July 19
NEBRASKA:
Judge: Nikko Jenkins not competent for death penalty phase
A judge has ruled Nikko Jenkins is not competent for the death penalty phase of
his case.
The decision comes after at least 2 incidents of self-mutilation in the past 2
months.
There were some key factors on the judge's decision this time.
One was Jenkins' deteriorating mental health.
Douglas County District Judge Peter Bataillon said he weighed the testimony of
7 doctors, 2 of which testified at the last 2 competency hearings, regarding
Jenkins' mental state.
"This Court must be satisfied that the Defendant is competent to proceed with
the sentencing phase of a death penalty case. The fact that this is a death
penalty case heightens the concern and consideration of this Court. Therefore,
based upon evidence before the Court and the recent deterioration of the
Defendant, this Court does not find that the Defendant is competent to proceed
further," Batailon wrote in his ruling.
The judge said, in the end, 2 doctors said he was malingering, while 5 others
said he has a severe mental illness.
The most common diagnosis was schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type.
Bataillon also had concerns because the 2 psychiatrists who said jenkins was
competent also said he had no major illness, leading him to think that could be
in error.
Jenkins will have to be treated before he has his death penalty hearing.
"I have no doubt that he is competent right now. That's obvioulsy the evidence
we put forward. That evidence hasn't changed. In fact, I think it only improved
in the 2nd hearing," said Chief Deputy County Attorney Brenda Beadle.
Beadle said a hearing with a 3-judge panel for the death penalty phase
previously scheduled for Aug. 11 will have to be pushed back.
The ruling also noted Jenkins' competency to stand trial was valid and the
change in competency reflects a dramatic deterioration in his mental condition
in just the past few months.
(source: KMTV news)
COLORADO:
Judge Refuses Sanctions in Mass-Murder Case
The judge in the case of accused mass murderer James Holmes has denied the
defense's call for sanctions against the prosecution, finding no evidence that
prosecutors interfered with the defense.
Holmes pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to 166 criminal counts,
including murder, in the July 20, 2012 massacre at an Aurora, movie theater
midnight premiere of a Batman movie. 12 people were killed and dozens more were
injured.
Prosecutors indicated they will seek the death penalty.
The defense in late June filed a motion in Arapahoe County District Court,
claiming the prosecution was interfering with the defense's investigation by
telling witnesses not to talk to any member of the defense team. They claimed
they had proof, including an email from Arapahoe County Deputy District
Attorney Lisa Teesch-Maguire which the defense claimed "contains significant
factual and legal misrepresentation, clearly discourages victim-witnesses from
speaking with the defense, and constitutes a serious violation of several legal
and ethical rules," the defense motion stated.
The prosecution fired back 2 weeks later, claiming they had sent that email
because members of the defense team were emotionally overwhelming victims while
trying to communicate with them.
On Wednesday, Arapahoe County Judge Carlos Samour published an order denying
the defense calls for sanctions.
"The defendant now asks for severe sanctions, contending that he 'has
documented evidence that the prosecution ... has interfered with defense
preparation, denied the defense equal opportunity to speak to witnesses,
improperly attacked the integrity of the defense, impeded and obstructed
defense counsel's investigation through improper influence, and ... compromised
[the prosecution's role] as an impartial advocate for justice,'" the 37-page
order states. "The defendant asks the Court to preclude the death penalty as a
sanction. In the alternative, the defendant requests that the Court either
prohibit victim impact evidence at any capital sentencing hearing or disqualify
the Arapahoe County District Attorney's Office from this case.
"The Court concluded that none of the drastic sanctions requested is warranted.
The email on which the defendant relies does not establish that the prosecution
has compromised its role as an impartial advocate for justice, interfered with
the defense's preparation, denied the defense equal opportunity to speak to
witnesses, improperly attacked the integrity of defense counsel, or impeded and
obstructed defense counsel's investigation through improper influence.
Nevertheless, in an abundance of caution, to address a concern raised by the
defendant, the Court requires the prosecution to send a clarifying email in
accordance with this order."
This is not the 1st time the defense accused prosecutors of interfering. Last
year, Holmes' attorney filed a similar motion that was dismissed without
prejudice because it could not provide a specific example of interference.
There will be 2 hearings, on July 22 and 23, for a pretrial status conference
and to address several other motions.
Also on Wednesday, Samour pushed back the trial date to December. In compliance
with a pretrial publicity order, neither side is available to comment on the
case.
