Oct. 30
COLORADO:
Judge refuses to declare death penalty unconstitutional
U.S. Senior District Judge John Kane on Wednesday denied a motion by lawyers of
a Florence inmate who faces the death penalty to declare the federal death
penalty law unconstitutional.
Gary Watland's lawyers argued that the "sentencing scheme is so
incomprehensible that it deprives the jury of the ability to make a reasoned
and informed choice between life and death." Watland allegedly stabbed a fellow
inmate to death.
The government presented testimony by an expert who challenged the results of
studies presented by the defense. Among the studies was one by the Capital Jury
Project that found jurors do not understand instructions on death penalty
sentencing given by the judge. It also most jurors decide the outcome of the
penalty phase of a trial when they should still be concentrating on the
defendant's guilt or innocence.
Joanna Shepherd-Bailey, associate professor of law at Emory University, said
the length of time, in some cases 4 years, between their questioning for the
study and the time they sat on the jury, was one of several factors that
contributed to flawed conclusions.
"When they're remembering something from the past they tend to remember it in a
way that justifies the final decision that was made," Shepherd-Bailey said.
"The arguments presented are truly matters for the legislature .... It is not
up to me to overrule the Supreme Court of the United States," Kane said in
denying the motion.
(source: Denver Post)
NEVADA:
DA seeks death penalty against Bean; Arraignment on 19 charges is Monday
The Lyon County District Attorney's office is seeking the death penalty in the
murder case against Jeremiah Bean of Fernley, accused in 5 murders this past
May.
The DA's office filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty in Bean's
case last Friday in Third Judicial District Court. In addition, earlier last
week the DA's office filed an amended information with the court that included
the original 19 counts in the case, including 10 total open or 1st degree
murder counts.
Bean, whose lead defense counsel is Richard Davies of Reno, a death-penalty
certified lawyer, is scheduled for an arraignment on those charges at 3:30 p.m.
Monday in Third Judicial District Court in Yerington.
In September, Bean signed a plea agreement wherein the DA's office would not
seek the death penalty and it would file an information with only the 5 murder
counts.
However, in 2 scheduled arraignments earlier this month, Bean pleaded not
guilty when the 1st count was read by the judge, instead of the guilty plea
expected by his now-former attorney and the DA's office.
The 17-page notice of intent to seek the death penalty cites 23 aggravating
circumstances, which includes several that are listed 5 times for each of the 5
victims.
They include that his actions "knowingly created a great risk of death to more
than one person;" that the murder was committed in commission of or flight
after committing any robbery, arson, burglary or home invasion; murder
committed to avoid or prevent a lawful arrest or to effect escape from custody;
murder committed to receive money or any other thing of monetary value; and
that the defendant has been convicted of more than one offense of murder in the
1st or 2nd degree, using convictions in this case for the penalty phase.
Bean, who was 25 at the time, was arrested on May 13 and charged with open
murder with a deadly weapon in the shooting deaths of 84-year-olds Bob and
Dorothy Pape, which law enforcement officials said occurred on May 10 in
Fernley; Angie Duff, 67, and Lester Lieber, 69, at a Fernley home; and Eliazar
Graham, 52, of Sparks at Mustang, with the latter three on May 13.
He also is charged with stealing vehicles from the Papes and Graham among
charges, setting fire (arson) to the Pape home and a vehicle and other burglary
and robbery charges, and ex-felon in possession of a firearm.
(source: Reno Gazette-Journal)
USA:
U.S. Death Penalty Support Lowest in More Than 40 Years; 60 % of Americans
favor death penalty for convicted murderers
60 % of Americans say they favor the death penalty for convicted murderers, the
lowest level of support Gallup has measured since November 1972, when 57% were
in favor. Death penalty support peaked at 80% in 1994, but it has gradually
declined since then.
Gallup first asked Americans their views on the death penalty using this
question in 1936, and has updated it periodically since then, including annual
updates since 1999.
Americans have typically favored the death penalty; in fact, support has
exceeded opposition in all but 1 survey, conducted in May 1966, during an era
marked by philosophical and legal challenges to the death penalty from the
mid-1950s through the early 1970s. Americans' support for the death penalty
waned during that time. The culmination of that era was the Supreme Court's
1972 Furman v. Georgia decision, which invalidated all state death penalty
statutes on technical grounds but stopped short of declaring the practice
itself unconstitutional. 4 years later, the court ruled that several newly
written death penalty laws were constitutional, and executions resumed in the
U.S. shortly thereafter.
From then until the mid-'90s, death penalty support climbed, reaching 80% in
1994, a year in which Americans consistently named crime as the most important
problem facing the United States.
