Nov. 11
OHIO:
Ohio lawmakers looking to keep execution drug sources secret
State lawmakers are preparing to introduce legislation to address legal
concerns about Ohio's administration of the death penalty, likely including
language to keep secret the names of sources of execution drugs.
Republican House Speaker Bill Batchelder and Republican Senate President Keith
Faber mentioned the potential law changes during a post-election conference in
Columbus Thursday, where they discussed legislation that could be passed by the
two chambers before the end of the year.
"We are looking at language in that area," Batchelder said concerning capital
punishment. "That may come up before we go home."
Faber added, "We anticipate that we're going to work with the attorney general
and the prosecutors on trying to get something done on that."
Batchelder said the legislation has been drafted, and he anticipated its
introduction in coming days. He declined to offer specifics about what would be
included in the bill, though he said it would address issues that have arisen
from court decisions related to the death penalty.
"We have a problem in the sense that some of the federal judges have held that
our existing system does not provide due process safeguards for those who have
been convicted of homicide," he said.
Executions have been on hold for most of the year, after a federal judge stayed
scheduled lethal injections while state prison officials consider changes to
the execution process.
In August, U.S. District Court Judge Gregory L. Frost ruled "the state of Ohio
and any person acting on its behalf is hereby stayed from implementing an order
of execution of any Ohio inmate issued by any court of the state of Ohio until
Jan. 15, 2015 or until further order from the court."
Frost issued a comparable stay earlier in the year, following the prolonged
death of Dennis McGuire in January and a subsequent decision by the Department
of Rehabilitation and Correction to increase the dosage of 2 drugs used in
lethal injections.
McGuire, who received a capital sentence for the rape and murder of a pregnant
Preble County woman, was the first inmate executed using a new 2-drug
combination. The process took about 25 minutes, and witnesses described him
gasping for breath.
State prison officials who reviewed his execution said McGuire was "asleep and
not conscious" and "did not experience pain, distress or air hunger" during his
lethal injection.
The next scheduled execution, pending additional delays, will be Ronald
Phillips Feb. 11. Phillips, who was convicted in the 1993 rape and murder of a
3-year-old girl in Akron, was originally scheduled for execution last year, but
Kasich temporarily postponed the lethal injection after the inmate asked to
determine whether he could donate organs to ailing family members.
Drug Issue
Under execution protocols adopted last year, state prison officials could
purchase lethal injection mixtures from so-called compounding pharmacies - a
change that was made after the manufacturer of such drugs refused to sell them
for use in executions.
But Attorney General Mike DeWine said last month state prison officials have
had difficulties finding pharmacies willing to provide the state's lethal
injection drug because they don't want to be identified publicly.
"This is something that the legislature has to look at," DeWine said last
month.
The legislation to be considered by lawmakers in coming weeks could call for
the names of companies that sell execution drugs to the state to be kept
private.
"I think the general idea is to let the department of corrections acquire those
things in private and not to have to disclose publicly where they're getting
their drugs from," Faber said. "Who they buy their drugs from I don't think is
necessarily relevant to what their mission is."
He added, "As long as Ohio has a capital punishment, we need to make sure it's
carried out fully, fairly and in consistency with the law. So that's going to
be our question."
Another possibility would be allowing the import of execution drugs from
overseas, Batchelder said.
(source: The Daily Record)
********************
Rufus Gray indicted on aggravated murder charges in slaying of 12-year-old
stepdaughter
A Cuyahoga County grand jury Monday indicted Rufus Gray on charges of killing
his 12-year-old stepdaughter Oct. 30.
The indictment charges Gray, 59, of Cleveland, with aggravated murder,
attempted murder, felonious assault, aggravated burglary, domestic violence and
possessing weapons while a convicted felon. He will appear in Cuyahoga County
Common Pleas Court on Friday for his 1st appearance.
County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty's office is expected to consider filing
additional charges that could bring the death penalty. An internal committee of
the prosecutor's office considers slayings that could bring the death penalty.
The committee then makes a recommendation to McGinty, who ultimately decides.
