Sept. 2
KANSAS:
Capital punishment in Kansas and the impact it could have on the Frazier Glenn
Cross trial
In his nearly 2 decades as a criminal defense attorney, Paul Cramm has
represented an array of memorable clients. But perhaps one of the most
unforgettable was one he watched from bench, not at an attorney but as
observer.
"Unusual that Mr. Cross is representing himself," said Cramm, who watched the
closing arguments in the Frazier Glenn Cross trial. "Very unusual, very rare to
see the defendant act as council."
While unusual, Cramm doesn't think that Cross hurt his case by representing
himself. What could have hurt him, however, was killing 3 people back in April
2014. For that, Cramm suspects the jury will act swiftly.
"I am relatively confident the jury will find that the aggravating factors have
been met and will likely impose death penalties for the 3 convictions," said
Cramm.
But here's where it gets complicated.
While Kansas still deems the death penalty constitutional, an execution has not
been carried out since June 22, 1965. Part of the reason - capital punishment
was unconstitutional for many years. Then once legally permissible again,
Kansas was the last state to put it back on the books. Then in 2004, the Kansas
Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional yet again, but that vote was later
overturned.
Right now, the death penalty is legal in Kansas only via lethal injection.
"The vast majority of the folks who are sentenced to death will likely die of
natural causes," explained Cramm. "They are going to die when the Lord calls
them, not when the warden calls them. It's very expensive to put someone on the
warden's call list."
While Cramm suspects that Cross will join the 9 other men on Kansas' death row,
he said because capital punishment in Kansas has a complicated past, Cross may
never find himself in the hot seat.
"If our supreme court finds that this is a valid conviction, Mr. Cross will
join the nine gentleman already on death row, he will be number ten, and in all
likelihood he will die of natural causes long before the initial
post-conviction appellant process is complete."
When I asked if the process could take years, Cramm corrected me, saying it
would likely take decades.
(source: Terra Hall, KSHB news)
OKLAHOMA:
With death penalty, caution doesn't signal opposition
Does a district attorney's stance on the death penalty effectively dictate a
community's support for it? A recent article by The Marshall Project, a news
organization covering America's criminal justice system, suggests this is the
case and cites Oklahoma County as an example.
Nationally, the Death Penalty Information Center reports 2 % of U.S. counties
accounted for 56 % of death row inmates as of 2012. The Marshall Project
reports, "One reason for the national disparity: The fervor of local
prosecutors."
To make that case, the article highlights 3 counties where the "number of new
capital sentences decreased significantly after prosecutors - each of them
outspoken, even celebrity, proponents of the death penalty - either resigned or
didn't seek re-election."
During his tenure as Oklahoma County district attorney from 1980 to 2001,
Robert Macy was a vocal proponent of the death penalty. Macy averaged a little
more than 2.5 death sentence convictions each year he was in office - 54 total.
But since 2009, The Marshall Project reports, just 3 people have been sentenced
to death in Oklahoma County.
Citing local defense attorneys, The Marshall Project attributes that decline
partly to Oklahomans' skepticism about the death penalty. In 23 of the 54 death
penalty cases he won, Macy relied on the testimony of former police chemist
Joyce Gilchrist. A later investigation found many of Gilchrist's conclusions
were sketchy at best, false at worst, and led to the release of one death row
inmate.
There's no doubt district attorneys have outsized impact on whether the death
penalty is pursued. If a prosecutor doesn't believe in the death penalty and
won't seek it, the discussion is over.
But even when a DA supports the death penalty, deciding whether to pursue that
sentence is a judgment call. Given the higher expenses involved with death
penalty cases and the drawn-out appeals process, some district attorneys may
opt to seek lengthy prison sentences. Factors such as the severity of the
crime, a defendant's criminal history and suffering of a murder victim are also
taken into account.
But even if a district attorney vocally endorses the death penalty, that
doesn't mean jurors will agree. The decision to sentence someone to death is
never taken lightly.
There's little evidence suggesting Oklahoma juries are now predisposed to
distrust prosecution claims or oppose the death penalty by default, despite
publicity regarding controversial convictions and botched executions
nationwide. Local juries have supported the death penalty in the vast majority
of cases where it has been sought since David Prater was elected Oklahoma
County DA in 2006.
