April 2
OHIO:
Ohio has 22 killers set for execution -- but no lethal drugs
Ohio has 22 convicted murderers scheduled for execution during the next 3 years
- but no lethal-injection drugs with which to kill them.
The 2015 Capital Crimes Report, required annually by state law, was issued
Friday by Attorney General Mike DeWine. The report lists the status of all
capital punishment cases currently pending in state and federal courts.
What DeWine's report did not address is the lack of drugs to conduct
executions. The state has been at a standstill since the last execution, of
Dennis McGuire on Jan. 16, 2014, largely due to the unavailability of suitable
lethal-injection drugs and court challenges.
That has not changed, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation
and Correction confirmed Friday.
"DRC continues to seek all legal means to obtain the drugs necessary to carry
out court-ordered executions," spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said. "This process
has included multiple options."
The options include seeking drugs from local "compounding pharmacies," which
mix drugs to user specifications. However, despite a promise of confidentiality
from the state, no pharmacies stepped up to provide the lethal drugs.
The state also hired an attorney to negotiate drug purchases and made overtures
to suppliers overseas. None of the efforts proved successful.
The next execution, of Ronald Phillips of Summit County, is set for Jan. 12,
2017. There are 21 others scheduled through 2019, including 3 from Franklin
County: Alva Campbell (May 10, 2017), Warren Henness (Feb. 13, 2018) and Kareem
Jackson (July 10, 2019).
Gov. John Kasich was forced to postpone executions several times because of the
drug issue, resulting in what is now a nearly three-year backlog of inmates
awaiting death.
DeWine's report said there were 53 executions between Feb. 19, 1999, and 2014.
19 death sentences were commuted, 27 inmates died before execution, 74 cases
were set aside by court action and 8 were bypassed because of the limited
intellectual disability of the condemned.
Just 1 death sentence was handed down in Ohio last year, the lowest number
since 2009. As recently as 2010, there were 7 death sentences statewide, but
the number has steadily declined as jurors increasingly opt for life
imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
The average age of the 53 men executed was about 46; 19 were black and 34 were
white. They spent an average of 16.63 years on death row prior to execution.
The murderers who were executed killed 66 adults and 19 children, DeWine's
report showed. There were 25 black and 56 white victims, split almost evenly
between men and women.
**************
Former Justice Stratton to receive inaugural Terry Collins Award
Former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton is the inaugural
winner of the Terry J. Collins Award from Ohioans to Stop Executions.
Collins, who observed 33 executions as director of the Ohio Department of
Rehabilitation and Correction, died suddenly from a heart attack on March 17.
After his retirement in 2010, Collins came out as a capital punishment
opponent, testifying to the General Assembly and giving speeches around the
state. He volunteered with Ohioans to Stop Executions.
The group created the award to honor Collins and decided to name Stratton the
1st recipient. It recognizes "a leader in government who once supported and/or
implemented the death penalty," but later reversed positions and advocated to
halt executions.
The award will be given April 12 at a Statehouse lobby day event.
Stratton, generally a supporter of capital punishment during her term on the
court from 1996 to 2012, subsequently spoke out against the execution of
mentally ill offenders.
"I am extremely honored to receive this recognition in the name of a great
leader and dear friend," said Stratton. "Terry was an inspiration to me, and I
am glad to be in his company as a person who now opposes the death penalty...In
general, the death penalty does not deter murder, and with all the delays, it
does not bring closure for the victim's survivors."
(source for both: Columbus Dispatch)
KANSAS:
Outraged by Kansas Justices' Rulings, Republicans Seek to Reshape Court
Washington is locked in partisan warfare over control of the Supreme Court. But
it is hardly the only place. Look at the states, where political attacks on
judicial decisions are common and well-financed attack ads are starting to jar
the once-sleepy elections for State Supreme Court seats.
Nowhere is the battle more fiery than here in Kansas. Gov. Sam Brownback and
other conservative Republicans have expressed outrage over State Supreme Court
decisions that overturned death penalty verdicts, blocked anti-abortion laws
and hampered Mr. Brownback's efforts to slash taxes and spending, and they are
seeking to reshape a body they call unaccountable to the right-tilting public.
At one point, the Legislature threatened to suspend all funding for the courts.
The Supreme Court, in turn, ruled in February that the state's public schools
must shut down altogether if poorer districts do not get more money by June 30.
"A political bullying tactic" and "an assault on Kansas families, taxpayers and
elected appropriators" is how the president of the Senate, Susan Wagle, a
Republican, responded to that ruling, which was based on requirements in the
state Constitution. Mr. Brownback spoke darkly of an "activist Kansas Supreme
Court."
