April 23
NEW YORK:
The death penalty is a necessary punishment
EDITOR: Recently in today's society there has been an increase in crime. The
criminals who participate in these horrible acts have been getting a sentence
that doesn't fit the crime that they committed. Sentences that are handed out
in the current legal system today are too lenient. With this being said, I
believe that the State of New York should reinstate the death penalty.
The 1st reason why New York should reinstate the death penalty is because the
death penalty actually deters crime. If a future criminal realizes that they
could be put to death for what they might do, they would be petrified with
fear, not wanting to be executed.
The 2nd reason why New York State should reinstate the death penalty is because
it gives closure to the families of the victims. Having the criminal executed
gives them the closer of knowing that their son's or daughter's death was
justified.
The final reason why the death penalty should be reestablished in New York is
because there is no form of rehabilitation for criminals. If they commit a
horrendous crime, they will most likely do it again.
It may cost taxpayers some money to keep it running, but in the end reinstating
the death penalty would be worth it. Knowing that our legal system has taken
great steps in improving the way we seek justice.
Marissa Colantonio
Batavia
(source: Letter to the Editor, New York Daiy News)
PENNSYLVANIA:
Court denies Duquesne man's motion to examine DNA program in homicide trial
The Pennsylvania Superior Court has denied defense attorneys a look under the
hood of the computer program used to link their client's DNA to a death-penalty
double-murder case.
Kenneth Haber, representing Michael Robinson, 29, of Duquesne wanted Superior
Court to compel Oakland-based Cybergenetics to release the source code for its
"TrueAllele" program, which is used to calculate the probability that a
particular person contributed to a mixed sample of DNA. Prosecutors say
Robinson's DNA was found on a bandana connecting him to the murder of Tyrone
Coleman and Lawrence Short in Duquesne in 2013.
The District Attorney's Office, which hires Cybergenetics to assist on cases
where the Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office is unable to sort out
mixed samples of DNA, is seeking the death penalty if Robinson is convicted of
1st-degree murder.
Common Pleas Judge Jill E. Rangos denied the defense access to the TrueAllele
source code in February, in part because she said revealing it could expose
Cybergenetics to copying by competing firms.
Haber appealed her decision to Superior Court in March, which denied it in a
ruling issued late Thursday.
Another judge denied the same source code in the case of East Liberty
double-murder suspect Allen Wade, but his attorneys dropped their appeal with
the intention to try again if he is convicted. Wade's trial begins May 2.
Haber was not available to comment Friday about whether he intended to appeal
the Superior Court decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Robinson is
scheduled for a jury trial June 6.
(source: triblive.com)
NORTH CAROLINA:
These days, NC's death row inmates die of natural causes ---- 9 have died of
natural causes since the state's last execution in 2006
When Jerry Cummings died last week at age 76, he became the ninth death row
inmate in North Carolina to die of natural causes since 2006, when the state's
last execution took place. And he won't be the last.
With executions essentially on hold in North Carolina, the state's death row
population is aging. Of the 152 inmates on death row, 66 are age 50 or older.
The oldest, Blanche Moore, who was convicted in Forsyth County in 1990 of
murdering her longtime boyfriend with arsenic, is 83.
The prison population overall is getting older. At the end of 2015, there were
1,963 prisoners age 60 or older, more than 3 times as many as in 2005,
according to the state Division of Prisons. Nearly 1 in 5 of the state's 37,000
prisoners is now age 50 or older.
The graying of the prison population is a long-standing national trend. In
2006, the state commissioned a study to document its aging prison population
and to help plan for it. The study noted that longer prison sentences combined
with the overall aging of the U.S. population had made the elderly the
fastest-growing portion of prison inmates.
The report also noted that the National Institute of Corrections defines
elderly inmates as those age 50 or older, because as a group they show the
effects of drug and alcohol abuse and poor health care.
"Our medical staff would tell you that many of the inmates who come to prison
have generally had poorer access to health care throughout their lives and on
average they present with conditions consistent with being about a decade older
than their actual age," said state prisons spokesman Keith Acree. "In other
words, people 60 years old in prison present with medical conditions more like
the average 70-year-old in the community."
The state has not executed anyone since Samuel R. Flippen was killed by lethal
injection in August 2006 for 1st-degree murder in Forsyth County. Since
Flippen's death, a series of lawsuits filed in state courts questioning the
fairness and humanity of capital punishment have created a de facto moratorium
on executions.
At the same time, courts are sentencing fewer people to death in North
Carolina, mirroring a national trend away from capital punishment. Of the 152
people on death row, 18 were sentenced since Flippen's execution a decade ago;
98 of them were sentenced in the 1990s.
As a result, death row skews older than the rest of the prison population, with
an average age of 48 compared with 37 overall.
Most people leave death row alive, usually because their death sentences have
been vacated and they were resentenced to life in prison. One death row inmate,
Henry McCollum, was declared innocent by a judge and freed in 2014 when DNA
evidence implicated another man in the 1983 rape and murder of an 11-year-old
Robeson County girl.
Cummings, who died last week, was sentenced to death twice for the murder of
Jesse Ward in Robeson County. He was first sentenced in 1987. That was later
overturned, but not the conviction, and another jury sentenced him to death a
second time in 1997.
(source: News & Observer)
*************
Alleged shooter facing death penalty
The state will seek the death penalty in the shooting death of 2 people at a
McDonald's in Hickory.
The case against Eric Terril Yount, 22, of Granite Falls, will proceed as a
capital matter, according to a press release from the office of District
Attorney David Learner.