Davia Garth and her mother, Sonya, were in their Clement Avenue home preparing
to watch the Cavs' home opener Oct. 30. That's when authorities say Gray
barreled into the home and began shooting.
Sonya Garth, 45, also was struck. She filed for divorce from Gray in April
after 4 years of marriage. The indictment accused Gray of assaulting 2 others
in the home, a 24-year-old man and a 3-year-old boy.
Just 5 days before the Davia's slaying, Gray had just been released from
probation for a 2012 felony domestic violence conviction that also involved an
attack on Sonya Garth.
Garth told police that Gray threatened to kill her several times, The Plain
Dealer reported Sunday.
"If I can't have you, no one can have you," Garth told police her husband
shouted as they drove down a city street last month. "I'm going to crash this
car into a pole and f------ kill you."
Prosecutors claimed Gray is a repeat violent offender. In the indictment, they
included a 1989 conviction of voluntary manslaughter. He pleaded guilty to
charges involving the slaying of a security guard at CMHA, who had tried to
break up a fight. He was sentenced to 7 to 25 years in prison.
He spent 14 years in prison, a state prison spokesman said. He was released in
December 2003.
McGinty's office will consider three criteria in deciding whether to bring
death-penalty charges: Does it fit the letter and spirit of the law? Would a
reasonable jury return a guilty verdict? And would it be worth the resources to
spend 15 to 20 years fighting appeals?
Since 2012, when McGinty took office, prosecutors have filed 3 death-penalty
cases. 2 cases - Hernandez Warren and James McAlpine - ended in guilty pleas.
They were sentenced to life in prison. Warren was convicted in May of killing
14-year-old Gloria Pointer in 1984, while McAlpine was convicted of 2 slayings
in 2012.
The other case involved Michael Madison, who is charged in the deaths of 3
women in East Cleveland. His case is pending.
******************
Death-penalty reform bill would protect execution drug makers, physicians who
testify
Makers of Ohio's lethal-injection drugs would be kept anonymous, and physicians
who testify about the state's execution method couldn't have their medical
license revoked, under House legislation introduced Monday.
Attorney General Mike DeWine has said that lawmakers need to pass the reforms
if Ohio is to resume executions next year, once a court-ordered moratorium
ends.
Ohio, along with many other states, has been struggling to settle on an
execution method, as many large pharmaceutical companies have refused to
continue selling drugs used for lethal injection. The state's current 2-drug
cocktail is being challenged in court and has been used in controversial
executions in Ohio and Arizona.
House Bill 663 would keep secret the identities of compounding pharmacies,
small-scale drug manufacturers that create individual doses of lethal-injection
drugs on demand. The proposed change is a sign that state officials could turn
to compounding pharmacies for lethal-injection drugs that courts have upheld
but that larger companies have stopped selling, such as pentobarbital.
Another proposed change in the bill would prevent the Ohio State Medical
Association from revoking or suspending the license of any physician who
provides expert testimony on the state's death penalty. Such immunity is
needed, supporters say, because the state is worried that doctors will refuse
to testify in defense of Ohio's lethal-injection protocol for fear that they'll
run afoul of medical ethics.
Since last fall, Ohio's lethal-injection drugs of choice have been a
combination of midazolam, a sedative, and hydromorphone, a morphine derivative.
When the 2 drugs were first used in January, Preble County murderer Dennis
McGuire was seen gasping, choking and clenching his fists while taking an
unexpectedly long 25 minutes to die. McGuire's family has filed a lawsuit
demanding that the state stop using the 2 drugs in executions.
House Speaker Bill Batchelder, a Medina Republican, and Senate President Keith
Faber, a Celina Republican, each said last week they plan to pass the
legislation.
"That is something that we cannot leave in abeyance, otherwise we're going to
have people who pass away prior to execution," Batchelder said.
Republican Reps. Jim Buchy of Greenville and Matt Huffman of Lima are
sponsoring the legislation.
(source for both: Cleveland.com)
TENNESSEE:
DA in Decatur County building team to focus on death penalty cases
Decatur County's district attorney is building a 1st-of-its-kind Capital
Litigation division for District 24 that will focus on death penalty murder
cases.