In March, in the latest salvo, the Republican-controlled Senate passed a bill
to authorize impeachment of justices if their decisions "usurp" the power of
other branches. But the climactic battle is expected in the November elections,
when conservatives hope to remake the 7-member Supreme Court in a flash, by
unseating 4 justices regarded as moderate or liberal.
Partisan conflict over courts has erupted in many of the 38 states where
justices are either directly elected or, as in Kansas, face periodic retention
elections, without an opposing candidate. As conservatives in Washington try to
preserve a majority on the federal Supreme Court, politically ascendant
conservatives in several states are seeking to reshape courts that they
consider to be overly liberal vestiges of eras past.
"We've seen this tug of war between courts and political branches all around
the country," said Alicia Bannon, a senior counsel at the Brennan Center for
Justice at New York University.
Television spending in the election of 2 justices in Arkansas on March 1
reached $1.2 million, and candidates attacked as being too cozy with trial
lawyers were defeated there, in part with money from outside business
interests.
In Wisconsin, where a court seat will be filled in an election on April 5, ads
sponsored by out-of-state groups from the left and the right have helped push
total campaign spending to more than $2.6 million, according to data gathered
by the Brennan Center and Justice at Stake, a nonprofit group in Washington
that promotes judicial integrity.
On the other side, unions and plaintiffs' trial lawyer groups last year spent
about $2.9 million in Pennsylvania on television ads that helped elect
Democratic candidates to 3 Supreme Court seats.
In Oklahoma, where the court is under attack for ruling that a Ten Commandments
monument must be removed from the Capitol, bills are being considered that
would give the governor and legislative leaders more control over the selection
of justices. In Georgia, a Republican bill some described as "court-packing,"
to increase the number of Supreme Court seats, has passed the General Assembly.
Driving the conflict in Kansas is the recent dominance of conservative
Republicans led by Mr. Brownback. Many legislators say the courts have
overstepped their role by ruling that cuts in school funding violate the state
Constitution's guarantee of a basic level of education.
"If you're going to make political rulings, then you should be politically
accountable," said Senator Dennis Pyle, a sponsor of the bill to broaden the
grounds for impeachment.
The impeachment bill is not likely to clear the Legislature this year, but Mr.
Brownback is also pushing for an amendment that would give the governor more
control over choosing new justices, who are now winnowed through a merit
system.
In response to the Supreme Court ultimatum, the Legislature last week passed a
plan to give more money to the poorest districts. But the court is also
expected to rule in coming months on the more intractable issue of whether
shrunken pool of money for all K-12 education is enough to meet minimum
standards.
Since Mr. Brownback took office, state aid has declined to $3,800 per pupil,
from $4,400, according to the Kansas branch of the National Education
Association. Because of the cuts, some rural districts have disbanded, some
schools have closed and, last spring, 6 districts ended the school year days
early to cut costs.
Conservatives have also been angered by court rulings against new abortion
restrictions and, along with crime-victim advocates, by rulings in murder cases
that overturned death sentences on procedural grounds.
All but 1 of the 7 sitting Kansas justices were appointed by a Democrat, former
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, or by her predecessor, a moderate Republican.
Mr. Brownback has condemned the existing system for choosing justices, in which
a committee of 5 lawyers (selected by their peers) and 4 non-lawyers (appointed
by the governor) provides candidates.
In his State of the State address in January, Mr. Brownback said the selection
of justices "is controlled by a handful of lawyers" as he repeated his call for
an amendment to create "a more democratic selection process."
Chief Justice Lawton R. Nuss, who was appointed by a moderate Republican in
2002 and became chief justice in 2010, responded by telling reporters, "We
believe that our present system that has been in effect for almost 60 years is
superior to the other models that are being proposed."
"I don't know how much more democratic you can get," he said of the retention
elections that justices must face every 6 years.
Chief Justice Nuss, who keeps a copy of the oath of office on the wall of his
chambers and has emerged as a strong defender of judicial independence, sports
his signature walrus mustache, which is the subject of a parody Twitter account
(@nusstache). He may experience the full fury of that electoral process this
fall, when he will be on the ballot.
"This is a full-out power grab by the governor," Ryan Wright, the executive
director of Kansans for Fair Courts, said of the efforts to reshape the courts.
His group represents liberal and moderate groups that plan to muster support
for the sitting justices.
The state's conservatives "believe that they should be able to change the court
when there is disagreement about decisions," said Callie Jill Denton, the
executive director of the Kansas Association for Justice, the trial lawyers'
trade association.
