Dec. 15
COLORADO:
Death-penalty decision draws criticism
District Attorney George Brauchler will seek the death penalty for an Arapahoe
County man accused of raping his ex-girlfriend and then murdering his
6-year-old son. The prosecutor's decision will prompt a trial that defense
attorneys had hoped to avoid with a guilty plea.
Brandon Johnson, 27, faces 8 charges, including 1st-degree murder, in
connection to the February incidents. The defense team said Johnson would have
pleaded guilty to the charges if Brauchler had agreed not to pursue death.
The district attorney's decision prompted a statement from the American Civil
Liberties Union of Colorado, which called the capital-punishment process
"expensive and arbitrary."
"Every costly [death-penalty] trial perpetuates a broken, racially-biased
system that can and does make irreversible mistakes," Executive Director Nathan
Woodliff-Stanley wrote. "Brauchler wasted millions of taxpayer dollars on the
Aurora theater trial, a multimillion-dollar failure that resulted in the same
life sentence that was on the table all along."
Brauchler had sought the death penalty in 2015 in that high-profile case and
stood by his decision after the call for death was rejected by jurors.
The crimes in Johnson's case occurred Feb. 10. Sheriff's deputies were called
to a home on East Harvard Avenue after Johnson's ex-girlfriend called to report
he had sexually assaulted her at knifepoint. The woman told investigators that
Johnson had threatened to kill the 2 children if she screamed during the
alleged sexual assault. She said Johnson later walked back to his room and she
heard a loud scream from the 6-year-old.
When deputies arrived, they found the 6-year-old dead and Johnson on the floor
with self-inflicted knife wounds. The sexual-assault victim's 2-year-old child
was not harmed.
During a preliminary hearing on Dec. 2, investigator Tara Mueller told the
court the couple had broken up, but was living together for financial reasons.
The alleged rape victim, who has not been not named, had recently sent a text
message to Johnson indicating she was seeing another man.
(source: The Villager)
**************
Voters clearly backed DA George Brauchler and the death penalty
Re: "Political motivation for DA Brauchler seeking death penalty?" Dec. 9
letter to the editor.
Letter-writer Phil Cherner, a board member for Coloradans for Alternatives to
the Death Penalty, has an agenda to prevent District Attorney George Brauchler,
or anyone who would sign the death warrant for Nathan Dunlap, from becoming
Colorado's next governor.
We have no state referendum on the death penalty, but if Brauchler's
re-election is viewed as a referendum on his decision to pursue the death
penalty against James Holmes, here is what we know: 1. The Democrats refused to
even offer up an anti-death penalty candidate. 2. No other GOP or Libertarian
candidate dared enter the race to challenge the issue of cost. 3. Of the
522,766 ballots cast in the 18th Judicial District, 356,343 (68.2 %) were cast
for Brauchler, when he was unopposed - each a vote of confidence.
Our community has spoken - loudly. But the death penalty is not the only issue
with a leadership vacuum in Colorado.
Kory Nelson, Parker
The writer is chairman of the 18th Judicial District Republican Central Central
Committee.
(source: Opinion, The Denver Post)
NEVADA:
2 state legislators co-sponsoring bill to abolish death penalty in Nevada
2 state legislators are co-sponsoring a bill to abolish the death penalty in
Nevada.
According to State Sen. Tick Segerblom, D-Las Vegas, he and Assemblyman James
Ohrenshall, D-Las Vegas, are co-sponsoring Bill Draft Request 544 that would
make the "maximum criminal penalty provided by law shall be life without the
possibility of parole."
Segerblom tells News 4 that "essentially it is too expensive to prosecute and
carry out capital punishment."
He added that it's been years since the last execution has taken place in the
state.
"It's just not worth the results," Segerblom added.
If passed in the upcoming 2017 Legislative session, the bill would still have
to be signed into law by the governor.
According to Segerblom, the bill would create a statue to the state law and
would not require a vote of the people to create an amendment to the state
constitution.
However, if the bill does not pass, then a "constitutional change could be a
future option," he said.
(source: Fox News)
***************
Man found guilty of killing teenage girl over $450 dispute with her father
He stood over a wounded and dying 15-year-old Las Vegas girl, his shoe in her
blood, pointed his gun even closer and fired again, prosecutors told jurors
Wednesday.