Matt Stowe said his office has not decided if he will seek the death penalty in
the Holly Bobo murder case against Zachary Adams and Jason Autry, but he has
already hired an attorney who has experience in death penalty cases in the
event they do.
Adams and Autry are charged in the April 2011 kidnapping and murder of Bobo.
Stowe told News 2 he and other attorneys in his office are working 100 hour
weeks on the Bobo case and working closely with the Bobo family to determine if
prosecutors will seek the death penalty.
"It would be very difficult to file a death penalty notice if you didn't have
all of the attorneys prepared that would be ready to see that notice all the
way through to the end,??? Stowe said.
The district attorney said there are a number of cases that could qualify for
capital prosecution along with Bobo's case, which is why he is assembling a
team to tackle those specialized prosecutions.
The division will have 5 to 6 attorneys, a mix of full-time, part-time and
consulting.
1 attorney is already hired, but Stowe did not say on which case.
"This is one of the most dangerous districts in the state because it is rampant
meth problems and people who solve their problems with violence," he said. "Our
average person probably doesn't think about the death penalty every day. They
don't think about it."
Stowe said the division should be complete in about a month.
The Bobo case is still very active and more arrests are expected, according to
Stowe.
"Every week as I work on this case, I am surprised at something that is
uncovered," he explained. "I will try this case in court and expect there to be
a number of twists and turns as we seek justice."
He continued, "At the end of the day, my priority is the victims and their
families."
Dylan Adams, Zach's younger brother, is charged with 2 counts of rape against
Bobo following her abduction.
Both Dylan and Zach Adams, along with Jason Autry, are expected to be back in
court in December.
(source: WKRN news)
INDIANA:
Housing fraud probe uncovers links to suspect in police officer's murder
When Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD) officers and agents of
the HUD Office of the Inspector General raided Latosha Ruffin's apartment last
month, they expected to find evidence of public housing fraud.
What they found were links between Ruffin and her boyfriend, accused killer
Major Davis II.
Davis faces the death penalty for the July 5th murder of IMPD Patrolman Perry
Renn behind a residence in the Indianapolis Housing Authority's Section 8
program.
Though an investigation into housing fraud and internal theft was underway last
spring, the probe took off following the murder of officer Renn.
Ruffin is the mother of Davis' children and claimed in March that her fiance
was in prison and unable to provide her any financial help in raising the
family thereby qualifying her for public housing assistance.
Evidence seized in the October 9 raid of Ruffin's apartment at Beechwood
Garden, an IHA property on the east side, cast doubt on her claim.
"Latosha Ruffin signed and submitted a false statement regarding child support
compensation," reads an Affidavit for Probable Cause accompanying a recently
filed search warrant return," declaring Major P. Davis was in prison."
The investigators found no proof Davis was in prison at the time of the
application.
Ruffin also provided a signed statement that claimed Davis provided her with
$400 per month in assistance, however, if Davis was in prison, as Ruffin
claimed, "The affiants from their training and experience have never
encountered anyone in prison earning $400 per month from lawful sources in the
State of Indiana."
"If you have someone on the program who doesn't deserve to be on the program
there are at least 10-15 families out there who are waiting to be on the
program and can't because someone else is committing fraud to be on the
program," said IHA Executive Director Rufus Bud Myers.
Investigators also found evidence linking Ruffin to Davis and his murder case.
The search warrant return under the heading "Perry Renn" lists, "MCC report
dated 07/05/2014 reflects print generated 08/05/2014."
The listing indicates Ruffin's copy of the Marion County Coroner's Verdict in
the killing of Police Officer Renn allegedly by Major Davis was printed 1 month
to the day after the shootout at a backyard cookout.
Also listed is a letter, seized from Ruffin's apartment, from "Trey Day" to
Davis in which the writer refers to the accused man's attorney and adds, "Bro
saved me because if that police would???ve let off more shots I was done for."
"I told yo lawyer to tell you I said what up and right on for saving me from
the bullets that could've hit me." "Them things would've tore me apart cause
tell the truth the police couldn't aim for nothin." "It was a bullet hole all
the way down at the bottom of the house." "I'm done with all this stupid stuff
fo real cause I'm facing 12 years."