(source: Courthouse News Service)
ARIZONA----impending execution
Appeals court considers whether to delay execution in Arizona
A federal appeals court on Friday began considering whether to grant a reprieve
in the upcoming execution of an Arizona inmate after his lawyer sought
information about the 2-drug combination that will be used to put him to death.
The request came during a hearing in the case of Joseph Rudolph Wood before the
9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Wood is set to be executed on
Wednesday after being convicted in the deaths of his estranged girlfriend and
her father nearly 25 years ago.
Wood contends his First Amendment rights were violated by the state's refusal
to reveal the drugmakers and other details. An attorney for the state argued
that Wood has no right to the information he is seeking.
The arguments by Wood's attorneys reflect a legal tactic being used in a number
of death penalty cases as states face problems getting lethal-injection drugs.
In the past, states used the same 3-drug combination and didn't have problems
getting access to the drugs until the maker of a sedative used in executions
decided not to make it anymore. States then started to shield the identity of
the drugmakers.
Robin Konrad, an attorney for Wood, said the access to executions that the
public and journalists have received in the past extends to information
connected to the procedure. She also said the information on the drugs is
needed as part of an informed public debate about capital punishment.
"It is not a stretch to ask for the limited information that Mr. Wood has asked
for about the process," Konrad said.
Jeffrey L. Sparks, an attorney for the state, was asked by a judge why Arizona
opposes the release of the information.
"Experience has shown that when this type of information becomes public, it
becomes almost impossible for the state to obtain the drugs it needs," Sparks
said.
It's unclear when the 3-judge panel will issue a ruling.
Concerns about the death penalty have mounted after a botched April 29
execution of an Oklahoma inmate and an incident in January in which an Ohio
inmate snorted and gasped during the 26 minutes it took him to die.
Arizona prison officials intend to administer the same drugs - the sedative
midazolam and painkiller hydromorphone - used in the Ohio execution. A
different drug combination was used in the Oklahoma case.
Wood, 55, is scheduled to be executed in Florence for the August 1989 shooting
deaths of his estranged girlfriend, Debra Dietz, and her father, Eugene Dietz,
at an automotive shop in Tucson.
(source: Associated Press)
CALIFORNIA:
Fiancee of slain Manhattan Beach police officer Martin Ganz recoils at death
penalty ruling
Pam Schultz didn't know what to say July 16 when a caller told her a federal
judge declared the California death penalty unconstitutional in overturning a
1995 case.
She fell silent for a moment, then stammered as she tried to put her thoughts
together, clearly rattled that her fiance's killer might not ever face the
punishment jurors recommended for him in 1998.
"I've always been a firm believer in our justice system, and especially the
jury system and a jury verdict, and what the conclusion that 12 people come to
is a just punishment. And it saddens me that that can change," Schultz said.
She said she never really was sure Roger Hoan Brady would be put to death for
killing her fiance, 29-year-old Manhattan Beach police Officer Martin Ganz, on
Dec. 27, 1993. Brady, a convicted bank robber who was preparing to rob the
Ralphs store on Sepulveda Boulevard, shot Ganz to death when the officer pulled
him over for a traffic violation at the entrance to the Manhattan Village
parking lot. After the wounded officer retreated, Brady chased after him, stood
over him and fired the fatal shots.
In 1998, a Torrance jury that had found Brady guilty recommended that Judge
Stephen O'Neil sentence Brady to death. O'Neil did just that in 1999. Since
then, the state Supreme Court upheld his conviction in 2010, but Brady isn't
close to being executed more than 20 years after he killed Ganz.
Delays are partly why U.S. District Court Judge Cormac Carney ruled the
California death penalty unconstitutional. Calling it dysfunctional and
arbitrary, Carney wrote that the sentence carries a promise with it that it
will be carried out, but it is an empty promise for citizens, jurors, victims
and their loved ones, as well as the inmates on death row.
Schultz said the decision is "almost like a victory on Brady's part, even
though he's not involved in this."
"It's tough because I work for the courts and there's a common-sense part of me
that always knew that even when Brady got the death penalty, he would probably
outlive most of us, just because of the way the system is set up," Schultz
said. "I never really took solace in the fact he was going to die, but I think
it just gave me some little bit of solace that he got the death penalty."
Schultz said the people of California voted for the death penalty, and it
should be the people who vote to change it. 1 person, she said, should not make
the decision for all of California.
"There has to be a way to make it fair for everyone," she said. "Make it fair
for the convict, make it fair for the victim, make it fair for the families.
Death is never fair."