But Senator Jeff King, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said, "I think
we need to change our judicial selection process, absolutely."
"You don't usually have a Supreme Court issuing rulings that affect 53 % of the
budget," he said of the clash over school funding.
Groups that are expected to try to unseat 4 justices in November have so far
been coy about their preparations and fund-raising. "Preliminary things are
going on is all I'll say," said Mary Kay Culp, the executive director of
Kansans for Life, an anti-abortion group.
Charles G. Geyh, a professor at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law and
the author of "Courting Peril: The Political Transformation of the American
Judiciary," warned that increasingly bitter, partisan battles threatened to
undermine faith in the courts.
"We need to get past the fiction that judges are umpires that just call balls
and strikes," he said. "Ideology will affect their decisions," he acknowledged,
"but we need to give them some breathing room. They are not hijacking the law."
(source: New York Times)
NEBRASKA:
Oklahoma woman shares why she's against the death penalty
In November, Nebraska voters will decided whether or not to retain LB268, the
Legislature's vote to end the death penalty.
Retain a Just Nebraska is a public education campaign informing Nebraskans
about the need to retain the Legislature's vote to end the death penalty. Their
supporters include fiscal conservatives, law enforcement officials, faith
leaders, murder victims' families and other Nebraskans.
They will be conducting public education and awareness programs on why
Nebraskans should officially end the death penalty.
Dan Parsons of Retain a Just Nebraska and Christy Sheppard of Oklahoma were in
Grand Island on Friday to discuss why voters should end the death penalty in
November.
On Thursday, Sheppard was the keynote speaker at the annual reception for
Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty in Omaha.
Nebraskans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty was founded in 1981 after Gov.
Charles Thone vetoed a bill passed by the Legislature that would have repealed
the death penalty.
Sheppard is an advocate for death penalty abolition. Her cousin was murdered in
Oklahoma in 1982. 5 years later, the state convicted 2 men of the crime,
sentencing 1 to life imprisonment and the other to death. Sheppard said she
believed in the system that put these 2 men behind bars. Her perceptions of a
just and fair system ended after DNA evidence proved their innocence 11 years
later.
Over the last 10 years, she has been doing advocacy work on innocence issues,
Sheppard said. During that time, "My feelings about the death penalty have
really begun to shift."
"I had my personal feelings, but I never spoken out publicly about them," she
said.
About a year ago, she was asked to write an opinion piece in Oklahoma about
people who are on death row but who claimed to be innocent.
Sheppard said Oklahoma is a conservative state and is 1 of 3 that have put more
than 100 people to death since 1976.
She said she felt the time was right to speak her mind about her opposition to
the death penalty.
Sheppard said she was once a believer in the death penalty, but like a growing
number of people in the U.S., she began to re-examine the reasons why she
supported punishing a person with the penalty of death.
"I was all for it, but it was when I really started looking into my cousin's
case and the holes in the justice system and that it was a human system that
was never going to be perfect," she said. "That began to change my attitude
about the death penalty and how it is decided and who gets it and who doesn't.
It really became an eye-opener to me."
Sheppard said, in theory, she once believed that the death penalty was the
"ultimate punishment."
"But when you really start to look at it and how it really unfolds, the reality
of it is messy, and there is really no way to fix it," she said.
Sheppard is not alone in questioning the need for the death penalty.
Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty is a national network of
political and social conservatives who question the alignment of capital
punishment with conservative principles and values.
They offer a number of reasons for their opposition to it:
-- Some of them believe that small government and the death penalty don't go
together, especially when comparing the high costs of capital punishment to
life without possibility of release.
-- Some don't trust the state to get it right. They already know that some
innocent people have been sentenced to death, and for others it may already be
too late.
-- Some are disturbed by the roller coaster for family members of murder
victims, or wonder why states invest so much in a system that doesn't keep the
public any safer than the alternatives.
-- Some believe that the death penalty contradicts values about protecting
life.
Parson said those are also many of the questions Nebraskans are asking
themselves about the death penalty.
The death penalty is legal in 31 states. But executions have been on the
decline for years, in part due to court battles and a scramble to secure
execution drugs after a sales ban a few years ago imposed by mostly European
manufacturers.
Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty worked with members of the
Legislature when they passed a bill to eliminate the death penalty in Nebraska.
Parson also said he changed his position concerning the death penalty. In the
1990s, he worked for the Nebraska attorney general. During that time, the state
executed its last 3 prisoners.
"I supported the death penalty," he said. "My job was to work with the news
media. I also dealt with the families of those murder victims. I'm pretty
typical of a lot of Nebraskans. We have never thought about this because we
have not had an execution in Nebraska for nearly 20 years."