The current era of lower support may be tied to death penalty moratoriums in
several states beginning around 2000 after several death-row inmates were later
proven innocent of the crimes of which they were convicted. More recently,
since 2006, six states have repealed death penalty laws outright, including
Maryland this year.
Democratic Support Down Nearly 30 Points Since Peak
Politics is a major dividing line in Americans' death penalty views -- 81% of
Republicans currently favor it, compared with 47% of Democrats. Independents'
60% support matches the national average.
Support among all # party groups has declined in the last 25 years, with the
largest drop among Democrats. Democrats' level of support is currently down 28
% points from its 1994 peak and has fluctuated around the 50% mark for the last
several years. Independents' support has generally been in the 60% range since
2000, but was consistently above 70% from the late 1980s through 1999.
Republicans' support has averaged 80% since 2000, but averaged a higher 85%
from 1988-1999.
Slim Majority Say Death Penalty Applied Fairly
52 % of Americans believe the death penalty is applied fairly in the United
States -- a smaller figure than the 60% who favor the death penalty. 40 %
believe the death penalty is applied unfairly. Gallup first asked this question
in 2000, when the Illinois moratorium on the death penalty made headlines. At
that time, 51% said the death penalty was applied fairly, which remains the low
point in the 14-year trend. In 2004, a high of 61% said the death penalty was
applied fairly.
A separate question asking about the frequency of use of the death penalty
finds 44% of Americans saying the death penalty in the U.S. is not imposed
often enough -- rather than too often or the right amount of time. Americans
have always been most likely to say the death penalty is not imposed often
enough, consistent with their generally favoring the death penalty. However,
the current percentage holding that view is among the lowest Gallup has
measured.
Exactly 1/2 as many, 22%, believe the death penalty is imposed too often.
Another 26% say the death penalty is used the right amount of time.
Implications
Gallup's nearly 80-year history of measuring death penalty attitudes shows that
Americans generally favor the practice, but there have been distinct eras of
higher or lower support. And state and federal laws, as well as legal rulings,
have tended to move in concert with public opinion. Support is now the lowest
in 4 decades, and a growing number of states have taken action to abolish the
death penalty.
Currently, 18 states do not allow the death penalty, and 6 of those bans have
occurred since 2006. 6 others instituted bans during the mid-1950s through the
early 1970s, when U.S. support for the death penalty was lowest historically.
It is unclear whether the Supreme Court might ever reconsider its decision on
the constitutionality of state death penalty laws. Most of the recent death
penalty rulings have centered more narrowly on the constitutionality of death
sentences for juveniles and the mentally impaired. That includes a case in the
current term that calls into question state guidelines for determining
thresholds regarding whether a defendant is mentally impaired, and thus,
whether he or she can be sentenced to death.
The recent change in death penalty attitudes could be specific to that issue,
or it could be part of a broader shift to more politically liberal positions on
social issues, including legal gay marriage and legal marijuana use.
(source: Gallup.com)
******************************
Why Support For The Death Penalty In America Is Plunging
Protesters to the death penalty demonstrate across the highway from the Florida
State Correctional facility near Starke, Fla.,Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2013.
A Gallup poll found this week that support for the death penalty in America is
the lowest it's been in 40 years and has dropped sharply since its peak at 80%
in 1994.
These days, roughly 60% of Americans support the death penalty for convicted
killers, the lowest level of support since 1972 when 57% of people were in
favor.
We spoke to death penalty expert Douglas Berman, who attributed the drop in
support to three big factors: high-profile exonerations of death row inmates;
the disappearance of "tough on crime" attitudes popular in the '80s and '90s;
and the successful repeal of the death penalty in a number of U.S. states.
"Really over the last decade there has been a growing awareness of mistakes in
the context of death row prosecutions and exonerations that tend to be very
high-profile," said Berman, a law professor at The Ohio State University and
founder of the Sentencing and Law Policy blog.
A total of 142 death row prisoners in America have been exonerated, according
to the Death Penalty Information Center. These exonerees sometimes become
outspoken opponents of the death penalty and can be very compelling in swaying
public opinion.
The public is also less enamored of "tough on crime" policies than it used to,
partly because America has gotten much safer in the past 20 years. Michael
Dukakis, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1988, was a vocal opponent of
the death penalty and famously got hammered for being "soft on crime."
These days, Berman said, "Crime is much less salient of a political issue."
There's also little evidence that the death penalty does anything to deter
crime anyway. Currently 18 states have banned capital punishment. "There's not
a lot of evidence that crime spikes up dramatically" when a state stops
executing people, Berman said. (In fact, the region with the most executions -
the South - is also the most violent part of the country.)