Also listed in the inventory of items taken during the raid on Ruffin's
apartment were the driver's license and social security card of a woman who
reported her purse stolen at an east side store 2 years ago.
Ruffin has been arrested several times on shoplifting charges.
Investigators also raided the Beechwood Garden apartment of Ruffin's mother,
Pam Moorman, who formerly lived at 4067 East 34th Street, the home where
Officer Renn was killed.
In the investigation linked to the East 34th Street house, investigators allege
that "Pam Moorman signed and submitted a false statement regarding child
support compensation on 02/28/2014 declaring Mark Jefferson was in prison."
Investigators said they could find no proof Jefferson was in prison at the
time.
A background investigation found Moorman was the subject of, "multiple alias
names and alias dates of birth, this includes at least 52 criminal arrests from
1998 to 2014 in Marion, Hamilton and Bartholomew counties and more than 50
police reports."
The Affidavit goes on to describe, "Moorman and her immediate and extended
family members are prolific shoplifters and professional grifters."
"We're not finding as much violent crime associated with housing that there
used to be," said Myers. "I want all of those who would do something that's
fraudulent, would do something that's illegal while on the program to know
we're very very vigilant about that."
Charges are expected to be filed within in the week regarding the housing fraud
allegations, an internal theft probe and an insurance fraud case that was
uncovered during the investigation.
(source: Fox News)
ILLINOIS:
Journalism professor accused of framing innocent man for murder as part of his
campaign to abolish death penalty in Illinois
A renowned journalism professor has been accused of framing an innocent man for
murder so he could advance his campaign to abolish the death penalty in
Illinois.
Alstory Simon, 64, confessed to a double murder in 1999, mainly because of an
investigation from a team of students at Northwestern University, led by
Professor David Protess.
It helped free death row inmate Anthony Porter just days before his execution,
a case that was cited when the state announced a moratorium on capital
punishment in 2003 and its abolition in 2011.
Simon was released from the Jacksonville Correction Center last week after the
Cook County State's Attorney's Office re-examined his conviction.
Now, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Simon's attorney Terry Ekl
claims the team of journalists and their professor, as part of Northwestern
University's Innocence Project, framed his client so Porter could become a
'poster boy' in the bid to end executions in the state.
Cook County State Attorney Anita Alvarez added that the 'tactics and antics' of
the investigator, Paul Ciolino in conjunction with Protess could have added up
to criminal charges or obstruction of justice and intimidation of a witness at
the time.
However it would be impossible to file charges because the statute of
limitations has run out.
Simon, wearing a grey hoodie and jeans when he was released from prison, told
reporters outside Jacksonville Correctional Center that he was angry.
'I'm not angry at the system. I'm angry at the people who did what they did to
me,' he said, crying as he told reporters that his mother had died while he was
behind bars.
Simon was convicted and sentenced to 37 years in prison - he served 15.
But the Cook County State's Attorney's Office began re-examining his conviction
last year after his attorney presented evidence that he had been threatened
with the death penalty and coerced into confessing with promises that he would
get an early release and share in the profits from book and movie deals.
Alvarez said he was tricked by a private investigator who stormed into his home
and showed him a videotape of a man who said he had seen Simon pull the
trigger.
The man turned out to be an actor.
'In the best interest of justice, we could reach no other conclusion but that
the investigation of this case has been so deeply corroded and corrupted that
we can no longer maintain the legitimacy of this conviction,' Alvarez said.
The Porter case helped lead former Gov. George Ryan to declare a moratorium on
executions in 2003, and he cleared death row by commuting the death sentences
of more than 150 inmates to life in prison. Gov. Pat Quinn abolished the death
penalty in 2011.
Alvarez did not say whether she believed Simon is, in fact, innocent, but she
said there were so many problems with the case.
One of them was what she called a coerced confession and the deaths of a number
of key figures, making it impossible to determine exactly what happened on the
morning of Aug. 15, 1982, when 2 people were shot to death as they sat in a
park on Chicago's South Side.
She also said there remains powerful evidence that Porter was the gunman,
including several witnesses who still maintain their original statements.
'As I stand here today, I can't definitely tell you it was Porter who did this
or Simon who did this,' she said.
