Feb. 19
UTAH:
Judge says death penalty an option for St. George man
A judge is upholding a ruling that would allow southern Utah prosecutors to
seek the death penalty if a man charged with 1/2 of a 2010 double murder is
convicted.
The Spectrum of St. George reports (http://bit.ly/1vhWl3m ) that Judge G.
Michael Westfall said Thursday that he agreed with a prior magistrate's
decision about the 33-year-old Brandon Perry Smith.
Smith is charged with murder in the death of 20-year-old Jerrica Christensen.
Christensen was killed in a December 2010 altercation at a St. George townhome
that also left 27-year-old Brandie Sue Dawn Jerden dead.
Another man, 34-year-old Paul Ashton, pleaded guilty in July to killing Jerden
in his home. He's been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of
parole.
Smith is awaiting trial.
(source: Associated Press)
******************
The Death Penalty Is in Decline, So Why Is Utah Trying to Resurrect Firing
Squads?----The state joins Oklahoma as the only other place in America to still
use the antiquated execution method.
In 2014, the U.S. executed the lowest number of peopler in 2 decades. Recent
cases of botched executions have brought new scrutiny and skepticism to the
death penalty.
Yet last week, Utah's House of Representatives passed a measure to resurrect
the firing squad. The bill is headed to the state Senate.
Utah's proposal comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on an
Oklahoma death penalty case. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday told
a Washington forum: "It is one thing to put somebody in jail for an extended
period of time, have some new test that you can do, and determine that person
was, in fact, innocent. There is no ability to correct a mistake where somebody
has, in fact, been executed - and that is, from my perspective, the ultimate
nightmare." On Friday, Pennsylvania's governor imposed a moratorium on
executions, and Montana's legislature is considering a measure to abolish the
death penalty. So it's understandable that Utah's House of Representatives
voted carefully on this issue.
Part of the story of Utah's firing squad push rests with the bill's chief
sponsor, Paul Ray, a Republican who sits on the state legislature's law
enforcement and criminal justice committee. Ray has argued that death by firing
squad is faster and more humane than lethal injection. His argument is also
financial. During 1 debate on the legislative floor, Ray said, "We are facing a
situation where we are going to have to go to court, and it's going to cost
millions of dollars for the state of Utah to defend what we're doing."
The financial argument is debatable. One 2011 study found that California
taxpayers would save about $170 million a year if all the state's death row
inmates had their sentences commuted to life without parole.
During some firing squad executions, marksmen bearing rifles aim to shoot a
cloth placed over a prisoner's heart. Not all firing squad executions are
foolproof. Take the case of Wallace Wilkerson, convicted of murder in Utah in
the late 1800s and sentenced to death. Wilkerson chose death by firing squad
rather than hanging or decapitation, according to media accounts. On execution
day, Wilkerson sat in a chair in the jail yard unbound to the chair. Wilkerson
apparently stiffened, and seconds later, the squad opened fire. Wilkerson was
shot in his torso and arm, but he wasn't pronounced dead for 27 minutes.
A 2012 study examined 9,000 U.S. executions that took place in the 20th century
and found that 270 of them were bungled in some way. Botched executions have
recently made headlines. In April, Clayton Lockett died of a heart attack a
full 43 minutes after prison officials in Oklahoma administered the lethal
injection.
According to Amnesty International, more than 2/3 of the world's countries have
abolished the death penalty in law or practice. But 54 countries still allow
capital punishment by shooting or firing squad. That puts Utah in the same
category as countries such as North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and
Iran.
Wyoming, which authorizes lethal gas only if lethal injection is found
unconstitutional, is also considering a bill that would make firing squads an
alternative method of execution. Utah was the 1st state to resume executions
just after the Supreme Court lifted its moratorium on capital punishment in
1976. Since then, only 2 people in the U.S. have been executed by firing squad,
and both cases were in Utah. In 2004, a bill was passed in Utah to make lethal
injection the primary method of execution.
"This is not just a conversation about different ways of the state putting
people to death," said Utah House Minority Leader Brian King on the House
floor. King, a Democrat who voted against the firing squad bill, added, "It's a
question about moral and fiscal responsibility and whether the state of Utah
chooses, or not, to be a moral and fiscal leader on such a controversial
topic."
According to the Utah Department of Corrections, 8 people sit on Utah's death
row, but the state does not have any lethal injection drugs on hand. Jean Hill
of the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City told The Salt Lake City Tribune that
the state is probably 3 to 4 years away from its next execution. Where Utah
decides to stand - with a growing number of states and countries rejecting
capital punishment or with a more archaic practice from its past - remains to
be seen.