Anti-death penalty advocates in states that have banned the death penalty have
also successfully highlighted problems with capial punishment, such as high
costs and the difficulty in administering it fairly. These arguments have been
particularly successful at swaying independent voters, Berman noted.
It may be surprising then that liberal California rejected an attempt to repeal
the death penalty last year. The loss for death penalty opponents came even as
people in the state grew concerned about the costs of capital punishment, the
Associated Press noted.
"It remains the case that, even in a blue state," Berman said, "there is still
this general support for the death penalty at least on the books as kind of a
symbolism of being tough on the worst offenders."
(source: Business Insider)
************************************
European Union Financing Efforts to End Death Penalty in U.S.; Giving millions
of dollars in grants to American nonprofits
The European Union is financing efforts to abolish the death penalty in the
United States through millions of dollars in grants to American nonprofits, EU
records show.
The EU's European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) has
disbursed grants worth millions of dollars to a host of U.S.-based groups for
campaigns aimed at ending or eroding support for capital punishment.
Experts say the expenditures raise concerns about the influence of foreign
governments on American policy.
The EU is flatly opposed to capital punishment. "Its abolition is a key
objective for the union's human rights policy," the union's website states.
EIDHR doles out millions of euros each year to groups that oppose the death
penalty.
Those grants are "aimed at promoting the restrictive use of, the establishment
of a moratorium on, and the abolition of the death penalty."
EIDHR gave 495,000 euros to Equal Justice USA in fiscal year 2012 for a project
called "Breaking Barriers: Engaging New Voices to Abolish the Death Penalty in
the United States."
EJUSA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, meaning its work must focus on education,
rather than advocacy. But a EU description of the Breaking Barriers program
says one of its purposes is to "advocate for abolition."
Shari Silberstein, EJUSA's executive director, said the group acts within all
applicable legal constraints, including the Foreign Agent Registration Act
(FARA).
FARA requires groups to file disclosures with the Justice Department if it
conducts advocacy work on behalf of a foreign government.
"We determined with our attorneys that it did not apply to us," Silberstein
explained in an email. "EJUSA does engage in some lobbying (as allowed within
our legal limits), but no EU funds are used for those activities."
The roughly $680,000 the group received from the EIDHR made up a large portion
of its revenue. According to EJUSA's website, its fiscal year 2012 budget was
"just over $1 million."
Silberstein said her group received the EIDHR grant for "public education and
outreach activities" involving "the creation and dissemination of public
education materials, media, conference attendance, and networking."
Luke Coffey, a Margaret Thatcher fellow at the Heritage Foundation, balked at
the EU's campaign, saying decisions about the death penalty are made at the
state - not federal or international - level.
"The EU is a very undemocratic organization which is suffering from very low
popularity right now," Coffey said. "They have bigger problems to worry about."
The EU has given out more than 3.5 million euros ($4.8 million) since 2009 to 7
groups for efforts to combat the death penalty in the United States.
Other recipient organizations include the American Bar Association's Fund for
Justice and Education and the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
Both are also 501(c)(3) groups.
While support for capital punishment has declined in recent years, a Gallup
poll released this week shows that a large majority of Americans continue to
support the practice.
(source: Washington Free Beacon)
********************
Bahamian and Jamaican charged with murder in Haitian boat tragedy----US federal
prosecutors have also charged 6 survivors with attempted alien smuggling and
illegal re-entry into the United States.
United States law enforcement authorities have charged a Bahamian boat captain
and his Jamaican crewman with causing the deaths of 4 Haitian women who drowned
after their overcrowded smuggling boat capsized in waters off Miami 10 days
ago.
On Friday, a grand jury charged Captain Naaman Davis, 53, and crewman George
Lewis, 38, along with four others, in a 24-count federal indictment.
Davis and Lewis also face charges of conspiring to smuggle migrants into the
United States and causing their deaths, as well as smuggling the migrants
resulting in 4 deaths.
In addition, Davis, who faces involuntary manslaughter charges, is accused of
killing the women "without malice" while "operating a vessel in a grossly
negligent manner."
If convicted, the men could face the death penalty or life in prison.
US federal prosecutors have also charged 6 survivors with attempted alien
smuggling and illegal re-entry into the United States.
Officials said 3 Jamaican survivors - Matthew Williams, 30, Everton Jones, also
known as "Everton Bryce," 40, and Kenard Hagigal, 35 - are convicted felons,
who were previously deported from the United States.
Another passenger, Sean Gaynor, 37, also a Jamaica had been deported, as well
as the 2 crewmen, Lewis and Davis.
The 15 Haitians were traveling in the vessel when it turned over on the morning
of October 16 just southeast of the entrance to Port Miami.
The US Coast Guard found 11 survivors, including a 15-year-old girl, clinging
to the boat's hull.