Also, death penalty support has remained fairly consistent over many decades. A
Gallup poll taken after the negative publicity surrounding Clayton Lockett's
problematic execution in Oklahoma last year found 61 % of adults nationwide
still found the death penalty morally acceptable. In 1936, when Gallup first
asked that question, 59 % supported the death penalty. Oklahoma support for the
death penalty remains strong enough that approval of a new state execution
method - nitrogen hypoxia - passed this year with overwhelming support from
Democrats and Republicans.
It's appropriate that prosecutors and juries are contemplative before pursuing,
or handing out, the ultimate sentence. But Oklahomans remain willing to impose
the death penalty when they believe it's justified. Death penalty critics
should not confuse deliberation with opposition.
(source: Editorial Board, The Oklahoman)
NEBRASKA:
Governor Seeks Lethal Injection Drugs While Awaiting Verification Of Petition
Signatures
Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts says his administration is still pursuing lethal
injection drugs for executions, but will not decide how to proceed until state
officials verify the signatures on a petition to keep capital punishment legal.
Ricketts said Tuesday that he first wants to ensure that Nebraskans for the
Death Penalty has collected enough valid voter signatures to prevent the law
from being repealed.
Nebraska lawmakers voted in May to abolish the death penalty, overriding the
governor's veto. Death penalty supporters responded with the petition drive
that sought to halt the repeal before it went into effect and place the issue
before voters in 2016.
The group announced last week that it had collected nearly 167,000 signatures.
At least 113,883 valid signatures are needed to suspend the repeal. The
verification process could take more than a month.
(source: WOWT news)
****************
Is it cruel to stay too long on death row?
Nebraska's death row inmates, like those in many states with capital
punishment, have lived for decades under the cloud of possible execution.
On Monday, a federal appeals court heard arguments from a California inmate who
contends that all those years on death row violates the U.S. Constitution's ban
on cruel and unusual punishment. The argument, which swayed a lower court
judge, has the potential of ending California's death penalty, although some
legal observers have said such an outcome is doubtful.
Legal challenges over subjecting inmates to the mental stresses of death row
are not new. At least two condemned inmates in Nebraska unsuccessfully raised
the challenge years ago.
"Each year, the argument gets stronger," said Lincoln attorney Alan Peterson,
who made the argument on behalf of death row inmate Carey Dean Moore. Convicted
of killing 2 Omaha cab drivers, Moore has spent 35 years on death row.
Moore failed to convince the Nebraska Supreme Court in 1999, when he had been
on death row for 19 years.
"Essentially, Moore claims that it is cruel and unusual punishment to keep a
person confined with the knowledge that he is to be executed and then to
prolong that process pursuant to legal machinations. Moore's argument is
completely without merit," Judge John Gerrard wrote for the court. Gerrard has
since been appointed a federal judge.
Nebraska has not executed an inmate since 1997, when Robert Williams was killed
in the electric chair. In one of his appeals, Williams also raised the argument
about living on death row.
Since the Williams execution, the Nebraska Supreme Court has struck down
electrocution as cruel and unusual punishment. Nebraska lawmakers switched the
method to lethal injection, but problems obtaining the proper drugs have
blocked the state's attempts to execute Moore and Michael Ryan in recent years.
Ryan, 66, died from cancer in May after spending nearly 30 years on death row.
10 men reside on Nebraska's death row, including Jose Sandoval, Erick Vela and
Jorge Galindo, who were convicted in the 2002 Norfolk bank murders. Moore, 57,
is the longest-serving inmate. Marco E. Torres Jr., 40, sentenced 5 years ago
for a double murder in Grand Island, has served the least amount of time.
The Nebraska Legislature voted earlier this year to repeal the death penalty.
Last week, however, death penalty supporters turned in nearly 167,000 petition
signatures so voters can decide in the 2016 general election whether to keep
capital punishment. County election officials are verifying those signatures.
In the meantime, the argument about the cruelty of death row returned Monday in
Pasadena, Calif.