And after more than a week of testimony, the panel found 41-year-old Norman
Belcher guilty in the slaying of Alexus Postorino.
The girl's family and friends rubbed their eyes and held each other, as a court
clerk read the verdict, delivered 6 years and a week after Alexus was gunned
down in her father's bedroom.
Belcher stood silently, showing no emotion.
At the start of the jury's deliberation, Belcher told District Judge Elissa
Cadish that he was "fine with the death penalty" and would not attend a hearing
scheduled to begin Thursday, in which the same panel that decided his guilt on
a total of 7 counts is expected to deliver his sentence for 1st-degree murder.
"I get a single cell" on death row, Belcher said to the judge. "I prefer living
by myself. I don't like having roommates."
Cadish told the defendant: "It's no picnic being on death row."
And Belcher replied by saying: "I personally know people on death row that I've
corresponded with since I've been in" the Clark County Detention Center.
Nevada's death row, in Ely State Prison, houses 81 men. The state has executed
12 inmates since capital punishment was reinstated by the Nevada Legislature in
1977. All but 1 were inmates who voluntarily gave up their appeals.
But earlier this year, officials with the Department of Corrections announced
that they could not obtain the drugs to carry out lethal injection.
Belcher admitted that he has not cooperated with his lawyers as they worked to
save him from a sentence of execution. He also said he had asked his family
members not to testify on his behalf during the penalty hearing.
Prosecutors alleged that Belcher, also known as Norman Bates, shot Alexus 4
times at close range, including twice in the chest, because of a dispute he had
with the girl's father over $450. In early December 2010, the gunman opened
fire in the Postorino home and stole a 60-inch television, a safe and a laptop
computer before driving off in a white, 4-door 2009 Nissan Versa and later
setting the car on fire, authorities have said.
"Look around every corner, look at every picture, look at every witness, and he
will be right there, because he did it," prosecutor Jacqueline Bluth told
jurors during closing arguments.
Another man who was inside the home at the time, Nicholas Brabham, testified at
the start of trial that he recognized Belcher after he burst into the home.
Defense attorney Robert Draskovich tried to cast reasonable doubt, saying
investigators made "several missteps" when they focused on Belcher as the
killer.
Throughout trial, Belcher's lawyers suggested that William Postorino's
involvement in illicit drugs meant that anyone could have been out to rob him.
In the days before Alexus was killed, Belcher sent threatening text messages to
the girl's father.
Belcher thought William Postorino owed him the money for forged drug
prescriptions.
"I'm actually hoping that you don't pay me, because I then feel like I'm
following protocol," Belcher wrote in one message. "So 450 or war. An element
of surprise."
Prosecutor Giancarlo Pesci pointed to the messages in his closing remarks.
"We know that war is a terrible, terrible thing," Pesci said, "and during war
innocent victims are lost."
A few months before the killing, Belcher had been released from prison, where
he had been sent for a voluntary manslaughter conviction in a 2003 homicide
case.
(source: Las Vegas Review-Journal)
******************
Let the people decide
Nevada has the death penalty - yet it doesn't really have the death penalty.
While capital punishment remains on the books, as a practical matter it is
carried out in only extremely rare circumstances. The state has administered
the ultimate punishment just 12 times since 1976. The last prisoner executed in
Nevada died in 2006 by lethal injection.
Seemingly endless appeals in capital cases have effectively neutered and driven
up the costs of such statutes in many jurisdictions. In addition, Nevada is
currently unable to acquire the drugs necessary to conduct an execution -
lethal injection is the only means proscribed under state law. A growing number
of pharmaceutical companies now refuse on moral or business grounds to provide
the substances needed to put a prisoner to death.
Nevertheless, 81 men inhabit death row at Ely State Prison.
Now comes Assemblyman James Ohrenschall, a Las Vegas Democrat, with a bill
draft request to abolish capital punishment in Nevada. State Sen. Tick
Segerblom, the Las Vegas Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee,
has also signed on to the proposal.
Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, has previously expressed support for capital
punishment, which complicates Mr. Ohrenschall's effort.
The Pew Research Center reports that support for the death penalty has fallen
sharply in recent years. Nationally, U.S. executions in 2016 will be at their
lowest level since 1991. Still, polls reveal that a majority of Americans favor
capital punishment and it remains the law in 31 states.
