June 27
FLORIDA:
Brandon Bradley gets death sentence for Brevard deputy's murder
Brandon Bradley, the man convicted of murdering Brevard County Deputy Barbara
Pill, has been sentenced to death for the 2012 shooting in Melbourne.
Brevard County Judge Morgan Reinman handed down the capital sentence to Bradley
shortly after 1:30 p.m. Friday.
According to Florida Today, Bradley briefly addressed the court before his
sentence was announced.
Bradley: "I just want to say I'm sorry to the family and friends of Deputy
Pill."
(source: mynews13.com)
*********************
Prosecutors to seek death penalty in child's death
Prosecutors will pursue the death penalty for a woman accused of killing her
ex-partner's 2-year-old daughter after leaving a bizarre note citing a Bible
story.
A court filing made by the State Attorney's Office this week announces
prosecutors' intentions regarding 40-year-old Kimberly Lucas, who is jailed
awaiting trial in the May killing.
Lucas is charged with 1st-degree murder in the death of the girl, who was found
in a bathtub, and attempted 1st-degree murder of the child's 10-year-old
brother, who police say was drugged.
In a note found by police, Lucas purportedly cited the Old Testament story of
Abraham, who prepared to kill his son Isaac under orders from God, only to be
told at the last minute to stop.
Lucas' attorney did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
(source: Associated Press)
******************
Jury deliberating death penalty for Andrew Wilson
The jury seated in the Andrew Wilson case is scheduled to return to court
Friday morning to begin deliberating their sentence recommendation. The same
14-person jury convicted Wilson on June 20 for the March 2011 murders of
Patrick Pittman, John McKenzie and the attempted murder of John's daugther
Gabrielle.
Gabrielle and Andrew Wilson had ended a relationship prior to the murders and
shared a young son.
Wilson is now facing either the death penalty or life in prison. Ultimately it
will be up to the judge to decide final sentencing.
(source: WTXL news)
TENNESSEE:
Death penalty sought for man suspected in Campbell County girl's
death----Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for a man accused in the
death of a 3-year-old Campbell County girl
A Campbell County special grand jury indicted Joshua Adam Comer, 33, Tuesday on
1st degree felony murder charges in the death of Gabriella Orton. The girl's
mother, Amber Orton, was arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse.
Both Comer and Orton were in court Friday morning where they each pleaded not
guilty.
The judge says they'll meet again on July 28 in order to schedule a trial date
for Comer and Orton.
Deputies say Joshua Comer took Gabriella Orton to LaFollete Medical Center's
emergency room on June 10. She was pronounced dead shortly after her arrival.
Officials say there was visible evidence of serious physical abuse, but final
autopsy results are still pending.
"The victim in this case was 3-years-old and our decision to seek the death
penalty, her age was a substantial factor," said District Attorney Lori
Phillips-Jones.
At this point, Comer and Orton are on the same indictment, which means they'll
be tried together.
(source: WATE news)
OREGON:
Death penalty opponents ignore facts and voters' wishes: Guest opinion
As a practitioner of capital litigation (someone who actually tries death
penalty cases) for a couple years as a defense attorney and much longer as a
prosecutor, it is interesting to see that every year for the last 2 decades,
some wag will proclaim "the imminent death of the death penalty."
The latest salvo was a piece from a writer for Slate citing 6 reasons (he's
hoping) that public support for the death penalty is waning.
He's wrong on every count. The 2 polls he cites most heavily are the highly
politicized PEW organization and the Gallup polling system. Anyone following
Oregon politics knows that PEW has abandoned any pretense of objectivity and
become an advocacy organization opposed to incarceration and capital
punishment. They declared over 1,000 Oregon inmates "low risk" and suggested
they should be released until Clackamas County District Attorney John Foote
showed that this included 2 people on death row and over 50 convicted of
homicide or attempted homicide.
