Aug. 28
OHIO----impending execution
Parole Board Rejects Mercy For Condemned Killer
The Ohio Parole Board has rejected mercy for a condemned killer who shot 2
people, including a police officer.
The board ruled unanimously Tuesday in Columbus against recommending that death
row inmate Harry Mitts Jr. be granted clemency.
The 61-year-old Mitts is scheduled to die next month after being convicted in
the 1994 double shooting outside Cleveland.
Mitts told the parole board in an interview earlier this month that he'd accept
whatever decision it makes.
His attorneys told the board last week that Mitts is remorseful and accepts
responsibility for what he did.
The state's supply of its execution drug expires at month's end, and Mitts will
be the last person put to death with that drug if his execution is carried out.
(source: 10tv.com)
*****************
Bill makes repeat violent sexual assaults punishable by death; Ohio lawmaker
John Becker proposed bill in response to Ariel Castro's crimes
An Ohio lawmaker wants to make violent sexual assaults punishable by death. The
sponsor, Republican Representative John Becker of southwest Ohio, says he came
up with the bill after hearing about the crimes of Ariel Castro.
"If there was ever a sex crime that deserved the death penalty - that is it."
Castro was sentenced to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to rape and
kidnapping. He held 3 women hostage for about 10 years before they were found
inside his Cleveland house earlier this year.
Becker says his proposal would allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty for
violent rapists who already have one sexual assault conviction. The idea is not
necessarily to prevent crime or even to send a message to criminals.
"You know there's some argument that capital punishment having nothing to do
with or having no impact on deterrent - I've seen those studies and that may
very well be true. But what it's more aimed at is negotiating a plea bargain."
Allison Smith, spokesperson for the group Ohioans to Stop Executions, believes
that capital punishment is inefficient and expensive.
Smith says Becker's proposal goes against the recommendations of a task force
that was put together by the Ohio Supreme Court. The task force voted to
recommend limiting the scope of the death penalty to only those convicted of
murdering multiple victims, children under 13, police officers, or for those
who murdered to escape detention or to eliminate a witness.
"This bill does seem to be a political statement rather than effective criminal
justice reform. I mean it's clearly unconstitutional."
Smith says the idea of expanding capital punishment to sexual assault crimes
would not only waste resources but cause more harm for the victims. "Do we
really want to drag the victims through Ohio's lengthy death penalty process?
Victims who are still very much alive and have to endure 20 to 30 years of
media attention and trials and other procedures that come along with the death
penalty."
Smith believes this proposed bill could open the door for other crimes to be
suggested as punishable by death. Becker urges that he only wants executions to
be expanded for violent sexual offenders but adds that other legislators could
include their opinion on the matter.
"That's what the legislative process is all about - if somebody else were to
propose something then we could discuss that in the General Assembly and if we
pass something then the governor will have his chance to weigh-in on it with a
signature or a veto we'll cross that bridge when we get to it."
The representative says about half a dozen other states already have a similar
law in place.
The task force in charge of reviewing Ohio's death penalty is expected to put
out a full report - possibly by the end of this year.
(source: WKSU News)
***********************
The process of changing how people are executed in Ohio should unfold with far
more transparency
The State of Ohio plans to change by October the way it executes prisoners,
largely because of a nationwide shortage of lethal injection drugs.
Such injections were created largely to give states that impose capital
punishment a humane - or at least quick and relatively painless - alternative
to the electric chair, gas chamber, or firing squad. But shortages now have
states scrambling to find drugs that are convenient or available, even if they
are not adequately tested.
The drug shortages are largely created by the moral objections of
manufacturers. But that doesn't make them, or the problems they entail, any
less real.
No state should proceed with scheduled executions until the drug, or multidrug
cocktail, it plans to use has been proven to be humane and efficient. The
process of changing how people are executed in Ohio should unfold with far more
transparency than the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC)
has shown so far.