In the past decade, 6 states - including Connecticut, New Jersey and Illinois -
have dropped the death penalty. Yet voters in other states - including
California, Oklahoma and Nebraska - have supported initiatives strengthening
death penalty statutes.
Passions run high on this question. Both opponents and supporters of capital
punishment have a stable of valid arguments.
That's why any change to Nevada's law on this hot-button issue should reflect
the will of the electorate. Rather than act unilaterally, Mr. Ohrenschall and
other Nevada lawmakers who hope to abolish the death penalty should propose an
amendment to the state constitution, which would require an affirmative vote of
the people to succeed.
(source: Editorial, Las Vegas Review-Journal)
CALIFORNIA:
Dennis Webb, convicted of murdering Atascadero couple in 1988, dies on death
row
One of California's few death row inmates to have committed their crime in San
Luis Obispo County has died in custody in San Quentin State Prison.
Dennis Duane Webb died at 6:14 p.m. Tuesday at a hospital near the
maximum-security prison. California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation said the cause of death is unknown pending the results of an
autopsy. He was 65.
Webb had been on death row since August 1988, when he was sentenced to death by
a San Luis Obispo County jury for the Feb. 5, 1987, burglary and 1st-degree
murders of John Rainwater, 25, and Lori Rainwater, 22, of Atascadero. Their
newborn and toddler were found alive at the murder scene.
Webb reportedly laughed when his guilty verdict was read.
According to Tribune archives, Webb broke into a 14-unit lodge at 8750 El
Camino Real that the couple, who were devout Christians, managed. Prosecutors
argued that Webb initially intended to rob the couple but instead repeatedly
raped and beat them in the lodge throughout the night.
Both victims were bludgeoned in the back of the head, possibly with a pistol,
their wounds splitting their scalps to their skulls, a pathologist testified
during the trial.
The couple was bound and gagged, with bonds so tight they drew blood. In the
early morning, the couple broke loose from their restraints and ran out of the
house, only to be gunned down by Webb in the lodge parking lot.
When authorities arrived at the lodge, they found the Rainwater children, a
15-month-old girl and a 7-day-old baby boy, hiding underneath their mother's
naked body. Neither were seriously injured, and a family member said they were
too young to have suffered any psychological damage.
Police did not have any suspects for 2 months after the killings, until Webb's
former girlfriend turned him.
Investigators maintained that Webb didn't act alone, and while they thought
they knew who his accomplice was, they never had enough evidence to bring a
case to trial. According to archives, that suspect died while a patient at
Patton State Hospital.
Before his sentence was read, people in the courtroom cried out to Webb to
reveal his accomplice. Webb refused, but hinted that he indeed had one when he
said, "It's bad enough that I have to ride this beef alone."
Webb then shocked the courtroom by claiming responsibility for 5 other murders
and asked for the death penalty.
"I'm not here because my conscience is bothering me," he reportedly said. "I
haven't got any remorse. I don't care."
Since 1978, when California reinstated capital punishment, 71 condemned inmates
have died from natural causes, 25 have committed suicide, 13 have been executed
in California, 1 was executed in Missouri, 1 was executed in Virginia, and 8
others have died from other causes, according to CDCR.
There are currently 749 offenders on California's death row. With Webb's death,
there are now 3 former San Luis Obispo County residents condemned to die:
Michael Whisenhunt, Richard Benson and Rex Krebs.
(source: sanluisobispo.com)
******************
Jamaican Gang Member Charged With Quadruple Murder in South Los Angeles
Shooting
A suspected gang member was arraigned Tuesday December 6 on capital murder
charges for the killing of 4 people outside a Jamaican restaurant in South Los
Angeles 2 months ago, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office
announced.
Marlon Jones (dob 4/14/75) was charged in case BA451058 with four counts of
murder along with the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders,
making him eligible for the death penalty.
Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman of the Major Crimes Division is
prosecuting the case.
On Oct. 15, Jones attended a birthday party at a home that had been temporarily
converted into a restaurant in the 2900 block of Rimpau Avenue. Jones is
accused of fatally shooting a rival gang member.
More gunfire was exchanged between the groups, killing 3 men and wounding 10
others.
Earlier this month, the FBI added Jones to its Ten Most Wanted List. Jones was
captured in South Los Angeles December 2 following a car chase.
