guilt."
Expressing a "deep reverence for human life," a "profound respect for the
rights of individuals" and "respect for the law," SBC messengers in 2000 urged
that "capital punishment be applied as justly and as fairly as possible without
undue delay, without reference to the race, class, or status of the guilty."
(source: Baptist Press)
*****************
California man faces death penalty after being charged in brutal stabbing of
mother and her 2 toddlers
Grigoriy Bukhantsov may face the death penalty after being formally charged
with 3 counts of murder in the death of his sister-in-law and her 2 small
children.
Sacramento County Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney Stephen Grippi said
it could be several months before prosecutors decide whether their office will
pursue the severest possible sentence under California law.
"That decision will be made after a much more complete evaluation," Grippi
said. "We have to do a full investigation of his background."
Bukhantsov, 19, was arrested early Wednesday only hours after his older brother
returned to his suburban Rancho Cordova and found his 23-year-old wife, Alina
Bukhantsov, dead along with their 3-year-old daughter, Emmanuela, and
2-year-old son, Avenir.
Both Alina and Avenir died of stab wounds to the neck and torso while Emmanuela
died of stab wounds to the chest, according to the Sacramento County coroner's
office.
The couple's 6-month-old baby, Mark, was found unharmed in a crib.
Police recovered several knives from the scene but have yet to complete testing
on them to determine which, if any, were used in the killings.
Police say Bukhantsov has refused to discuss the deaths under questioning and
no motive has been determined.
Dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit, inside a cage, and flanked by 4 baliffs,
Bukhanstov kept his eyes cast on the floor during the hearing, looking up only
briefly to acknowledge his name.
He did not enter a plea.
Deputies say the suspect had a troubled relationship with his family, and court
records show his parents and siblings sought restraining orders because they
were afraid of him.
According to court filings, Bukhanstov had a long history of troubling behavior
with his family members.
He repeatedly threatened to stab, shoot and burn them to death, struck his
relatives, punched holes in walls and showed signs of using drugs and alcohol.
Bukhantsov also has a prior conviction for a 2011 residential burglary in which
he pleaded no contest to stealing a woman's iPod from her bathroom.
However Bukhanstov's brother and Alina's husband, Denis Bukhantsov, said his he
was calm when he came to the family's home Monday night seeking shelter from a
rainstorm.
Police said the he showed no signs of intoxication when he was arrested, but
drug test results are pending.
Supervising Assistant Public Defender John Perkins told reporters he had
visited Bukhantsov in jail earlier that day.
"It's obviously a tragedy for the family, everybody involved in the case,"
Perkins said. "He's distraught, very confused."
Perkins said it was appropriate that his client was being held in a psychiatric
unit at the county jail, where he was being watched closely to make sure he
doesn't harm himself.
"Obviously we're going to vigorously defend all aspects of the case," Perkins
said. "It appears that we have maybe a psychological history, and some mental
health issue."
Bukhantsov's next hearing is scheduled for Nov. 26.
(source: Daily Mail)
CONNECTICUT:
Jury to get Trumbull triple-murder death penalty case
A jury will decide if Richard Roszkowski gets the death penalty for the murders
of a 9-year-old girl, her mother and a Milford landscaper, a judge ruled
Friday.
Although the state Supreme Court may end up forever eliminating the death
penalty for anyone, Superior Court Judge Robert Devlin agreed to move the case
forward after the prosecutor, C. Robert Satti Jr., complained: "I don't think
we should be sitting on our hands doing nothing."
The hearing will begin next September before a 12-member jury.
Roszkowski, a Trumbull drug user who lived with his mother in a senior citizen
complex, was convicted in 2009 of forcing his former lover to drive him to the
city's East End with her 9-year-old daughter, where he then shot her in the
head in front of the horrified girl.
A landscaper who was nearby sought to intercede, and he, too, was coolly gunned
down by Roszkowski, who then chased the girl down the street, shooting her in
the back of the thigh, the face and finally the side of the head at close range
as she begged for her life in September 2006.
Although the same jury that convicted Roszkowski of the crime subsequently
found he should get the death penalty, the verdict was overturned on a
technicality and a new penalty phase hearing was ordered.
Then last May, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed a law repealing the death penalty
for any new cases.
The law leaves in place the nine men now on death row, including Russell Peeler
Jr., who was convicted of ordering the murders of a mother and her young son in
Bridgeport in 1999.
However, defense lawyers, including Roszkowski's public defender, Michael
Courtney, claim the law is unconstitutional and have asked the state's highest
court to hear their appeal. Courtney said a decision could come as soon as next
fall; about the time the Roszkowski case is starting.
Bridgeport lawyer Michael Fitzpatrick, an expert on death penalty law who is
now defending a man against the death penalty in Rockville, said he is
confident the state Supreme Court will declare the current death penalty law
unconstitutional.
"The fact that the state legislature passed a law that says it can't be applied
retroactively doesn't make it constitutional," Fitzpatrick said. He said he
believes the state Supreme Court will conclude that the law violates the 8th
Amendment of the U.S. Constitution barring cruel and unusual punishment.
"It would be arbitrary to impose the death penalty when people committing the
same crimes today cannot receive the death penalty. I think he (Roszkowski) has
a good chance of avoiding the death penalty."
Dr. William Petit has been the state's strongest opponent of death penalty
repeal, and was the main reason the new law was not made retroactive.
Petit is the lone survivor of a 2007 Cheshire home invasion that resulted in
the brutal murders of his wife and two daughters. The two men convicted of the
crime, Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes, are on death row.
"There is no such thing as closure when your loved one is savagely taken from
you," he testified previously in hearings on the repeal. "There can, however,
be adequate and just punishment, and that is the death penalty."
Friday marked the 1st time the usually demonstrative Roszkowski had nothing to
say in the courtroom. Dressed in a bright-orange prison jumpsuit, his hands and
feet shackled, he calmly sat beside his lawyer at the defense table. Behind him
sat several grim-faced, flak-vested corrections officers.
(source: Connecticut Post)
KANSAS:
Kansas Supreme Court Considers Capital Murder Case
Sidney Gleason is challenging his convictions for capital murder and other
crimes and his death sentence.
The Kansas Supreme Court is considering the appeal of a man sentenced to die
over the killings of a Great Bend couple in 2004.
The justices were hearing arguments Friday in the case of Sidney Gleason. He is
challenging his convictions for capital murder and other crimes and his death
sentence.
The murder victims were Miki Martinez and boyfriend Darren Wornkey. Their
deaths were days after the robbery of a 76-year-old man in February 2004.
Prosecutors say Gleason and cousin Damien Thompson worried about what Martinez
would tell police about the robbery.
Workney was shot while he sat in his Jeep outside his home. Martinez was taken
to a rural area and strangled and shot.
Thompson avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty to Martinez's murder.
(source: Associated Press)
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