Some manufacturers are refusing on moral grounds to supply corrections
departments with drugs used for lethal injections. That has forced states to
buy custom-made drugs from compounding, or specialty, pharmacies that are not
regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the New York Times reported
this week.
Other states are turning to untested methods such as propofol, without knowing
how much pain it causes or even what dose should be administered. Expediency
has trumped morality, as the process has become more haphazard - and probably
more open to legal and constitutional challenges.
ODRC has not commented on what method it might select. In March, 2011, Ohio
became the 1st state to use pentobarbital alone for a lethal injection. Its
supply of the drug will run out late next month. Pentobarbital, which wasn???t
created to kill people, is most commonly used to euthanize animals and treat
seizures.
The drug's maker, Denmark-based Lundbeck, opposes its use in death-penalty
cases and has stopped selling the product to corrections departments. Another
widely used drug, sodium thiopental, has also been kept from corrections
departments after European employees objected to its use for executions.
Ohio started using capital punishment - with public hangings - when it became a
state in 1803. In 1897, the electric chair replaced the gallows. In 2001,
lethal injection became the sole method of execution in Ohio.
In 2009, the state switched to a single dose of sodium thiopental. In 2011, it
switched again to pentobarbital, a powerful sedative, when the maker of sodium
thiopental restricted its distribution.
It seems unlikely that Ohio will change to a method of execution other than
lethal injection, such as electrocution or firing squads. Nor should it. Lethal
injections still represent the most efficient and humane way to conduct an
execution.
But drug shortages nationwide raise troubling questions about how executions
are to be carried out. Missouri is thinking of returning to the gas chamber.
Arkansas has stopped scheduling executions until its corrections department
comes up with a new method.
In Ohio, whatever option the department selects would apply to the scheduled
November execution of Ronald Phillips. ODRC must ensure that the method it
selects for future executions is humane, reliable, efficient, and adequately
tested.
(source: Editorial, Toledo Blade)
KANSAS:
Few motions filed in Franklin Co. capital murder case; Status hearing scheduled
Thursday for accused killer of 4
2 days before a status hearing in the case of capital murder defendant Kyle
Trevor Flack in Franklin County District Court, few motions have been filed, a
court spokesman said Tuesday.
The bodies of Kaylie Bailey, 21, of Olathe, and 2 men - Steven White, 31, and
Andrew Adam Stout, 30 - were discovered May 6 and 7 at a farm at 3197 Georgia
Road in Franklin County. Stout and Bailey reportedly had been dating.
The Georgia address is 7 miles northwest of Ottawa, 5 miles northeast of
Pomona, and 6 miles east of the Franklin-Osage County line.
The body of Lana-Leigh Bailey, the 18-month-old daughter of Bailey, was found
in neighboring Osage County on May 11. Flack was apprehended at 2:30 a.m. May 8
in Emporia on an Osage County warrant.
John Steelman, court administrator for the 4th Judicial District, which
includes Franklin County, said Tuesday only one new document may have been
filed in the case.
Following a ruling made earlier in the case by Franklin County District Court
Judge Thomas Sachse, the judge will examine the document to determine whether
it will be sealed from the public or open to the public, Steelman said.
Deputy attorney general and co-prosecutor Victor Braden, of the Kansas Attorney
General's Office, requested that all documents be sealed, and defense attorney
Ron Evans agreed to it. Evans is chief of the state Death Penalty Defense Unit.
Sachse didn't grant the request to seal all documents but said he would examine
each motion, then decide whether to seal it.
Flack, 28, is charged with:
-- Capital murder in the slayings of more than 1 person between April 28 and
May 6 of Andrew Adam Stout, Kaylie Bailey and Lana-Leigh Bailey, 18 months old.
-- 3 alternative counts of premeditated 1st-degree murder of Stout and the
Baileys.
-- Premeditated 1st-degree murder between April 20 and 28 of Steven White.
