May 28
OHIO:
Judge orders temporary halt to Ohio executions
A federal judge has ordered a 2 1/2-month moratorium on executions in Ohio to
allow time for arguments over the state's new lethal injection procedures.
The order delays executions scheduled for July and August while attorneys
prepare filings about the state's decision to boost the dosages of its lethal
injection drugs.
The 1-page order by Columbus federal judge Gregory Frost on Tuesday affects the
state's latest death penalty policy change, which was announced in late April.
Ohio uses 2 drugs injected simultaneously in executions. The policy change
considerably increases the amount of the sedative and raises the amount of the
painkiller.
The procedure update followed the Jan. 16 execution of Dennis McGuire, who
repeatedly gasped during the record 26 minutes it took him to die
(source: Associated Press)
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Death penalty courses among Siegal summer offerings
A course on Ohio's death penalty will be among the summer offerings at The
Laura and Alvin Siegal Lifelong Learning Program's beginning June 2 at the
Siegal facility in Beachwood.
The course, which will take place on Wednesdays, June 11, 18 and 25, is
entitled, "Ohio's Death Penalty: Recommendations of the American Bar
Association and the Ohio Supreme Court's Death Penalty Task Force." Margery
Koosed will teach the class.
The course is unique to the program because the Supreme Court of Ohio
Commission on Continuing Legal Education has approved it for 2 CLE hours per
session. Attorneys that need continuing legal education could receive up to 6
CLE hours of instruction for an extra fee of $10 per session. The third session
on June 25 for 2 hours of death penalty training.
All classes at Siegal facility, 26500 Shaker Blvd. in Beachwood.
(source: Cleveland Jewish News)
TENNESSEE:
Judge: State may seek death penalty in 4 slayings on Renegade Mountain
An accused killer has lost the 1st round in his bid to stay off death row if
convicted.
A Cumberland County judge Wednesday denied a motion filed by attorneys for
Jacob Allen Bennett, accused of killing 4 young people, that his blurted
admission of guilt during the start of an arraignment should stand.
Defense attorneys in their motion had sought to nix the state's move to seek
the death penalty, which was filed soon afterward.
Judge David Patterson ruled that Bennett's proclamation of his guilt on Sept.
20, 2013, occurred before he was given the opportunity to represent himself,
that Bennett wasn't properly arraigned then and, that as judge, he didn't
accept the plea.
"The court is concerned that the defendant didn't understand what was going
on," Patterson said.
During a reconvened arraignment on Oct. 3, Bennett, 26, was given a
court-appointed attorney, who entered not guilty pleas on the Crab Orchard
man's behalf.
Bennett is accused of shooting 3 teenagers and a young mother to death on a
secluded gravel road on Renegade Mountain, a would-be resort community that has
fallen on hard times. The shootings occurred either late Sept. 11 or early
Sept. 12, 2013, officials said.
The shooting occurred during a botched drug deal involving a quarter-pound of
marijuana, according to records.
Killed were Danielle Rikki Jacobsen, 22, her nephew Domonic Davis, 17, John
Lajeunesse, 16, and Steven Presley, 17.
"I think he (Bennett) ought to be put before a firing squad and done just like
they done our kids," Peggy Davis, grandmother of Steven Presley, said during a
break in the hearing.
Also accused in the case is Bennett's girlfriend, Brittany Lina Yvonn Moser,
25, of Dayton, Tenn. Bennett is charged with 4 counts of premeditated murder, 4
counts of felony murder, and 2 counts of attempted aggravated robbery.
Moser, with Bennett at the time of the killings, is charged with four counts of
felony murder and 2 counts of attempted aggravated robbery.
Deputy District Attorney Gary McKenzie said the state will likely move to have
separate trials for Bennett and Moser.
The judge set an Aug. 13 hearing on other motions in the case and to schedule a
trial date for Bennett, now in maximum security in the Morgan County Regional
Correctional Facility.
"If we can, we'll try to do that (a trial) this year," Patterson said.
(source: Knoxville News Sentinel)
USA:
The Shrinking Death Penalty
12 years after it banned the execution of intellecutally disabled people, the
Supreme Court on Tuesday clarified and thus reaffirmed the essence of its
ruling by striking down a Florida law requiring that defendant claiming that
condition show an I.Q. score of 70 or below.
In 2002, the court held that people with intellectual disabilities were less
culpable because of their "diminshed capacities" to process information,
control their impulses and understand the nature of their crimes. The condition
also made them more likely to give false confessions and less likely to be able
to assist in their own defense.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for a 5-member majority, said that the state's
"rigid rule" violated the Constitution because it "disregards established
medical practice" by taking a test score as the final word on a defendant's
intellectual capacity, and by refusing to consider the imprecision inherent in
such tests.
"Intellectual disability is a condition, not a number," Justice Kennedy wrote.
His opinion relied heavily on the consensus of mental-health professionals that
a diagnosis of intellectual disability depends on both "significantly
subaverage" intellectual functioning and major deficits in adaptive behaviors
like self-care and interpersonal skills.
I.Q. is, they say, an approximate measure of intellectual function, and people
can be disabled even if they score above 70. Florida, Justice Kennedy noted,
did not cite a "single medical professional" who supported the strict cutoff."
Justice Samuel Alito Jr., writing for a 4-member dissent, rejected the
majority's trust in what he called "the views of a small profefssional elite."
The position of groups like the American Psychiatric Association "often
change," Justice Alito warned, which "will lead to instability and continue to
fuel protracted litigation."
That might be a stronger argument if people's lives were not at stake. But as
Justice Kennedy put it, "The death penalty is the gravest sentence our socity
may impose. Persons facing that most severe sanction must have a fair
opportunity to show that the Constitution prohibits their execution."
At its core, the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment
protects "the dignity of all persons," Justice Kennedy wrote, and its
application "reflects the Nation we have been, the Nation we are, and the
Nation we aspire to be." When it comes to the death penalty, that nation is
changing. Since the 2002 decision, the court noted, 6 more states have
abolished the death penalty, for a total of 18 plus the District of Columbia.
Nowhere is the death penlaty being reinstated.
Tuesday's ruling may not affect more than a handful of cases, and capital
punishment's defenders will always have an argument about why this I.Q. test or
that secret lethal-injection protocol comports with the Constitution. But the
tide of history is flowing against them.
(source: Editorial, New York Times)
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