Earlier this week, US immigration authorities released four Haitian survivors -
Pierre Louisias, Widly Cajuste, Fallonne Alouidor and the 15-year-old ??? from
custody. The status of a 5th survivor, Vincent Anderson, is not known. Click
here to receive free news bulletins via email from Caribbean360
(source: caribbean360.com)
********************
The Government Can't be Trusted With the Death Penalty
The American Bar Association's (ABA) Texas Capital Punishment Assessment Team
recently reviewed the Texas death penalty system to find what surprises no one
- it's an expensive program that is run poorly and makes mistakes. The
analysis, led by legal experts and former elected officials across the
ideological spectrum, found that Texas relies on outdated, unscientific, and
unreliable methods to prove guilt. Many changes were suggested to attempt to
prevent wrongful convictions and provide fair due process.
This same Texas system of capital punishment that Governor Perry and some of
his predecessors are so proud of has led to disastrous consequences. It is
responsible for at least 12 men being wrongfully convicted and then released
from death row and perhaps others were even wrongfully executed. Carlos DeLuna
was executed using no forensic evidence, sloppy crime scene investigation, and
essentially one eyewitness account who later said he was 50 % sure DeLuna was
the perpetrator. Claude Jones was put to death in 2000 based, in part, on the
analysis of a hair found at the crime scene. This hair analysis has since been
shown not to be scientific, and recently, DNA evidence revealed that it was not
Jones's hair after all. Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004 primarily
after local investigators testified that arson was the cause of the fire that
killed his 3 young daughters. This "evidence" has since been debunked by nine
fire experts who have examined the case and determined that it was a tragic
accident, not arson.
Texans continue to be subjected to paying taxes for this program that grants so
much power to the state and often fails miserably. The average cost for a death
penalty case in 1992 in Texas was $2.3 million as opposed to $750,000 for a
case involving a life sentence. Jasper County, Texas was forced to raise
property taxes by nearly 7 percent just to pay for one death penalty trial. A
single capital punishment case, in part, led Gray County, Texas to withhold
county employees' raises and to increase county taxes. The cost on the local,
state, and federal levels are a heavy burden on the taxpayers while the death
penalty fails to deter crime.[1]
The high cost, frequent mistakes, and overwhelming power that capital
punishment gives the state is not limited to Texas. Nationally, more than 140
people have been wrongfully convicted and released from death rows since 1976
while many others were most likely wrongfully executed. This program comes at a
cost that greatly exceeds life-without-parole. Too often this increased cost is
passed down to citizens in the form of additional taxation or public debt.
Ever since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 by the United States
Supreme Court, countless legislative and judicial fixes have been attempted.
These actions have further limited the use of capital punishment. Judicial
decisions and legislation have lengthened the appeals process, tried to limit
the arbitrariness of the death penalty, and even created an additional
sentencing trial only available in capital cases. As is the case with any
process, additional government regulation and involvement does not cause
perfection. In fact, systemic failures persist and are abundant, which has
prompted 18 states to repeal the death penalty.
The framework that governs the death penalty guarantees dysfunction. Elected
prosecutors are given broad discretion to decide to seek a death sentence or
not - regardless of the wishes of the victim or victim???s family members.
Political, rather than moral or legal, considerations sometimes drive elected
officials to pursue a death sentence. Even the juries are designed to support
the death penalty. If a prosecutor seeks capital punishment, then a person who
opposes the death penalty is generally not permitted to serve on that jury. If
that alone isn't problematic enough, the appeals process that is currently in
place is there not to introduce new evidence but to ensure the convicted was
given a fair initial trial. It remains incredibly difficult to introduce new
evidence. This framework favors the death penalty and the will of the
government over protecting the rights of the people.
The current system not only has permitted junk science to be used as evidence,
but the government's willingness to accept, use, and defend unscientific
evidence and unreliable expert testimony is appalling. This has contributed to
major failures and produced wrongful convictions. Even when it is known that
much of the "forensic science" is more of an art than a science, juries have
not been informed of the subjective nature.
The authority to put US citizens to death is an immense power enjoyed by
American governments, and great power opens the door to great abuse. In an
effort to prevent further failures and abuse, the government has implemented
changes to the death penalty process, which make it exorbitantly expensive, to
attempt to limit future catastrophes. Even with these changes, it is still a
failure.
The death penalty's inception may not be based on nefarious schemes and likely
comes out of a desire to ensure justice and safety. However, the government's
monopoly on criminal justice proceedings and its insulation from responsibility
when the system fails, are at the root of the system's failures. If we wish to
limit the power of the state, the state's death penalty may be a good place to
start.
(source: mises.org)
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