Gallup isn't biased, but as a trial lawyer or any researcher knows, an answer
to a question depends almost entirely on how it's asked. Gallup has for decades
asked the question about the death penalty in this fashion: "Do you think
murderers should get the death penalty?" As a person who believes it is
necessary to retain the death penalty for serial killers like Dayton Rogers,
Ted Bundy and Wesley Allen Dodd, even I would answer "usually not" to that
question. When the question is asked "Is there ANY crime that could ever merit
the death penalty?" Americans answer yes at rates over 80 %.
In Oregon, and nationally, the death penalty is rarely sought, rarely handed
down by a jury and even more rarely carried out.
But what is missing in the polling analysis is the 1 poll that counts: The
people's votes. In the United States 34 of the 50 states have the possibility
of a death penalty. Some use it more than others. There has not been a single
state since Oregon in 1964 where voters were given the choice and they
abolished the death penalty. In 2012 California, a blue state by every
definition, rejected a vastly over-funded effort to abolish the death penalty
by a decisive margin. In 2006 the voters of Wisconsin, where there hasn't been
a death penalty since the Civil War, voted to reinstate it. The legislature
simply ignored them.
The method of execution is ironically the exact drug veterinarians use to
euthanize beloved pets and, more ironically, the most frequently prescribed
drug in Oregon for physician-assisted suicide. The drug, sodium thiopentol, is
now controlled by a giant European pharmaceutical corporation that wishes to
express its distaste for those of us on this side of the pond.
The author also proposes life without parole (LWOP) as a terrific alternative.
Except the opponents of the death penalty have already succeeded in making it
impossible to give certain classes of murderers LWOP. In a moment of candor in
2001, the national chief of the ACLU refused to commit when asked on NPR
whether the ACLU agreed that LWOP was not cruel and unusual punishment banned
by the 8th Amendment.
The last issue the Slate writer raises is innocence. Yet despite trying to
redefine innocence to include a "not guilty" verdict (news flash: O.J. Simpson
has been exonerated!) or the refusal of the prosecution to retry a case decades
after a conviction, there is literally no one on Oregon's death row who has
even made a claim of actual innocence. The number of documented innocents
executed in the "modern" era of capital punishment (since 1976) is exactly
zero.
Yet the number of innocents murdered by killers released through sloth, escape
and the stupidity of parole boards and bureaucrats can be counted and, more
sadly, named in the hundreds if not thousands. As former Obama friend and
cabinet member Cass Suunstein proposed in a controversial paper in 2005, "how
can you morally justify NOT having the death penalty if in fact it saves the
lives of innocent victims?"
(source: Joshua Marquis is the Clatsop County district attorney and co-author
of "Debating the Death Penalty," published by Oxford University Press. He has
tried and defended capital cases in Oregon for 24 years----The Oregonian)
USA:
Jury declines death penalty, Naeem Williams sentenced to life in prison
Naeem Williams will not die for the violent killing of his daughter, a federal
jury announced on Friday. The former Schofield soldier is instead sentenced to
life in prison.
During the trial, which ended in April when a jury found him guilty of the
murder, Williams admitted to beating 5-year-old Talia Williams every day for
months after gaining custody of the girl.
It was the 1st time in decades that a Hawaii courtroom had hosted a death
penalty trial. The same jury that convicted Williams had deemed him eligible
for the death penalty, since the crime occurred on federal property. However,
the jury of 7 men and 5 women were unable to reach a unanimous decision on the
sentence of death or the the sentence of life without the possibility of
parole, leaving the judge to impose the sentence.
"Naeem Williams will spend the rest of his life in prison without the
possibility of parole. Yes, justice has been served," said Florence Nakakuni,
United States Attorney for the District of Hawaii.
(source: Hawaii News Now)
***************************
Death before Innocence: The truth about America's Death Penalty and the 4.1%
"The rate of erroneous conviction of innocent criminals defendants is often
described as not merely unknown but unknowable" - Samuel Gross.
The 4% of Death Row
Professor Samuel Gross of the University of Michigan Law School recently
conducted a study that indicates more than 4% of the people on death row may be
innocent.