(source: takepart.com)
NEVADA:
Las Vegas killer appealing death penalty
A Las Vegas killer is asking the Nevada Supreme Court to overturn his death
sentence, alleging his lawyer was ineffective during the penalty hearing.
James M. Chappell, 35, was convicted in 1996 in the fatal stabbing of his
ex-girlfriend, Deborah Panos, 26, who was the mother of his 3 children.
The court today said it will hear oral arguments March 3 on his petition.
(source: Las Veags Sun)
CALIFORNIA:
Judge Considers Perjury Findings Against Deputy For Death Penalty Case
Testimony
Law enforcement cheating in courthouses usually gets ignored because
otherwise-decent cops, prosecutors and judges remain mum, and the offenders go
unpunished or, worse, win promotion. But the beginnings of a potential,
cleansing tidal wave is moving through California's criminal-justice system.
Last month, a 3-judge panel at the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit shattered that silence on government officials lying.
Though the use of jailhouse informants is a well-established police tool, it's
also known that rats--commonly the most despicable inmates--won't hesitate to
lie to juries in exchange for valuable, government-supplied perks. Cops and
prosecutors, as theoretical guardians of truth and justice, would never allow
an informant to give false testimony. But as Ninth Circuit panel of judges Alex
Kozinski, Kim McLane Wardlaw and William A. Fletcher knows, reality isn't so
immaculate.
A recent appellate case, Baca v. Adams, sparked the panel's ire because of
numerous outrages committed to win and maintain a conviction in a 1995 double
murder in Riverside County. A key prosecution witness, who was an informant,
bolstered credibility to a jury by deceitfully claiming he wasn't receiving
government benefits in exchange for testimony. At a 2nd trial, a 2nd prosecutor
got the 1st prosecutor to give false testimony about the informant; the 2
prosecutors allowed the informant to escape perjury charges. The California
Attorney General's (AG) office tried to hide the informant's sweetheart deal
from a state court of appeal--in effect covering up the ethical breaches. The
AG's office refused to discipline the 2 prosecutors, and then the office, now
occupied by Kamala D. Harris, urged the federal appeal panel to ignore all the
transgressions.
During Jan. 8 oral arguments, Kozinski asked Deputy AG Kevin Vienna if Harris
"really wants to stick by a conviction obtained by lying prosecutors." If so,
he said, the judges would write an opinion that would "not be pretty." Weeks
later, the AG, a San Francisco Democrat hoping to replace Barbara Boxer in the
U.S. Senate, agreed to set aside the Baca conviction "in the interest of
justice."
In Orange County, it's far less likely--if not unheard of--for judges to hold
dishonest government agents accountable. I've covered our courthouses for 2
decades and can't recall a single time when a judge punished a law-enforcement
officer for lying. For example, Judge Robert Fitzgerald in 2005 ignored
fraudulent statements by a police dog handler and declared that "innocent
people get convicted, too," before sending James Ochoa to prison for a robbery
the Buena Park teenager was later absolved of committing. And Judge Sarah S.
Jones protected Orange County Sheriff's Department (OCSD) investigator
Christopher Catalano during a 2009 hearing in which the deputy denied
threatening an Anaheim suspect, but an audio recording captured him promising
to "make something up" if he didn't win a confession. Plus, Judge John Conley
in 2011 refused to officially rebuke 2 OCSD deputies, Michelle Rodriguez and
Brad Carrington, after they gave false testimony concealing critical,
exculpatory evidence in a Laguna Niguel burglary trial.
Given the entrenched willingness to allow dirty cops to go free, it's not
surprising testilying continues. But, at least for now, the
who-polices-the-police question isn't entirely hidden from public view. Inside
the courthouse domain of Judge Thomas M. Goethals, several deputies, including
Seth Tunstall, are hoping to outrun perjury charges in People v. Scott Dekraai,
the case of the confessed killer in the 2011 Seal Beach salon massacre.
They better run fast.
50 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Massiah v. United States that the
constitution bans government agents, including surrogates such as informants,
from eliciting incriminating statements from individuals who have been charged
with a crime and are represented by an attorney. If a defendant freely blabs on
his or her own, the information is usable. But officials cannot take steps to
violate the protection by, say, moving jailhouse informants into locations
designed to elicit statements or having informants ask their questions.