If convicted as charged, Jones faces the death penalty or life in state prison
without the possibility of parole. The decision whether to seek capital
punishment will be made at a later date.
The case remains under investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department's
South Bureau Homicide.
(source: Los Angeles Sentinel)
OREGON:
It's time for Oregon conservatives to end the death penalty
Taxpayers in Oregon have just been given a wake-up call on the high price of
the death penalty and the facts are enough to make any fiscal conservative
squirm.
A new in-depth study by Lewis & Clark Law School and Seattle University reveals
that in aggravated murder cases, cases that seek the death penalty cost
taxpayers twice as much as cases seeking other penalties (life without parole
and life with the possibility of parole).
It is no surprise when you look at the facts. According to the study, "the
average cost of defending a death penalty case at the trial level between 2002
and 2012 was $438,651, while the average cost of defending a non-death
aggravated murder case at the trial level was less than 1/2 that at $216,693."
Those are just the up-front defense costs, and do not include costs for
appeals, incarceration or the prosecution. There are 2 trials, 1 to determine
innocence or guilt and a 2nd for sentencing. They are complex and lengthy cases
that require experts, researchers and more. Defendants accused of aggravated
murder in Oregon are given 2 lawyers, as well as investigators, and for good
reason.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment four decades ago,
156 people have been released from death rows around the nation due to wrongful
convictions. Right now the Oregon Innocence Project is questioning the
conviction of at least 1 death row inmate and calling for additional testing of
evidence in the case. They have several other cases under review. Speeding up
the process, as some prosecutors in Oregon have suggested, will only undermine
needed safeguards and put more innocent lives at risk.
Innocence and cost are 2 of the reasons conservatives nationwide have been
increasingly turning against the death penalty. So it only makes sense that
more conservative lawmakers are questioning the death penalty and sponsoring
legislation to end that. Over just the past 2 years, we've seen a
Republican-sponsored bill to end the death penalty in a variety of states,
including Nebraska, Utah, Missouri, Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Wyoming, Montana,
South Dakota and New Hampshire.
Conservatives in Oregon should follow suit. In fact, they should call on their
state's Democrat governor to not wait any longer and grant clemency to all 34
people on Oregon's death row, commuting their sentences to life. It will save
large sums of money that can either be redirected to other criminal justice
programs that will make people safer or returned to the taxpayers.
As conservatives, we should speak out against policies that give government too
much power or waste tax dollars. The death penalty is guilty of both. That's
why ending the death penalty is the conservative thing to do.
(source: Opinion; Drew Johnson of Las Vegas is a senior fellow at the Taxpayers
Protection Alliance----Statesman Journal)
USA:
Executions in the United States just fell to a 25-year low
When the state of Alabama executed Ronald Bert Smith Jr. last week, he became
the 20th inmate put to death in the United States this year. Smith's execution
was a rarity for the United States, where the death penalty is still retained
in most states and on the federal level but, in practice, is carried out only
in a shrinking handful of places.
No other lethal injections are scheduled for this month, meaning Smith will
probably be the last inmate executed this year in the United States. As a
result, the country is poised to end 2016 with its lowest number of executions
in 25 years.
The decline in executions continues a recent trend, as 2016 will be the fourth
consecutive year with fewer executions than the year before. It also speaks to
a country that has shifted away from the death penalty in many places, while
those states still trying to execute inmates have struggled with court
challenges, drug shortages and issues with carrying out the executions.
Overall, though, the trend is clear. Since a peak of 98 in 1999, executions
have steadily declined, falling this year to the lowest total since 1991, when
14 inmates were put to death:
This year's decline can be attributed, in part, to a handful of states that are
among the most active practitioners of capital punishment but have been
sidelined for part or all of 2016.
Take Florida, which has carried out the fourth most executions nationwide since
the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Florida's death penalty has been in flux for much of this year, ever since the
Supreme Court struck down its system of imposing death sentences in January.
After this ruling, in Hurst v. Florida, lawmakers rewrote the death-penalty
statute, but this new version was promptly struck down by the Florida Supreme
Court. Nearly a year after the Hurst ruling, it is still unclear what will
happen to Florida???s nearly 400 death row inmates.
In some cases, states hoping to carry out executions have been delayed by an
inability to get the drugs needed for lethal injections, still the country's
primary method of capital punishment.