Protess, who retired from Northwestern in 2011 amid questions about his
investigative methods, has not responded to phone calls for comment, but has
previously defended his methods and results.
Ciolino, who like Protess has denied acting improperly, released a statement
that emphasized that Simon confessed multiple times, including to a TV reporter
and his own lawyer.
'You explain that,' Ciolino said. Nonetheless, he added, no one should be in
prison if the state did not meet its burden of proof.
(source: Daily Mail)
*******************
Illinois Death Penalty was Abolished Based on a Lie----Daniel Greenfield, a
Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing
on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges
America faces in the 21st century.
Earlier this year I wrote about the lengths that anti-death penalty activists
are willing to go to fight the death penalty. That included torturing the
murderers they claimed to want to protect.
In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that lethal injection did not represent cruel
and unusual punishment. The question hinged in part on the risk of pain through
the procedure. In 2010, the American Board of Anesthesiologists warned it would
decertify any anesthesiologist participating in the death penalty. Then the
supply of sodium thiopental, the medication mentioned in the ruling, was cut
off.
The goal was to raise the "substantial risk" of serious pain in lethal
injections and move the Supreme Court toward outlawing or suspending the death
penalty. The worse an execution went, the more likely it was that future
executions would be stopped based on the risk of it happening again. By making
lethal injection as messy as possible, the pro-criminal lobby was torturing
killers now to save future killers.
Making the death penalty as painful as possible was one tactic that anti-death
penalty activists used to try and outlaw it. Another involved straight up
framing someone else for the crime.
Identified by several eye witnesses, Porter was sentenced to death for the
fatal shooting of Jerry Hillard and Marilyn Green at a south side Chicago park
in 1982. He was just 2 days from a lethal chemical injection when he was freed
in February 1999 following Simon's confession.
Then-Gov. George Ryan imposed a moratorium on the death penalty in 2000, and
Illinois abolished capital punishment in 2011.
How was that confession obtained? You know those nice liberal movies portraying
amoral cops as willing to do anything to frame an innocent black man?
Kind of like that except the amoral cops were really amoral liberal activists.
Protess and two of his journalism students came to Simon's home in the 200
block of E. Wright St. in Milwaukee and told him they were working on a book
about unsolved murders. According to Simon, Protess told him, "We know you did
it."
Then Simon received a visit from Ciolino and another man. They had guns and
badges and claimed to be Chicago police officers. They said they knew he had
killed Green and Hillard, so he better confess if he hoped to avoid the death
penalty.
They showed him a video of his ex-wife, Inez Jackson, implicating him for the
crime - a claim she recanted on her death bed in 2005 - and another video of a
supposed witness to the crime who turned out to be an actor.
They coached Simon through a videotaped confession, promising him a light
sentence and money from book and movie deals on the case. Simon, admittedly on
a three-day crack cocaine bender, struggled to understand what was going on.
Perhaps worst of all, they hooked up Simon with a free lawyer to represent him,
Jack Rimland, without telling him that Rimland was a friend of Ciolino and
Protess and in on their plan to free Porter.
At Rimland's urging, Simon pleaded guilty to the crime and even offered what
sounded like a sincere apology to Green's family in court. Some conservatives
decided that the Innocence Project was a good thing to be involved in. This
should be a wake-up call. Like everything else, this is another social change
project featuring Ends Justify the Means reasoning that included framing
someone who didn't do it just to discredit the death penalty.
We know now that the explanation was that Simon was snared in a trap set by
people who wanted to end the death penalty, no matter what the cost. Once they
convinced Simon it was for his own good, he was all in.
Time for us to get out and stay out of ventures like this.
(source: frontpagemag.com)
MISSOURI----impending execution
As Leon Taylor's execution nears, murder still haunts victim's family
In the last moments of his life, Independence gas station clerk Robert Newton
begged Leon Taylor not to shoot him in front of his little girl.
She was only 8, and Newton did not want his stepdaughter to witness such a
violent act.
Taylor was unmoved.
He pointed his 9 mm handgun at the 53-year-old Blue Springs man's forehead and
pulled the trigger.