There are basically two ways for defense lawyers to see if Massiah is obeyed:
Officers such as Tunstall, assigned to the OCSD's Special Handling unit in the
jail for a decade, honestly answer questions and faithfully comply with the
court-ordered surrender of jail records. In Dekraai, there has been a lingering
question: Did officials violate the Constitution when Fernando Perez, a Mexican
Mafia killer and prolific informant, landed in a cell next to the defendant and
obtained crime details as well as legal strategies pertaining to a possible
death-penalty punishment?
Prosecutor Dan Wagner insists the placement of the two men together in a pool
of 6,000 inmates was accidental, but it didn't help his cause that he spent
years concealing related records from Scott Sanders, the assistant public
defender representing Dekraai. After an intense, year-long investigation,
Sanders produced a 505-page report describing how OCSD officials routinely hid
jail-informant records and committed perjury to cover up questionable
activities in dozens of felony cases.
Over the protests of prosecutors, Goethals conducted a four-month evidentiary
hearing into the allegations in 2014 and, in August, ruled officials hid
records, faked memory losses and committed perjury. But the judge declined to
name the liars and, in additional lame judicial gymnastics, declared the
cheating hadn't been malignant. He also accepted that Perez's cell placement
hadn't been a Massiah scam.
Sanders, who is quite the detective, continued to dig after the ruling and
uncovered new evidence that Tunstall committed a hoax on Goethals. It turns out
that OCSD maintains a secret records system called TRED, which indicates
special handling deputies had, after all, controlled Perez's whereabouts near
Dekraai. Worse, the agency has been concealing the existence of TRED records
for 25 years. That's a huge deal. During that period, tens of thousands of
defendants were convicted without knowing if those entries contain exculpatory
evidence.
In the wake of the revelations, the judge this month reopened the special
hearings, and Tunstall, who'd pretended the records didn't exist during 6 days
of 2014 testimony, now claims that he, the author of thousands of TRED records,
simply forgot about them. Besides, the 16-year OCSD veteran suggests, his
answers might have been technically accurate if, like him, someone is confused
about the difference between "informant" and "information provider." He also
said he can't be responsible for his informants' plots to evade Massiah
prohibitions because, while he received their notes detailing the planned
scams, he hadn't bothered to digest the contents, but, by golly, he can now see
his alleged laziness was an error.
To Sanders, the claims by a deputy with a doctorate in clinical psychology are
preposterous. He may not be alone. Goethals, who has advised Tunstall of
potential obstruction-of-justice charges, wanted to know if the "first place"
to look when questioned about inmate movement should be TRED records.
"Yes," the deputy replied. "That would be a place I would look."
So why had he pretended the records didn't exist?
The answer is ugly: OCSD officials think they can pick which judicial orders to
obey--and concoct ridiculous excuses for secrecy when caught. After all, they
short-changed Sanders, then blamed him for delaying the Dekraai case. Memory
loss aside, Tunstall, who declined an interview, told Goethals the public
agency deemed the information "confidential" to itself.
The judge now has a 2nd opportunity to hold the cheaters accountable.
(source: Orange County Weekly----This article appears in the print edition as
"Massiah Complex: Orange County Sheriff's Department Officials Reluctantly
Admit They Hid Records from Trials For 25 Years.")
WASHINGTON:
Supporters of new bill say ending death penalty makes financial sense
Supporters of a bill to end the death penalty in Washington state say the
capital punishment law doesn't make sense financially.
"King County has spent more than $12 million on 2 cases alone," said District
36 Representative Reuven Carlyle.
Carlyle, who is sponsoring House Bill 1739 with other representatives from
around Washington state, told a House committee Wednesday morning the death
penalty is not a financially responsible policy.
More than a dozen people testified Wednesday in favor of the bill, which would
eliminate the death penalty and replace it with life in prison, with no
opportunity for parole.
The measure follows Gov. Jay Inslee's decision last year to impose a moratorium
on capital punishment. Inslee, who was criticized last year by several
Republican lawmakers over his moratorium decision, has said he supports the
bill.
The House committee is scheduled to vote on HB 1739 on Thursday.
Despite losing a loved one to murder, former state Senator Debby Regala
supports the bill.
"People expect public policy to keep family safe," Regala said. "However, the
"death penalty is not a deterrent to murder."
"What we would like is to have that family member back, but nothing can make
that happen," she added.
Not everyone who heard testimony agreed with the bill. State Representative Jay
Rodne said he has heard similar arguments for about 12 years. The cost argument
is disingenuous, he said.