-- Capital murder in the killing of Kaylie Bailey during or after she was
raped.
-- Rape of Kaylie Bailey.
-- Criminal possession of a firearm by a felon.
2 hours has been set aside for Thursday's hearing, Steelman said.
Since charges were filed May 10, the only disclosed motions filed in the case
was the one to seal all pleadings and a prosecution motion seeking to perform
DNA testing on evidence.
On July 29, the judge granted the DNA motion.
It is unknown whether the third document referred to by Steelman on Tuesday is
a motion.
The last filing in the case was made Aug. 1 to list scheduling dates of
scheduling conferences, according to the website established by the Franklin
County District Court.
Due to the gravity of the death penalty in a capital case, large numbers of
motions normally are filed before trial in capital murder cases, especially by
defense attorneys who challenge the constitutionality of the death penalty and
other aspects of the case.
For example, in Shawnee County District Court, defense attorneys representing
Phillip D. Cheatham II in the retrial of a death penalty case had filed 47
motions as of Tuesday, and the prosecution had filed about 5, including one
asking the judge to uphold prosecution motions that were granted in the 1st
trial in 2005.
Cheatham, 40, is charged with capital murder in the slayings of 2 women on Dec.
13, 2003, as well as the wounding of a 3rd woman.
(source: Capital-Journal)
WYOMING:
Plea deal removes death penalty in Wyoming triple homicide
A plea agreement with 2 teenage murder suspects accused in a triple homicide in
Park County, Wyoming last March, has removed the possible death penalty from
their case.
Tanner VanPelt & Stephen Hammer, both 19, will appear next Tuesday in Wyoming
District Court for change of plea hearings.
According to court documents filed by Park County Attorney Bryan Skoric, both
defendants have signed the deal.
Specifics of the plea deal will be presented next week to District Judge
Stephen Cranfill.
If Cranfill approves the deal, the likely scenario is that both defendants will
change their pleas to guilty and will be sentenced to life in prison without
the possibility of parole.
Van Pelt and Hammer are accused in the shooting deaths of Ildiko Freitas, and
her parents Janos and Hildegard Volgyesi, inside their home in rural Clark,
Wyoming on March 2, 2013.
(source: KTVQ News)
COLORADO:
Denver judge sets trial date for Dexter Lewis in bar killings
A Denver judge overseeing the death penalty case against Dexter Lewis, who is
accused of stabbing five to death in October, denied a request by defense
attorneys on Tuesday to withdraw Lewis' plea of not guilty.
The request to withdraw the plea was not an indication that Lewis, 23, is
considering changing his plea, but rather an attempt to stop the clock in the
case, defense attorney Chris Baumann said.
Public defenders were reassigned to the case earlier this month after Lewis'
private attorneys were allowed to withdraw themselves from the case.
Prosecutors said in July they are seeking the death penalty in the case against
Lewis, who is charged with killing 5 people at Fero's Bar and Grill in October.
On Tuesday, defense attorneys argued that Lewis' former attorney, Douglas
Romero, a private attorney with the Colorado Christian Defense Counsel, failed
to adequately represent Lewis before and after the death penalty decision was
announced.
As a result, Lewis' defense team said it needs time to catch up.
Defense attorneys argued they could not simultaneously comb through an enormous
amount of evidence and proceed with the case.
"I think what I'm trying to do is level the playing field again," Baumann said.
"I think the court is setting us up to be ineffective."
But prosecutors argued that Lewis made the decision to remove the public
defender who was appointed to him in October and hire private attorneys.
Denver District Court Judge John Madden denied defense attorneys' request to
withdraw this plea and set a filing deadline for some of the motions in the
case. He set a June 11 start date for Lewis' trial.
Madden also allowed prosecutors to file 2 additional charges of habitual
criminal against Lewis. He now faces a total of 18 charges. Attorneys must file
motions concerning procedures in the case within the next 60 days.
(source: The Denver Post)
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