If the state appeals Carney's ruling through the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
and that court affirms the ruling, the ruling would apply throughout the state,
according to former L.A. County District Attorney Gil Garcetti. If the state
does not appeal, the ruling only applies to Jones' case.
(source: The Beach Reporter)
******************
California's death penalty isn't really about death at all
When I was young I opposed the death penalty because I believed that everyone -
even the most brutal killers - had a flicker of humanity that shouldn't be
extinguished.
I'm not so sure about that anymore.
In 3 decades as a reporter I've encountered criminal depravity that's
impossible to forgive, and met families whose lives were ruined by patently
evil deeds. I understand the instinct for vengeance that pain and horror breed.
But I'm still against the death penalty - for reasons more practical and less
naive.
That's why I'm heartened by this week's ruling by an Orange County federal
judge, who declared California's death penalty system so dysfunctional, it
violates the U.S. Constitution.
Judge Cormac J. Carney overturned the death sentence of a Los Angeles man who
has been on death row for almost 20 years for raping and murdering the mother
of his girlfriend. The delays and uncertainty the inmate has endured on the
path to execution constitute cruel and unusual punishment, Carney ruled.
The judge's ruling applies to just that case, and will almost certainly be
appealed. But Carney's detailed dissection of the state's death penalty system
makes its failures clear:
Capital punishment in California has become mired in legal challenges that the
state mandates but doesn't manage properly. That's made death by execution so
random and rare, it's little more than an empty threat.
The system has become such a charade that convicted killers are asking juries
to sentence them to death; the cells are bigger, the privileges are better and
death row prisoners are more likely to die of natural causes than from an
executioner's lethal injection.
Since 1978, when California voters approved the death penalty, more than 900
individuals have been sent to death row. But only 13 have been executed in
those 36 years.
Most are still slogging through an appeals process that takes about 25 years to
complete. That's twice as long as the national average and has given California
the country's largest death row population - nearly 750 inmates.
We'd have to kill someone every week for the next 14 years just to clear death
row of its current detainees.
California hasn't put anyone to death since 2006, when a federal judge ordered
executions halted until the state reforms its lethal injection protocol. That's
stalled and could take years.
In the meantime, public support for the practice seems to be fading. For
decades, polls showed that 2/3 of Californians supported capital punishment.
But in a 2012 election almost 1/2 the state's voters - 48% - were willing to
scrap the death penalty in favor of life without parole.
Economics undoubtedly drive some of that shift. Taxpayers have spent more than
$4 billion on capital punishment since 1978. That translates to $308 million
for every execution.
The ruling stated that the system is broken and needs to be fixed. Let's look
forward to November. There's suppose to be a prop to speed up the process to
put these criminals to death faster. That's what the state needs. Not the
hand-wringing by Banks and other Libs.
The state's tab for security and legal representation for the condemned adds
$184 million to the budget each year. It would cost an extra $85 million
annually to remedy the delays cited in Carney's ruling.
California law requires death sentences be automatically reviewed by the state
Supreme Court; inmates can also file appeals in other state and federal courts.
But they often wait years to be assigned an attorney. Public defenders are
overloaded and there aren't enough private lawyers prepared to handle
high-stakes appeals.
That's transformed a death sentence "into one no rational jury or legislature
could ever impose," Carney wrote. "Life in prison, with the remote possibility
of death."
That makes a mockery of a penalty that the U.S. Supreme Court declared a
righteous "expression of society's moral outrage at particularly offensive
conduct."
Exhibit A is serial killer Richard Ramirez, who raped, murdered and mutilated
13 people during the months-long Night Stalker rampage that terrorized Southern
California in the mid-1980s. Ramirez mocked his victims and crowed about his
crimes in the courtroom. He was sentenced to death in 1989.
It took 17 years for his initial appeal to reach the court. He died in June
2013 - from cancer, not lethal injection - 24 years into his death row stint,
with legal challenges still pending.
The appeals aren't the problem. In fact, they are a moral necessity. In more
than half the California cases reviewed by federal courts, inmates' death
sentences were voided.
Dozens of death row inmates across the country have been freed because evidence
supported their innocence. For others, that evidence surfaced too late, after
they'd been put to death.
That's what grounds my opposition to executions. Our justice system is not
perfect; it's tilted against the poor, riddled with racial bias, dependent on
the judgment of fallible human beings. The death penalty, even long-delayed,
leaves no room for human error.
Yes, California voters approved it. But they also voted to deny gays and
lesbians the right to marry and undocumented children the right to attend
public schools.