"To argue the cost ... it's akin to someone who murders their parents and then
asks for leniency because he's an orphan," he said.
Rodne suggested the state limit the appeals process for the death penalty.
(source: mynorthwest.com)
*******************
House committee weighs bill to abolish death penalty
Families of murder victims and opponents of capital punishment testified
Wednesday in support of a measure to abolish the death penalty in Washington,
saying that the costly and drawn out appeals process only prolongs the pain of
the crime.
More than a dozen people spoke before the House Judiciary Committee in favor of
House Bill 1739, which would replace capital punishment with life in prison,
with no opportunity for parole. The measure, sponsored by Democratic Rep.
Reuven Carlyle of Seattle, would also require those convicted to work in prison
in order to pay restitution to victims' families.
Former Sen. Debbie Regala, whose brother-in-law was murdered in 1980 and whose
killer was never caught, said that she knows that families have differing
opinions on the death penalty.
"I do think that all of them would agree with me that we would like the
perpetrator caught and prevented from killing another person. Of course more
than anything what we would like is to have that family member back, but we
know nothing makes that happen," she said, her voice choked with emotion.
Regala, who sponsored previous bills to abolish the death penalty while in the
Legislature, said that the death penalty is not a deterrent to murder and is
not good state policy. She said she believes life in prison is.
"It provides public safety, it lowers the cost to tax payers, and it can ensure
swift certain equal justice that we should all be concerned with," she said.
The measure comes following Gov. Jay Inslee's decision last year to impose a
moratorium on capital punishment for as long as he's in office. Inslee has said
he supports the bill. The House committee is scheduled to vote on Thursday.
The death penalty is currently authorized by the federal government and 32
states, including Washington and Pennsylvania, where a moratorium was just
issued by the governor last week. Eighteen states have abolished the death
penalty, with Maryland being the most recent.
The niece of an 88-year-old World War II veteran who police said was beaten to
death in Spokane in 2013 said she was glad the case was not eligible for the
death penalty due to the accused teens' ages. One was sentenced this month to
20 years in prison for the death of Delbert Belton; the other is scheduled for
trial.
"Because there will be no long drawn out of process of appeals, our family is
already in the healing process," said Tyana Kelley, of Spokane. "If we were
forced to go through years or decades of hearings trials it would just reopen
this wound again and again."
The only person to testify against the bill was Mitch Barker, executive
director of the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.
"Our prosecutors use the death penalty very, very judiciously," he said. "This
is not done arbitrarily."
The Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys has not taken a position on
the bill because its members are split on the issue, said Tom McBride,
executive secretary of the association.
A recent study from Seattle University that found death penalty cases in the
state cost $1 million more than similar Washington cases where capital
punishment is not sought. Rep. Jay Rodne, a Republican from Snoqualmie who is a
member of the committee, stated during the hearing he didn't find the cost
argument compelling, saying that the state could just streamline the appeals
process if money is a driving cost. He said earlier this week that he
personally believes the death penalty is appropriate in certain cases.
Rodne also asked a bipartisan panel of lawmakers who support the bill whether
there's any scenario in which the death penalty is warranted.
"It concerns me when the state has the ability to take a life, period," said
Rep. Chad Magendanz, a Republican from Issaquah who is a co-sponsor of the
bill. "As awful as the crimes are, do we lower ourselves as a government to
punish with death? That is a legitimate question to be asking right now."
Currently, 9 men are on death row. Death penalty cases in the state are still
being tried and continue to work through the system. Inslee's moratorium means
that if a death-penalty case comes to his desk, he will issue a reprieve, which
means the inmate would stay in prison rather than face execution.
(source: Tri-City Herald)
******************
New bill would replace death penalty with life sentences
As 2 high-profile death penalty trials are in progress, lawmakers are
considering shutting down executions in Washington State for good.
House Bill 1739 was discussed at a public hearing in front of the House
Judiciary Committee Wednesday morning.
The bi-partisan bill would replace the death penalty with a life sentence with
no parole.
The state's current statute dates back to 1981. Since then, 33 people have been
sentenced to death. 5 have been executed.
"To me, it's a little like playing God if we're sentencing people to death,"
said Rep. Maureen Walsh at the hearing.
The effort to abolish capital punishment has failed in previous years, but
supporters think they've gained momentum since Gov. Jay Inslee imposed a
moratorium on the death penalty last year that lasts as long as he is in
office.