As reported in a previous article in The News Herald, Hickory Police were
called to the McDonald's on U.S. Highway 321 around 6 p.m. on March 2. When
they arrived, officers found 2 victims with gunshot wounds. Richelle Scott
Lail, 22, of Hudson, died on the scene from her injuries, according to a press
release from the Hickory Police Department.
The other victim, Cody William Watts, 28, of Hickory, was transported from the
scene to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, said police
spokeswoman Chrystal Dieter. Watts died the following Friday.
Both victims worked at the McDonald's and met at the restaurant, according to
information from the D.A's office. Yount allegedly rammed Watt's parked car,
and an argument arose began between Lail and Yount. Yount allegedly shot Lail
then fired into Watt's truck.
When previously asked by The News Herald if the death penalty would be sought
in the case, Learner said it would depend upon all of the available evidence.
"It's an issue we will review very, very carefully," he said.
The most recent release from the D.A.'s office reiterated that pursuing the
case as a capital offense does not imply guilt.
"The defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty in a court
of law," the release said.
Victoria Jayne has been appointed to represent Yount.
His next court date is scheduled for July 11.
(source: morganton.com)
FLORIDA:
Death penalty sought in boater's murder
Local officials announced Friday that a Milton man will be charged with murder
in the death and disappearance of an Alabama boater.
In a press conference, Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan said that
investigators would be serving a homicide warrant to 36-year-old Michael Paul
Rodgers, who is jailed in Louisiana on fraud and theft charges. Rodgers was
arrested in Jefferson Parrish, Louisiana, after allegedly trying to assume the
identity of a missing Gulf Shores man, 62-year-old James Gunther.
Morgan said Rodgers was charged based on that connection and other evidence.
State Attorney Bill Eddins said that his office would seek the death penalty
based on Rodgers' criminal history, which includes rape and robbery
convictions.
Because the charges Rodgers faces in Escambia County are more serious than the
ones he faces in Jefferson Parrish, Eddins said that his office would be
working with Louisiana prosecutors to have Rodgers tried in Escambia County
first.
"If he waives extradition, we'll go get him," Eddins said. "If he doesn't,
we'll contact our governor and obtain an extradition warrant. If he does not
waive extradition, it will take several weeks or months before he is returned
here."
Eddins and Morgan declined to go into the specifics of what evidence linked
Rodgers to the case, how Gunther died or what took place on his boat, but said
they were confident in the case they have built against Rodgers.
"It was some actions on the part of Mr. Rodgers, activities both over the
computer and the use of credit cards, that led us to believe he was our
person," Morgan said during the press conference.
The sheriff said investigators still were working to determine whether Rodgers
and Gunther knew each before the killing took place.
"We are actively pursuing that in all avenues across the board," Morgan said.
"Any known associates the 2 of them may have had, Craigslist, etc., we're
turning over about every rock we can to show any corollary or correlation
between those 2."
Gunther was reported missing April 1 after dropping out of contact with his
family during an annual boating trip from Gulf Shores to Port St. Joe. The
Escambia County Sheriff's Office became involved in the search April 5, and
Gunther's boat was found anchored and abandoned near Fort McCree shortly
afterward. A small white dinghy associated with the boat was missing, but
officials declined to comment on whether it was located.
According to Rodgers' Louisiana arrest report, the ECSO contacted the Parrish
County Sheriff's Office, whose investigators confirmed Rodgers had checked into
a hotel using Gunther's credit card and tried to obtain a Louisiana driver's
license using his passport. He was arrested April 9 in Harvell, Louisiana,
according to the report. Morgan said Rodgers had driven to the area.
Milton man found with missing boater's ID
In the meantime, officials from the ECSO, the Florida Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission, the U.S. Coast Guard and other agencies continued the
search for Gunther. Morgan said his deputies were not able to cross the
jurisdictional line onto Pensacola Naval Air Station, but that Gunther's family
successfully conducted their own search in the area.
"What had been discovered by the family ... they noticed a shovel standing up,
but again, this was on the federal reserve so our search had ended at that
line," the sheriff said. "Once that was reported, we contacted the Navy
authorities, and we entered the reserve with the Navy and the discovery was
made of the remains."
Morgan said his agency already had been searching for Rodgers because he had
failed to comply with sex offender reporting regulations. According to court
records, as a juvenile Rodgers pleaded no contest to sexual battery, armed
burglary with battery and robbery with a firearm. In 1998, he was sentenced to
almost 9 years in prison. Local court records indicate his only offenses
between his release in 2005 and the recent homicide investigation were traffic
related.
(source: Pensacola News Journal)
MISSISSIPPI:
'Prior Restraint' Removed from Execution Team Secrecy Bill
On Wednesday the Senate sent the execution team bill that protects the
identities of the execution team and any Mississippi supplier of lethal
injection chemicals and keeps them exempt from disclosure under the state's
Public Records Act.
Sen. Sean Tindell, R-Gulfport, told the Senate that all the prior-restraint
language was removed from the bill, however. Previous versions of the bill
allowed a person whose identity was disclosed, such as by a media outlet, the
right to sue for damages, but those sections of the bill were taken out in
conference.
Also gone is the amendment added on the House floor to make execution by firing
squad a viable backup if lethal injection drugs were not available.
When asked if Tindell had gotten a response from the media about the bill, he
told the Senate that "they dislike it less than they did before."
The bill also provides immunity for state workers on the execution team if they
get sued for carrying out the duties and business of the state.
The ACLU of Mississippi is opposed to the bill and the death penalty in general
and is asking Gov. Phil Bryant to veto it. ACLU of Mississippi Executive
Director Jennifer Riley-Collins said in a statement: "We oppose the death
penalty altogether. However, as long as Mississippi continues to sentence
people to death, executions must remain transparent and our state government
must remain accountable."
(source: Jackson Free Press)
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