Sometimes we need to reconsider our ballot box decisions. It's time to give up
the pretense; we're not executing anyone. A sentence of life without parole
would be more honest and less expensive.
We've created a system that's not just unconstitutionally arbitrary and cruel
to inmates. It's an insult to jurors who sit through heart-wrenching testimony
and agonize over their verdicts; to victims who rely on the finality of
punishment for moral and emotional closure; to taxpayers who've invested
billions in a system that's fundamentally broken.
We don't have a death penalty in California. We only have a death row. Is that
really what we want?
(source: Sandy Banks, Los Angeles Times)
OREGON:
Is Oregon's death penalty as 'cruel and unusual' as California's?
Oregon death penalty foes found a lot to like in a federal court decision
handed down this week in California.
U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney vacated the death sentence of Ernest
Dewayne Jones, condemned to death on April 7, 1995, ruling that capital
punishment in California violates the constitutional right of prisoners not to
be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.
Carney's Wednesday ruling noted that more than 900 prisoners have been
sentenced to die in California since 1978, but only 13 have been executed.
"For the rest," Carney wrote, "the dysfunctional administration of California's
death penalty system has resulted, and will continue to result, in an
inordinate and unpredictable period of delay preceding their actual execution.
Indeed, for most, systemic delay has made their execution so unlikely that the
death sentence carefully and deliberately imposed by the jury has been
transformed into one no rational jury or legislature could ever impose: life in
prison, with the remote possibility of death."
Jeff Ellis, a criminal defense attorney on the board of Oregonians for
Alternatives to the Death Penalty, boiled the order down in a dozen words:
"California has nothing on Oregon. Our death penalty system is even worse."
Ellis noted that Oregon has executed just 2 men - both volunteers, both
executed in the late 1990s after waiving their appeals - since the latest
incarnation of capital punishment was passed into state law.
"Of the individuals currently under a death sentence in Oregon, 8 have been on
death row for over 25 years," Ellis wrote. "The last person to die on death row
was Gary Zweigert in 2013. He died of natural causes.
"In reality, Oregon pays for the most expensive version of life in prison
imaginable. It is the opposite of being smart on crime."
Death penalty advocates also find fault in Oregon's law, blaming sloth by the
state Supreme Court and Gov. John Kitzhaber's moratorium on capital punishment
for the delays.
No matter where you stand on capital punishment, it will be interesting to see
if judges in the U.S. District of Oregon find themselves poring through the
appeals of prisoners arguing the Eighth Amendment points raised by Ernest
Dewayne Jones.
(source: The Oregonian)
USA:
The death penalty is incompatible with human dignity
I have wondered countless times over the past 30 years whether I would live to
see the end of the death penalty in the United States. I now know that day will
come, and I believe that the current Supreme Court will be its architect.
In its ruling in Hall v. Florida in May, the court - with Justice Anthony M.
Kennedy at the helm - reminded us that the core value animating the Eighth
Amendment's cruel and unusual punishments clause is the preservation of human
dignity against the affront of unnecessarily harsh punishment. Hall, which
prohibited a rigid test in use in Florida for gauging whether a defendant is
intellectually disabled, was the most recent in a series of opinions in which
the court has juxtaposed retribution - the idea of vengeance for a wrongdoing,
which serves as the chief justification for the death penalty - with a
recognition of our hopelessly complex and fallible human nature.
What was important about Hall is the way Kennedy described the logic behind
exempting intellectually disabled individuals from execution: "to impose the
harshest of punishments on an intellectually disabled person violates his or
her inherent dignity as a human being" because the "diminished capacity of the
intellectually disabled lessens moral culpability and hence the retributive
value of the punishment." Though the court previously barred imposition of the
death penalty upon intellectually disabled people, as well as juvenile
offenders, Hall marked the 1st time that it went so far as to claim that
imposing the death penalty upon offenders with these kinds of functional
impairments serves "no legitimate penological purpose."
This is why I see an end coming to the death penalty in this country. The
overwhelming majority of those facing execution today have what the court
termed in Hall to be diminished culpability. Severe functional deficits are the
rule, not the exception, among the individuals who populate the nation's death
rows. A new study by Robert J. Smith, Sophie Cull and Zoe Robinson, published
in Hastings Law Journal, of the social histories of 100 people executed during
2012 and 2013 showed that the vast majority of executed offenders suffered from
one or more significant cognitive and behavioral deficits.