The 3 judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals appeared concerned that
procedural requirements might prevent them from deciding whether the state
system was so dysfunctional as to be unconstitutional.
The panel is reviewing a ruling last year by U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney
that declared the California death penalty system unconstitutional because of
decades-long delays that he said made executions a remote possibility and
deprived them of any possible deterrent value.
More than 900 people have been sentenced to death since California restored
capital punishment in 1978, but only 13 have been executed, the last one in
1992. More than 100 condemned inmates either have had their sentences
overturned or died of natural causes or suicide.
University of Nebraska law professor Eric Berger said Monday that about the
only way the California case could have a bearing on Nebraska and other states
would be if the appeals court rules in favor of the inmates. Such a decision
would likely force the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the issue.
(source: Norfolk Daily News)
USA:
Where do Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders stand on the death penalty?
An image circulating on Twitter and Reddit claims Democratic presidential
candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have opposing views on a host of
issues, including the death penalty.
According to the image, Sanders opposes the death penalty, but Clinton supports
it.
We wanted to see if the two candidates disagree on capital punishment.
Sanders and the death penalty
The Vermont senator has been an opponent of the death penalty for his entire
political career. And with one exception, he has voted against expansions of
the death penalty at every turn.
Sanders opposed the Violent Crime Prevention Act of 1991 during his 1st year in
the U.S. House of Representatives.
"All over the industrialized world now, countries are saying, 'let us put an
end to state murder, let us stop capital punishment'," Sanders said in a 1991
speech on the House floor. "But here what we're talking about is more and more
capital punishment."
The bill, which included provisions to authorize the death penalty as
appropriate punishment for crimes involving the murder of a law enforcement
officer, terrorism and drug trafficking, never reached the desk of President
George H.W. Bush.
In 1994, however, Sanders voted in favor of the final version of the Violent
Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, a bill that expanded the federal death
penalty. Sanders had voted for an amendment to the bill that would have
replaced all federal death sentences with life in prison. Even though the
amendment failed, Sanders still voted for the larger crime bill.
A spokesman for Sanders said he voted for the bill "because it included the
Violence Against Women Act and the ban on certain assault weapons."
Sanders reiterated his opposition to capital punishment in 2015. "I just don't
think the state itself, whether it's the state government or federal
government, should be in the business of killing people," he said on a radio
show.
Clinton and the death penalty
Clinton's campaign did not provide her stance on capital punishment.
The last time she publicly addressed capital punishment, which was 15 years
ago, Clinton offered support.
In her 2000 run for U.S. Senate, she was quoted by a Washington Post columnist
as saying the death penalty had her "unenthusiastic support."
Clinton's history on the issue, however, is slightly complicated.
As director of the legal aid clinic at the University of Arkansas in the 1970s,
Clinton helped to get the death sentence of a 20-year-old African-American man
sentenced to life in prison. But according to a timeline of the case compiled
by the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that focuses on criminal
justice, Clinton's views on the topic changed as her husband's did.
Bill Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, is described as shifting his position
on the death penalty as part of an effort to present himself as a centrist "New
Democrat" in the 1980s.
Citing Paul Kengor's 2007 book God and Hillary Clinton: A Spiritual Life, the
timeline says that Hillary Clinton " 'agonized' over her husband's embrace of
capital punishment," eventually supporting it.
As first lady, she supported the 1994 crime bill that Sanders opposed.
After her election to U.S. Senate, she co-sponsored a bill that made it easier
for prisoners on death row to appeal for exoneration through DNA testing.
Clinton hasn't yet addressed the issue in the 2016 election cycle.
Our ruling
The infographic claims Bernie Sanders opposes the death penalty and that
Hillary Clinton supports it.
Sanders has opposed the death penalty for at least the last 20 years, though he
did vote for the 1994 crime bill that, among many other provisions, expanded
the number of crimes that could result in death penalty sentences. While
Clinton has helped make it easier to appeal a death sentence, her most recent
documented statements on the topic expressed tepid support.
Without a clear idea of her most recent stance, we can only assume she still
holds that position.
We rate the claim Mostly True.
(source: politifact.com)
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