These states have been hampered by a years-long shortage of lethal-injection
drugs, fueled in part by European opposition to the death penalty and furthered
by pharmaceutical opposition to any involvement in executions. As a result,
states have had to scramble to adopt new combinations and seek supplies, which
has caused extensive delays in some places.
Ohio, one of the most active death-penalty states, stopped executions for what
will ultimately be at least 3 years while it sought new drugs. The state now
says it plans to resume executions in January, though a spokesman did not
respond to a message seeking comment about whether officials there had obtained
the necessary drugs.
In Oklahoma, officials have still not resumed executions after authorities used
the wrong drug to carry out 1 execution last year and nearly used an incorrect
drug months later. An investigation was launched, producing a blistering grand
jury report describing several avoidable lapses. Officials say they are still
not seeking new execution dates.
Even the country's clear leader in capital punishment is not entirely immune to
what is happening nationwide. In Texas, a flurry of court action halted or
delayed a series of death sentences, causing the state to see its longest lag
between executions since 2014. Texas ultimately carried out 7 executions this
year, its fewest since 1996 and the 1st time since that year that it failed to
execute at least 10 inmates. (For some context: As noted above, the United
States executed 20 inmates this year. Texas matched or exceeded that mark on
its own 10 times between 1997 and 2009.)
5 states carried out executions this year, down 1 from last year, when death
sentences also declined.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based
nonprofit, more than 1/2 of all states (31) still have the death penalty.
However, that number includes places such as Pennsylvania, Oregon and
Washington, where the governors have declared moratoriums, as well as places
such as Florida, Ohio and Oklahoma, where executions are or have been on hold.
The death penalty, as an issue and a practice, did win victories this year. On
Election Day, voters in Nebraska, California and Oklahoma showed support for
capital punishment, rejecting a California measure to abolish it and, in
Oklahoma, giving lawmakers more latitude in finding new execution methods. In
Nebraska, voters repealed a bill that lawmakers had passed last year abolishing
the death penalty. The state, which has 10 inmates on death row, last carried
out an execution in 1997.
(source: Washington Post)
***********
Judge: Fell trial will go forward as scheduled
The death-penalty trial for Donald Fell will go forward as scheduled despite a
defense request to postpone the trial's scheduled start in late February, a
federal judge has ruled.
Lawyers for Fell, 36, asked U.S. District Court Judge Geoffrey Crawford last
week to delay the trial. The defense attorneys argued they would have too
little time to prepare for trial and provide effective counsel. In the same
motion, the lawyers said that if trial dates could not be moved, they would
request to be taken off the case.
Crawford said no to that, too.
Fell is accused of kidnapping and killing North Clarendon grandmother Terri
King, 53, in 2000. This is the 2nd time the case is going to trial after Fell's
2005 conviction and death penalty sentence were overturned due to juror
misconduct.
Crawford ruled Wednesday that the case already has spanned 2 years since the
verdict and sentence were thrown out in 2014, and lawyers should be able to
comply with the agreed-upon schedule. The defense lawyers were appointed to the
case in February 2015.
Fell's retrial originally had been set to start in this fall but was changed to
begin Feb. 27 in Rutland after defense lawyers raised scheduling issues.
Crawford said most of the lawyers' scheduling conflicts had been disclosed and
were planned for in the schedule.
"The court is unwilling to upend the schedule for a 2nd time," Crawford wrote.
"The original plan provided for a year and a half of trial preparation (without
any interruption by other trials). ... By the time the trial date arrives, the
defense will have had 2 full years to prepare for the retrial."
Crawford added, "The court does not deny the motion for a continuance lightly.
But at some point, the continuances need to come to an end."
Attempts to reach Fell's lawyers for comment Wednesday were unsuccessful.
Fell is jailed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York. He
has pleaded not guilty.
(source: Burlington Free Press)
*********************
Death penalty decision looms with Xerox killing
The Rochester man accused of a 2003 fatal shooting at a Xerox campus credit
union could learn Thursday if federal prosecutors will seek the death penalty
against him.
Richard Leon Wilbern is scheduled to appear in federal court Thursday morning.
Federal prosecutors have been awaiting a decision from the Department of
Justice on whether to seek the death penalty with Wilbern's alleged crimes.
Earlier, Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Gregory, the lead prosecutor in the
case, had indicated that a decision could be made by Thursday's court
appearance.
(source: Democrat and Chronicle)
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