1/3 of the offenders had intellectual disabilities, borderline intellectual
function or traumatic brain injuries, a similarly debilitating impairment. For
example, the Texas Department of Corrections determined that Elroy Chester had
an IQ of 69. He attended special education classes throughout school and never
functioned at a higher level than 3rd grade. The state had previously enrolled
Chester into its Mentally Retarded Offenders Program. Despite these findings,
Texas executed him on June 12, 2013.
More than 1/2 of the 100 had a severe mental illness such as schizophrenia,
post-traumatic stress disorder or psychosis. For example, for more than 40
years, Florida's own psychiatrists found that John Ferguson suffered from
severe mental illness. Ferguson had a fixed delusion that he was the "Prince of
God" who could not be killed and would rise up after his execution and fight
alongside Jesus to save the United States from a communist plot. When Ferguson
was executed on Aug. 5, 2013, his last words were: "I just want everyone to
know that I am the Prince of God and I will rise again." A Florida court had
called Mr. Ferguson's delusions "normal Christian beliefs."
Many other executed offenders endured unspeakable abuse as children. Consider
Daniel Cook, whose mother drank alcohol and abused drugs while she was pregnant
with him. His mother and grandparents molested him as a young child, and his
father physically abused him by, for example, lighting a cigarette and using it
to burn Daniel's genitals. Eventually the state placed Daniel in foster care,
but the abuse didn't stop. A foster parent chained him nude to a bed and raped
him while other adults watched from the next room through a 1-way mirror. The
prosecutor responsible for Cook's death sentence stood behind him during the
clemency process, telling authorities that he would have taken the death
penalty off of the table had he known of his torturous childhood. Arizona
refused to commute Cook's sentence, however, and he died by lethal injection on
Aug. 8, 2012.
As the execution of Elroy Chester, John Ferguson, Daniel Cook and many more
like them illustrates, barring the death penalty for intellectually disabled
and juvenile offenders did not solve the death penalty's dignity problem.
Rather, those cases gave us cause to look more closely at the people whom we
execute. And when you look closely, what you find is that the practice of the
death penalty and the commitment to human dignity are not compatible.
(source: Opinion; Charles J. Ogletree Jr. is a professor at Harvard Law
School----Washington Post)
******************
Here's Why 2014 Has Been a Big Year for the Death Penalty Debate
Capital punishment remains a controversial practice, but one that remains in
the U.S. despite its removal in other nations. That said, public opinion has
changed over the last few decades, and while there's still a majority in
support of capital punishment, the numbers are dropping. Pew Research put
approval at 78 % in 1996 and 55 % in 2013, and Gallup was slightly higher with
80 % approval in 1994 and 60 % in 2013.
However, 2014 has seen major attention drawing legal efforts on behalf of death
penalty cases. The most recent ruling highlights one of the biggest systematic
problems with our death penalty process - and it's no longer about public
opinion, at least in California. It's back to the basics of cruel and unusual
punishment, but instead of focusing on the method of execution, the California
District Court case is instead looking at the wait time - the delay before
death rather than death itself.
The case was brought by petitioner Ernest Dewayne Jones who, in 1995, was
sentenced to death. Jones is still being held in wait, with no idea if or when
his execution will take place. The order, from Judge Cormac J. Carney, finding
California's death penalty system unconstitutional, noted that 900 people have
been sentenced to death since 1978 and only 13 of those 900 have been put to
death. More inmates on death row have died from suicide or other natural causes
than have been executed as per their sentencing. "Systemic delay has made their
execution so unlikely that the death sentence carefully and deliberately
imposed by the jury has been quietly transformed into one no rational jury or
legislature could ever impose: life in prison, with the remote possibility of
death," write Carney.
Based on the Condemned Inmate Summary List as of June 2014, the court finds
that 40 % of inmates awaiting execution - Jones being one of them - have been
waiting for more than 19 years, and as the size grows, the wait time and delays
are exacerbated. Elisabeth A. Semel, director of the death penalty clinic at
Berkley University of California law school, told The New York Times that the
case would likely be referenced in cases to follow, both in California and in
other U.S. states. She said Carney's decision is "a stunningly important and
unprecedented ruling," and calls the opinion both "factually dense" and
"well-reasoned." Even so, she believes the ruling is almost certainly going to
see state appeal at the Ninth Circuit level.