But, Parsons said, more and more Nebraskans are beginning to have conversations
about the merits of the death penalty, as state lawmakers did last year when
they voted to get rid of it.
Sheppard urged Nebraskans to "do your own research when looking into this and
what does it actually mean."
"Decide for yourself if it is something you want for your state," she said.
Sheppard said the people of Oklahoma and Nebraska share a lot of the same
conservative background and values.
"But in these days and times, people are looking into things to make more
informed decisions," she said. "This is not a cut-and-dry or black-or-white
issue whether we have the death penalty or not."
(source: The Grand Island Independent)
CALIFORNIA:
Suspect in deadly Stockbridge home invasion to face death penalty trial
Murder suspect Robert Lewis Price III will face a death penalty trial in June
for his involvement in a deadly Stockbridge home invasion that occurred in
September 2012.
Price's public defender, Gabrielle Pittman, made a motion Friday afternoon for
reconsideration of the death penalty during a pre-trial hearing in Henry County
Superior Court.
Superior Court Judge Brian Amero denied the request after Pittman made the
argument that since Price, who was 18 at the time of the murder, was still a
juvenile and "his character was not yet fixed."
District Attorney Jim Wright countered that Price was not a juvenile and was
almost 19 at the time of the incident.
The pre-trial hearing came after Price withdrew his guilty plea in October,
which put the death penalty option on the table.
During the October hearing, Price, who was 21 at the time, met with his
attorney for about an hour. When they returned to the court, Price asked the
judge to withdraw his plea.
"I want to apologize for everyone being here but I want to withdraw my plea of
guilty," he said.
Amero accepted his request, prompting a response the district attorney.
"The death penalty is back on the table," Wright said.
Price and 3 other men were charged with murder and other felonies connected
with the Sept. 11, 2012, fatal shooting of Ron Cantrell Sr., 68. Ron Cantrell
Jr., who was then 42, was critically injured during the shoot-out at his
father's Stockbridge home.
Authorities believe the 4 men went to Cantrell's home to steal guns and money,
but were allegedly surprised when the Cantrells arrived home, interrupting the
burglary.
A shoot-out ensued and Ron Sr. was fatally injured. He died 4 days later. Ron
Jr., who police said shot 1 of the suspects, Brandon Terry-Hall, several times
as he ran from the elder Cantrell's home, was also injured. He lost 2 fingers
on his right hand and suffered a shotgun blast to his chest.
The 3 suspects took Terry-Hall to Piedmont Henry Medical Center emergency room
where he reportedly told nurses he'd been shot in McDonough trying to sell his
Xbox.
However, police were able to connect the shooting to the Cantrell burglary and
Terry-Hall was arrested. The other three suspects were arrested a few days
later.
The district attorney filed a notice to seek the death penalty against Price
and Terry-Hall. Price is believed to be the shooter and Terry-Hall was also
armed.
Terry-Hall, who was 20 at the time of the incident, pleaded guilty to his
charges and was sentenced to life plus 30 years in prison.
2 other suspects, Trey Michael Cota, 21, at the time of the shooting, and
Terrance Leslie Floyd, who was 19, face a mandatory minimum sentence of life in
prison with the possibility of parole if they are convicted of murder in the
case.
Amero set Price's trial date for June 6.
(source: Henry Herald)
OREGON:
Lane County Voters Hear from Candidates Running in Primary Election
With the primary election just a little more than a month away, voters had the
chance to hear from candidates running for Lane County District Attorney and
Lane County Commissioner, North Eugene.
The Candidate Forum took place Friday afternoon at the Baker Downtown Center,
where candidates answered questions from sponsors and audience members.
Presiding District Attorney Patty Perlow and challenger Clayton Tullos debated
issues facing the county, such as racial profiling, mental health, mandatory
sentencing, and the process of investigating officer involved shootings.
But, one of the big questions revolved around Oregon's death penalty and the 2
candidates disagreed on how they would handle it.
"I don't think it's the power of 1 person, the DA, to overrule or to legislate
the power of the voters," Perlow said. "If there's going to be a reform on the
death penalty, it needs to be done by the people of the state of Oregon, not by
the DA,"
"I fundamentally disagree with Ms. Perlow on that fact," Tullos said. "It's
actually the district attorney's decision whether or not to seek the death
penalty in any particular case...By sentencing someone to death, you're
ensuring appeals that can go over a 30 year time period."
Tullos said his young age as well as his defense experience makes him stand out
against his opponent, while Perlow believes that the more than 20 years she has
spent in the DA's office will give her the advantage.
(source: KEZI news)
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