During the week of June 17, 2014, there were 4 executions in 4 states. All of
the inmates were convicted of brutal crimes and to many, the executions meant
that justice was served. But what if even 1 of the 4 was actually innocent?
Prisoners: Stand Up and Be Counted
Gross's study revealed that 1 in 25 death row inmates is likely to be
exonerated and released, putting the number at more than 4% of the death row
population. Gross told the Guardian, "It's a disturbing finding, there are a
large number of people who are sentenced to death, and besides our best
efforts, some of them have been undoubtedly been executed."
Gross applied survival analysis technique, which uses a variety of statistical
devices to calculate the number of cases of hidden innocence. In order to
remain unbiased, he also conducted a sensitivity analysis to see how many
exonerated convicts were guilty.
According to Gross, from 1994 to 2004 there have been 7,482 death row
convictions and 943 executions, and around 2,675 persons have been removed from
death row when their convictions came into question, although only a small
percentage were fully exonerated and released.
Miscarriage of Justice
The miscarriage of justice is quite common in the criminal justice system.
Issues that plague the justice system include:
--False testimonies by eyewitnesses
--Lack of evidence
--Planted evidence by law enforcement officials in a quick attempt to close a
case
--Prosecutors seeking reelection and need convictions to boost their careers
As Gross explained, the rate of exonerations among death sentences in the
United States is much higher than any other criminal sentence. The death
penalty represents less than 1% of prison sentences, but accounts for 12% of
known exonerations from 1989 to 2012, which is a disproportion of 130 to 1.
Death Penalty Cases vs. Other Sentences
People awaiting executions were considerably more likely to receive exoneration
than other sentences. A serious fact that researchers noted is that 95% of
felony convictions in the United States are based on plea agreements through
routine procedure with no evidence submitted. Review of such cases are
extremely rare. Many of those with a felony conviction usually do not have an
attorney after conviction and if they appeal, the appeal is based on a
perfunctory look, not on their innocence or guilt.
There is a difference when it comes to the death penalty however ??? all of
these convictions are based on a jury trial and are reviewed upon appeal and
almost all are repeatedly reviewed. Normally death row prisoners will keep
their attorney for their length of time on death row.
DNA: Making or Breaking it
This study also reviewed prisoners who spent more than 24.1 years on death row,
were not exonerated but were misclassified, resulting in a reduced sentence.
Some prisoners on death row will be cleared and freed, and some will be
executed, but many will remain in prison and die of natural causes or by
suicide.
As Elizabeth Loppato of Forbes Magazine pointed out, since the advent of DNA
testing, there has been no significant difference in death penalty reversals,
as only 18 of 142 exonerations have been due to post-conviction DNA testing.
Death Penalty Debate
Whether or not to abolish the death penalty has been an ongoing debate within
the United States for years. According to a 2009 Gallup poll, 65% of Americans
believe in the death penalty while 31% oppose it, and this trend continues
today.
32 of the 50 states still have the death penalty; there are 3,088 people
awaiting execution.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center: Texas, Florida, Oklahoma and
Ohio had the highest execution rate for 2013. California has the largest number
of death row inmates (741) but has not had an execution since 2006 due to the
lethal injection controversy.
Death Row Demographics
Race is a particular topic of interest in the justice system due to areas of
geography. Since 1976 there have been 771 Whites executed (56%), followed by
Blacks with 477 (34%), Latinos with 110 ( 8%) and finally other with 24 (2%).
The current death row population by race - Whites with 1335 (43.23%), Blacks
with 1,285 (41.61%,) Latino 391 (12.66% ), Other at 77 ( 2.79 %). How many of
these are innocent ?
Where Do We Go From Here?
The risk of someone being executed while innocent is evident. In many cases,
the convicted individual???s innocence is proven after the fact; the fortunate
few are exonerated and freed.
Even though the majority of American citizens are pro-death penalty, there has
been a steady decline of executions performed in recent years and many states
have abolished the practice. Where do you stand?
(source: Dianne Small-Jordan, decodedscience.com)
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