A botched lethal injection earlier this year also drew national attention to
the issue of capital punishment, specifically on the drugs being administered
today. Clayton Lockett, the inmate in question, survived 43 minutes longer than
the drugs should have allowed him to, and died after convulsions of a heart
attack. Madeline Cohen, an Oklahoma assistant federal public defender, said
that people feel little need to give people like Lockett "a human death when
they didn't give their victim a humane death," but that "states have turned to
secrecy in the face of drug shortages," according to Tulsa World.
Drug shortages are in part a result of the fact that overseas drug companies
are hesitant to ship drugs to the U.S. with the knowledge that said drug might
be used for executions. Sodium thiopental - the drug used to render the person
unconscious before pancuronium bromide stops their breathing and potassium
chloride is administered to stop their heart - is no longer produced in the
U.S., with American companies concerned that business with European companies
might suffer as a result. However, lawsuits on that front have not yielded the
sort of ruling for systematic change as we see in Carney's decision.
Whether the ruling will actually survive an appeal to a higher court is
arguable, and Semel admits, according to Time, that "prosecutors will argue
that the order does not have the effect of 'automatically' invalidating the
death penalty in the ceases of other individuals who have been sentenced to
death or who are facing capital prosecution." Even so, should it stand, the
ruling would be a major weapon in anti-death-penalty arsenals, or at the very
least will demand reform to the present system. This is a positive step towards
prison reform, but arguably will push systematic improvements in one area,
potentially at the cost of other areas needing attention and affecting much
larger groups of inmates. Reallocation of resources and funds in the already
taxed correctional system will be necessary. Even so, the ruling may spark
change within the system that has been a long time and coming, even if it
doesn't change the status of capital punishment within the United States as
some might hope.
(source: Wallstcheatsheet.com)
****************
Life in Prison, With the Remote Possibility of Death
On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that California's use of capital punishment
was unconstitutional because the system was excessively arbitrary.
The arbitrariness that United States District Court Judge Cormac Carney
highlighted is not that too many prisoners are being executed with insufficient
due process, but that prisoners on death row are rarely executed, and when
executions do occur, it is only after a lengthy and unpredictable delay.
This is unconstitutional, he argues, because a system "where so many are
sentenced to death but only a random few are actually executed" is so arbitrary
as to violate the Eighth Amendment's protections against "cruel and unusual
punishments."
Judge Carney's ruling calls into question a delicate political equilibrium that
allows the public both to demand that their lawmakers pledge fealty to the
death penalty when running for election, while not actually having to stomach
the enormous number of executions that a systematic program of capital
punishment would entail. The result is that death penalty statutes remain on
the books in most states as death row continues to expand, yet relatively few
are actually executed.
An Excessively Arbitrary Punishment? Prisoners on death row are rarely
executed. Many die of natural causes while waiting.
Some numbers put all this in perspective. The F.B.I. reports there were 14,827
cases of homicide or non-negligent manslaughter in 2012, of which 11,298
occurred in jurisdictions that have the death penalty. Research indicates that
around one-fifth to a quarter of these homicides were for capital-eligible
crimes, suggesting there were around 2,500 capital-eligible homicides in 2012,
which is both high by global standards and much lower than in previous decades.
Yet there were only 45 executions last year. When fewer than one in 50
capital-eligible homicides leads to the death chamber, it is clear that capital
punishment is rare.
Capital punishment is not only rare, but it's also an extraordinarily long and
drawn-out process. In total, there were 3,033 prisoners on death row at the end
of 2012. The fact that so many receive death sentences but so few are killed
tells us that many prisoners are living decades on death row.
A simple thought experiment makes the point: If a death sentence puts you at
the back of the queue of 3,000 prisoners to be executed, and only 50 people are
executed each year, then it would take you, on average, 60 years to reach the
front of the line. Not surprisingly, many die of natural causes while waiting
their turn.
The rate of executions is sufficiently low relative to the number of death
sentences handed out that the economists Lawrence Katz, Steven Levitt and Ellen
Shustorovich have calculated that "the execution rate on death row is only
twice the death rate from accidents and violence among all American men." Once
you take account of the violent life circumstances of many murderers, they
argue, death row may actually be safer than life on the street.
The numbers are particularly striking in California, where over 900 people have
been sentenced to death since 1978, with only 13 executions. 94 of these
prisoners have died of other causes (suicide or natural causes), while 39
others were released from death row.
Although California is a particularly striking example, it's by no means an
exception. Pennsylvania has 185 prisoners on death row but hasn't executed any
since 1999.