That got him convicted of murder. But it's what he did next that likely landed
him on death row, where he's facing a Nov. 19 date in the Missouri execution
chamber.
Taylor turned and pointed the gun at the little girl. She raised her hands and
pleaded for her life.
Taylor was unmoved.
Once again he pulled the trigger.
This time, the weapon jammed. He looked at the gun "in a funny way," the girl
later told detectives. Then he turned and walked away, leaving her to pray over
the body of the man she had called daddy since she was 3.
"It was the longest prayer I ever said," she later testified in court.
Leaving the crime scene that day, Taylor told 2 relatives with him that he
wished he had killed the girl as well.
"I should have choked the bitch," he said.
A week after the April 14, 1994, killing, a call to the TIPS Hotline led
detectives to Taylor.
At first, he denied involvement and said he never had been in the gas station
at 316 N. Missouri 291 where Newton worked.
But after investigators lifted his palm print from the station door and he
watched a videotaped statement of his half-brother, who was with him the day of
the killing, Taylor admitted that they had robbed the station and that he shot
Newton.
But Taylor claimed that the gun had fired accidentally. He denied attempting to
shoot the little girl.
When he went to trial in 1995, the little girl became the star witness whose
dramatic testimony proved key to the Jackson County jury finding Taylor guilty
of 1st-degree murder.
Dan Miller, now a lawyer in private practice, helped prosecute the case. The
emotional power of the girl's testimony nearly brought him to tears despite his
years of "doing this grisly business," he said.
"It's the only case I ever had where the victim, while testifying, made me
choke up," Miller said.
Michael Hunt, who is still with the Jackson County prosecutor's office and
handled the case with Miller, called the girl's testimony "tremendous."
"There was not a dry eye in the jury," Hunt recalled.
One piece of evidence jurors didn???t hear was a recording of the girl's 911
call after the killing. Prosecutors feared that it was so prejudicial that it
would give Taylor a strong point on appeal, Miller said.
"It was a terrifying thing to listen to," he said. "It was just devastating."
After finding Taylor guilty, the jury deadlocked 11-1 on whether he should be
sentenced to death. A judge imposed the death penalty.
On appeal, the Missouri Supreme Court ordered the case back to Jackson County
for re-sentencing by a jury.
This time, jurors imposed the death sentence for Taylor, whose criminal history
included a conviction for a murder he committed at age 17.
Asking a jury to impose a death sentence is one of the most difficult things a
prosecutor can do and is not done lightly, Hunt said.
"But I believed it then and I still believe it," Hunt said. "He deserves the
death penalty."
Now in her late 20s, Newton's stepdaughter declined an interview request for
this story.
But during Taylor's sentencing hearing, she said that when Newton was killed,
"the best thing in my life was destroyed."
"It's lonely out there with no dad," she said. "I've never had so many
nightmares. I'm so unhappy."
Taylor, now 56, also declined an interview request for this story. He is
scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection at 12:01 a.m. Nov. 19.
His attorneys are pursuing legal actions on several fronts seeking an execution
stay. Those appeals ultimately will end up in the U.S. Supreme Court as almost
every pending execution does.
The odds of a stay are not in Taylor's favor. Of the 10 Missouri executions
previously scheduled this year, 8 have been carried out.
That suits Newton's brother, Dennis Smith, just fine.
"He's been blessed with 20 years he shouldn't have had," Smith said of Taylor.
"It burns a hole in my gut."
Robert Newton was a retired autoworker who had taken the gas station job so he
could save money to move to southern Missouri and open a bait shop.
Smith described his brother as a "super nice guy."
He hopes that Taylor has thought about what he did "every second of every day"
since it happened.
"I know executing him won't make it right. Nothing will make it right," Smith
said. "But it's the right way to go and I think it (appeals) went on too long."
(source: Kansas City Star)
_______________________________________________
DeathPenalty mailing list
DeathPenalty@lists.washlaw.edu
http://lists.washlaw.edu/mailman/listinfo/deathpenalty
Search the Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/deathpenalty@lists.washlaw.edu/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A free service of WashLaw
http://washlaw.edu
(785)670.1088
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