There are 18 states that have abolished executions. The most recent is
Maryland.
The bill would also require those convicted to pay restitution to victims and
their families.
"I fully support the bipartisan bills introduced this year to end the death
penalty. I put a moratorium on the use of capital punishment last year because
of its unequal application in our state, the soaring costs and delays, and the
fact that nearly 80 % of the death sentences issued in our state since 1981
have been overturned," said Inslee in a statement released after the hearing.
Executions in Washington are carried out by lethal injection, or, at the
election of condemned person, by hanging.
(source: KIRO news)
USA:
Replacing the Noose With a Needle: The Legacy of Lynching in the United States
Ida B. Wells said it best, "Our country's national crime is lynching."
Last week, we were reminded of this when the Equal Justice Initiative released
its report, "Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror." A
gruesome history of these carnivals of torture and death from the Civil War
until World War II, the report documents the racial terrorism designed to keep
black Americans across the South destitute and powerless.
As I read EJI's report, my mind immediately went back to an interview Alex
Kozinski, the chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, gave to the
Los Angeles Times last summer. The interview was stark evidence of our failure
to recognize how race distorts our criminal justice system up until the present
day. I cringed at the following exchange:
Why have most other Western countries abolished the death penalty?
Most of these countries have in their recent past abused it. I'm not really
surprised or unhappy that Germany has outlawed the death penalty. They sort of
misused it within living memory, so they probably ought not to be trusted to
have one.... In this country by and large we've had executions done with due
process. We've had a sad history of lynchings in the South, but in the Wild
West they had trials, some measure of due process. It's not that we're
guilt-free, but we have less to account for than other countries.
That is clearly not the case as EJI shows in ghastly detail. Lynchings cannot
be dismissed as a footnote to our criminal justice system. They were cruel,
widespread, hate-driven acts of terrorism, with an enormous social cost we're
still paying for today.
Until the 1950s, lynchings were advertised and attended like they were state
fairs. People came from all around to witness the torture, humiliation, and
murder of human beings. Individuals purchased lynching postcards and traded
them like baseball cards. Children were permitted to attend the "show," to
watch the mutilation of another person. Photos were taken, souvenirs gathered
from the chopped, charred, and often castrated bodies.
EJI documented 3,949 racial terror lynchings of African-Americans between 1877
and 1950 across 12 southern states, including an additional 700 lynchings that
were previously unknown. Georgia and Mississippi had the highest number of
verifiable lynchings of African-Americans ??? 586 and 576, respectively. We
will never know how many African-Americans disappeared into the night, never to
be seen again. Clearly, what we do know belies the suggestion that that America
has "less to account for than other countries."
If we are to ever fix our broken criminal justice system, we must first
acknowledge the baggage it carries.
This must begin with acknowledgement of our torrid, bloody history of
executions without a semblance of due process. Lynchings were a method of
organized, socially accepted extra-judicial violence that terrorized millions
of African-Americans across the South for nearly a century. We also need to be
honest that no one has ever been held accountable for these horrific crimes. No
white person was ever convicted for the lynching of an African-American during
the period covered in the study.
And yet the unjust execution of African-American men thrives today on the same
soil as the lynching trees: Only now the noose has been replaced with the
needle. African-American men are over-represented on death row, in executions,
and in exonerations. To boot, African-American jurors are systematically
excluded by prosecutors in jury service. Race is one of the most disturbing
explanations for innocent men, like Glenn Ford in Louisiana and Henry MCollum
in North Carolina, ending up on death row for crimes they did not commit.
We cannot continue to ignore the racial injustice of our death penalty system,
past or present. I do agree with one comment made by Judge Kozinski, "we ought
to come face to face with what we're doing. If we're not comfortable with what
we're doing we should not be doing it."
It's time to get uncomfortable.
(source: Angel Harris, ACLU)
*****************
Judge denies emergency psych exam for Michigan man facing death penalty
A U.S. District judge has denied an emergency psych exam request for a man
awaiting the death penalty.
Back in 2002 a jury convicted Marvin Gabrion of killing Rachel Timmerman then
dumping her body in a lake in Newaygo County.
Gabrion was seeking an emergency psychiatric review to determine his mental
functioning at the time of the crime, when he stood trial and what his mental
status is now.
This week a U.S. District Court judge ruled that Gabrion failed to show that
such a review is necessary.
Michigan does not have the death penalty but the sentence was issued because
the crime happened in a federally owned national forest.
(source: WWMT news)
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