Even in the states with active death chambers, the pattern isn't that
different. Florida had 403 prisoners on death row in 2012 but executed only 3
of them. Although Texas is the most active executioner, it still only executed
15 of the 290 people on death row. The closest we have to exceptions are
Oklahoma and Mississippi, which each executed 6 prisoners, from relatively
small death row populations of 55 and 49. In a typical year, fewer than a dozen
of the 32 states with active death penalty statutes will perform any
executions.
And so we continue with our odd political compromise of sending people to death
row, but rarely executing them. The result, as Judge Carney observed, is that
in the United States, the death sentence is effectively a sentence of "life in
prison, with the remote possibility of death."
(source: Op-Ed; Justin Wolfers is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution
and professor of economics and public policy at the University of
Michigan----New York Times)
****************
Does America Execute the Innocent? You Decide
Every day now, myths about the death penalty explode.
Glenn Ford's exoneration in March, after 30 years on Louisiana's death row,
gave the lie to 2 urban legends: There are no innocent people on death row, and
if a death-row prisoner were innocent, we would set him free right away and
compensate him generously for his lost years.
In April, Oklahoma's gruesomely induced heart attack on a sentient and
terrified Clayton Lockett did in another myth: When we execute bad guys, it's
quick and painless.
Then there's the whopper that the Supreme Court exposed in May: The nation no
longer executes mentally disabled inmates. Florida, it turns out, continues to
do exactly that.
A June Washington Post/ABC News poll brought down another shibboleth: The
public supports the death penalty. In fact, a majority prefer life without
parole to executions.
Still, one seemingly soothing claim about the death penalty persists. Yes, some
capital-defense lawyers are obviously incompetent, and their clients are
seriously mentally challenged. Yes, prosecutors sometimes hide evidence of
innocence. Yes, some defendants are put on death row by erroneous eyewitness
identifications. And, yes, every so often, a death-row inmate turns out to be
innocent. But, because of painstaking appeals and clemency reviews, no innocent
person is ever executed.
A few years ago, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia proclaimed this assurance
"from the rooftops," and it still stands today.
But before accepting Scalia's guarantee, consider Carlos DeLuna, the subject of
The Wrong Carlos, a book colleagues and I recently published following an
exhaustive investigation of his criminal case and subsequent execution.
Texas sentenced Carlos DeLuna to die for the murder of a convenience-store
clerk in 1983. DeLuna's attorney had never before tried a felony case, and he
got no help from DeLuna, who was too mentally disabled to have made it through
the 8th grade.
The key evidence against DeLuna was an identification by an Anglo eyewitness
who later said he couldn't tell one Hispanic person from another. The witness
admitted he was only 50 % sure when police brought him face-to-face with DeLuna
in a dark parking lot at night, but, terrified, he ID'd DeLuna as the killer
anyway.
DeLuna testified that he had seen another Carlos - Carlos Hernandez - wrestling
with the victim moments before she died. But DeLuna was violating parole for an
earlier crime, so he ran away when he heard police sirens, only to be swept up
in the manhunt that followed. Prosecutors told the jury that they looked high
and low for Carlos Hernandez and determined that DeLuna had invented him. As
DeLuna's case raced through the appellate and clemency process, state attorneys
also assured the judge and governor that Carlos Hernandez didn't exist.
But he did exist. As the homicide detective and a prosecutor in DeLuna's case
knew, Hernandez had already knifed one woman to death, and he later confessed
to doing the same to another woman, though he never was convicted of either
crime. Only months before DeLuna was executed, Hernandez came within an inch of
killing a neighbor with a knife.
All these victims - including the convenience-store clerk Carlos DeLuna was
executed for killing - were poor, young, Hispanic women whom Hernandez had
romantically pursued.
Immediately after the clerk's murder, and for years afterwards, Hernandez told
family and friends that he had killed her and let his "tocayo" - his twin -
"take the rap." The 2 Carloses were the same height and weight. Relatives
described them as dead "ringers" for each other and repeatedly mistook pictures
of 1 for the other.
With Carlos Hernandez still prowling the streets of Corpus Christi, Carlos
DeLuna was executed on Dec. 7, 1989. Several minutes into his "lethal
injection" - long after he was supposed to be unconscious and unfeeling, and as
a painful, heart-attack-inducing drug began flowing into his veins - DeLuna sat
up. Just as Clayton Lockett did in April, DeLuna fearfully looked an attending
witness in the eye.
Informed of the Columbia investigation, the district attorney in DeLuna's case
wrote in the Houston Chronicle that he had come "face to face with the hard
truth" that he had been "involved in the execution of a man who may well have
been innocent."
No innocent person is ever executed. Don't take my word for whether this last
remaining assurance about the death penalty is the biggest lie of all. Our book
about DeLuna just presents the facts. Every claim made is supported by primary
sources linked on our website, where you can read them for yourself.
You decide.
(source: James S. Liebman; Simon H. Rifkind Professor of Law, Columbia Law
School----Huffington Post)
US MILITARY:
Airman charged with killing AFN broadcaster could face death
The American airman accused of killing Petty Officer 2nd Class Dmitry Chepusov
could face the death penalty if his case goes to trial, military officials said
Friday.
Staff Sgt. Sean M. Oliver is charged with premeditated murder for allegedly
strangling Chepusov, an American Forces Network broadcaster and Oliver's
colleague, with his hands at the house of another AFN airman in December.
Chepusov's body was found in the passenger seat of Oliver's car early in the
morning of Dec. 14, after German police pulled Oliver over for driving
erratically in Kaiserslautern.
Oliver, who worked as a broadcast engineer at AFN and had been romantically
linked to Chepusov's wife, appeared in court Friday at Ramstein for an Article
32 hearing, the military equivalent of a civilian grand jury. He was charged in
March.
Investigating officer Lt. Col. Christopher Leavey, who presided over the
hearing and heard more than 6 hours of testimony Friday, will recommend whether
Oliver should face a court-martial, on what specific charges and whether the
death penalty should be sought. The convening authority, Lt. Gen. Darryl
Roberson, will make the final decision, lawyers for the government said.
In addition to murder, Oliver is charged with making 2 false official
statements, aggravated assault and 2 counts of obstructing justice.
Another AFN broadcast engineer, Army Spc. Cody A. Kramer, could also be tried
for his alleged involvement in Chepusov's death. Prosecutors alleged at
Kramer's Article 32 hearing in April that he helped Oliver plan and carry out
the murder and assisted Oliver in trying to cover it up.
Kramer did not testify Friday.
Leavey heard testimony from Maj. Dori Mitchell Franco, an Army pathologist and
the Armed Forces regional medical director.
Franco performed an autopsy on Chepusov's body on Dec. 20, after German medical
examiners had conducted an initial autopsy. Franco concluded Chepusov died from
injuries to the head and neck "consistent with strangulation."
But she testified that the procedure was hindered by German authorities'
decision not to turn over a part of Chepusov's throat. She also said she was
not able to collect any DNA evidence because her autopsy was conducted a week
after Chepusov's death.
On the night that he died, Chepusov was at Air Force Staff Sgt. Thomas
Skinkle's apartment in Kaiserslautern with Skinkle, Oliver, Kramer and Air
Force Staff Sgt. Shao-Lung Ping. Skinkle and Ping also worked at the AFN office
on Ramstein.
The group had been drinking at a downtown bar before going to Skinkle's house
to celebrate Skinkle's birthday.
Oliver changed his story twice about what happened that night, according to
testimony. He initially said he put Chepusov in his car after finding him
walking "like a zombie" around Kaiserslautern and that he did not know that he
was dead when he was stopped by German authorities. He later said he pushed
Chepusov at Skinkle's and that Chepusov hit his head and was knocked out,
according to the lead investigator on the case, Deric Hiscock of the Air Force
Office of Special Investigations.
Oliver, according to Hisock, said that he put Chepusov in the bathroom and that
when he went back to get him, Chepusov attacked him, so Oliver strangled him to
try and subdue him. Oliver told Hiscock that he felt Chepusov was still alive
when he put him into the car, Hiscock testified.
Ping testified that he saw Chepusov lying limp on the kitchen floor while
Oliver kicked him twice in the side like a soccer ball. He later left the
apartment; he didn't see Chepusov again and didn't ask Oliver about him.
Ping didn't disclose he was at the apartment that night until three weeks
later, when military investigators contacted him.
Leavey asked him why he didn't come forward after learning the next day that
Chepusov was dead.
"I was afraid," Ping said.
"What were you afraid of?" Leavey asked.
"Reprisals. Getting in trouble because I was there," he said.
Chepusov's wife, Karla Alejandra Zolezzi, who now lives in Brownsville, Texas,
testified that Chepusov had asked for a divorce and that he consented to her
relationship with Oliver.
She said she didn't recall who said "wouldn't you want Dmitry to be in an
accident?" while dining with Skinkle, Kramer and Oliver days before Chepusov's
death.
(source: Stars & Stripes)
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